(edited 7-7-12, because I forgot David still had a black eye. D'oh. Too much time between updates.)
Alive
Book 2
Pt8
1
David studied the grotesque thing that filled the monitor in his Father's study. It was about the size of a dust mote. Ordinarily it would have drawn no more attention than a speck of lint on a sleeve, or a crumb fallen against a lapel. But magnified on the screen, it appeared as large transparent spider, veined with a nanoparticles that lined its interior like sparkling dust. That dust now presumably contained personal information about David. The little spy raced back and forth inside its small glass prison for a minute, before its tiny processor realized that it was trapped. Then it began to sizzle and pop. In moments it melted to a tiny smear of some oily fluid against the glass.
David sighed and looked at Amanda, who was sitting beside him on the couch, fidgeting and casting guilty glances at the people who had gathered in the room.
Alan Hobby sighed and placed his head in his hands.
Grace, who had just got back from Inland this morning, clucked her tongue as she watched her boss's reaction. She'd had no idea what kind of storm had been awaiting her.
Mario swore and struck the wall with his open palm. This was a big breach. Never had anything got inside the lab perimeter.
Stuart King crossed his arms and said nothing. He hadn't been here long enough to offer an opinion.
Jenna West plucked the remote from Hobby's desk, scrolled the video back to the point before the snoop self-destructed, and froze the image. She paced back and forth a few times, arms crossed, tapping her chin with a finger. Then set her cold blue gaze on David, her face in a stone expression that he could not read.
"So, let's start from the beginning," she said, pulling up chair and sitting in it backwards, arms draped across the back, like a disappointed parent about to give a lecture.
"Again?" David said, incredulous.
"Again," Jenna confirmed. David started to object but caught the look in his Father's eye.
"Ok," he said. He started all over, recounting the events of Saturday night. Jenna listened carefully, tapping her pod occasionally to mark a place in the audio she was recording.
2
She had arrived before dawn and had immediately taken charge, barking orders even as she exited her copter in Hobby's parking bay. She'd strode into the reception room exuding a daunting sense of authority, and looking a lot more stylish than David would expect from someone in the field of cyber-security. Jet black suit, hugging her trim body like a second skin. Golden blonde mane, clipped at the shoulders. Brilliant blue eyes that seemed to miss nothing.
She'd instructed the in-house security to stand down after both the snoops they'd found had self-destructed immediately upon detection. One had been located in Amanda's room, lodged in the frame of her desktop; and the other, as they'd suspected, in the lab. But it was not where they expected. It had been caught hiding in the hair of one of a functional butler prototype. How it tried to send the signal was yet to be discovered
Both of the snoops had registered on the scanner and then immediately melted. Jenna was bringing a new type of scanner, she'd explained. It was something special, and would not trigger the auto-destruct feature these new snoops had. She'd found the last one quickly, tucked into the keyboard of David desktop. They had managed to catch this one intact, but it had destroyed itself just minutes later, before they had a chance to find out what it had learned.
"It must have been looking for passwords," Jenna had explained. "It seemed to be using a pretty simple keystroke routine to get the information." It seemed like an antiquated method to everyone in the room, but Jenna explained that it logical, especially since it was a physical spy.
"These things can't retain much data," Jenna had explained. "Numbers. Passwords. It's sent it bundled to the hacker, and then they have to figure out what the data is for and where to use it."
But getting the stolen data past Cybertronics security was another matter. This was where the snoop had failed… at least they hoped.
Now Jenna wanted to find out how they got here.
3
"…and then we came home," David finished, hoping that Jenna wasn't going to ask him to repeat the story again. He knew what she was doing, having him repeat the story, marking certain places in the audio to later analyze for voice stress patterns. Of course it was highly improbable that David would be involved in a plot to spy on his Father's company, and the snoops had obviously been randomly placed. But a person in Jenna West's business wasn't paid to trust anyone.
When David finished, Jenna glanced at Amanda. The girl flinched thinking it was her turn for another recitation. But Jenna had apparently had enough too. Or perhaps it was the ill-tempered look on Stuart's face that made her change her mind.
"Alight kids," she said, rising from the chair. "You're off the hook for now."
"Can we still go Inland?" Amanda asked anxiously. It was the first time David had heard her sound so acquiescent.
"Sure," Jenna said, in a reassuring tone. "But I want you to do full spectrum scans in and out for a while, okay?"
