CYBERNETICS

WITHIN US
BOOK ONE

BY
NMESOMA OKECHUKWU
PIONEER TECHNOLOGIES
 Cybernetics Within Us is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real
people, real locales, or real inventions are used fictitiously. Other names, places, and
incidences are entirely products of the author’s imagination.

Text copyright © 2019 by Nmesoma Okechukwu

Cover design by Ahsan Iqbal
Cybernetics Within Us publishing rights © Nmesoma Okechukwu
All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted

in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise,
without written permission of the publisher.
 Contents
DEDICATION.................................................................................................................................... 5
PROLOGUE ...................................................................................................................................... 6
CHAPTER ONE .............................................................................................................................. 11
CHAPTER TWO ............................................................................................................................. 21
CHAPTER THREE ............................................................................. Error! Bookmark not defined.
CHAPTER FOUR................................................................................. Error! Bookmark not defined.
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CHAPTER NINETEEN ....................................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
CHAPTER TWENTY .......................................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.................................................................. Error! Bookmark not defined.
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CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT ............................................................. Error! Bookmark not defined.
FOR EVERYONE WHO HAS EVER NOTICED THAT THERE ARE STARS IN THE
NIGHT SKY.
 PROLOGUE

BSAZATRIS 11,140
They all stood staring at the door; silent, motionless, and as still as painted things.
There were loud booms sounding at the door, suggesting it was taking heavy fire from
the other side. The scientists had done all they could, and there was no more that could
be done. The door had shielded them from the invaders, but now it was about to be
blasted into a million microscopic pieces. Each of the scientists looked from one to the
other, their eyes bidding goodbyes.
They had done their best; locked in when a world was being destroyed was not
something even the least sentient human could atone to, but they had turned off their
hearts and had worked on. They had ignored all the banging and the wailing and the
horrible moaning that came occasionally at the door, as helpless humans’ cried mercy to
be let in. They were merciful, each in their own way, but mercy had to be put aside for
humanity to survive. Survival was now the prime target, not health, or comfortable
living, or even living of any kind; survival was all they worked on.
Two days they were locked in; two days the world was being destroyed. They could
hear the sounds of chaos, they could feel the battle in their hearts, and they imagined
just how much was left of the world.
“Kanti, I believe this mission falls to you,” Piliopo said, turning to face Kanti.
Kanti had been standing at the front of the group, being the least scared of all the
gloomy scientists in the lab. What did he have to fear, when he’d expected it, and
dreamed it, and hoped against it for years. Kanti turned to Piliopo with unblinking and
attentive eyes. There was no sorrow in those eyes, just acceptance. He found it easier to
accept, that made defeat a little less painful, just a little less.
“Help no one, save no one, heed no cry, not even yours,” Piliopo said, coming closer
to Kanti and handing him a device. Kanti collected the device reverently; this device
was the result of their two days hard working, even though heavy and constant fires
were being rained on the giant lab they were locked in. “Save everyone,” Piliopo finally
said.
Kanti nodded. He was always dubbed mechanical, because most people believed he
was the least sentiment of most humans. His high IQ had afforded him with a generally
low EQ. He lived his life like a calculating machine, seeing the world and everything it
was made up of in tiny logical patterns. But even logic could not combat what had
come upon them; death was normal, people died every day, he’d seen and witnessed
enough of it to know. Annihilation was a completely different thing. But he felt; he
knew that it was his world that was being torn down like an uprooted tree decayed at
its roots.
For two days they had locked themselves inside the lab working, doing nothing but
working. No one thought to eat, to sleep or to rest or even drink. No one did anything
else but work. All their energy, time and thoughts were spent on the device that he was
now being entrusted with. They heard the sounds of destruction being wrought
outside, the cries and pleas and agonies of people. They did not have time to cry, or
mourn, or even fear the death that was outside, just a little time away from claiming
them. The device was the last line of defense, the only hope in a beacon of destruction,
the light in an endless pit; he was holding the salvation of his species in his hands. That
was something that made his mind muddle.
The rest of his science colleagues smiled wryly at him, with eyes that held mixed
emotions. Some murmured encouraging words, some patted him, but that was all.
Kanti turned towards the door that was now warping in on itself in an attempt not to
collapse, but not having an atom left in it that was still bound together. The fight would
soon begin; the fight for creation and all it holds true.
He watched his colleagues busy themselves collecting guns, advanced electronic
weapons, lasers, and every other thing meant to destroy anything. He held the device
firmly, and sucked in a deep breath. He hadn’t breathed out when the door collapsed in
on itself, shattering like a bucket of sand thrown. He dodged away as the invaders
made their way in. And both sides let fire and chaos rip.
The glass stands quaked; the burettes, and pipettes, and all science instruments came
crashing down. Chemicals, both harmful and mild, spilled over; coloring and releasing
their pungent smells into the air. Wherever he ran something exploded, or melted, or
crashed. The great lab was being reduced to shards.
Everyone was running and fighting. There were fires everywhere, the screams were
phenomenal and the damage was but just beginning. Kanti held onto the device he had
clutched in his hands, running and dodging fires thrown at him. It was no mere battle,
it was far from an ordinary war, and even then, humans were the ones losing. He
dodged a grey fireball tossed at him and slid under a glass table. The table was made of
a tough plastic and glass composite, stronger and tougher than even Kevlar. He
watched from under the glass table as his fellow science colleagues were killed; heads,
eyes and body parts blasted apart by the fireballs sent flying their way. Kanti knew he
would not be that save from where he had hidden if the Big Ones make their way in.
The lab was built to withstand even the heaviest assaults, but two days of constantly
being under heavy fire had left it as defenseless as a child. He had to keep moving; the
device was all humanity had to survive, he had to protect it and deliver it.
 He crawled out swiftly from his hiding place, running with all the speed in him to
get into the inner lab that eventually led outside through an electrolyzed beryllium
tube.
Kanti tactfully dodged the crashing science instruments and the fires thrown his
way. He dodged death and destruction as he ran along unthinking, and unblinking. He
heard Piliopo’s scream; he heard the soul-wrenching cries of his workmates and friends.
For a moment, his heart thought to stop and look back, but his mind urged him on. At
