Chapter 3

I was always just me – Tech, a mechanic with a conniving stepmother, two stepsisters, one snarky, the other childlike and kind, and an android as my only friend. And then I met the man with the purple gloves…and everything came tumbling down from there.

I limped into the living room with my arm around Bea's shoulder. My stepmother had her back turned to us, intently watching the TV – on it, a news broadcast was playing the video of my hover accident. Man, I would've said it looked like it hurt…that is, if I wasn't the one driving the car, knowing exactly how much it hurt (and trust me, it did [and still does] greatly).

Muting the TV, my stepmother stood up and turned to me, remote in hand, a mixture of a scowl and a smirk on her face. "You got into trouble again, you insufferable imbecile? How dare you disgrace my name in that manner on public television!" Her deep blue eyes bore into mine, full of hatred and detestation.

I was fuming at her remark. I knew I shouldn't say anything, if not to spare myself from any more of the cruel punishment she had decided upon, but mouth got the better of me. "How dare I? I get into an accident because some cops are chasing after me for who-knows-what-reason, and you are worried about your reputation?"

"How dare you talk back to me, you insolent little girl!" She pointed her long, pale, bony finger at me in a dramatized disgust. "Bea, sit her down." My sister had started leading me towards the sofa when her mother raised her voice and added, "No Bea…sit her on the floor." Just like a dog – she thinks I am as worthless as a dog. I wonder how much fun she's having right now.

"But-" Bea started, hoping to reason her mother as to the cruel and unusual (unusual, that is, for a "normal" person) punishment. She however, was ultimately cut off by her mother.

"NOW." Bea regretfully laid me down on the hardwood floor. I looked up at my stepmother at that moment, the first time I did so since I had arrived home – her wispy, gray hair was tied up in a small, neat bun, and she had on a revealingly short, bright red dress. Goosebumps appeared on my skin, and a sharp shiver ran down my spine – I couldn't imagine anything causing it but the stern, almost sinister expression on her face and the cold, blue color emitting from her eyes.

Gigi stood huddled in the corner, looking at me as if I was a wild animal. That was a big surprise - she was loyal to her mother, unlike Bea; in fact, she was almost an identical copy of her as well. The only differences were that she had black hair that stopped just below her shoulders, and her face always had a sort of angry look, unlike my stepmother's cold and distant one. And all the meanwhile, Bea, Gigi's polar opposite, didn't know what to do or where to stand – with her blood-bound mother and sister, or with me, her stepsister.

Bea stroked her long, auburn-colored hair, pulled back into two braids that ran down her back, stopping at her waist, nervously. Her eyes were an emerald-green and only complemented by the light pink dress she wore today. What I admire most about her is that unlike her sister or mother, she can consider me her sister rather than stepsister. I'd suppose that that is because Bea always had the kindness and curiosity of a two-year old, an ability of her and her alone to not grow up even at 16. She has the innocence of a young child, and that's the way I hoped she would always be.

"Tech, I will not tolerate such reckless behavior from you. Thus, you will not be able to leave the house, except to go to work and events with myself present, for the next month. You will also not be allowed to work on your 'inventions,' as you call them, for the duration of your punishment. Understood?" I tucked a strand of my hair behind my ear and sullenly nodded, keeping my eyes focused on the ground. "Tech," she sternly, yet smugly continued, "I expect you to leave for work as early as possible tomorrow morning and every morning afterwards to earn back all the money you wasted when you crashed my brand new hover. You'd better be grateful that I told the authorities to not put this on your permanent record."

"Understood..." I whispered back to her. I knew perfectly well that she would just use the money I earned to buy even more expensive dresses, and, more so, that I would be the one fixing her precious hover – for free, naturally. And as for my record, I'd be checking that out later (luckily, one of the people working at the shop has a son in the police department with whom I'm acquainted and owes me a favor for fixing his police hover about a month ago).

"Oh, and about your little androids..." She was just about to leave the room when she added this bit of information, her eyebrows raised at me to see my reaction to the subject.

"What did you do to them?" My voice came out scared (because my vocal chords weren't damaged in the accident, I can express most emotions verbally [though it only happens in very rare circumstances]).

She gave me a grim smile, then replied, "They are locked in my closet. You will get them back when I find you worthy of my trust again."

I opened my mouth as if to speak, but she gave me a look that could have killed me right then and there. My mouth instantly closed, understanding this was final. With that, she walked away ; however, just before she left through the house's front door, she turned around again and stated, "Now…get to work. You still have a number of chores to do before you get dinner, then more before you go to sleep tonight."

