Computron IX

On the back of his office and on top of his paper towered messy desk, Dr. Baldowyn saw his own image on the upper left screen, out of six 22” LCD panels carefully arranged on a rectangular grid formation. The other five monitors laid black with an hour glass switching on and off as the central main frame awaited for the other scientist’s video feeds.

Lloyd Baldowyn, a renowned physicist from Cal Tech, was one of the top string theory researchers on the entire planet. His research had transformed the almost fairy tale like string theory into a plausible equation any other scientist could use. This was the theory the entire scientific community had been looking for over a century, starting with the like such as the very same Einstein and Niels Bohr. The “Theory of Everything”, as they use to call it.

At his 82 years, Baldowyn was next in line to receive the Physics Nobel Price, an honor which a few weeks before had occupied his mind at all times. “I am glad these buffoons didn’t wait for me to be dead to finally give me the honor”, he used to mockingly say to his students back at school. Today, however, the Nobel Prize was just an unimportant achievement, compared to the feat him and his colleagues were attempting to perpetrate. And such an act was feeding his chest with unwanted exasperation.

The old rusty man motioned towards his watch. It was 8:03 PM. “Where are they? They should have logged on by now! Do they think I have that many years left?”

All of a sudden the screen below the one containing his own image, came up live. The image was that of a much younger man, Dr. Jose Rivas, an electrical engineer from the University of Madrid. Mildly dark skinned and wearing the typical round glasses, the younger technical guru fixed his own camera, allowing for his picture to be centered on Dr. Baldowyn’s screen.

“Lloyd, sorry for the delay.” The young man’s garbled voice came over the speakers with a Latin accent. A few tweaks later on his side, and the speech was as good as if they were both in the same room. “I needed to make sure the 512 bit encryption was working before I enabled the streaming engine. We are ready now!”

In saying the later, another screen came alive with a similar centered image. On the top right, the live portrait of an old female pixilated into existence. It was Dr. Merrie Palio-Rogers, head of Applied Physics at the Italian Institute of Technology. Her messy gray hair had been compressed into a small ball on top of her head, its pressure contained by a suffocated hair pin, which demonstrated the technology she harbored inside of her brain had nothing to do with aesthetics. Her pointy eye glasses, tied to the back of her neck with a mild chain-like supporter, made her look just like a Clue board game character.

The fourth image to follow was that of a much younger man. On his late 30’s and of oriental descent, Dr. Kio Yabuhki had managed to obtain the position of head research and administrator at the Florida’s Applied Physics Research Center at an insurmountable rate, making him the youngest of the physicist to ever held that prestigious position.

The final image to materialize was that of Dr. Rammani Vespinosapalli, an Indian mathematician from the renowned University of India at Banghali. It was not very easy to notice Rammani was on his early seventies. His bald head and prongy ears seemed to look identical decades ago. With the typical Indian-English accent, he greeted the other team members. “Good morning folks. Or should I say, good night!?”

The final screen remained black…

“Thank you for joining us, Merrie, Kio and Ram” Dr Baldowyn greeted the new members to join the conference call. “I think it is clear our own Dr. Perry will not be joining us today, so we better get started.”

“I suggest we make this quick, ladies and gentlemen.” Dr Yabuhki added. “There is no doubt we are being scanned by whoever is lynching us all, one by one!”

“I would not worry about that, Dr Yabuhki” Dr. Rivas was confident. “I have added 512 bits of encryption to the streaming engine. It is basically impossible to tamper with our communications.”

“I am not so sure 512 bits are enough, Joe.” Dr. Vespinosapalli came back abruptly. “Last time we met, you had employed 256 bits of encryption and felt equally certain nobody would be scanning us. And we all know how that ended.”

“What do you imply, Ram?” Dr. Rivas burst insulted. “That my software…”

“Gentlemen, gentlemen!” Dr Baldowyn waved his arms up and down at the small camera positioned in the center of the six monitors, hoping to somehow calm the excitement. “Let’s try to concentrate on the project at hand! Please…”

“Yes, I concur with Lloyd.” Dr Palio-Rogers scoffed back at the instigators. “There is no evidence that Dr. Perry was the victim of an attack. These conspiracy theories are preposterous and are only managing to scare us. I, for one, have found a lack of focus on my behalf, so I would appreciate if we could drop such a nonsensical subject.”

“Nonsensical? The guy was blown to kingdom come!” Dr Yabuhki counter attacked. “I tell you the explosion on his apartment was by no means an accident. It could not have been!”

“Doctor, we are scientist here. What kind of evidence do you propose to sustain your claims?” Dr Baldowyn demanded.

“Haven’t you looked at the FBI files?” Yabuhki had clearly altered considerably since the beginning of the call. “I decided to look at the data and guess what? After running some analysis and simulations utilizing the vector of attack as drawn by the fallen debris, it is clear it could not have been caused by anything Dr Perry had on his apartment.”

“Dr Yabuhki, we all know Dr Perry had a fusion reactor on his penthouse lab. Certainly you have taken this into consideration?” Dr Palio Rogers wiped her glasses.

“Ehhh…. Actually, the fusion reactor never went online. I had to recalculate some laser acceleration paths and had some issues with the servers so we were running a little bit behind schedule…” Rivas now seemed concerned.

“See?!” Kabuhki touche’d the old lady.

“Nonetheless, I suggest we follow Dr. Baldowyn’s original plan and get busy with the project again.” Dr. Palio-Rogers was not ready to let the alleged terrorists ruin their project.

“I am sorry if I do not share the optimism here. You all know this was not an accident and not only have we been targeted in the past, it is clear to me, one of us will be targeted in the near future!” Yabuhki used the very last breath to conclude his speech.

“I am going to have to agree with Dr Yabuhki here.” Dr Vespinosapalli conceded. “Lets remember how fishy it looked when our colleague Dr James Gardner died a few weeks ago.”

“Come on, people!” Dr Palio-Rogers could not believe they were ranting on and on, on the same subject. “There is no doubt in my mind, it was an accident!”

That’s how it had been conclusively sold to the media. Just an accident. A pretty rare one, though.

Dr Gardner was just one of the millions upon millions of gun owners on the country. Every night, he would sleep with his gun below his pillow as an extra survival warranty. His last night, however, he had apparently decided he wanted his wife to sleep with the gun below her own pillow.

It is not clear, although believed to be plausible, how the gun protection lock came off. Then in the middle of the night, most likely during some typical wrestling back and forth for extra comfort during her midnight sleep, she had led the gun off, killing her husband instantly.

When she woke up and saw her husband’s head shot through its side, she realized it had been she the killer of her love. In a split second she became neurotic and placing her own life on the very same path of a second bullet seemed to be the right thing to do.

When the police showed up, after some neighbor called and reported the dual quasi consecutive shots, they found a scene which could only have been confected through the previous details.

But some of the scientists could not believe how lucky, or better said “unlucky”, could somebody get. Such a ploy would have had to be the concoction of some master mind, which for some reason was looking into exterminating the clan.

Dr Baldowyn was in between both parties. Half of his soul seemed to comply with the vicious allegations, while the other portion wanted to believe it was just a coincidence.

“People, I realize we are living some scary moments, but we are grown ups here.” Dr Baldowyn continued. “We will consider this matter a dangerous one and take all the cares which must be taken. But please let’s go on with the plan as this project is far too important to be left behind. I would like to start discussing the Hetero-Positron Generator and Quanta Manipulation Engine.”

“I am with you, Dr Baldwin!” Dr Palio-Rogers had always favored her old mentor. The others were not certain whether the two have had some kind of romantic involvement back in the day when they were professor and student. “This project will change the way the human race goes about on a daily basis. If we let these terrorists scare us, they have already won. If we stop now, we will have been more irresponsible than the worst student we have ever housed on our own classroom.”

“On that front,” Dr. Palio Rogers continued, “I am happy to report my group of students has been able to measure significant charge rate change when we applied the specific frequency into the QME. We believe that if we…”

“Listen folks.” Yabuhki had to interrupt. “I appreciate you have given me the honor to be part of this very important project. But it just so happens I have a hot date tonight and while you have ran out of your libido, I am still too young to let this opportunity pass. Do discuss the project and if none of us are killed in the upcoming days, then sign me up again. In the mean time, I prefer to remain alive and enjoy life with my breathing apparatus fully functional.”

