James continued grinding on the freelancing website throughout the night and allocating money to his bank account. His foster parents already knew of his insomnia, so she allowed him to stay up at night, only informing him to take a bit of rest from time to time.
The last request was done, and James sent the zip file to the client, then closed the window took his PC to his bed and launched the programming software to resumed his previous project.
"Hi, James Smith" the virtual face on his screen voiced flatly.
James looked up at the screen and greeted her back. "Hi Jarvis, how are you doing today?" he asked. "The same thing every day, accomplishing tasks."
James raised his eyebrow. "Alright, any news for me today?" The robot paused for a while before flashing a robotic smile. "Yes, there is… one news today James Smith…. News today James Smith...ne-ne-ne-news today James Smith" the AI glitched ceaselessly before his screen went black.
James sighed painfully and closed his laptop. He knew this thing was going to crash anyway, so he closed the window. Every time he coded this AI to perform basic tasks such as launching applications and unmounted his flash-drive, he wanted to make it a bit smarter than that, so he upgraded the AI's code to tell the weather. He did it by reading the weather info on the AccuWeather website and relaying the temperature back to the AI to inform him, but obviously, that didn't work.
But he did not give up. He spent all the night learning and reprogramming the code's database for his newly created artificial intelligence. Most of the times James would groan and sigh in frustration if the code wasn't working, he knew that at the end of the day, his aim would be achieved eventually.
Along with his unusually high IQ rating, James finished learning all that he needed on the website he was taking his lessons on, but he did not have the time to apply them, because it was almost five in the morning, and his foster mom had told him to always rest after staying up at night. James was really fond of her, so he wanted to please her as much as he could.
James put his laptop in hibernation and laid on his bed, his eye wide open. He stared at the ceiling and began counting the squares more than twenty times until he got bored. Sometimes James missed the luxury of sleeping. He had not dreamt in a very long time. He was even surprised that his eyes and muscles had not worn out due to the constant usage.
James's smartphone's alarm went off, indicating that dawn had broken. James touched the screen, silencing it, before standing up and stretching his body. He promptly took off his clothes wore a towel and headed to the bathroom to clean himself.
A few minutes later, James came out of the bathroom wore his school uniform and left his room to the sitting room. There he met the entire family about to eat. The middle-aged woman looked at James and smiled. "James, eat quickly, or you would be late for school." James smiled "I know mom, I know" James sat down and started eating his breakfast.
I honestly hope this would be the last time I changed school. I miss Sophia so much, James thought painfully. Now that his emotions are working, he could not help but feel sad about not seeing Sophia anymore.
"James, did you fix my dolly?" a little blonde girl sitting right next to him asked with an innocent expression. James widened his eye and pretended to be shocked "Oh no, I forgot, I'm sorry Angel". The girl's face fell and bowed her head and ate, looking as if she wanted to cry.
James laughed heartily and grinned. "I was joking Angel. Here, takes your dolly, oh, and I added voice recorder to her, so you can record your voice and play them back." The girl turned and face James with a happy expression. "Yay, thank you uncle James!" she giggled in glee as she hugged the doll.
"Dick" Josh muttered in his breath without looking up. James stared at him and resumed eating. Ever since he began living with this family, Josh has been hostile towards him. He could not blame him though. Maribel has always been taking care of him when his health was down up till now, sparing no time to enjoy his mom's company. Josh was very resentful about this, so he became unfriendly to James, even to the point of not talking to him all the time James stayed with them.
Though James had attempted to befriend him, he rudely rejected, screaming at him to go back to his home. "You do not belong here, you do not even share our skin colour. Go back home and leave my mom and dad to me!" he would always say. James seeing that Josh was not warming up to him, decided to ignore him. He had better things to do than to put up with a child's tantrum.
"For the last time Angel, this is your brother, not your uncle. James, can you do me a favour and pack these plates before meeting us in the car?" the woman asked James while searching for her car key. "Yes, aunt Maribel" James nodded.
James packed the plates and gently placed them in the kitchen sink. As James was about to leave, he saw something that looked like a radio. He reached for it and fiddled with it a little bit. Who has this? This was not here yesterday. James squinted his eye placed the radio on his backpack and headed outside the house to the parked car outside.
When James entered the car, James asked Maribel. "Aunt Maribel, were you the one that kept this radio on the kitchen sink?" James asked as he took out the radio and showed it to Maribel, who looked at it from the rear-view mirror. "Uh, no, it was not me, but maybe I took it in the mall by mistake or something."
James took a closer look at the device again. It looked so old, like the kind that was made in 2011 below. James shrugged and put it in his bag. "I think I'm going to open it up" Maribel laughed lightly. "I knew you were going to say that, but don't damage it though, I don't know who owned it, so please be careful."
James nodded and said "Okay aunt Maribel"
"Cough Cough, nerd" Josh faked coughed, before resuming the game he was playing on his phone. James decided to ignore him and stared outside the window.