The Expatriate-the story of a Prodigy

21. First Raid

 Thomas drove like hell-in the Prodigy way, of course, which didn't alleviate matters too much. 

 He twisted the handle dramatically and they slid down the street of their house and then entered the main street. Fortunately, it was early in the morning, and since they were living far from the main city center, there were little cars to avoid-or to be exact, little cars to be threatened by the maniac Chiron driver who was going steadily at 120 miles per hour, Alex thought. Though the car was one of the smoothest vehicles on roads, it still couldn't avoid the effect of the giant jumps Thomas demanded the car to take as he started to deviate away from the road and onto abandoned gardens, sidewalks, parks, and parking lots to save time. Alex could hear his body shake against the leather seat and sensed wildly what each object the car's wheel was turning against at each hop with his ears. So this is what normal people call a nightmare, he gasped. He looked up from his clenched hands to see Miles giving an adrenaline-pumped smile at the view as everything streaked away and Thomas whooping at the wheel like crazy. Alex watched in horror as the boy let an idling finger press a button and every window of the car slid down and winced as wind surged in as if they had awaited for the moment and quickly flushed the car of every dust particle it had had in its interior prior. Alex's ears were wheezing and he soon found his nose wheezing too, so he closed his window with the button on the side of his door. However, the wind kept rushing in through the windows at Thomas' and Miles' side. He knew that shouting to them to close the window would be worthless and just pushed himself further into his leather seat, watching the view out his window. 

 They were now racing over land that was getting more desolate and abandoned by the original Canadians by the minute and Alex watched houses start to pop into the view of his window less often, and usually, in the form that again gave him the idea that something really serious had happened to the town. Plus, the sky was getting dark as if it was about to rain. They passed one single tall building, which had cracked paint on its sides and cracked or no glasses in the frame-through the open door, Alex saw a barren cement floor and nothing else inside. When he turned his glance back to the car, he noticed that Miles was pointing at a certain point in the distance avidly. Alex stared at the point, but only saw garbage and old paper pieces swirling around on the ground that could have been one's property in the past. Thomas nodded to Miles, then halted the car smoothly right before the swirling pieces of garbage. The boy rolled all the windows back up and turned around in his seat to face Alex. 

 "I'm gonna tell you what we Raiders do now for real. We further the Prods' boundaries in this Canadian city in order to optimize our forces and facilitate stability. I mean, it would be great if we had a huge force and land of our own to strike the gov with the right force in a prepared way, huh? We majors were put into the Raiders since we have the unique abilities to venture further and find any devices that the Canadians might have used and develop them further with our brains. This point is where we ended our 'raiding' of items last afternoon-and it's near the place where we met you yesterday," "So what can I do from this point?" Thomas smirked. "Not I, Alex. We move in groups-though it's a partial group today," "Oh, right," Alex said, frowning when Mile's face drooped into an ugly frown himself. Right, I would also abhor working with you, Alex thought. "So, what we have to do is just get in all of the buildings or houses in sight and gather the valuable stuff I explained just a minute ago. Let's set off, then-we gotta beat the gals, remember?" Alex tried to imagine Melanie also driving like a maniac, talking really quickly on her strategies to Lyra, and couldn't stop the image of Lyra's shocked face that he had witnessed just before the race started, and had to smirk. Thomas, fortunately, didn't see it as he was already stepping out of the Chiron. For a second, he and Miles were in the car together, sensing when the other would leave first. When Miles finally started to flick the car door open, Alex struck like a snake and opened his door first and hopped off. He knew it was all silly and dumb and wasting time and lame and everything else to be subtly competing with an equal Prodigy, but he just couldn't stop a feeling of triumph rising in his chest when he sensed that Miles had grown stiffer and frown-ier. 

