I remember always heading to Jordan’s home for playdates. Those were fun. Something that I have never done was invite Jordan to my home. There was actually a reason for this. It is because I don’t have any parents. I live alone.

It’s confusing, yes, but with a genius IQ of 195 I was able to use my tech smarts to get citizenship for Canada and even to manage a home. To manage a home, someone needs a job to pay the mortgage and other bills. What I did was scummy, I hacked into the accounts and made my citizenship as a government official in Canada so that I didn’t have to pay any bills. Not only that, a person under the age of 18 cannot live by themselves, I had made a hologram of my parents with robots that I brought with me to parent interviews and even whenever some weirdo came to my home.

My home was a large brown home with dark brown at the bottom half of the wall. It was a French single home that had a large roof with two floors. Many windows with dark brown window stills were on the walls. There was a large red chimney at the top. No car remained in the driveway. The garage was not used.

Mad with what happened at school, I came back to my home and looked at my parents who were cooking in the living room. It wasn’t my parents, it was a cooking bot that I had made with the hologram to conceal it.

“Eric,” says the bot.

“Hey.” I said. I walked upstairs and headed to my room. An old brown bed with a white blanket and pillows. I collapse onto the bed and I fall asleep staring at the picture of my family.

…

I awoke to hear someone walking inside of my home. It was fairly quiet and I walked down the stairs and went back to the kitchen to see Jordan scratching his head from the holographic robots I had cooking for me in the kitchen. These were the same robots that had hologram versions of my parents. Jordan was really confused. I was shocked that he was here.

“Hello.” asks Jordan. “Are you Eric’s mom?”

He was speaking to the holographic version of my mom, which of course, ignored him.

“Jordan.” I said. “WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE!?!”

“Eric.” says Jordan. “I came to apologise for my stunt at school. I shouldn’t have done that.”

“It’s alright.” I said.

Stolen story; please report.

“Why are your parents not listening to me? Are they deaf?” Jordan asks.

“They aren’t my parents.” I said. “My parents died a little bit after I was born.”

“They died? Wait, then how do you have this house?”

“Jordan.” I said. “You know I am kind of a genius. I made it work.”

“So you don’t have parents?” he asks.

“Nope.” I said.

“Eric.” says Jordan. “I had no idea you lived like this.”

“Jordan. The reason I was angry was because recently you’ve been speaking with Martin a lot and ignoring me. You are my only friend and I just felt upset because, all throughout my life, you’ve been the only one there for me.” I said.

“Eric.” Jordan says. I take my phone out and scroll to an app to remove my holograms and this leaves just the robots. I sat down on the dark brown leather couch and Jordan sat down next to me. He notices the bloody white trench coat placed on the table. He picks it up.

“What is this rag?” Jordan asks.

“Rag?!” I said. “It’s… the only thing left of my parents. I was told I had received it in the mail from my parents before they died.”

“So.” he said. “Do you know what happened to your parents?”

“I don’t know why they died but I did know they worked for a company called Varnie Tech.” I said. Jordan jumped at that. He had remembered what Martin had told him about this Varnie.

“Varnie.” says Jordan. “You said Varnie?”

“What’s up?” I said. “Do you know that name?”

Jordan nods.

“Do you remember when I told you that Martin and his girlfriend Leah, along with some dude from AGENT, crashed a Phantom airship?” Jordan says.

For context, Martin is one of our other friends, he isn’t here in Onoda right now because he was shipped to some boarding school in France. I’m sure he is doing great there. Martin ended up there because he played too many pranks and got really bad grades. AGENT is an organisation that popped up after we defeated this evil dude named Aldair Storm. AGENT seems to be this organisation full of agents that are trying to uncover mysteries about Phantom. Phantom is another organisation that seems to be trying to resurrect an ancient evil. They have many villains in their organisation and 100s if not 1000s of soldiers to support their cause.

“Martin told me that the airship had all of its tech made by Dr. George Varnie.” says Jordan.

I turned white.

“So my parents worked for a company that made technology for Phantom?” I asked.

Jordan nods.

“It seems so,” says Jordan. Jordan got up from the sofa and headed for the door and then I stopped him.

“If my parents were making tech for this George Varnie, I want to know more about him.” I said.

“How are you gonna do that?” Jordan asks. “We have no idea where this guy is, let alone his factory or whatever.”

“It’s in Germany.” I said. “I lived in Germany for the first 8 years of my life. My parents even worked in Germany, despite being Korean.”

“Eric,” Jordan said. “I’m not Richy McRichpants. I don’t have 1000s of dollars to get a flight to Germany.”

“I know.” I said. “That’s why I’ve just now made up my mind. I am gonna get on a plane myself and fly there alone.”

“No you aren’t.” says Jordan.

“I did it when I was 8.” I said.

“I have a better idea,” says Jordan. “Why don’t we let AGENT know of this information?”

“Why?” I ask.

“They are tracking Phantom down and could use info like this, Eric.” Jordan says.

“If we tell them they probably could ask for our help because they did ask for Martin’s help and of course he is pretty useless.” I muttered.

“Hello?” Jordan asks.

“Yeah.” I said. “I think it’s a good idea. When do you want to go?”

“Now,” says Jordan.

“Alright.” I said. “I’ll look up bus routes.”