/ Chapter 10 – Explorations /

The videophone rang in the other room as Athena sat at her desk studying Japanese history. At first she paid only a small amount of attention to it, until she heard her mother say Frank's name. She amplified her hearing and listened intently.

"Frank! It's good to hear from you. Is everything going all right?"

"Yes, thanks!" she heard Frank say. "It's been great so far, I've just been looking around the area. And thanks for all the stuff you sent over, like the clothes and everything. I guess jumpsuits are in style in Tomorrowland." She heard Frank laugh at this.

"You're welcome!" her mum said. "Yes, they're made of an organic polymer that's extremely durable and easy to clean, in fact made here in Tomorrowland from processed native plants. You can get separates if you wish, but the jumpsuits are pretty common. Oh, and don't miss the fact that the color or pattern can be changed by plugging them into your T-Net terminal; there's a function with pre-made designs or you can make your own."

"Whoa, whoa, what?" Frank said incredulously. "How can that even work?"

"Oh, yes," Caroline said. Athena could hear the grin in her voice. "They have tiny colored magnetic pigments suspended in the material. There are small wires that run through the cloth and move the pigments, making them visible or invisible. In fact, I think I think the kids these days are rigging up animated clothes."

"I know one of these days you're going to just make up something extra crazy, just to mess with me and see how gullible I am," Frank said.

Caroline laughed. "How do you know I'm not now? But enough about fashion. What can I do for you?"

"Actually, I was hoping to speak to Athena," Frank asked.

Athena perked up at this.

"Athena? Of course, sweetie," Caroline said, who sounded surprised; normally she didn't get calls unless they were recruiting related in some way. "Athena!" she called. "Frank is calling for you."

She walked into the other room, seeing Frank's face on the phone. They greeted each other, Frank looking very pleased to see her.

"Hold one moment, Frank," she said.

She looked at her mother, hoping she would give them privacy. Frank still didn't know she was an animatronic, and though she knew he'd need to be told eventually, her time with him was so stimulating that she hoped to have more with him. But she was concerned that he would say something that would cause her mother to reveal her nature.

Caroline looked interestedly between Athena and Frank several times. When she noticed Athena waiting, she said, "Oh! Um, Athena, I have something to do in the other room. I'll leave you to your call."

Athena smiled at her and turned back to the videophone as Caroline walked away. But knowing her mum, she would most likely be surreptitiously listening in, so she put on the privacy headset. This was very unusual; the only time she normally used it was when her mother was napping or otherwise didn't want to be disturbed. No doubt this would make her mum suspicious that something was up, but she felt the risk was worth it.

"Hello, Frank," she said again. "I'm happy you called."

"These videophones are amazing," he said. "I've heard of experimental phones like this, but it's cool that we can do it whenever we want."

"Yes, when I've used telephones back on Earth, it's more difficult to understand people without seeing their facial expressions," she said, which was true. Her ability to judge facial expressions was a crucial part of interacting with humans, though she could manage without it if she had to.

"Yeah, I guess so," he said, a little puzzled. "I've never thought about that, but I guess it's true." Frank thought her statement slightly odd, and she judged that she had made a minor mistake in mentioning it. While humans were naturally very sensitive to facial expressions, they didn't use them as effectively as she did and so not seeing faces wasn't as much of a disadvantage. But she didn't believe he would wonder about it enough to suspect she wasn't human. On the other hand, her mum most likely heard her statement, which had the benefit of leading her off the track.

Frank's expression changed, and Athena judged him as nervous, which she found interesting. She tried to predict what he would be nervous about, but her processing units came up empty.

"So, the reason I'm calling is," he started, "I was wondering if you wanted to go explore more of the city with me today. If you're not busy, that is."

She was thrilled with this, and fortunately had nothing pressing that day. Her plan was just to do some studying, which she could do another time. The idea of more exploring, along with the stimulation of Frank's conversation was very appealing. "I would love to," she said, smiling happily at him. "When would you like to go? I'm free right now."