 They both walked over to Thomas, who was quickly searching the barren land. "Seems it might be raining soon. We should be quick. Ah, let's start with that nice 'cozy' house there-though it seems ancient and the cement is cracking into a million pieces," He pointed at a faraway house which, in that situation somehow, looked like one of those houses featured in the 1900s films under the grey sky and wind. It was a small, two-story house with a small space beside it with metal pieces rolling around, as if it had been some garden, garage, etc. A single curtain was draped across one window, but that was all, and as Thomas had said, the walls were now ancient and the cement and paint were chipping off, looking like the art of some abstract artist. Well, if it was, the work would have been dubbed a great painting, by the way. 

 They started walking to the house like old friends in their university or right after university, hanging out to go to the pub. But the thing is, I just met them a day ago, and one of them has already made himself my enemy, Alex muttered to himself inside his brain. Not that Miles seemed also pleased to be working as a group, though. 

 They reached the house and Thomas quickly jerked the door open with a prod of his foot-it creaked open easily, as if they were just filming the scene for a horror movie. But none of them were intimidated at all since they were all about being cold to each other(with the exception of Thomas, who seemed to be amiable to both of them, thankfully) and beating the gals for now. 

Following Thomas, Alex Mars stepped into the old house. The hallway leading them to the living room was carpeted and old, and the wallpaper, which had a cool design of blue waves, was tattered and falling apart. On the wall were a few nails and glass at its feet, indicating that glass-cased pictures had crashed down. Abuse? Alien invasion? Criminal? A few impossible reasons for the demolished state of the house flashed through his mind as he moved through the house further, taking in more demolition of the house with his eyes. Holy crow, what had happened here?

 It was at the living room, which was the room with the only window with the draped curtain covering it from inside and had a TV screen smashed to smithereens on the floor and a stained red carpet, when Thomas finally gave Alex Mars and Miles a chance to cease from staying with each other as a group: "Miles, I'm gonna allot you the kitchen since it's always the part with the most useful stuff and machines as you know. Alex, you go upstairs-just goof around till you find a sane stuff you have never ever even heard of in your life. And I shall go to the basement." The boy rapped out his line of orders. Alex and Miles sprang away from each other as soon as his words ended, finally breathing well without any anger singeing the edges of their consciences. Thomas had to notice their freed tension this time, scowled once at both of them, each at a time and incredibly at the same second with his super-fast-rotating head, then headed down the hallway to the basement. Before Miles could go his way, Alex quickly beat him once more to the stairs beside the hallway. 

 He climbed the stairs up fast, trying to analyze the place as efficiently as possible. Though Thomas had ordered him to find useful, Canadian stuff that would be worth it to fix and develop the thing further, Alex was just curious to discover the reason for the destroyed condition of this town. So, he started with his nose, though he was typical in the field of olfactory senses just like other normal people-and found that the stairs had no smell left of the entity which had wiped out the house, though it was impossible to be sure about that. Still, he moved on, now focusing on his ears as he reached the second floor and found a hallway with 3 rooms connected to it. His ears naturally called for the rest of his body and his organs to be quiet and got itself tuned in less than 5 seconds. For a second, his ears didn't catch a thing at first-then, something trickled in. It was a low ticking sound, so typical and so low, but since his ears were for that stuff, he recognized it immediately. It was the ticking of a clock. 

The residents must have replaced the batteries just before they disappeared for a clock's old batteries to be still working, he thought as his feet carried him quickly to the room where the clock was, then froze in front of the first room where the clock was supposedly located at. 

 The room was quite small, but its resident had utilized it well-with only two furniture, though. A tiny bed cowered at the far corner and a big desk sprawled at the exact center of the room, with books and pencils and pens and papers, yes, especially papers, lining every inch of the desk. Not that those were superficial, even-each book and piece of paper was filled from top to bottom with delicate, artistic drawings and marks here and there. One specific drawing among the thousands of papers caught Mars' eye and he approached carefully, then reached out with only his index and middle fingers for it. It was a single piece of paper with the most masterful drawing of the planet Mars, Alex noticed right away-the exact spots and swirls and craters-the person had even colored the thing with watercolor pencils to show the hue of Mars on each spot. f**k, this looks just like a photo of the planet on Wikipedia-except it's a drawing done by hand...Alex had never let his thoughts trail off, confused. This house was one of the biggest mysteries he had encountered in his life. His eyes darted to the door of the room and checked that no one was on the second floor at all. Suddenly feeling as if this room was a secret that only he should know and keep, he folded the single sheet carefully and shoved it into his shallow jean pocket as deep as possible. 

