Prototype
#1 of Bio Logic
SURPRISE! Bet none of you were expecting something fresh and brand new! This is my first attempt at writing a story in a modern city setting.
But I'm not really happy with some of the parts of this story. Some thing's I feel like they have plot holes. Or feel a bit rushed or tacked on at the last moment. But that's all this was. Something I dreamed up and felt like I had to write it all down...
I'm taking a big gamble with this.
One. It will be good and readers will like it.
Or
Two. It will be a huge suckfest...
Either way. At least I got it down... and if it is a success. Then I will continue it. So its up to you guys now...
You know I only write Scaly on Scaly stories. So whatever you do don't jump to conclusions as you read...
Anyway I hope you enjoy the read. YD
p.s... no iron man references!
Bio Logic
Chapter 1- Prototype
Lightning cracked through the extreme foreboding darkness with thunder booming a few seconds after, giving the look of day for but a moment.
The rain pounded down as if machine gun fire was coming from the heavens themselves.... That wouldn't surprise him, after spending more than half your life avoiding bullets... Having water hit him was not only physically refreshing, but it also let him know that maybe not everyone wants him dead.... Or at the very least some one doesn't care if he's alive....
Just as the lighting's show of brilliance faded, a silhouette could be seen standing on the very edge of one of the cities tallest skyscrapers. The silhouette just stood there, one would just think it was a statue. But nothing could be more wrong yet ironically correct.
But upon closer examination, one could see the form of a bipedal creature, looking up, just staring into the falling raindrops. With its wings, horns and body structure a lucky guess would identify the silhouette as a dragon standing on that building, and a correct guess that would be.
"Travis..."
A feminine voice called. But oddly only he could ever hear it.
"What is it?"
He asked not breaking his gaze up at the dark gray sky.
"Its getting really late, can we get back home. I'm tired. And you need some sleep; I can only administer you a couple of Stims before you get overly fatigued."
He smirked.
"You always think about me don't you?"
"Well user safety and comfort IS my top objective. I can't help that, now can I."
He shook his head.
"No. I don't suppose you can't. Okay, let's go."
He took one step of the edge of the building as if he couldn't care less if he were falling over ninety stories. All he kept doing was continued to stare up at the sky.
A red light beamed from his body.
"Your going to make me do it aren't you."
He laughed and shook his head.
"Why, what ever do you mean?"
She sighed as a metallic warning voice sounded.
"ALERT! USER NOT RESPONDING... SWITCHING TO AUTO!"
With that, a click could be herd. Several seconds after, a huge boom erupted. And as the dragon fell, he braced himself for something big...
All of a sudden, out of nowhere, massive flames trusted out of his back. As he continued to fall the flames intensified and began to project themselves like that of a jet's thrusters. And with one more click the inferno turned a deep blue and ceased his decent almost on a dime. He continued the brace, knowing it was not over.
"Set it to cruise!"
"You ask for it!"
And in mere nanoseconds he was send back up at speeds though only to be reachable for highly advanced aircraft! Warping the windows of the building he was just standing on.
"WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO"
That was all that could be herd before he shattered the sound barrier like a glass window.
As he journeyed up he could hear his heart-rate climb just as fast as he was. He shot through the cotton-like clouds and proceeded upwards. As his altitude increased with each second; the stars in the night sky became more clear and vivid. He reached forward as if he could pluck them from the sky.
"So beautiful..."
He thought to himself.
But all too soon that metallic voice came ringing through his head.
"WARNING! NEARING MAXIMUM ALTITUDE! ADVISE SLOWING TRUSTERS!"
He smiled as he saw the rainwater that covered his body start to freeze, creating a thick layer of ice all around his body.
"Travis... you herd him. If you don't do it, I will!"
He smiled again.
"I'm just enjoying the view."
"Well it seems enjoying a view and trying to commit suicide are coming closer to being in the same category, huh."
"Okay Cas I understand..."
He groaned. Then, in one fluent movement he shut off the thrusters, and let himself fall, but before he could get any downward speed he spun around and turned the thrusters back on. Turning him to start and fly in a straight path across the sky, heading home.
***
Hi. I'm Travis.... You can call me Travis bio. But that isn't my real last name. My name died when my family did..... Bio is my new name, but I'll get to that.