She judged Frank's expression as very pleased and his nervousness disappeared. "Great! I'm not doing anything, either. Do you want to come over?"

"All right, I'll leave presently," she replied. "See you soon." Frank said his good bye, and she ended the call.

She almost told Frank that she "needed to check with her mother," which she did, but decided she didn't want to use the term "mother" with Caroline listening in, and she didn't want to say "Caroline" to Frank, so she skipped that part. She was confident her mum would say it was okay.

"Mummy?" she called, raising her voice. She was fairly certain her mum would hear at any volume level, but she pretended her mother wasn't listening.

"Yes, sweetie?" Caroline said, walking back into the room. Athena judged her as looking too innocent and casual.

"Frank invited me to explore parts of the city with him. May I go?" she asked.

"Of course, dear," Caroline said, smiling. "Though, this is a little surprising. You've not done this before with one of your recruits."

Athena shrugged casually. "Yes. I believe this may be the first time I've met someone who might be called a 'friend.' Frank and I had some very interesting conversations together and I'm happy that he wants them to continue."

Caroline looked delighted with this. "I'm so glad! Frank could use someone to help him get established, and your being around a human child on a casual basis will be excellent for developing your conversational and social skills. It's wonderful that Frank wants to be friends."

Athena nodded. "I told him I would leave now. I'm not certain what time I'll be back."

"All right, darling," Caroline said. "If you're going to be late, please call and let me know. Have a good time." She looked amused at this, though Athena was unsure why.

She put on her shoes and left the apartment, feeling very happy that her relationship with Frank was continuing for now. A small part of her mind raised the question of when, exactly, she was planning on informing him of her animatronic nature since she was technically practicing a deception, but most of her was so excited by the novelty of having a human friend who treated her as human that the question didn't seem terribly important at that moment.

Caroline and Athena's apartment was across town from Frank, who was set up in an apartment complex near the school that he would attend in several weeks. His timing worked out, since Tomorrowland was currently on a long school break that corresponded to Earth's northern hemisphere summer, so he'd be able to get somewhat established before he needed to go to school. Caroline arranged for Frank to have an account paid out of the recruit budget to purchase food and whatever things he might need.

She entered a transport tube, feeling excited for her excursion with Frank. She predicted he would want to visit the mysterious brick building that they'd discovered. If he didn't act as predicted and wanted to go somewhere else, then that excited her just as much, if not more. The mystery of where he would choose held great novelty, and based on her experience with him so far, he was a seemingly endless source of challenging ideas and novel experiences that filled her limitation of generating original ideas.

She actually found it interesting just how excited she was. It wasn't to the level of finding candidates (her primary function was always extremely stimulating), but the idea that a self-generated motivation could capture so much of her attention had a novelty all its own.

Another aspect of Frank that she greatly anticipated was him having access to a lab. Her mother was working to give him special access to a workshop near the school, so that he'd be able to continue with his projects. He mentioned that he really wanted to work on his jetpack further, and to do that, he needed access to a proper workshop. One thing about Tomorrowland and Plus Ultra – they were very sympathetic of people who wanted to work toward being exceptional, and thus it was almost assured that Frank would have some sort of arrangement.

She was eager to see what Frank came up with, and she hoped he would allow her to view his progress occasionally. This was quite unusual as well; she normally brought recruits to Tomorrowland and would only have sporadic contact after that. She would read reports regularly and make recommendations if she felt there was something she could contribute to their adjustment to Tomorrowland life, and sometimes even visit ones if she thought there was some way she could help, even if it was just to see the familiar face of their recruiter. But mostly her focus was on the future and finding more candidates.

