A robot cat is not something I ever imagined having as a pet but when my dad told me that he might have a shot at building one I got really curious and decided to help him out. I always kinda wanted one of those robotic pets from the shops when I was little, but my parents couldn't afford them. Back then I actually got upset when they told me I couldn't have one but knowing now just how silly they can be, I'm grateful they didn't. Plus, I know my dad can do better. He can build a machine that will move in different directions like a remote-controlled car (which he promised we could build together later) and even jump up and down and stretch its legs like a spring. The only thing it wouldn't be able to do is speak or meow since we didn't have the parts for that.
I watched my dad build the robot the whole time. I read his blueprints with him and memorized all the steps he took to put all the moving parts in place and when we were almost finished, I handed him a screwdriver and he smiled and pieced together the last bits. "Ta-da!" he said when he screwed in the last bolt.
Then he turned to me and said, "Would you like to paint it?" I had many canvasses and a drawer filled with tube paint in my bedroom but this would be the first time I painted a machine. I told him yes, since it looked easy enough and Dad produced a bucket of blue paint from our old rusty shed and tore it open. Then he handed me a white brush and told me to get started.
I walked over to the dusty green bench that Dad put the robot on. Benny walked behind me the whole time, his little black eyes stared eagerly at my hand. Benny was my pet pig and he followed me outside after he woke up, mostly keeping quiet and watching me quietly read the blueprints. After I was done painting the blue skin, I drew two cute black eyes onto the cat's face and Benny grunted in surprise. Maybe he thought it was coming to life or something.
Dad said, "If this robot actually works, Oggie, we could spend the whole year making more of them. Bigger ones, maybe."
I smiled at the robotic cat. The parts we used weren't so shiny but we washed and polished them and they were a nice shade of blue now and, to me, they looked just as good as what you can get in the stores these days.
Dad really struggled building the cat's body. That's where all the machinery and moving parts went. The batteries, the wires, the cogs and bolts, the mechanism that makes the cat walk and jump. If my grandfather was here, he would have thought this was super fancy tech but these days having a robotic pet is just as common as having a real one.
The last thing we added to the machine was a rubber tail with a stiff wire inside. The tail was functionally useless but it wouldn't look much like a cat without it.
"Now for the batteries..." dad said to himself.
That's when I got an interesting idea. It wasn't really smart but I still felt like I had to try it.
"What if we gave it a different kind of energy?" I said. "Then you wouldn't have to waste your batteries on a toy."
"Oh, I don't mind using my batteries, Oggie," dad sad. "We don't have any other kinds of energy, anyway."
I smiled. "Yes, we do." And then I reached out my hand towards the cat's head.
Benny blinked and cocked his head to the side like he was confused. Or was it that he could tell that something strange was about to happen?
I haven't used my powers in months and I didn't just want to simply sit there and wait for my dad's approval to use them. I had a vague understanding of what I could do but I wanted to know more. For as long as I could remember, I have had this strange expendable energy inside of me that I could use whenever I wanted. I was trying to find out what would happen if I put that energy inside a robot. So I touched the cat's head and opened the flood gates to let my power leave me. It felt uncomfortable. Like that moment when you're too sleepy to stay awake in class and your eyes start to droop but your chair is too rough and hard to relax in so you just have to force yourself to stay alert. Giving energy made me feel weak, which made a lot of sense, I guess. I just hoped that I didn't accidentally give my soul away along with my energy. I never really knew exactly what I was letting go of when I used my powers.
My energy seeped in and filled the space where the cat needed batteries. I felt this warm buzz on the metal surface and then the robot slowly woke up. It didn't look up, acknowledge me, or yawn and it's painted eyes couldn't blink, of course, but it started shifting and shaking and soon the springy legs that dad designed jutted out like rockets and confetti from an inner box he built and the cat began to stumble in my direction. It was alive and it almost seemed happy.
Then it leapt off the bench and tried to strangle Benny with its legs.
Dad was more shocked than I was. Couldn't blame him really, he had no idea what I was planning beforehand and now he had to handle seeing his new robot pet strangle a pig to death.
He took a step back. I let out a shriek.
I reached out my hand to touch the cats head again. It felt soothing when I brought the energy back to me.
"Why did you do that?" Dad yelled.
"I wanted to see if I could actually make it move. And I did!"
"Augustus, you have absolutely no idea what will happen when you use your powers."
I frowned. "Only because I never use them."
"Because you can't!"
And that's pretty much all he had to say to me. Cause it was entirely true. I couldn't use them. Especially not outside. I couldn't let myself be caught using an offensive power.
"That was a risky move. Too risky. The robot could have run on the streets and someone could have felt it. Some people can tell what magic feels like."
