A story (C) 2004 by ZUSTARA ORUR. Contact address: zustara@hotmail.com 2.0 May not be redistributed, commercial use prohibited!
Please see chapter 1 for standard disclaimer blurb and such.
10 - Lunch, and more.
Mr. and Mrs. Fitzgerald had prepared a light lunch in the garden consisting of ham and cheese sandwiches and a greek salad with black olives, red onion, lovely tomato slices and cubes of feta cheese, all to be washed down with water for the grownups and fresh-squeezed orange juice for the kids.
"I guess I should be reading your manual to find out what you can eat, Simon", Mr. Fitzgerald said. "But I thought it would be easier to just ask you."
"My nourishment needs are very modest, Sir", Simon responded. "The element suspension mixture you were supplied with will last me at least two weeks, or if you choose to give me regular food instead, I only need my silicate booster capsule once a week."
Brian's father nodded. "Ah, very well. You think you can handle this then?", and waved a hand at what was arrayed on the table.
Simon smiled. "Yes Sir, that should be no problem."
"Alright then, you boys go ahead and grab some grub." Mr. Fitzgerald returned into the house and soon returned with a large jar made of dark brown glass with a screw-on top. 'Silicate Booster', the label announced in large block letters together with the company logo, along with a lot of other information. Brian and Simon had loaded up on salad and a sandwich each, and was just about to start eating. "These the ones you were talking about?"
"Exactly. Like I said, I will need one once a week, though I have a sufficient internal reserve to last considerably longer."
"Well, I wouldn't want to risk voiding your warranty, Simon", Mr. Fitzgerald said with a slight smile, indicating he was using his modest sense of humor. "I suppose you better have one right now to be on the safe side."
"Me too! Please, dad!", Brian begged. He didn't know why, but for some reason he wanted to get to know his new friend as much as possible. Know what it was like to be...what he was.
Mr. Fitzgerald shrugged and sent his wife another 'Kids...!'-glance, then looked at Simon. "Will it be safe?"
"Oh yes Sir. They're quite harmless to humans, it will pass through his system completely intact."
Brian's dad shrugged once more and turned to his son. "Then what would be the point?", he asked in that way parents do when their child has gotten a silly idea into his head and won't let go of it.
"Oh come on dad! There's a thousand capsules in that jar, one or two a week, it still has to last for YEARS!" A pause, complete with a begging expression. "Pleeeease, dad!"
Suddenly the grownup relented, laughing. "Alright then! Why not?" He quickly dispensed two capsules which the boys equally quickly popped into their mouths and swallowed along with some orange juice. Brian thought the small pill felt much like a tiny, highly polished pebble. It was certainly hard enough to feel like stone when he bit into it carefully with his teeth. It slipped easily down his throat and was gone in an instant. The boys gave each other a smile and continued their lunch, babbling away like kids do their age.
Brian was eager to hear what Simon liked to do, but the other boy couldn't really say. Under normal circumstances, whatever his young master felt like doing was good enough for him, but Simon had been told to have opinions of his own and the small robot found he had none! He knew the rules to countless games, but he had never played any of them. He'd learned one new game in his so far very short life, and found he did like that one however.
Liked it a lot.
So what he said was he was eager to learn more, and Brian's parents marvelled at how well the two seemed to get along.
Lunch was over quickly, because no boy kid of twelve ever seemed to want to simply sit down and take it easy after finishing a meal - especially if that time was to be spent together with his parents. The Fitzgeralds laughed and sent the two on their merry way, suggesting they take an excursion down to the lake and have a swim together. The idea was met with enthusiastic approval and the boys rushed upstairs again to collect the stuff they needed. The lake wasn't far away, and Mr. and Mrs. Fitzgerald wouldn't have been afraid to let their son go swimming by himself even without the presence of the small robot to keep him out of harm's way. There was almost always other kids or youths there, and Brian was smart enough not to get out into deep water by himself anyway. So there they were, skipping along the foot path through the trees, talking and laughing together.
11 - Friends at the lake.
"But it's not fair to play hide-and-seek with you if you got infra-red vision!", Brian pretended to complain.
"Don't worry. My visual processor will divert all the beyond-human frequencies from the datastream and pass them to my safeguard routines only. These are autonomous functions that continuously scan for any dangerous situations without me having to deal with everything consciously. So under playing situations I will not see in either infrared or ultraviolet either, unless a human is put in danger of course. Then I would have to act."