I guess you could call me a super hero. But that just makes it sounds retarded. I'm just a regular guy, who was tired of seeing his friends die.
If you want to hear my story I should probably start form the very beginning...
It all started with my parents. I....I never knew my mom, dad said that when I was born there were some 'complications' that happened, and she died while giving birth to me. When I was finally born the doctors told my dad that due to the harsh laying, my egg was badly damaged.
They told him that I most likely wouldn't hatch and if I did... I would have serious deformities and crippling disabilities.
But my dad, being the genius that he was, spent the remainder of his life to try and keep me alive.
You see he worked for a huge robotics corporation called Hyperdine; he was head in charge of the cybernetics department and was just on the major breakthrough of being able to combine living muscle to hydraulics and servos or something like that...
But when I had hatched the doctors were right on the money.
I couldn't walk, talk, or even breathe on my own. I was just a lifeless husk. I was hooked up to an iron lung, a feeding tube and a bunch of other life support equipment. But my dad never gave up on me. Every day he would sit with me, in my room and tell me stories and how he and his co-workers were on the brink of combining artificial intelligence with real intelligence. Or something along those lines... and over the first few years of my life he would tinker in his spare time and created little gadgets for me to be able to communicate. Like one thing he made he hooked right into my voice box, it took a trip under the knife, but it worked.
And for the first time in my life I could talk! At first all I could do was gurgle and incoherently attempt to make myself form words but I eventually got the hang of it. I still have that thing to this day, without it I would be just a mute. LoL.
But anyway.
My dad was determined to make me 'normal' but in the end he did the exact opposite. He gave me a voice and mobility but... well... you see as life went on he spent much of his time at work developing a suit... A cybernetic suit that would allow me to finally move on my own. Though many prototypes went through and failed but again, he never gave up on me.
"You are all I have left of your mother... and I won't lose you too!! I won't!!!"
He always said that.
Now it should be known that he pushed for this whole suit project thing but never told the company what he'd use it for. The suit was theirs because he was building it while he was working for them. And that was where all our trouble started...
But eventually, he made a prototype that looked quite promising, that this might be the one. But in the end all the cybernetics needed to move the thing was just too complex for any one person to operate. So that's when he created an AI program that was specifically designed to operate all of the suit's primary functions. The end result was C.A.S.S.I
CYBERNETIC
ASISTED
SUPPORT
SUIT
INTELIGENCE
And SHE was the best thing that ever happened to me. And I say SHE because if you call her an IT or a THING, I'll punch your teeth out!
When she was developed into the suit, it was finally time for it to be tested, and I was the test subject. I must have been only eight years old when I first wore that suit. It was big and bulky and looked like it was some kind of torture device. But after the FIVE HOURS it took to get on I just stood there. I mean here I was just a young dragon wearing the most advanced technology ever conceived. That's all I could do. It was enough that now I could STAND on my own but I had never walked before, I had no idea what I was doing. But the second the suit was fired up I herd that sweet voice that I still love to hear today.
"Hello, Travis. I am Cassi. Nice to meet you..."
Now mind you I had never herd a girl talk to me, and I was eight! To me, there was a nice lady in the suit who wanted to be my friend that's all that registered to me. So she actually thought me how to walk and move about in the suit, her sweet voice just made me feel so special.
"Now Travis. To walk, you put out one leg."
I did as I was instructed and held out my leg. (I looked pretty stupid with one let sticking out like that) and I had no balance at the time and it didn't mater, I could balance on one claw if I wanted to. Because the suit was in charge of balancing me.
"And now put it on the ground in front of you."
I did it and before I knew it, with the suit's help a was running I just kept repeating that motion and I was off. I find it funny; they always say you must learn to walk, before you can run. Well I was the opposite I had to run before I knew how to walk or even stop, I just smashed right through the other wall of the testing room. And crashed into the solid steel wall of the lab before I knew the meaning of the word "stop."
That's just one of the many funny things that happened to me at the time.
Dad was so proud of me, that day he hugged me... and for the first time... I could hug back. But not everything about this was sunshine and butterflies, no... you see after the suit had been properly tested that's when Hyperdine wanted it. And dad wasn't about to let that happen. So he and I skipped town with the suit. That was the worst thing we could have done, Hyperdine is one of the largest companies on the planet if they want someone found, they will find them.
