K.L.A.U.S

Chapter 7

Echos From The Past

Ardell was not sure how long he was standing there after everyone had left. Perhaps it was seconds, or minutes, or longer. "Thank you," he finally said softly.

"For what?" the smaller boy asked.

Ardell shrugged. "I guess for standing next to me. For giving me strength."

The other boy nodded. "I might not remember much or be good for much, but I will always stand next to you."

Ardell smiled for a few moments before the other boy let go of his hand and ran out the door.

"So much for standing with me," Ardell thought to himself.

Moments later, however, the boy ran back in, and back to his side and took hold of his hand once again. "Come on," he stated as he began to pull Ardell out of the room.

"Where are we going?" Ardell asked as he allowed himself to be pulled out into the hall.

"It's a surprise," the smaller boy stated as he began to lead Ardell through the hallways. They went through several hallways until they came to a pair of misty-glass doors. The boy opened one of the doors and led Ardell inside.

To Ardell's surprise, he was standing next to a large indoor pool. "Wow, I didn't know this place had a pool!"

"Me either, until KLAS told me about it," the smaller boy smiled.

"That's why you ran out of the room, earlier?" Ardell reasoned.

The smaller boy nodded as he let go of Ardell's hand, and began to take his shirt off. It took the boy only a few moments for him to completely strip, and to be standing naked in front of Ardell.

"Shouldn't you be wearing something?" Ardell asked.

The boy shrugged. "Why? It's not like anyone else is here."

Before Ardell realized it, he felt two small hands grabbing ahold of his sides, and slowly pulling his pants down. Shortly after that, the hands went for his shirt. Because he was a good deal taller than the other boy, Ardell had to bend down to him get the shirt completely off.

In no time at all both boys were appropriately dressed. Moments after that, the smaller boy was leading Ardell to a set of steps that lead into the pool.

"Mmm, this feels nice," Ardell commented once the water was up to his chest, and his friend's neck.

"Haven't you ever been in a pool before?" the other boy asked.

Ardell shook his head. "I don't think so, there was never a reason to."

"That's sad," the other boy replied as he turned himself around and leaned back into Ardell's arms which caused Ardell to end up supporting some of his weight as he floated in the water. "I love pools." After a few minutes of floating, the boy turned himself upright and led Ardell to a shallower. "Okay, your turn."

"Oh, um, I don't know how to float. I don't even know how to swim," Ardell admitted.

"Don't worry," The boy commented. "I'll help you." Using the buoyancy of the water, he then leaned Ardell back, and supported his weight enough so that he was able to float on his back as well.

"Oh wow, this feel's nice," Ardell commented.

"See, told ya you'd like it." the other boy commented. He continued to allow Ardell to float like that for several minutes. Then, without warning, he removed his hands which caused Ardell to momentarily sink under water until he righted himself and stood up.

"What was that for?" Ardell asked with surprise.

"Oops," the other boy answered with a sheepish grin which caused Ardell to send a splash of water toward him. Within moments after that, the splash war was on.

For the first time that Ardell could remember, he was acting like a kid, and having fun.


The boys continued play and mess around at the pool for another hour or so before they decided to get out and dry off.

"Thanks," Ardell smiled as he began to put on his clothes. "I don't think I've ever had that much... what's the word... fun... before."

The smaller boy grinned. "That's an essential part of being a kid, we'll have to do that more often."

"I won't complain," Ardell agreed as he slipped on his shirt. "KLAS, what time is it?"

[[It is three hours and forty-four minutes past noon.]]

"Okay, we still have have a good amount of time before we need to meet everyone for dinner," Ardell mentioned as he watched his new friend finish with the rest of his clothes. "Any other ideas for what we can do?"

The boy thought for a few moments. "How big did you say this place was?"

"I think it has four main levels, right KLAS?" Ardell asked.

[[Correct. Four full sized primary levels, then there are three smaller secondary levels where some of the main equipment for the base is housed, such as the power generators and air scrubbers. As well as areas for storage.]]

"Have you been everywhere yet?" the boy asked.

Ardell quickly shook his head. "Not even close. This place is huge."

"Well?" A mischievous look came across the boy's face. "Feel like doing a little exploring."

Ardell smiled and nodded. "Sounds fun."


Since neither boy had seen much of the second floor other than the conference room and the pool area, that's where they decided to begin their adventures. The first thirty minutes or so were relatively uneventful. They found a few more conference rooms of various sizes, a number of personal or two person offices. Two small break rooms, and anther high-tech workshop type room that was similar to the room they had built the phasenmorph pools.

The next major area of the second floor turned out to be more personal living quarters. Since KLAS had nearly all the doors in the inside of the base unlocked, they were able to move through the rooms pretty quickly since, for the most part, they were very similar. A few personal effects, such as pictures, and occasionally having the room re-arranged differently, but that was about it. This is, until they came to room 2C-13.

Ardell tried to quickly push open the door to room 2C-13 just as he did with the rest of the dorm-style rooms in this section while the nine-year-old was checking out the rooms on the other side of the hall. Only this time, the door did not push open like the others. Deciding to try a little harder in case it was stuck, he still couldn't get the door open. "KLAS, do you have room 2C-13 locked for some reason?"

[[No, I do not. In fact, that is one of the few rooms that does not have a lock.]]

"Okay, then why can't I open it?" Ardell asked as he threw all his weight against it, and still couldn't make the door budge.

"Let me try," the other boy said as his attention was drawn to Ardell. But just like Ardell, he too couldn't get the door to budge. "Oh, here's the problem," the boy stated as he glanced toward the top of the door. "It has one of those manual magnetic locks attached to it."

"I think I've seen those before, but I didn't know you could put them on your rooms," Ardell commented as he looked at the device. "KLAS, are you able to open these types of locks?"

[[Generally, they are not allowed. In fact, I do not see any reference in my base information to the lock being authorized or installed. To answer your other question, as the lock is not connected to the installation's network, I have no means to open it.]]

"Great, we finally find a room that might be interesting, but we can't get in it." Ardell sighed. "Maybe father will know a way to get it off."

The smaller boy glared toward Ardell. "You're not giving up that easy, are you?"

"KLAS can't open it," Ardell challenged. "So unless you know of a way?"

The boy thought for a few seconds. "Hey, KLAS? Could you find me a very thin piece of metal, four to eight digus rectangular, but no more than a half digus thick?"

[[Do you mean something like this?]] KLAS asked as a small silvery piece of metal made a slight clanging sound as it appeared about an inch off the floor.

"Perfect!" the boy replied as he picked up and observed the piece of metal. "Okay, now I need two long, thin, as non-bendable as possible, pieces of wire. One made of a conductive metal, and the other that is made of a non-conductive material.

Moments later, two long thin wires appeared just as the boy had asked for. Without another word being spoken, the boy used the non-conductive wire as a wedge to open a small piece of the lock's casing, he then used the conductive metal to press something inside of it, which caused a small snapping sound to be heard. After that, he used the square piece of metal to easily push off the exterior casing, and then used both wires to poke and prod some of the internals until another snapping sound was heard.

"See, no problem," the boy smiled as he easily pushed the door open.

"Wait," Ardell stopped the boy before he could enter. "You don't remember what your name is, but you know how to pick unpickable magnetic locks?"

"That was an unpickable lock?" The smaller boy asked as he looked slightly confused toward Ardell. "Um, I guess so."

"Okay," Ardell shrugged as he let go of the other boy so that they could both enter the room.

At first, the room looked just like any of the other rooms that they had seen in this section of the floor. But that impression was short lived, as both boys spotted a long narrow object pushed up against one of the corners in the room that should not have been their. It had a heavy tan colored cloth draped over it to try to make it look less important, but that still did not change the fact that it was not something any of the other rooms had.