Frank, however, was unusually exciting. Part of it was his youth; he had so much untapped potential that it was very interesting to see how he would develop. Most of her candidates had some sort of established track record, which is why she brought them in the first place. But Frank was a lump of clay that had yet to be molded into the work of art she knew he'd become (Athena felt pleased with the clay metaphor, which she'd read in a book earlier in the week and felt it applied well to Frank). The novelty of watching his progress would be very interesting. But certainly another aspect of him that appealed to her was that he was an unusually good fit with Plus Ultra culture. He fit so many of her "ideal candidate" attributes that it was particularly enjoyable to discuss things with him, and his general enthusiasm to dream about the future in imaginative and sometimes even fantastical ways was very stimulating to her mind.

"The transport will reach the station in thirty seconds. Exit here for Amelia Earhart School, Marie Curie Apartments, and Imhotep Architectural Institute," the transport voice said.

Athena exited onto the platform and walked up the street to Frank's apartment building, named after Marie Curie, the famous chemist. The building was quite large, built to hold several thousand families, though much of it was vacant at the moment in anticipation of growing population. He was in a studio apartment, which he'd been very excited about. Caroline clucked over him when they dropped him off, worried that he would starve to death or otherwise not take care of himself. But Frank assured her that he actually did most of the cooking and cleaning back on the farm since his mother passed away, and was quite used to taking care of himself. Still, Caroline made him promise to call her if he needed anything, and in fact she called him several times a day over the next few days.

She took the lift up to his apartment and was soon in front of his door. She pressed the button and heard the door announce, "Your friend Athena is outside the door."

The door slid up into the top of the frame and there stood Frank with a big grin on his face, obviously very happy to see her. This made Athena very happy as well; she'd been a little concerned that he wouldn't want to continue their excursions. She gave him a warm smile of her own.

"Come on in!" he said, moving aside.

"I'm glad you called," she said. "I know my mum was checking on you, so I knew you were doing all right, but I was hoping you'd like to do more exploring." In the middle of the apartment was a pile of parts. "I see you've been working on your jetpack," she noted.

"Yeah! It's really interesting to see what the repair robot did, but it's hard to do anything here in the apartment," he said. "But your mom was great to get me access to those tools."

Frank had shyly asked her mother for "a few tools" so he could work on his jetpack and see exactly what the repair bots had done. Caroline was delighted with this request and subscribed him to the tool sharing service used by her lab, which allowed him to request tools from a shared stock, delivered via T-Post. Her mum was particularly amused by Frank's stunned reaction to the idea that just about any tool he needed would be delivered in a matter of minutes. Caroline was always excited when kids showed an interest in tools or engineering, and in fact did occasional mechanical engineering "fun days" for interested students at the school.

"I know she's still working on getting you access to a proper lab," Athena said. "Hopefully that will come through soon. So where did you wish to explore today?"

"I was thinking we could check out that brick building, if that sounds okay," he said. "I'm really curious about it."

She was pleased that her prediction was accurate. "All right. I was curious as well and confirmed that it wasn't on the current maps, so I looked on older maps. I finally found it on a very old map, dating to near the founding of Tomorrowland. It was just labeled as 'Northwest Access.' Newer maps had a different building labeled that way, so it may be that it was just considered obsolete and so wasn't included on newer maps."

"Access to what?" Frank asked, grabbing a small backpack that held a couple of water bottles and flashlights.

"I don't know," Athena said. "The maps weren't specific."

"Cool, the mystery deepens," Frank said, grinning. "We'll be the Hardy Boys. Or, to be fair, I guess one Hardy Boy and Nancy Drew."

About a half-hour later, Athena walked down the road with Frank, approaching the old brick building. The thrill of adventure filled her mind, though objectively she knew it was most likely just an empty old building. But the concept of exploring by itself was very exciting, with its undirected and unpredictable nature.

As they got closer, she noted that it was a simple rectangular structure of one story, with an old iron door in the front and several dirty windows. A brick wall ran off to the right of the front of the building, with an open entry in the wall. Frank went up to the front door, which had a rusty iron door handle. He tried to turn it, but it didn't move.