So we had just stolen a multi billion dollar robotic enhancement suit from the world's biggest robotic companies... fantastic...
Once Hyperdine got wind of what happened they were... unhappy. To say the least. They hired freelancers to track my dad down and retrieve the suit by any means necessary.
I think it was a year before dad and I stopped and started to settle down again, everything was starting to return to normal. We were thousands of miles from any Hyperdine facilities and in a small little nowhere town that I can't remember the name of.
Things seemed to be okay for a while, but wearing a huge robotic suit isn't exactly what most would call blending in. but soon the town started getting used to me. School was great; I was always home-schooled because of my condition. But now I could go to school like a normal dragon my age. And it was fun. I kinda cheated through school though. With the suit I never needed to set down so I just stood in the corner of and classroom and slept inside the suit, while I turned on the recording function and watched all the lessons later. Heh.
But none of the other kids really liked me... they were always afraid of me for some reason, I can't image why? But life still went on.
It wasn't until my 18th birthday.... The day where my life when right in the crapper. The day where I did some things that I'm not proud of... the day I lost my father. I remember it with disturbing vividness.
***
It was just like any other day. It was the middle of summer, so no school. My dad had said he had a big surprise for me, I was so happy, so exited. But just as we left the house when a strange black car pulled up. A tall wolf wearing a long black trench coat, and sunglasses with a lit cigarette hanging out of his mouth got out and looked at us. He took a long time before he spoke.
"Are you Christopher Dyems?"
My father stepped in front of me.
"Yes..."
He sounded really worried.
The wolf chuckled a bit.
"Bout fucking time, I've spent years tracking you and that monster down."
He pointed at me when he said monster.
"Hyperdine has hired me to retrieve the XDS 01000 from you. I'm just glad that I was the one to find you first."
Dad was immediately angered.
"You're not taking my son!"
"Oh we don't want your son Mr. Dyems, we just want the suit."
"But if you remove the suit, Travis will die!"
The wolf took of his sunglasses.
"Does it look like I give a fuck?"
With that dad turned to me, he grabbed my shoulders and spoke with great urgency.
"Travis! Run! Get out of here! Cassi will take care of you!"
I looked at him through my visor.
"What?"
He shook me harder.
"Just go! Now!"
He hugged me one last time.
Then...
I herd a gunshot...
And my dad slept over and fell to the ground...
With his last breath he told me to run. And then he was gone.
I fell to my knees, and lifted his lifeless body up. I started to cry and sob.
"Dad? DAD?!? NO! DON'T GO! PLEASE! I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO!"
But that was it, my father was dead. I looked up and saw the wolf standing there with his smoking revolver, no expression on his face.
"They said bring back the suit. Your dad was just a formality."
I looked into his eyes and saw no remorse for what he had done.
"You... you KILLED MY FATHER!!!!!!"
He smiled, yea I did. And now I'm afraid I have to do the same to you."
He raised his revolver again, I herd another gunshot but that's all. I just opened my eyes and saw him standing there with a strange look of confusion on his face.
I looked all over myself but all I found was a tiny little dent in my suits metal plating.
"SHIT! They never said that the suit was BULLETPROOF!"
He darted into his car and grabbed a little walky talky.
"I've located the XDS! But I need back up to retrieve it! Bring armor piercing-"
That's all he said before I sprinted to him and grabbed him by the throat in my latterly iron grip. I brought his face close to mine.
"You...killed...my...father... and now you're going to pay!"
I threw him over his car all the way to the other side of the street.
Slowly he started to get up. He raised his gun a fired ever shot he had into me but he might have well been using a pellet gun. I began to cross the road to him.
That's when my life completely changed... And the not-so-good-start of my superhero career began.
I herd a car's horn blowing and all I saw were two headlights coming right at me. I braced myself for the impact but the driver swerved at the last minuet to avoid me and hit a power line pole. I was going to see if the driver in the car was alright, when the power line started to crack and fell over. Sparks flew and live wires fell everywhere.
