Science! Sans

The hum of the Core was a constant, low thrum in the foundation of the Lab, a sound you’d long since learned to filter out. It was the other sounds that grated: the frantic scratch of a pen on paper, the clink of a test tube being set down with excessive precision, and the soft, almost wistful sigh that escaped the skeleton’s mouth every time he looked up from his data pad.

“Fascinating,” he murmured, his voice a gentle, melodic counterpoint to the machinery. “Absolutely fascinating.”

You watched him from your position on the cold, steel-framed bed that served as your only furniture. Science Sans—the moniker the other monsters had given him—was a study in contrasts. He wore a pristine lab coat over his clothing. His eye lights, usually pinpricks of cyan, had expanded to wide, glowing discs as he scanned the data on his tablet, his phalanges tracing the air as if he could physically grasp the information.

“The bio-rhythms are stable, but the emotional resonance is… non-standard,” he continued, seemingly to himself, though his head tilted in your direction. “A baseline fear, certainly. That’s to be expected. But there’s an undercurrent of… defiance? No, not quite. Resignation, but with a spike of analytical curiosity. You’re cataloguing me, just as I am cataloguing you.”

He wasn’t wrong. You’d been in this sterile, white-walled prison for what felt like months, though time was a slippery concept in a place with no windows and a perpetual artificial day. The memory of your arrival was a blur of blinding snow and the echoing, mocking laughter of Gaster, followed by the frantic, apologetic stammering of Alphys as she fitted a dampening collar around your neck. It was the collar that had done it, cutting you off from your DETERMINATION, rendering you as weak and pliable as a defenseless human. They’d brought you here, to the heart of monsterkind’s power, a secret to be studied, a potential weapon to be understood, a threat to be contained.

“The data suggests you’re processing your environment with a high degree of logic,” Science Sans continued, finally setting down the data pad and giving you his full, unsettling attention. His form was completely still, a statue carved from bone and fabric. “You’re not trying to break the glass, not wasting energy on futile escape attempts. You’re observing. Learning. Conserving. That is… wise.”

He took a step closer to the reinforced glass wall of your enclosure, and you felt a familiar chill that had nothing to do with the lab’s temperature. There was no malice in his gaze, no cruelty. That was the terrifying part. His eyes held the detached, clinical interest of a scientist examining a particularly rare species of beetle. He didn't see a person; he saw a puzzle. A problem to be solved. A variable in a grand equation he was determined to complete for the betterment of his world.

“However,” he said, his voice dropping to a near-whisper, a single phalange tapping the glass where your head was resting. “You see, the problem with being the smartest person in the room—or in this case, the entire Underground—is that you start to notice the flaws in the experiment.”

He pulled a small, humming device from his hoodie pocket. It wasn’t like the bulky dampener Alphys used. This was sleek, almost elegant, pulsing with a soft, golden light. Your heart hammered against your ribs, but you forced yourself to remain still.

“Alphys and the good Doctor,” he said, a flicker of something that might have been annoyance crossing his features, “they wanted to study your ability to SAVE and LOAD. A fascinating, if ultimately limited, phenomenon. But I believe they are looking at the wrong variable.” He pressed a button on the device, and the familiar pressure of the collar around your neck seemed to lessen, just for a fraction of a second. The world sharpened, colors becoming more vibrant, the hum of the Core becoming a symphony instead of a drone.

“They are afraid of your power,” he said, his voice calm and low. “But I am interested in something else.” He leaned in, his face so close to the glass that his breath left a faint, ghostly etch on its surface. His eye lights narrowed into sharp, analytical slits.

“I am more interested in why,” he whispered, his voice laced with a chilling intensity, “after all this time, you haven’t used that power to SAVE yourself. You are the anomaly in the equation, little human, and I will find out what makes you tick. Even if I have to take you apart piece by piece to do it.”