that time he was an equation with only one answer; all other variables were wrong
except the ones that defined the laws and the measurements of the equation. His
equation was set out for him, and he was not ready to defile it, for friend or foe.
A fireball got caught on the wall beside the door as he zoomed in. He didn’t stop to
breathe or gather his thoughts, rather he ran dastardly down the hall. A strange beeping
behind him told him that the invaders were right behind and getting ready to blast him
with their pulsated fireballs. He bent low as he ran, and avoided five fireballs flickering
past him. The next fireballs missed him as he snaked his way without losing speed. As
he ran into the next passage, a fireball blasted his right leg and sent him sprawling to
the ground.
Kanti stood up almost as soon as he was down, running as before, not minding the
pain tearing through his leg. Blood gushed down his leg and pain vibes were shot to his
head, sending little warning notes that threatened to paralyze him if he kept mistreating
his damaged leg; but all those warnings went unheeded as he speeded down the
passage.
He finally came to the door that led to the tube and pushed it open. He knew that
this door was never locked. Hurrying in, he saw the tube standing magnificently at the
edge of the room. The tube was like a giant thirty feet high elevator with multitudinous
wires connecting to it everywhere. It was cyclical, and stretched both upwards away
from the lab, and downwards beneath the lab. He limped to it throwing the door open
hurriedly. He could hear the beeping sounds of the invaders tracking him.
He entered the tube and pushed a button. Blue electrolytes were spilled into the tube
from connecting pipes reaching fifteen inches up his leg. He coughed and held his
breath; the smell of the electrolyte was pungent. It had been quite some time since this
tube was used and the electrolyte hadn’t been changed for that while. It should have
been decommissioned but no one had the time to bother about it. He thought it was a
great and lucky thing that it hadn’t been decommissioned. The invaders would have
surrounded every exit to the lab, but the E-exist. His blood mixed in with the thick blue
liquid, and added a red swirl in the midst. The electrolyte was designed to have nothing
mix with it, or it should malfunction. The tube turned on, and before he could realize
the tube was moving, it had already stopped.
 He emerged from the large laboratory into the street, and his pulsing heart almost
skipped to a halt. The streets were tiled with long glittering transparent panes, but now
it had holes here and there, where the impeccable marvel had been blown through. The
buildings were sky-rising, and everything was well-lit with the blazing intensity of an
afternoon sun. A mega balloon floating at the very top of the highest skyscraper was
burning wildly, sending grey embers and a large plume of smoke floating skywards.
The giant levitating transport train a little way off was moving forward and
backward indefinitely, trying to decide whether to move forward or backward and
vainly failing. The tracks in the front had been blown through and so had the tracks
behind it, and as a smart train programmed to read and avoid danger on the tracks, it
was indecisive which direction the danger lay; as the tracks running in both directions
were shattered. The shiny alloy that used to make up the tracks gleamed brightly in the
sun in a thousand tiny pieces. There were people in the train, and for now, the invaders
ignored them. But surely, they won’t be safe for long.
He could no longer recognize his world; the world he’d seen every day, the world
he’d walked in everyday, the world he opened his eyes to see, the world he called
home. It was another world altogether, one he never knew. He pushed sentiment aside
again, as logic took over. He ran on, uncaring and not minding, most especially, not
allowing the pain beating amidst his heart to destroy his mission.
The streets seemed to hold more chaos than the giant lab which Kanti emerged from.
People jumped down from sky-rise buildings plummeting to their death, human body
parts decorated the street adding a gory allure to it. Most of the living ones were either
missing a leg, an arm, or an eye; crawling and cawing like the zombies in the movies
everyone loved, but would wish they never did. A few that were still unharmed ran
from an automated bin to the next, dodging the fireballs sent from their invaders. Blood
was the painting of the day, moaning and painful screams were the sounds that
heralded the day, and death was like an order that would accomplish the day.
Making his way through pools of blood and pieces of human beings, he ran down
the street keeping at odd angles of the buildings. He knew the invaders would not see
him if he walked like that; the invaders were after all following orders, not making
them. Broken and dying people called out to him for help, but there was none that he
could offer.
He ran past a girl of about six missing a leg and an arm, crying for all the world to
hear and stand still, if only to listen. He saw people with eyeballs that were gorged out.
He saw two little boys lying on their stomachs, missing both their legs and lying almost
still as if dead, but they twitched and convulsed in a way that indicated there was still
life in them yet, as their blood seeped out in a sort of red rebellion. The sorrowful
pictures did not halt him in his mission, but that was enough to make sure the
equations in his head were now flung around haphazardly, and now there would never
be a right answer, no matter the number of variables inputted. He had memories he
couldn’t remember, this was one he wished he never learned. The world was dead,
what then would he save?
The pain in his injured leg soon overwhelmed him, finally sending him to the ground
half-crippled, his eyes closing along with his brain. His mind started calling up
memories of barely fifty two hours ago; it took a little more than two days for the
mostly happy and unsuspecting world to be met with this level of destruction. Pictures
flashed and disappeared, followed by a blinding white light and another series of
flashes. The images that filled his very disturbed mind was that of his daughter Lilo, his
sons Flic and Jamez, his wife Ginh and everyone else he greeted amicably on his way to
work. It had promised to be a sunny day, another beautiful day in a beautiful world,
until something came out of nowhere and covered the skies. For over an hour, the
invaders just hung there whirring their mechanical arms, as if waiting for a command,
or biding their time, or just observing the people they would soon descend and kill.
People filled the streets clapping up at the invaders, supposing it to be a demonstration.
It wasn’t, it was an incarnation of hell on earth.
A red pulse from one of the mechanical contraptions sent the applauding crowd to
clap louder. One of the invaders kept sending out red missiles and people kept
marveling; these types of showcases were not uncommon, and no one was able to guess
at the true mission of the floating things. Panic started when one of the red missiles hit a
person and blew him apart; applause and laughter quickly turned to shrieks of terror.
Immediately the red missile from one of the mechanical invaders blasted a human
being, the other invaders joined in, firing as though a command code had just been
issued.
His family might no doubt have their body parts scattered all over their beautiful
house, if it was still standing, or they could safely be in the shelter. He opened his eyes
slowly, and blearily. He dimly saw an invader flying his way with eyes that were now
watered over. He’d done an entire life of tears in a second. He stood up weakly,
spreading his hands to receive the death that was sure to come. He tossed the device
into a nearby service drain; there was nothing more scientific to do for the survival of
humanity. There was just praying for miracles, miracles that would no doubt not come.
The world had been okay, a little bruised and damaged by wars but still… How quickly
the world could spin to hell.
 CHAPTER ONE