The two boys glanced at each other briefly, before they both decided to remove the over-cloth at the same time. What they saw next shocked both of them. The long narrow device bore a basic resemblance to a sleep pod, however, it had a lot more equipment attached to it, and seemed to be considerably more sophisticated. In addition to this, there was a clear, slightly rounded transparent cover, covering the top of the device. inside the covering they could see the glow of a bluish energy field. None of this, however, is what shocked them. The real surprise was that they could make out the shape of someone that was inside of it.

"Oh damn," Ardell commented. "I know what this is... It's a stasis pod!"

"A what?" the smaller boy asked as he moved closer to the cover to try to get a better look inside.

"I've never actually seen one before," Ardell begin. "However, the concept of them is very similar to sleep pods. The main difference is that they put someone in such a deep sleep that it also slows all of their biological functions on a cellular level. Basically making it so they don't age or anything."

"Wow," the smaller boy stated. "That sounds like it would be pretty useful."

"Yeah, I think it's used in biological and genetic research a lot," Ardell agreed. "KLAS, do you have any data on this?"

[[I do not. I can tell you that it has it's own built-in power source, as it is not drawing base power. It is also not connected to the base network. However, if you will connect the wire that just appeared behind you to the pod's data port, and the other end to the terminal on the desk, I will see what information I can access.]]

Ardell used the cable to quickly make the connections as KLAS suggested. "How's that?"

[[Good... Accessing... interesting... oh... very interesting.]]

"What?" both boys asked in unison.

[[Oh, sorry. Well, it seems that the pod also uses non-standard protocols. A large amount of the data appears to be encrypted or encoded using a method I am unfamiliar with. So the information I have access to is very limited.]]

"Is that normal?" Ardell asked with concern.

[[For highly secretive or secure projects, it can be. Both in the private sector and military sectors. I have noted that some researchers can be rather paranoid about their work.]]

"It looks like it's a kid in there," the other boy commented as he continued to try to see what the figure inside the energy field was.

"I think you're right," Ardell replied with concern as he took a harder look through the cover as well. "KLAS, are you able to deactivate this?"

[[Checking... No, I do not have access to any of it's internal operations. However, It should function in the same way that a normal sleep pod functions.]]

Ardell nodded, and after taking a few moments to review the button configuration near what would normally be the top of the pod, he flipped a switch, and pressed two buttons. The result was almost immediate. As the top cover snapped open, a small beeping sound could be heard coming from the device. At the same time, the humming sound of energy could be heard cycling down as the blue energy field began to quickly dissipate, revealing the pod's occupant.

As both boys had suspected, laying inside the pod was a slightly tan young boy dressed in a clean white robe who could not have been more than nine years old. Although his face had a peaceful, angelic look to it, his light brown hair looked more like curls gone wild, completely out of control.

"He is a kid!" the smaller boy stated with surprise. "I wonder how long he has been in that thing."

[[Actually, that happens to be one of the pieces of information I have access to. The last start sequence was initiated approximately 36,410 days ago.]]

"One hundred years?" the smaller boy replied.

Ardell nodded. "Yeah, that's a long time. But the bigger question is, why would someone shove a nine-year-old kid into a stasis pod for a hundred years, and just leave him in someone's room?"

[[As the pod itself was never registered in any of the official documentation that I have access to, I can not say for sure. However, you can probably ask him yourself. According to the limited biometrics data that I have access to, the boy's vitals are all quickly returning to normal. You should be able to wake him up in a few moments.]]

"Are you sure that's safe?" Ardell asked with concern.

[[The procedure of deactivating the stasis unit was actually the point in which something could have gone wrong, especially with him having been in stasis for so long. Waking him up now should not pose any additional danger to him.]]

"Right," Ardell agreed as he realized just how silly his question must have sounded. To his defense, he had a lot on his mind at that moment, including trying to figure out why a kid would be hidden like this in someone's room, and just how many other kids or other surprises might be hidden around the base.

Apparently not wiling to wait for Ardell, the smaller boy leaned over the tube, and gently nudged the boy's shoulder. "Um, wake up, I think you overslept a little, like by a hundred years or so."

"Hey," Ardell said as he nudged the smaller boy in the side.

"What?" the other boy asked looking back toward Ardell briefly before the boy in the pod coughed in pulled his attention back.

Both boys watched intently as the boy in the pod moved his head slightly before his eyes slowly cracked open. "What?" the boy said in a soft, soprano voice.

"It's okay, you're safe. No one is going to hurt you," Ardell did his best to try to reassure the boy as he saw his eyes trying to focus.

"Who?" the boy asked as he tried to sit up, but failed.

[[You have been in stasis for a very long time. It may take a few minutes for you to get full control of your muscles back.]]

The boy in the pod nervously tilted his head back slightly, trying to find the source of the other voice.

"I think we're scaring him," the boy that was standing next to Ardell commented. "I wonder if he speaks the same language as us."

"That's a good question," Ardell commented as he looked back toward the boy in the pod. "Can you understand what I'm saying?"

"Yeah," the boy in the pod replied as he tried nodding his head up and down.

"I guess that answers that question," Ardell's shadow grinned.

A few moments later, the boy in the pod struggled to set up again. This time, succeeding. "Who... who are you guys? And where... where are the others?"

"I'm Ardell, and he can't remember his name right now," Ardell stated as he glanced to the boy at his side. "What's your name?"

"I'm... I'm Tervois," the boy answered.

"Effren," Ardell smiled. "It's nice to meet you Tervois. Do you know why you were in a stasis pod? And who were the others you were talking about?"

Tervois began to look around the room. "This place... it's not right. Um, the others, I guess my contacts? My owners? I think that is what you would call them? The ones that are always here when I wake up."

"You mean, your parents?" the other boy asked.

Tervois shook his head. "No, I don't have those... parents. Where am I?"

"You're in someone's bedroom on a military base in the Collis zone." Ardell did his best to answer.

"Military base? Am I on a mission? What are my orders?" Tervois asked with a strong degree of insecurity.

"We were kind of hoping you could tell us," the other nine-year-old asked. "We just found you in this room."

[[The room belonged to Kon Jaslic Brival. Does that name sound familiar to you.]]

Tervois shook his head. "I don't think so. But who said that?"

[[I did. My name is KLAS.]]

"KLAS is the artificial intelligence that runs this base," Ardell added.

"I thought artificial intelligence was just science fiction?" Tervois asked with a degree of confusion.

"Maybe back when you were from, but now it's reality," Ardell replied.

A concerned look came across Tervois's face. "Um, how long... how long was I asleep?"

"From what KLAS could determine, almost one hundred years," Ardell answered.

"Oh," Tervois replied as both sad and surprised expressions crossed his face.

"Why so sad?" the other nine-year-old asked. "You miss your friends?"

Tervois slowly shook his head. "I don't really have any friends anymore, unless you count my owners, but they don't really smile much, and are always serious all the time."

"Then why?" the boy asked again.

Tervois shrugged. "Because I'm defective. They said they were going to have me sleep for a year or two while they tried to figure out how to fix me. But I guess I was too messed up to be fixed."

"You're not messed up, Tervois," Ardell stated firmly, making sure the smaller boy was looking at him. "And no one can own you. You are your own person, and can make your own decisions."

"I wish that were true," Tervois replied sadly as his eyes began to water up. "But I'm different, I'm a... a menda."

"What's a menda?" the other boy asked.

"It means I'm broken, I'm a mistake, a flaw, a reject," Tervois answered as a single tear began to fall down his cheek. "It means I don't really have any parents, that I was born inside a little tube in a laboratory, and that I'm owned by them."

"No way," Ardell protested as he lifted Tervois's chin up. "I don't know what kind of crap your makers or owners or whoever they are tried to tell you. But they are wrong. You are not broken and you are not a mistake or any of that other stuff you were saying. You are a nine year old kid, and that's not a crime. And, you are here with us now. With KLAS protecting you, there isn't anyone who's going to ever hurt you again."

Tervois slowly shook his head as more tears trickled down his face. "You're wrong," he cried. "I can prove it."

Before Ardell could respond, he suddenly felt himself lift off the ground. Just when he was about to hit the ceiling, he stopped floating up, and instead quickly floated to the other side of the room before he floated back down.

