Sunlight peeked into the darkened room, casting only the slightest glow on the hard wood floor. It was late in the afternoon, and the sun was beginning to set. Rex's room was the prime target for the light, and his only defense was the thick curtains that hung on his window. The light would have annoyed anyone, but being a teenage boy, Rex liked his room dark, so the curtain was always closed. Well, unless Holiday was cleaning the house and opened the curtains herself, but they were always quickly closed by the boy later.
Now the boy was sitting against the wall on his bed, tossing his bouncy ball against the opposite wall. He was lost in thought, the soft thunk thunk of the ball bouncing against the floor and the wall and the click of the ball against his hand for a brief second before it was thrown out again lulled him into his mind.
It had been a week since his last mission. The bandage around his ankle had been removed days ago and only a small square Band-Aid remained over a wound on his side. He had missed two days of school, but quickly returned. Holiday had wanted him to rest another day, though she didn't want him to miss too much of class, and while Rex would have usually loved an extended break from school, he also just wanted to get out of the house.
'Things are finally starting to come together.' The words repeated over and over like a taunt in Rex's head. He was never good with emotions. Beating bad guys up? Yeah, he could do that. Taking his frustration out on a dummy in the Providence Gym? Easy peasy! But these were feelings he couldn't just beat out of himself.
Everything was changing. Some of these changes were good—he had a bigger room, more time to hang out with Bobo and Noah, and he lived close to most of his friends. Six and Holiday seemed to be doing really great too. Holiday loved her job at the hospital lab and she was sure she was getting close to breakthrough in her cancer research. The two adults also had more time to spend together now that they were roommates. Six seemed pleased with the reduced hours and appeared happy to leave behind the extra stress that comes with living where you work.
Rex was ripped away from his thoughts as Bobo, his trusty monkey sidekick came strolling lazily into the room. The primate saw his friend still sitting against the wall where he had left him hours ago to go for a walk. He signed and hopped up next to Rex.
"Alright kid, cut the crap and spill." Bobo said gruffly. Although it certainly didn't sound like it, he cared.
Rex paused for a moment, but finally sighed heavily and caught the ball he had tossed a moment before, and set it down next to him.
"Everything is changing."
Bobo let out a scoff. "Wow, what an amazing observation, Doctor. Please, tell me more," he said in a sarcastic tone. Being compassionate wasn't his strong point, so when Rex shot him a stern glare, the boy didn't really expect him to change his behavior.
"Thanks," Rex said dryly, but he also knew that somewhere, deep down, Bobo had a point. If Rex was going to open up about his feelings, he couldn't be so cryptic.
"It's just…" Rex struggled to find the words. "I don't think I can handle all of these new expectations of me."
Bobo raised an eyebrow. "So, you can fight EVOs and bad guys, but you can't do a little homework and clean the bathroom?"
Rex shook his head. "No, it's not like that. It's just… Holiday wants me to have a normal life. But what I don't think she gets is that, for as long as I can remember, I've never been normal! I can only remember the past six years, and for those six years I've been crime fighting, bad guy stopping, taco eating Rex!" He picked up his bouncy ball and studied it intensely, as though it would give him all the answers he needed. "Now Holiday wants me to be studious Rex. Go to school Rex. Don't flush my underwear down the toilet Rex." He cracked a small smile at that last one.
"To be fair," Bobo said with a hearty laugh. "I think she's always wanted you to be 'don't flush my underwear down the toilet Rex.'"
Rex returned the laugh, albeit a little weaker than normal. "Yeah. But yeah. I guess that's kinda it." He shrugged his shoulders and tossed his ball against the wall again, catching it, and then setting it down once more. "You know, I bet my parents sent me to school." He said, gazing over to his window.
"Are you sure about that?" his friend teased.
"Yeah, I'm sure." The boy cracked a small, wistful smile. "I bet they helped me with homework and cooked for me. Just like Holiday. Well…" Rex thought before sticking his tongue out a little. "They might have been a little better at the cooking. But, I don't want to disappoint her. I know she wants me to be safe. But I'm not that kind of guy. Maybe I would have been if everything hadn't happened, but now." Rex shrugged and finally looked over at Bobo. "Now I'm me. I can't change that."
Later that evening, Rex, Holiday, and Bobo sat around the table having dinner. No one mentioned where Six was, but they all knew. He had been asked to come help Providence with another issue, but didn't feel the need was great enough to take Rex. Holiday didn't want to tell Rex that Six had gone without him as she worried he would be hurt. She also had no idea that Rex had heard the conversation from a few nights prior.
Rex helped clean up and Holiday asked him about his school project due in the next week. Rex promised he would get it done before the end of the night and retreated to his room.