PRESENT DAY
ZAMBEZI REGION, NAMIBIA
Mayor stood puffing at his cigarette, red in the face from the harsh wrath of the
burning sun; all he wanted to do right then was to be rid of the project. Not to be
mistaken, he had jumped at having been assigned the project, and probably would still
dance, but it was hard to see the good parts of the project when one stood sweating to
death in what seemed a desert sun. He had never been much of a fan of the sun, having
grown up in the colder climates of the country. He didn’t even know this much heat
and sun was possible in the world. And the cigarette was probably making his
condition worse, he decided, throwing down the cigarette stick and marching out its
little sparks. He should find a shade but there was none to be had in this desolate place.
He contemplated retreating to his car but decided it was unprofessional. He was
starting to wish he was the tractor driver, sitting there in the shade while the rest of
them suffered like dogs in the burning sun.
Most of the men didn’t appear to be bothered by the heat, but how could they, when
it’s all they had ever known. One of the men with him even had a suit on, jacketed and
buttoned up. He thought of himself wearing such a suit in such a condition and almost
fainted from the thought. Namibia was hotter than people suggested it was, he
concluded, breathing in through his mouth in an attempt to cool his blazing interiors.
Day three and they were still drilling at the surface, work needed to be sped up some
five times if he were to finish this project alive. He’d solicited for five more tractors and
twice as more men as there were right now, but it was still a work in progress.
“Chief, you need a cold drink?” one of the Namibian workers asked him, having
duly noted Mayor’s painful state.
Mayor nodded a little, glad to be distracted from the thoughts of suddenly dying
from the heat. The man nodded and left, a little while later he returned with a chilled
beer in hand, which he handed to an over-grateful Mayor.
“Thanks a lot,” he murmured after he had downed almost all the drink in the bottle
in one gulp. He would have loved to stay in Namibia, the people were truly friendly
and hospitable the few days he’d come to know them, but he’d reject heaven if it were
this hot.
“It’s hotter this time of the month,” the man said amicably, turning to leave.
“Wait, what’s your name?”
“John.”
 “It’s an English name.”
“You wouldn’t be able to pronounce or remember my native name if I told you,” he
said with a friendly smile and turned leaving.
Mayor grunted a little, of course he wouldn’t. He rarely cared to remember the
names of his English companions let alone a name in a language he knew zilch about.
Having gained little relief from the beer, he decided to go around and check the
progress of the work.
The work was progressing at a good pace, he noted, but it was still remarkably slow
to him. They were a good feet into the ground, he should be happy, but instead it made
him feel uneasy; if there was a way to hire Superman to finish the work overnight, he
would take it. He was not one to shirk work, or pile his work on others, but he was
starting to lose his mind from the tormenting sun. Probably, he should take a break
tomorrow, claim to be sick or something, it might not have to be a lie because it seemed
he would be before the day ran out.
A loud sound emanated through the entire place, sounding like knocking something
remarkably heavy on something remarkably hollow. He turned to the tractor where the
sound came from, speedily walking towards it. Halfway to it, the tractor extended its
arm and made to scoop out sand from the earth once more and had the sound repeat
again, this time it vibrated louder; and now everyone had stopped work to gaze at the
source of the sound. The tractor driver was jumping out from the tractor when Mayor
approached. He stared into the big wide hole in front of him, the sun was bright and lit
it up remarkably, but there was nothing unusual to be seen inside the hole save rocks
and sand and more rocks. He was still thinking, contemplating that the sand probably
covered whatever it was that was making the sound, and was still getting around to
order for a small machinery to be brought in to examine the reason for the sound, when
the Namibian men started leaping into the hole. The hole was deep enough to have a
man break his leg or at least sprain it, but they landed with such agility he couldn’t help
being proud of his workers.
“Be careful,” he called down to them; it was the only thing he could do, they had,
after all, already jumped in.
They moved sand with their hands and feet, searching frantically for something
unusual. It took quite a while, and most of the men were starting to give up, when the
sound came again. Apparently, one of them had stepped on the strange sound making
object. It brought back men to the foot of the hole to peer down, the men in the hole
stumped their feet, trying to locate which one of them had stepped on the strange
object. After a few tries from the men, the sound came again, and now every eye turned
towards the man standing on the object. At first, the man froze, shocked at the sound
vibrating through him, and then warily, he bent down to uncover it.
 There was a great bit of noise as the men at the mouth of the hole called to the men
below to raise whatever it was they had uncovered for the rest of them to see; but the
men in the hole appeared to be too excited to respond to any demands just then. Those
in the hole had clamored over to the man that had picked it and were talking amongst
themselves. Mayor and the rest of the men looking down at the hole waited patiently
for the men in it to be done with scrutinizing whatever it was that they had in hand and
bring it up for the rest of them to see. After a short while, one of the men raised up the
strange object; Mayor was disappointed upon seeing it, it was nothing but a mere tablet.
He started to suspect the men of hiding the true object and revealing something as
unremarkable as a tablet, a rock might have been more believable.
“That’s a mere tablet, that can’t have made that sound, be serious!” one of the men
barked down at them.
“We won’t be pulling any of you up unless you reveal the real object,” another man
jokingly threatened, and some men laughed.
Arguments arose between the men in the hole and the ones outside, but all words
were silenced when the man holding the tablet tapped it with his knuckles and the
sound resounded again. Mayor almost fell down the hole in a daze; he wondered what
the tablet might be to be able to produce that loud a noise by simply being tapped by
something as soundless as a knuckle. “Get a rope and pull them out,” he called to the
gathered men; few of them reluctantly left the spectacle to carry out the order, the rest
remained where they were, staring down the hole and hoping that the few that obeyed
the order were enough.
One of the men in the hole said something in their local language which appeared to
cause another ruckus from them.
“What did he say?” Mayor asked the Namibian man standing next to him. It seemed
that whatever was said had gotten them extremely excited again.
“He said that it’s moving in his hands, like shaking and vibrating,” the man replied,
still gaping at the mouth of the hole.
“Moving?” he asked startled, but the man didn’t reply, he was busy gaping into the
hole.
As the men in the hole waited to be pulled out, they passed the strange tablet from
one person to the other, each person exclaiming in awe as their hands touched and held
the tablet.
Mayor stood at the foot of the hole scrutinizing the tablet the man had in hand, and
to his surprise, he spotted another odd thing about the tablet aside from its remarkable
ability to generate sound and presumably move; though it was somehow polished to a
shine, it was not reflecting light from the bright sun, as any other shiny object held out
in the sun would, no matter how dim or little. It was truly a strange object.

