Sophia and I are on our way to the slums so we can talk to Hailey. After I learned that Aria was an A.I. Sophia explained that she helps with most of Thomas's work, but she wants to keep an eye on me too. I have some remaining questions about how smart Thomas actually is but those have to wait for another day.

As we get close to Hailey's house we start to slow our pace. I just realized I completely violated her privacy.

"Don't worry. I'm just as guilty."

"Huh? Did you hear my thoughts?"

"No, but I can see it on your face. I'll start the conversation, but if things go south I want you to switch with me."

"W-Wai…"

Before I could complete my confusion, Sophia runs forward and knocks on her door.

"…" Absolute silence follows the knock, I know she should be home from the last time I was here.

"Hello, Miss Lewis! I'm Space Weaver and this is my disciple, Silvernight, and we're from the hero's guild to ask you some questions about your son."

The door opens a smidge and we see Hailey peek around the corner. I can see she has a chain lock on her door.

"How can you be here? The guild rejected my request," Hailey whispers in a barely audible, trembling voice, fear evident in her inquiry.

"An anonymous source brought it to our attention that the receptionist was being arrogant and rejected a missing child report. Is it okay if we come inside to ask some questions?"

Hailey doesn't answer and closes the door. As Sophia and I begin to turn away we hear a click and the door opens wide, Hailey standing in the middle of the frame.

"Please come in."

Sophia and I accept her invitation and walk inside, once there we see how her living conditions truly are. The house consisting of three rooms: a bedroom, a bathroom, and a living-room/kitchen area. Broken wooden floorboards with mold growing between the cracks, two metal folding chairs and a small table decorating the room. In the corner is a refrigerator and microwave.

Hailey offers Sophia and me the chairs and remains standing herself.

"Sorry I don't really have any food to offer."

Sophia replies, "It's fine, we're just here to ask some questions. Now, we did run an investigation about your past and found out who Dominic's father was."

At this comment I see Hailey wince a little bit, but Sophia continues.

"Now due to some red tape, I cannot ask the man in question myself, so I have to ask you, did he mention anybody who may have had it out for him."

"No, no, Char-I mean, Hyper, told me never to mention it."

"Miss Lewis, it is quite obvious you are no longer with him and he does not care about you, so you don't have to protect his information."

"I-I…" Hailey falls to the ground and begins silently crying, her gasps as she tries to breathe are audible though.

Sophia moves her head in my direction, obviously telling me to switch with her, but I don't know what to say.

"Try and connect with her emotionally." Aria comments in my mask.

I decide to take drastic measures and kneel down next to her and take off my mask. She looks up at me and I see a mix of surprise and realization grow on her face.

"You-You're…" She stammers.

"Hailey. It is really obvious you love your son, now I don't know if you truly love him or if it is because he reminds you of Hyper Thunder, but know this. Look deep within your heart and tell me if you truly care for him, because loving him means betraying Hyper. In my opinion, Hyper simply isn't worth it because here you are working every day to care for your son and if you look around here that bastard isn't here at all."

I finish my spiel and stand up, as I start to walk away I feel something tug on my leg. Hailey stands up and looks into my eyes with a new determination that wasn't there before.

"I do love him…so I'll tell you. It isn't much but he always complained about receiving endorsement offers. The strangest one was an offer from Faulken's Robotics and Technology Institute. They asked to have him be a test subject of sorts. That's all I know."

"It's fine. That's enough." I reply, put on my mask, and start my way out the door.

Sophia runs up behind me, "So how do you think we're going to get into this institute?"

"…I have a friend who works there." I reply to her.

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Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.

Sophia and I are currently sitting in a waiting room waiting for my friend Natalie to let us into the building.

"So, what is your friend like?" Sophia breaks the deafening silence.

"Well, Natalie was my roommate back in college. She was always on her computer and displayed a lot of shut-in habits, like she would stay in her room for days with the lights off. She was a really good programmer though and robotic engineer. The only shortcomings she had was that she wasn't exactly emotionally responsive. Like she would just not care about other's peoples feelings, but could easily express and receive if she cared. Another thing was that she was obsessively clean and organized, her room always smelled like a hospital."

"Sounds like an interesting person." I can hear the interest in her voice.

"I think if she had the choice, she would just get nutrients pumped into her body." I reminisce about college life, the all-nighters, the chill and strict teachers, and the crippling debt. What a part of life.

"Hmm."

Another five minutes of silence later, my friend Natalie walks through the door. She hasn't changed a bit, with all her clothes in perfect order, and the sharp look in her eyes would be intimidating if not for the bags underneath. Her black hair completely straight uncut due to a lack of interest. While I am looking her over, I can tell she is doing the same to me.

"You've changed Alice," she says with no inflection in her voice.

"You haven't," I reply, in an equally monotone voice.

"It's great to see you again. We can talk with more privacy in my dorm room."

"Wait, dorm room?"

Natalie promptly walks out of the room but leaves the door open for me and Sophia to follow.