"You're not seriously going to do that project, are you?" Bobo asked as he waltzed into Rex's room. Rex smiled slightly and shook his head. Of course not. The project was due next week. So, obviously, that meant he would do it next week!
"Then let's go have a little fun." A wicked smile spread across Bobo's lips and he grinned at the boy. Rex could tell the monkey had something interesting planned, but he knew better than to flat out ask. All Bobo would tell him was "it's a surprise" and "come with me and you'll fine out." So, Rex pushed back his curtains and opened the window. He placed his hands on the sill and dangled out the window for a moment, allowing his lower legs to morph into a hovercraft. Once he was steady in the air, Bobo hopped onto his shoulders and the two went flying off into the darkening evening sky.
"What do you think Six went to go investigate?" Rex mused to his friend as they soared through the night. Although the adrenaline wasn't pumping the way it had the week before, Rex enjoyed the feeling of the wind softly whipping his face and the sight of cities going by in a blur. This, he felt, was freedom.
Bobo shrugged. "Probably something stupid." He answered vaguely. He was right, though. Rex had noticed that after the whole EVO scare was finished, the other missions just didn't seem… dangerous. Sure, last week that robot got him good, but he blamed being severely out of practice. After rounding up a few baddies that other law enforcement couldn't get, he lost his touch for fighting and let his guard down. He didn't want that to happen again.
"I hope he's alright." Rex let slip out. He cared for the man as though he were a father. And, really, Six was the only father he could remember. Together with Holiday, they formed a family Rex never thought he'd have. Sure, their so-called parenting styles could be erratic, but Rex was grateful for them anyway. Besides, when they joined Providence, he was sure they weren't anticipating becoming glorified babysitters. They made do, and they did their best.
"Hey, look down there!" Bobo pointed down below. Rex hadn't noticed before, as he was too busy looking ahead towards the sky, but they had left the cities and towns far behind and they were now in the middle of a desert. Rex saw a thin trail of smoke coming from something that couldn't be seen clearly from the height they were at. But, what Rex did notice was the outline of a jump ship that looked all too similar to one that Providence owned.
"We should check it out!" Bobo said excitedly, always looking for adventure. Rex hesitated. If Six found him there, he was going to be in gigantic trouble! But, it did look interesting. Something was going on and Rex's boyish curiosity got the better of him.
Without another word, Rex headed down towards the sight. As Rex neared, his excited curious smile turned into a deep frown. There were Providence ships all over the place, but no one to be found. Then, he started making out the small dots on the ground.
Soldiers.
Providence soldiers to be exact. Rex couldn't tell from that height whether they were unconscious or dead. As he came closer, he began to dissolve the lower half of his legs back into his regular, human legs. He and Bobo plopped to the ground and the two began to look around. Rex instinctively began searching the sea of grey for any sign of green. He didn't know if he was relieved or even more concerned when he didn't see what he was looking for.
Around them was long stretches of desert, but directly in front was a large rock formation. Rex couldn't tell if the rock itself was man-made, but there was a large grey door carved into the side of the rock. It looked similar to a tin or aluminum garage door, but much larger, at least 30 feet tall.
"What happened here? And what's that?" Rex asked pointing to the rock. He didn't actually expect Bobo to have any idea what was going on, but his question expressed just how appalled he was at the destruction saw before him.
Bobo, as expected, shrugged his shoulders. "Well?" the money said. "Are we gonna go in? Or are we gonna stand here like a bunch of babies and wait for someone else to kick some butt?" He glanced up at Rex with a mischievous smile. While Rex wanted some adventure, but also honestly wanted to help people, Bobo's wants were a little more self-fulfilling. Sure, he didn't want anyone to die, but he was mostly motivated by the sense of adventure.
Rex actually paused for a minute. Something had taken out all of these Providence soldiers. Although they sometimes seemed like weak grunts, these guys were trained as hard, if not harder than secret agents or FBI recruits. For once the usually confident boy wasn't sure if he could handle such a dangerous enemy. He had been out of practice for a while, and taking on large enemies always took lots and lots of training.
But he couldn't find Six, and he was sure his mentor was here somewhere. If the threat was this big and had taken out this many soldiers, there was no way Providence wouldn't send their best out there. He needed to find him. That was what how he found himself nodding as he and Bobo broke into a run and ran towards the rock-lair.
The cavern was dimly lit by old lights that buzzed loudly and flickered every other second. Rex and Bobo made their way down the makeshift hallway as they had been for the last few minutes. Whoever had built this had one certain purpose in mind—or couldn't carve into the rock—as there were no offshoot hallways. Just one, long, hall that seemed to go on forever.
Suddenly, Rex noticed a dot of light that didn't appear to come from one of the lamps on the wall. As the two walked down the hall, it seemed to be getting bigger.