GOOD MORNING CAFÉ, SURREY

Sophia Kingston was thinking of atoms, how their many differed combinations had
resulted in a universe of varied elements. They were all the same down in the
microscopic level, coming up, everything started to differ. It was like the twenty three
protein codes that gave birth to an infinite variety of human character, uniqueness,
talent, and look. The genetic codes were a game of dice to most learned people; to her it
was the work of hundreds of years of reshaping, refining, choosing what was best
needed to survive, losing those traits that were not paramount or necessarily seen as a
survival tool. They were not a model of chance; they were a model of thousands of
years of trial and error; eliminating, rebuilding, and recreating, till nature became
reconciled with what she created. But evolution had not ended, no it couldn’t have.
Future humans or beings may be so advanced that they would be gods whenever
present ones were compared to them. Just like humans now view the holistic life of the
single-celled life forms, up to multi-celled but less intelligent creatures; and all this from
one particle, one single particle that gave birth to all and all. The flaws were erased, the
necessary ones mutated, and here they were standing at the apex, claiming dominance
above all as if they weren’t a product of even the simplest life forms.
“Sophia, are you listening, you’ve got that lost look in your face again,” Lucas said.
Sophia snapped out of her mind with a small unconscious jerk. She smiled shyly at
Lucas, hoping he hadn’t read much from her impulsive body movement. She hoped she
hadn’t missed anything important that Lucas might have said, not that anything he said
was ever important to her.
“You were lost again, weren’t you?” Lucas asked, sounding disappointed. He looked
forlorn that whatever he had been saying was falling on nothing but deaf ears.
Sophia shook her head defensively, trying to look as attentive as anyone else on a
date.
“What was I saying?” he asked, knowing it was silly he asked, but harboring that
little hope that for once, his business interested her enough to keep her listening.
‘Something about dividing cells, apex, future mutated humans, and life-forms
formed from the beginning of creation’ she mindlessly thought. She knew Lucas would
never say something like that, in fact if he did say something like that, she might be
more interested in everything he said. He was a football player, and most of the things
he talked of were about football, the rest were about sports; those things were as alien to
her as little green men were from reality. She didn’t know how they ended up dating,
but she’d promised to put in the effort and make this relationship last longer than her
other ones. The way she’s seeing things, this may turn out to be her shortest one yet.
She scooped up the spaghetti in her plate, munching it noisily and nodding at him to
continue with whatever he was saying that was supposed to leave her enraptured.
“Well, if it’s not interesting to you, we can talk about other things,” Lucas offered,
trying really hard to impress his date.
Sophia looked up at him still slurping on her spaghetti, hopefully wishing he’d
suddenly start talking about atoms.
“What do you want to talk about?” Lucas prompted.
She thought about something that would be a common ground between the two of
them. She gave up, she just couldn’t find one. She decided to continue with her
spaghetti slurping till he gave up trying to make her speak.
Lucas seemed to take a clue, and took his drink gulping it down in an uncomfortable
gesture.
“Don’t get me wrong, I love football, I watched it a lot with my brothers. I was the
only girl in the family, so there was no one to play house or decorate dolls with, so it’s
either watching football, or looking for new pranks to play on people and on ourselves.
I was the center-point of their pranks though, they seemed to think testing pranks on
girls proved how effective it was,” she quickly said, to break off the uncomfortable
silence.
Lucas laughed a bit, “Yeah, I could tell it’d suck.”
“It did, I think that made me not want to play with them so much, instead it made
me withdraw into myself and my mind. I saw mystery in everything I looked at, I think
that was my first experience of science,” she said. She frowned a bit, she had wanted to
get away from science for a bit, its wonders and laws, and yet she had unwittingly
steered herself right back to it. “So what about you, any family memory you’d like to
share?” she asked quickly, changing the topic. She didn’t trust herself to stay away from
defining quasars, and quantum mechanics, and complicated natural laws if she kept
talking.
“Well, I did not have a sister; I and my brother were adopted. We are pretty close, he
plays baseball though, and he’s currently in an American team. Everything about us
was about balls, I can’t seriously count how many vases and stuffs we spoilt with our
incessant ball playing.”
“Sort of like my brothers, I suggested to my mom once to tie them together so they
don’t run around much, and break things,” Sophia said, before she heard her phone
ring. She brought her phone out, and apologizing, she opened the text. Immediately she
read the text, all her thoughts were inclined on leaving. “Lucas, I have to go, something
important came up,” she announced shortly, gathering her things to leave.
This was like a sword to Lucas’ heart; he looked at her unbelievingly at first. “Wait,
wait, Sophia wait.”
“Lucas, I really need to go,” she said standing.
“Look you’ve postponed this date for weeks, and I never complained, but now
you’ve finally agreed to come, you’re just leaving?”
Sophia frowned at him, hating to explain herself to him. This was more important
than a date; if he didn’t understand that, it was his fault not hers.
“Listen Sophia, I hate to say this, but if you leave we’re done.”
Sophia turned to face him, sizing up the threat. He was handsome, tall, athletically
built, and his skin had a little bronzed tint to it- a result of constantly being under the
sun; his blue eyes were as magnetic as burning copper oxide, every other girls dream,
but not hers. He was not worth it, she decided leaving. Her logical mind left no space
for unnecessary emotions, or regrets. Her up was up, and her down was down, there
was no flip or reversal. Science defined everything, and she lived by its laws.