I looked down at my feet and saw Benny grunting and struggling below me. That lifeless cat was weighing him down like a ton of bricks. It still had its stretchy legs wrapped around his neck like an octopus so I picked it up and put it back on the green bench. Benny squealed and darted back inside the house.
"I'll use batteries, Oggie. They're safer."
Dad didn't put the batteries in that day and he went to work shortly after. We could both tell by the amount of sunlight that it was at least seven o'clock at that point. I had my school bag prepared the night before and dad had his lunch for work so neither of us would have a problem coming in early.
My sister Emma would be slightly ahead of me by now. I remember hearing her leave the front door after taking my energy back from the robot so I thought I might still catch her at the bus stop. I didn't.
When I got to the school gate, I pulled out my Mythic cards so I could admire them for a little. Mythic is this card game I mostly play with my friend Aaron Yun. I have 144 cards that I've collected over three years of playing. I shuffled through them for a few minutes but then I dropped one. Annoyed, I put my bag on the ground next to me and decided to just put them all back after bending over to get the one I dropped.
And then someone came and ran all over me.
Whoever it was, his feet were strangely tiny. It didn't hurt so much when he stepped on me. Still left me with an ache though. When I looked up, I saw a dark-skinned boy who was shorter than me but older than me – somehow, I could tell – and he had long brown hair that he held back with a red bandana tied around his head. He had hazel eyes and a sleeveless shirt with black and red stripes. He had a much bigger friend who thankfully wasn't as careless as him. But then I heard him laughing at me. Or maybe he was just laughing at the situation.
I looked away, avoided their gaze, then put away my Mythic cards and went inside the school building. His
I met up with Aaron in the music room. We went there often because it was nice and spacious. When I walked in it was just like it usually was, violins hung on the wall at the back, pianos were off on the sides and the guitars and cellos were sitting on racks on the ground. Aaron was sitting at a square table by himself when I walked in. "Hi Aaron." I said casually.
"Oh, hi Gus." I sat down on the opposite side of the table hoping he'd want to play Mythic soon. "Have you heard about what's been happening this month?" I frowned for a second, wondering if he was he talking about what was happening in school or the general news. I didn't hear about anything special going on in school from the Class Captains so I figured Aaron heard something on TV. Me and my dad had been completely wrapped up in building our first robot so we didn't hear much of it. I could recall one story about three people with offensive powers robbing a gas station. Typical crime stuff.
"The Shifters are getting more brutal these days." I got a little tense when he said that. He sounded afraid. It made me sad because it was one of the reasons why I could never tell him I was a Shifter. "There's this one guy they can't catch and he's killed at least 20 people now."
"What's his power?" I asked, wondering how he killed them.
"They've seen him do incredible things but they're not sure."
"Well I'm sure they'll discover where he's hiding soon. And back him into a corner."
"If he has a hideout somewhere he must be changing it every night. They can't track this guy. All of his victims have been in two cities up west. People are avoiding those places now, except for the people that work there." I didn't know what else to say on the subject, I pulled out my Mythic cards and smiled. "Nah, I don't wanna play, Gus." His head pivoted over to the violins on the wall. "Could you play me something?"
He knew that I had my own violin at home. I spent many weeks learning how to play four different songs on mine but I didn't really know how to tune one. I shrugged and took a step toward the violins, hoping that they wouldn't sound awful at least.
"Hey you!"
Someone called out behind me. I could tell by the sound that they were pretty damn close but for some reason they raised their voice to an insanely high pitch. I turned around. He was only a foot behind me. He was of average height, which pretty much made him a giant to me and he had shoulder length blonde hair that was partly straight and curly. He wore sweatpants and a green jacket. He had these light blue eyes that looked sort of unreal and made me feel calm. He had curly bangs that swept over his right eye and a ring piercing on his left eyebrow. He smiled at me. Or maybe it was a smirk.
"I need your help, kid."
"Uh... Oh really? With what?"
"I found something in a tight spot and... I'm too big to grab it."
"Oh, I could help you with that. Did you lose something in a crack in the wall?" One of our school buildings had plenty of those.
"I didn't lose anything – I found something."
I blinked.
"I found magic. Or at least that's what it feels like."
I was slightly concerned by this. On one hand, he did say he couldn't reach the magic but on the other hand, what if someone else could. Whatever this magic was, it might've hurt someone eventually.
"What's your name," I asked him.
"Michael."
"Okay, Michael, I'll help you get it."
He yanked me by the arm and steered me outside, his nails pressed into my skin like sharp pencils. His grip was powerful and strong, terrifyingly so, he had a lot muscle that you couldn't see behind that green jacket.
Aaron raised an eyebrow as he watched me get pulled out. "Play me a song tomorrow..." I could just barely hear him say. Aaron would have to go to class in a few minutes and I would be late to mine of course but it was worth it if I could stop someone else from getting their hands on that magic.