"Hey, I think that's the end of the tunnel." Rex whispered to Bobo as quietly as he could because if he spoke any louder, it would echo throughout the cavern.
They slowed their pace and stared at the light so that their eyes would adjust quicker from the dim cavern to the sharp brightness of whatever was at the end of this tunnel. It looked like some sort of lab, completely covered in white which made the adjustment from dark to light even more difficult to get used to.
Rex stood flat against the cavern wall and peered out into the room. As noted, it was decked out in white and grey, from the walls to the ceilings to even most of the equipment. Rex couldn't make out anything that made the lab unique. All of the machines seemed to have different uses and none made Rex absolutely sure of what kind of lab he was about to walk into.
Bobo on the opposite wall gave a thumbs up, indicating that no one seemed to be there. Rex mirrored the gesture, as he had not seen anyone from his vantage point. The two crept out into the room. Bobo went to look at the machines while Rex walked around. The room was circular in shape, so Rex took it slow to ensure there he was not snuck up upon.
Then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw a flash of green on the ground. Without thinking, he ran over to where Six was lying. His sunglasses had managed to stay perfectly on his face, but Rex was sure he was unconscious. He dropped to the ground and felt for a pulse, breathing a sigh of relief when he found one. He glanced around for Bobo, but he wasn't in eyesight.
"Six?" Rex whispered, shaking the man. "Hey, brah wake up!" To his delight, the man groaned and slowly sat up. Rex put a hand on his back to help and tried to peer into his eyes as best he could with the glasses covering them. "Six, what happened here? What is this place? What's going on?"
Rex should have known better than to ask a ton of questions since he wasn't going to get answers, but he couldn't help himself. His heart was beating in his chest so quickly, and he didn't even stop to relish in the feeling of adrenaline pulsing through him.
"What are you doing here?" Six asked and Rex could tell his eyes were narrowing behind his glasses. The man stood up shakily and Rex followed, trying to find some sort of puncture wound or blood, but there was none. What had knocked Six out in the first place was still a mystery.
"Bobo and I went on a ride and we saw all these soldiers outside and everyone was hurt." Rex explained. Even though this was obviously a serious situation, Rex wanted to paint himself in the best light possible, so he left out the whole sneaking out part. For most kids, finding themselves in the throws of danger would probably cancel out any wrong doing on their part for their parents. For Rex, it was 2 weeks grounded.
The man silently cocked an eyebrow but figured the rest of the story would come out later. For now, they had to go. "We need to get out of here."
"What is this place?" Rex asked.
"I don't have time to explain it now," Six sighed and grabbed Rex by the arm. "Let's go. Where's the chimp?"
"Right here!" Bobo appeared from behind one of the machines. "Hey, you know all these things are different kinds of machines? Like medical equipment to computer software. Nothing seems to go together."
Six nodded as though he already knew all of this. He led the other two towards the cavern again and glanced around. He pulled both Rex and Bobo against the wall and glared at both of them. "You shouldn't be here." He said. "It's dangerous. We have a suspect who is trying to create machines that can do serious damage."
"Like the giant robot thing?" Rex said, referencing the past few giant robot outbreaks.
"No." Six said simply. "These machines can do damage from your phones or computers." He realized he was making almost no sense. "Look, we need to get out of here. I can explain on the way back home."
Rex groaned. Holiday was going to kill them. Six noticed and put a hand on his shoulder. "I'll talk to her." He owed him that much. If Rex hadn't come by when he did, well… Who knows who would have found him instead.
"What happened to you anyway?" Rex asked as the three made their way back through the cavern.
"A machine started fighting me." Six explained. "I got stuck with something. I don't know what." Rex nodded.
"You should probably have Dr. Holiday check you out." Rex said. "I wish we knew who did this. Machines that take over the world. That's kinda like EVOs, right? Just without turning the humans into monsters part. But hey! I can talk to machines! I can make them stop, so I can help!"
Six didn't respond. He knew Holiday would kill him if he dragged Rex into this. But, the kid had a point. They didn't know what they were facing—no one had gotten in that far. All they knew was that there had been reports of someone creating machines that could harm people and Providence went in. With all these giant robot outbreaks, they had to take each report seriously. But, if Rex could talk to machines, that would make everything a lot easier. They could end this before it began.
But Six didn't have a chance to voice his concerns before his vision went dark and he crashed to the ground.
I had more time to procrastinate and this came out. I'm not sure where the story is going exactly, but I'll figure it out and I have a couple ideas. I hope it's not too boring-I tend to second guess myself on creating my own plot points. I assure you, though, I'll finish it.
Thanks for the reviews! I appreciate the interest. It's been a while since I've written a multi-chapter fanfiction (5 years) so this should be interesting.
Thanks again and please leave feedback if you have the chance!
