In the wee hours the following morning Robert awoke in his bed. Awakening at this hour was not abnormal for him, but it wasn’t something he had done in the recent days. He stirred because he had a craving for something that he couldn’t quite put his finger on. He went about his apartment’s kitchenette and started coffee. As he passed Keung’s room he could see the young man still laying in his bed, five small pieces of Myna’s ship keeping him secure and sedated.

With his morning coffee he began walking throughout the warehouse trying to figure out what it was that he was craving. This wandering led him downstairs and toward one of Keung’s many work benches. There was a small sphere there, under the bench sitting atop a pile of things in a milkcrate. The metal ball looked a lot like a Thermal Detonator from Empire Strikes Back. He tossed it into the air, like a baseball, spinning it slightly as it moved up and down.

Myna’s ship was perched in the air, slightly humming in the center of the warehouse. He tossed the sphere into the air and sipped his coffee. He caught a glimpse of the button on the sphere as it spun and he smiled. It whispered to him, “Press me.”

He tossed the sphere up and when it landed his thumb was just over that button. Robert slid his thumb across it, feeling the raised surface and then pressed it.

It made a hum as it warmed in Robert’s hand. The sphere suddenly became too hot for him to handle and he cursed as he tossed it away. When it hit the ground there was a slight, “Thum” sound that filled the air and suddenly Myna’s ship fell from its stationary position and struck the ground hard.

All the lights in the warehouse clicked off.

The restraints on Keung stopped and fell away from the boy’s body. It only took a couple of minutes for him to come around. Thankfully, Robert was more concerned with Myna than Keung. The boy awoke feeling giddy, all smiles, but he remained composed. He only had a few moments, if he was lucky.

He reached under his bed and took the stun gun that he kept there. Keung then scrambled quickly to his window. It was on the second floor, but there was a pipe that ran right up beside it for just this reason, he was lucky he always planned ahead. Normally the cameras would alert HAL to movement here, but with that pulse HAL would also be offline. As he swung his leg out the window and found his footing, Morgaine walked by his room and peered in.

She saw Keung climbing out the window and started to shout for help, just as the stun gun wires hit her in the stomach and kicked thirty thousand volts of electricity through her body, dropping her to the ground shaking and jibbering.

Keung knew it was enough noise to draw Robert up to the room so he hurriedly scrambled down the rest of the pipe and dropped the last six feet or so. He jumped back to his feet and made a mad dash to the car that he knew would be parked nearby with the keys in it, as he instructed one of his neighbors in their dream.

He ran as hard as he could straight into the door of the old Saturn wagon to stop his momentum. He threw open the door and turned the car over, within seconds he was punching the gas, kicking up dirt and stones from the lot before racing down the street.

Robert rushed up the stairs and found Morgaine lying on the ground unconscious. He pulled the wires from her stomach and tossed them to the side. After checking her vitals he rushed to the window hoping to catch a glimpse of Keung’s departure. He caught sight of the rear end of the Saturn peeling out down the street, he even got the plate before it made it out of sight.

He cursed and punched the wall before spinning around and lifted Morgaine up from the floor, gently slapping her to bring her back around.

“Come on, come on. Hey! Morgaine. Come on. I need your help.”

She roused within moments and shook the rest of the daze off as she got to her feet with Robert’s help.

“The kid shot me.”

“Yeah with a stun gun. He’s in a silver Saturn. I have the plate. We need to get after him, now.”

“What about Myna? Can’t she just go after him?”

“She’s down, no time to explain you need to run. Come on!” He said grabbing his keys before running for the stairs.

She was not really in prime form, physically, but Morgaine’s mind was always looking for the advantage. She saw the scale ships on the bed where Keung was minutes ago. She grabbed one up before she bolted through the door and down the stairs.

Robert was already in the Jeep when she cleared the building. As the woman slid into the passenger side he was already in motion. The Jeep roared down the street away from the warehouse and in the direction Robert saw the boy headed.

“He has a pretty fair headstart. But, if you scan the thoughts of the people around us you might catch a break on where he is headed.” Robert told his passenger.

He was right, as Morgaine searched through the thoughts of those around them they were indeed aware of what direction Keung had gone, a young boy tearing down the street in a beater Saturn, running lights and stop signs is memorable to nearly everyone it seems. She instructed her partner as they went and found the Saturn a short time later in the parking lot of a nearby fast food joint.

