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9. Tensions Rising

"Corby? Are you awake?" It was Vanessa's voice.

"Corby!" That scream … Ora was there too.

Loud scratching sounds followed.

"Calm down already!" That was clearly Hilarion.

Corby opened his eyes and found himself staring at the ceiling. "What happened?" He looked around and saw Vanessa by his bed. Somewhere near the closest door on the left stood Hilarion, pressing Ora down with his right hand. Ora scratched the floor frantically in an attempt to escape. Corby realized things were weirder than he expected. "Let me rephrase that question. What the hell happened?!"

Ora flapped her wings a few times as she said, "Corby! Vanessa was carrying you while you were sleeping! She could have sold you out to the Triumvirate!"

"I was carrying him to Grandpa's house! There was no need to scratch me like that!" Vanessa said, rolling up her yellow shirt's sleeves to show the claw marks on her arms. "Good thing Hil was there to hold her back."

"Damn it, Ora!" Corby said. "I'll let Hil release you if you promise not to hurt Vanessa again."

"But she carried you past Hilarion's house without announcing me that you were unable to wake up!" Ora said.

Vanessa glared at her. "I told you what happened as soon as you flew up to me! You didn't believe me!"

Corby frowned. "It was my fault. I pushed myself too far with using the glow on a machine. I wanted to see what it could do. It needed a lot of power in order to display a model of … whatever that was, so I tried to give it that power, but the pain was just too much. I got knocked out. Vanessa, did you catch me or did I fall?"

"I caught you," Vanessa said. "I was already prepared for the possibility that you would faint."

"Thanks," he said. "Okay, Hil, you can release Ora now."

Ora took off as soon as she was freed. She flew up to Corby and looked into his eyes. "Corby, you know you need me to keep your glowanade in check. Why didn't you come and get me?"

Corby looked away. "I …" He clenched his right fist. "I just didn't want to interrupt your reading."

"I think you should be honest with her," Vanessa said.

"Okay, okay!" He pointed at Ora. "I wanted to prove I can do it without your help! I wanted to get that achievement, because you were always the reason I got anywhere!"

Ora tilted her head to the left. "But doesn't that mean we make a great team?"

"No. We don't make a great team. It's like I'm depending on you so I can do anything worth a damn." He looked at his hands. "It probably wouldn't be as bad if you understood what it's like to be human."

"I have been reading the books in an attempt to understand that. I will put into application everything I've learned, and I will continue to read and learn so we can have a better relationship."

"Good," he said while getting out of bed. "Having to tell you how not to behave was getting on my nerves."

Hilarion said, "I don't know, man, I wouldn't say those books cover absolutely everything when it comes to human interaction. I think it's best that she learns along the way, just like how Nargi did and still does."

"I don't have time for this, Hil," Corby said, stretching out. "There's work to be done, and the Triumvirate is still looking for me. We need to make use of everything we have and figure out a way to get more allies as soon as possible."

"What do you expect us to do? We can't force the food to grow, and we have to keep making trips to the surface to gather materials for the weaponry."

"The machine Vanessa showed me might be useful. I just need to mess with it some more. Ora, I'll need your help with this."

"I'll gladly assist you, Corby."

"Let's go then!"

"I can't join you guys," Vanessa said. "It's my turn to go get salt from the nearest lake. With the help of Zoom of course."

Corby stared at her. "Aren't you going to wait until evening?"

She shook her head. "You've been out cold for most of the day. The sun's already setting."

"Okay then," he said. "Be careful out there."

She smiled. "Zoom and I are always cautious." Before she left the room, she added, "I think you are the one who should be careful."

With Ora connected to him via blue glowanade, Corby sent his wires into the mysterious computer again, booting it up.

"I hope you don't activate something that causes the whole place to blow up," Hilarion said.

Corby grinned sheepishly. "I doubt they'd put something that important in this easy to find machine." Then he turned serious. "Now to explore further. I'll check the cyan vortex."

Said vortex spread all over the screen before changing to black.

After a few seconds of staring at the nothingness on the monitor, Hilarion said, "It doesn't seem to be doing anything."

"Something actually is happening," Corby said while his eyes moved from left to right as if he were reading something. "I feel as if I'm traveling to somewhere …"

"Are you seeing anything that we can't see?"

