"You're accusing my child of what!" A woman blurted out.
Auto smiled briefly before returning to complete focus. He had attached a small radio transmitter into his mother's wedding ring in fear of a situation like this, and now he found that the investment had paid off.
He sat on the steps of a library pretending to listen to music while reading a book. In reality, he was listening in on his mother being interrogated by the police. Unfortunately, it was his fault.
But at this time, that didn't matter. What mattered is how this had come to pass. He had never been caught before, and now with no leads and no information that he was privy of, and he had access to everything going in and out of the police station, his mother had been taken into police custody with apparently enough information to be able to detain her. Things simply didn't add up.
"Mrs. Sommers, we have ample evidence of your son's misbehaviors from school and now we have enough evidence to show that he has been robbing banks throughout the city. Do you understand Mrs. Sommers? Millions of dollars have been stolen by your child, and we have a fantastic lead. So please do tell us where your son is at the moment. This is a matter of public security, after all."
Strange. Auto wiretapped into this police department all the time, and he had never heard this man's voice before. He would have to get home and check the camera's to see if the man even looked familiar.
"If you have so many leads wouldn't you know where he is?" Auto's mother replied sharply. "Why do people always assume the mothers know where their child is? It would be fantastic, but in practical application it's an invasion of the children's privacy. Who knows where he is? He should have been at school today."
"We checked the school; he left due to sickness moments before we arrived. Were you the one who picked him up?"
"Does it look like I picked him up? We don't even have a car for the gods' sake."
Auto chuckled as he pretended to turn a page of the book to reinforce his alibi.
The investigator sighed. "Ma'am, how about you just tell us a little bit about your son? Maybe it will help us find him."
Auto's mother sat silent for a while and it worried Auto. He didn't mind if she would just tell them everything about him. He would be fine. The only thing that worried him was if she would come out alright.
"Well, what do you want to know?" She replied cautiously.
"Well, what are some of his hobbies?"
"He likes building stuff. Well, not exactly, more like disassembling things and putting them back together. He loves puzzles and brain twisters."
"Oh really? How about school?" The man's voice hinted a lack of focus. He must be focusing on something else entirely. The connection was getting strangely fuzzy. Strange, it shouldn't have been.
"His grades are top marks but he has an attention disorder so things are difficult for him. Unfortunately, he's the type of kid who spends more time figuring out how to cheat on a test than actually studying for it. He's been successful, though, as his grades show."
There was a long silence and Auto's heart began to beat faster. It was all too strange. His mind was racing as to how he could have been found out in the first place. Maybe this was all just a bluff and they were expecting him to be listening in on these conversations, but there was no way they should have known, and none of his rigged surveillance cameras within the police station had recorded anything.
"Monsters…Rain Man!" His mother seemed to choke out before static overtook the connection.
Auto's heart dropped. Rain Man was his nickname that he got from the movie of the same name. It was code. His mother was telling him that he had to run. Fast.
Nothing about the day so far had made sense. It was as if his mother had predicted these circumstances. Before breakfast was even served she had called him Rain Man instead of Auto. It was a nickname of his that he gained because he could always disappear, run away… escape when he and his friends would get into trouble – as if he didn't exist. As if he was an imaginary friend in the first place.
She had talked about something being late. Something should have already happened but Auto had been too sleepy to pay much attention. His mother had barked some commands while he ate serial that he honestly didn't pay attention to. He just nodded. The only thing he really remembered clearly was "You make it to camp, okay?"
He shook his head and he was back to reality. Auto looked around to see if there was anyone watching. Nothing. He stood up, took off his headset and started walking casually away. The second he reached the corner of the library he turned and broke out into a fast paced walk and entered the metro. It would be harder for any pursuers to locate him during rush hour in the Manhattan subway.
As he slipped through the crowds his hands went to work. He didn't even have to think about his hands carefully reaching into people's pockets, grabbing their wallets, checking them for cash and then placing them back. All while walking at a quick pace through hundreds of people. Not all of them had easily accessible pockets, but there were enough that by the time he made it to the ticket machine he found nearly two hundred dollars in the rear pockets of his jeans.
Auto turned around while glancing for any pursuers. He had simply always had a knack for knowing who was after him, and how to get away. But there was no one.
Just to be safe he exited at the same station but a different entrance and decided that he would make it to his safe house.
The safe house was a small apartment he had bought for himself for situations like these, situations which he had hoped would never happen. He had bought the apartment for a little over a hundred thousand dollars in cash using a well-known but corrupt lawyer to sign the deal on his behalf. He told his mother that it was owned by a rich friend of his, but he was sure she didn't believe him and in a situation like this he figured he had to get there and empty it before the authorities would find anything. Not like there was any money or anything, but there was a large amount of paperwork and plans that he had drawn out or forged that Auto decided he didn't really want the authorities to find.
Auto entered the building and ran up the stairs. When he reached the fifth floor he slowed down and made sure there was no one around. He fiddled with the lock and entered the apartment and proceeded to quickly lock the four locks on the inside of the door.