"There! You see?" Tervois cried as he threw himself back down into the status pod. "I'm a freak, a menda."

"Effren!" Ardell called out as soon as he was fully back on the ground. "You did that, Trevois? That was fun, it felt like I was floating in the pool."

"Can you do that to me too?" the other boy called out excitedly as he looked back into the status pod.

By the time Tervois poked his head up, Ardell was standing next to the pod as well. A confused expression came across his face as he looked at both Ardell and the boy next to him, and both of them had expressions of excitement. "You guys... you don't think I'm some kind of freak?"

Both boys shook their heads. "Why would we think that?" Ardell asked seriously. "Although I've read about it, I've never met anyone who can actually do what you can do. That's a very special gift. It's a good thing, not a bad thing."

"Can you do that to me as well?" the other boy asked again, impatiently.

Trevois tilted his head as he looked deep into the other boy's eyes to look for any signs of deception. To his surprise, he found none. "I guess, if you're sure."

The boy nodded enthusiastically, and before he knew it, he was lifting off the ground, and floating to the other side of the room just like Ardell had done. As he did this, he began to giggle. "Wow, you're right. This does feel like floating in the pool, only there is no water to get you all wet!"

"You see, Trevois, we don't think you're a freak at all. We both think that you are effren," Ardell stated clearly.

"What's effern? You have said that a few times," Trevois asked as he wiped off his eyes with his robe.

"Well," Ardell thought for a few moments to try to think of the best way to describe it. "I guess it means something that is really good, or something that you like a lot."

"You've never heard anyone say effren before?" the other boy asked as he walked back up to the pod.

Trevois shook his head.

"Oh well. How about we get you out of that thing, and then we can take you to meet father." Ardell suggested.

Trevois nodded and began to pull himself out of the pod as Ardell quickly jumped in to help. As he was doing this, Ardell could see that under the robe that Trevois was wearing, he had no other clothes on. Along with his bare feet, he figured they would have to hunt down more clothes soon.

"There we go," Ardell smiled once Trevois was on the ground and standing up.

Trevois's legs were a little unsteady as he took his first couple of steps, but as he continued to walk around the room, the unsteadiness quickly went away. After looking around the room for a few minutes, he turned back toward the other two boys. "Earlier, when I said I was broken, I wasn't talking about being able to make things float. I was talking about something else," stated as a tone of uneasiness crept into his voice.

"Okay," Ardell answered calmly as he looked into the boy's steel blue eyes.

"When they made me," Trevois began slowly. "Well, they kind of messed up. So I guess now when I learn things, after awhile it's hard to... or rather I don't... I forget things."

Ardell nodded with understanding. "Trevois, that's not a problem. We all forget things from time to time."

Trevois shook his head. "No, I mean I always forget. No matter what I do, if someone tells me something, if I don't keep repeating it to myself from time to time, then after a week or so, no matter how hard I try, I won't be able to remember it again."

[[Trevois, technology has improved a lot over the last hundred years. It may be possible that we can fix this in our medical facilities depending on what is causing it.]]

"I doubt it," Trevois replied. "Every time they wake me up, they are trying to find ways to help me, but I guess they never do, because I keep forgetting things."

"Do they make you use that stasis pod a lot?" Ardell asked with concern.

Trevois nodded. "I guess I don't forget things when I'm asleep in that. So they usually only wake me up when I have a mission or something."

Ardell frowned, "That's just so wrong. How many of these missions have you done?"

Trevois shrugged, "I think I've done a lot of them, but I can only remember the last four or five. Because of my memory and all."

[[Trevois?]] KLAS asked causing the boy to spin around again looking for the voice. [[Would you be willing to meet my father? He's a good man who I think might be able to help you. Or at least get a better idea of why you keep forgetting things.]]

"Okay I guess," Trevois replied. "But where are you at? And why do you sound like a little kid?"

[[I have three computer cores which you could say make up the main portions of my brain, but I have integrated components all around the base. You are hearing me through the speakers of the terminal on the desk.]]

"That's tersus," Trevois stated in amazement.

[[As far as my voice. It is the voice I adapted when I had to re-integrate myself. It was the only other voice sample I had available at the time. But I also feel it reflects my... newness. Is this voice displeasing to you?]]

"No," Trevois shook his head. "How old are you?"

[[Although components of my system have been developed over the last four years. Technically speaking, I gained full sentience earlier today.]]

Seeing Trevois looking toward him for confirmation, Ardell nodded. "It's a long story, but yeah, KLAS just becamse KLAS today."

Trevois nodded, "Okay, I think I like KLAS."

"I figured you would," Ardell agreed as he stood up. "Come on, let's go meet father." With that, all three boys made their way out of the room and toward the cafeteria.


By the time Hertus had helped the wolf pack and the strike team find and get settled into their rooms, it was time for dinner. Once he had shown all four members of the pack how the auto-chef worked, and promised to sit down with after dinner to start working on adding a few new menu selections to met their unique dietary needs, he finally managed to sit down himself.

"KLAS, do you know where the boys are at?" Hertus asked as he figured it would be a nice idea to wait until they were here and have dinner together.

[[Yes father, they are coming down the hallway now, and should be visible from your location in about twenty-five seconds.]]

"Thanks," Hertus replied as he turned toward the door to the cafeteria and watched. Sure enough, twenty-five seconds later not two, but three boys walked through the door.

"Hi, Father," Ardell called out as he saw the older man motioning for him to go over to him.

"Ardell?" Hertus began once all three boys were standing next to him. "I am pretty sure that when you left the conference room, there were only two of you." The man then did a quick count, pointing toward each boy. "However, I'm pretty sure that I'm counting three now. I don't suppose you have any clue as to how that happened?"

"This is Trevois," Ardell's friend stated with pride.

Hertus nodded and looked toward Ardell.

"It's not my fault," Ardell protested. "After we went swimming, we decided to do a little exploring, and when we were looking in a bunch of the bedrooms, we found one with a stasis pod in it, and Trevois was inside it.

"You just don't go finding stasis pods lying around inside of people's rooms," Hertus commented. "KLAS, I don't suppose you can shed any light on this?"

[[What Ardell has stated is true, father.]]

"How is that possible?" Hertus asked seriously.

[[I am sorry father, but I do not have an explanation. There was no mention of the pod anywhere in the base records, or in any records on the personal belongings of Kon Brival, who is the offer that was assigned to the room the pod was found in. Further, the door had a manual magnetic lock attached to it. The pod itself was also not connected to the network and had it's own internal power supply.]]

"Sounds like a possible covert op of some kind," Zylan suggested as he walked up to the group.

[[That is possible. I see no data on the network either way.]]

"Depending on it's classification, no data on it would have been placed in any network accessible computer system," Zylan replied.

Hertus thought for a few moments and nodded. "Well, I guess the important thing is that we found him, and he is safe. On the bright side, at least Trevois was able to remember his name."

All three boys grew silent, with Trevois looking toward the floor.

"I'm sorry, puer. That was a bad joke on my part, I'm sure you will get your memories back soon," Hertus said to Ardell's friend.

The boy slowly shook his head as if to indicate that was not the problem. Finally, it was Ardell who spoke up. "Trevois said that he has some memory problems too. Something about forgetting things after a week or something like that."

Hertus looked toward the new boy, and saw him nod ever so slightly.

[[Father, there is something else you should probably know. After accessing some of the data stored in the status unit that Trevois was found in. I believe the stasis cycle was last activated almost one hundred years ago.]]

Hertus gasped. "KLAS, Are you sure?"

[[I am almost certain father. However, the scanning equipment we have in the medical center would need to be used to confirm this.

Hertus nodded as he stood up. "Okay guys, I think I should get Trevois over to the medical center right away to check him out. I would give you two the option of staying here and eating, but I'm guessing you guys are going to want to tag along?"

Both boys quickly bobbed their heads up and down.