"Is that safe?" Stuart said.
"As long as they're not doing it more than once a day," she said. Then she turned to Hobby. "Fortunately all the attempts to connect to the net were blocked … well, as far as we can tell at this point. These things can't retain much data and don't have a very long life. But they far were too sophisticated to be from some amateur operation, that's for sure. I think it would be prudent if we-" Jenna stopped suddenly, and looked at David and Amanda.
"Bye kids," she said with a smile. The smile didn't reach her eyes. The two rose quickly and headed for the door.
Grace caught David's attention as they left, pointing at his eye and silently mouthing the word "clinic". David waved his hand to let her know it wasn't hurting anymore and stepped up to catch Amanda. He knew Grace would find him later and fuss about his black eye until he was forced to take some unnecessary medication. But the emergency would keep her busy for a while.
When they were outside the room, the adults started talking again. David hoped they wouldn't be at it too long. There were issues he had to address with father; things they had to discuss alone. But the unexpected presence of snoops would take precedence for a while.
"Man, she's cold," Amanda hissed, as they waited for the elevator. "And irritating!"
"It's just her job," David said, remembering a very different Jenna from his party. She'd been smiling and joking with Grace and her friends. But even then she'd seemed very attentive. Not the kind of person you could easily fool.
The elevator finally arrived and the two boarded. They were quiet a moment after the doors closed, each lost in their own thoughts. Amanda still fuming about Jenna and David thinking over what had happened. He finally broke the silence.
"I couldn't help but notice you left Martin out of the story," he said.
"Yeah," she replied, evenly. "I was noticing the same thing about you."
The fell into silence again, until the elevator stopped.
"Oh well," David sighed, as they exited onto the cafeteria floor. "We shouldn't be surprised if Jenna figures it out."
4
Not many Inlanders would call the Cybertronics eatery a 'cafeteria'. It looked more like a pseudo-posh restaurant that took up almost a third of the floor. The decor was dark polished wood, and plants were positioned around the tables and hanging from the ceiling, adding a rustic touch to a generally artificial environment. Soft trance music was pumped in, creating a mood that almost made up for the food, which tended to look better than it tasted. But the service was good. And you never had to worry about tipping the waiters. They had no need for money.
David pushed his breakfast around the plate with a fork as he thought. Through the windows that lined the cafeteria, he could see storm clouds on the horizon. But there was no way to know if they were headed this way and, due to climate change, predictions weren't very accurate any more.
"You aren't hungry?" Amanda said as she tore into her meal.
David shrugged. The food was rather bland. There had been some kind of shipping delay and the organics he always ordered online, had not yet arrived. So he'd been making due with company supply, which was laced with preservatives and artificial flavorings, all of which tasted like plastic to him.
Amanda was not obviously so picky and was loudly relishing her strawberry syrup drenched protein cakes.
"It's doesn't make sense," David said as he toyed with his food. Amanda gobbled up another mouthful before she spoke.
"What doesn't make sense?" she said as she chewed. David grimaced.
"You have no manners at all, do you?" he said. Amanda rolled her eyes and made a hand gesture her father would not approve of.
"The snoops," David continued. "They go to all this trouble to place these things, but the bugs can't get past simple security blocks to send the information? I don't get it."
"Nothing to get," Amanda said as she scooped more the sweet stuff into her mouth. "They screwed up. Somebody sold them a bunch of new toys that didn't work."
"Either that or they were after something else," he said.
"You're doing it again," Amanda sighed.
"Doing what?"
"Making things unnecessarily complicated," she said. "Always proceed with the simplest explanation until a more complex view is supported by the evidence."
"Not bad," David said, raising his eyebrows. "Occam's Razor."
"Yeah, that thing," Amanda replied and chomped down another mouthful.
Mario and a few techs entered the cafeteria and took seats at a booth across the room. They immediately fell into a tense conversation, huddled close like a football team outlining a difficult play. Mario was whispering and gesturing like a disappointed quarterback. Things were going to be like this for a while, David guessed. He turned back to Amanda.
"I'm impressed," he said.
"About what?" she replied, licking her fork clean.
"That you knew Occam's Razor," he said.
"Misogynist," she replied.
"Misogynist? Why? For being impressed?"
"For assuming I wouldn't know about that," she said.
