“Like I said previously, to make friendly contact. Me and my first host, Commander Rohu came to earth for that purpose.” Mike answered without missing a beat, like he had been expecting the question all along. Roy decided to give him the benefit of doubt. Nothing wrong with an alien and its host coming to earth, right?
Roy suddenly noticed something wrong. Did he just say he and his host?
“Whoa whoa whoa, hold on. What do you mean by host? Are you a parasite?” Roy suddenly had flashback of a movie called aliens he saw some time back. The image of an alien bursting through his chest sent a cold chill down his spine.
“Not really. I do not need to attach myself to a living organism to survive. I mean, currently I am living as a laptop, for 8 years, without any living host. I was primarily created to enable my host unlock the potential they have in their genetics.” Mike explained without any emotion to his voice, unperturbed by the accusation. Roy wonder if he was some kind of AI or something. High tech alien AI perhaps?
“How many hosts did you have before?” Roy couldn't help but ask. The way Mike explained things sounded a lot like the demonic powers Roy had read in fantasy story books on internet. You sell your soul to the devil, and after the contract is over, you are dead. He prepared to hear the number five thousand. Though he had no idea why that particular number even went through his head.
“Two. Commander Rohu first, then Frank.” Mike immediately answered. Roy was astonished. Only two? That was unexpected. Maybe Mike was a bit different than Roy thought? By the way, who was this commander Mike kept speaking of? Roy decided to ask Mike.
“Who was Commander Rohu?”
“Commander Rohu was the most accomplished fighter, navigator and strategist of the Universal Police Force of sector S-21. He was one of those people chosen to be the first contact persons ever. Most notable in his career as contact person was P-7, now known as Catullus.” A lot of words in Mike’s explanation went over Roy’s head, like Universal Police Force, sector S-21 and P-7. He made a mental note to ask about them later and asked the next question that bugged him the most.
“How did Uncle Frank become your host?”
“Commander Rohu served as contact person for a long time and he was weary. He wanted to pass on the mantle and live a peaceful life. He passed me onto Frank.” As mechanical as it sounded, Roy could swear that he heard a sad tone in Mike's voice.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
“So both of your hosts are still alive?” Roy was astonished. He thought that after Mike changed a host, previous one would die. It seemed Mike was not as bad as he thought.
“Of course they are. Commander Rohu was one of the naturally long lived species, so you should still be able to meet him if you go to P-7. Frank is also well, and on earth, but I don’t know his exact location.” Mike answered him, but Roy still wondered what the hell was P-7. Mike wouldn’t be talking about a planet, would he?
“Do you miss him? Commander Rohu I mean.” Roy asked this question with a hidden meaning. How Mike answered this simple off-hand question would depict how Mike thought of sentient people.
“I do not exactly MISS him, for I lack any kind of emotion to feel sadness. However, he is the person I have known for almost entirety of my life. Frank had been with me for only a very short period. It was commander Rohu who taught me most of what I know. For that I am grateful to him.” This simple answer from Mike raised his credibility to Roy.
“So now you are passed onto me by uncle Frank?” Roy already knew the answer, but he asked it anyway to be sure.
“Yes.” Mike only confirmed what Roy suspected.
Both of them sat in silence for a minute, although to Roy, that one minute seemed to stretch to eternity. He was having a hard time wrapping his head around the current development. He was just an ordinary salaried man for goodness sake. Now suddenly he was having conversation with a laptop called Mike who supposedly came from space and was an alien. He looked around the room expecting to find a camera, almost hoping that all of this was just an elaborate prank. He half expected that someone would come bursting through his front door and explain that all of this was a setup, for some stupid reality show. He didn't rule out the possibility of all of this being a lucid dream, the result of him drinking too much at the party. But after pinching himself very hard and no one assuring him that this was a prank, Roy had to accept that whatever was going on, was very much real.
“Why me? There are like, 7 billion people in this world, at least half of them being vastly better and successful than me. Why me instead of them?” Roy helplessly questioned Mike. He understood that accepting whatever was going on meant he had to bear some responsibility. While he didn't know the weight of those responsibilities, he could roughly guess. Which led to his current question. What made Frank certain that he was capable enough to bear a responsibility on intergalactic level?
“Believe me, I asked the same question to Frank. He didn't give me a straight answer. All he said that you have the quality. I think your outlook towards life contributed to the factor of being a potential candidate. But that's just a speculation.” Roy could almost swear that Mike just shrugged his shoulders. But quality? What was even Uncle Frank thinking about?
“How did he even came to that conclusion?” Roy knew Frank for almost 4 years. He knew that Frank never took a decision without a solid reason behind it. If Frank decided that Roy had some quality, then it was a given that he was onto something.