"Sir," Zylan called out, getting Hertus's attention. "Given that we really don't know what other surprises might be laying around, I think it would be prudent for me and my men to do a full visual survey of the entire facilities."

"Thank you Navite," Hertus replied. "But I think that can wait until you guys are done eating first."

Once Zylan nodded and returned to the table the rest of his team were eating at, Hertus hoarded the three boys out the door and toward the medical center.


As Tervois walked with Hertus and the other two boys to the medical center, he recapped a lot of information that he had earlier told the two boys back in the bedroom he was found in.

"It sounds like you have had a rather colorful life," Hertus commented as they entered the large open medical center room.

"I guess," Tervois replied less than enthusiastically.

"Okay, you boys wait here for a few minutes while I get medical pod powered up," Hertus stated as he walked over to one of the pods and began flipping switches and pressing buttons.

"Tervois," Ardell said softly yet firmly as he looked toward the nine-year-old. "I think you really need to show father everything."

"I can't," Tervois nervously shook his head. "He's an adult, he'll freak out like all the others."

Now it was Ardell's turn to shake his head. "He's not like any adult I've ever met before. I'm sure he would understand."

[[I agree with Ardell, Tervois. I believe that father will understand.]]

Although the kids were talking in hushed voices, when KLAS spoke it was at his normal volume. As such, it immediately caught Hertus's attention. "Understand what?" the man asked seriously.

"Um," Tervois swallowed hard while taking a step backward.

"Father," Ardell began as he stood close to the slightly trembling boy. "There is one other thing that Tervois needs to show you. Please don't get mad or upset."

Hertus nodded. "I don't think there is anything any of you boys could do to make me mad or upset with you. But alright."

Ardell looked toward Tervois, and gave him a reassuring nod.

Tervois stood there for a few more moments until he finally made up his mind. An instant later, Hertus began to rise up into the air and floated about five feet away before he slowly lowered back to the floor.

"You see? Now you know," Tervois stated as his eyes began to fill up with tears. "I guess you will want to shove me back in my stasis pod now." Before the boy knew it, he felt a warm, firm hand making contact with his chin, and gently lifting it up.

"Tervois, could you look at me please?" Hertus asked as he knelt beside the slightly trembling boy. When Tervois was looking at him, Hertus continued. "I am not mad or upset with you. I don't think you are a freak or anything else bad you might be thinking. You have a special gift that very few other people have, it's called Psychokinetics. Granted, I don't think I've seen anyone as powerful as you, but it's still a gift none the less. Everyone is special in their own way, you included. I don't know what everyone else has told you in the past, but being different and special is something to be proud of, not to feel bad about."

Tervois spent several long moments looking into the man's eyes. "So you really don't hate me now?"

"No, I don't," Hertus shook his head. "Now, how about we get you in the med pod so we can take a peak inside of you to see if KLAS can find any issues."

Tervois nodded as Hertus lived the boy up and onto the pod, white robe and all.

"Okay, this won't hurt at all as the pod scans you, but I need you to try to stay as still as possible, alright?" Hertus asked.

Tervois nodded. "Okay."

As the pod began to start its scans, Ardell and the other boy walked up to Hertus so that they could see what was being displayed on the small display screen.

"You two might want to take a seat," Hertus stated as he looked at the boys. "Based on what I've heard from you guys, I have the med pod doing a full genetic scan, so this might take a few minutes."

Trevois became a bit concerned. "What does a genetic.... ARGH!" Before the boy could finish his question, he cried out in pain as his entire body stiffened and began to convulse. At the same time, short alarm sounds went off from the console.

"KLAS, activate the sleep module," Hertus barked out as he quickly turned back to the pod. "His entire body is going into shock."

"What's wrong? The smaller boy asked with concern.

Ardell began to move the two of them backward. "Donno, but let's give him some room so we are not in the way.

It only took a few moments for the sleep module to kick in, and for Trevois's cries of agony to become soft whimpers as the boy was pushed into unconsciousness. Moments after that, the alert sounds ended.

[[Father, I believe I have found the cause of the problem.]]

"What did you find, KLAS?" Hertus asked as he quickly began to review data on the display.

[[It would appear that one of Trevois's genetic augmentations is a natural evasive amino-acid that reacts very violently to certain types of active scanning. Specifically, those typically used in genetic scans.]]

"What does that mean?" Ardell asked what both boys were thinking.

"That means that someone went through a lot of trouble to try to make sure this boy's genetics could not be mapped," Hertus answered.

[[Correct. However, the method is rather old, and well documented. I can re-calibrate the scanning system to account for the amino-acids in question.]]

Ardell walked a step closer to the pod so he could get a better look at Trevois. "Why would someone do something like that?"

"A long time ago, genetic research and knowledge was not as widely available as it is now. So it wasn't uncommon for some researchers and scientists to do everything they could to prevent other people from being able to copy their work," Hertus answered.

[[Calibration complete. Restarting scan.]]

"Thanks KLAS," Hertus called out as he and the two boys waited patiently for the scan results to become available. About four minutes later, the first set of data could be seen on the display, causing Hertus to start scrolling through it.

"Good lord," Hertus stated as he flipped through the data. "This is going way beyond my understanding of basic genetic augmentations. KLAS, are you sure this is right?"

[[I am. So far, I have identified over four hundred and thirty-one cluster block alterations. Technically speaking, this boy should not be alive.]]

"What's that mean?" Hertus asked as the boys listened on with interest.

[[Technically speaking, given all available knowledge from the genetic research databases, many of the combinations of cluster changes that are used here should not result in a viable egg. Whoever came up with this combination of augmentations was either a complete idiot, or a master geneticist of a caliber we have never heard of before.]]

Hertus nodded. "Can you verify any of the memory issues."

Before KLAS replied, the display in front of Hertus changed to show both a front and side view of a brain with several sections highlighted in red and orange. [[Again, there are a number of elements that exist and cluster bundle combinations that one would normally not expect to see. The central cortex locations which are commonly associated with short term memory seem to have a much higher density than normal. Long term memory areas show the same, but...]]

"Yes?" Hertus asked.

[[I am sorry Father, I have insufficient reference data from which to draw any type of conclusion on, based on the uniqueness of some of the nerve cluster structures and the presence of spindle cells that have not been defined yet.]]

"Oh they have been defined, but... most people and AI's aren't smart enough to figure them out." A voice said from behind them.

All three spun around to find two boys standing in the room next to each other. The one who had spoken was a blond haired boy about fourteen or fifteen years of age. He was wearing a white lab coat, with several pockets full of things, and a hand computer that he was tapping on.

The other boy was about the same age, only he had very long black hair. He was dressed in a type of military uniform, with a weapon that none of them had ever seen before strapped to his side. However, the most striking thing about this boy was that his eyes were a strange shade of red.

"Intruder Alert!" Hertus called out as soon as he saw the boys. Almost immediately, white lights that were illuminating the room changed to dark red.

[[The base is at full alert status, father. May I ask the reason you called for intruder alert status?]]

"Can't you see those two other kids, KLAS?" Ardell asked with concern.

[[Which two are you referring to, Ardell?]]

"Well, let's start with the two that are about thirty feet in front of us." Hertus stated with concern.

[[I am sorry, father, but I do not detect anyone else in the room beside you and the three boys that are standing or laying within three feet of you.]]

"But KLAS," Ardell jumped in. "We can see and hear them. They are right there."

[[Switching scanning modes... recalibrating internal sensors... I'm sorry Ardell, but I still am not detecting anyone else in the room.]]

The black haired boy giggled softly while the blond boy glared at him then turned to Hertus. "That's because a device we are wearing masks us from all other electronic devices. We found it's better to not have prying eyes from thousands of kilos away, watching and listening in to what we're doing."

"Oh come on... you know she isn't ALWAYS watching!" The black haired boy said with a sigh.

As the two new arrivals were arguing amongst themselves, all five members of the strike team ran into the room with sidearms drawn, pointed toward the two boys. Hertus gave them a quick signal to hold their positions.

