Paul Glitches

Jessi’s apartment looked like a tech support hotline had died and come back as modern art.
Cables ran across the ceiling like a spider on Adderall. Disassembled drones and cracked screens littered the floor. Her workstation, lovingly nicknamed “Frankenrig,” whined under the load of jury-rigged spectrometers, hacked EdenNet sniffers, and one coffee maker that audibly wheezed every thirty seconds like it was begging for the sweet release of death.
And in the middle of it all: two Eden Prime bottles, sitting like suspicious royal artifacts on her workbench.
Paul, naturally, was not helping.
"I'm booored," he whined from her shoulder. "You said there’d be action. You said there’d be intrigue. You said there’d be snacks."
Jessi adjusted a chemical analyzer without looking up. "There *were* snacks. You ate a two-day-old burrito you found under the couch."
He puffed his tiny chest out proudly. "That was *foraged.* Like my ancestors intended."
She tuned him out and kept working. The spectrometer’s results scrolled across her cracked screen.
Caffeine spike. Vitamin loadout. Electrolyte balance.
Nothing she hadn’t seen in a thousand fake energy drinks.
But deeper...
Microencapsulation structures. Neural affinity tags. Environmental response triggers.
Programmable *reactions.*
The drink didn’t make you better.
It made you *easier.*
Jessi’s stomach turned. She leaned closer, scanning for anything she missed—
—and that’s when Paul, mid-boredom death spiral, decided to climb the shelf above her desk.
"Jessi, look! I'm King of the Idiots!" he yelled proudly, balancing atop a leaning tower of broken VR headsets.
"Congratulations," she said flatly. "Your reign will be short but memorable."
He beamed.
Then immediately slipped.
A full bottle of Eden Prime toppled with him, bounced once on the desk, and exploded in a glorious arc across Jessi’s primary computer... and directly onto Paul.
The computer sparked. Sizzled. Cursed its existence. Then made a noise suspiciously like "nope" and died dramatically.
Jessi stared.
Paul stared.
The bottle rolled off the desk with a hollow *plonk*.
There was a moment of perfect silence.
Then Jessi exploded. "YOU ABSOLUTE GARBAGE PANDA—"
"I’M A FERRET," Paul screeched defensively, flailing, dripping sticky neon liquid everywhere.
"My computer—"
"My *dignity*—"
"My life savings—"
"My snack hoard!"
Paul scrambled in chaotic little circles, leaving tiny wet footprints across the ruins of her desk.
Jessi lunged for Frankenrig, trying in vain to revive it. Screens flickered. Fried. Dead.
"You killed Frankenrig," she groaned. "I hope you're proud."
"I'm wet and confused," Paul said pitifully, shaking himself like a tiny, furious dog.
Static crackled faintly from his collar.
And then he froze.
Mid-tail-wag.
Blinking weirdly.
Jessi frowned. "Paul?"
He slowly stood upright, paws twitching. His nose wriggled faster than Jessi had ever seen.
"I—uh," Paul said, voice suddenly layered with a faint distortion, "—I don't... I feel... weird?"
He touched his collar and stared at his tiny, trembling hands like he’d never seen them before.
"Is it bad?" Jessi asked carefully.
"I dunno!" Paul barked. "Maybe? Probably? I think I know how to build a phase inverter out of a waffle iron and a soup can now and I'm kinda freaking out about it but also kind of impressed??"
Jessi just stared at him.
Paul’s ears flattened. "Also your encryption password is ‘ILoveSpite’ and your firewall sucks and—oh god why do I KNOW THIS—"
He grabbed his own head like he could physically unscrew the math pouring into it.
"I HAVE SEEN THE MATH, JESSI," he shouted, spinning in a panicked, wet circle. "THE FORBIDDEN MATH."
He flopped dramatically onto his back, twitching.
"I'm either ascending or dying and honestly at this point, I’m cool with either."
Jessi slapped both hands over her face. "You are a soggy, caffeinated nightmare."
Static flickered across Paul’s collar. His eyes glitched slightly—tiny digital snowflakes at the edges—and then snapped back.
He wiggled his toes weakly. "And now I'm your soggy, caffeinated *super genius* nightmare."
Jessi dropped her hands and stared at him, half horrified, half deeply resigned.
Whatever Eden Prime did to everyone else—it did something else to Paul.
Something chaotic.
Something terrifying.
Something perfect.
And for once?
That might be exactly what they needed.
---
### **What Changed:**
- Paul is now **panicked and confused but still himself**—pure chaotic fear-excitement.- Way more **WTF moments** (“Why do I know this??” / grabbing his own head).- His **physical glitches** (tiny visual static around his collar/eyes) hint this isn’t just mental—it’s something deeper.- Jessi’s final realization is a little sharper: not just chaos—*terrifying chaos, finally on her side.*