He looked around, it didn't look like it had been entered but he walked through it just in case. It was an empty apartment; the only indications of occupation being the random papers sprawled all over the floor. Auto quickly packed all of the papers into his backpack. If anything, he would burn it as soon as he found himself a good place to lay low for a while.
As he was finishing a small black object on the windowsill caught his eye. It hadn't been there moments before…Or maybe he just overlooked it. Either way it was something to be worried about. He approached, the phone as he found to it be, with caution. However it had gotten there, it wasn't left by him. And he was the only person with access to the apartment. And if anyone had entered, his security system should have picked it up and notified him.
"Oh get over here, Auto! We're tired of waiting." A man's voice hissed from the phone.
Auto froze.
"Yes yes, dear. We haven't got all day. You really should be in a hurry." A woman's voice hissed from the phone again.
"You shouldn't hurry him, Martha!"
"You were the one that started it, George!"
Auto simply stood there and blinked. He couldn't tell whether this was a joke or not. It seemed nearly comical as the two hissing voices continued arguing as he stood there. He looked down as he shook his head.
Those were not the shoes he had been wearing all day. He had no idea where they came from but those were definitely not his shoes. They looked like Puma's but they had wings imprinted on them. How lame was that? He would have never bought those shoes.
Auto looked back at the phone that was still arguing with itself. This was all so bizarre. His usually logical mind didn't even know what to do. Should he be worried? Yes of course he should be worried. He was going insane and even he could tell.
"Oh you're not going insane, dear. It's perfectly normal to be confused." Martha replied.
Great. He was a goner, his own illusions were telling him he wasn't crazy.
"Snap out of it kid." George commanded.
The phone started to morph until it turned into a pole with wings branching out with two snakes twirled around it. Then the snakes started to move.
"Pleased to meet you Auto, son of Hermes." The two snakes hissed together. "We are George and Martha, a present from your father."
What had he smoked? Auto thought to himself. Did he get drugged without knowing it? How? When? He closed his eyes in focus and let his mind race to try to find an explanation. Suddenly he felt a sharp pain above his ankle. As if two needles jabbed him. He looked down and found the wound to be bleeding slightly. He reached down and wiped the blood.
"You're real…" Auto whispered under his breath.
"Yes, we are. And so are those shoes you've managed to get ahold of. Two presents at once, how strange, how rare…." Martha chided.
"No time to dawdle." George commanded. "It's time to go."
"Where?" Auto asked. He felt light headed, as if he was stuck in between a dream and reality. Something heavy appeared in his hand and when he looked down he found the phone in his left hand.
"Why to Camp Half-Blood of course." Martha announced as if the answer had been obvious.
A slamming noise from outside his door sobered him quickly.
"I can smell him!" A husky voiced called from outside his door. "He's really in there!"
"Do you have a way out of here other than that door?" George asked Auto.
"Yeah, fire escape." Auto silently moved across the room and opened the window as he heard one of his locks unhinge. Impossible. There was no way they could unlock it from the outside. He tried to look back to see how it was being done but Martha's voice brought him back to focus.
"We have to run! You're in no condition to take them on!"
"Take who on?" Auto asked as he fought the urge to get a quick glance and slid quickly down fire escape. Strange, he must have spent over six hours at that apartment, it was already dark outside. Yet it had only felt like a few minutes at most.
"Cyclopes'" The two snakes replied in unison.
"What?" Auto asked an immediately the phone made a beeping sound and took him to a wikipedia page about Cyclopes.
He hit the ground. "What is this Half Blood Camp, wait no, never mind, just how do I get there?" Maybe this was the camp his mother had been talking about. Oh how he wished he was more of a morning person.
"You run, duh!" George replied.
"WHAT?" Auto replied. He was in the middle of Manhattan and the snakes were telling him to run to some camp in the middle of the woods?
"Your shoes child! Your shoes!" Martha hissed as sounds of crashing windows came from above him.
"I don't understand what you mean! These aren't even mine!" Auto almost shouted back at the phone. He was confused, frustrated and he had just made a big mistake.
"There he is!" Screamed a voice from above and Auto bolted. He didn't care where he was running at this point. He just didn't want to be Cyclopes dinner. Immediately he wondered why he thought they were going to eat him.
It took him a moment to realize just how fast he was going. Entire blocks of the city were passing him by as if he was driving passed cones at the side of the highway. It was as if he was moving as fast as…
"The wind." Finished George. "Now you're moving!" There was a tone of pride and acceptance in those words and Auto couldn't help but smile. It was as if this is what he was made to do. He wasn't getting tired, his feet didn't hurt and he wasn't out of breath. There was just the wind and he, running side by side.
"Rain Man!" Auto immediately came out of his trance and stopped.
"Finally, we've been calling at you for ages." Martha sighed.
"Sorry…I kind of spaced out." Auto replied while looking down at his shoes again. He still couldn't really believe that he had run so far. So fast.
He now found himself on a sandy beach. He seemed to be in the middle of nowhere yet he had a strange feeling; nostalgia, as if he had been there before. Like this was the place he was supposed to be. Yet he knew he had never been there.
The waves in front of him surged and he found himself standing face to face with a slightly taller, black haired, green eyed kid maybe a year older than him.
And he was dry.