"Ok, first of all, that's not what misogynist means," David replied. "And even if it did mean that, what I said wouldn't make me a misogynist. It would just make me … wait. That's not what I meant. I mean that, what I said was… ok, let say that I didn't assume that you didn't know …" he stopped again, exasperated. How did she always do this to him?
Amanda was obviously enjoying his fumbling reply.
"Ok, it just makes you a snob," she teased as she pushed her plate aside and dug into a bowl of honey-drenched peaches. "Anyway, security is tighter here than in an regular home. So naturally it would be harder for bugs to get a line out. Right?"
"I guess," David said. "But what if they were after something else? I mean, the bugs self-destructed before they could be analyzed. We're only assuming they were trying to collect data."
Amanda was quiet a moment. David was waiting for her to speak, assuming that she had taken to this new line of thinking and was coming up with a logical response. But when she finally responded it was clear there were other things on her mind.
"You're afraid of Martin," she said.
"What?" David said. "What's that got to do with the subject?"
"Nothing," Amanda replied. "Jenna seems capable of handling that problem. Like you said, 'it's her job'. Right? I was talking about Martin. You're afraid of him. Why?"
"Amanda," David sighed, "I thought we agreed to let this go."
Amanda was obviously not letting it go.
"I left him out of the story because, in spite of his occasional tendency to be a complete asshat, I still like him," she said. "So, why'd you leave him out?"
As David stammered through a response, she put her face over her bowl and scooped her dessert into her mouth, peering up at him with taunting eyes. But David quickly realized he didn't have a suitable lie and, after all, she was just doing this to annoy him.
"You're not going to let this go are you?" he said.
Amanda picked up her bowl, lifted her head and poured pouring the last of the honey into her mouth. Then she set the bowl down, let out a long satisfied sigh and leaned back in her chair, smiling at David.
"Nope," she said. "It bugs you too much."
Ok, David thought. Fight fire with fire. It was his turn for a sudden and inexplicable change of subject.
"You've got to introduce me to Frill," he said.
Amanda's brows twisted in confusion. She gazed up at the ceiling a moment, as if something up there might help her make sense of David's sudden detour. Then a knowing look slowly grew in her eyes, and a smile formed on her face.
"Taking a walk on the wild side?" she said.
"Amanda!" David blurted, catching the attention of the techs who glanced over, but went quickly back to their business. The serving Mecha approached, thinking there might be something David needed. But he waved it away, and leaned forward to whisper.
"Don't even go there," he said to the giggling girl. "I just want to speak with him."
"Oh, suuure," she said in a sly voice. "Isn't that how these things always start? 'Oh, Mandy-girl, can you introduce me to your friend?' As a matter of fact I think that's what Zee said."
"Stop!" David said. Amanda donned a melodramatic pout, and twisted one of her long braids in her fingers.
"And here I thought we had a thing going on," she said.
"Okok, I get it," David said. "But I'm trying to be serious now."
"Me too," she replied.
David hesitated. He hadn't expected this.
"I would like very much to think that we have a thing going on too," he said. "But, right now there's a lot of other stuff going on, and I need to figure out how to deal with it."
His words made her smile and he had to look away before his new Orga urges distracted him from his train of thought. Amanda straightened up in her seat like a chastened schoolgirl, folded her hands on the table and gave him her rapt attention. David continued.
"Now, you said Frill used to go out with that Crash Jammer guy… um… Myron. Right?"
"So?"
"Well, I want Frill to introduce me to him."
"Why?" she replied. "Frill's a lot cuter. I mean, just imho."
"Ahh!" David groaned, grasping his head in his hands. "Are you ever going to quit with this?"
"Not in your wildest dreams," she replied, laughing.
Wildest dreams! That reminded David. If Mario was here, then his Dad's meeting must be over. He rose quickly.
"Relax! I was just kidding," Amanda, said.
"I'm not angry," David said. "I just have to see my Dad now. Will you do me favor and hook me up with Fr… I mean, just send him my addy, ok? I'll work it out?"
"Suuure," Amanda said with a wink. "I'll just let you two 'work it out'."
David ignored the tease as he raced for the elevator. He had to speak with his Father before his two old friends started salvaging someplace they shouldn't. It was the place where his wildest dreams had come true, and David didn't want 'Her' to be disturbed.
5
Alan Hobby sat down heavily behind his desk and rubbed his eyes. Everyone was gone now. Jenna had headed back inland and the rest had gone to work. It had been a long and eventful morning and Hobby obviously didn't feel like dealing with another emergency… especially one that he didn't understand. He considered David's request for a moment before he responded.