 Next, he moved onto the drawers of the steel desk. He wasn't too surprised to find another troupe of papers and notes stacked into the compartment, though it was neater than the top of the desk. But something caught his eyes once more and narrowing his eyebrows, he once more reached down and held up a thick, small notepad with brown leather as its cover. He opened it with his fingers and found yellow pages, old and worn, filled with neat letters, from top to bottom completely. Flipping through them, he noticed that it was diary entry since there were dates and numbers from page to page, and there were even a few drawings similar to those on the papers. Alex also shoved the thing into his pocket then checked the room further for any interesting stuff, but there was none to be found that piques his interest. Now, he walked to the door and stared at the room as an entire form, and actually, felt it different than before-it was now not a room of a strange entity, but a room that was familiar to him. He had also produced so many filled up pages with music and numbers and books, just like the person who had resided here. Something occurred to him that hit him full blast for a moment-what if, just what if, this person had been a Prodigy himself?

 Alex Mars couldn't belive it, though it wasn't certain and in order to tell Thomas, raced out of the room and was about to climb down the stairs when he stopped. Thomas had created a sense of emphathy with him well, but it wasn't well enough. The boy's priority had been to find and take back some hi-tech stuff from land that only they, the Raiders, were pioneering through. He would bark and smirk when Alex would report excitedly that the resident had been a Prodigy. Plus, there was the matter of Miles, who might overhear.

 Though Alex had only been with the Raiders for a day exactly now, he knew he couldn't trust the other boys with his secret. 

 But it also occurred to him that he still had one person to tell it to among the Raiders. 

 Trying to hide his indecisive confusion whether to tell the boys and excitement, he searched the other 2 rooms-one of them turned out to be a tiled, neat bathroom, while the other one was the attic, and he also stayed there for long. The place had all kinds of electronic, but still, Candian and useful junk that Thomas would be thrilled to see. But Alex could sense that the pieces were simply of easy tech that he was sure that he himself might invent if asked. Still, only for the leader's happiness, he found an empty box, dumped the stuff inside, than was walking to the hallway when a small box, those stuff for women's jewelry, caught his shoe. He was attempting to kick it out of his path when its lid tumbled off and a few more wires and gears fell out of the tiny thing. He was kneeling down to put it back in place only for the respect of the possible-Prod-past-resident of the house when he noticed that the lid was labeled as 'Important, Never Discard'. Naturally, his eyes turned to the stuff which had tumbled out from within and frowned when he found something he had never seen in his life lying there on the ground. It was a rectangular thing with a switch on it and looked quite simple, yes, for normal people, but in Alex Mars' eyes, he knew that chips and wires were packed into the cigarette-box sized thing. It just interested him simply since he had never seen such a device, so put the thing back in its box, then took it with him on the way out. his pockets were now too packed and small, so he stuffed it into the space between his belt and jeans, and feeling uncomfy but satisfied and eager to crack the puzzle back at the Raiders' house, ran down the stairs with the big box with the electronic stuff.

 In the kitchen, he found Thomas and Miles together, heads stuck over a piece of kitchenware with silver blades and buttons, but obviously didn't seem to work as a mixer since it had other appendages stuck onto its frame. Thomas barely looked up as he approached, too intrigued. Why are they so interested in trivial stuff?, Alex thought. Still, he dumped the box down at Thomas' feet, whose eyes grew large and even without applauding or praising Alex, dug in. 

 "These Canadians have had an effective manufacturing industry," Thomas said, grinning like a 4-year-old. Alex felt the jewelry box prod his butt a bit uncomfortably once more before nodding slightly. "I guess," "Good, Alex. Good," Thomas finally praised him, laughing still. Alex, suddenly, felt as if the boy was simply doing his job as a Raider since he loved devices-and that prodded his mind harder to show Thomas the jewelry box, but his fingers didn't move, and he knew that he had already made his true decision. This box and its contents were going to be examined by himself first before going to any of the other Raiders. 