"Kind of. I don't know how to describe these things. They're like little semitransparent patterns on the walls of a tunnel. Some of them look like ripples in water, others look like honeycombs. They just fade in and out while getting left behind. But the background is entirely black."

Hilarion crossed his arms over his chest. "I hope this thing doesn't damage your brain."

Corby remained focused on the mental journey he was undergoing. He was sure he would get somewhere eventually. Then he opened his mouth and stared in shock at the screen. There was nothing there, but inside his mind he could sense a presence. A yellow light revealed itself to him, and it looked similar in shape to the strange robot he had seen in the forest. "The deer!" he said.

It got startled by him and stepped backwards into the darkness.

Hilarion looked at Corby with concern. "What's that?"

"It cut off my access to its location."

"What does the thing look like? The only 'dear' I know is the kind Nargi and I call each other."

"No, it's not that word," Corby said. " 'Deer', written with an 'e' instead of an 'a'. It's an animal from Earth." He put his hands to the sides of his head and spread their fingers out. "It has big horns called antlers, it walks on four long legs, and it eats grass. Although this particular deer is probably a robot and looks like a mix between an insect and a deer, with two lights aligned vertically on its face. The first one I've physically met had yellow lights, but they changed to red as soon as I got closer to it."

"Oh, you've met one of those things."

"There are more of them?!"

"Yeah. Nargi and I have spotted two the first time. They shone red lights at us and ran away deep into the forest. Another day Vanessa saw one; it showed her the red lights too. Then Nargi and I had only seen one at a time, twice. They were displaying yellow lights, and they just slowly walked away until they were out of sight."

"Do you think they could be aliens? Or made by aliens?"

"Well, they don't look like anything I've seen before. But it's been about three years since I've left Hades, so I have no idea what new robots Kimiatronica has produced lately."

Ora said, "Their aspect doesn't seem to help in roles given to robots by humans."

"You're like a flying beetle with only a pair of forelegs," Corby said while looking at her. "I wouldn't have thought something like you could serve the role of personal assistant."

"I bear no fault for how my creator designed me. He claimed I was made to have low energy consumption, elytra for protecting my wings, low weight for proper flight, and a pair of limbs meant for holding light objects. The deer robot is too big and uses a style of locomotion unfitting for an indoor personal assistant. For outdoors, it does not seem to be useful for mining or security purposes. It is highly improbable that it is a domestic partner robot."

"Hey, you never know," Hilarion said with a shrug. "Some people have their kinks."

Seeing that there was no more response from the robot deer, Corby made the machine return to the "desktop". The last vortex he had to check was the blue one. He activated it, causing the screen to slowly turn various shades of blue. "Hmm, calming, but apparently not important."

Hilarion sat next to one of the walls and leaned against it, watching as Corby messed with the machine. "What else can this computer do?"

"I've checked all of the vortexes," Corby said, "so I guess that's all we got. Though I'm still curious about the use of this rainbow thing." He accessed the rainbow vortex again, causing the multicolored virtual puddles to move all over the screen and pulsate.

"Maybe you're supposed to shape them or something," Hilarion said.

Corby focused his mind on manipulating one of the puddles to make it take on a shape. He ended up tearing a blob of red from it. That blob turned into a vortex as the machine returned to its "desktop". The blob positioned itself on the middle left. "I think I've created an app."

"Nice. What does it do?"

"I don't know. Let's see."

As Corby accessed the red vortex, the screen flashed yellow twice before returning to the "desktop".

Hilarion grinned. "You can't code for s**t, huh?"

Corby scowled. "I know more lines of code in C++ than in alien, so cut me some slack, okay? I'm starting to get a mild headache too."

"Maybe I should drain at a higher rate," Ora said.

"No! You'll end up going nuts on me again. Just keep doing what you're doing now and shut up!"

"All right."

"Nothing much I can do with this thing, but I want to check out more of those machine models from inside the violet vortex." Once he was back to the virtual neurons display, Corby accessed one of the objects, feeling as if it weighed at least a ton inside his mind somehow. "The headache's getting worse."

A model of a machine with two parallel rails held slanted upward was shown in black over a white background. Its material and angular design seemed similar to that of the artificial ground, and had a pair of continuous tracks.