"That's a lot to ask for without an explanation, David," he said, slipping on his reading glasses so he could browse his inbox while they spoke.
"Please trust me on this one," David said. "I can't stop them."
"What makes you think I can?"
"We own that property, don't we?" David said. "I mean, it's Cybertronics', right?"
"Technically no. It's actually government land," Hobby said. "We have an agreement with the Fed for rights of use and it's a Mecha restricted zone, so we are allowed some authority to police. But I don't have the power to tell licensed divers where they can search. Skipper and Eddie have rights too. If the area is legally open for salvage, there's not much I can do."
"This is important!"
Hobby shot David an impatient look. But David wasn't about to apologize for his tone of voice. This matter was too critical.
"It's so damned important that you can't explain to me why?" Hobby said.
David returned his Father's gaze without speaking. The silent battle of wills went on for tense moments before Hobby finally relented with sigh.
"Ok, ok. I think I can… well, I am sure I can close the area off by claiming a security breach. And I guess we did have a real one, so I wouldn't be lying. But that will only get you a week or so, before Skipper can legally challenge me to provide justification for the ban."
"Good enough for now," David said. "When can you start?"
Hobby waved a dismissive hand and went back to his inbox.
"I'll send out an alert now, and have security place some markers tonight," he said. But he suddenly turned back to David, a revelation blooming in his eyes.
"David," he started slowly, "has this situation got anything to do with the investigation some years back?"
"Huh?" David responded. It was stupid sound; the sound of someone being caught off guard.
"A few months before you returned," Hobby said, "there was a team of Feds digging around beyond the breakwaters, on the outskirts of the restricted zone. They were being all hush-hush about it and since there was no internal security breach, I wasn't contacted. But now…" Hobby stopped suddenly, and placed a finger to his chin. In his expression, David could see the man's mind putting things together.
After all this time.
David had never told his 'Father' where the miracle had occurred. Over the years he had been amazed that neither Hobby nor Grace had ever put it together. But then again, what remained of the old world was still a mystery. The maps of the submerged zones showed an area where an old amusement park was supposed to be. But of what forgotten treasures still lay within the sunken ruins, there was no indication.
"Dad," David said, breaking Hobby from his train of thought. "Please. Don't go there. You have to trust me on this. And…. and I have to trust you."
Alan Hobby gazed intently on his miraculous child. The man's eyes told all. He had figured it out. David could see it. But after a moment he simply leaned forward, clasped his hands together, and rested his elbows on the desk.
"What else did you want to tell me?" he said.
So he knew now. He knew where She must be. David decided not to press the issue. This man had created him; knew everything about him. If he could not trust his Father, then whom could he trust?
"It's Martin," David said. "I think Martin Swinton is going to become a problem"
David told the story of running into Martin after the chaos of the concert. He told about the boy's rocky relationship with Amanda and the pestering messages he'd sent her, the warnings and innuendos of threats. Alan Hobby listened carefully, silently, but oddly didn't seem surprised by this information. When David had finished recounting the incident, the man leaned back and rubbed his chin thoughtfully.
"Interesting," he said. "Why didn't you bring this up to Jenna?"
"I don't know," David said with an embarrassed shrug. "It didn't seem like it mattered."
"Come on, son," Hobby said, a disapproving look in his eye. "If you don't want to tell me, just say so. But don't lie. Both you and Amanda omitted Martin. Why?"
David shuffled uncomfortably.
"Dad, if I brought Martin into the story, Jenna might want to ask him questions… and who knows where that would lead. You understand that, don't you?"
Hobby hummed thoughtfully as he leaned back. He was quiet for a time, tapping a finger on the desk as he stared off into his thoughts. David finally grew impatient.
"Dad?" he said.
"Oh, sorry, David," Hobby said, sitting up straight in his chair. "I just…" he paused another moment. "Look, this security breach was rather unprecedented in more ways than one. But there are some things about it that I am not free to discuss with you… at least not yet. You'll learn about everything in good time. But until then I just want you to keep me informed about anything that comes up with young Mister Swinton, ok?"
"What is it?" David said. "Has it got something to do with Monica?"
"Not Monica," Hobby said.
"Dad!" David said. "Don't play games with me. This is what you pulled with Stuart, when you knew that I had met before but didn't say anything. It's like you're experimenting with me! I'm not a toy! I never was."