In saying so, Yabuhki’s screen switched to pitch black.

Dr. Baldowyn felt a surge of depression as he saw the fifth component leave the conference call. Not that he was 100% necessary, but Yabuhki’s expertise was clearly more than appreciated. Without him the project could still be completed, although in a longer period of time.

Dr. Baldowyn wanted to be mad at the young scientist, but remembered his own young days. Being such an intelligent man, he rationalized he would have reacted in the same fashion as his other colleague had. Especially if it was true the date was as hot as Yabuhki alleged. For a brief instant he wished to be on his younger counterpart’s shoes. But a split second later he realized the project could be equally as important as a hot date. So he regained his composure returning to whatever was left of the six monitors only to find…

“Ehh guys…” Rivas interrupted everybody else’s concentration at the time. “Did you happen to take a look at the four emails Dr Perry sent the night his apartment exploded?”

“I think we all did, Joe” Palio Rogers shrugged. ‘Not again…’ she thought.

They had all looked at the four emails’ attached video content. When put together, the four video snippets showed the empty apartment of Dr Perry, from a few hours before the explosion until the very fatidic moment in which all the cameras could portray was the noisy snow of nothingness.

To Palio-Rogers this clearly meant the apartment’s explosion had been an accident. Until now, it did as well to Baldowyn and Vespinosapalli. However, the later two were starting to sense a strange body language emanating from the quasi frozen engineer at the other side of the world. The feeling rocked their spines wild and it was not a pretty sensation.

“What is it Joe…” Both Baldowyn and Vespinosapalli asked in unison.

“I think we have a problem folks!” Rivas conceded with his ghostly white cheeks messing up the transmitted image contrast. “It just so happens that a few weeks ago Dr. Perry sent a coded message. It was a bunch of numbers and I though he had mistakenly sent it to me, instead of Ram.”

“What were the numbers, Joe?” Vespinosapalli demanded to know.

“I could not make anything out of them, but just now while you were discussing all this nonsense in a committee I decided to look once again and I noticed a pattern. The numbers are the window used to decode the video data stream.” Rivas explained.

Where was he going with this, everybody pondered. “Rivas, try to talk to us in English or in a science we can all understand!” Baldowyn suggested.

“Guys, the pattern clearly denotes that when adding the four files, there should be a random mistake at a particular spot denoted by these numbers. But as it turns out, there is none…” Rivas held the folded paper close to his camera, the numbers now becoming mildly visible.

Perry had taken an extra precaution not even his colleagues were aware of. The clever scientist rationalized that if they were being spied on, whoever was doing so must be really good at covering their tracks. If it was not even hard for hackers to get inside any secured and remote server, it should have been piece of cake for an advanced organization to do the same and then change the footage plus send the emails as he had accorded with his peers. As a result, and as it happened, those receiving the emails would have been be led to believe it had all been an accident.

But as sophisticated as an organization is, unless they can read somebody’s brain, there is always a way to trick them. And this had been it! By sending Dr. Rivas an insignificant looking note via conventional mail, which also happened to look like a mistake, he managed to offer a non traceable data point. Thank God his colleagues were intelligent enough to decipher it!

Vespinosapalli looked at the numbers on the screen and he needed no computer to realize what the engineer had said was totally accurate. And if somebody had gone to the trouble of changing the video feed and lead them on the wrong path, there was no doubt they were being hacked and spied on, like Yabuhki had been ranting about.

All of this meant their previous means of secrecy had been broken, even when they thought the protection mechanism to be unbreakable. It would have been naïve to think today’s protection mechanism was any different. Whoever was spying on them was powerful enough to break a 256 bit encryption. Was it too risky to assume it an impossibility to break the 512 bits?

“Team…” Vespinosapalli did not want to admit it, but there was no other choice. “We are being spied on as we speak and you will have to forgive me but I have grandchildren which I plan to enjoy some more years with. Consider me out of the project!” His screen went black.

It was a lie. Rammani wanted to be inside the project, but he hoped whoever had been watching to believe he would no longer to be a threat. Although he perceived his acting to be convincing enough, a part of him was conscious of the deep mess he was now in. Whoever was killing these scientists one by one with no regret, would hardly stop at such a cheesy portray of rejection.

Jose Rivas wanted to disconnect himself next, but feared dishonoring his superiors. Dr Baldowyn, on the other hand, was gracious enough to see the danger he had implicated his colleagues on. “My friends, I think it is best that we end this now, before somebody else gets hurt.” In pressing a button on his computer terminal, Rivas image faded to black.

He was about to do the same to the only remaining team member. “I am sorry my dear. I know you believe this decision to be dumb founded and that we should not retreat like cowards. But considering all that is left to complete the project, it is clear to me that we will all be dead long before we are even close to half way.”

“Don’t press that button, Lloyd!” Palio-Rogers demanded. “We can do this! We can not possibly know if they have cracked our 512 bits protection. But even if they do, we must find a way to communicate and finish what we started!”

“I admire your passion, Merrie” The old man smiled. “But you must realize that if they have access to our heavily guarded connection, there is no phone, or radio transmitter that can shield us from whoever is watching. We are sitting ducks!”

“Well. I have to admit it was fun while it lasted. I guess it will be back to the old boring class teaching spree…” The old lady threw a kiss to his old lover and her screen went black.

On her own room, Dr Palio Rogers thought to herself…

‘If I talk, there might be microphones listening to what I have to say… Hopefully they can not hear what I have to think… But you listen to me Lloyd! I will complete the other Cassimir plates and with your equation we can complete the quad-positronic link. There is no way they can spy on that!’

‘Let me know when you complete them, my dear,’ she heard Baldowyn’s voice on her head, ‘as the process to get them hooked into the hyperspace communications link will not be trivial in itself…’

The pick-up truck greeted the new criminal with open doors. Avayan tossed the software bag into the passenger’s seat, and softly placed his back pack on top of it. It had all worked just like he had anticipated. By copying a single 20 dollar bill into many more, he had been able to acquire the goodie any roboticist would have been dreaming with.

Once the vehicle’s engine was rattling to death, filling the atmosphere with obnoxious gases, Avayan looked back, like the good conscious driver he was not, and then speed out of Robo Tantrics’ parking lot. It was not until he had abandoned the crime area that he would have the computer out from his hiding place.

Driving with only one hand, once again offering proof of how much of a negligence it was to allow him across the streets, Avayan removed the shiny laptop from his bag and placed it on top of the now messy passenger’s seat. Opened the laptop and then…

“We did it, Compu!” he celebrated. “We managed to get the software and nobody noticed!”

“Yes you did sir…”

“It was amazing Compu! And then at the end I thought there was not enough money, but having dealt with such a brilliant computer like you, it figures you had taken the tax into account. It was gorgeous!”

“Actually, I had to materialize the $40 on the fly, Master Avayan.” the computer explained. “It just so happens that I was not aware of the tax either.”

Avayan ruffled his sight in confusion. “What do you mean you did this on the fly? I thought you were hibernating or something…”

“I don’t hibernate, Master Avayan.” The computer asserted.

‘I’ll be darned’, he thought. ‘The computer must have been hearing and seeing everything that transpired back there…’

“Well thanks for your help back at the store… I would not have been able to pull this out without you.”

“Oh, no problem Master. It is now just a matter of never being discovered. I certainly would not like to be sent to any secret lab and be dissected…”

“Eh… what do you mean?” Avayan started to sound worried. Again…

“Well Master, you must realize that transaction was completely illegal.” The computer explained. “I mean, you used counterfeited money, you realize that, right?”

A big blob of guilt engulfed Avayan’s chest. It was like ink on a fish tank housing a furious octopus. The pressure started to suffocate the youngster who was now trying to rationalize his actions.

“Counterfeit, Compu? Come on!” Avayan bellowed nervously behind the wheel. “These bills were identical. The government cannot tell them apart from the real thing!”

And that was the problem. Because they were identical, the government could not believe they were real either. We all know each bill has a serial number. When Avayan had requested for the computer to copy the bills, he had not been specific on how the replication was to take place. So the computer did precisely what she was told.