When Corby tried to disassemble the model, it scattered into millions of smaller pieces. He made the view zoom into one of the particles and saw a black sphere with six frilled extensions around it. "It's made of nanobots."

"Like the ones Bohr claimed to have made?" Hilarion asked.

"Exactly like them. Either he worked here for a while or … he copied alien technology and used it for his and his buddies' benefits."

"My bet's on the latter. There's no way one man could have just discovered all of the materials on this supposedly wild planet and created the artificial ground and the Cereconnect paste for the specific purpose of using the glow to power the machinery in just one year. You could argue that Kloyd and Darienne helped him, but I don't believe as few as three people could invent all of that in such a short time."

"Let's see what else is in here," Corby said, accessing a new file. He saw something best described as a triangular airplane with nine fans on the rear and underside of each of its two wings. It had a glass lid that could be raised to allow access to the interior, where a rather long bench went along the airplane's length. There was no yoke either. "This clearly wasn't made to be piloted by a human."

"So … aliens confirmed?"

Corby smirked. "Either that or a self-piloting airplane. Let's see what else is in here." He accessed another file that felt even heavier. This time he could only get a glimpse of some kind of web made of artificial ground before the screen flashed yellow and displayed the "performance graph". The line was zigzagging chaotically again, intensifying with his headache.

Ora couldn't resist how much glowanade emanation she could feel, so she increased the draining rate to the point where she ended up pushing herself into Corby's left shoulder while beating her wings extremely fast.

Corby tried to close the graph display, but when Ora grabbed him tightly by the left arm and continued spazzing out, he ceased emitting the glowanade. Then he said, "I can't focus at all! It's either the headache or Ora losing self-control!"

"I can't help it," she said, hovering next to him. "You were outputting so much energy that it felt like my glowanade was pulling me toward you."

"I need some rest," Corby said, holding his right hand over his forehead. "I think I'm going to bed early today."

Hilarion got up and said, "Well, see you tomorrow then."

On their way to Samuel's house, Corby and Ora ran into Vanessa and Zoom. Vanessa had just lowered her bandanna and took off her hood.

"Welcome back!" Corby said. "How did the trip go?"

Vanessa brought out drone pieces from her jacket's pockets. "They're still flying all over the area. On the bright side, they're a good source of metal and plastic."

"Looks like the Triumvirate is helping us orchestrate its downfall."

"Did you find anything new on that strange computer thing?"

"I saw the shape of one of those horned robots that roam this forest. I've also checked out more of those neuron things and found more technology that is definitely alien-made. Too bad Ora can't control herself when I need to lend more power to the machine in order to display the models."

"I tried, Corby, I tried!" Ora said, hovering behind him.

"Now I'm going to bed, because this experience sure was exhausting."

"Did you have supper?" Vanessa asked.

"No, but I don't feel hungry anyway," he said.

"But you've skipped lunch and dinner! Come on! I'm frying some omelets."

Ora made a small portion of her mouth glow in a manner that made it look like a grimace while she stared at Vanessa.

"Well … okay," Corby said. "I do have to recover my muscle mass."

While Corby ate at the table with Vanessa and Samuel, Ora sat atop the cupboard, holding her wings spread out. She displayed the grimace while her view was fixed on Vanessa.

"Is something bothering you, Ora?" Zoom asked. He received no reply.

She continued to watch until Corby finished eating, then she followed him into his room and landed on the bed.

Corby took his pajamas from the chair and saw something that had been under them. "What's this wooden ladle doing here?"

"You put it there two days ago," Ora said.

"Oh, right. Well, I won't be needing that thing from now on. Vanessa stored the rest of my stuff in the drawer of the nightstand if I remember right."

"Yes, she did."

"At least I could remember that. Well, it's time for bed." He proceeded to change clothes.

Ora, trying to see how far she could push her luck, kept staring at him during the whole process until he had his pajamas on. He still didn't scold her for it, so she considered he was becoming more accepting of her behavior. In her mind, their relationship was making progress.

He turned off the lights, got in bed, wrapped himself in the blanket, and said, "Good night, Ora."

She sat atop the bed, on its left side, and turned off her eyes' glow in order to allow Corby to sleep. "Good night, Corby."

Unbeknownst to him, she planned to stay active and watch him until morning, when she was going to try the next step of what she had learned.