PLANET MASTER INC. SURREY

Fraser watched Ginny try to screw in the cap of the hydraulic engine, all that was
needed was Sophia to sign on the dotted line and the project was nearer to being in the
market now. He mildly wondered if Sophia hearing about the contract would make her
break her veil of scientific indifference and shriek for pure joy and glorious ecstasy; he
wasn’t going to put his money in it though. But he was gladly expecting her arrival.
Ginny had shrieked and ran around uncontrollably for several seconds when they
received the call from the funding government agency; he had been speechless for
several seconds, staring at some unknown phantom in the air ahead of him; they had
worked hard on the project, a little silly excitement was forgivable.
Ginny was chattering away as she placed the last screw in the head plate and started
screwing it on. He was still speechless, watching and laughing occasionally at her
remarks.
“We should have waited a bit before getting to Sophia, I knew she was on a date, but
excitement kind of made me dumb,” Ginny said, rising from her kneeling position
beside the engine.
Fraser hadn’t known about Sophia’s date, but he couldn’t have, though they had all
been friends for quite a long while, there were just some things girls don’t discuss with
the opposite sex. He didn’t even know Sophia dated, and if she did it would probably
be with one of her large science books.
“It’s alive,” Ginny squealed, her voice marked with excitement, “should we wait for
Sophia or could we just let it breathe, even if it was for a little while.”
Fraser smiled, Ginny’s occasional burst of excitement was a huge contrast to
Sophia’s, he wondered how they remained friends; it was like putting together a
thoughtless robot and a dog and matching them up to be best friends. It seemed
impossible, but it’s happened. Maybe it was because Ginny was all the silliness Sophia
could never display.
Ginny was a tall girl, black hair, black eyes, with a dimple crowning one side of her
cheeks, she could look hot when she wanted to. But it was Sophia that he could barely
deny his irresistible pull towards. He wondered if she noticed, and was ignoring it, like
she ignored every other thing that didn’t have strings of science attached to it. He
would love to see a day when someone would crack that veil, he loved to dream it
would be him, but he’d be happy for her whatever decision she made. He’d known
Sophia since his early days in college, he wouldn’t ever dream of tying her down, he
doubted anyone could.
Ginny was now playing with the buttons on the machine, “Just checking the pressure
gauges, thermal indicators and torque readers,” she said, still picking through the
buttons and gazing at the various colors the indicators displayed.
The door opened and Sophia breezed in, looking flushed. Ginny stared at her curious
and amused.
Fraser looked her over, her bright blonde locks that were so bright they competed
with the sun on which was riper, was pulled up in a complicated bun. Her small baby-
like face made any man swoon with forbidden desires. Her smile was rare, but it was
gracious enough to knock an arrow out of any cupid’s quiver. He wondered how
someone with such sex appeal could choose science, it was almost illegal. She killed
men with her looks, and buried them with her cold logical indifference. He’d known
her for years, and probably spent more time with her than with any other person, yet he
couldn’t be completely at peace whenever he was in her presence.
“So, what’s the big news, and it better be worth it,” Sophia said, coming into the lab.
“You left your date with Lucas because I texted you that something important was
up?” Ginny asked, seemingly a little mortified.
“He didn’t mind,” Sophia said gazing past her to the machine that Ginny had turned
on to run diagnosis on. “Please, tell me it’s not about the engine.”
 “Do you ever change or even make an attempt to, even if it’s just a little,” Ginny
queried on.
“I told you Lucas didn’t mind, he’s probably screaming with joy at having our
breakfast cut short,” she said, looking for all the world like the only angel to demean to
take a human form. Her facial expressions were just as cute and angelic as her pixie-lit
face; no one would know that the childishness ended with the face, and its innocent
expressions. Beneath the face of that angel, was just science in its most original form;
cold and unyielding. She looked and behaved cute, she just wasn’t so. Fraser wondered
if growing up with four brothers had a hand in it.
“Yeah, but Lucas is a good guy and you’ve let him down several times,” Ginny said.
“Let’s talk about Lucas outside the lab, inside, that topic is forbidden,” Sophia said,
“What’s the big news?”
“A representative of EU called, they want to give us a contract,” Fraser said, he
wanted to be the one to break the news, and Ginny didn’t look like she wanted to talk
about that subject anymore, still irritated at Sophia for a crime she believed she
committed.
When the news was broken, Ginny and Fraser stared at Sophia watching her reaction
closely. For a few seconds she looked from Fraser to Ginny and back, like she searched
for the truth in both their faces.
“I knew they would offer us a contract, AgeTides is a lot better than most projects
they’re funding,” Sophia said, walking around Ginny to the hydraulic machine.
Fraser and Ginny gaped at each other, wide-eyed. They knew Sophia enough to not
expect her to scream or rock or dance, a smile would have appeased them, and yet they
didn’t get it. They felt that someone getting something that they dearly wanted was a
cause for celebration, however little.
“I think she becomes colder as the day goes on. We have to save her before it claims
her forever,” Ginny whispered to Fraser, who stifled a chuckle.
Sophia turned to them, having heard Ginny. She smiled at them, and for a second,
that pure quintessential face lit up; it made Fraser’s heartbeat rock.
“Hardly seems fair, beauty and brains, two things that should never go together,”
Fraser murmured, going to the machine and pouring his disarrayed concentration on it.
He’d tried really hard to pin down his attraction towards Sophia, and not display any
visible reactions that may tell his feelings so, and he’d succeeded. Mostly, he didn’t
mind her much, he worked on the projects with her, he’d go anywhere she was and that
was more than just a rigid fact. He’d jumped at the opportunity when she invited him
to join her in the new company she was starting up. He’d jump at any chance to be with
her. But he’d fought his clumsiness around her, and had won; he still felt her, but he
was more controlled enough not to give it away. He only gave away those feelings in
his best dreams. He didn’t know why all those thoughts and feelings came flowing back
today, was it because he heard she was with another man?
“It’s an abomination, but our Sophia’s committed it, over and over again,” Ginny
said. She went to a corner in the lab and rifled through the glass case for a wire she
needed.
“The indicators are normal enough, but the turbine did overheat on our last test, and
our stepper motor burnt out, throwing debris into the core, and likewise destroying the
alternator,” Sophia said.
“The force of the flowing stream was a lot more than we designed it to take,
remember we were looking for its limits. It held up nicely under that much water
pressure though, and it’s got twice the high power factor of any wave converter in the
market, independent of the mass, which is ten times smaller than Blue World’s G100
prototype,” Fraser replied.
“Well then, let’s triple it. I want the windings in the electric generator and the linear
motor to be reduced to a ratio,” Sophia insisted.
He would have been confounded by her assertion to triple the power factor, when
doubling it was already a miracle, if he didn’t know her. Nothing was impossible
anymore, not when Sophia Kingston was involved. At least that was what he believed;
he hadn’t ever seen her strain herself over any scientific problem, no matter how hard
or improbable everybody else thought it was. Science that would have taken the most
learned and decades-seasoned scientist a lot of time to tackle only solicited a glance
from her, and she’d be giving you the whole correct answer. That attribute made most
people in the scientific community hate her; she made them all look dumb. And what’s
worse? She looked cute doing it. Nothing would drive a person crazier than a
combination of beauty and brains in one person. And nothing irked the Great Minds
more than the fact that the girl questioning their theories and calculations looked like
she belonged on a runway, or as a dancer on some fantasy golden pavilion.
“That would beat the details we provided in the report we sent to the agency, and
they’re more than happy to provide full funding opportunities based on the
specifications and tests they’ve gotten. Why make it better?” he said.
“Hmm…cause I want to? And I’ve already come up with an equation that’d improve
the performance and power ratio by optimizing rotor configuration. And anyway, your
argument sounds like something a lazy scientist would make.” She turned to look at
him with a mischievous gleam in her eyes, he returned the look with a scowl, but it only
seemed to amuse her.
 “When did you think of this improvement you’re speaking of?” he asked.
“Ten minutes into my date with Lucas… or so,” she replied pretending to think
about it.
“Now you’re being sarcastically mean,” Ginny called from the ‘wire closet’ as they
called it, three different coils of wire slung on her right arm, “And anyway, what
happened to Lucas being the humblest hottest guy you’ve ever met?”
“Ginny, you said that,” she said, turning to Ginny with a funny look on her face-
which on Sophia, looked just as adorable as every other look she could make. “Fry, does
that sound like something I’ll ever say?”
He shook his head slowly, smiling. Fry had been the nickname Sophia stuck him
with, claiming it was the most scientific and mathematically viable nickname for Fraser.
And Sophia was right; hot was a word she used on running engines or combustible
reactions, not guys. She was practically minded like that.
“Okay, maybe I did. But wouldn’t it be fun if you said something like that about a
guy sometimes?” Ginny asked.
“Probably, if Lucas ever becomes a boiler,” she said simply.
Fraser burst out laughing, Sophia’s sarcasm could be mean, cruel even sometimes,
but they were usually funny whenever they weren’t directed at the person finding it
funny.
“I don’t want it to have a definable limit,” Sophia persisted, running her fingers on
the skin of the machine. “Let’s scale it up, install it at a site with higher wave flow, and
read the measurements from there.”
“That can wait, we have to plan for our celebration, it’s not every day a small
company gets government backing,” Ginny announced excitedly.
“What are we celebrating for, it’s not like we just luckily got it. We worked for it,
hard,” Sophia countered.
“Sophia, it’s off the table, the company is celebrating its success. I know a nice club
we can go tonight to hit it off, and yes Sophia you cannot be excused. Live a little girl.”
Sophia looked at Fraser, her brown eyes shining on him like high powered lasers;
Fraser met her eyes and quickly diverted his gaze. She shrugged.
 CHAPTER TWO