"I hope you don't mind but we'll have to leave the school. The place I found the magic is a few streets away. Just act casual and we'll sneak out when nobodies watching."
I followed Mike's lead and even copied his calm expression so I wouldn't look suspicious. I had never intentionally broken the rules before, I got nervous as we climbed over the tall black fence and jumped into the car park.
I wondered if he was lying to me. Was this some kind of joke? Was he going to lead me somewhere and rob me? No. That doesn't make sense at all. Plus, he couldn't have known that I had five dollars in my jean pocket. But what were the odds that this guy actually found magic this close to the school? What were the odds that he'd trust me to get it for him? Would he beat me up and pry it out of my hands?
Mike led me down four different streets and we came across a mound of earth in between two tall buildings with a hole near the bottom, it looked like a culvert covered in grass.
"That's where I felt it," he said.
I got on my knees and crept near the low hole and peered inside. It turned out to be a long tunnel that I could just barely catch the bottom of. I could feel something down there too. It felt powerful. I winced as some strange energy prickled my skin. But I couldn't let Michael know I felt it. I couldn't let him have it. Whatever it was.
I pushed my head in the tunnel and slid in. "I can fit!"
"I can see that," he growled.
I ignored him and kept moving. There were some dry leaves scattered inside the tunnel that I crushed with my knees. I could see plants growing on the walls around me. Their roots poked out from below. I hasped. They weren't ordinary plants. They may have been the source of this power that Mike discovered. They were Heptir flowers. Those things were the worst. Some of them could be more dangerous than the Shifters. More dangerous than me. There was no way I could let Michael know about this. As soon as I saw them I knew I had to come back to this place after school in order to take those flowers out of the tunnel and bury them somewhere deeper.
The Heptir plants had dropped something on the ground – the energy that had been building up in their stems – it looked like some kind of shiny blue goo.
I picked up the goo with a piece of bark that had been blown inside along with the dry leaves. I hid the goo under my sweater. Having it near me was going to make it hard to get it past Mike. There was an energy that I could feel flickering around it at all times. He had obviously felt this energy before and he would definitely feel it stronger if it was closer to him.
But what could I do? I had to crawl out some time and the goo was coming with me.
I crawled out of the pit and came face to face with him and his stupid pierced eyebrow that made him look like a menace.
"So where is it?" He snapped. "Is it a physical thing or is it just a beam of energy?"
"It isn't anything," I said. "It isn't there."
"You're lying."
He picked me up by my sweater and threw me to the ground. I almost got a mouthful of dirt before I raised my head up and looked him in the eye as he towered over me.
"Please don't hurt me, even if there was some kind of magic there, you wouldn't want it anyway – it could kill you."
"You have no idea what this magic can do, kid. You also have no idea what I'll do to you tomorrow if you don't give it to me." I glared at his stupid pretty face. Who did this guy think he was? What was he planning on doing with this magic? Clearly nothing good if this is how he was talking.
He balled up his fists and I flinched. But then he lowered his hand and ran away, leaving me to get back to school by myself. He was out of my sight faster than I could get myself to stand up.
He was stronger than he looked – he really did a number on my back when he threw me.
I hid the goo in the back of my locker the I ended up walking into class ten minutes late with my hair slightly disheveled, the teacher deep into the lecture and, as Breana pointed out, with a giant footprint stain on the back of my sweater that Aaron failed to tell me about.
Breana gave me a look of pity as I walked to my desk. I hated it. Everyone else clearly wanted to know who stepped on me. I didn't say a thing to them. I took my sweater off and wrapped it a protest round my seat.
I sat beside Aaron and shot him a glare that carried the weight of my frustration
He smiled awkwardly. "I only noticed the stain just when Mike was pulling you away. I thought about telling you to take it off."
I sighed and shook my head then opened up my book to write in the words on the board.
"What did Michael find? What did you get?"
I didn't think there was any harm in telling Aaron what was in the tunnel. There was no way he'd bother messing with it. "Heptir plants. But we can't let Mike know that. He wants to use magic. And we can't let him do that."
"He must not want it so badly if he just let you go. Or is he gonna fight you after school?"
"He's gonna do something to convince me to give it up."
"He doesn't know what he's playing with. Heptir plants can seriously fuck you up. Maybe you should let him have it just to teach him."
I actually considered that for a moment but discarded the idea once I realized there was a sliver of a chance the bastard was smart enough to not touch the flowers with his hands but still end up hurting someone else instead. Most people knew they should only grab those plants with gloves or their sleeves. If he paid any attention in class he'd know this. I told Aaron about my concerns and he conceded.
"Let's just hope he lets it go soon. He can't beat you up every day."
If only the answer was that simple. I knew that if he ever decided to let it go, it would have to do with whatever he was planning on doing with the magic in the first place and just how important it was to him. People never seek power just for laugh, do they?