Nicholas was sitting by himself, on a small chair in a garage, where all of his tools were scattered there and mixed with dusts. His eyes were weary, looking at the blueprint on top of the desk. His designs were put in the blueprint, and he was still looking at the missing details that he might've skipped
. Nicholas was truly a brilliant engineer. He was a genius but sometimes he felt like he was more intelligent than the people surrounding him. That made him disappointed, annoyed by his coworkers and finally decided to quit his company. He thought he got it figured out. He was confident with his inventions but he did not realized that he lacked something. "The ability to actually sell his inventions".
All his products were cutting-edge and sophisticated. However, it didn't really answer the needs of the people. Nicholas was a robotics engineer, he created robot servants that were usually used in restaurants, bars, healthcares, and many other fields. He gained this experience from his previous company "Atlas Robotics". When he quitted, he built his own small workshop in his garage, all by himself. There were already various prototypes there, but all his creations were rejected. The desperation that he felt made him more and more lonely.
He was in his early 30s, living with his mom in her house. He didn't want to live with his mom but he didn't have any choice. He was lucky that his mom wanted to take care of him. He didn't have many friends, and he didn't try to make any. He thought that friendship was a hassle and the need to put a certain face in front of many people bugged him.
It was totally a struggle though. Her mom, Caitlyn, was worried about him. Sometimes she came down the stairs and checked on him. She also tried to provide food. She usually either cooked or ordered deliveries. But Nicholas was kept focused on his desk or busy assembling his robot parts. Things that was not easily understood by people in general like her mom.
******
Nicholas rarely went out, but that day, his mom force him. He was obliged to, because it was a funeral. Nicholas had an aunt, Heather was her name. She was lovely and always so cheerful when she saw young "Nick". "Oh Nick, you've grown to be a really big man." she said it to him since he was five, but it kept going on until he was 30. He was so sick of it, he didn't understand why she kept saying that, like what was the point answering questions where an answer was not expected? That's what he thought. Nicholas never understood that when Heather said that, she wanted to conversation to be brought further, but Nicholas never do that.
That day though, was the first time Nicholas saw Aunt Heather cried. Aunt heather had a daughter who was still five years old, Lisa. But she passed away because of a sudden illness. Nicholas saw Aunt Heather's face changed drastically. He actually never imagined a sad face could be shown from Aunt Heather's face. Because of this, he felt empathy, a feeling that Nicholas rarely felt towards other people.
After the ceremony, Nicholas went home and he sat on his desk, thinking long, and started to contemplate. The face of his aunt, the cheerful ones, replaced by the depressed ones. It was all shown inside his head. Then his eyes suddenly jolted. He got an idea, and he started working.
******
Nicholas was in front of Heather's house. He was nervous, there was something that he needs from Heather, but he was too afraid to ask. After he knocked the door, Aunt Heather came out. She smiled and said," Oh Nick, how are you doing?". She smiled but it seemed like she was crying her heart out a few minutes ago.
"Hey Aunt Heather, how are you?" Nick smiled back, but he didn't know what will he say after this.
"Come in, come in. I'm really sorry the house was a bit messy though." Aunt Heather let him inside and went to the kitchen to prepare some tea. Nick was there looking around. It was more messy than the last time Nick came, but definitely more organized than his garage. He took a peek at Lisa's empty room. The door was open but Nick couldn't see anything from there.
"Sit down, Nick." Aunt Heather brought two cups of tea and one teapot on the side.
There was a bit of a long silence after both of them sitting down. Nick's eyes and mind were wandering through the room, thinking about the sentence that he should ask next.
"How's your work, Nick?" Nick was startled with the sudden question. He was the one who supposed to ask how Aunt Heather was doing, especially after Lisa's passing.
"I'm fine, work had a surprisingly lot of progress lately. It's been really productive." Nick answered. "Umm, how about you?" Nick reluctantly replied.
"I'm also fine, I guess Nick, things have been hard after Lisa," Aunt Heather moved her eyes to the empty room, where the 5-year-old Lisa usually slept.
Nick finally got a chance, "Ohh was that her room?" Nick asked, and Aunt Heather nodded. Then Nick continued the conversation," May I see the room?"
