Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot of this story.
Chapter Four
Seeing is Believing
Cameron yawned and turned to a new page in his notebook. He had finished a drawing of Aelita, and now felt like doodling something else while the lab worker from the power plant droned on, and on, and on about energy or something like that. He snapped out of his reverie when Jeremie moved next to him, raising a hand.
"Sir, is there an atomic process for fusing virtual particles, and materializing them in the real world?"
"Uh, I'm afraid that lies solely in the realm of science fiction, sorry."
Mrs. Hertz walked forward to lay a hand on Jeremie's shoulder, "Mr. Belpois is an excellent student, but he's also a bit of a dreamer."
Odd, Ulrich, and Cameron turned around and coolly regarded the class at the uproar of laughter that followed. The class shut up in time for the three of them to turn back to the front, and see the projector stop working. Jeremie stiffened at the occurrence, which drew Cameron's attention back into the real world from his new drawing – this one was a sketch of his original picture, as well as Aelita's old doll, Mr. Puck.
Wow, I can't remember a word of Italian, and in History, I might as well sleep through the class, but I can remember what my adoptive sister's doll looked like, down to the last hair. Cameron thought, as he finished sketching in Mr. Puck's scarf. It's not exactly a Mona Lisa, but I haven't seen the thing in ten years, so it shouldn't exactly be a perfect rendition.
As the bell rang, Cameron noticed that Jeremie was fidgeting nervously, as well as glancing towards his computer bag.
"Jeremie, something wrong? You look kind of pale." Cameron stated, coming up beside the blond.
"Hmm? Oh, it's nothing." Jeremie replied.
"Was Maya supposed to send you an e-mail last night and you haven't gotten it yet?" Cameron teased.
"Who?"
"Maya, your girlfriend that you met in town the other night, when you went by the factory, that Maya – You didn't break up with her already, did you?"
"Um, Maya and I were never together Cameron, but very funny all the same. No, I'm worried about the . . . history project."
"You're joking, right Einstein? You finished that last week, the same day we got it! If anyone should worry, it's Cameron and me. Ours isn't even started!" Odd spoke up suddenly from behind them, making them jump. "Well, my half isn't started, I'm not so sure about Cameron's half."
"Seriously Odd? You do realize it's due the day after tomorrow, right? If I fail it because of you, I'll, I'll, I don't know what I'll do to you, but it won't be pleasant. Got it?" Cameron said sharply.
"Relax Cameron, two days is plenty to get it done. I'll just look at Jeremie's and copy off of it." Odd replied, holding his hands up in a 'Calm down and don't punch me' gesture.
"Relax? Relax? If you copy Jeremie's, we'll fail for sure! He has a totally different subject, remember dummkopf?" Cameron was almost shouting, "I can't believe you just said that! That's it, I'm asking for a partner transfer."
"Too late for that, the teacher won't say yes. By the way, what does dummkopf mean?" Odd asked, with his curiosity spiked.
"It means moron in German Odd, a phrase quite well suited to you in this case." Cameron said back.
()()()()
Outside, the boys met up with Yumi, shortly approached by the Principal about their request to form a band.
"Odd, I've thought it over and you can form your group, the um, fox trot fanatics?" Principal Delmas said.
"It's Pop Rock progressives, sir." Yumi politely corrected him. "Thank you."
"But, it has to be open to anyone who wants to play, understood?" The Principal queried.
"Yes sir, thanks a lot!" Odd replied, almost jumping for joy.
When the Principal had walked off, Odd did in fact, jump for joy, high-fiving Ulrich and Yumi. "Hey Cameron, I don't suppose you have a drum set tucked up in your closet with your piano, do you?"
"Sorry, but no. Besides, I'm not really into band playing. I tried it at my last school and it . . . well let's just say it didn't go well." Cameron said, rubbing the back of his head with embarrassment.
"Oh well, whatever you say. Hey Jeremie, let's go get the flyers printed out. If we go now, we can still make it to lunch!" Odd and Jeremie hurried off to the dorms to make the posters, leaving Cameron alone with Yumi and Ulrich.
"Well, I'll leave you two *cough* lovebirds *cough cough* alone." Cameron also ran off to avoid the hailstorm of verbal and physical attacks launched by the other two.
Back in his room, Cameron narrowly avoided knocking Odd over and spilling posters everywhere.
"Whoa, watch out Odd!" Cameron grabbed the top poster off of the stack, reading aloud, " Auditions for drummer in the Pop Rock Progressives in the Gym directly after lunch, all are allowed to come and try out, experience preffered, but not required. Huh, you really were serious about that, weren't you Odd?"
