Chapter 4

Mik

Studying at home was fun, particularly the first few weeks. Dad was a wonderful teacher, and he never dwelled too long on the boring things. They would go exploring every once in a while, and fill dozens of notebooks with sketches and notes on every plant and animal they saw. Dad taught him physics too, but with experiments and a fair share of explosions. Edain loved it, to a point where he was almost glad the Zooficus had infected him.

But then dad went travelling, and Edain was left at home alone.

There was no way dad was taking him on a trip. Not even Thais had gone yet, and she was twenty-one. Mum worked a lot, and couldn't stay with him while dad came back, so he was on his own. Now, before Edain had started the Academy, he used to go to the neighbors' while dad was away, but now that he was an Ankuris they didn't like him there. When he heard about it, dad had said that timelords were one of the most snobbish species in the universe, and told Edain not to go to the neighbors' again.

End result, Edain was on his own for two weeks.

The first day wasn't bad. He kept on with his work on gamma radiation, saw a couple of human movies (it was really funny how they did the animation, and they were alien, which was already interesting in itself) and perfected his drawings on the fauna from the Andhera caves. It was all great, but he was completely bored as soon as the second day started.

Mum had just got out the door, and he was already climbing the walls in frustration.

"Okay, so let's find something to do." There it was. He was talking to himself again. "I already finished all my homework, so there's nothing to do with that. And I can't go exploring because mum has the keys of the hoverbike. Well, I could go walking, but I wouldn't go far, right? How far away are the Andhera caves?"

A quick check ended with his plan. The caves were definitely too far away, at least with the hoverbike he could ride. There was a bigger one, the one he used when he went with dad, but his feet didn't reach the pedals. So he couldn't go to the caves.

"I want to build something. I've been studying robotics for ages and never built anything valuable. No, the robots from the academy don't count. Those couldn't think a damn thing, I had to direct every single one of their actions. I want to do a proper robot. Hey, that's not a bad idea, is it? Nah, I think it's good. Well then, let's do a robot."

It was much easier said than done, obviously. He spent two days deciding what he wanted the android to do: Fly? Jump? Talk? Solve mathematical equations? Should it have hands? And what shape was it going to have? How was he going to power it? It should be self-sufficient, what if he was in an emergency and couldn't charge it? Okay then, what kind of engines? And what size?

In the end he decided on a monkey the size of his forearm, powered by a PS reactor. The PS was an invention of his sister Runa, and still a prototype. This was a little risky, because he wasn't supposed to know about it. Runa had simply left her sketches on dad's desk and, you know, things get lost.

Anyways, Runa hadn't launched the product yet because there was a problem with the conductors. She couldn't find a material that had enough resistance for big projects, but according to her notes, adamantium worked fine with small machines.

It was an obvious choice, then. The reactor would use adamantium.

The PS reactor was by far the hardest part to build. It really was complicated, and there were a few inconsistencies in Runa's notes, that he had to find and correct. His sister was super clever, but her math left much to be desired. Edain made a mental note to get her a calculator for New Year's Eve. He had to dedicate two more days only to understand and correct the notes. Once he'd done that, he realized that he didn't need adamantium, much harder to find, and that an alloy of sandor and bronze would do the job brilliantly. Another mental note: get the checked document to his sister.

After that, he started programming the android. He wanted it to do a ton of things: jump, climb things, think… He had to have a sense of humor, obviously, and be able to play video games. The only problem was that it involved an awful lot of programming. He spent four days in front of the screen.

Finally, he could start building his robot.

The first thing was, obviously, the reactor. Building a PS reactor sounds as easy as its name: Polyatomic Subdivision. Even more if it's done in a basement and without supervision of any kind. But Edain hadn't been top of his class for nothing. It took him three more days (and quite a lot of accidents)to get it right.

The two days left, he spent them making and putting together all the other pieces.

And finally, on the night of the fourteenth day, the android woke up.

"Hello, bud." The android raised his head upon hearing Edain's voice. The lights in his eyes flickered, and he smiled. "Okay, you should already know all of this, but I'm going to explain it just in case, alright?" The monkey nodded very seriously and sat on the table, right in front of him.

"I'm Edain, or Edie, people call me both names. And we're friends. We're at my home right now, and we can't make much noise, because my mum is sleeping and she doesn't know that we're awake. This is my bedroom. And your name is… uh… Oops, I didn't think of one. Wait a minute."

Goddammit, Edie, you can't plan him so well and not give him a name. Shame on you.

"I'll call you Mik." He said after thinking for a few seconds. "Yeah, I think it suits you. Do you like it?"

Mik squeaked happily and jumped onto Edain's head laughing.

"Hey, don't do that. Mik, no! Oi, don't get into my shirt! Mik, you're tickling me!"

Mik obviously knew that, and Edain started laughing so much he couldn't stand straight and fell on the bed. Mik's face appeared through the collar of his pajama, looking confused.

"Huh?" he squeaked.

"I'm fine, bud, don't worry. But don't do that again, mum's asleep."

Mik pouted, and Edain started laughing again.

"Hey, I'm sorry, but it's really late. Wait, I have an idea. Let's go outside."

They climbed up to the roof as silently as possible, which wasn't exactly quiet. Mik was super excited about going somewhere new (Ed had to remind himself that everything was new for him quite a few times) and kept getting inside his shirt and tickling him out of excitement.

"We're going to have to work on your self-control, bud. Keep screaming like that and you'll wake up mum."

But it was no use to get serious. He was too excited.

Finally they arrived to the roof, and Mik went still immediately. His eyes were wide open in surprise, and he was clearly thinking something like: "Woooow."

Edain sat on the roof and put Mik on his shoulder so he could have a better view. He had already seen the night sky hundreds of times, but it really was breathtaking.

"See those stars over there?" He pointed up, and Mik climbed his arm to see better. "That's the constellation of Limyè. It marks the North, so if you ever get lost, you just have to look at it. My dad has promised we'll visit it one day."

"He travels a lot, you know." Mik was back on his shoulder now, leaning against his ear. "He has a super cool spaceship called the TARDIS, and he can travel in time. But we're timelords, so that's obvious. No, you're not a timelord, dummy. Just me and mum and dad. You're an android."

Mik looked disappointed.

"Hey, it's not that bad to be an android. You can't get sick. And it doesn't hurt you whatever happens. You just shut down. I can't do that. Well, yeah, of course I get hurt! I was just in the hospital two months ago. And it wasn't fun."

He was getting a bit sleepy. The wind was warm despite it being late, and suddenly it was hard to keep his eyes open.

"I'll have to introduce you to my family, you should know them. You'll like Thais, she's great, but she's never home because of the Academy… Hey! Why did you do that?"

Mik was standing on top of his head, pulling his hair. Edain looked forward and realized he had been slipping down the roof.

"Oh, right. Thanks, bud. You know what? We should go to sleep. C'mon, tomorrow I'll show you the rest of the house."

Mik sat on his shoulder, looking quite satisfied with himself, and they went back inside. They both fell asleep instantly, boy and android.