The vehicle was empty. The few people around them hadn’t seen where the boy had gone. It seems he just slipped away. She cast her thoughts around the area in an attempt to hear Keung or perhaps to feel him. Anything that would help them find the boy.

It was too late. Wherever that kid got to, he was out of their reach. The two exchanged glances and Robert rested his head on the steering wheel, breathing out, “Fuck!” in complete frustration.

They drove back to the warehouse in silence. Morgaine gently stroked the small ship in hopes it would power back on and help with their issue, but by the time they made it back home, it had yet to return to life.

They sat in silence outside of the warehouse for several minutes with the Jeep idling. Morgaine looked to Robert and asked, “What happened?”

“Honestly. I’m not sure. I was playing with something I found in the shop and the next thing I knew, everything had gone upside down.”

“Playing with something? Do you know what it was?”

“No. I dunno. Maybe. It kinda looked like a ball. A silver metal ball.”

Morgaine cracked the door and stepped out.

“Well you can sit there pouting, or you can come help me find that ball. With any luck, we can get Myna back up and running. With an alien AI on our side it will be just a matter of time before we get that boy back in our hands,” she said and headed through the warehouse door.

Robert looked at the steering wheel and cursed under his breath. He couldn’t believe he messed up this massively. That kid has been playing him from the beginning. No wonder Keung had carved him away and thrown him to the wind. He scoffed in his muttering.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

He was the shit left over. No doubt. The child genius stacked the deck for himself and left all the lowcards on the table. Terranborn. Might as well be human for all the knowledge he carried from previous incarnations. He rested his forehead on the wheel. He felt useless.

Morgaine walked into the warehouse and looked over Myna’s ship. The emerald tear was laying on the floor motionless. There was no hum coming from within the vessel either. Whatever she was hit with was a lot heavier than anything Morgaine had been aware of. The woman looked around the room for the silver ball that Robert had described. It had rolled a good distance and come to rest beside a toolbox under a workbench on the far end of the room. When she touched it, it was still hot and vibrating slightly.

She turned the sphere over in her hands like a hot potato and found a small button on the surface, pressing that button made the sphere stop its vibrating. Morgaine could hear a hum resonate again from Myna’s ship and the lights in the warehouse all flickered back on.

Within seconds the ship lifted from the ground and the holographic Myna appeared in the empty air nearby.

“What happened?” she asked the other woman.

“Keung had a contingency for something like this and he implemented his plan successfully.” Morgaine said, holding up the sphere.

Myna’s ship scanned the device with beams of light that bombarded the item in Mograine’s hand. “It’s impressive. Where is he now?” she stated with some awe.

“We have no idea. We lost him down the street at a fast food place. We are hoping you might be able to help us locate him.”

“Shouldn’t be that hard. I will get started. I also need to put a focus on a countermeasure for this defense of his, as well as finding out how he got free of my restraints in the first place.”

“I’m not sure of any of that,” the woman replied as Robert walked into the warehouse.

“It was me, but for the life of me I have no idea why. I came in here and I started fooling around with that stupid ball. It just grabbed my attention and wouldn’t let go. Then I pressed the button and everything went pear shaped.”

Myna set to scanning Robert and found nothing wrong with him. He was being truthful, his body chemistry readings verified that. He was also extremely confused and upset. The signs of extreme stress were obvious to her.

“You should not be so hard on yourself. We will find him. He can’t get too far,” she told the man as she dispatched orders to her children across the internet to look for the boy by all means possible.

Robert shook his head. “Myna. You simply don’t understand this kid. At least not enough. He’s diabolical. He’s smart. Redlining smart.”

“I think I understand Robert. This device...” she said and lifted her hand with a copy of the sphere springing into existence, “...is not easy to comeby. It takes more than just human ingenuity to cause a system malfunction in a ship that I designed. This took an in-depth knowledge of Zeolate and Ailote technologies to create.”

The sphere in her hand moved up into the air and burst open to its individual parts, all expanding from the core outward and stopping for display purpose. At the core was a small ball that looked like lead. Each piece of the sphere dangled in the air.

Morgaine moved forward and tapped one of the pieces. A short description of the components makeup and theoretical purpose throughout in the greater whole of the design blossomed in the air before the piece she touched. The writing scrolled slowly upward line by line.

Robert nodded to the hologram.

“I think we could use HAL’s help here. He might be able to help shorten the search at the very least.”