At this point in time, it may seem like the computer was kind of dumb and had failed to see how her Master would be jeopardized by her actions. However, it was the total opposite. By putting Avayan through this ordeal, the youngster would learn a very valuable lesson. So far, it was working!

“Oh My God… What have I done, Compu!” The teenager came to realize his blunder. “We’ve got to go back and get those dollar bills!”

“You actually think you can get them back? They must have been spread on all directions by now. Not even I could pull that one out, Master.”

“Oh My God Compu, this is it! The authorities are going to find about it and I’ll be thrown in jail. A huge black guy will have my ass for dessert.”

“I tried to warn you, Master. But you would not listen.” It almost felt like Computron had been waiting to say that for a few weeks.

“Compu, you’ve got to help me! These bills have my finger prints. There is ton of my DNA in there. Please help me save my sorry ass from eternal damnation at county jail, Compu, please!!!”

“It may be too late, Master… Look back…”

Avayan glanced over his mirror. It was certainly bad. A set of flashing red and blue lights were in pursuit. No need to point it out, but it was the police.

“Super scum buckets of evil, Compu! How could they figure it out so fast? This is it. I better kiss my virgin ass good bye.”

Had the computer been human she would have died of laughter. Computron IX thought she should somehow attempt to regain her composure. Such a sophisticated item from such a civilized age should not have been enjoying this moment so much. Still, she allowed her prank to continue for a little bit longer.

Avayan could see the police officer motioning the offending pick-up truck to pull over, through his rear view mirror. The police officer was certainly pissed, his body language easily being translated into “Move your ass out of this road, or I am going to have you for dessert!” At the end, not wanting to spread his gonads into a larger audience, Avayan had to comply.

At this point in time, Computron IX decided to scan Avayan’s vital signs. With his heart pumping like a double bass drum solo and blood pressure enough to drive a hydraulic piston, it would not require a single biology class to safely deduce the boy was experiencing possibly one of the worst frights he would ever endure. Way worst than seeing Tina at school, and that is quite a lot to say! Since no sign of a heart attack was evident, she continued with the therapy.

Both cars had come to a still when the Police officer walked towards the truck’s driver side every time approaching the petrified youth. Somber, serious and not the slight glimpse of a “hope you are doing well” message on his mustache, the officer arched his pointy hand, a clear sign of an order to lower the window.

Avayan could not speak, or move. Precisely what the police officer liked to see on his pulled over. It meant the driver was definitely guilty of the charges he was about to impose. This should be an easy one!

“Good night sir… Are you aware of how fast you were driving?” The police officer said, his sight carefully monitoring his large LCD note pad’s screen as he took some more notes on his gadget.

“What?” Avayan asked perplexed. ‘What on Earth does speed has to do with using fake money to buy software?’, he thought.

For a moment Avayan could have sworn the tipity tap from the stylus into the pad had been synchronized with his heart beat. It was apparently starting to come down. Was it time to show some relief?

“You were doing 70 miles per hour in a 55 zone, son” the police officer explained.

Like a cold bucket of water, a wave of relief swamped the youngster. He wanted to scream while running and jumping all over the expressway. This had not been about the 20 dollar bills, and although to render the matter closed would be impossible, at least his butt was not in immediate danger.

“License and registration, please” the officer requested, still looking at his pad. Was this gesture increasing his level of fear imposing? Whether the technique worked or not, is irrelevant, because…

Although not as intense as before, once again the adolescent sunk in fear. Why? Well, his permit was only provisionary, which implied an adult with a full permit must have been riding along with him. And it was pretty much evident the computer would not count as one. Could she fake the floating hologram of an adult to trick the officer?

Looking to his book bag at the passenger seat, it was more than obvious the computer was either not cooperating or did not have the ability to generate such a scam. Trying to buy as much time as possible to push back the inevitable, he handled his cheesy permit to the officer while he bit his tongue as hard as he could and braced for impact.

The police officer grabbed the little document, placed it on top of his LCD pad and scribed some more. “Mr. Ecks, how long since you moved from New York?” The police officer asked?

Avayan had never lived in New York. Why would the officer be asking such a retarded question? The young man was about to answer when… “Two months, officer.” The computer said emulating Avayan’s voice with cunning accuracy. It even sounded as if the acoustic wave had come from the youngster mouth. Had the officer not been minding his tablet so much, he would have seen a teenager talking with his mouth shut.

The officer tapped in a few more characters and then handled the permit back to his customer. “Very well Mr. Ecks, here is the deal.” he started. “I realize you may not know these roads out here in Texas. Hence I am only going to give you a warning, all right?”

Avayan grabbed his permit from the officer. “Well thank you very much sir. I truly appreciate this opportunity. It will not happen again, OK?”

“And feel free to get your New York license exchanged for our Texas permit, OK? You can do this so easily by logging onto the net. Have a good night sir.” Said the police officer leaving the car behind and returning to his own vehicle.

Avayan saw the police car drive by him when he allowed his chest to renew its air content.

“What the hell? Compu, did you change the permit?”

A soft evil like whistle came from the shiny laptop.

“You did!” Avayan sneered. “That was just too cool. Awesome!”

Avayan laid back on his seat, still not ready to resume the trip back home. “Will we ever get caught, Compu. Will somebody figure out we have copied money?” Avayan wondered.

“I totally doubt it sir! There is just too much money out there. It would take a few dozen computers like me to get the job done.”

The last water bowl had cleansed the guilt from his chest. Still, and from that night on, he vowed to never try the money copying scheme.

“I am sorry Compu.” He continued. “I am sorry about not listening to you. But you have to admit it did sound like a good idea.”

“I am afraid it didn’t sir. It was actually a lousy idea!”

Avayan frowned insulted. A lousy idea? This plan had been as good as it gets. “Why would you say such a thing?”

From nowhere, a second Cobotrox 7.0 software bundle materialized. “You did not need money, Master.” The computer explained.

Avayan looked at the two boxes and remembered the apples. The computer was right. There had been no need to copy the money, when in reality all he wanted was the software. Of course he could argue that due to copyright laws that was not going to work very well, but he did not feel like starting a debate on ethics with a computer from the future.  Instead…

“This is fancy and all, Compu. But the only reason you can copy it now is because I bought it on the first place. So in essence, the money was needed!” Avayan pointed out.

Compu did not respond to that. Instead, she started to flash the heck out of the pick up’s back seat.

A good deal of robotic parts, like an arm with a gripper, an R2D2 dome head, a Robby the Robot ear ring and some other parts sprung to life out of what seemed to be nothingness.

“I digitized all of these while you were walking down the store.” Computron IX explained.

Avayan was baffled. He sat on his chair, his back turned a full 180 degrees while he drooled on the back of his pick-up’s content. If the computer could gather information while they were taking a stroll, he could literally get anything he could see!

“Compu…” Avayan paused. “Instead of waiting for each little moment to explain what is that you can do, how about you start by telling me what you can’t do?”

The night was headed to be quite long…

 The perfect place for the teenagers to meet and have a good time during a school night was an old refurbished Sonic fast food restaurant. Restored to look more like an 80’s hamburger place with Michael Jackson, A-HA and Boy George pictures, “Tony’s” catered to both the new adolescent generation as well as the not so young adult.

Tony’s had changed from the typical Sonic structure where most customers would be served on their own parked cars and a small exterior dining area was provided for the rest. In this case, the dining area had been enlarged quite a bit. They had retrofitted movable walls, making it perfect for an all year long experience. And it had worked! As expected, the place would be packed during the entire 365 revolutions around our sun.

At this point in time, however, it was not the clever architecture which had managed to bring such a large clientele into Anthony Jennings’ small restaurant. It was his three daughters, Melissa, Tina and Sabrina!

Before leaving for college, Melissa had managed to transform the restaurant into her class’ favorite meeting spot. It was now Tina’s turn, an assignment she had managed to excel at without too much effort.

As much as Melissa had ensured profitability by being quite the entrepreneur and public relations prodigy, the beauty queen-like Tina had achieved the same response by triggering a completely different mechanism: hormones! A mere sight at the young girl, and it should be no hassle to decipher how she had managed to bring the entire chorus of friends, as well as wannabes, into the now cramped facility.