Quickly catching up, I start to talk with Natalie.

"So, dorms?"

"It's an option due to commute times and work hours. Most of the furniture and facilities here are made to make employees comfortable. For example, we have a garden up ahead. Each department used to have to take turns caring for the plants, but we quickly got tired. Thus, we made a robot to care for the plants. His name is Phil, and he makes sure the garden is in top shape all the time."

We continue down the corridor and make our way to the aforementioned gardens. Gardens would be an understatement though, this was more of a botanical paradise, flowers and trees of all kind filling my vision, yet a clear path through the forest. Off to the side I see a man-shaped robot watering the plants, its right arm is a sprinkler connected to a water tank on its back.

"Hello, Phil!" Natalie calls out to the robot, named Phil.

"Hello…Miss…Woodhull. Wonderful…day…today." Phil calls out in an extremely monotone voice, with an extensive pause between each word.

"This is a poor excuse of a robot and intelligence," Aria quips on the robot in front of us. We walk away and into another corridor with several doors, each numbered into sequential order. We continue until we reach a room numbered, '309'.

We walk into the room and get hit with the strong scent of bleach. Sophia takes a step back while I take in the view of what happens when an extremely organized person is left unchecked. On her counter is are three plates, forks, spoons, knives, and cups taped off and labeled: breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Her desk has pencils labeled for what purpose they are to be used, next to that is a computer that looks like it could be used for gaming.

Natalie brings out three chairs from her closet and walks over to a cabinet. She brings out a plate labeled 'Guest Snacks' that is filled with an assortment of cookies.

"Please take a seat."

Once all of us sit down Natalie begins the conversation.

"So would you like to introduce your new friend to me?"

"Oh right. Natalie, this is Sophia Archimedes or Space Weaver. She is my teacher for my discipleship in the hero's guild."

"Pleasure to meet you Natalie," Sophia says.

"Same as well," Natalie replies, then she looks back to me.

I continue, "We are here to ask if you know anything about a missing child named Dominic Lewis. His disappearance may have something to do with Hyper Thunder's repeated rejection to this institute."

Natalie closes her eyes and thinks for a minute. She then looks back up to us, "I don't know anything about that child, his connection to this place, or his relation to Hyper Thunder. However, in regards to Hyper Thunder, it is usually the robotics department that asks for him. Specifically, department C."

Sophia speaks up, "What's so special about them?"

"They work in cybernetic enhancement."

————————————————————————————————————

Apparently they work on the other side of the facility, so Natalie is leading us through the hallways. I glance over at Sophia just to see that she is staring of into the distance. Leaving her to her own thoughts, I walk faster to catch up with Natalie and try to make conversation.

"So…how have you been, Natalie?" I inquire with my voice becoming a little higher at the end.

"I have been doing fine." Even when she replied she didn't spare me a glance.

"What have you been working on here?" I try again.

"They have me try and fail automating a violation of thermodynamics." I didn't understand that response.

"They…what?"

"Have you heard of alchemy?" She glances over at me and continues once she sees my blank stare. "It is a magical base chemistry system that we have the rules for but are failing to industrialize. It uses mana and glyphs to add and subtract protons, neutrons, and electrons. It can even for chemical bonds, but our current progress is at null." After giving the most amount of words I have ever heard from her at one time, she then continues forward. Seeing her unwillingness to talk I shift back to Sophia.

"You know we have masks for a reason?" She says immediately.

"Hmm?"

"We have secret identities and you just told her ours." I can hear the anger growing in her voice.

"I trust her with my life."

Holding silence for a moment she then sighs and responds, "Oh, well. It's your fault, and I have deniability."

"I don't think you do."

"Hmm."

————————————————————————————————————

We walk over to a large door with a painted 'C' on it. Natalie scans a card at the door and motions for us to follow. Inside we see chaos, and I mean chaos of organization. Metal and motors all over the place, empty pizza boxes overflowing from the trash can, and several people that reek of intoxication.

"This is my least favorite place in the entire building. Hold on a minute. JACQUE!"

A nearby pile of bottles as tall as an average human falls apart as a ragged looking man comes out. He stares at us for a second, picks up a nearby bottle and downs its entire contents as he staggers over to us.

"Heyyy, Nat. *Burp* Try to keep it down."

"Did your funding get cut again?"

He looks as though he sobers up immediately. "Nah, but we did receive another sponsor from a nearby children's hospital. We were going to accept it, but H.R. made us turn it down after our…record."

Natalie turns to Sophia and me and gestures to the room.

"As you can see this waste of space spends more money than they make. The only reason they contact Hyper Thunder is so that they can waste more money on garbage."

"HEY! Not all of this is garbage." Jacque somehow consumed five more bottles while Natalie was talking.

"Really. Name one thing here worth what was bought."

"Our CNC was worth what was paid." He points to a heap of slag metal.

"You paid forty thousand dollars, and it doesn't even work."

After that final statement, Natalie pushed us out of that room. Thanking her for her time, we left for Sophia and my respective homes.