"It's either locked or stuck, but it doesn't move it all," he commented. "Guess that's not too surprising."

He stood on his tip toes and tried to see through one of the old windows, putting his hands up. "It's hard to see anything, but I can make out some kind of junk in there. It's probably just old storage," he said, with a note of disappointment.

Athena peeked in as well and even her superior vision couldn't make out much more than that. "Yes, I don't see much either."

"Let's take a look around," Frank said.

They headed over to the opening in the wall. There was a large scrapyard enclosed by the wall, full of old rusting machines and various parts.

"I guess Tomorrowland doesn't always clean up their stuff," Frank commented with a grin. "But I'm glad they didn't for this. It's cool to see all the stuff they've made over the years."

"I had no idea all this was out here," Athena commented. "It's interesting."

Frank suddenly recoiled with a horrified expression. "What… what's that?" he said, pointing.

Athena peered over, and saw what appeared to be a human arm sticking out of the scrap, ending with a hand and outstretched fingers. She walked toward the pile of junk.

"This?" she said, casually pulling out the arm. "Oh, this is part of a 'Faustus' animatronic unit. They were the very first anthropomorphic machines that resembled humans. They are still used, in fact, though they've been upgraded since then. You've probably seen them, but just didn't know it. They're convincing if you don't look too closely, but are fairly easy to tell they aren't human."

Frank relaxed, though she could still hear him breathing quickly. "Man, I thought I was looking at a murder or something. Wait – really? You're saying that's a robot arm? Cool!" Frank went over and took it from her, examining it closely. It was very dirty and clearly was heavily damaged in some way. He bent the fingers and moved the wrist. "I'd love to take this apart!"

"You don't need to work with dirty scraps like this," she said. "My mum has piles of old Faustus parts in her storerooms. Just ask and she'll send over some rejects or broken units you can take apart. You'll probably get too much of it, in fact."

Frank shook his head. "I swear I'll never get used to this place. 'Oh? You want a pile of humanoid robot parts? Sure! Take what you need.'" He tossed the arm back onto the scrap pile.

He looked around at the scrap yard. "Well, I could probably take days and explore just this stuff, but let's walk around the building and see if there's any way in."

They continued walking on a clear path between the side of the building and the side of the scrap yard, toward the back. The city wall was ahead, about fifty yards away. They turned the corner and in the back of the building, they saw a concrete stairway the led down to another door.

"This building must have a basement," Frank commented.

They walked down the stairs and saw a rusty steel door, obviously very old and hadn't been opened in many years. There was an old-fashioned padlock on the door, with a large key slot and a rounded shackle on top going through the door's latch.

Frank pulled on the lock, half-hoping it would just open, but it was still solid.

"Aw, man," he said. "I wonder what's behind this door?"

"From its appearance, it looks like this hasn't been opened in many years," she said. "I would say this is more evidence that this building was abandoned long ago. It's difficult to say what's behind it, but I've not seen that type of padlock on any other doors in Tomorrowland."

"I've seen locks like that before," he said. "They were common in the late 1800s. They're actually very simple; they have little raised metal ridges on the inside that the key has to slide past, and then the key pushes a lever that opens the lock. It's funny to see something so old-fashioned here."

"I wouldn't be surprised if a key for this lock didn't even exist any longer," she commented.

"Hmm," he said, considering. "I wonder if we could make a key for the lock somehow."

Athena knew she could easily break the lock, though she didn't necessarily want to show Frank that. But she was curious to see if he could solve the problem just through his own ingenuity. "How would you make a key?" she asked.

"Like I said, the locks are pretty simple," he said. "I brought my multi-tool, which has a little file. If we found a piece of metal in the right shape, I might be able to file it into a key and make it fit the lock. It might take a little while, though. Do you want to try, or should we just move on? I can't guarantee I can even do it. I have an idea, but I dunno."