At first, she had worked like any teenager would do. Her father would honor a rather small salary, same as any other waitress would get. But the tips were pouring like water over Niagara Falls.

For a brief instant Tony thought of releasing his daughter from the hot spot. But she liked it, and as she would have told him earlier “Dad, if I am not here, your sales will go down.”

And she was right. Those nights in which she was not working, sales would just seem regular. On her working nights, however, profits would skyrocket to the point of endangering the International Space Station.

Unfortunately Tony’s fortune could be easily coming to an end as it was now time for Tina to graduate and head out to College. Although Sabrina was almost as beautiful as Tina, in which case we could expect for the same response to take over, she did not like the restaurant work as much. She had grown too cocky and proud. “Working on a restaurant while I can be having fun with my friends? What kind of a loser do you take me for?” she used to fight with Tina on and on.

As a result, Tina would spend most of her nights working and helping her father, making sure the restaurant could at least take him up to retirement. “At least save as much as you can until I return from College!” she used to tell her dad. For Tony, however, as much fun as the restaurant business had been for him, it was not the life he wanted for any of his daughters or son. We shall come back to him later, though.

That night, like practically every other night, Xavier and company had decided to enjoy from Tony’s. For Xavier it was just another opportunity to admire the beauty of the only girl that had rejected him. Like he use to say “She is only playing hard to get, boys. But she will be mine!” As a result, eating at the hot spot just happened to be a mere biological coincidence.

Xavier, followed by his two sidekicks Brad and Rick, entered the local, patrons trembling either in awe or fear at the trio. The three boys knew they would find Shawna and Veranicce in a big enough table. Still, they acted surprised when the two girls waved at them. Moments later, Rick was sitting besides Shawna and Brad by Veranice.

The big muscle bound senior did not seem to mind being left to sit by himself at the head of the table. Even better! He was a hunter on the prowl.

Xavier allowed his neck to pan towards a nearby table hosting three inert weaklings. A fourth chair contained some back packs and books. Emilio, the nerd closest to Xavier, realized what it could mean not to react in time. Not wanting to get an eternal wedgy up his throat, he almost dumped his tray while reaching to clean up the school material filled chair.

Xavier grabbed the now clean chair, his confidence never wrestling down. For a brief instant Emilio felt the exhilaration of possibly having entered the realm of the cool. Realizing that had not even been close to happening, he sat back on his own chair, his fries now unreachable as he juggled two week arms packed with everybody else’s stuff!

“So cousin, what’s up?” Xavier greeted Veranicce.

Xavier and Veranicce were not cousins really. Veranice was in reality Tina’s cousin. So it seemed perfect for Xavier to refer to her as his own cousin, as if he and Tina were an item.

Veranice smiled briefly. Then she almost cracked up…

Behind Xavier, a young woman wearing the most precious silver eyes, both caressed by a soft pink lipped smile, patiently waited. Her short bob haircut, confected by strands of pure gold, undulated from top to bottom as if trying to unite both the Heaven and the Hades, perfectly round like a sphere carefully formed by the gods. It was Tina, who wearing the typical red T Shirt, mid short white skirt and tennis shoes, ornamented by a green apron, would redefine the concept of a uniform. She practically made it look like fashion!

Tina had arrived to the table carrying a tray with the two other girls’ order. Had Xavier seen her? Could this had been but a trick to play on his goal’s heart?

“Cousin?” Tina frowned, making her presence obvious. The four kids at the table joined on the laughter. Xavier mildly turned to his love interest, his coolness untouched, as Tina was placing the red trays over the table making sure there was no friction against the deluded young man. No doubt he would have taken it as a sign of conquer.

“Well you know darling,” Xavier continues, “If you and I are…”

“I know what you mean, Xavier” Tina interrupted. “What I suggest is you start befriending my dad and ask him to adopt you. Then, you can call her cousin, all you want. How about that?”

“Whoooo” the table went nuts. Again, Xavier remained rock solid. ‘Sweetie, the harder you fight me, the harder you will fall into my arms’ the mastodon allowed himself to think.

“Oh come on Girl, why don’t you admit that you like me?” Xavier ventured. Once again, like many times before… When would the results be any different? Maybe tonight!

Tina did not flinch. Instead she removed her PDA and taped on the screen once. “What can I get you guys? We have some mighty awesome shakes today!”

“I’ll have one of those Tornado Swirls. Put everything on it, Tina.” Brad said.

“I’ll just have a dog. And a large soda.” Rick ordered.

“You know what I want, my love.” Xavier smooched.

Tina’s veins would have felt like boiling water pipes, but she did not allow her own cool to be shattered by the new force of attack. “The same as always, then?” It took a few taps on her PDA, when… “Very well, the rejection platter coming up! You will love to hate this one, its delicious!”. One revenge filled smile later and she was off to input the order at the nearby terminal.

“So… ‘COUSIN’”, Veranicce quoted in mid air. “when are you going to realize that Tina is not into you?” she asked Xavier, his gaze still following Tina into the kitchen.

“I am not going to give up. What kind of a loser do you think I am?”

“Sweetie… Tina is not going to fall for you.” Shawna slipped into the conversation. “She knows, like everybody else at school, you will play with her for a little while and then toss her out like worn underwear, just like you have done so many times before.”

Xavier looked at the dark skinned beauty, his profound eyes fighting an urge. Had she been a guy he would have jumped at him and ruffled him down into the floor. But even the evilest of his intentions would not cross that line. He would never hit a female, like his dad had done to his mother when he was a child. It was a promise he had done to himself eons ago and luckily tonight he had found the strength to uphold it. Squeezing both punches’ sweat into diamonds, he allowed his dark energy to dissipate into the night.

Shawna, on the other hand, was taking quite the advantage of her situation. You see, she more than well knew her sporty friend would never hurt her. Not like that, at least. And on every possible occasion she had a chance, she would call the big mastodon’s flawed womanizing technique, not because she wanted to help all those fellow classmates desperately looking for a date with the tyrant, but out of remorse for herself being one of the previous victims. No wonder the duo would end up enjoying from such a love-hate relationship.

“I don’t get it.” Brad came to the rescue. “I think our friend here is a fine young man. Yes, he has been through some trouble in life. Who hasn’t? I think he deserves a break!”

“I wish I could help you get that chance, Xavi” Veranice offered with her sweet little voice. “But I am afraid the cousin is a softie for the nerdies… If you know what I mean.”

Ahhh! The Nerdies! Could there be a concept on this land which could fuel Xavier’s rage any more? How much did he hate the “freakos”, as he used to call them. He wondered why on Earth would they have to take space from his beloved planet? Why did he need to share his oxygen with them? Was it so hard for all of us to be at least similarly strong? Only then, would this world be worth living, he used to think.

“The nerdies, huh?” Xavier scoffed fighting again an urge to lose his temper. “What can she possibly find in them?”

“Don’t she follow that robotic competition every year?” Shawna pointed out.

“The Loser Bots?” Rick called. The three boys laughed at the name. As their typical cheer, they clapped their hands in unison once over their heads, followed by three slight fist tabs on the table.

“Loser Bots… That’s a good one, Ricky, my man!” Xavier conceded with a slight pat on his buddy’s back.

An instant later Tina returned with some of the refreshment. Two sodas and a shake.

“So Tina, I bet you are all excited with the new robotic competition getting started, huh?” Shawna decided to do some weed seeding.

“Gosh, yeah!” Tina said with zest in her silvery blue eyes. “Do you guys like the competitions?”

“I love them myself…” Xavier managed to say long before anybody else could show their apathy.

“Do you?” At first she did not believe him. But as he sat convinced, she allowed herself to, possibly for the first time, look at Xavier with some kind of interest. At least an interest to talk to him, if at all.

Xavier should have taken the opportunity to at least win a gaze from the girl of his dreams like a civilized adult, but instead… “ Yeah! My stomach feels great after so much puking!”