KING CHARLES STREET, LONDON

Dr. Gregory sat at a corner of the large office, and listened. The room was oval and a
good solid white color. There were at least five politicians at present and five scientists,
six if he counted himself. There was the big desk standing massively at the center of the
room, with the congressman Hopkins seated on it. The others took the chairs before the
desk; he took one by the door. He liked to observe, it’s what he had ever done, observe
and hypothesize. And as much to his knowledge, he may have mindlessly wandered
into a comic room.
They had heard word from a team of engineers and contractors that were down in an
African country to help with their oil wells, that a strange device was uncovered inside
its depths. The government had quickly sent down some of their own scientists on their
payroll to confirm the existence of the strange object, and carry out any other little test
they might deem important.
Dr. J.M Barrie had come to report on those findings. So far, Dr. Barrie’s report was
the like that he expected to see or hear of in sci-fi movies, not the good ones though, but
rather the ones where imagination completely takes over and the writers jump off a
cliff. Dr. Barrie was excited about his findings, a few other people in the room were
excited, he was the least excited. He loved to nestle in the comfortable arms of science;
he didn’t like to hear that something beat it, or uprooted its laws.
“So far, we can’t find any established science laws that defines or even begins to
explain the behavior of the material,” Dr. Barrie was saying.
“What is your going theory about the origins of the device?” Gregory asked.
“Alien existence, it’s the only going theory at present,” Dr. Barrie replied.
“Are you postulating it was created by a living intelligent being, what about the
theory of being made by natural means, what stops it from being so?” Gregory asked.
Dr. Barrie shrugged.
“All theories are welcome at present,” Dr. Greene said, coming to the aid of her
fellow colleague. “Like Dr. Barrie said, there’s not much order that can be imposed on
it. It’s very peculiar to say the least.”
“Everything we’ve learned so far of the object is all in the report I submitted,” Dr.
Barrie said.
Hopkins nodded rifling through papers on his desk, before finally pulling out one
with several papers bound together, he scanned through the pages of the report, “It
does contain a lot of things,” he finally said putting down the report, “what should we
do then? The government is in every way convinced that other countries be kept in the
dark about this new object, and as long as we don’t know what that thing is or what it
can do, it must not be transported, it must be studied from inside Namibia.”
“Give me a few other scientists to go down there with me, established brilliant
minds, it’ll make short work of it,” Dr. Barrie said.
Dr. Gregory grinned, Dr. Barrie had spoken like a true scientist, leave the
government to figure out a way to keep it secret, all he wanted was to unlock the
potential of the strange object and its deepest secrets, the rest meant so little to him.
Hopkins scratched his head, “Of course, a few select individuals, probably the
science advisors to the parliament, its secret enough. I’ll have to report back to the
Prime Minister and see what he thinks of that.”
Dr. Gregory sat up. He had glanced through the report Dr. Barrie had submitted
before he came to the meeting, there was something about the properties that were
defined of it that made him uneasy. He’d studied extreme energy phenomena in the
universe, and he’d devoted his life to those studies, and he knew when he should fear
and when he shouldn’t. So far, the report made him fear. There were worse things than
the atomic bomb, and only the universe had those. For all he knows, these suckers
could very well be toying with something with so much energy it could make a
supernovae dull in comparison.
If it were up to him, he’d tell them to bury it back in the ground and forget about it,
pretend they never knew something like that existed. Not to be gotten wrong, he loved
to study things, to experiment with all the universe had to offer, but he’s smart enough,
and reasonable enough, to know when things should be left on their own. If it was in
the earth, put it back where you found it. He wasn’t the jittery kind, but his kids and
grandkids lived in this world, and for once he wished that man wouldn’t toy with what
they didn’t know. But he knew it would be illogical to tell them that, or even try to
convince them to leave it alone, he knew his kind, he knew them well. There was only
one certain someone he could safely entrust the study of this “strange object” to, a
former student of his. If someone could find something mysterious and make it more
mysterious than it appeared to everyone else, it was her. He knew her well, having
fought and hated her for half of the time she was a student under him. He had to make
sure they took her along.

MARANATHA NEUROLOGICAL AND HEALTH CENTER, IOWA

There was this darkness, it stretched on and on that you couldn’t see beyond the
darkness; this darkness flowed like water, and coursed, and bended, and twisted. It had
its own laws, and everything it did was intelligently so. It was like this darkness was
creating itself, like it needed to live and yet doesn’t have enough struggle in it to
become so. This darkness had its own skies, with a million lights twinkling down at it.
If you looked from the North, you could see Auriga, Perseus, Andromeda, and a host of
other ancient shapes staring down into a darkness so vast it could envelope the
universe and still not be filled up. From the South side, you saw Dorado, Puppis, and
Carina circling joyously, and a million others no one would have a name for. There
were red stars, blue stars, bluish-white stars, yellow stars, orange stars and white stars.
There were Dwarfs, White giants, Bright giants, Giants, Supergiants, Hypergiants. It
was a marvelous sky, so bright but swallowed up in a more powerful darkness. There
were more stars here, than in the entire universe; millions of billions, and zillions of
trillions, unending, eternally circling.
It was an odd world; a mixture of an old world and the new world. There were stars
that can be named, there were stars that couldn’t be. There was the hunter, the archer,
the warrior, the mythical flaming horse, the water bearer, the twins, the fish, and a host
of others. But there was also a very complicated model etched in the skies, clearly
drawn out by stars, shimmering in a vast darkness. In the darkness, the stars were not
the twinkling kinds, they were great balls of flame, very much active and alive. There
were figures etched in the skies like a sort of plan; the stars appeared in clusters that
formed images.
It was an endless struggle, between the living and the dead. It was a world bigger
than worlds. It was in a silent chaos, unwilling, unyielding; it was not alive, yet it did
not want to die. New stars appeared every billionth of a second that this darkness lived,
and the darkness wondered if it would finally come alive when the stars grew so many,
and so luminous, it would engulf it in the light it so desperately needs to become alive.
The new ones were mostly red, the eldest ones a hot white ball, huge and scintillating;
in a state of weary chaos resulting from the fact that it was now old enough to explode
into death, and yet couldn’t, the darkness wouldn’t let it; it must remain, it must
provide light, the light that must give life.
The darkness waited, it didn’t want to wait, but it must. So as it waited, it learned, it
studied, it would have the knowledge of everything in and around the worlds inside it;
of things that existed, and things that did not, of things that thought to exist but later
didn’t, of things that would later exist, of things whose existence was not existing, of
things whose existence was eternal, of things whose births are eternal, and others
whose deaths were everlasting, of things that were said to be alive, of things that could
think, and others that thought they could but couldn’t, of things so big it would
swallow other things, of things so small the most sensitive eyes could not see, of things
that created, of things that thought they created and didn’t, of things that can be seen, of
things that can be heard, of things that can be felt, of things that destroyed, of things
that held death and life in it. It would know them all, and overcome them all.
 So it calculated how long it would take to come alive; for the light to be bright
enough to create life. A billion stars a second, sixty billion a minute, with a luminosity
increase of a hundredth of every half of a billionth second; it would wake soon.
The darkness was in him, and he couldn’t escape it.

