A.S.T.R.O.
2. A new home
Ellen Richardson took one look at Tobio and instantly her maternal instinct took over. She took the little waif into the hall half bath and washed his hands and face with a soapy wash cloth.
"You poor little boy." She said, "Don't you worry about a thing, we're going to make you right at home here."
Tobio looked up at her and tried to smile. While he felt comfort in being taken in by the Richardson's, he was still in shock from the previous night's adventure. His memories, whether they were real or implanted, contained many years of happy times with his father, and more distant ones with his mother. The realization that he'd never see either one of them again weighed down heavily on him, and it would take some time for that sorrow to be replaced by the new love of an adoptive parent.
Tommy and Reno stormed down the stairs toward the kitchen where Mr. Richardson was busy cooking up scrambled eggs and hash browns. The smell hit Tobio's olfactory senses, and the sensation recalled pleasant memories. He started to salivate, with the realization that he was hungry.
"Tommy, Reno," Mr. Richardson addressed the boys as they sat down at the table, "We will be having a guest for the foreseeable future."
Mrs. Richardson led Tobio into the kitchen. "Boys, Please make Tobio feel at home. He's the orphaned son of a friend of your father."
Reno got up and walked over to Tobio. He threw his arms around him and gave him a hug. "Cheer up Tobio. I'll be a big brother for you." The elder boy said. "I know how it feels to be left all alone in the world."
"How old are you, Tobio?" Tommy asked, "I'm ten and Reno is thirteen."
Tobio had to think for a few seconds, but his memory held the answer. "I'm nine years old." Tobio said, "So I guess you are both big brothers to me."
"Hey, yeah!" Tommy said holding out his hand, palm facing up, "Give me five! I always wanted a younger brother."
Tobio placed his open hand face down on top of Tommy's.
"No, not like that!" Tommy said. "Here, hold out you hand like I did."
Tobio followed the boy's example, and Tommy slapped Tobio's hand with his. "Now that's how you give five!"
Tommy wolfed down his breakfast, while Reno and Tobio ate more slowly. Tobio seemed to find extreme rapture in each bite, and it was clear to Mrs. Richardson that the breakfast had picked up the boys spirits.
"You act like you haven't eaten in years." Ellen told him. "Just when was your last meal?"
"I don't remember." Tobio said.
"That long?" She laughed as Tobio handed her his empty plate. "Seconds?" she asked.
Tobio gave the question a few moments thought before answering. "I guess so, if you don't mind too much."
"Nonsense!" Robert said as he cracked two more eggs into the bowl and started scrambling them. "I was a mess Sargent in the army, being a cook is in my blood now. It will be my pleasure!"
From out in the street the sound of honking wafted into the brownstone. "I think your bus is coming!" Ellen Richardson yelled to Tommy and Reno, who were already running out the door.
"They always nearly miss their school bus every morning with their dilly dallying." She complained to Tobio. "Every once in a while I have to give them my TA pass so they can take the city bus or the subway to school because they actually get outside too late."
"While the kids are at school, why don't you see if you can alter some of Tommy's old clothes to fit Tobio?" Mr Richardson asked his wife. "If he's going to live with us, he's going to need more to wear than what he has on his back now."
"Good idea." She said. "I was going to bring Tommy's outgrown clothes to Goodwill, but I think they will fit Tobio just fine."
Tobio finished his second helping of scrambled eggs and carefully stacked his plate on top of the other two and carried the dirty dishes to the sink.
"Well thank you, Tobio!" Mr. Richardson said. "Now if I could only get my other two sons to clean up the table after themselves!" He rinsed the breakfast dishes off and placed them in the dishwasher, and then removed his apron. "Now it's time for me to run off to work. I'll see both of you later." Robert kissed his wife goodbye and gave Tobio a pat on the head, before grabbing his briefcase and heading out the door.
"Well, I guess it's just the two of us until 3:30 when the boys get back from school." She told Tobio.
"I wish I could go to school." the boy sighed.
"Well, we'll just have to do something about that, won't we." Mrs. Richardson said. "I guess we'll have to see what we need to do to get you enrolled in the public school system. Might be a bit of a problem not having any legal identity papers for you, but I have a lawyer friend who might be able to help us out with that."
"Gee, thanks!" Tobio said. "If I can go to school, I could make some friends."
"Well, that won't be a problem." She laughed. "I'm sure as soon as they get home from school Tommy and Reno will introduce you to some of their friends. I'm sure you'll hit it off with them right away. Some of my son's friends are a little strange, but they're good kids."
Tommy usually walked home with his best friend Turtle. Turtle was about an inch shorter than Tommy though he was actually a few months older. He lived with his mother and older sister, his father was in the army reserves and was often away for months at a time.
"Want to come over to my house after school and play video games, Specs?" he asked Tommy. "I've got a few new ones for my Playstation."
"Sure, Turtle." Tommy said. "Can I bring Tobio with me? He's a new kid about a year younger than me that's going to be living with us."
"Sure, I'd like to meet him." Turtle said, "I could use some new blood to play with. You're getting too good and I can't beat you so easy anymore."
"Great, let's stop by my house first and and I'll introduce you to him." Tommy suggested.
Tommy and Turtle knocked on the door and Mrs. Richardson opened it. "Welcome home from school son," she said, adding "Hi Shib, want some cookies?"
"Gee thanks! Mrs. Richardson." Turtle said.
Tobio stood behind Ellen Richardson, he was now wearing one of Tommy's out grown short pants and a N.Y. Rangers jersey.
"Hey, that's my favorite shirt!" Tommy cried, "What's he doing with it?"
"It's not yours anymore, son," his mother said, "Remember, you said it was too small on you?"
"Oh yeah, I guess I did." Tommy said. "Well that's OK, it looks good on you Tobio."