Tina’s shoulder fell down with disappointment. She should have known better. Instead, she had to endure the trio doing their private male victory dance, again… One hand clap over their heads and three table taps later…

“So Tina, if you are so much into robots, you must like the star of the show. The very same Loser Boy… Avayan?” Rick continued Shawna’s work of disdain.

The first nation had pressed the red button. Nuclear missiles were crossing the oceans at full speed. And Tina-Land was not going to get caught with her arms crossed. She decided to deploy her own weapons of mass destruction…

“Actually, I find him to be quite cute.” Tina said. It was a lie. She had never looked at the nerd with those eyes. But she knew the entire table would be consumed with disbelief and repugnancy towards her remark. And she was right!

“Cute? The frigging nerd?” Shawna was disgusted. “Girl, you are a fine woman with good taste. Please do not make me go over there and smack some sense into you, sister!”

Tina looked at her cousin. Veranicce, as if receiving a telepathic message from a parallel dimension, understood the concerned look on her relative. It was obvious that hanging with Shawna was kind of acceptable, but the three boys were trouble. To Veranicce it was just all plain fun. But Tina was too mature to see it that way.

Tina turned to the other table, the one housing the three nerds. While her friends were laughing and making a hormonal mess, the three nerds were just chatting and having a good time without the need for utter chaos. It was respectful and mild mannered. They were clearly much more in control of themselves than Xavier and his gang. So she turned back to face her friends.

“You know, there is a reason why this world is ruled by the geeks. Perhaps there is something we could learn from them?”

The table went stone cold. Could they be actually getting what she had just said? Would this be the instant in which the five teenagers choose to reform their lives and respect the weaker? But who are we kidding, of course not!

It wasn’t very long before they could not even hold it. Cracking up, the three males spurted in laughter. Banging the table, as if it helped to regain their lost oxygen, the trio managed to convince the two girls it was mighty fine to join them. And so they did.

Veranicce felt some sort of shame for laughing at her cousin. She just could not help it. Shawna did not even attempt to fight it. Eventually, Tina herself had to mildly laugh, not because she thought it was all right, but rather because it was the only way to stay enjoying the cool status she had with her supposed friends at school. ‘Not that it matters too much’, she thought. But in reality it did.

In an instant, her brain betrayed her intentions. She was teleported to that day about a decade ago in which her older brother, Tommy, had returned home, crying and practically carried into the house by both parents. She could not understand it back then. Why had her brother tried to end his life? Why had he been discovered in one of the school rest room holding a half full large bottle of pills?

When the entire school found out Tommy had homosexual tendencies, they went nuts. His friends became his own executors. And that day, during their lunch recess, they had all gathered at the biggest school hallway to scream all sorts of names and bully him around. What had been good all times fun for the students, had been a catastrophe for a single mind. Tommy played along until the recess came to an end, but as soon as he had a chance, he asked for permission to go to the rest room. When he failed to return, the teacher suspected the worst. Luckily, they found him on time.

Tommy spent a few days at the hospital and then an even longer period of time at the house, before returning to school to finish his last year. He would spend most of his time lying in bed, as if waiting for the angel of death to be kind enough to take him into the underworld. That’s the image Tina remembered the most about that time. His brother lying in bed with one arm hanging from the side. Was he dead?

One day the small Tina ventured to find out. As she entered the spotless teenager room, still holding a teddy bear and wearing her pijamas, she saw a smile drawing on her brothers face. “I was supposed to protect you three, you know.” Tommy broke the silence.

“You can still protect us Tommy!” Tina assured her fallen brother.

“I was supposed to be the man of the house.” A tear broke free from her prison, strolling down the hills formed by Tommy’s cheeks. “I cannot even do that right.”

“You can be a nice lady, Tommy” the naïve Tina caressed her older brother’s loose brown hair. “Our new president is a lady and daddy says she has more balls than all the previous presidents on this century combined.”

For the first time in a long time Tommy was able to laugh. Then his chest dropped him back to his predicament. “There is an awful world out there, Tina! We definitely need women with big balls walking it. Please promise me you will be one of them! Do not let the crowds define who you are. You define the crowds for them, OK?”

Tina could not even dare to comprehend what her brother had requested of her that day. But shortly after their conversation, Tommy got up, finished school and set out to become a woman with balls himself. Except he was not into politics. He was more into fashion.

As he walked the ropes of the entrepreneur beautician and clothing designer, he would come to show his sisters how to get the job done. Shortly after graduating from College, Tommy made a name for himself in the clothing designer industry. Hollywood starlets would look up to him as they faced their biggest threats: the camera and the red carpets.

Tommy had defined the crowd and had not allowed the crowds to define him. And Tina felt she owed to do the same. As the table continued with their previous mockery, laughing their asses off, Tina allowed her quirky smile to dissipate.

“Your food will be right out, OK guys?” Tina said somberly. Then she turned to the nerd table once more, allowing her kindest smile to shine like the mid morning sun. “Is there anything you guys need?”

The nerds were petrified. To have such a beautiful girl direct her words at them was like seeing a Vulcan for the first time. It was literally First Contact! All they could do was wave a “thanks” while hiding their fear under their empty shake’s straw.

“Well let me know, OK?” and then Tina disappeared into the kitchen.

The machine shop had an old and practically torn into pieces, pick up truck. Back in the days when it was new, the silver Texas Titan was a gorgeous set of wheels. Today, and after hauling all sorts of machinery and tons of metals, the vehicle looked like road hazard.

Avayan only had his temporary drivers permit. His dad would allow him to ride the old vehicle as long as there was another machine shop employee with him. Not because it was the law, but because as the teenager was so good at driving robots, he was as horrendously awful behind the really important wheel. “What Cracker Jack box did you get your license from?” Lionel used to ask his son, at the same time he braced for impact, any time it was his own set of shoes at the passenger seat.

Tonight, however, there was no time to look for a legal permit…

“I have Aladdin’s lamp!” the youngster said while driving down the expressway. “Holy Krapity! I have Aladdin’s lamp…”

The computer could hear him. She was well aware of who Aladdin and his famous lamp were. It made some sense to compare her with the fantastic oil lantern, housing the powerful genie which conceded three wishes to whoever had freed him.

‘You are lucky you are wrong, boy. Had there been only three wishes, I would have already consecrated the first one…’ the computer thought silently.

The truck entered a big mall, but did not stop until reaching the largest facility in the entire shopping complex. It looked like yet another warehouse, although perhaps ten to twenty times as large. And as it turns out, at some point in time a warehouse it had been. At the front, a humongous red neon sign read “Robo-Tantrics”. Below, smaller letters followed with “Where Cobotrox shops!”

Robo Tantrics excelled on selling the weirdest of all the components a robot could need. Ten years before, purchasing robots or related components could be accomplished by internet orders alone. Parts were scarce and more toy like than what real roboticists would want.

Eventually, in the same fashion that PC computers had changed from rarity to widely available commodities, robots had become a market to be exploited. And Robo-Tantrics was king!

After parking his torn down pickup truck far away from the entrance, as to make sure nobody else would scratch it, the young man grabbed his back pack, computer inside, and faster than a thought headed into the large geek haven. The parking lot was long. Seconds felt like minutes. ‘Will my new fountain of riches work?’ he thought. Of course it would!

As Avayan approached the store entrance, and before the large guy parked in to ensure store integrity was preserved asked his prospective customer to show up his back pack contents, our nerd had proceeded with the ritual, just like many times before. Except this time he was not into Window Shopping, but actual purchasing of some goodie! The large guy, barely looking inside the bag, nodded in acceptance, letting the youngster through the sacred gates.

The store was huge! There was a coffee and soda shop at the right, were customers read their favorite books and magazines while zipping their favorite “Eight Bucks” delicacies. At the left, about a hundred cash registers took care of the big serpentine of customers purchasing their long awaited for gadgetry.

As anybody would have expected it, the place was packed with nerds. Geeks from all ages and sorts, invaded the store on a daily basis. It was their own safe haven. Not even the local football team’s quarterback would dare to get into the store and scream “NERDS!” It would be far less painful to jump from the tenth floor of a building into a street filled with sharpened broom sticks.

