Hiya!
Thanks to everyone who reviewed and gave me feedback on the Sims versions of my characters!
Anyways, here's chapter 4:D
Chapter 4: Investigating.
After Ember had walked back into FutureGate, she started making her way back to the lair, having a feeling that that was where Caleb would be. Sure enough, when Ember walked into the lair maybe 20 minutes later, she found that Caleb was sitting behind the computer, digging through the FutureGate mainframe.
"Is it done?" Caleb asked without looking up.
"Yeah, it's done." Ember replied. "There's no way that Neuros will be able to come back now."
"Good." Caleb said coldly.
Ember sighed as she stared at Caleb's back, just by the way Caleb was sitting behind the computer, she could tell that he was angry about something. She walked over to him and wrapped her arms around him from behind.
"What is it?" Ember asked, looking over Caleb's shoulder at the screen.
"Nothing." Caleb replied. "I'm fine."
"You don't look fine." Ember replied. "Come on, tell me. I can't help you if you don't."
"Alright." Caleb sighed. "I've been having dreams."
"Dreams?" Ember repeated.
"Yeah, dreams." Caleb replied, turning around as Ember let go of him. "It's really weird I can't remember them half of the time."
"Okay..." Ember said slowly. "What are these dreams about?"
"I don't know." Caleb replied. "That's what I can't remember. It's kind of scary if I'm honest."
"I can understand that." Ember nodded. "How long has this been going on?"
"I don't know." Caleb shrugged.
Ember raised an eyebrow at him, she could see from the way he was avoiding her eyes that Caleb was lying.
"How long has this been going on?" Ember repeated, folding her arms over her chest.
"Maybe 3 months?" Caleb admitted, looking down at the ground.
"3 months?" Ember repeated. "Really? Have you told Cybele about this?"
"Not really." Caleb said, looking uncomfortable.
"Why not?" Ember asked.
"I didn't want to make her worry." Caleb replied.
"Caleb, Cybele cares about you." Ember smiled softly leaning down a little so she could look him in the eye as she put a hand on his shoulder. "I think you'd only end up worrying her more if you didn't tell her about you having dreams you can't remember, especially if they scare you."
"Cybele would probably tell me to ignore them anyway." Caleb said.
"Maybe, but she should know about this." Ember urged gently. "Don't get me wrong, you don't have to go tell her right now, but she has to know sooner or later."
"Alright." Caleb nodded. "I will."
Ember smiled before patting Caleb on the shoulder.
"So, what are you looking for?" she asked as Caleb turned back to the screen again.
"I'm trying to find as much information on my parents as I can." Caleb replied.
"Right." Ember nodded.
She could understand that. If she'd been in Caleb's shoes, she would've wanted to find out as much as she could about her parents too.
"I met your mum back in 2010." Ember remarked which made Caleb look up. "I kind of felt sorry for her... her parents keep dragging her to all these fancy dinner parties. She keeps being ignored the whole time..."
"That's horrible." Caleb shook his head.
"I know." Ember replied. "I've got to admit, it was kind of weird meeting her, but she was really nice."
Ember watched as Caleb just nodded silently before looking over his shoulder again.
"Ember?" Caleb asked.
"Yeah?" Ember replied.
"I'm remembering things too." Caleb stated.
"You remember things?" Ember repeated. "How do you mean?"
"Things from before I was frozen." Caleb replied.
Ember stared at Caleb for a moment; she didn't know what to say to that at all. What did you say to someone who was starting to remember things from his previously unknown past?
"Do... do you want to talk about it?" Ember asked, not sure what to say otherwise.
"I'm not sure what there is to talk about." Caleb shrugged. "so far I only remember being frozen..."
"Well, that's a good thing." Ember remarked which got her an odd look. "I mean... I don't mean the freezing process itself, but if you're starting to remember it, maybe your other memories will resurface too."
"Maybe, I don't know." Caleb shrugged. "I don't think I want to remember."
"You don't want to remember?" Ember asked in surprise.
She hadn't expected that response from Caleb. She thought he'd be happy to remember stuff about his parents.