"What are you saying, I'm always serious!" Odd said indignantly
"Well, yes, except for the ninety-nine point eight percent of the time when you're not!" Cameron laughed, replacing the poster on the stack. "I'm going to play for a bit, be down to lunch later guys."
"Uh-huh"
"Can I have your side dish?"
" . . . No Odd, you cannot have my food."
"Aw, dang it!"
()()()()
Once the other two boys were gone, Cameron shut the door and retrieved his piano, as well as his headphones, and the box of pictures he had found at the Hermitage. He had meant to look through them before now, but something or someone had always interfered. Now though, he could look at them in peace. He placed a Cd into his player, and turned up the volume so that it would sound like he was playing, and hopefully keep anyone else away. He opened the box and set the letters from Aelita and Franz off to one side. The pictures in the box varied, from portrait shots of Aelita and Franz, to pictures of the Hermitage, or the house in the mountains, and several pictures of the Hermitage grounds. He smile fondly at them, the smile only fading when he realized that there were no more pictures to look at, and that his Cd was no longer playing. Quickly storing the photo box back in his closet, he grabbed to Hermitage key and headed over.
Once inside the old house, he headed up to the one room he had never been able to visit – his father's. He stopped only to grab his cleaning supplies, all of the doors in the house had been re-oiled during his last visit, the only time between now and his finding the pictures that he had come by. He went up the stairs and over to the door of the master bedroom, unlocking it and stepping inside, coughing at the dust kicked up with every step. He quickly crossed to and gingerly pushed the window open, unlike Aelita's it hadn't shattered and fallen mostly out of the frame. Instantly, fresh air wafted through the room, stirring up more dust and forcing Cameron out. He decided to wait a little while and do the rest of the house, while the old bedroom aired out.
There turned out to be little of interest in his father's old room, a couple of pictures of a woman who must have been Anathea, Aelita's mother, and a few old books. It wasn't until he looked under the bed that he found a relatively heavy box, which turned out to hold several machine parts, some electrical software, and at the bottom, designs for robots that Franz had never built. Blowing dust off of the designs, Cameron noticed a small mark, maybe a logo in the upper right hand corner. It looked like a target, with a line coming out of the top and bottom, with two more lines on either side of the bottom one. He gave it little thought, and turned his attention back to the designs and boxes content.
Back at Kadic, Cameron unrolled the designs, tacked them up on the wall next to his desk, and unloaded the parts out of the box, stowing it safely under his desk. Separating all the pieces out took time, especially when he realized the computers wouldn't turn on, and neither would anything that used an outlet. He shrugged, it was still early afternoon - he had time to set the 'bots up. He decided to start with what looked like the simplest one, a small car-like machine that looked like it had a camera mounted on it. Cameron pulled out a robot similar to it from underneath Jeremie's desk – it would help to have something to go off of besides paper.
Several hours later, the robot was finished, and rolling around at Cameron's direction. There was still a rather sizable pile of parts left on the desk, and Cameron suspected that they were for the other designs, some of which looked almost like they were based off of animals. He shrugged, decided to work on it in the morning, and went out for some air.
Upon reaching the school gates, Cameron was almost run over by Yumi, who looked like she was in a hurry to get somewhere.
"Trouble Yumi?" He called after her, not getting a response from her retreating form. "Huh, apparently there is. I wonder what it could be."
()()()()
Twenty minutes later, Cameron was walking back along the school fence, when he noticed something weird happening with the pylon near the front gate, as well as Yumi talking with a pair of firemen. As he approached, the power pylon let off a burst of electricity down the cables, towards the nuclear power plant. That does not look very good . . . Cameron thought, getting a few feet further away from the overcharged tower.
Yumi screamed something, and then the electricity just sort of stopped happening, as if someone somewhere had flipped a switch and shut it down. A few seconds after that, a strange bubble of white light came over everything, leaving Cameron just enough time to do what every sensible person would do:
He yelled, "What in the world is that thing?"
And then it overtook him as well.
()()()()
"Hey Cameron, do you mind if we borrow your keyboard for our show? We were going to borrow one from the music store, but they're closed, so . . ."
"Yeah, sure. Just don't break it, or you're buying me a new one." Cameron warned Ulrich as he bent down over his desk. "I'm afraid I might not make it to the show this afternoon, I want to finish this robot really badly, but I'll do my best."
"No problem, see you later."
"Later."
Cameron half turned away from the robot as the door swung shut behind Ulrich. Then he turned back to the desk and picked up his screwdriver. The designs from the hermitage were proving to be incredibly intriguing; he was working on one that looked sort of like a crab. He figured it would be a great way to fetch small things like his headphones, or maybe to carry a camera if he went somewhere his car/camera/robot thingamabob couldn't.
End of Chapter Four
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