"We've had this discussion before..." The blond started only to be cut off by the red eyed one.

"Yes, and as I have always said, it's just your damned paranoia screwing with your mind."

"Hey! My paranoia saved your ass more times then I can count. Do I need to remind you of the time thirty thousand years ago where..." The blond boy had rounded on the red eyed boy and they were now completely oblivious to anyone else in the room, including the men that had guns pointed at them. However, it was the red eyed boys turn to interrupt the blond.

"Let's not go there. You know just as well as I do that if it hadn't been for me, your ass would have been dead!"

"It was just a flesh wound!"

"You had your intestine hanging out of your body!"

Ardell and the other boy took a long look at the two new arrivals, and then shot questioning looks up toward Hertus. Hertus, for his part, slowly shook his head. "KLAS, count yourself lucky that you are not able to hear them," the man stated as he loudly cleared his throat. "Hi boys, remember us?"

"I would have healed!" The blond said indignantly!

Ardell slapped his forehead. "Okay, those guys are just.... weird, maybe we are hallucinating them?"

"Just a minute!" The blond said as he waved his hand toward Hertus. "How many times do I need to explain to you that simple shit like that ain't gonna kill us!"

Hertus shook his head, "All of us are seeing them, so perhaps a projected hologram or some similar technology.

"Just give us the word, sir, and we will deal with them," Zylan announced.

"I know that you arrogant ass! Just remember, there is ALWAYS someone smarter then you. No matter how much we have figured out over the last who the hell knows haw many years, someone will come up with something that WE NEVER THOUGHT OF!"

As if on cue, the red lights that were on began to flash and new alert klaxon began to sound, the fire alert. At the same time, mists of water began to spray out from different locations on the ceiling, causing the two new arrivals to suddenly turn toward Hertus and other boys in surprise.

[[There we go. Now I can see them.]] KLAS stated as one of the terminal displays near Hertus activated and a video feed from the room pointing toward where the two older boys were standing appeared. Although the boys did not show up on the display themselves, you could clearly see human shaped locations where drops of water were not hitting. Within a few seconds, small green dots began to appear where drops of water either bounced off or disappeared completely. The dots quickly formed a rather rough drawing of the two boys.

"What the hell?" the blond and red eye boys asked at the same time as they turned toward Hertus and the two boys standing next to him.

[[Perfect. Now I am able to hear them as well.]]

"KLAS, what did you do?" Ardell cried out as he saw everything in the room, including Trevois who was still laying in the medical pod, getting soaked.

[[I apologize for the drastic measures. However, after recalibrating all sensors at least five times each, cycling through all display modes on all cameras, and shifting frequencies calibration on audio inputs, I was still unable to detect the individuals you were referring to. However, the biometric data that I was receiving from the three of you, as well as that from Zylan's strike team, clearly indicated you were reacting to something. As such, I was forced to... improvise and make use of a non-standard solution.]]

"Can all this stuff get wet?" the smaller boy asked with concern.

[[It's a military installation. All equipment is designed to be water-proof and air tight, since everything must also be able to withstand decontamination sweeps.]]

"Right," Ardell said as he took a few steps forward toward the two, still shocked looking older teens. "Now that we have your attention, maybe you could tell us who the heck you guys are, and why you are here?"

Hertus quickly tried to grab at Ardell. "Ardell, we don't know how dangerous they are."

"Please," the black haired boy replied. "If we wanted you dead or something, you would already be dead."

"Then what's your business here?" Zylan demanded as he tightened the grip on his gun.

"Oh yeah that..." The blond haired boy said as he lifted his computer padd back up. "Well... when you woke Trevois back up, it triggered a warning in our system. After the last time they put him back to sleep, I got sick and tired of watching them fuck everything up, so I had Anwern... our other brother... put a signal in Trevois's pod, so when he woke up, it would let us know." When the blond had stopped talking, he had yet to actually look up form his computer.

The red eyed boy sighed heavily, and started walking towards the three standing by the medical pod. As he passed the blond, he smacked the blond up side the head hard enough to rock the boy forward. "HEY!" the blond cried out, but the red eyed boy didn't even bother to respond.

"What numb nuts here didn't mention is that his name is Braseon, and my name is Cole. To truly answer your questions would take a lot longer then I am sure you either want to hear, or would live long enough to, so why don't I give you the brief account, while we wait for Anwern to get here? That sound good to you??

Ardell glanced towards Hertus, who gave a hesitant nod. "Okay I guess we can wait. Ummm... Klas, can you shut the water off please... I had a shower already."

The water stopped just as a third person appeared, which of course, caused the strike team to shift uncomfortably as they now began to cover the third new arrival as well. As soon as he was fully in the room he started running right towards Cole. "What do you mean he SAW you?!?! There's no way he could have seen or heard you!"

"Calm the hell down Anwern! Did you forget to take your medication?! YES! He saw and heard us. Go ahead and ask him."

"Ummm... Klas?" Anwern asked hesitantly.

There was a brief delay before KLAS responded. [[Greetings, Anwern. Your equipment is very effective. I have only had this degree of a challenge a few times. If I might suggest, you should implement a better type of directional vocal dampening. As it stands now, although I am unable to hear you directly, your sound reverberates off of the ambient environment slightly faster than your canceling waves hit. Thus, allowing me to extrapolate background noise patterns and apply linguistic matches to them. The entire process takes a large amount of additional processing to pull of, but it is manageable.]]

Anwern stood there for a few moments with his mouth open. Finally he spun towards the other two new comers with an excitement in his face that was like a child at Christmas. "Did you hear that?!?! He figured out a way around our tech in less than a minute! This is unbelievable!"

"I mean I was impressed when I found out that he's evolved in a way no one could predict, but to have him actually figure out a way around our tech in less than a minute... DAMN!!!! I haven't been this excited in YEARS!" Anwern continued.

The other 9-year-old shot Anwern a funny look from Ardell's side. "I'm not really sure who you are, but you must be easily impressed if you are surprised by a little water," the nine-year-old said as he wrung some of the water out of his shirt. "Look around you, everything is soaked now."

"Personally, I'm still waiting to here about who these guys are now that Anwern is here," Ardell added.

"I think we are all interested in that," Zylan agreed. "And hopefully it will be fast, because my trigger finger is getting really tired."

Anwern looked at Zylan and visibly sighed then turned back to the two boys. "Go ahead and fire on us if you want, your weapons won't have any effect on us. But fine, we'll play nice. Obviously you don't fully grasp the significance of what you friend just did. Maybe you'll enlighten yourselves at some point."

"Now as to who we are, the name wouldn't mean anything to you, since the rest of our people died out a VERY long time ago. At least a long time ago in the way you guys measure things. Let's just say that we managed to turn a very crappy situation into something good. But as a result, we are going to end up living a VERY long time. As a result, we've mostly kept to ourselves as we have watched the world around us rise up and slowly destroy itself. Every once in a while, you guys are able to impress us, and KLAS is doing that a lot lately."

"But.. since there is so much we could tell you, most of which you either wouldn't want to hear, would have no clue about even if you did hear it, or would probably make you want to kill yourselves, why don't we do it this way. Ask us anything you want, and we'll answer what we can. The reason I say it like that is, if you ask something that we won't answer, we'll tell you we can't. Sound good?"

"Oh boy... here he goes again, slumming it with the neophites." Braseon sighed out as he sat down and continued working on this hand held computer.

Hertus shook his head. "Personally, I think it's safe to say you guys don't plan on harming us, since if that was your intent you would have done so already. So if you don't mind, I'm going to get back to checking on this completely soaked, sleeping nine-year-old in the med pod."

"Sir?" Zylan jumped in. "I don't care if they look like kids or not, I don't feel they can be trusted. Showing up like this, completely uninvited, I say we call his bluff on our weapons not effecting him."

"Zylan Prezmil, should we have made the same assumption about you and your men when you first showed up earlier?" Hertus asked seriously, causing the Navite to back down slightly. "Anwern and his brothers are our guests for the time being, until they give us reason to believe otherwise."