"Why wouldn't you want to remember?" Ember asked. "I mean, you'll remember about what your parents were like, that's what you want right? Knowing what they were like?"
"But I'll also remember what it was like to be sick." Caleb replied. "You saw the scans. I was really sick, that's why they gave me cybernetics."
"But that's just a small part of your memories." Ember said, pulling up a chair beside Caleb. "Would you really want to give up on remembering what your parents were like because of the fact that a small part of your memories are going to be horrible?"
"I don't know." Caleb shrugged.
Ember smiled sadly as she watched Caleb. To her he reminded her of a frightened little boy at that moment.
"It's going to be alright." Ember said as she hugged Caleb. "You'll see. We'll figure something out. Try not to worry about that, alright?"
"Yeah, alright." Caleb replied as he hugged Ember back. "Thanks, Ember."
"That's what friends are for." Ember replied, smiling a little even though Caleb couldn't see before letting go of him.
Caleb just smiled slightly before turning to look at the screen of the computer again.
"So, you managed not to take out your frustrations on this one then?" Ember grinned, trying to lighten the mood a little.
"Not yet." Caleb replied, grinning back at her.
"Well, if you smash it, I'm not going to fix it, so watch it." Ember jokily warned.
"What were you going to do, granny?" Caleb smirked.
"Oi!" Ember complained, lightly hitting Caleb on the arm. "Stop calling me granny!"
"But you are." Caleb grinned.
"Shut it." Ember shook her head. "Never heard of respecting your elders?"
"Someone did tell me that once." Caleb said thoughtfully before grinning at Ember again.
"You're unbelievable." Ember shook her head.
She walked over to her backpack and pulled it open before pulling out her laptop. She walked back over to the computer and connected a LAN cable to her laptop so she'd be able to get into the FutureGate mainframe herself. It didn't take her that long to get access to it before she started going through the system to see whether the messages were cut short because of a malfunction.
An hour of Caleb and Ember working in comfortable silence, later, Ember sighed as she leaned back against her chair and ran her hand through her hair, flicking her bangs out of her eyes as she did.
"Bugger..." she muttered.
"What's wrong?" Caleb asked.
"Well, I've been running a system diagnostic of the link we've been using to talk to each other, but I can't find anything wrong with it." Ember replied. "I can't find any reason why the messages have been cut short, everything is working properly, or it should be at any rate."
"That's really weird." Caleb remarked.
"I know." Ember nodded thoughtfully as she crossed her arms over her chest. "I don't know about you, but this isn't sitting well with me at all. Why would the messages be cut in half if everything is in working order? Unless someone's messing with them, but that's not possible, Neuros is gone."
"You're right, that's a scary thought." Caleb agreed. "I don't like it."
"Me neither..." Ember shook her head thoughtfully. "I'm going to run one more diagnostic... maybe I missed something the first time around."
Ember got back to work again and another hour later, she had finished the second diagnostic, but again she got the result that there was nothing wrong with the system. There shouldn't be anything that was cutting the messages short, yet they were. It didn't make sense to Ember at all and that was bothering her.
Ember leaned back against her seat as she thought about why the message could've been cut short when she felt a hand on her shoulder, making her jump. On instinct she span around, ready to lash out but she stopped herself when she saw that it was Caleb. Ember let out a breath in relief, thinking that being back on FutureGate was making her more jumpy than it should.
"It's alright." Caleb grinned. "It's just me."
"Don't do that when I'm thinking!" Ember exclaimed to which Caleb started to laugh. "It's not funny! You frightened the life out of me!"
"Yeah, I can tell." Caleb smirked. "You're turning gray. I can see a gray hair right there."
"Oh, you're so heading into dangerous territory." Ember smirked back. "I'll get you back for that, you realize that don't you?"
"I'd like to see you try." Caleb grinned.
"Is that a challenge?" Ember asked, raising an amused eyebrow.
"Maybe." Caleb shrugged.
"Well, challenge accepted." Ember replied before grinning. "You're going to wish you never challenged me."
"Bring it on." Caleb stated.
"Alright, alright." Ember laughed. "I think that's enough fun for the moment. What's up?"