Gigi followed her mother, looking over her shoulder at me with a taunting smirk. As soon as the door was closed I let out a huge sigh, then got up from the floor in excruciating pain. Bea ran to my side and helped me to my feet.

"Sorry Tech…" Bea said, her green eyes full of sadness. "…I missed you, though, if that's any consolation."

"I missed you, too, Bea..." I replied back in a dazed, somewhat monotone voice. I tried to smile and think about what she had just said to me, that someone had missed me for once in my life, but every thought I conjured up was about my stepmother.

I hate her; my thoughts whirled around her cold, stoic eyes as I walked with Bea into the kitchen to start my chores, I hate her even more than I ever did or could before.

The next day, I drove to the shop as I do every morning; this morning, however, I was without Digit. I never noticed how important she was to me (and my sanity) as I did today, driving to "work" in total silence. I nervously chuckled to myself in an attempt to relieve the awkward silence, though that, too, ended up futile. Man, this is going to be a long day.

When I got to the shop, work came in slowly and took little time to fix. After realizing that loneliness was inevitable, my mind started to wander onto several things…the Prince, mainly, no matter my attempts to divert my thoughts. I wonder when I'll see him again…wait, why do I want to see him? I can't get Laui back without my stepmother giving her back, and then there will still be figuring out what's wrong with her and if I can fix the problem(s), so shouldn't I be trying to not see him? Ugh, why can't I stop thinking about him? Princ-I mean, Timmy, is nice and all, but come on – he just wanted his android fixed. Although, if I don't fix Laui right and make her work perfectly, I could get a bad reputation as a mechanic, and that would anger my stepmother even more. Great, just what I need – another excuse not to get Digit back. So basically, my career as a mechanic, whether or not my stepmother is going to punish me, and Digit's fate are all riding on whether or not I can get Laui back from my stepmother. Just my luck.

Just then, another car came in. This one was a faulty oil tank – a small, yet growing hole in its side. I was done with the hover in about ten minutes, once I patched it up via welding a piece of metal over the hole and surrounding area and fixed some faulty wiring also inside the car. At least it barred my mind from such consuming thoughts for a little while.

About two hours before the shop was to close, all I wanted was to go home and sleep. I missed Digit – without someone to talk to and her personality to keep things interesting in this dull atmosphere, the day dragged on seemingly forever. Even when I didn't bring her into the shop, I knew that once I got into the hover to go home, she'd be there, asking me exactly what had happened that day. Not even the project whose statistics I was testing – a cellphone I finished repairing yesterday scheduled to be picked up tomorrow – could divert my thoughts for more than a few seconds. My fingers were fiddling across the screen, checking the productivity and overall working of the device when I heard the door to my shop open. I didn't think to look up from where I was working for a few seconds; after all, the only thing it could be was just another walk-in customer, so I attempted to finish testing the last few things before leaving my desk. However, a voice called my name – one familiar to me.

"Tech?" I looked up immediately to be greeted by none other than Prince Timmy. Just a day ago, he was in here, and we had met one another for the first time. How ironic – that day had seemed like ages ago, rather than just one measly day.

"Oh, um…hi, Prin-Timmy." Despite trying, I could barely stand because of the intense pain shooting through my ankle and back. Instead, I bowed while sitting. Yes, I was probably breaking a rule of respect; but then again, as the probability of me falling upon trying to stand was a solid 94.3%, I concluded that he would probably appreciate me not doing the latter more.

"Hey. Um…I saw the video on the news, you know, about the crash last night. Are you okay?" He closed the door to the shop and came through the entrance to where my desk sat at the back of the store. He was now only about ten feet from where the PDA sat, diagnostics still running on the screen.

"Oh, yeah. Um, also, I'm really sorry for not bowing or anything, but my back is really sore from the aftershock of the crash." Well, at least that's not a total lie – my back does hurt really badly (of course, it's more so from the "bed" I've been sleeping on since I could remember and all the "punishments" and chores I have to endure, but that can be left out).

He responded with a small chuckle. "That's okay; I never liked the 'bowing' thing, anyway. It's way too formal for my liking." His face then turned a bit grimmer than before. "Um, what exactly happened out there?"

"It's kind of complicated. You know the Magix Curfew?"

"Yeah, I guess so – my parents put it into law before I was born, but they've told me about it."

"Oh, yeah, of course. Well, I thought it might be that they were after me for that because it had just turned ten o'clock. So, long story short, I kind of was paying attention to them and not to the road, and before I could do anything about it, I was a few seconds away from hitting the tree."