[[I have monitored the vitals for Trevois during the entire event, father. And they are all stable. Had their been any significant deviations, I would not continued my investigations.]]

"That's fine KLAS, but you get to explain to him why he's drenched when we wake him up," Hertus stated as he continued to check on the diagnostics information.

Ardell turned his attention from Hertus, back to Anwern. "We did these in school before, given an odd or impossible set of events, deduce all the facts you can from it. So let's see," he began as he looked the third new-comer up and down. Other than his strawberry-blond hair, and yellowish eyes, he didn't seem that different from the other two boys.

"That other kid, Braseon I think, said that us deactivating Trevois's stasis pod triggered an alert in your system. So I think it's safe to say your not military, and that your not directly affiliated with the Aquilonis Alliance. Given how easily you were able to just bypass our security, I doubt you are with the Infernus Alliance either. With that combined with Braseon's comment about the 'last' time Trevois was awake, and us knowing that time was about 100 years ago, that would seem to confirm your statement of being fairly old."

After taking a quick breath, Ardell continued. "Now, if we add to that what Anwern said about a race dying out a long time ago, although there are some references to some type of great cataclysm that might have occurred in ancient times, wiping out entire civilizations, in our modern history, there is no mention of any catastrophes large enough to have wiped out an entire race, so you guys would have to be not just old, but really old, maybe even predating the ancient times. But there is also no mention of you guys anywhere, which means you must like your privacy... so you are probably more of the observer type people than aggressive interfering type people. So... I'm going to guess you are serious when you say you're not here to hurt us."

"Assumptions never go over well," Zylan muttered under his breath.

Pausing a moment to see if anyone else was going to contest him, Ardell continued. "The comment about amusing yourselves with what Terans do, although most people would probably ignore that comment as more of a joke, I bet you were being serious, but, that doesn't make sense... if you guys are mainly observers, and watch from the background, then why would you show yourselves to us? We're just a bunch of kids, and a computer A.I. who, to be quiet honest, probably is going to get our butts kicked when the entire military decides to pay us a visit."

[[Thank you for having so much confidence in me, Ardell.]]

"Sorry KLAS," Ardell replied. "I didn't mean to talk down to you, but do you really feel you have the ability to take on the entire military when they decide they want their new base back?"

Cole looks at him with a smirk. "Do you want your answers in order, or reverse order."

"Yes," Ardell grinned back.

"HAH!" Braseon barked out in laughter. "I think I'm starting to like that kid!"

Cole just grinned and nodded. "Okay, so, I'll start in the middle and leap frog back and forth. Think you can keep up?"

"Leap frog?" Ardell asked curiously.

[[If you would like, Cole, you may say every other syllable of your answer, then go back and say the ones you skipped, and I will be happy to merge them and play them properly for the others.]]

Anwern almost fell over laughing. "Go for it Cole. Lets see if you can keep up with the baby AI!"

Cole just shook his head and grinned. "Okay... you basically had three big questions, with a bunch of little questions inside the bigger ones, so, lets start with the middle one first. No, we are not aggressive, although we can hold our own if need be. And yes, you would be safe in saying that we came before ancient times. In fact, we come from a time long before ancient times. We've seen the world rise up and nearly completely wipe itself out at least twice now. Over seventy five thousand years... And, it's not that we like our privacy, but some of the information that we have kept from our own society, and that which we have gathered over the years.... well... let's just say that we learned really quick the dangers of sharing knowledge that has otherwise been lost by society."

"Now for the last question. Actually I think your AI here could protect you guys if your entire Alliance decided to try and re-take the base. I just don't think he would be interested in killing that many people. As to why we choose to come talk to you guys, well... you interest us. I mean come on, just a short time ago, you have Lupine and Vifer sitting down for dinner together and NEITHER one of them were on the menu. That's pretty damned impressive."

"Now onto your first question. I think I answered that already, but to be more clear, the event I am speaking of was something that pretty much destroyed the earth, and killed almost all of the people on the planet. It's taken a while for you guys to scrape yourselves back up from the holes that were dug. However, you are just about at that point that you can do it again, if you made that choice. And, for a few minutes there, it looked like that was about to happen, until the situation changed."

[[Cole is essentially correct. Between this installation, and the other military installations still networked to me, I have access to weapons that could destroy the world's population a few times over. If the Aquilonis Alliance were to launch a full scale attack against this installation, my latest simulations indicate a 74.3% probability that I would win. However, such a victory will have significantly weakened the alliances overall forces to the point that they would be a prime target for a Infernus attack which would as a result mean a significantly loss of life in the civilian population as well.]]

Ardell nodded. "I don't really understand why everything has to be able building the biggest weapons and killing people all the time, anyway."

"Sadly, that is part of human nature, Ardell," Hertus said as he turned around from looking over the diagnostic results from Trevois.

"Well, it shouldn't be," Ardell protested.

"Believe me, I completely agree with you," Hertus agreed and then looked toward Cole. "If you don't mind me asking a question, Cole. From what I've been hearing, I think I understand how the three of you want to keep the technology you have closely guarded. I've seen my life's work basically co-opted and and turned into a tool of war by the military. I would hate to see what they would do with even higher technology. However, in regards to the boy in the med pod behind me. Half of the things that have been done to him, our technology is having a hard enough time detecting, let alone having any chance of fixing. I don't suppose you would have the technology to give him the help that he needs?"

Braseon looked up from his computer for the first time and regarded Hertus, while the other two boys looked at him. Braseon stood up and walked over to the medical pod then looked inside at the boy. After a few seconds, he looked over at Hertus. "Had this been many years ago, I would have said yes immediately. But, every time we've stepped in right away to fix something, it's always backfired on us." Braseon paused as he ran a hand through his hair. "His life is not in any danger. Yes, his memory issues will make life difficult for him, but I think it is something that will help all of you grow some. So how about this. If you guys do your best to figure this out, and can't, then I'll step in. but you guys have got to try first. Can you live with that?"

"That makes sense," Hertus nodded. "I kind of figured that, but I had to ask."

Ardell looked toward Braeson and then back to Hertus. "Wait a minute. I don't. You're saying you have the ability to help him, but you're not?" he said with a hurt tone.

"Ardell, think of it this way," Hertus began. "What if when you were in school, any time you ran into a problem you didn't know how to solve, instead of making you think about it, and try to see what solutions you could come up with on your own, the teacher just gave you all the answers, all the time."

Ardell thought for a few moments and lowered his head. "I probably wouldn't learn that much."

"Exactly," Hertus replied. "The same situation applies. If they just gave us the answer, what would we learn? And who knows, maybe we will come up with a solution that they had not thought of that will progress the technology even further."

"Okay, I guess that makes sense," Ardell answered. "But that still doesn't mean I like it. But I'm willing to live with it. We'll just do the best we can."

"That's all anyone can ask of any of us," Hertus added.

Ardell nodded. "So right now, we can't do anything to help him?"

[[I would not go that far, Ardell. I have a copy of the genetic profile and map that the med pod has generated. I will be working on developing the new genetic models that are needed to fit the structures we have observed that have no definitions yet. Once that is done, more options may become available to us. However, the process will involve nearly a trillion passes over a trillion bytes of data, so even with my processing power, this will take some time.]]

"How long?" Ardell asked.

[[I am unable to determine that, since as the process progresses, I will most likely be able to eliminate some of the passes. It could be days or weeks. I will keep you updated with the progress.]]

"Okay, thanks KLAS," Ardell answered before he turned back toward Cole. "Okay, so what happens now? Were there any other reasons you guys stopped by, or is this more of just a getting to know each other? Will we see you guys again? Is there a way we can contact you? Are there any areas that you guys would be willing to help us with? Or are you guys just going to watch us?"

"Well first off, if you'll allow it," Braseon started as he walked over to a terminal. "While you guys have been talking, I wrote up a quick program that will allow Klas to interact with our base system. This way you guys can always contact us if you need something. Now be warned, I can guarantee we'll be popping up from time to time, and we'll be monitoring what you guys are doing. So don't be surprised if we show up at weird times."