Aunt Heather raised her eyebrows. But she didn't take it as something that's weird. Maybe Nicholas was trying to give more empathy to Aunt Heather, and of course she would gladly reciprocate it. "Sure," she answered.
Both of them were going to the room. It was a small room with a small sized bed. The wall was painted sky blue, and the smell of baby powder was still there and to Nick's nose. Seems like Aunt Heather haven't cleaned the room. Nick's eyes were searching around.
"Why do you want to see Lisa's room, Nick?" Aunt Heather was curious.
Nick was stupefied when he was asked, but his quick-thinking answered "I just realized I haven't spend a lot of time with you and Lisa when I was working. So I guess it's nice to reminisce her memories here."
A tear came down from Aunt Heather's eyes, because of course the scenes of Lisa's playing in her bedroom started creeping up in her mind. She did want to hide it, so she asked Nick," Nick, do you want to have lunch here? I can prepare some food, if you want."
"Ohh you don't have to, really." Nick answered politely.
"Haha, you don't have any choice, Nick, I'll cook it anyway for you." Aunt Heather headed straight to the kitchen. She left because she wanted to do two things. Actually cooking for Nick, and hiding her tears in front of him.
But Nick notice, he just pretended that he didn't know. Nick was still in Lisa's bedroom. He approached the bed and lift the pillow. There were two strands of hair. He assumed that it was Lisa's. He took out a small pincer and a small ziplock plastic bag, and then put Lisa's hair inside the plastic. Finally he put the plastic bag in his pocket.
******
Michael was carrying a box in front of a garage, waiting for a person to come out from the house and greet him. After waiting for a couple of minutes, the door opened and Nick came out from there. "Come on in.", he said.
Michael took out a scanning machine from the box, and plug it in to the electricity source. Then Nick connected a cable from the his computer to the scanning machine. Once the scanner turned on. Nick put his strand of hair in the scanner. On the screen, Nick was able to see the display of information regarding his own DNA, but he didn't know what to focus. Nick then asked Michael on how to read or check specific insights.
"You know, you can also save the DNA data, to your computer." Michael told Nick. Michael was Nick's old friend back in the university. Nick made a fast maneuver to his keyboard, and in the computer screen, it can be seen extracting the data from the scanner to his computer's memory storage. After the demonstration that Michael had given Nick, Nick started looking at the ceiling and thinking. The situation was a bit awkward because Michael was still there. "Nick, you okay?" Michael asked.
"Ohh right, by the way, thanks for today Michael." Nick said his thanks to Michael, hoping that the conversation will end there.
"Are you buying the scanner or not?" Michael reconfirmed to Nick, because that's the reason why they met in the first place. But it seems like Nick have forgotten about it.
"Ohh, right, how much are you willing to sell?" Nick asked Michael.
"Four hundred dollars." Michael answered and Nick looked shocked. He couldn't hide it.
"How about two hundred dollars?" Nick shamelessly asked to halve the price.
"I'll tell you what, I'll give it to you for two hundred and fifty dollars, just because you're my old friend." Michael didn't want to haggle with his own friend.
"Okay sure." Nick gave Michael the money. After Michael received the money, he left Nick's house with a smile. Michael got the scanner from his company, which specialized at creating autopsy and forensic tools for identifying people. The scanner that he gave to Nick was the old version, and he took it from the storeroom. Even Michael didn't know whether it will work perfectly or not. But the thing that he cared right now was that he received $250 without doing much effort.
******
Nick have tried doing experiments in his whole life. But this is something that not many people have tried. Nick had a vision, Nick already know what he's going to create, but he didn't know what will be the result. He knew that this will be a great invention, a game-changer for the robot industry, but many things can go south from here.
Nick put Lisa's hair on the scanner that Michael had sold. Then he began to check her DNA. There were so many data that he could obtain from Lisa, but mostly regarding the physical genetics. However there's one thing that Nick didn't expect that it will be there. Michael's scanner didn't only detect physical genetics like hair or eye color. But also some hormones and neurotic traits that could predict personalities.
He saved all Lisa's data to his drive, then proceed with transferring the information to his works. Before this, Nick had made a tiny metallic robot doll. It was the size of a child, but without any human features. He plugged his laptop to the robot, and wait until all the data being transferred. His eyes were both filled with fear and hope, and he couldn't wait for what will come out of this.