On Matters Edge

  Chapter 13: Daycare… again

  His parents were not the only ones that wanted to know the answer to that question. How, he didn’t really have a good answer for them. If he tried to use Earth words like “download,” and “transfer,” he wasn’t sure they would know what those things meant. He didn’t have the words to convey enough meaning or to even explain. So, he did what he saw his father do occasionally and shrugged his shoulders.

  “I not know, it show up. I push button. I have.” he said, his lack of vocabulary showing through.

  His parents looked at each other for a long moment. He knew there was some sort of secret conversation going on between them as their ears rotated swiftly back and forth combined with eyebrow raises and small snorts. Some sort of married people conversation he assumed.

  Finally, in what looked like defeat, his father turned to him. “Xavier. You must not tell anyone any of this, ok? We will talk about this later today, but we have to get to work, and nobody can know about this yet. Do you understand?”

  He nodded his head in understanding and covered his mouth with his hands. His parents did not have to worry about that. He was already afraid of being cast out or experimented on. He had no intention of being dissected or stuck in a lab for years with no control over his life.

  With that, the conversation was over. The outcome had been better than Cale had expected, and his parents hadn’t overreacted. There was still the conversation later, but he had a good feeling about it. He had not failed to notice the giant smiles on his parents' faces as they got ready for work. It was almost like they were proud of him but were not going to say it yet.

  Knock.

  Knock.

  Knock.

  The sound reverberated through their home. Everyone in the house stopped and looked at each other. Had they been overheard Cale wondered?

  His father went to the door and cracked it open warily, taking a peek at who could be bothering them at this exact moment. His father's wary body language quickly changed into excitement as Cale heard him yell with a happy greeting.

  “Oh, it's you! I am glad to see you are ok! Come on in for a minute!”

  Soon a boy and his mother came through the door, Cale immediately recognize the boy as the one that came into their tent, bringing in the wild beast that almost killed him.

  “Oh, Marea! Leo!” Diana exclaimed, “How are you two doing today? What brings you to our new home?”

  “Oh, we brought a little basket of food to say thank you for protecting Leo, and Leo insisted on giving a gift to Xavier.”

  Cale looked over at Leo, even though they had spent time together after the attack huddled as a group in the tunnels, he did not recall the boy saying a word to anyone. He had just sat there next to him and his mother the whole time. Cale hadn’t thought much about it because of his own situation, but it seemed like the boy was a bit less shy now that his own mother was around. Leo looked to be around eight years old and was a lot bigger than Cale, so when he came forward and got down to Cale’s level, he couldn’t help but be curious as to what was going on.

  “Xavier,” Leo said, “I am sorry for leading the Giant Condor into your tent. I panicked and I just... I...”

  Leo seemed to stall as a few tears started to come from his eyes. Cale stepped forward and gave the boy a hug. He obviously felt bad, and Cale did not blame him, that had been a chaotic night.

  After a minute, Leo got his emotions under control and continued.

  “I wanted to say thank you for saving me.” His head was low as he brought out a little wooden cat looking toy from behind his back and presented it to him.

  “Thank you,” Leo expressed with deep gratitude, his head still bowed low.

  Cale took the toy from him and looked at Leo with awe and concern. This was the first time someone had told him thank you so sincerely, but he was also concerned that Leo would tell everyone what he saw.

  “Here is a gift, I liked this toy a lot when I was your age. I want you to have it.”

  “I don’t know why Leo insisted on giving your son that toy.” Cale heard the boy’s mother say, “It has always been his favorite ever since his grandfather made it for him. He had just earned a woodworking skill, and this was the first thing he made, it meant a lot to Leo, and he has taken good care of it. When I asked him, he just said that Xavier deserved it. Which is silly, but boys. You know?”

  His parents took that information with surprising ease. Their poker faces betrayed nothing, and they quickly played along, thanking Leo and his mother for the gifts. Leo was still bent before Cale and wasn’t moving. He looked at the adults around him for advice, but they had all become occupied with talking. Deciding to take matters in his own hands, Cale stepped forward and wrapped his baby arms around the boy again. Yes, Cale could have been upset that this kid almost got him killed, but the boy had given him his favorite possession. That was not something you just give away to someone you barely know. Cale hugged the boy hard because he wanted to show the boy, he really did appreciate the gift. After a minute Cale backed up and put his hands on the boy's shoulders.

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  “Friend?”

  Leo looked up at him, tears in his eyes. "Friend!”

  “AWWW!” He heard all the adults in the room say at once. He couldn’t even be upset. This was his first friend! He was not going to let the adults ruin the moment!

  The moment didn’t get to last much longer for the two boys. Once Leo’s tears stopped, he showed Cale some of his favorite ways to play with the toy cat, but it was only for a few minutes. The adults all had to get to work, and the boys would have to play later. When Leo left, he gave a wave to Cale, who waved back enthusiastically, a hole had been filled in his life that he didn’t even know existed. He had a new friend, and it filled him with joy!