She was extremely curious to see if he could make a key, or at least how he would attempt it. "Let's try," she said, smiling.

He looked around, as if someone might overhear. "Do you think we'll get in trouble if we managed to get in?"

Athena considered this. In theory, the door was locked for a reason, but it was so old and the lock was so simple that she couldn't imagine anything truly top secret was inside. "It doesn't seem like anyone is particularly concerned about this location."

Frank grinned. "All right, let's do it. The hard part will be to find a piece of metal the right shape. We'll have to hunt through that scrapyard and see what we can find. I guess if we don't find anything, we can always make something in a workshop and come back another time."

"What shape do we need?"

"Have you seen old fashioned keys? They're a round shaft of metal, one end with a small handle, and the other end is a rectangle of metal with slots cut in it."

"Yes, I think I've seen pictures of keys like that," she said. "What dimensions should it be?"

Frank tilted the lock up with his hand. "You can see about how big things should be based on the lock. The key should fit in the slot pretty close to that, and the shaft part should be about the size of the center hole."

Athena nodded. "All right, I think I see."

"Honestly, I'm not holding out a lot of hope we'll find just what we need, but it's worth a shot," he said. "How about if I search at one end of the scrap and you search the other?"

"Okay," she said.

They walked over to the scrap yard, splitting up with Frank going one direction and Athena going the other. She started poking through the scraps, but realized that he was most likely correct. It would be very fortunate to find something just right. But on the other hand, she could possibly bend something to what they needed. She just didn't want Frank to see her do it.

Frank having given her a specific shape goal meant that she could create a plan for changing one thing to another. She looked around trying to find something she could adapt to their needs. She finally spotted a sheet of metal, about 12 inches square. She looked around for Frank and saw him far across the yard. She picked up the metal, and using her hands she quickly bent the metal, rolling it into a shaft the proper size. She then folded the ends to create a handle on one end, and a blank rectangle part on the other, to the correct dimensions. She then broke off the excess metal, and did a little final bending and shaping until it was close to the right shape.

"Frank," she called out. "I found a piece of metal that might work. What do you think of this?"

He walked over and she held it up. His eyes widened in surprise. "Whoa, that looks perfect," he said incredulously. "I can't believe you found something. What luck! Let's go see if it fits in the lock."

The made their way back to the door, and he fitted the blank key into the slot, where it fit perfectly. He shook his head. "I still can't believe it, but let's see if we can make it work."

"How will you know where to file the slots?" she asked curiously.

"Well, I've never done this, but I have an idea. Let's see if this works."

Athena was surprised to see him walk up the stairs. She followed and saw him walk over to a green leafy bush. He pulled off a large leaf, then rubbed it on the key. "Hey, I think this might work," he said. He held up the key, where she noted that some of the leaf's green matter stuck on the key blank's metal. He grabbed a few more leaves and headed back down to the door.

He then inserted the key into the lock, turned it until it stopped, and then he jiggled the key, keeping the tension. Pulling the key out, he looked carefully at it and was satisfied to see three little marks in the green color.

"Ah, I see," Athena said, impressed. "That shows where a ridge hit the key."

Frank grinned. "Yeah! I'm honestly surprised it worked. Fortunately, the key pattern doesn't seem too complicated, or we'd probably be out of luck. Well, time to file and see if we can make a key."

He pulled out his multi-tool and flipped the file out of it. He started filing on the mark, creating a slot in the key. It took him about twenty minutes to make the first slot. He had to rest, shaking his hand out, and then another twenty minutes to make the second. He shook his hand out again.

"May I try the third slot?" she asked.

"Sure," he said. "My hand is killing me. I could use a rest."

She started filing the key, being careful to keep her filing speed near Frank's speed so that he wouldn't think her beyond human capability. After she was done, she handed the key and file back to him.

"All right, let's try it!" Frank tried it in the lock, where it moved slightly farther, but didn't quite make it. He shrugged. "Too much to ask that it work right off."