I guess instincts took over and I ran to the car opened the door and tore the driver out, throwing him out of the area before any of the electrical wires came in contact with car. But I wasn't quick enough to get out of there myself. All I remember was the suit freezing up and blaring a warning bell. Cassi spoke.
"DANGER! DANGER! Electrical current exceeding lethal levels. Initiating user protection protocols!"
With that the suit seemed to not respond as it draped every part of my body in a thick layer of rubber coating. The suit collapsed to the ground. Through the chaos I felt a sharp pain and passed out.
I woke up in a horrible daze, I soon herd a conversation happening somewhere nearby
"How in the hell do we get this thing open!"
"I don't know! Don't look at me! It's built like a tank; I don't think anything short of a jackhammer will open it up."
"Well then get a friggin jackhammer we have to get him out of there before we can take the suit back!"
That's when I realized that someone was outside the suit trying to get it open and pry me out. I tried desperately to get up but the suit didn't respond all the lights were out and everything was off. I started to remember all what happened.
"The power lines!"
Those must have shorted out the suit.
"Cassi? Are you there?"
...
...
...
Nothing...
"She probably devoted all power to keep me safe, leaving no insulation to protect her C.P.U"
Great! I lost my dad and now the last friend I had. Even if she was just a computer program...
What reason did I have to still be alive? I should be dead with the rest of my family. And I knew soon those fuckers would get the suit open, and that would be it for me. I guess I would get my wish.
As I laid there waiting for them to wrench the suit open and kill me I started to remember dad. I never told him how much I loved him or how grateful I was for everything he did for me.
"I'm so sorry dad; I wish I would have been a better son..."
I cursed my sickly body and I cursed Hyperdine for everything that had done to my family.
"I just... I just with there was some way that I could make you proud."
I closed my eyes as I herd the sound of a crowbar being repeatedly smashed against my chest plating. I didn't seem t notice the little power light on the corner of my visor begin to flicker to on.
Another couple minuets passed. And before I knew it I herd a quiet voice start to talk.
"...Travis... *hello...*"
It took me a second to remember that voice.
"Cassi?!? Cassi are you there? Are you okay? Run a diagnostic check."
"...Okay..."
I herd a series of beeps and then a loud click.
"...*all systems functioning*..."
There was something strange about her now, she wasn't that straight forward AI voice that I had come to know her as. She was speaking very quietly, and she actual had a tone to her now, like she was scared.
"Cassi. What's wrong?"
She took a second to respond
"Travis... I'm frightened..."
That's impossible! An AI doesn't know what frightened is they don't have emotions.
"You're frightened?"
"Yes, my exterior vision cams are seeing all these strange guys trying to open the suit. And where's your dad?"
That brought a tear to my eye.
"He's... he's dead. They killed him."
When I said that I herd someone crying it was soft and hard to hear but I could get that much.
"Cassi are you crying?!?"
As I said that I herd her almost scream.
"YES I'M CRYING!!! MY CREATOR IS DEAD!"
Okay what the hell is going on?!? Cassi never acted this way. Fear, sadness, anger. An AI doesn't have the abilities to feel emotion...unless... unless she's self-aware. But how?!? Dad only created her as an operating and tutorial program for the suit what could have...
THE POWER LINES!!! They must have been it! The electrical shock to her C.P.U must have (in some kind of movie like cliché) made her sentient! A self aware artificial intelligence.
That's when I got an idea. If Cassi was back online, then so was the suit...
"Cassi those guys outside are trying to get in here and kill me!"
"What!?!"
"Yes they are ones who killed dad and now they're going to kill me and take you away!"
She didn't respond. After a few seconds I was about to say something but before I knew it all the interior lights turned red and I herd a deep angry voice speak.
"No their not!"
With that all I herd was a voice outside.
"Get away! Get away! It's coming back online! Get outta there!"
The suit got back up. And with a click, my visor screen turned on to see dozens of furs with the Hyperdine uniforms on running for dear life. There were at least seven huge S.W.A.T vans around and the entire area was roped off. but I didn't have a good chance to look around before I herd loud beeping and my visor turn red and zoom in to show many more S.W.A.T vans starting to pull up, and soon I was surrounded, huge guns trained on me from all sides. And I then herd someone on a megaphone start to talk.