FAIRFAX ROAD, SURREY

Sophia was sitting on her desk in her room. The light from the table lamp shone
directly on the table reflecting strange yellow lights on her face. The night was a little
cold, and from her open window she could see the few stars glittering away in the night
sky.
She was in one of those moods again, the type that made her want to disappear from
the rest of the world. She got out a notepad, and a sharp pointed pencil; now she was
going to try and beat her last record. She drew the first tiny line, as thin and fine as
gossamer. On a twelve inch notepad, she had been able to make twenty two thousand
and five hundred neat boxes on it before. That was her current record, today she would
break it.
She drew the second vertical line so near the first one that the gap between them
would require the sharpest of eyes to recognize, but there was that gap, and the two
thin straight lines ran straight never meeting. She loved to think they ran on forever,
never touching, or joining, or knowing each other. She wished humans were like that,
all lines running on individually forever, no one to judge you, or make you feel bad, or
different, or weird, or fake, or like a monster, just you and your thoughts running on
forever for all of time. No thoughts crossing, no lives merging, no people judging; just
you and your path, running on like that.
She drew the third line; as straight as a laser beam, as thin as the air that could be felt
at fifty thousand feet above Earth’s sea-level. Her concentration was precise, and her
hands were as irresolute as a giant boulder. The whole world was lost to her; it was just
her and her lines, the lines that would never touch. What was the price one paid to be
normal, she would pay it uncomplaining. She was happy the way she was, yet
somehow she wasn’t. She should be like other girls; spend half of her life on applying
makeup, dream about the perfect prince she’d never even have, and laugh a couple of
times, like normal people did. Her mother and the rest of her family but Freddie
reminded her that she was not so, and she found those feelings she’d buried come
haunting her one more time.
She was now done with the twenty-first line; thin beautiful twenty one lines, only a
computer could design something like that. She wondered what normal would feel like
as she drew the next one, would she be happier if she were normal, was she happy even
now not being normal? She smiled sadly, she of all people should know that, no matter
what physiologists, philosophers, therapists, psychiatrists, logicians and the other host
of them might think, every happy person was an unhappy person pretending to be
happy. They could all easily be a movie or a story in a book, as the cartoons are, stuck in
an imaginary world they believed to be real, and more than that, they believed to be
theirs. Would a cartoon know or ever believe that their world wasn’t real, or that it was
made up. Other scientists would never ask these questions, even those with an IQ that
could burst open a computer; she was not even a genius, she was just a lame misfit.
Two hundred and twenty-one vertical lines, all lined up like creatures that would die
if they touched one of their own. She could die from all these tiny poisonous human
touches she keeps getting. Freddie was her sanity, she would be crazy if it weren’t for
him; she was literally so smart it hurt. Some days were better than this day, so much
better; it wasn’t depression actually, it was more like a yearning, a yearning to be a
shade dumber than she was. Her brain was always hyperactive; always thinking,
always solving, always decoding; some other days it was super over hyperactive. Today
was one of those days. She didn’t know what triggered it; she only knew it came at
irregular intervals. She was already smart enough, a dot more and it became painful.
She thought about other past scientists; she thought about Newton, did he feel this
way his own time? Was that why he never married, rarely sought human company,
barely ate, always kept his nose in a book, and his brain on things that no one could
guess at but him. Did he feel this way? Did he really feel this way right before he
relapsed into nervous breakdown and had to be hospitalized for over two years for him
to get his mind back? Would she be like him? Would she have a nervous breakdown?
And if she did, would she ever recover or would she be lost forever; forever locked up
in her mind, lost to the world and everyone else who loved her. Would she?
Seven hundred and ninety nine lines; she should stop, take a breath, drink water, do
anything but keep at the lines. She couldn’t stop herself; she needed help, someone
should come stop her.
One thousand and twelve lines, there was no more space to add another line, if she
did they would meet; they can’t ever meet. But her work was not done, only half so. She
had to add the horizontal, the notepad was as wide as it was long, so it should contain
the same amount of lines length-wise and breadth-wise. If it was one line more or one
line less, she’d start over again, do it over till she got them right; the line spacing
mustn’t differ too, they must be the same hundredth of a centimeter. If they weren’t, she
could lose sleep and every other thing to keep going at it. She should tell her parents,
maybe they could help her, but she wouldn’t, she never could. She could tell Freddie,
but then he’d worry about her.
 For the first time in her life she was becoming genuinely scared, this uncontrolled
over-activity from her brain was becoming more regular. And she noticed it, with each
climb of her IQ, her EQ plummeted, it was now almost inexistent. But Freddie
reminded her how it felt to love someone with one’s whole heart, how it feels to totally
surrender, but it was beginning to seem like that love wasn’t enough to keep her afloat
anymore. Whether she later got lost or not, Freddie had been the reason her head was
out of the waters for so long. She didn’t want to lose this battle, because she knows
losing it would be losing Freddie, she’d lost everyone else, Freddie was all she had left.
Five hundred and fifteen horizontal lines, and a knock sounded on the door. The
sound was enough to throw any other ordinary person off and make them smudge, or
make a mistake, but not Sophia Kingston. She continued her drawing with as much the
same delicateness as before.
“Sophia?” Freddie called opening the door.
She didn’t raise her head; she kept on with her line drawing.
“Sophia didn’t you hear me calling you, I’ve done that for a while now,” he said
coming in. “Mom driving you crazy?” he asked drawing a chair and sitting beside her.
Five hundred, twenty two thousand and eight hundred boxes so far. She drew
another horizontal line adding one thousand and twelve boxes to the existing ones.
What was Freddie saying?
“Are you okay?” he asked, a worried tone creeping into his voice.
She was aware that he was staring at her. She shifted her eyes from the paper for the
first time since she began her complicated drawing and stared into his blue eyes, then
she went back to her drawing; it was so fast the action was barely noticed, like a current
surge. He was speaking again; she could hear him now, and not as static ringing in her
ears. No, now, she heard the voice she loved, the voice she admired. The boxes were
now shattering and rolling down like dominoes with every second that passed while
Freddie was beside her. But she wasn’t going to come out easy, this time. Her brain was
attacking her heart, trying to make it permanently emotionless. The pulses were racing
up and down her body; from her mind to her heart and from her heart to the brain. The
lines were no longer straight, or lines in any order; they were now scribbles. She lost
Freddie again; she could no longer hear him or feel his presence.
A human being was programmed to be a little dumb so that it could have an
emotional capacity. When the intellectual brain space was exceeded, it becomes a matter
of time for the emotional parts, the imaginary parts, the parts that made you happy, or
sad to come crashing down. That time was now for her.
She hung on with everything she had, everything she felt, she hung on to Freddie.
She swung herself out of the darkness that enveloped her mind, and into one of
Freddie’s paintings; it was a picture of a world, a world that could never exist, a world
that sadness had to give way for its existence. There was a rainbow, there was the bright
blue sky marvelously lit up with no sun, there were the white giant clouds, there were
trees a shade of colors that looked and gleamed with life and a feeling of complete
happiness, there were the butterflies coloring the landscape, there was the grass greener
than she had ever seen it, and there was her in its midst, admiring everything her eyes
could see.
It eased the excess activity from her brain for a while. But it was not a fight her mind
would easily throw down the baton for. The picture started fading, tarnishing like a
paper set on fire. She tried to hold on to the picture, letting it fill her mind and swallow
it up. But something strange was happening, she could not really remember what the
picture was about. Did it have fishes, was it under the sea, were there thorns
everywhere you looked? She tried hard to remember but couldn’t. Her mind was
erasing everything that made her sentient, everything that made her feel. Her cognitive
was effectively erasing her affective intelligence. Why was this happening to her, why
had her brain suddenly become a virus to her entire being? Why was it eating her up?
Does her rapidly rising IQ have anything to do with it, if it did, why then did her IQ
keep rising, was there no limit that was imposed on it? It was killing her; it no longer
wanted to work with her, it was her disease. She should have committed to a hospital,
but she had been stupid to think that if she couldn’t save herself, what chance did
others have of being her salvation? She was smarter than the rest of the world; she
would soon be crazier than the rest of the world.
She was losing this battle, gripping at every little fragile memory. The darkness was
now covering her like a blanket, destroying every light; it was almost complete. She had
a brother, he had blue eyes and blonde hair, he loved her, did she love him back? She
couldn’t be sure. His name, what was his name, his name was Joe. Yes Joe. No it doesn’t
sound right. George maybe. What was her name? Forget your name, what was his
name? Henry, Mark, Juliet, Frank, Mary, Ann. The darkness was now complete, she
was too late.