"Wow, that's so cool! You're really great, you know that?", Brian suddenly said and pulled Simon to a stop. "You can see in infrared!" Then he gave the small robot a warm hug, and the two stood there embracing for quite a while, simply enjoying the situation. Brian gave Simon a small peck on a smooth, olive-colored cheek, and they smiled to each other and continued walking.
Simon looked at everything, almost trying to study all he could see at once as they walked towards the lake. There were only short blue glimpses visible of it through the thick foliage, but they came closer and closer to it with each step. Simon was utterly fascinated. He knew of trees and bark and moss and pine cones and boulders and anthills and treestumps and snails and mud and all the other things you find in nature, but he'd never seen any of that stuff before with his own eyes. It was quite difficult for the little robot to stop himself from running off the path and just start feeling everything with his hands, examining it, experiencing it all by his sense of touch, by sight, by smell. But he kept himself in check. There would be time for all that later...
Brian knew at least some of what his new friend was thinking about, he could see it on the little robot's pretty face as they walked, holding each other's hands without even knowing it, carrying bags with swimming trunks and towels in their other hand.
There it was. The lake! A roughly pear-shaped formation about six hundred meters from one end to the other, and about four hundred meters wide. Near the middle was a tiny little island, to which Brian had been once with his parents when they had borrowed a canoe from a friend of the family and paddled out to it. He'd never dared to swim that far. Not that he was a sissy or anything mind you, but deep, dark water scared him. It made him think of sharks, giant octopus monsters and such, and though there weren't any sharks (or any other dangerous creatures of any kind of course; though some kids claimed to have had their toes pinched by crayfish), you just can't reason with fear, because it is irrational and by its very nature that defies all reason. So he kept close to the beach and his parents were satisfied and thought he was a very wise boy. Oh, if only they knew!
There were kids there already! Cecil was there, together with Melanie, Bobby, Mehdi and Rei. They were all Brian's age, and all of them busy splashing around in the water.
"Heey! Brian!", Cecil called out. He was always trying to draw the pasty kid out of his shell even when just about everybody else had tired and given up. "Come on, hop in!"
Brian smiled all of a sudden, for some reason feeling very happy. "Hi guys!", he called out. He'd never felt that enthusiastic before about meeting other kids, especially kids his own age. He never paused long enough to think of what that change in him might come from.
"Don't bother with the swimming trunks", Melanie shouted from the water in a weird sort of greeting. "We're all starkers!"
It was the norm usually, to bathe naked together. Nobody felt embarrassed, almost all the kids did it. Brian introduced his new friend to the rest of the group. "Mehdi's from Palestine, Melanie's a Brit chick and Rei's Japanese. All their parents work at the plant, designing guys like you I guess", he told the little robot. "Cecil and Bobby over there, they're just weird."
"Oh THANK YOU Brian!", Bobby said with a grin and sent a splash of water towards the sandy beach. It never reached its intended target, which Brian knew it wouldn't. He didn't even jerk, he merely stuck out his tongue at the other kid.
Mehdi had short, dark hair in large curls (when it wasn't all wet and clung together in snaking bunches instead of course), and was almost the same skin color as Simon, or a little paler actually. He was a short and slight boy, and a bit sensitive and withdrawn except amongst close friends where he bloomed out in great contrast to his usual behavior. Rei was even paler still, but her eyes were much darker than either Simon or Mehdi's, they were almost black, very wide yet seemingly half-closed at the same time and surrounded by seductive black eyebrows and eyelashes. She was a driving force wherever she happened to be, a very determined girl and wouldn't let anyone look down on her just because she was short and female. She had a somewhat annoying tendency to simply raise her voice whenever someone argued against her, as if adding more volume also added more weight to her view of things (which wasn't neccessarily the case). Overall however she was a nice girl most concluded. Melanie's face was covered by freckles, as were her shoulders and arms, and her hair was long, slightly wavy and a shiny amber-red. She had that fairly peculiar sense of humor that signified that island-dwelling people of hers, and she could let loose her dry wit with striking precision, often lashing out at bullies or other narrow-minded people and make fools of them without them even realizing it was them everybody else was laughing at. Bobby and Cecil were both sports nuts, tall for their age, and Cecil being the taller of the pair. Neither of them were as pale as Brian. Bobby, being slightly more tanned, had black curly hair not much unlike Mehdi's, but worn longer, and he also had some freckles on his face too, though not anywhere close to being in Melanie's league. Cecil's hair was dirt-blonde and very straight, and unlike Bobby (who had a reputation of beng somewhat of a prankster), he was a fairly mellow boy despite his go-getter attitude when practicing his sports-activities.
(Thanks, Nifty!)