"Hi Tobio," Turtle said, sticking out his hand, palm up, "My name is Shib, but my friends call me Turtle."
"What kind of name is Shib?" Tobio asked, slapping Turtle's hand with his palm to high five him.
"Well it's actually short for Shibugaki, but the teachers can't pronounce that, so they just call me Shib for short." Turtle said. "I was named for my great grandfather, my grandfather married my grandmother when he was stationed in Japan right after WWII."
"Gee, then you're actually 1/8 Japanese." Tobio said.
"That's funny," Tommy said, "you look Hispanic to me."
"Well DUH!" Turtle said. "My last name is Rodriguez!"
"Hey Mom!" Tommy yelled, "Me and Tobio are going over to Turtle's house to play video games, OK?"
"Sure, just make sure you get home in time for dinner!" Mrs. Richardson yelled back from the laundry room.
As the three boys ran out the front door they almost ran into Reno who was just getting home from middle school.
"Where are you guys going?" Reno asked.
"We're going over to Turtle's house to check out his new Playstation games." Tommy told his step brother, "Want to come with us?"
"No thanks." Reno replied, "I'm going to work on my science fair project before dinner."
"Hope you win this year!" Tommy replied as the front door slammed shut.
Turtle lived a block and a half away from the Richardson's in a six story apartment house. The nearly 100 year old building had been renovated in an urban renewal project and now sported an all modern interior. The old wood frame windows had all been replaced with energy efficient double pane units that let in lots of light, but kept out the heat and cold. The ancient elevators had been replaced by modern ones and all new lighting installed in the hallways and stairs.
As the boys entered the apartment, Turtle greeted his older sister who was lying on the bed in her room with a phone held tightly against her left ear. "Hi hooky!" he yelled.
"I told you not to call me that!" she yelled back, throwing a pillow at him, and missing.
"What did you call her?" Tobio asked.
"I like to tease her and call her Hooky, because of all of her boy friends." Turtle laughed. "It's short for hooker."
"What's a hooker?" Tobio asked
"Hey, I heard that!" Turtle's sister yelled from her room.
The boys closed the door behind them in Turtle's room and Shib hooked up the Playstation to the TV set and inserted a game disk into the machine. "I just got this fantastic car race game," he said, "up to four players at a time."
They set the machine up for three to play, Turtle had three game controllers so all three of them could battle each other. The boys selected their cars from the opening menu and took turns taking a practice run around the track before actually starting a race in earnest.
"Maybe I'll go easy on you two since you've never played this before." Turtle told Tommy and Tobio.
Right away it was obvious that this was going to be a challenging game. As soon as the starting lights ticked down and the race began, Tommy kept crashing his car into the retaining wall, or one of the extra cars operated by the computer. Turtle drove his like a maniac, cutting off other cars and causing Tommy and Tobio to crash several times. He won the first heat easily.
"Want a rematch?" he asked.
"Sure!" Tommy said. Tobio just nodded his head.
Once again the starting lights ticked down and the race began. This time things went a bit differently. Tobio skillfully weaved in and out of the field, avoiding Turtles efforts to run him off the road. It seemed that he had completely learned the game after playing it but once. His hand-eye coordination was perfect, and his car zoomed down the track at a record setting pace. He quickly had several laps on Turtle and Tommy.
"Holy crap!" Turtle yelled "you've played this game before, haven't you?"
"No." Tobio said, "This is my first time."
Dr. Pavilion entered Dr. O'Shay's office without knocking. "I told you that I didn't think Dr. Tenma was the right choice for the job." he said, leaning on O'Shay's desk.
"You knew damn well that Dr. Tenma was the only man who could have created the required A.I. software, and you gave your approval when the time came to hire him." O'Shay answered back without looking up at his colleague.
"Against my better judgment." Pavilion huffed. "Now our prototype is gone and we have to start over again from square one."
"You had to send the Delta force after Tenma, didn't you?" O'Shay replied. "You knew they would shoot first and ask questions later. If the job had been done more tactfully Tenma would still be alive, and the prototype would have been recovered."
"The prototype wasn't in the car." Pavilion answered back, "It's still out there somewhere."
"Well then why don't you just activate the built in tracking device?" O'Shay asked.
"I would if I could." Pavilion said. "I found this in the laboratory." He handed Dr. O'Shay a small device. "Tenma swapped out the prototype's personality module, thereby disabling the military systems modes and our remote access. We can't activate the tracking device."
"You know, I think I've figured out what Tenma was doing." O'Shay sighed. "I guess I should have noticed his behavior sooner and talked to him."
"What are you talking about?" Pavilion demanded.
"Dr. Tenma started working on our project shortly after the tragic death of his nine year old son." O'Shay explained. "When you suggested that we build the first prototype in a smaller scale, Tenma asked me if he could design the outward appearance of the prototype. We had already agreed that it would be in the form of a child, but we hadn't come up with any distinctive features. I only discovered a few days ago that Tenma's design parameters modeled our prototype to look like his dead son, Tobio."
"You mean that Tenma put his son's personality into our prototype?" Pavilion said.
"It seems so." O'Shay answered. "I think in the last few days he deluded himself into thinking that A.S.T.R.O. was really his Tobio. That would explain why he ran off with it. At least in doing so he deactivated the military systems, which means that the android won't be dangerous to the public."
"Not quite." Pavilion said. "The prototype's military systems may be off line and their access blocked to the android's conscious A.I., but they are still there in the underlying operating system. If the A.I. has to handle any stress that would correspond to a human adrenalin reaction, the military mode can be activated unconsciously without the will of the A.I. If that does happen, we will have access to the tracking systems. I'll keep our remote monitoring equipment on line full time in case that happens."