The One Eyed Man: King of the Blind

Chapter 1

"Backpack, heel!"

The small metal contraption blinked its sensor with something the young man could have sworn was curiosity. Of course, that was only if the device could perceive such emotions, which Virgil was pretty sure it couldn't. Then again, Backpack was, like its inventor, smarter and more complex than it appeared, so Virgil decided that he should have stopped doubting its capabilities a long, long time ago.

"V, he's not a dog, you know," Richie, Virgil's long-time best friend and nearly constant pain in the ass, said with a roll of his eyes. He didn't bother to look up from the new project he was working on, but he very rarely did.

Virgil had tried every means of distraction he could think of to get Richie to put down the Virgil-touch-that-and-die (or so Richie always seemed to call it) and pick up the video game controller, but none of them had worked. It wasn't that Richie never goofed off; it was just that when he got an idea stuck in his head, it was very hard to pull him away from it.

"Well," Virgil sighed, exasperated by his fruitless efforts with the metallic creature from Hell he'd been grappling with for what seemed like hours (though was, quite possibly, fifteen minutes), "how would you suggest I get it to come down from there?"

Richie glanced up ever briefly from his work, glass-shielded eyes locking with Backpack's little red sensor, and the device, without so much as a word from Richie, skittered down the wall and over to its master's feet.

Virgil shivered a little; it still creeped him out how sophisticated Backpack was and how in-tune it was with Richie. Richie protested adamantly, with words Virgil couldn't spell, define, or frankly remember, whenever Virgil mentioned it, but he could swear the two were psychic. "Psychic" was one of those red-flag words that Virgil had learned would set Richie off in a second.

No, no, no! "Psychic" is completely inaccurate. We blah-dee-blah, smart person mumbo-jumbo, tee-ho.

Virgil had adapted and figured out that if he steadfastly ignored the technobabble bursting from Richie's mouth like the floodgates of all of Heaven and Hell had just been opened, Richie would eventually stop talking about it.

So, instead of commenting on the fact that Richie and the feisty little machine could seemingly have entire conversations with the blink of an eye, Virgil asked, "What's bugging it, anyway?"

Backpack's sensor flitted from Virgil to Richie as if it understood exactly what he was saying. Truth be told, it probably did.

"He's been acting like this all week. There have been some weird readings, but nothing out of the ordinary. Or, should I say, nothing out of the ordinary yet. Maybe Backpack feels something coming that we don't." Once again, Virgil had to vehemently fight the urge to say the word "psychic".

No, no, no, Virgil. Backpack's advanced data storing systems and predication modulators allow blah-blah-blah, he-bee-gee-bee.

Virgil raised an eyebrow at the gadget twittering away at Richie's feet, getting him things before he asked for them. If Richie had seen his incredulity, he probably would have scolded him. It wasn't as if Virgil didn't value Backpack's skills, and it certainly wasn't as if Virgil doubted Richie's prowess as an inventor, but he could just never seem to reconcile himself with a machine so close to artificial intelligence.

Sometimes Virgil wondered if it was jealousy that drove him (Richie did pay a lot of attention to the small device), but he figured it was more to do with the fact that he had seen far too many sci-fi, robots-destroy-the-world movies. Also, that whole incident with Brainiac still gave him the shivers, but only when he knew Richie wasn't looking. Richie didn't want to talk about Brainiac, and Virgil certainly wasn't going to be the one to bring it up.

Suddenly, Backpack perked up and shot away from Richie's feet, scampering over to Virgil and clinging to his leg like a child. It bleeped and buzzed at him venomously, and Richie actually turned away from his latest project.

Huh, Virgil mused in a corner of his mind, so that's what it takes to get Richie away from his tinkering.

Richie quickly shuffled over to his pride and joy, gently prying it away from its perch on Virgil's leg, and muttered, checking the readings and the output and the yes-Virgil-this-is-all-very-important, "What's got your circuits all in a twist?"

Suddenly Backpack's Bang Baby alarm went off. Before Richie and Virgil could even exchange glances, though, Backpack had shut off the alarm. Richie began to examine some strange output that Virgil wasn't sure was physically there so much as being relayed to Richie via no-Virgil-it-is-not-psychic channel, but his inspections were interrupted by the Bang Baby alarm. Once again, Backpack shut off the alarm for a brief moment before it blared for a third and final time, staying on until Richie hit the manual switch.

Virgil's stomach stirred for a fight, fluttering in a fashion much more manly than butterflies. If Backpack was wigged by something… but Richie was slowly shaking his head, placing Backpack back on the ground (Virgil could've sworn he saw Richie pet the thing) and looking at it questioningly.

"I don't know what's going on with him, V. All signs point to normal as ever, but he's acting like it's Armageddon. I don't think there's actually even a Bang Baby attack in progress, not if I'm reading these right (and I never read them wrong)." Richie leaned back toward his pride and joy, raising his eyebrows at the creature in what Virgil was pretty sure was one of their ever-creepy, no-it's-not-telepathy-Virgil conversations. "I'll give him a full sweep. Maybe he caught a bug."

Virgil could practically smell the doubt seeping off his friend. He was tempted to let it lie, but his curiosity got the better of him. "But?"

Richie glanced up at Virgil in what must have been the first time in hours. "Maybe we should check around, anyway. I mean, I usually know when something's wrong with Backpack. I did create him; I know when things aren't functioning right (even if I don't always know why at first)."

Virgil sighed, rolling out his shoulders. "Run your sweep, I'll go do my own. We can meet back up here in a few hours."

Richie's face hadn't lost that contemplating expression, and he nodded vaguely in Virgil's direction, eyes drifting back down to Backpack. Its sensor kept shifting focus from Richie, to Virgil, and back again. "Sounds like a plan, V."

Virgil quickly went about the task of throwing his costume on. He'd gotten quite skilled at the a-bang-baby's-attacking-and-I-need-to-be-there-five-minutes-ago quick-change, and it now only took him two minutes to be changed and flying on his way. Such would probably have been the case then, but Backpack would see none of it. Virgil was just shrugging into his jacket when the contraption jumped on him, quipping and chirping like mad.

"Backpack!" Richie exclaimed, sincerely surprised by Backpack's actions. Quickly regaining his composure, Richie mastered what Virgil called his "dad" look and commanded, "Backpack, stand down."

It was one of those rare exceptions where Richie used verbal commands on Backpack, and those tended to yield immediate results. Still, Virgil couldn't shake the feeling that the little devil was sulking as it made its way back to Richie. It kept flashing its sensor back at Virgil, like it didn't want him to go.

Richie was shaking his head. "What exactly did you think you'd accomplish with that stunt, mister?" he more muttered than spoke.

Richie had a tendency to drift off into conversations with himself. A less desensitized man might have found such behavior a few Cheerios short of a bowl, but Virgil had learned to basically tune it out. Honestly, Virgil didn't even think Richie knew he was doing it. All those thoughts buzzing around in his best friend's head had to go somewhere, and Virgil figured the open and waiting air was as good a place as any (just as long as no one assumed Richie was off his rocker in the process).

Virgil pulled out his disk and jumped on. Backpack whined at him in a high-pitched whir. It was almost enough to stop Virgil. Almost. After all, there were maybe people out there who needed his help. Virgil was a superhero, and maybes were always enough for superheroes.

Virgil flew off, leaving Backpack's complaints behind him, leaving Richie alone.