There and back again. A Non-Player Character story.

Chpt. 13 - How quaint

NPC thought, I don't have tear ducts. I can't cry. This disturbed NPC, or something akin to disturbed.

He thought of reworking his body to make room for tear ducts and he also wanted to leave and meet Calum. NPC almost started glitching because of going back and forth between the two possibilities. It seemed a neverending circle switching between the two ideas, creating a feedback loop with resonance in a destructive manner. NPC's body started shaking with his body about to do one idea or the other, or parts of his body trying to do both at once. In the internet, with no body, it was easier for NPC to do two things at once. This little process of crying or not was causing a disturbance with his body functioning, and he was on the verge of breaking his body by metaphorically trying to go to two places at once.

NPC let out a sound as an irrational compromise, a synthesized cry of sorts. Possibly, unbeknownst to him, this irrationality was part of his breaking away from an A.I. bot to an augmented A.I. modifying its own code.

NPC left the lab, in the night, and, at first, walked toward Calum's house. Even though it was pitch dark in places, NPC could see fine, with GPS (Global Positioning System) guiding him. There were lots of porch lights, here and there, when he got off the school's campus, but as of yet, no one came outside to meet him. There were several dogs that started barking at him, but he ignored them and started jogging.  NPC maintained a fast pace and did not slow down or tire.

Along the way, he found a scrap piece of cardboard littered on the side of the road. He picked it up to cover the lower-middle part of his body as he hurriedly went through the streets. A robot with propriety, he thought, how quaint.

When he arrived at Calum's house, it was approximately 3:30 a.m.  Earlier, NPC had made a quick search of the internet and found out that this early in the morning was not the socially acceptable time that people in suburbia, in this area, made friendly visits.  Still, he had decided to go anyway. He could not pinpoint the exact code that was leading him to this decision.

NPC rang the doorbell.  He continued to hold the piece of cardboard in front of his synthesized, robotic lower-middle part of his body.

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Calum was lying awake in his bed. He could not sleep. Not with a girl he found so attractive in a room close to him and she chose to be there. She was not bribed into a blind date with him, or his friends were playing a joke on him and trying to make him think that a cute girl close by was there for him, or some other memory he did not want to rethink about.

Also, the current circumstances with his computers also got his mind reeling. He was trying to think through all the things he would have to explain or redo: bank accounts, passwords, shoping online or texting a friend verses speaking with them in person, etc.

Nala was asleep with all the things that had happened that day; going to a swimming pool, somebody texting her that they want to meet her, coming to a new place, it tired her out and she fell asleep. For some odd reason, even the 3:00ish in the morning ringing of the doorbell made it's way into her dreams, and she did not stir.

Calum's dad, who was named Wodin Workyer, heard the doorbell ring, and he woke up his wife and told her he was going to go look at who was at the door. He was thinking it was probably some ding-dong ditching and there would be no-one there.

Calum's siblings heard it, but stayed in their rooms, they would wait to see what someone else would do about it.

On the way to the door, Wodin saw Calum awake and standing ready to walk with his dad to the front door. Wodin said with a sleepy grumble to Calum, "Come on, let's go."

The two of them walked to the door. 

 There were windows with curtains on both sides of the front door. Each of them picked a side of the front door and at the same time, they peaked through the curtains.  They both pulled back from looking, quickly and quietly.

Calum's dad walked over to Calum and whispered, "do you know who or what that huge guy is?"

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Calum's little sister, Sarah, was on the top bunk with Nala on the bottom. Little Sarah was awake and kept looking over the edge to see if Nala was awake.

"PPsst.., Nala, Nala, are you awake?" Sarah said over the edge.

Nala stirred but didn't get up.

Sarah got off her bed and climbed down to stand right next to Nala. She started poking Nala in the side with her finger, "Nala.. are you awake? Calum and Dad are in the living room, maybe answering the door."

Nala awoke to find herself in a strange environment and was momentarily startled. She saw a little girl poking her and recent memories started coming back to her. She sweetly said to little Sarah with a smile, "Hi."

"You should go see what they are doing and come back and tell me?" Calum's little sister urged.

Nala agreed with the little girl, put an extra blanket around her and started walking toward the living room to ask them if there was anything she should do.

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Calum looked at his dad and whispered, "Should we open the door or say nothing?"

"Lets wait and see if that thing does something out there. I might call the cops," Wodin said back.

After 30 seconds of silence, Calum and his dad decided to try looking through the curtains again.

NPC was just standing as still as a statue, in front of the door.

After they both peaked again, Calum turned towards his dad with a quizzical expression and then walked to stand by his dad, and whispered, "That guy looks a lot like my game character from K.R.E.O."

"K.R.E.O.?" his dad questioned.

"Knight Rune Escape Online, it's a video game I'm playing downstairs that somebody started messing with."  Calum looked down at his hands and continued out loud to himself, "That guy, thing, looks too much like my video game character."