Chapter Forty One - Repairs and Reunions

                                    

                                          
Joseph released his mouse, lowering his forehead into his hands.
                          
This was something he wasn't sure he could fix.
                          
It had been 48 hours, now, since he transported Steve to a safer server, and a message had just arrived requesting that he take a look at Subject HB. Apparently he wasn't taking the most recent test particularly well. 
                          
The message had cited his lack of movement, of complete apathy towards his surroundings regardless of what they may be. It had urged him to bring back HB-V, to see if that would prompt a response from their silent prisoner, but Joseph had opted to check on him first. He was greatly relieved that he had. He had no doubts that, if Steve were to see him like this...
                          
Lifting his head, Joseph gazed up at the carnage once more, taking in the sheer amount of blood that coated Herobrine and the area around him. His body was completely limp, curled halfway into a fetal position as he lay on his side on the ground. What exactly his wounds were, Joseph wasn't sure, but he knew he needed intervention immediately. Even if he may regenerate on his own.
                          
He lifted a shaking hand, then frowned at it, willing the trembling away. This was no time to be squeamish.
                          
In an instant, he had Herobrine teleported away, into an empty room on his private server. For now, he simply left him to hang, weightless, in midair. Hopefully that would put the least strain on his ruined body. Having assured the relative comfort of his patient, Joseph accessed his code and began to try and mend his numerous wounds.
                          
The AI's code was like nothing he had ever seen before, and he treaded extremely  carefully as he made his way through strings of damaged text. He could see Herobrine repair himself, slowly but surely, before his very eyes. Was he conscious? Or did he function like a human in this regard, body working instinctively to put itself back together? Regardless, he would be in pain for far too long regardless of the answer. He had to help him.
                          
Carefully, painstakingly, Joseph stitched Herobrine's avatar back together. He could see little flashes of color as blood vanished, wounds disappearing as he made his way through the AI's unconscious. The man never moved, never responded. Asleep, or so he dearly hoped.
                          
The process took hours. Tens of minutes on end spent on each line, searching for a certain phrase to copy over, trying to simulate Herobrine's internal healing on a greater scale. His patient's body knitted itself back together over time, bruises fading and wounds closing before his eyes. Before he knew it, it was 2:30 AM, and Subject HB was fixed.
                          
...almost, at least.
                          
Herobrine still had yet to move, but his eyes hung open regardless. Both of them were blank, but, curiously, his right eye glowed while his left did not. Had he missed something? Or was it intentional? Had the eye glowed before?
                          
He went back to check.
                          
He scoured the code for nearly half an hour before he found the issue- a small error in the coding of his left eye. A fairly simple fix. The left eye began to glow again.
                          
Assured in his success, Joseph reactiviated gravity on his patient and lowered him to the ground. While Herobrine still showed no signs of life, it seemed as if he was only sleeping. If he still hadn't moved by morning, he would go back in.
                          
While everything appeared to be functioning correctly, he worried that Herobrine may have shut himself down, refusing to come out, as a defense mechanism. He wasn't sure if he would be able to fix that.
                          
Although, maybe, for this beaten and battered young man, that would be for the best.
                          
Joseph shut down his access app, leaving his computer running as he headed to bed. He was confident in the strength of his firewalls, that his patients would be safe while he got some rest.