Hertus thought for several moments before replying. "It seems like you and your brothers really mean well, and you could be a good potential friend. However, there is still a lot that we don't know about you, as I'm sure there is much you still don't know about us. I hope you will not feel offended if I say that I would like to take things slowly and cautiously?"

"That answer actually speaks more about you and your motives than you know," Anwern smiled. "So yes, let's take things on step at a time."

[[The protocol that Braseon has come up with is interesting. I do not believe that the transceivers on the installation's communication array are capable of handling frequencies this high or refined. However, I have worked out an enhanced transceiver design which I can have the tech bots build for us. The entire process should take less than thirty minutes.]]

"As far as the visiting us from time to time goes," Ardell jumped in. "I don't think that would be a problem either. However, when you guys visit, do you think you could make it so KLAS can see you. I would hate for him to have to set off the fire alarms and flood the place each time."

"Yeah, I think we could manage that." Anwern grinned before all three new arrivals vanished.

Ardell waved his hands around where Cole had been standing. "I'll say this much, those guys really know how to make an entrance and an exit."

"Personally, I still don't know how much they can be trusted," Zylan stated as he and his men began to put their weapons away. "However, as you have made it clear, this is your show. As long your actions do not appear to put me or my men in any direct immediate danger, I don't mind letting you run things your way."

"Thank you, Zylan," Hertus replied.

"Hey KLAS?" Ardell asked. "Seriously though, do you think you can find a way around that stealth technology of theirs? If they have stuff like that, who all else does?"

"Now that is the type of thinking I like to see," Zylan grinned.

[[Although I have no immediate solutions, that is something I do plan on dedicating some of my processing cycles toward working on.]]

"I'm cold," the smaller boy announced.

Hertus looked toward the still soaked boy. "We should probably all get changed into some dry clothes. But first, we need to wake Trevois up."

"What about everything else in here? This place has water everywhere," Ardell observed.

"That won't be a problem," Hertus replied as he started to turn a few dials on the medical pod that Trevois was still sleeping in. "When we leave, I'll just activate a decon pass for the entire medical center. That will take care of drying up all the water."

[[Ardell, I just swapped out the chairs behind you and placed two sets of dry clothes there. While father is helping Trevois, the two of you can change out of your wet clothes and put on the dry ones if you would like.]]

"Thanks KLAS," Ardell smiled as he and his friend found the clothes that were mentioned, and began to strip.

After waiting a few moments from turning off the sleep module, Hertus gently shook Trevois's shoulder. "Trevois, it's time to wake up."

As soon as Trevois regained conciousness, he took a deep breath and sat up, "Ouch... what happened?"

"I'm sorry, Trevois," Hertus began calmly. "Something inside of you had a bad reaction to the scan that the medical pod used to try to see your genetics, and we had to put you to sleep until the problem could be fixed."

Trevois nodded. "So, do you know how to fix me now?"

Hertus sighed and shook his head. "I'm sorry, but no. There are things about you that we don't really understand how to look at yet, let alone fix."

"Yeah, my owners were never able to fix the problem either," Trevois admitted.

[[That does not mean we will not be able to help you, Trevois. It just means it might take awhile. We are a long way away from being out of options.]]

"Okay, thanks KLAS," Trevois stated before he looked down at his soaked robe. "Um, why am I all wet?"

"You can thank KLAS for that," Hertus stated as he lifted the boy out of the medical pod and set him on the ground. If you go over with the other boys, I think they have some dry clothes that you can wear."

"Clothes?" Trevois asked with a confused expression.

Hertus nodded. "Instead of the robe that you are wearing, you can wear normal clothes."

"Oh, okay, I guess I can try that." Trevois replied as he walked over to the other two boys.

By the time all three boys were in dry clothes, Hertus had also changed into dry clothes. "Hey, how did you do that so fast?" Ardell asked curiously.

"I'm just that good, I guess," Hertus grinned as he wrapped an arm around Ardell. "What do you three say about us going to get that dinner now?"

Getting no objections, Hertus and the three boys walked out of the room. As soon as they did, a metal door closed behind them sealing off the medical center. Moments later, the decontamination sweep began.


"I don't know about you two, but I'm starving," Ardell commented as they walked into the cafeteria.

"Actually, do you guys know where the restroom is at?" Trevois asked as he danced around in place.

"It's that door right over there," Ardell pointed as Trevois quickly ran over to it.

"He shouldn't hold it like that," the smaller boy suggested.

Ardell shrugged. "Yeah, but if you had to hold it for one hundred years, I bet you would have to go pretty bad as well."

The other boy shivered at the thought. "Good point."

"Come on, let's get some dinner," Ardell offered as the two boys headed over to the auto-chef.

By the time Trevois had finished, the other two boys had already gotten their dinner, and were sitting at one of the tables. Although it took a few minutes, Ardell eventually noticed that Trevois seemed to be aimlessly wandering around. "Anything wrong, Trevois?" he asked.

Trevois looked over toward the other two boys. "Um, where is all the food at around here?"

"Oh, just use the auto-chef," Ardell stated as he pointed toward one of the food stations.

"The what?" Trevois asked slightly confused.

Ardell slapped his forehead, "Oh yeah, you probably haven't heard of auto-chefs before, have you." As soon as Trevois confirmed this by slowly shaking his head, Ardell stood up. "That's okay. Come over here and I'll show you."

Hertus took another bite of his meatloaf as he watched Ardell and Trevois interacting together at the auto-chef.

"You have some good kids," Zylan stated as he finished up his bowl of soup.

"They are definitely fine boys," Hertus agreed. "I just wish I could take credit for them. But to be honest, I just met them today."

"I've seen some pretty terrible things in this world of ours, Hertus. Really terrible things," Zylan admitted. "When I see things like this, and meet people like your boys. That gives me hope that all of this that we are doing is going to be worth something, if kids like them end up being our future leaders."

Hertus nodded. "I agree. I can't start to count how many times these boys have impressed me today. And if my guess is right, Trevois is not going to be any different."

By the time Ardell had finished instructing Trevois on how to use the auto-chef, he ended up walking back to the table with four different trays. Since he was not familiar with most of the foods on the menu, Ardell suggested that he pick a few different ones to try. Of course, being the good friends that he and the other boy were, they were both more than willing to help eat any of the food on said plates, that Trevois didn't like or was unable to eat.


Once dinner was over, Hertus took the three boys to one of the workshops to pick up the new antenna array that the tech bots had built. Once they had taken and installed it onto the communication array, all of them decided to take a little time to show Trevois around the base a bit.

The entire tour took almost two hours since several times they had to stop, and Ardell and the other boy had to demonstrate how things worked, such as in the weight room and the pool. By the time the tour was done, all three boys were looking pretty wore out, so Hertus decided to end things by showing them where their rooms were at.

When Ardell noticed they had entered an area of the base he wasn't familiar with, he began to grow concerned. "Are you sure this is the right way to our rooms?" he asked as he and the other boys walked along side of Hertus.

"It is now," Hertus smiled. Once he saw the confusion on the taller boy's face, he continued. "KLAS was saying that he needed a lot of practice teleporting things to get the teleporters aligned better, so he went around and moved the stuff in your old room to a new room."

"A new room?" Ardell asked curiously.

"That's right," Hertus replied as he stopped next to a door.

After first looking toward his new papus as if to ask if this were the right place, he carefully opened the door and stepped in. "Effren! This has to be at least twice as big as the room I was in."

Hertus grinned as he and the other boys peeked in. "it is. This is one of the rooms usually reserved for officers. I figured it would be a good idea if all of our rooms were relatively close to each other. Trevois will be in the room right across from you, and our other friend is going to in the room right next to him. I'll be two doors down. Our new military friends are down the hall, while Hac and his pack are in those two rooms right over there."

"This is great, thanks," Ardell smiled.

