Theo arrived at the engine room and the first thing he noticed was that everything was automated. It wasn't much of a surprise though. The surprise was that the guy who was supposed to keep an eye on everything was sleeping on the job and snoring loudly no less. The man also had an R.I as his body pillow.
It didn't take a genius to understand what their relationship was like.
Theo rolled his eyes but he didn't have any reason to wake the guy up. He didn't have any right to judge him either.
'It smells in here…' He did not like the smell of plasma wastes, no.
Theo needed instant access to the warpnet and for that, he had to access the warp panel just up ahead.
He took a step forward and- "HALT. Unauthorized usage of the-" The R.I went on. An R.I was working on something on the other side, but the moment he saw Theo taking a step, he stood before him in an instant.
It was his job.
"Let him in. He can make your entire series disappear if he were to have a chat with mommy."
Apparently, the engineer woke up and he wasn't the type of guy Theo thought of him to be. First of all, he spoke, still yawning. And the second? He was chubby. Theo had hardly seen anyone who looked remotely fat in his life. And yet, this guy was probably wider than twice his size. Now, this wasn't considered fat by the standards of old, but by this world's standards perhaps he was even considered obese enough to actually go through surgery.
And he knew that Theo's mother was Venira?
To Theo though, none of that mattered. And the fact that the man knew about his identity was mildly surprising, but he didn't care.
"Thanks." Without worrying too much, Theo went to the warp terminal and entered his credentials. He flashed his bracelet over the reader and the transaction was complete. 'Glad I'd bought the bracelet.' Otherwise, he'd have to go through banks and all that. It would have taken at least an hour to process everything. But thanks to his bracelet he needed to wait only three seconds.
He now officially had access to almost all of the warpnet services, at least services that were available to the public that is.
The price wasn't cheap though. Basically, equivalent to four years' worth of bills he'd have paid for his cheap package but instead of four years, he'd only be getting one month of service.
There was a chubby guy here and a lot of R.I. But this was also the safest place to do a call- at least relatively safer than the rest of the ship.
And that was why Theo didn't bring Sizzy.
Theo called his father.
It rang.
It rang.
It rang but no one picked up. His father was busy.
He called again.
It rang.
It rang.
And just when Theo thought the call won't connect, it did.
"Th-Theo?" His father's voice was kind of surprised.
'Audio only?' Theo's suspicion only increased but he had something better to talk about. "What kind of safety measures did you bake into Sizzy?"
There was some background noise but Theo just ignored them.
'He couldn't possibly be-' Theo just discarded the thought.
"What do you mean?"
"I think she might be getting a bit-" Theo looked at the engineer and the guy was looking straight at him. Maybe this wasn't the best place to talk about things after all. "Let's just say, she's becoming a bit more aware."
But Theo couldn't back out now.
"Hmmm." His father paused. "I did have some measures baked into her. But it is possible that some of them can get corrupted. However, rest assured no matter what happens, she'll never hurt you."
Theo sighed in relief. As long as Sizzy wasn't going to harm humans, he didn't have anything to be afraid of. "Oh and, she actually came in the bath with me and-"
"Did you do it?" Rogers' giggles were coming out just fine.
Some other sounds were also coming but Theo still ignored them.
His faith was definitely starting to crumble though.
Theo let out an exasperated sigh. "Why did you have to build her like that? And no."
Rogers clicked his tongue. "Wimp. Man up a little." He cleared his throat. "Anyway, if you want to you can go ahead and make love to her, you have my permission." Theo's father didn't hesitate to act all high and mighty over the call.
Theo almost grimaced at the thought but kept quiet. "Alright, I'll talk to you later."
'Hell no, geezer.'
"It was nice talking to you son." Theo's father was about to say something else when-
"Oh PROFESSOR, aren't you done yet?" A woman's faint seductive voice came through the call. "I'm burning up, hurry! I can't stop myself. AHHH!"
'I knew it.' Theo felt stupid for having even an ounce of faith in his father's character.
He cut the call before anything else. His face was slightly flushed.
The giggles coming from the engineer weren't helping either. "They're actually rather fun things to play with," he said, not quite looking at the R.Is'.
Without a word, Theodore Black just marched out of the engine room.
***
Most of Theo's work was done for the day.
But now that he had a good enough Warpnet package. There were two things he dreaded over.
One, this mother. 'Didn't she say, she wanted to have a talk?'
And two, his sister.
'This will not end well.'
The moment his sister would learn about his new package, she'd call him twenty-four seven. She'd already sent over a thousand mails over the course of the last two weeks.
Theo hardly replied to any of them. He did read them though. Most were just love letters explaining why she was the perfect match for Theo. There were even some attached pictures of her that Theo had to delete before opening.
He sighed.
The road was long and streamlined and it connected to another road but perpendicular to this one.
And just as he headed back to his room, thinking about all the problems of his life, he saw a lone girl walking fast- glaring at someone.
The girl didn't notice him and she looked very determined.
He traced her sight and saw a guy up ahead.
Voli and John.
'This is not going to end well.' But instead of coming in between the two, Theo waited by the sidelines. He already knew Voli had feelings for John but- as both of their friends, he decided to not get involved and just play the role of a silent spectator.