"Are…are you okay?" He looked at me with a minute sense of fear in his eyes. I guess he believed my story and felt sorry (or something like that) for me because it was his police force that kind of started the whole thing. But, wait, why would he feel sorry for someone like me?

"Yeah, just my back hurts badly today, but that's to be expected. My foot also hurts, but that's because it was on the brake when the accident occurred. Nothing serious, though." Yeah, sure – it actually feels like a truck slammed into my back and brought another truck along to ram into me afterwards (and by that "second truck," I really mean my stepmother). The funny thing is, I don't know which hurt more – the crash or my stepmother's taunts afterwards, using poor Digit as her hostage.

"Oh, um…that's good to hear. It looked pretty bad on the TV." Yeah. It felt even worse. "So…oh, um, what's that?" He pointed towards the mechanism on my desk. I turned to see where he was pointing, then picked the cellphone up with my hand and held the small, metal device out for him to see.

"It's a cellphone – well, with a few modifications. See, sometimes, people come in here to have me work on electronic devices, too – this one short-circuited after falling into a river on Lynphea. It looked pretty bad when its owner brought the device in here, but all it needed was a new screen and to be rewired a bit. I also added on a few features, as the girl who owns it is going to Alfea and needs to be able to communicate over a longer distance, and the phone itself was never meant for any long-distance communication, let alone from Alfea to Lynphea and back." He stared at the device, almost bewildered at it. I myself thought my eyes were deceiving me – I mean, he has to have a more advanced cellphone than this one, being a prince and all (especially one whose country has close ties to some of the most advanced planets in the dimension). Nevertheless, he kept turning it over and over, staring at the exposed backing and the rewiring job I had done, then back to the screen, which was still processing all of the new data and applications I had added onto it.

"Wait, you rewired this?" Okay, that hurt a little; why is it that just because I'm a girl, no one can believe in my skills as a mechanic?

"Um, yes…"

"Oh." What do you mean, oh? I began looking frantically over the device, trying to see what made him make the remark

"What? Does it look wrong? I'm sure I rewired it right-"

"What? No, no, it looks great-I mean, you did this?" I nodded as he took another long look at the device's wiring and statistics. "It's amazing! I've never seen anyone rewire an actual device before – well, I've watched the royal mechanic once or twice while he worked on some smaller projects when my parents would let me, but not even he could rewire something like this, especially with previous damage, and make it so much more advanced!" I stood there flabbergasted. Here I was, Tech, a lowly mechanic, being complimented by the Prince of Magix on something that had taken me no more than a few hours to complete. It was a totally illogical situation, yet, beyond all scenarios that could have taken place, this was what was happening. I was so caught up in it that I almost missed his next question to me. "How did you do it?"

"Um…well, it took a while to figure out exactly where the problem was, but it ended up just being a matter of switching the yellow and orange wires with the green and purple wires, respectively, and a new screen, as the other had been damaged in the accident. Then, for the additional applications such as long-distance calling and a geographical mapping and locator function I added on later, all it took was a little handiwork and some patience, as well as all some more rewiring and increasing the phone's hard drive capability."

"Wow. It's…it's just spectacular." Okay, I know, I must be in a dream – I'll just blink my eyes a few times and I'll be right back in my room. I did as my thoughts described, but nothing happened. After closing and opening my eyelids, he was still in front of me, still too distracted by the cellphone to notice my awestruck face. So this is really happening…but, how?

"Oh, um…t-thank y-you. It's actually not done yet - I just need to get a screwdriver to screw the back of it back on, and then it'll be good as new." I attempted to get up from my seat; my body was not ready for the action as I soon learned. I had almost fully stood up when a tinge of pain shot up the nerves in my spine as my foot, which had been, up until this point, resting on the chair next to me, touched the ground. Ugh, how did I forget that they hurt so much? I stumbled, biting hard on my lip as to stop with all my might not to scream out in pain. Though successful with this, I, within a matter of seconds, began to lose my balance and fall. But then, a hand came to rest on my shoulder. I looked up – he had caught me.

His arms grabbed onto my shoulders firmly, yet softly and pulled me to my feet. I looked away from his face for the most part; however, I did sneak a glance in while he was looking away from me. His cheeks were a bright, rosy red color, as if blushing would keep this awkward moment from getting any more so. And me? Well, I knew my cheeks were still the same, extremely pale color they always were – simply put, I couldn't blush because I was a cyborg. Just because my face wasn't red, however, didn't stop me from feeling nervous and embarrassed – it actually, I believe, made me more so feel this way.

