Chapter Five. Hacker finally makes an appearance. i hope i kept him in character but it's hard to tell what with it being pre-cyber-domination.

I don't own Cyberchase. Max is mine.

Chapter Five
Chills in the Circuit Board

"Who are you?" Max demanded, sharply. She yanked her arms out of the stranger's grasp and stepped back to better see the borg standing before her.

Her was tall and gangly with ridiculously tiny legs peeping out from underneath a white lab coat. He had green skin, a long, pointy chin, a pencil-thin nose, and black hair that was slicked back over his skull and curled upward at the bottom. He tried to smile at her but his eyes didn't catch the warmth his smile was trying to convey.

"My name is Hieronymus Hacker. I am Dr. Marbles' assistant." he said, offering Max his hand. "And you are?"

Max backed up, ignoring the hand. "Max. I'm Dr. Marbles' daughter." She said. She hadn't let her guard down yet. There was just something about Hieronymus she didn't like.

"His daughter." Hieronymus said, smile widening. "How interesting? He never mentioned he had a daughter as pretty as you."

"Funny. He never mentioned he had an assistant." Max said.

She was about to say more when the control room doors hissed open and Dr. Marbles sprinted into the room. He stopped when he saw Max and opened his arms to his little girl.

"Max? I hadn't expected you to be home so soon. Is everything alright?" he asked.

Max hugged him but kept her eyes on the borg behind her father. "I'm fine. Everything's fine. I just wanted to come home for a while. Is that so wrong?"

"Negative. I just hadn't expected you back this early." He said, releasing her.

He looked at her, expecting to see the Shield-Maiden's sash over her shoulder and a black belt around her waist. He didn't see either sash or belt and he knew Max had flunked out of becoming a Shield-Maiden.

"Max, are you sure everything's alright?" he asked.

Max looked at him and nodded. "Yeah."

"Then why aren't you wearing your sash? Where's your black belt?"

"I didn't get them, Dad."

"Master Pi send you home?"

"No. I sent myself home. It – it just wasn't working out, Dad. I – I just felt like I wasn't ready."

Mathias' face softened. He touched Max's face with his fingertips. "I'm sorry, Max."

"It's okay, Dad. Master Pi says I can try again whenever I'm ready. Right now, I'm just a Warrior of Shangri-La. Nothing more."

"Okay." Mathias said. He knew when not to push issues. This particular issue was one Max was making quite clear she didn't want to discuss.

Max nodded back at Hacker. "Dad, who is this guy?" she asked.

Mathias smiled. "This is my new assistant, Hieronymus Hacker. Hieronymus, this is my daughter, Max."

Hieronymus held out his hand again to Max who took a step back. "Pleased to meet you, Max." he said.

Max didn't share his enthusiasm. She ignored him and looked back at her father. "Did you make him, Dad?"

Mathias stared at Max. "You have entered the data correctly." he said.

"Why?"

"Max, you were gone for three years. Without you, I was getting far behind in my work. I needed someone who would help me and since you weren't always going to be here – what with you joining the Warriors and all – I calculated the possibility of making a new assistant."

"So, you were just going to replace me?"

Mathias shook his head. "Replace you? I would never replace you, Max!"

"Then why did you make a new assistant?"

"Max, please. Don't make the situation more than it is. I only created him to help me with Motherboard, that is all."

"Why did you call Mom or Professor Archimedes or Uncle Cooper? I'm sure they would be happy to help you!"

"Yes, I'm sure they would. But Ada, Professor Archimedes, and Cooper all have things they need to do besides help me."

"Dad, I thought I was going to inherit second-great grandpa Siren's legacy! Not him!"

"Max, your grandpa's legacy is will be yours to inherit. But only when I have passed on. Until then, decisions surrounding Motherboard's health are up to me to make. If I should decide to make an assistant or call someone to help me, I expect you to at least approve of the fact I had put a lot of thought into what I was doing."

"You could have asked me what I thought about this." Max said.

Mathias opened his mouth to argue but then shut it when he realized what Max had said was true. Sometimes he took for granted the fact her lot in life was to be his daughter and heir. He had to admit that when he was making plans to create Hieronymus, he hadn't even thought to discuss it with Max. Mathias realized this had to be a real blow to her ego to suddenly be home and find herself "replaced" by a borg who bore no resemblance to either of them.

"I'm sorry, Max." he said. "I should have called you and I didn't think to."

"When did you make him?" Max asked.

"Six months ago. Why?"

Max pulled her SQWACK Pad out of the back of her belt and switched it on. She went back through the call history list and found nothing from her father around that date. It didn't surprise her, though. Her father had probably been busy with his duties and she had been busy doing business on Cybersite Alternare around that time. The residence there were having a border war that was teetering dangerously on the edge of full-out violence.