But Alan Hobby just held his palms up to signify he would say no more.
"Relax, David, relax. It's nothing like that," he said. "Now, if you run into Martin again, don't confront him. And if you can't avoid a confrontation, mention nothing about the security breach. Just let me know when and where and who he was with, if anyone."
David considered his Father's words. They were strange, weren't they? Why would the story about Martin lead him to think of the breach?
"You think Martin had something to do with the snoops, don't you?" he said.
Hobby's eyes widened to the point it was comical. But David didn't laugh. The man was clearly angry.
"It's time stop talking, son," Hobby said. "I know you had a rough weekend, but let's not cross the line, ok? You asked me to trust you. Now it's your turn to trust me."
"Sorry," David said.
But he really wasn't sorry. Because he too had a strange thought that Martin's presence was more than just a simple coincidence. And his Father had just inadvertently let him know he was onto something.
But what did the man know? And why couldn't he say? David was determined to find out.
6
Day was growing to a close. David paced his room, plucking at his lute while he considered the series of unexpected events that had conspired to make his life complicated. Outside his window he saw that the distant thunderheads, which had been hovering on the horizon all day, had grown closer since he'd first noticed them. They were violent hues of red and purple now, bathed in the glow of the setting sun.
It seemed a storm was headed this way after all. A perfect storm.
How could all this come down at the same time? What were the odds? And what other ghosts of the past might be awaiting around the next corner?
He'd put Skipper and Eddie on hold, but only for a short while. A week. Then what? He'd have to find a permanent solution for that one. And now Martin had somehow come back into his life, amazingly and ironically situated right in the middle of his friendship with Amanda.
Amanda! He still didn't know what was happening between them, if anything. First it was on, then off, and now…? He'd never forget the way she had pulled away from his embrace when Martin had appeared. But what was that thing in the cafeteria about? Did she really think they had 'a thing going on'? She sure wasn't acting like it.
David shook his head to get her out of his mind. He had other things to think about. Dark things. Like Dreven Olmier!
Again, what were the odds? The same night he runs into Martin, Olmier suddenly reappears. Both of them were a threat to his safety, and even the security of Cybertronics. On top of all this, his Father was holding something back. Something important. David was certain it had to do with the snoops. The connection to Olmier was obvious. But how did Martin fit in?
David ripped through a series of frustrated arpeggios as his mind raced with the possibilities. The notes came out muted and sloppy. He hadn't been practicing enough.
Breathe, he told himself.
He fell into his relaxing breathing rhythm. In moments his mind was calming. He tried the arpeggios again. 'Better', he said to himself. The discipline of playing always helped him get centered. He continued pacing and thinking, but slower now, and with more control.
His next step had something to do with the Crash Jam boy, Myron, but he wasn't sure exactly what it was yet. It would come. Somewhere in the back of his mind he could feel the plan already forming. Strange, how the Orga brain worked. It always surprised him, even after so many years. He could feel his subconscious mind shaping a strategy before he even knew all the parameters. It was so different than the way he used to think 'before'. Like so many of the functions of his human body, it seemed to happen on its own, at some level beyond the cold realm of logic and reason. In this intuitive realm, a principle like Occam's Razor was too limiting; an antagonistic pest grasping at the wings of his imagination.
And wasn't it the purely Orga flight of fancy that had led him to search for the Blue fairy in the first place? Isn't that what had lead him here? Where did that irrational leap of faith fit on the scale of reason?
Sometimes you had to just go with your gut.
David's laptop suddenly buzzed, breaking him from his thoughts. He knew who this had to be. He set his lute down and sat at his deck. The message was simple yet said everything.
"wtf?" it said.
David laughed.
"Hi Eddie" he replied.
"Ur Dad just lockd us out of Frrs Wheel! WTF?"
"Security breach" David wrote. He hated lying to his friends, but necessity can be merciless at times.
"BS!"
David waited before he responded.
"Real breach Eddie. Big 1"
It was Eddie's turn to hesitate.
"Ok. U only get 1 wk. Then show cause or we sue!"
David was about to type a reply when his pod went off. What now? He glanced at the ID. 'Franklin Lebov' was the name. Who was that? The number wasn't familiar either. But even though he had no idea who was calling, he was relieved to have a valid reason to exit the conversation with Eddie. It was getting a little heated.