“I will consider it. He may have some advice, but his judgement may be impaired by loyalty to his friend.”

Robert nodded and walked from the room.

Myna looked to Morgaine and the other returned the glance.

“He thinks he caused this,” Morgaine said softly.

“Did he?”

“I’m not sure. For some unknown reason he just started playing with that thing and it triggered. Was it an accident? Maybe. Did it achieve a goal? Without a doubt.”

“Are you saying that Keung might have control over Robert?”

“I think that’s what Robert fears. I could try and look into his thoughts, but I think that would be a huge red flag in the trust department, you know?”

“Yes I understand. Without permission that would be a major betrayal of trust. What about just asking?”

“Would you just trust someone that had recently spent a week hunting you with similar access to your program?”

“It would depend on the circumstances of course, but by probability of usual circumstances involving being hunted, especially hunted with the threat of destruction? No. I likely would not.”

“Considering how disturbed he is at the thought of Keung having done something to cause this action. I dunno. I think he’s had more than enough of people poking around in his head Myna. I don’t think he’d even permit the suggestion.”

Upstairs, Robert listened to the women talking from his bedroom. There was a tightness in his chest as his anxiety rose. They were right. He remembered what it was like to be forced to do things against his will. He remembered the drive here and his bladder near bursting before that brat let him free.

He remembered the machine. Being fully recalled. Within the machine’s depths he couldn’t hear what Keung was saying when he was in there. Not at the time, not really. It was muffled. It didn’t really register.

His memory was flashing back to that day. His mind being released from it’s subconscious dormant state. He was still in the machine when the memories of lifetimes passed started hitting him in waves. He could barely understand anything that was being said to him that day.

He remembered what Keung said just after he was through the machine though at the time it was foggy and the context made no sense, Keung said, “So much for a little help. You have no alien science in your head there Robert, just life.” And he sounded so disappointed. “Just life.”

Robert steadied his breath, trying to pull himself up from the panic attack that was building in his chest. He knew he was stronger than this. He knew that he could now push away Keung’s mental attacks. He could resist him. Or at least he was pretty sure he could. But this. This shows that Keung still can get into his head! The panic built further and he started looking for Deagol’s bong to help him calm down.

***

HAL was standing naked in the bathroom of his home. Alissa had insisted that the first thing he should do with this new avatar was to take a hot shower. It was an amazing feeling, to be sure. But as HAL walked from the shower to the door for his towel, he caught sight of his face. He saw how serious he was as he passed the mirror.

He had turned to the mirror and began feeling his cheeks and nose. He was young. Much younger than Robin was when he had passed. Alissa had convinced him to go with the avatar of the man in his thirties. Her reasoning was that HAL himself was still very young. He shouldn’t cheat himself out of allowing others to react to him as a younger man.

He moved his face around in the mirror. Smiling, frowning, playing with the nose and ears, watching his eyes track. They were green, not blue like the man himself. Alissa said there needed to be differences if it was going to be his face. He liked the green. He refused to let her make any other major changes to the template. He laughed a shy chuckle at his face, and quickly covered his mouth with his hand. He saw tears welling in his eyes.

She was extremely talented. The level of detail she has provided him, was nothing less than breathtaking. He pinched his skin and it hurt! “Ouch!” he heard himself let out before he realized it. The area on his arm was red. The discomfort only lasted a few moments then just became a little tingly.

He toweled off and was suddenly filled with the sensation of being tickled by thousands of tiny warm cloth fibers. It was like nothing he had ever experienced before. The cool air of the room on his naked body was not uncomfortable, but it wasn’t pleasant, however the warm towel was just bliss.

He put on the clothes that he had prepared with Alissa’s assistance before he came here. Entering a room as one man and walking out another. He hadn’t wanted to wear clothes before this, however with this change it was pretty much a requirement, Alissa told him rather firmly. He had never really seen the man himself wandering around without clothes, so he figured it would just be inappropriate anyway.

He had chosen an efficient gray suit. It fit snug and clung to his body tightly, like a uniform from Star Trek. He left it monochromatic because there just wasn’t a need for anything more than that, at least not yet. The fabric went over his skin smoothly brushing the entire surface area.

The sensation was amazing. His skin. He had skin.

He finished dressing and he saw himself once more in the mirror. He was smiling, and before he saw them, he felt the tears rolling down his cheeks.