  A few minutes later his mother escorted him out of the apartment. Sadly, his conversation with his parents didn’t give him immediate freedom. The new underground facilities that had been created included a sort of daycare/school for the kids who were still at the base. He asked his mother why she didn’t just send him to live with her sister, and she told him that she had no intention of missing his childhood and with the Moon's Fury becoming unpredictable, this was the safest place she knew of. He didn’t feel like arguing with her, so he just nodded along in agreement while she explained her reasoning.

  When he got to the daycare he had to stop and look in awe. He had expected a small room with maybe some mats and a bunch of toys, more akin to a prison. But instead, this daycare was the size of two or three of his old high school's gym and was complete with a whole indoor play area that you would normally see only in city parks.

  There was a big, matted area with a pile of balls off to the side. At first glance it looked to be about the size of a basketball court and was big enough to play most games he knew of. Next to the ball area was the jungle gym. Whoever built this place had spared no expense. It was made of all wood – probably from the surrounding area – with the exception of some things, like handles and slides, where wood would have given the kids slivers. It had at least four different slides, multiple different towers, tunnels, hanging bridges, rope climbing areas, merry-go-rounds, the works. This was a kid's dream come true!

  As he stood in awe, his vision moved upward, and he saw that this room was easily three or four stories tall and didn’t have a single support beam in the middle obstructing the view. He looked at the ceiling in amazement and traced the support beams along the ceiling and down the walls. The supports were thinner than he would have designed for a building of this size in one of his games.

  The level of building sophistication was surprising to him considering their more earthen home, his face became puzzled as he tried to ponder the strangeness of this place. He wasn’t in thought long before he soon heard his mother start to giggle.

  “Of all the things here that give you that face, it isn’t the play area but instead the walls? Oh, you poor boy.”

  “Out of place, big metal.” He pouted defensively.

  His mother frowned at his words. “That’s what has you confused? This is just an old excavation site. This room was built by the ancestors long ago. Now stop asking me adult questions and go play. You can learn more later, once I’ve had time to think.”

  Knowing he would probably figure it out later, he didn’t push his luck. His mother checked him in with the daycare and told him to behave while giving him that knowing look. Then she said the worst thing possible to him.

  “Xavier, if you do not conduct yourself properly, and I get told of your bad behavior, I will stop teaching you to read and force you to be the little boy you are supposed to be.”

  Cale didn’t breathe. His mother knew RIGHT where to hit him. He nodded his head in agreement and told her he would behave. He finally had a chance to learn, and he wouldn’t let something as silly as daycare mess it up for him.

  The rest of his day at the new daycare went off without a hitch but was extremely boring. He wasn’t allowed to leave the toddler area and was forced to hang out with a bunch of kids his own age, it was mild torture. He found himself going into the config section of his interface and just looking at his script’s code. He didn’t touch anything in fear of accidentally doing something to his soul but instead tried to figure out how the interface worked and maybe get a clue as to why he was even able to look at his soul at all.

  He went into his soul view and found the little computer chip looking piece that was attached to it and tried to figure out how pushing the button on his interface made his soul do something. He tried to interact with it but found that he just passed right through whatever he was looking at, then a silly idea occurred to him. Could he move his vision into a spot where he could see both inside and outside the chip? Like when you are playing a video game and the camera inadvertently views outside of the map or glitches into a wall.

  Very slowly he moved his vision closer and closer until one part of his vision was in the chip and the other part was outside. He was so close it was hard to focus on any one thing, and the swirls of his soul were moving past him in a methodical pattern – a very pretty view – but it was making it difficult to see anything useful.

  He slowly rotated his soul vision and tried every angle he could think of. When he got to an outside corner of his script, there was a moment where one part of his vision became clear but was immediately gone. He slowly backed up until his vision cleared up again. It took him a few minutes of just staring before he realized what he saw. What he assumed to be his soul was in fact, not his soul. There was a translucent layer directly on top of his soul, and it was this layer that his script was attached to. It was like his soul was encapsulated in a protective sphere.

  From this position he could see that there was a distinct gap, but the gap wasn’t consistent because his own soul wasn’t perfectly round. As he observed this gap, he could see that the larger swirls seemed to put an uneven outward pressure on his soul, causing the gap to disappear, then when it got to a calmer spot, the gap was more uniform and even. This revelation took every assumption Cale had about his soul and threw it out the window. He had thought the interface was attached to his soul or existed as part of it. He had not thought that it would just fit over it, like a sleeve or a case.

  With enough to ponder, he took himself out of his soul vision to check what was going on in the outside world. It was mildly inconvenient that he couldn’t keep track of what was going on outside of his body when he was in his soul vision. Yes, he could see other’s souls as points of light floating in the distance. However, he could only really see them if they were close and he wasn’t willing to get too far away from his soul, like what had happened on his birthday.

  He noticed a few of his classmates getting picked up by their parents so it meant it was almost time to go home. Cale was excited to leave and hear what his parents had to say. Their morning conversation had been cut short due to some of the secrets he spilled and the visitors they had. Cale had some questions he wanted to ask his parents, and he was sure they had some for him as well. He also wanted to talk to his mother about what he saw in his soul view. Maybe she had some input, and he really wanted to show that he trusted them, even though he wasn’t always forthcoming with data. After all, without trust, he would never be able to get back home.