"Nothing just thought you might be hungry." Caleb replied.
"Oh, no thanks." Ember shook her head. "You eat if you want. Where did you set up the time link?"
"The command deck." Caleb replied. "Why?"
"Well, I'm thinking maybe the problem isn't in the operating program, but in the mechanics itself." Ember replied. "So I'm going to go check it out."
"I'll come with you." Caleb said putting the banana he was about to start eating aside.
"You sure?" Ember asked as she closed her laptop and pulled out the LAN wire.
"Yeah." Caleb nodded.
Ember nodded and let Caleb lead the way to the command deck when they got there, Caleb showed Ember to where the link had been set up.
"Alright, let's have a look." Ember said more to herself than to Caleb.
She sat down on the ground beside the machine and opened her laptop before plugging in the cable into an outlet.
"Do you know what you're doing?" Caleb asked.
"Not really." Ember admitted. "But I'm not going to break anything, don't worry. I'm just running a harmless system's check."
"Alright." Caleb nodded.
The two of them sat side by side as the diagnostic ran and a while later, the results came in.
"Nothing wrong?" Caleb asked. "That's not possible."
"I know." Ember nodded. "This isn't right. We both know something's going on, so why can't we find it? It just doesn't fit."
Ember ran her hands over her face as she leaned back against the console to think.
"Any ideas?" Ember asked, turning to Caleb.
"No, you?" Caleb replied.
"None whatsoever..." Ember shook her head. "I don't know... maybe it was just a temporary malfunction and we're just overreacting."
"I don't know." Caleb replied thoughtfully. "I mean, there are some sinister things going on around here."
"You mentioned that." Ember nodded. "But what kind of things?"
"Well, mostly stuff like things disappearing from the lair, the computer being on with stuff on the screen that I never asked for. It's a bit creepy to be honest."
"Stuff has gone missing?" Ember asked. "What kind of stuff?"
"Bio-Rods mostly." Caleb replied. "Some tools, that's it."
"That's weird..." Ember said thoughtfully. "You're the only person here on FutureGate..."
"I know." Caleb replied.
Ember sighed as she flicked her bangs from her face. The more information she got, the more she felt that there was something wrong. To tell the truth, Ember felt that the whole situation was just getting creepier by the second.
"So, what do we do now?" Ember asked. "Sitting here isn't going to do... wait... I just got an idea!"
"Mind telling me?" Caleb asked as Ember started to type.
"I just remembered." Ember replied as she kept typing. "The first time I hacked into the mainframe, I saw this program that can track live forms on FutureGate. At first I was kind of surprised when I found it, I mean, Neuros could've used it to find us, but it was buried so deep into the system she probably didn't have time to go looking for it, or she didn't know it existed."
"Ember, I'm starting to get confused." Caleb stated, looking confused.
"Sorry, I tend to ramble a bit sometimes." Ember apologized. "The point is that with that program, I can see if there's someone else on FutureGate other than the two of us, Cybele and a load of dead Roboidz and Shades."
"That's brilliant." Caleb remarked, looking over Ember's shoulder. "Any results yet?"
"Easy there, Speedy Gonzales." Ember smiled. "I might be a fast runner but that doesn't mean that that fast when it comes to typing."
"Sorry." Caleb smiled sheepishly. "Got a little carried away."
"It's okay; we all have that problem sometimes." Ember smiled before looking back at the screen. "And the results are in! Oh..."
"Oh?" Caleb repeated. "What does that mean, 'oh'?"
"Oh as in, no results." Ember replied, leaning back again. "Bugger..."
"And no results would mean...?" Caleb asked.
"It's just us, Cybele, and a load of dead Roboidz and Shades on FutureGate. Not another person or life form on the entire ship..." Ember sighed. "In other words, we've got nothing to go on."
She glanced over at Caleb when he sighed too before the two of them leaned back against the console. Neither of them knew what they were supposed to do now, but they both knew that there was something going on in FutureGate that wasn't good at all, the only problem was that they didn't know what it was or how to find out what it was.
So that is it for chapter 4, hope you enjoyed it!
The next one should be up in a few days.
As always let me know what you think:P
~ Abby