"Attention! This is the National Office Of Security Enforcement! Disengage your vehicle at once or we will open fire!"
"Cassi we have to get out of here!"
But she was already circling each and every officer on the visor and judging an estimated threat level.
"Threat level 13%. Low"
"What!?! They have military-grade weapons you're not thinking of attacking them!?! I can't fight!?!"
She made an audible smirk
"No need, I will."
After another agonizingly slow minuet the officer on the megaphone called out again.
"This is your final warning shut down the suit or we will kill you!"
And this time they got a rebuttal. From Cassi
"And this is your ONLY warning. Move and dissipate or we will leave forcibly! USER DEFEN PROTOCALS ON STANDBY!"
None of them moved, in fact a few of them laughed.
"Fine if you say so. Drop him!"
The only thing I herd was the *tink* of their bullets against the suit's exterior, and Cassi chuckling.
"They asked for it..."
The next thing I knew I was running into the huge wall of gunfire. I had no control over the suit, Cassi was doing everything.
I saw bodies being thrown like ragdolls as they continued to unload everything they had. Cassi picked up one and threw him into the crowd; she picked up another and smashed his face into the side of one of the vans, leaving an imprint of his face in the thin metal. But they kept at it, thinking that there was a weak point on the suit somewhere, but the more they shot, the angrier Cassi became.
The fight was short lived though, soon they all realized that their guns weren't doing anything and they all started to fall back. But Cassi kept the pressure on them even as they got into the vans and started to pull away. She grabbed the last van attempting to escape and flipped it vertically onto its roof. The second the threat level fell to zero she turned and ran out of there. Leaving the S.W.A.T and Hyperdine personnel left scratching their heads.
One of the officers got out of the overturned van and limped over to another.
"What the hell just happened?"
He looked back at him
"We just got our asses kick that's what."
***
We ran for miles. The whole time I was speechless about what had happened. I just (well Cassi and I) dispatched at the very least fifty armed furs, flipped over a two ton armored van and now I was running at maybe thirty of forty miles an hour. I could never do any of that! I finally worked up the nerve to speak.
"Okay can you explain to me what just when on! How did we do those things? I can get how I survived the bullets but how did we lift that van? How are we running this fast?"
She answered me in a very nonchalant tone.
"Your father built this suit with a limitation chip. A device that would only allow you to control the suit with the strength and speed of the normal dragon of your age. But my best hypothesis would be that the electrical discharge throughout the suit must have destroyed that chip or at least rendered it useless. Now the suit is set on its actual limitations.
"Such as..."
"It can now lift over three tons, run at an average speed of thirty-five mph and jump at a maximum height of forty feet."
"Wow... so you did all that to protect me?"
"Correct. User safety is my number one directive."
I eventually asked her what she thought about why she was now self-aware.
"That question I do not think I can correctly answer. As you may already know I was only designed to be an operation program for the XDS 01000. But now... I do believe I am sentient. And I have now idea how that came to be."
"Well I'm so happy that you are; now maybe I won't be so lonely."
As soon as I had said that, I started to cry a bit.
"Your thinking about your father aren't you?
I attempted to hide my tears but since being in the suit I couldn't wipe them away or anything.
"Yea, I miss him."
"I miss him too; he was my creator after all."
I nodded.
"But why! Why would they do such a thing?!?"
"They evidently wanted me; this whole suit is one of the most advanced pieces of technology on the planet."
"But that's no reason to kill someone!"
"No, I agree it's not... but to them it was..."
"Well I'm going to make them pay!"
"WE are going to make them pay"
She said with determination.
I chuckled.
"Yes, WE are going to make them pay. I still have you after all."
"And I still have you."
***
I spend the next eight or nine months running, that's all it seemed like I was doing, running. We stopped here and their, to eat but Cassi and I knew we had to get far away... from everything...
Eventually we stopped at the first big city we came across... Patron city. A huge city... beyond huge. I've never seen a city larger. I've also never seen a larger cesspool of a city. Gangs, drugs, arms deals, smuggling of any kind, massive crime-rate... yup I've never seen anything like it.
The city motto is
"Come and live the dream. Live it, in patron city"
What a load of trash.