Alternare had their own political structured society that took no part in the affairs of the rest of Cyberspace. It was also controlled by two, feuding clans who had their own ideas and interests in mind. Each clan controlled half of the site, but there was a disagreement over where the borderline should be. At the middle of the site were minerals and other precious elements. The families agreed they could split the materials up between them but they didn't know how much of the materials each side could have, and since the materials also happened to constantly grow in that region, each side wanted to make sure the other didn't get more than their share. Also, there were other important materials that only grew on one side or the other. Both families wanted access to the same materials but couldn't agree on who got what. It became Max and Red's job to come up with a solution to their problem which took weeks to make both sides agree on anything.

Max put her SQWACK away. "What's done is done. I suppose I'll have to live with it." she said.

Mathias squeezed her shoulder. "I'm sorry for not telling you, Max."

"I understand, Dad." she said.

She didn't touch him, which was a bad sign on his part. Mathias decided not to fret about it. He figured Max would get over it eventually.

He hoped.

Max shrugged her bag higher on her shoulder. "Is my room still available?" she asked.

"Of course, Max. Hieronymus, would you like to help her?" Mathias said.

"Of course, Dr. Marbles." Hieronymus said. He moved forward to take her bag but Max swiveled out of his reach.

"I can handle it." she said. She tried not to sound angry but she couldn't keep the venom out of her voice when she said it.

She turned on her heel and marched down the to her room where she set to work getting it cleaned to her specifications. She located a box of decorative hooks with slabs of adhesives. She placed these on the wall in certain places and unloaded her weapons. She hung the shield directly over her bed by its strap and hand grips and laid her quarter stave on hooks above the shield. Then, she unrolled her collection of throwing knives and hung the roll on hooks by the grommets fastened in the corners. She stuffed her clothes in her dresser drawers and her SQWACK Pad was shut in the bedside table along with her nunchuks.

Pleased everything was as it should be, Max laid back on her bed and fell asleep.

0

During the year that followed Max's return to Control Central, she added a few more daily activities to her schedule. Three years of training fused routines in her brain and she continued to religiously follow those routines to the letter, with only a few variations.

She would wake up a half-hour before dawn, dress in her gi, eat breakfast, and mediate. Then, she would head up to the control room and help with routine checks. After that she would practice her Hapkido skills in a holo-dome, take a shower, and eat supper with Mathias and Hieronymus.

Her schedule worked out because Hieronymus did most of the grunt work. But the evening meals with him were less than bearable. Hieronymus's only interest since Max came home was the Warrior life on Shangri-La, though Max repeatedly informed him she couldn't discuss those things. Max hadn't liked Hieronymus before, but she definitely didn't like him now. There were also times when Mathias had to disappear for meetings with the heads of Cyberspace and Max was forced to work with Hieronymus.

But another reason why she disliked Hieronymus was the fact she caught him multiple times in her room looking at her stuff. There had been times when things like her throwing knives, shield, stave, and nunchuks vanished from her room. Of course, all those things vanished after Hieronymus had paid a visit to her room. Max always knew it was Hieronymus who had taken the items and automatically took the issue up with her father. Of course, Hieronymus always had an excuse on hand.

"I was just looking at this shield. I found it so fascinating, I wanted to analyze it." he said.

"Next time, Hieronymus, please ask Max before you take anything." Mathias said, taking the shield from him and passing it back to Max.

"Of course." Hieronymus said with a slick grin.

Max hated that grin. It was a smile that blended oddly with his sickly-green skin. And his eyes never reflected the friendliness his smile tried to convey. His eyes were dark, like a train-less tunnel. Covetous, tricky, false. She could come up with quite a few adjectives to describe how she felt about him.

Max had tried telling her father how she felt about Hieronymus, but Mathias wouldn't listen to her.

"Max, I know I have not been spending much time with you lately. But you know how important my work is. You were not here when I needed you so I made an assistant." Mathias hugged his kid firmly but gently to him. "I know you do not like him, Max, but he is my assistant. So, try to be nice to him, okay."

Max agreed to try to be nice to him. Hieronymus was nice to her, too . . . in public. But neither one liked the other. That much was obvious. Max tried very hard to hide her contempt for Hieronymus. But Mathias could still tell Max hated his assistant.

Max tried to stay away from Hieronymus. But it seemed like everywhere she went, Hieronymus was there, getting in her way. At one point she ordered him to stay away from her but he didn't listen. Then, Max suspected he was up to no good when someone appeared in her room.