He rubbed some more of the leaf on it, and tried the key once again. He examined it closely, noticing where there were still some small marks where the slot wasn't quite right. He continued filing, making the cuts wider and deeper. He tried the key again, then went through another cycle of filing.

Frank finally inserted the key, and it started to turn. He stopped and looked at her with a grin, letting the suspense build for a few seconds. He finally kept turning and the locked popped open.

"Whoa!" Frank yelled. "It opened!"

Athena smiled. "Brilliant!"

He laughed. "I know I should probably act cool like I do this all the time, but I honestly can't believe we did it."

"You're very clever," she said, giving Frank a look of admiration. She was very impressed with how he'd solved the problem.

Frank blushed at the compliment. "Thanks," he said with a shy smile.

Athena felt herself in a very unusual mental state, one that she experienced only very rarely and never this strongly. Although original ideas and creativity were a limitation she had, the experience of participating in Frank's scheme was very stimulating and exciting. While it wasn't true creativity of her own, Frank had acted as a bridge for her lack of imagination. The immersion in his creativity allowed her to experience a mental state resembling creativity of her own.

"Well, let's have a look," he said with a grin. "I'm glad we brought the flashlights, just in case."

He pulled them out of his backpack, handing one to her. He pulled the lock off the door and gently placed it to the side. He took hold of the handle on the door and pulled. Nothing happened. Frank frowned, and pulled harder. Still, the door didn't budge. He put a foot on the wall and pulled with everything he had, and finally the door moved a tiny bit, with a loud squeak of rust.

"Dang it," he said. "It's rusted shut. Well, now we know for sure it hasn't been opened in a long time. Let me go see if I can find some kind of metal rod we can use as a pry bar."

"All right," she said. "I'll wait here and look at it. Maybe I can figure out a way to unstick it."

He looked at the door, running his eyes around the edges doubtfully. "Um, maybe, I don't see anything, though. Anyway, back in a sec."

He headed up the stairs. She waited for him to be out of sight, then gripped the door handle and easily pulled it open in a little shower of rust and another loud squeak. She didn't pull it all the way open, wanting to share the first look with Frank.

"Frank!" she called. "Come back, the door popped open."

He came jogging back, blinking at the now open door. "How the heck did you get it open?" he asked.

"I just pulled on it and it opened," she said innocently. "You most likely loosened it when you opened it the first small amount."

"I guess I must have. It sure seemed stuck, though," he said doubtfully, but then went back to excited again. "Oh well, I'm not going to argue. Let's see what's in there. I hope it's not just a janitor closet or something boring after all that work."

"Just making the key was exciting, no matter what we find," Athena said sincerely.

Frank gave her an appraising look. "You're a very strange girl, you know that? I've never met anyone else besides me who would be excited standing around making a key all afternoon."

She evaluated his facial expression and was relieved that he meant this as a compliment, and not suspiciously. "Thank you."

"I mean! I meant 'strange' in a good way, not a weird way," he said with a grin. "You know what I mean. I hope."

"I do," she said, smiling. "I think it's fair to say I'm unusual in my experience as well."

"Argh, let's quit yakking and see what's in there," he said.

He grabbed the door and swung it open. It was very dark inside compared to the brightness outside, though they could see that there was a concrete passageway. She knew that Frank wouldn't be able to see anything beyond that because of the brightness difference, but she could tell with her infrared vision that the passage went back about thirty feet and then abruptly sloped down. She suspected there was a stairway at the end.

"I can't see anything," he said. "I think it goes back kind of far, though. Let's go in and see what we find."

They switched on their flashlights as Athena followed Frank into the tunnel. She let him lead, though she peeked past him to make certain there wasn't any danger she could see that he couldn't.

Author's Note: Blessed are the reviewers, for they will inherit Tomorrowland. :)

The official story site is at www. frankandathena .com for discussions of the story! - T.K.