I soon found out that everyone or close to everyone there is crooked. The cops, the businesses... hell even the mayor.
But like I cared. Right? Well I did need a place to stay and it's easy to disappear in a place the size of patron city. So I found this abandoned warehouse and made it my own. But it was the first night there that I found something odd about it. At first it all seem normal, run-down, empty, nothing of interest but Over in the corner of the place there was a crack in the floor that went all around in a circle, this crack looked weird like something made it there for a reason. So I grabbed the edge of the concrete slab and with my new strength I was able to lift it up to reveille a tunnel that went far underground. I followed it and soon enough it opened up into an enormous room. It was big! You could park maybe a dozen cars in it!
The place must have been used by smugglers or gun runners or something, but to me it was good enough to be home. Once I got settled in I started to clean up the place I found it had a cement floor and solid walls and everything. At first glance the whole room just looked like some one dug it out of the ground with spoons.
But now it looked like a hidden basement or something. Later that very same night I decided to go out and check out the town. In secret of course. I stuck to the rooftops and alleyways, out of sight.
The city looked like it had everything, anything you could possibly think of. But with that luxury came the painful realization that you could get only get these things if you had the money. Which I did not. With this realization I started to head back 'home' but on my way I herd something that got my attention.
"Get your hands off me! Help! Someone!"
I stopped and searched for the sounds source. Cassi engaged the suits binoculars and night vision to my visor to see clearly. And soon I found who was screaming. There was a young gryphon female caught in an ally struggling with what appeared to be a dragon with a ski mask on. I put two and two together and realized she was being mugged. Without a thought I immediately jumped down to help.
"Cassi, mask my voice."
***
"Let me go!!! Fine just take my purse and leave!"
The dragon gave an evil smile.
"I'd love to, but seeing you pinned is getting me pretty aroused..."
He started to unzip his pants.
The Griffin just gave a terrified look.
"No, NO! Please! I'll do anything else! But not that! Please!"
"You'll do anything I want you to, BITCH!!"
At that moment he took out a switchblade and held it to her throat. At the same time he grabbed the back of her head and brought it up to his already fully erected cock.
"If you know what's good for you, I'd suggest you do as I say!"
She whimpered a bit and started to open her beak, she was just about to take in the tip of it when she and her attacker herd a loud thud followed by a strange metallic voice.
"Why don't you drop the knife and let the lady go!"
The dragon turned.
"Who the fuck said that!"
"I did."
Travis stepped out from the shadows.
"And what are you going to do about it?"
When the dragon got sight of Travis he almost fell to the ground in a fit of laughing.
"What the hell are you suppose to be?!? "
Travis was silent.
The dragon just smirked.
"Why don't you get out of here and I won't have to kick your ass."
He turned back to the gryphon.
Travis walked up, grabbed his shoulder and spun him around.
"I said, let the lady go."
"You gonna stop me?"
"No, WE are"
"So now you're talking in the third person? You really are a freak."
Without warning the dragon made to stab Travis, thinking that he was wearing some costume and not real metal. But all he did was slide it across his plating.
"What the fuck..."
He said astonished.
But he soon jumped back and picked up a huge metal pipe.
"Okay big guy... you wanna play? Let's play!"
He swung the pipe and struck Travis right in the side of the head. But immediately dropped the pipe due to the vibrations.
Travis giggled.
"Was that meant to hurt me?"
Travis soon grabbed him by the shoulder and smashed him right in the right eye with his twenty-pound metal fist. He grabbed the gryphon's purse and kicked the dragon to the ground.
"Now get out of here before I do something I don't want to! Now!"
He got up and ran away like he was possessed, clutching his eye.
Travis enjoyed that sight. But immediately turned to the young gryphon still on the ground. As he approached she just turned and cried in fear. But Travis just kneeled down.
"Miss are you hurt?"
She looked back at him, still shaking in fear.
"..No..."
"Can I help you up?"
He offered his hand. And after several seconds she took it and he helped her back to her feet. He handed her her purse.
"Th-thank you... I...i thought he was going to kill me."
"Not a problem miss we are happy to help."
She looked at him oddly.
"We? What do you mean by we? And just what is with that getup? You some kind of superhero?"
Travis didn't answer.