 After a few minutes, Thomas turned his eyes away from the mixer-shaped thing, motioned for Miles to drop it into the box that Alex had brought, then walked to the door. "This is more than enough, boys. We're gonna beat'em for sure. This house is a treasure mine," "A hi-tech mine to be exact, Tom. That thing I found in the kitchen is sure to do something supernatural," Miles spoke for the first time in front of Alex, and his first words weren't impressive. Yeah, let's see if the only thing it does is spin and sputter before smoking out fumes and dying, Alex refuted from within his head. 

 Luckily, Miles nor Thomas was telepathic-anyway, Alex didn't believe in that ability to be among Prods-so, Alex survived the walk to the Chiron without any assaults from the other boys. 

 Once they got in and loaded the box up onto the backseat with Alex, they sped away further. Now, the sky was darker and rainfall seemed impossible to avoid. Thomas scowled at the sky. "f**k, it seems like we have a short day today, my friends. Still, bet we have had more stuff we got. I'm gonna contact Mel and Lyra to head back, ending the competition," As Thomas called out Melanie's name to the wheel, Alex pulled his pinky under his shirt to check that the box was still there, then pushed the thing further in, just in case. 

 "Mel, the weather doesn't seem good," Thomas reported to the wheel as he hit the pedal and drove them away from the house-Alex watched as it, in seconds, became a tiny speck in the dark. "We were also going to call you-anyway, we're going to the Food Store building since we're running out of pills soon and we're both getting sick of 'em," "Should we go too?" Thomas asked, bored of the talk already. "I wouldn't be thrilled about that," For a second, Alex wanted to call out to Lyra, who must have been keeping silent beside Melanie, that he had found something curious and different at the house, but knew better than to do it in front of Thomas' and Miles' snouts. He heard Melanie disconnect and let his shoulders sag-he would have to wait until they got back to their house. 

 Meanwhile, Thomas flipped on the radio that he and Miles had been concentrating about last afternoon when he had first met them, flipping through the channels quickly. He stopped at the news channel. 

 "What, you have a broadcasting station?" Thomas turned around briefly, keeping his eyes away from the road for a second to face Alex with beaming eyes. "This station is the perfect example of what we Raiders do-I discovered these kinds of radios and tinkered around, opening it all up and everything like how I had done as a kid, then decided to eliminate its analog-form, and well, obviously, make it digital. I mean, kind of let its physical form of the past stay while inserting a digital form like a cell phone. So this radio looks like a radio, but is digital-no problem of connection malfunctioning nor geographical limits. These days, I'm trying to make my radio like s mini-TV. For my radio's success, Lewis allowed a few stations, and here we are, so developed," "Quit bragging and watch the road, man," Miles said, eyes fixed on the road for Thomas. "Hell, got it," Thomas swung away, and Alex was just tuning his ears in frot the radio when the wheel beeped and the radio stopped for the call. Thomas narrowed his eyes before pressing it to receive. 

 "Mel, wha-" "f*****g lord, tom, I know this is insane, yes, but you know what? The building, um, kinda caught fire from the next building, an apartment for minors-and we're both in the underground parking lot-fire's blocking the entrance, sirens blazing, and there's a long line of cars to the entrance who are just freaking scared to get outside through the fire in their cars," "f**k, Mel-and how can you be so calm? Let us get there," Though the sirens as a background noise was freaking himself out, Alex's hand stiffened. "Just tell them to extinguish the fire on the apartment first, then get to us-there must be people inside, Mel," he clearly heard Lyra's voice through the wheel's speaker and sat tensed until Melanie took over once more. "Yeah, just save them first-we're not weak female minors," "We know-just try to get out of there without burning yourselves," Thomas quickly said to the wheel, then disconnected first.

 "Jesus, no," Alex murmured as Thomas pushed the car to its limit, speeding to the main center of the city.