MOAB

Chapter 2i

Chapter 2i

Yanni paced up and down the empty room and he was furious.

What was Hermes doing with these kids? Were they using them for some sort of human interaction experiment? Was it safe? If it wasn’t safe, would anyone ever know? What morals were they teaching those kids? If one of them hurt another, what would their adoptive mother do about it?

All reason left him and all he wanted was to yell at the cameras for putting them up to this, for putting Alex up to this, and take the little boy back home, where he would be safe, where he would grow up in a real home, with a real mom.

The reasonable part of his brain took over and had him think that they engineered that. The toy was exactly the same as his son’s, the kid could pass off as Georgie’s brother if he had to. They had set the whole thing up for this response, this was a test. Even if he could take the kid and adopt him and give him a loving family, what could he do about the rest of them? And who was to say that they weren’t better off this way? Most probably, the best colleges lied in their future, them being true corporate offspring and loyal to the bone. Who was he to decide to take this away?

He couldn’t save them. Especially not now. Maybe in the future, when he had finished his proof. When he had the same pull with this company as Niko had. Maybe then he could do something for this. Threaten telling the media. Anything.

But he had to win this battle. For him, for his family, for science, for everyone. This sadistic battle, built as if it was meant to torment him.

He calmed himself and sat down. He hoped he hadn’t scared the kid off, but if Alex was startled, he didn’t show it.

“Alex,” he said with the sweetest voice he could muster. “I’m here to teach you something. Would you like that?”

Alex smiled and bobbed his cute head up and down in assent.

“Okay. Here it goes. You know about computers, right? They must give you tablets and things like that to play games, right?” he asked with an anticipation matching the one after his marriage proposal.

Alex nodded positively.

“Great. Those computers have a machine brain inside them. We call that a processor. Are you with me?”

“Yes. Pro-scissor.”

“Let’s call it that, it doesn’t matter. The pro-scissor needs to be fast for games to play fast. We hate it when games go slow, right? Great. So we make faster and faster pro-scissors, but the stuff we put in there cannot go too fast. They are lazy and say ‘Oh! Don’t push us so hard’ and they sit around, not doing the job.”

Alex giggled and nodded.

“Great. So, we need to put faster stuff in there, thingies that are not lazy. And you know what the fastest thing in the whole world is?”

Alex shook his head and his eyes demanded to know the answer.

“Light. Light from the sun is the fastest thing in the whole world. It’s not lazy at all. But sunlight is so fast, that you need something clever to keep it in,” said Yanni and cupped air with both his hands. He shook his palms, still closed together as if he was holding a wasp. That seemed to entertain Alex a lot.

“When I tell Mr. Sunlight to do a job, I need to see if he did it or not, right?”

“Right.”

“So I take a peek,” he said taking a peek between his cupped hands and Alex leaning close to see as well, “but Mr. Sunlight finds the hole and spills out!” He opened his hands and let the imaginary Mr. Sunlight free.

“Heehee! Like. Like the flour.”

“Just like the flour.”

“Then mommy is mad at the mess we made!”

“Yes! So, we need to find a way to make the sunlight roll around in circles. So when we take a peek, most of the sunlight will stay inside. A man named Maxwell, who had a great big bushy beard, thought of tricking the sunlight into knots. Just like my shoelace, here see? I made a knot, so it won’t go anywhere.”

“I can’t tie my shoelaces yet and that’s why I have scratch shoes.”

“I know, I couldn’t tie my shoelaces either when I was little. But now I can, I learned the trick. And I am also trying to learn to tie sunlight into knots, so it stays there and does not spill out. I just need to find the trick.”

“And then you can throw away the scratch shoes for sneakers with shoelaces, which are faster and then you can be faster.”

“And?”

“And then you can be fast enough to do the tricks to Mr. Sunlight to plup-plup around in little… in little knots, like the shoelaces and you can take a peek fast enough to close your hands again,” said Alex, peeking between his tiny hands.

So this was how a Eureka moment looked like.

“And then?”

“And then the pro-scissor won’t be lazy and do the job fast and I won’t have to wait for the slow game!”

Someone clapped. A slow, full clap. Yanni turned around and saw the smart-dressed woman from before. “Excellent Dr. Tsafantakis. Come with me. Don’t worry, they will come pick up the child in a moment.”

Yanni waved goodbye to Alex. The child looked up and asked, “Are you allowed to bring Georgie to play with me?”

“That is the first thing I am going to ask this nice lady. Goodbye, Alex,” he said.

“Goodbye, Mister,” said Alex and went back to playing with his toy truck.

Yanni followed the smart-dressed woman into the next room. At this point, he was prepared for anything.