"Would you like it if I walked you home miss?"
She smiled a bit.
"Yea, thank you. I live about a block or two from here. I'd appreciate it."
So the two left the ally and slowly walked down the street. There were no cars or other pedestrians so Travis was comfortable.
"My names Christine by the way. You got a name?"
Travis paused.
"Travis."
She nodded.
"Thanks for what you did back there."
"Don't mention it we were happy to help."
She looked at him again.
"Okay you need to tell me what this "we" business is about."
But as soon as she had said that she apologized for being so rude.
"Sorry, it's just that I don't see a lot of furs that look like you."
She apologized again for saying that. Travis had to stop her and tell her it was okay.
"Miss... Christine... Its okay I'm used to that."
Before too long she stopped and turned to him.
"Well this is my place, thanks again."
He nodded and was about to walk away when she called out.
"Hey, if you have nowhere better to go. You could stay here for a night or two."
He looked back.
"That'd be nice, thank you. I'm new in town."
She took out her key and unlocked the door. Once inside Travis took a look around. Her home was very spacious. But there was something odd. Almost everywhere he looked there were computers, some were brand new, and others were in pieces.
"Wow, these all yours?"
She smiled.
"Yea, I'm a bit of a tech nut."
Travis looked over at her.
"So is that why you invited me in? You wanna take me apart, and use me for computer parts?"
She laughed.
"No no nothing like that. I just thought it would be a nice gesture."
Travis chuckled.
"Well I do appreciate it."
"It's the least I could do after you saved me."
She journeyed to the kitchen.
"Would you like a cup of coffee? Or can you even drink?"
He chuckled again.
"Coffee sounds great, thank you."
Once she made the coffee they both sat down.
Travis took the cup and immediately set it down. He then put out a hand and from the bottom of his wrist came a small telescopic straw that dipped into the dark liquid.
Christine watched in astonishment.
"I was going to ask if you wanted cream and sugar but I guess you take it black."
Travis looked up.
"Yup that's how my dad always drank his."
"So how does that straw trick work?"
He stopped sipping his coffee and looked at her.
"The straw is fed up the arm and brought to my mouth to drink. All it is is a really long straw."
Again, she nodded.
"So you are living, not just a robot or anything."
"Yea this is just a metal suit; I'm real and alive inside it. I suppose I could tell you the whole story... if you've got a few hours to waste."
She set down her cup and leaned back in her chair.
"I've got nothing better to do."
Travis proceeded to tell Christine everything about him, his condition, his father's death a year ago, Cassi, how he was on the run from Hyperdine... everything. Once he finished, he looked back up at Christine.
She looked back at him.
"Well... that's uhhh... interesting to say the least."
Travis nodded.
"Yea that's my life... "Interesting."
"How do you eat and use the y'know... bathroom?"
Travis almost burst out laughing.
"Veeeeeeeeery carefully..."
Christine laughed along with him.
"So, that suit keeps you alive?
"Yes if I took it off, I would die."
As soon as I said that, Cassi interrupted me.
"Uhhhh..... Actually Travis... that's not entirely correct."
Travis turned his speech function off so that he could just talk to Cassi.
"What are you talking about?"
She didn't answer.
"Cassi?... what do you mean that's not "correct?"
More silence.
Finally Cassi spoke.
"Your father built the suit to keep you alive, yes. But he also made it to help cure you."
Travis didn't understand what he was hearing.
"You see, the suit has many functions to do that, it would apply resistance when you move in it to build your muscle mass. It helped strengthen your lungs by filtering air. Along with many other things that would make it so you could one day take it off. That day was going to be on your 18th birthday... your father was going to tell you as a present... but you know what happened."
Travis thought over all what she said.
"So you're telling me I could take off the suit... now if I wanted to?"
"...correct..."
"THEN WHY DIDN'T YOU EVER TELL ME?!?"
That was the first time Travis ever screamed at Cassi.
She started to sound like she was crying.
"I...I'm sorry Travis, but there was nowhere that we could go that had the proper tools to remove the suit... and we were on the run... I... I didn't think..."
Travis put his head in his hands... he looked at his metal coated claws... he looked at his armor plated chest. And thought.
"I can take it all off? I can finally look normal?"
T.B.C