"Incoming. Later" he wrote, and grabbed his pod before it went to voicemail.
Eddie would be pissed. He'd have to deal with that later.
"Hello?" David said.
"Blue?"
It took David a moment to recognize the voice.
"Frill?" he said.
"Hey. Wazzup?" Frill said. "Mandy shot a me warning note about those bugs, and said you were interested in talking with me. So, here I am."
Frill made a little laugh then. It was a conversational sound, one that someone uses to break the ice at the beginning of a long, intimate chat. David knew that Amanda was probably in her room, laughing. He'd get even later.
"Oh, yeah" David said. "Uh… I just wasn't expecting a call… I thought she'd give you my inbox addy."
'Is this a bad time? Because, I can call later… or you can call me if you'd rather."
"No, no," David said quickly. "Uh, this is fine. I'm actually glad you called….I mean, it's good you called. … inasmuch as it's just as good as email… uh, better I mean."
David cringed. He was sounding like an idiot. But Frill didn't seem to notice, or to care.
"Works for me too. It's nice to hear your voice. What'd you wanna talk about?"
David thought moment. Frill's relationship with Myron was a personal issue and they'd obviously had a bad breakup. David had learned how to read people during his time working the crowds with Sy's gang. But these 'Shiney' kids were different, and he knew he lacked the social skills to rush into this new terrain. He didn't want to mess things up by asking a lot of embarrassing questions. He'd have to continue carefully
"Frill, " he started. But he stopped as another thought came to him: After a breach like this weekend, he was certain security would be randomly monitoring calls. He didn't want to discuss Myron, or any of the Crash Kids for that matter, over the phone. He had to keep his plans to himself. This was getting complicated.
"Blue?" Frill said over the awkward silence.
"Sorry," David said. "I was just… Look, can we meet somewhere… I mean, to talk."
"Sure!" Frill responded quickly. I'll be at the Plaza next Saturday. Maybe we can catch dinner or something."
"Dinner or something," David repeated, thinking. That would probably be a good way to talk things over. "Ok. Next week. Plaza. Sounds great," he said.
"Zee got in a bit of trouble with his folks," Frill added quickly.
"Sorry to hear," David replied, wondering what he was supposed to make of this information.
"Yeah, it was over that freekin Jammer fight. His parents are kind of old fashion, so… ya know?"
"Yeah, I understand," David said, understanding nothing.
"My point is, he won't be around for a couple weeks."
David considered this. His plan was to get Frill to take him to meet Myron, so he could try to get info about the Crash Jammers, which he hoped would lead him to the source of the bugs, which would likely lead him to Olmier. That was sure to be dangerous. So it was probably a good thing that Zee wasn't around to interfere.
"That's probably a good thing," David said.
"Yeah," Frill replied softly. "I think so too"
"Sooo, next Saturday," David said.
"Sure thing, Blue. It'll be good to see ya again. G'nite."
The line went dead.
Well, that was easy enough, David thought. Now he just had to arrange things with Ariel, for a ride to the Nexus. He hoped Dad wouldn't have any reservations about him going. Jenna had said it would be fine so-
His phone went off again. David snatched it up. Mandy was the word on the ID. He answered.
"Why are you calling?" David said. "You live two floors away!"
"What did you do?" Amanda said, incredulity in her voice.
"When?"
"With Frill?"
"Nothing," David said, confused. "He called, but I didn't want to discuss anything over the phone. So I set up a meeting. Oh, are you good for next Saturday? Because I thought you might as well come along and we can-"
"Daaaavid!"
Amanda's scream was loud enough that he was certain he would have heard her even without the pod.
"What?" he replied.
"Frill just sent me a text," she said.
"So why are you asking me what we talked about when you already know?" David said.
"Yeah, I know. I know he thinks you just asked him out!"
"Asked him out?"
"On a date? D'uh?"
"Huh?" David replied. It was that stupid sound again. He quickly replayed the conversation in his head. The recollection would have been much easier and much more accurate if he still had digital brain, but what he remembered was accurate enough. No wonder Frill mentioned Zee wouldn't be around!
"Oops," was all he could manage to say.
"Yeah," Amanda said. "Oops!"
Then she started laughing.
David listened to her a moment before he closed the connection. He sighed as he picked up his lute and began playing, trying to find a place for this new situation on his already long list of unexpected complications.
Breathe.
(cont…)