Pri-um…Timmy was the first to speak. "A-a-a…are y-you, um, o-okay?" Now I knew that my face would be redder than ever (that is, if such actions could occur).

"What? Oh, yeah, I'm okay." We each pulled back from one another hastily.

"Sorry…for, um…"

I quickly interrupted him, as not to let the conversation get even more awkward than it already was. "It's okay…um, thanks, for, um…not letting me fall." I quickly sat down again, ignoring the pain again shooting up my spine.

"You're w-welcome." We sat quietly for a moment, each unsure of what to say. Basically, think of your most embarrassing moment, and imagine it with someone who you know could literally have you banished from your home planet for good and/or thrown in some of the worst dungeons in the world for all of eternity. Then, you will have the basic concept of my predicament.

"Also, um…I might be a little late with fixing Laui. Things are…complicated…right now, and…" The last word dragged on as I tried to find an appropriate explanation to give. Luckily, he did not need one.

"Oh that's fine." He seemed relieved that I had changed the topic – yeah, him and me both. "Um, could you just send him to the palace when you're done?"

"Yes, of course."

"Great. Thanks, Tech." He looked up at the dusty clock on the back wall of the shop. "Sorry, but, um, my mom and dad will…probably be worrying where I am. I-I, um…I'd better be getting back."

"Okay. I'll send Laui to you as soon as I can get her fixed."

"Thanks, Tech. Bye!" He turned and walked out the door quickly.

Just before he left, I managed to say, "bye!" The door closed behind his fleeting figure, the bells attached to the wooden entrance ringing until they faded out into nothing.

I turned around just as he did and stared at the clock. Twenty minutes to ten, I thought to myself. I guess I could just get everything packed up for the night, then leave and get home before that wretched curfew comes to haunt me again. I quickly put all of my supplies I had used throughout the day away, only getting up if necessary as the pain in my back still was unbearable; I picked up the remote on my desk and aimed it at a window right of the garage door, changing the sign hanging in it from OPEN to CLOSED. I realized the phone on the desk, still without its backing screwed on. Almost instinctually, I took my screwdriver out of one of the many drawers in the desk and carefully, yet hastily, screwed on the cover so it meshed almost perfectly with the device. I then locked the front door from the inside, as habitually done by myself every evening to keep the gadgets inside safe. Before walking out of the shop via the back entrance, I grabbed my blue jacket from the rusty, metal hook it lays on every day during the winter. I locked the door and put the jacket on, allowing the warmth it carried from being near the heater all day soak into my body.

Pain surged through my foot and up my spine as, one step at a time, I walked towards the hover. Yes, the hover – the same hover that "my stepmother, out of her kind heart, allowed me to use to travel to and from work although I had broken it severely just the night before and could not be trusted the slightest bit." I almost gagged as I recalled exactly what she had said to me that morning as to the vehicle in a mocking tone. Sometimes, I thought to myself, I wished I could just extract and eliminate her from my life as easily as I could do so from a hover or a piece of technology – Gigi as well. That would make my life so much easier.

All this time, however, there was a feeling I just could not seem to shake – this very strange feeling which had just emerged from me after he had left. This feeling that…that I still wanted to be wrapped up safely in his arms, where I could be protected whatever my stepmother, Gigi, or anyone else for that matter tried to throw at me. I tried to convince myself it was all in my head – you're just being illogical. He's a prince, and what are you to him? You're nothing more than a common, inferior cyborg – something of minor importance.

I mean, come on, Tech. Really. He's completely out of your league. Just think – you are a commoner. A maid in your own house. A toy for your stepmother to play with and tease and taunt however she may please. And, above all, you are a cyborg. And him? Well, he's just one of the wealthiest princes in the magical dimension. You might as well be in different dimensions that is how spread out you two are in social hierarchy.

You can't seriously think he'd want to be friends with you – it's totally and utterly irrational. I mean, he just wants you to fix his android for him. Then, he'll just forget about you as if you didn't exist, and everything will go back to how it was.

You are nothing compared to him, Tech – you never were and never will be.

By this time, I had gotten into my hover and was sitting in the driver's side, looking out of the window…alone. I finally turned the keys, bringing the hover to life. As I drove off, these thoughts kept consuming my head – I tried listen to them, I really did. I knew they were right. I was just acting completely and utterly illogical. I was nothing to him, and never was anything to him in the first place. Prince Timmy will most likely just forget about me after Laui is fixed, then never talk to me again. And yes, believing this would be the rational thing to do.

Funny thing is, I'm starting to believe that in this situation, being illogical is the only logical way to be.