In fact, a few years ago, a fraternity from a nearby college had asked its new members to get inside the store, insult the weaklings and then run out as soon as possible shortly after perpetrating the prank. To their bad luck, a group of customers were utilizing some of the store’s services to build one of their famed metal exoskeletons, a competition which had just started to pick up interest among enthusiasts at the moment.

The first fraternity initiation crew managed to walk in and out unharmed, but by the time the second and third group were able to install their prank show at the center of the store, two fully functional exoskeletons had been deployed. The beating made it into the newspapers, as the fraternity boys had to be accepted at the nearby hospital while the exoskeleton drivers were completely unscathed. At the end, the local Universities decided to make it illegal for fraternities to ask students to “attack” the Robo-Tantrics facilities.

Avayan loved spending long hours inside the store, window shopping for the next gadget. There was the “PC Corner”, more like an entire segment, detailing computer parts for the robot. Motherboards, CPU’s memory modules, Tera Drives, etc.

Farther down, the “Peripheral Island” hosted all sorts of components for robots. Arms, grippers, computer vision cameras, wheels of all sizes, pneumatic and electromagnetic actuators, you name it!

In the back of the store, a little machine shop with some tools featured space for enthusiast to gather and play. On Wednesdays, the local robotic club met and held some competitions. Avayan would come with Jay and participate on some of these competitions, the Flying Monkeys being his favorite one.

In this competition a remote controlled mobile robot was to speed down a ramp and as it flew into the abyss, a set of wings were to be deployed. It was then a matter of gladding into a fairly complex target, a disk filled with numbers. Of course the largest score, won.

Finally came the section Avayan was looking for: “The Core”! The spot were all the software could be found. In this case, Cobotrox 7.0, the ultimate robotic operating system.

“Yes! Finally, my own copy of Cobotrox 7.0!” Avayan contemplated the box as he had done many times before, only this time knowing it was he’s to keep.

Patrolling the Core was always a fat guy named Rod. Heavy glasses, chaotic beard and a big clump of hair resembling a mustache, Rod was an unemployed electrical engineer who found refuge on the store.

The store salary would never be as good as when he was corporately employed, but he liked the politics ridden environment much more. After working for Robo-Tantrics for a year a different firm popped out of nowhere and offered him a position as a Senior Engineer. He declined! As he liked to say, “It is just too much fun to spend my day in Nerdy-Land.”

“What’s up bro!” Rod greeted Avayan, his gloating eyes pulsing towards the big software box. “You are getting the Cobotrox 7.0? If only I were you, man!”

“Ye… Yes.. Yes!” Avayan said, his trembling voice backstabbing his intentions.

“Well, well! You are excited indeed. So why didn’t you downloaded it? It’s cheaper, man!”

Indeed it was. Hardly anybody bought software in boxes anymore. But the store policy was to offer the software anyway in case anybody was having a bad connection day and still needed the software. That practically never happened, though.

Of course using fake money was not going to work for Avayan if ordering the software as a downloadable. And his Paypal account was basically drained.

“I got an order on the machine shop, and this guy wanted to pay with cash, so you know… Feeling kind of rich today…” said the youngster hoping for the lie to fly.

“Enjoy it, man!” Rod saw the youngster leave The Core. A smile lighted up his face. It was well worth it to be a Robo-Tantrics clerk.

Avayan ran out of The Core and into the cash registers. Removing the counterfeit money from his back pocket he realized the dollar bills were just too identical. Could it raise some suspicion? Most likely not. He felt convinced tellers would hardly be in any mood to catch people with money replicas confectioned by time traveling computers.

Still, and for some reason he hated to try and find out, Avayan feared what had previously felt like a sure thing, to be heavily flawed. Regardless, he placed the $500 between both of his hands, shook them up viciously like an old document until the 25 bills looked similar no more. Then he felt slightly better!

The serpentine customer-filled line ran faster than usual, Avayan thought. When it was his turn, an employee at the front of the line pointed towards the next available cash register. “Ten, please…” the employee instructed as he waved towards the cash register with a flashing green semaphore.

The teller, an Indian girl, wearing glasses and portions of her hair painted red, greeted her customer. “You found everything OK, sir?”

“Yes I d-did! Thanks!” Avayan said as he placed the large box over the counter.

One beep later, the transaction was close to complete…

“Is there anything else, sir… Total would be $539.95.”

Avayan handled the crumpled ball of 20 dollar bills to the cashier. It was not odd for her to receive such a messy load of money. Heck! It was better than some geeks paying for their purchase with cents, as some of them had done before. When on Earth would the completely useless cents go down into extinction lane, she used to ponder.

“Sir, there is only 500 dollars here.” The teller came back.

What? 500 dollars? CRAP! He had forgotten about the tax. In vain, he searched his back pocket once again. How about his first 20 dollar bill? The one he had the computer replicate?

A quick glimpse into his memory allowed him to remember his exact words “I want 25 of these.” And the computer had done just that: 24 replicas and the original. Well, one thing was certain. The computer was awesome at following orders.

Disappointed and head down, Avayan started to realize he would, once again, have to wait to get his beloved software. Like an instinct he checked his back pockets again.

Nothing on the first one and…

“What is this?” his eyes glistened as he felt a papery texture at his finger tips. Could it be? Yes! It was $40, just what he needed.

“My! I love it when I find extra money in my pockets. I had totally forgotten…” Avayan faked a smile, while his mind rushed a futile attempt towards solving the mystery. Where on Earth does the extra $40 came from?

The cashier, almost smiling, counted the money once again and finished the transaction. She placed the big box in a plastic bag and handled the receipt to her customer. “Here you go sir. Please keep the receipt handy and show it at the door. Come and visit us again!”

As soon as Avayan was gone, her fake smile disappeared forever. Flipping a switch by the cash register, her semaphore started to flash green again.

Avayan unlocked the machine shop and got in, hasty, like lightning. It was past 4:00 PM. There were usually one or two employees still working, but it seemed that day they had all gone home early. Perfect!

The machine shop was basically a big warehouse lodging industrial machinery like three milling machines, two lathes, four drills and four vertical saws. The place was dusty, greasy and messy, the floor filled with all sorts of metal fragments and shards. A smell of oil and lubricants greeted visitors moments after the door was opened.

A more technologically advanced portion of the shop contained all sorts of Computer Numeric Control equipment such as CNC routers and mills, CO2 lasers, plasma cutters, etc. but to Avayan this was like storage space, as there was nothing like actually engaging industrial equipment “with my own hands” as he liked to point out, something hardly possible with the computer controlled versions.

The last room stocked metallic media like steel and aluminum, some plastics like acrylics and amphenol and minor amounts of woods and glass. Avayan preferred the metal to anything else, as the results were always sturdier.

Finding a non cluttered work bench was kind of a challenge. Finally he found a suitable enough portion of a table, which only needed a few jigs relocated. Avayan felt it would be sad to get his new toy scratched, so he made certain the spot was as pristine as a richie boy would keep his garage the very same day he had walked out his new Lamborghini out of the dealer.

“OK” he greeted the computer. “My friend Jay will be here shortly enough. Together we will figure out what are you and what to do with you.”

“Master Avayan” the computer seemed concerned. “In the time where I come from we fully appreciate the meaning of a friend. So I understand it is of your best intention to include your own on this very important finding. Unfortunately, I feel it is of utter importance that my identity be kept confidential for the time being. If you do show me to your friends I will retransform myself to look like an ordinary computer. Just wanted to let you know.”

Avayan frowned. He hated the idea of keeping secrets. Not only because he was quite bad at keeping them but because it drove him nuts that other did kept them from him. Apparently there was not too much of a choice so all he could do was comply with the requirement.

“Whatever.” He accepted. “I guess we are avoiding getting you into the wrong hands or something like that, right? I mean, if some government officials were to find you, no doubt you would end up in some fancy lab getting your guts all spread out on a lab table.”

“You are very attentive of detail, Master Avayan.” The computer said appreciative.

“So lets cut to the chase. How on Earth did you do your thing back at the alley?”

“Quite simple actually. Master Avayan.” The computer started. “I am what will be known in the future as a mattergy replicator. In other words, I posses the ability to transform matter into energy and energy into matter according to patterns programmed into my memory banks.”

