“How are you doing, buddy?” Coin asked hovering above Miles.

Miles looked at Coin with a deadpan face. He just woke up and was feeling like shit.

“Not bad. How long have I been sleeping?” Miles asked as he tried to stand up, but the force wasn’t enough. Then he tried again, breaking the edge of the bed because of too much strength he put on his arms. “Damn adjusting period! Because my muscles are new, they aren’t as strong as they used to be, and the sudden drop in strength makes my movements chaotic.”

"You will get there. Don’t sweat about it.” Coin appeased Miles and said, “It has been 36 hours since you fell asleep. Including the time you were under medicine’s effect, it has been two and a half days."

“It is not bad.” Miles rose from the bed and started to move around a little to relax his muscles.

“I found why father and mother are looking for The Marooner.” Coin said after some time.

“Oh, why is that?” Miles was stretching and warming up looking at Coin with curiosity.

“Mother was researching orbs since monsters first invaded Earth. At the time, she was wondering why no two elements could be in the same orb. Then she studied a way to disintegrate and merge orbs again to allow them to carry two elements. But failed each time. Orbs are highly unstable and too much energy can make them detonate. Thus, all of her experimental studies failed. But she never gave up. They might have seen through you when you used the armor.” Coin summarized for Miles. It read article after article, waiting for Miles, only to wake up after two days.

“Well, if I knew father was there, I would have never used that little trick. He must have seen through me like a glass. Luckily I was away from him, so he shouldn’t have seen if I had power or not, otherwise he would connect the dots with the last incident and would guess that the Marooner is me.” Miles pondered and said to Coin. After all, both the Marooner and Miles were in the same area, and Malcolm was smart enough to guess such an outcome. Even though it wouldn’t be %100 sure, it would still cause suspicions.

“Yeah. No one could guess father to be there. Anyway, you have to play your cards carefully if you don’t want them to find the two elemental orb.” Coin warned Miles.

“It is not that I don’t want them to find out about it, but I don’t want people to know I am the Marooner. I have to tell them some other way.” Miles caressed his chin as he thought.

“What are you going to do? You can meet them with the armor.” Coin suggested.

“No. If possible I have to meet with mother alone, but I doubt father will ever send mother alone. And if I go close to father as the Marooner, he will see through my lack of superpowers. And it will help them to guess my identity. What I have to do is inform them without getting close to them.

The last incident with the vampire proved that the Marooner is in one of the three strongholds around the forest. So, Father and Mother will look for him here. They may even ask for my help.” Miles said, and a lightbulb suddenly lit on his head. “I found a way.”

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

“You are not gonna send a recording to tell them what they want to know, right?” Coin asked.

“How do you know?” Miles was surprised because that was exactly what he was thinking. He cannot meet them face to face, and not virtual meeting could work. If Miles’s mother wanted to, Mother AI would follow the connection, and not only his location would be found in a split second, even his cover would blow.

“You will give too much information away. How do you know they are looking for you? How do you know what they are studying? How did you reach them? These are all questions you should be asking yourself before you decide to send a recording.

Mother has the ‘Data Sort’ superpower. She can look into her memories like super high-quality movies. If you were to send a recording, she could go back to the day where they talked in public about the Marooner, the highest possibility of you knowing how they are looking for you. Then they would follow you with cameras inside the building, because you used your alter identity at the testing area, your name would be known. After that, they would look into the information and everything about Ezio Firenze, and in a heartbeat, everything would go to waste.” Coin explained step by step.

“I know you want to help mother, but we have to take it slow. It is only when they have to reach us we can help them and never the other way around. Unless you want to send the recording online. Still risky, but I can manage it.”

“No, I cannot do that. Just because I want mother to know something, doesn’t mean I will share it with the whole world.” Miles shook his head. He was glad Coin was with him. Sometimes when he acted sentimentally, Coin was holding him back to prevent mishaps.

“Then we will wait.” Coin said and floated to Miles’s wrist. “How are you feeling?”

“Better. Let’s go to the gym and bring these babies to their top.” Miles said.

His new apartment didn’t have a gym, but luckily it was close to the train station. He boarded a train to PTC. Thanks to the golden card Quinn gave him, he could use any facility inside the PTC, including the gym special to ranked military.

It didn’t take Miles to arrive at the train station. He bumped into Aaron, but the latter only gave a nod before turning his back to Miles.

Miles was totally fine with it, he didn’t want to speak to the vainglorious puppet. He went down to the staff only area and found the gym. When he entered, many soldiers were working out with the devices. Miles only recognized two, Cale who he met when he was here last time, and Lucy, his new superior.

Both looked at Miles when he entered through the door. Cale gave a big smile and a wave, while Lucy, on the other hand, looked weirdly at Miles for a while, then walked to him.

“What are you doing here?” She asked.

“I am here to work out, if you don’t mind.” Miles politely said. Not that he was respectful, but he wasn’t in the mood to deal with this self-important lady.

“Where did you get the card?” She asked, looking at Miles weirdly.

“You shouldn’t stick your nose in other people's business. Especially when you already know the answer.” Miles snorted and walked to Cale.

Cale stood up from the push-up machine and gave Miles a homie handshake. “How are you doing Miles?” He asked.

“It is all good, Cale. How is it going?” Miles answered back with a smile.

“All cool. What did you say to Second Lut Lucy? She looks mad.” Cale said and pointed at Lucy with his head, still standing at the entrance. Her face was redder than normal while looking at the door emotionlessly.

“I told her to buzz off and mind her own business.” Miles rolled his eyes and looked at the machines.

“Well, it was nice knowing you, Miles.” Cale said.

Others gathered around him and looked at him like an exotic animal.

“Rest in peace, brah!”

“We will remember your courage! We will not be stupid enough to gossip about it, but we will remember.”

Miles just became stupefied by their remarks.

“The heck?”