LONDON, IN A BUNGALOW NEAR THE COAST

“Have you seen the report Jack?”
“Absolutely sir, I think I can rightly say I’ve memorized it.”
“And what do you think of it?”
“Extraordinary, unbelievable, superb, the likes of that word.”
“What conclusion do you draw from it?”
 “We’re not alone.”
He laughed, everybody arrives at that same conclusion; it made him seem like a
hypocrite, or a prophet of doom, if you may. “Really?”
“There can’t be any other explanation.”
“You sound so sure.”
“Who isn’t? It’s not like it’s a puzzler, all clues point at one thing, then it must be that
thing.”
“Okay, let me not go against you. I can’t prove you wrong, as much as I know that
you can’t prove yourself right.” He watched Jack who opened his mouth to protest but
thought against it and closed it, looking disagreeable. “The main point is what do you
make of the device?”
“Advanced.”
He snorted, Jack used to be so smart; it seemed he left his brain in his side pocket for
a rest. Unless he was playing a fool for a reason. “A fool could tell that. You were
among the first lucky people that studied it; you had your own report as Dr. Barrie had
his. Can’t you draw a reasonable conclusion from your report and Dr. Barrie’s. Listen
son, I taught you; if I thought you were a fool I wouldn’t have invited you here. I have
no inclination to talk to fools.”
Jack breathed in through his mouth, “It doesn’t have any energy source, as far as we
can tell, it seems just like a hunk of metal. A hunk of metal that makes a hell of a noise
when anything comes in contact with it, repels water to the unfortunate breaking of
several science laws, can’t melt, can’t change state, is…”
He clicked his tongue impatiently, “You’re just repeating the damned report.”
“Well, that’s as much as I know. I put everything I know and observed from the
mysterious tablet in the report. I’m clean.”
“That’s as much as you know?”
Jack nodded.
Dr. Gregory nodded, thinking. Of course he couldn’t expect much from the boy; he
was smart, but not innovative, as much as the rest of the so-called geniuses they had
appointed to study the device. He steepled his fingers, there was only one cause of
action to take. “Find me Sophia Kingston.”
 “The ‘Cybernetics Within Us’ is a mesmerizing and creative take on cybernetics. A girl
with unique powers immediately engages our sympathies and takes us on an extraordinary
journey to its incredible and spellbinding conclusion.”
-Jenny Nimmo, the author of the New York Times Bestselling Children of the Red King
series
 If you love the book, you can help me a lot by sharing this pdf with your friends.
Here’s a free poem just for you.
FOR ALL THOSE WHO HAVE EVER ESCAPED FROM THIS WORLD…
They gave me cares and worries
With goals that they expect from me
Heights that they have built up for me
But I let them drift away from me
While I fought dragons and kings
With red-haired ladies on horsebacks
Gents who drink good wines
And kingdoms no one ever knows

They gave me jobs and deadlines

Turned my life into a calendar
Of dates and years and months with days
I left them behind for a place in the sky
Where the clouds are the brightest of all whites
And the sky becomes a new blue world
With gold at the end of every rainbow
And I sing merrily with beautiful golden eyed lads and lasses
Who dance and dine forever in a day

I’m not made of this world as they say

I believe in dreams and paths that shine by night
I have dined with kings and queens of great lands
I have made enemies with heads of six
Flown across the world thrice in a day
I have fought galactic wars with robots and mutants
And as I finally close my little book with a vast big world
I can’t help but wonder and ponder
Where the next little book will take me to
BUY/ORDER THE BOOK HERE: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07WWK33QZ

We know places where we can’t be found.

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