Impressive! What scientist were still trying to do in the lab with machines larger than entire cities, this computer could do in the space a conventional laptop of about a decade ago would occupy.

“Per example, in the alley,” the computer continued, “I morphed the steel blade into a malleable plastic in order to avoid your injury. Then I applied a pulsonic blast of acoustic energy which launched the thief into oblivion. It was similar to polarizing the air in the back and front of him creating a differential in potential which his body had to follow.”

For an instant, Avayan wished he was better versed in physics than he was in robot building or programming. He was certain some of his geeky friends could understand all the jargon the computer had offered. At least he had an idea. Never would he have guessed, though, that at some time into the near future, it would be him carrying adult conversations with the computer on similar topics.

“I am sorry, but I do not understand how you can change steel to plastic.” the young protested. “I mean, this sounds like the Philosophers Stone. Changing lead to gold kind of deal.”

“Well I could do that too…” Computron assured. “You see, today it is believed that matter is made of atoms. And that atoms are made of electrons, protons and neutrons. In turn each of these are made up from quarks and yadah, yadah, yadah! What scientists are failing to see is that in reality each spatial dot consists of information. A percentage is matter and the reaminder is energy. By carefully moving these percentages up and down you can change matter into energy and vice versa. All you have to know is what is the content of each spatial dot and voila!”

“Well, I’ll be frigging darned! Is that it all?” Avayan mocked the computer. “You make it sound so easy! How come we can not do it?”

“Could you place a computer on top of your desk, or even your lap, 50 years ago?” it was now the computer mocking the other. “Could you fly on top of a big lump of metal 150 years ago? Humans will get to it, you will see.”

“Well… If you say so…” The young conceded.

Avayan looked around. He wanted to run a test on this cool technology he was for the first time engulfing his brains routes with. What could he test it with? A nearby ¼-20 hex nut caught his attention. It was small, but there was no point in trying something big. At this point he had still not fully featured the true meaning of what Computron could do. Soon, just as you, he would!

“Well let’s see. “ Avayan waved the nut in front of the computer screen. “Can you make this nut change to…”

One blue zap later and the metallic nut started to melt on Avayan’s hand. Still it felt cold.

“It’s mercury.” The computer assured. “But don’t worry there is a fine film of a malleable polymer protecting your skin from its toxic properties.”

“Could you make it solid again?” the young wondered. “Something like…”

Once again, the computer interrupted the spectator with the same blue flash as before. In this instant, though the no longer mercury blob had hardened to a metal Avayan would have never seen before. Picking it up on his hand, he noticed the solid blob like piece of metal even had his finger prints imprinted on its sides, right where it had been melting before. His fingers, on the other hand, where not affected at all.

“You are witnessing a metal, not invented yet, future humans will come to call steelium. The sci fi material referred to as adamantium is like rubber compared to this. The computer explained. “Of course you need to pass a carefully controlled electric current to make it as hard…”

Avayan’s curiosity could not be satisfied. So he dropped the solid piece of metal. As soon as it hit the floor, it shattered into a gazillion fragments.

“Impressive! … Most impressive!” Avayan then breathed down like his old time favorite movie character, Darth Vader.

The youngster was now piecing the puzzle together. A computer with the ability to change the constitution of metals and he loved working with them in his machine shop. Could this get any better? He had no idea…

With Machiavellian cynicism, his mind jumpstarted a new daydreaming session.

Avayan is back at the school sitting on a bench at the same time he types a few messages in the computer.

“Get ready, Compu.” He types in Computron IX’s keyboard. “Soon we will have revenge!”

“Of course Master. Whatever you say. I await you orders?” the computer replies on the same screen.

A few seconds later, Xavier zips in as he walks with two gorgeous girls occupying his solid arms.

From a distance, our hero waits for the brigand to grow as close as perfection dictates. And when he is…

“Compu, transform the metal on this scum bucket of evil’s belt into goo!” Avayan types.

The little cannon, comes up again and with a single blue flash, the crime has been perpetrated.

It is in slow motion that Avayan sees Xavier’s pants roll down. The mastodon keeps on walking not noticing his underwear is showing. Eventually, the pants become a tripping hazard and with a single stroke, his nose propels right onto the floor.

Xavier gets up as fast as he can, only to find the entire school laughing at him. Wrestling with his torn pants, he manages to briefly pull them up and run towards the bath room, not before going by the malicious-smile packed Avayan.

Back in reality Avayan, arms up and facing the ceiling, is actually laughing like Dr. Frankestein. Had the dream been any different he would have concluded it with “Its Alive!” Instead his maniacal laughter reverberated by itself in the junk crowded halls of the machine shop.

The computer was close to fear his new master gone crazy. “Hey wake up! What is going on with you, Master? Are you all right?”

Avayan calmed down. “Oh Compu… Is it OK, if I call you Compu?”

“Sure!” she replied.

“We are going to have a blast tomorrow! You see, there is this guy at school and if your metal changing abilities are as good as I think they are, we will…”

“Excuse me master.” The computer interrupted. “But I am afraid you are rather confused. I am not a metal manipulator. I am actually far much more than that!”

“What do you mean?” Avayan frowned.

“Do you have any piece of food left from your school day?”

Not understanding what kind of a relationship his lunch could have with anything else, Avayan opened his brown lunch bag and rustled its content until the single item he would never eat showed up. An Apple! A green one.

“Ah yes!” The computer expressed with gusto. “An Apple is quite appropriate, I must add. It was, as you humans believe, the reason for your race to be expelled from the paradise. And what a fantastic metaphor when it was given to Snow White, its sole purpose to kill her.”

Not certain where the computer was heading to with her literature appreciation moments, Avayan placed the green apple in the table. Was the computer going to cook it or transform it into a delicious dessert? Either way, he did no longer felt like eating it. Not after it had been compared to poison!

“OK here we go!” the computer announced.

The apple started to float in mid air. Revolving in its axis, the computer analyzed its exact molecular content to the spatial dot. Each single piece of information was recorded inside its memory banks and with a single flash…

ZOOM! the apple had been copied into an exact replica. Both apples were now sitting on top of the table. Avayan squeezed his eyes.

“Am sorry Compu, but that last flash blinded me. I am seeing double!”

He was not. There were in reality two apples. He could just not grab the concept yet.

His eyes finally settled in, but it was his brain who would actually deduce the mystery at hand. The apples did made it look like he was seeing double. They were just too perfect. The little tail, every single dot mark and the brand stamp were totally identical. However, everything else in the table, such as screws, drivers and manuals, were exactly as they were before. He was not seeing double and the two apples were not an optical illusion caused by messy eyes. The two apples were just waiting for him.

Could it be a hologram? Avayan grabbed his apple. It still felt like it had done before. Thinking the other apple was some kind of pretty cool reflection, he waved his other hand hoping to see it going through the impressively accurate tri dimensional image. Instead, he felt his fingers hit the apple, almost trampling it into the dirty machine shop floor. Avayan’s reflex were quicker, witch a quick grab later, both of his hands were now holding the exact same thing. Literally!

Finally he was starting to see the truth.

“WHOA! Wait a moment…” Avayan practically peed on himself. His gaze motioned erratically back and forth between both apples. “There are two apples? How did you do this?”

“I explained this earlier, sir!” the computer said. “It is a matter of…”

“Yeah, yeah, I know!” Avayan interrupted. “Changing the information on each dot in the space and transforming matter to energy. And whatever…”

“I think you are getting it, sir!” The computer seemed pleased.

“So you are like a food replicator in the Star Trek series, are you not?” Avayan asked.

“Sir it could be considered an insult to render me just a lame food processor. I can assure you there is far much more I can do than just copy the apple. Now, why don’t you taste them both, and see what I mean?

Avayan looked at the computer skeptically. “Are you nuts? I am not eating this! God knows what you have placed inside. Just a few seconds ago, you were telling me about getting our asses kicked out of paradise and Snow White’s poisoning, for God’s sake!”

“I realize the metaphor was a pretty bad idea on my behalf, Master Avayan” the computer conceded. “But unless I were to suffer from a fetish in which I love to see my victims retort in the middle of the floor after I apply a deadly poison to nearby food, don’t you think that if I wanted to kill you, I would just have left that thief’s knife to stay in its original metal form?”

The computer had a point. But their relationship was just too infant for him to trust her intentions right out of the blue. Avayan sliced both apples with a nearby metallic ruler. It was not too sharp, but it did the job.

Taking both apples apart, Avayan lost track of which apple was his original. Had this been a game of roulette in which his apple was in good shape while the copy had been poisoned, it would have been impossible to keep track of which one it would have been safe to chew on. In essence, this would have amounted to a 50/50 probability of biting the bucket. Once again, Avayan pushed his paranoia aside.

Instead the young man decided to focus on the search for some kind of flaw. To his surprise, as much as the apples were identical on the outside, they were equally indistinguishable from the inside. The seeds, the stem, everything was where it was supposed to be! The only difference he could discern was the very same cut he had placed on each apple. And since it was of his own doing, he could not but to agree the two darn apples were as identical as they could get. Would they taste like it?

Armed with valor, Avayan took a byte on a segment from each apple. It was impossible to tell them apart. In fact, when sampling the second apple, he felt a weird sense of Déjà vu. Had he chewed on that apple earlier? Practically, he had.

“I don’t believe this.” The young was outraged. “These two apples are virtually identical!”

“Not virtually, sir” The computer said. “They are a 100 percent identical! I managed to extract the apple’s information on the space time continuum and made an exact replica. And thanks to my Caigas Project gun, I can basically do the same with practically anything else!”

“Ehhh… a Ca-What?”

“A Caigas Project, sir!” Computron IX continued. “In the not so distant future, one of your scientists will develop a superbly important piece of equipment referred to as the Tetra Dimensional Expander, or TDE. It allows other spatial dimensions to be expanded, granting us the capability to extract information we could not even dare to obtain by just perusing the universe in three dimensions. The Caigas Project utilizes this technology as a mechanism to extract mattergy information we can then use to attain the results you have just witnessed.”

Avayan could only nod as if actually understanding what the computer was explaining. Excited, the computer was amazed she had found such a primitive entity capable of following on such complex topics. “So you see, since time is a dimension in itself, the TDE gives us the ability to control the rate at which we move on said dimension. This is how then we can overcome issued such as the Heisenberg Principle of Uncertainty and gather the spatial dot information from the original, as required to make a perfect copy. We can then do the same in reverse, while we are generating the actual copy.”

Avayan’s eyes remained as opened as incredulous. Was the computer under the impression that a measly teenager could even dare to understand a technology so far ahead the brightest minds on the planet had not even begun to propose as plausible? Seriously, the computer must have realized that just blahbing whatever complete nonsense she could have come up with would have offered the same result.

Somehow, Avayan still felt there was some truth to the complexities his ears were now been bombarded with. “Let me see if I understand this absurdity. You are telling me that you are expanding the space, like zooming into the whatever dots you just talked about, reading the information and then WHAMO! You make a copy? Like copying a file from the net bit by bit?”

The computer had to realize the young man had literally given birth to an explanation as good as it was going to get. It was rather far from the reality, but as she liked to point out, once the end result is the same, however we get there is meaningless. “YUP! You got it!” Although, he had not. It was time to move on…

As the computer prepared its internal processing units to continue with the tutorial, she decided to pause and contemplate the completely concentrated youngster caressing his chin, sight moving wildly from side to side as if fetching instructions from his own brain. “Do you know what this means…” Avayan murmured into mid air.

Of course the computer more than well knew what it all meant. What the teenager was thinking, however, is what she wanted to know.

Avayan stopped his wandering eyes as he fixated pupils at the computer screen, now clearly addressing her. “Do you know what this means?” His voice was now sturdier.

There was silence. Avayan grabbed the computer and grew it as close as possible to  his face just like him and Jay would do to each other when joking around about discoveries. “DO YOU KNOW WHAT THIS MEANS!!!!!!” He was now screaming his lungs off.

The computer had to tune down her perception sensors not to hear the young man scream as in the middle of a Heavy Metal concert. By the time she realized Avayan had placed the computer back on the table she found herself following a frantic boy running from side to side on the big warehouse.

“PHOCKING CRAP I AM RICH!!!!!” Avayan’s excitement was evident.

“Yup, he is nuts! I lost the little guy” The computer said, not knowing whether the next rightful step was to laugh or zap her young master out of his delirium.

Avayan got on top of a Bridgeport Milling Machine table with  a quick jump. It was a big mistake, as such precision equipment does not take such  a jolt likely. It was most likely going to need major recalibration. The young man could care less. He could buy a ship load of these machines now. Grabbing the Z Axis drill handle and screaming into the belt casing, Avayan continued with his frenzy. “I AM RICH, I TELL YOU!!! I AM RICH!!!

How long this nonsense took for, the computer wished she could lost track of. She couldn’t. So At the end, all she could allow herself to do was wait for the natural response of a jackpot to wear off. For a brief instant she wished she could experience such a fantastic trip into the wild, but such a feeling quickly wore off as she realized her life was already a jackpot.

By the time the young man rushed back to the computer, eyes glowing like a 600 Watt incandescent lamp and fixated on his luscious treasure, the apparent adrenaline inrush had been contained. Sweating like a pig and trying to catch his breath, he decided to conclude his workout. “I am frigging rich Compu! Darn it, I can not even believe it!”

“OK Master, that sounds awesome and all, but I truly hope you are not thinking about posting me on that dreadful ebay website, are you?” the computer said with a hint of a joke and genuine concern.

But Avayan knew better. Not even the entire fortune of the top ten Forbes Billionaires could compare to the power he contained in his bare hands. Oh no! If this machine could create perfect replicas, he was already as good as rich! Screw morphing metals and achieving superfluous revenges back at school! All he needed was…

Reaching into his right back pocket, the still shook  up teenager felt his ticket to salvation. A 20 dollar bill. It was not enough to do much these days. But if the computer could copy it, then he could have $40. And if he could copy it once, why not twice? Since the replicas were perfect, it should be evident the new paper money would be totally legal as well. Right? Well for one they would be impossible to tell them apart, and in essence they would be like the same dollar bills the government had created. Why not?

Avayan placed the $20 bill flat in the table. “Here! I want 25 of these!”

“But sir…” the computer was about to oppose when the decided young interrupted.

“Ah, ah! You call me master, which means you have to follow my orders.” Avayan counter attacked totally aware he was leaping into treacherous waters. “Come on, now. I want to see $500!”

“As you wish, Master Avayan!” the computer accepted.

Avayan zoomed in to his cell phone while he looked in amazement his $20 dollar bill floating in mid air. “YES!” just like he had suspected, he was well on his way to riches!

“Jay” Avayan spoke towards the speech activated cell phone, which then speed dialed his best friend’s cell phone number.

Three flashes later, and $60 dollars richer, Jay answered his phone. “What’s up dude?”

“Hey! Are you coming?” Avayan wiped his forehead, excited, $100 richer.

“Darn it! man, I have to wait until my sister’s class is over. This is what happens when I take my dad’s motorcycle without his permission.” Jay replied back over the phone.

“No Jay, this is what happens when you crash your dad motorcycle!” Avayan smirked, hard to say whether it was at his friend’s ironic fate, or his richness materializing in front of his own eyes.

“Ah, whatever, dude! How late will you stay up there?” Jay grimaced back.

“Uhh… Actually I have to go out and run some errands. Maybe we can get started tomorrow?”

The duo kept talking over the phone discussing the logistics for just one tad longer, barely enough for the remainder of the $500 to pop up into existence, new bills slowly floating and waving down towards the table.

Avayan hanged up. “My God! This is really happening. I am filthy rich! YES!” the youngster screamed.

“But sir…” the computer once again tried to warn Avayan about the horrendous mistake he was about to commit.

“We will talk later, Compu. Now we are going shopping!” And in saying so, the teenager shut off the computer top, placed it on his bag and exited the machine shop, with $500 ruffled on his back pocket. He could not remember when was the last time he have had so much cash stuffed into his pants. It almost made it harder to walk out.

The computer could have still talked or even stopped this non sense from happening if she had wanted to. However, she decided to play this game a little bit longer. It was the perfect opportunity to teach the youngster a very important lesson.