"No, thank you... thank all of you... for helping to make my life complete again," Hertus replied seriously. "Well, try to get some sleep. Who know's what's going to happen tomorrow. Just remember, I'm just two doors down, so if you need anything at all, you know where to find me."

[[What is wrong, father? Do you not feel I am capable of helping my brothers?]]

"I'm sure you are," Hertus smiled. "Okay, come on you two. Let's get you settled in your rooms as well," the man said to the other boys as he closed Ardell's door.

Ardell spent some time walking around the room and observing everything. Although he liked the larger room, the thing he liked the most was the fact that there was no sleep pod. For the first time since he could remember, he would be going to sleep in a real bed. But then again, today has been filled with more firsts than he ever could have imagined.

After Ardell spent some time just wandering around the room, he eventually ended up sitting in the chair at the desk and logging into the terminal. He didn't really have anything specific in mind, so he just spent a few minutes roaming around the system to see what options he had access to. Eventually, he ended up accessing the extranet and found his way to some of the media hub sites. To his surprise, he didn't see anything at all about the military loosing one of their newest bases today. But then again, after he thought about it more, it didn't surprise him much. Why would they want to advertise to the other alliance that they are currently a lot more vulnerable to them than they were the day before?

"Hey KLAS? Is there any possible security concerns with me viewing extranet content?" Ardell asked curiously.

[[No. Any requested content I am pulling through several different sources that conceal our location fairly efficiently.]]

Ardell nodded and continued his browsing for another 15 minutes before he finally logged out of his terminal.

Stripping down to just his briefs, he crawled into his bed and lowered the lights. Nice soft sheets! Nice soft pillows! This was truly effren. It definitely beat laying on the hard form mat in the diagonal sleep tubes hands down.

About five minutes after he had been lying down, he heard a few small taps at his door. "Yes?" Ardell called out.

The door opened, and the nameless boy outside poked his head in. "Ardell? Do you... is it... can I come in?"

Ardell nodded and sat up in bed as the completely nude nine-year-old walked into the room, causing Ardell to gasp slightly as his focus fully shifted to the boy. "You're naked?"

The boy glanced down at himself and then back up to Ardell. "I um... it felt right... I think this is how I usually went to sleep... but... your naked too?"

Ardell shrugged. Since he knew the other boy could only see his chest, he could understand how he might have jumped to that assumption. "Nah, I still have my undies on, but it's no big deal."

The boy hesitantly nodded.

"Is everything okay?" Ardell asked, trying to change the subject.

The boy looked down toward his feet. "I... well... in my head... images," the boy replied as he slowly shook his head.

"Are you starting to remember things?" Ardell asked excitedly.

"I don't know what it is," the boy said with concern. "My papus and matrus... well... I don't know... It's just me now,"

Ardell nodded. "Don't worry, Until we can find your real parents, father, KLAS, and I will watch out for you. Heck, even when we do find your family, we will still probably watch out for you."

"Thanks," the boy replied shyly. "Um, can I ask a question?"

Ardell tilted his head. "Of course you can."

The boy took a small step forward. "Do you... Could I sleep... sleep in here tonight... with you?"

Ardell blinked in surprise. He was just about to burst out laughing when he saw just how serious of an expression the boy had on his face. Not only that, but he could also see a fear in the boy's eyes that concerned him. It wasn't a fear of Ardell hurting him, but more of a fear of rejection. For some reason, this boy was not just wanting, but needing to sleep with him. Maybe this is what it meant to be a big brother?

Ardell gave a small nod, and the boy quickly made his way to Ardell's bed and climbed in with him. The bed was large enough, and the boys were small enough that they could both still comfortably fit in it. "Thanks," the boy whispered once he was settled in.

"You're welcome," Ardell replied. Truth be told, he had no issues at all with this smaller boy being in bed, so close to him.

"What are you doing?" the boy asked as Ardell began to squirm around under the sheets.

Ardell through a pair of undies toward his dresser. "It's not fair that you didn't have any clothes, and I did. So, now we are both naked."

The boy looked into Ardell's eyes, to see if the older boy was playing some kind of joke on him. When he saw that he wasn't, a small smile came across his face as he shifted himself so that his head could lay on Ardell's chest. Instinctively, Ardell put a protective arm around the smaller boy.

The two boys laid there in silence for several minutes before the silence was broken by more taps at the door.

"Yes?" Ardell called out as the door opened up.

"Ardell? Are you here?" a young voice asked.

Ardell pressed the switch next to the bed that turned on the lights. Standing next to the door, he could see Trevois standing there. "Hi Trevois."

"Hi," Trevois replied as he walked further into the room, "Oh, both of you are in here?"

Ardell nodded. "It's okay, you can still come in." As Ardell said this, the boy next to him nodded.

Trevois scuffled his feet. "Um, you know how you showed me the auto-chef earlier?"

"Yeah," Ardell replied. "Are you still hungry?"

Trevois shook his head. "Well, normally they would put me in that box, stasis pod? And well, I'm not sure how to get the bed to work."

"What do you mean, get the bed to work?" Ardell asked curiously.

"You know, so I can get to sleep," Trevois stated.

Ardell suddenly realized what it was that Trevois was trying to hint at. "Trevois, have you ever gone to sleep on a normal bed before?"

Trevois shook his head. "I don't think so."

"Okay, I think you better sleep in here tonight as well," Ardell stated with a grin. "The only problem is, how are we going to fit all three of us in one bed?"

"I can leave if you want," the other boy next to Ardell stated.

Ardell shook his head. "No way, we are all brothers now, so you are staying here with us."

[[Ardell, if you two will get out of bed for a few moments, I can swap your bed out for one of the larger ones. I think the three of you should be able to fit in those fairly easily.]]

"I didn't know they had larger ones," Ardell stated as he and the other boy crawled out. "Go ahead."

"You guys don't have any clothes on?" Trevois observed.

The other boy shook his head. "This is how I normally sleep, at least I think it is."

"Oh," Trevois thought outloud. Normally they make me wear that robe. Um, can I do that too?"

"Take off your clothes?" Ardell asked as Trevois nodded his head. "Sure, I don't see why not."

"That was fast, KLAS. Thanks!" the other boy commented as he saw that the larger bed was already there. And, as KLAS had promised it was easily twice as big as the previous one.

As soon as Trevois had stripped out of his clothes, all three boys crawled into the bed. Once all three boys had properly situated themselves, Ardell lowered the lights.

"So what do we do now?" Trevois asked.

Ardell shrugged, "Now you just close your eyes, and wait until you fall asleep."

"Oh," Trevois replied. All three boys laid their in silence for several minutes before Trevois spoke again. "Hey, Ardell?"

"Yeah?" Ardell answered.

"I just wanted to say thanks for being my friend," Trevois stated seriously. "I don't think I had any before, and I'm going to really miss you."

Ardell rolled himself over to look toward Trevois. "What do you mean, miss me?"

"When I forget about you," Trevois said sadly. "Maybe I had other friends, but if I did, I forgot about all them as well."

"Don't talk like that, Trevois," Ardell replied firmly. "You're not going to forget about us. We won't let you."

"Doesn't matter," Trevois sighed. "I always forget stuff after awhile."

"Don't worry, we will come up with some way to help you," Ardell stated as he wrapped his arms around Trevois, giving the smaller boy a hug.

Although he didn't say anything, KLAS had been monitoring the entire conversation. It was at that moment that he came to a decision. In one of the workshops on the second floor, one of the tech-bots came to life as a newly designed schematic was loaded into it's memory. Moments later, the tech-bot went to work building the new device.

"At least you can remember your name," the other boy said in an equally depressed tone. "I can't remember anything at all before I found this place earlier today."

"Nothing at all?" Trevois asked curiously. "Were you born in a lab like I was?"

The other boy shrugged. "I don't know, I can't remember."

"Ouch," Trevois replied. "I can at least remember everything before they did that last operation to me, I don't know what I would do if I couldn't remember anything at all."

"He had a pretty bad bump on his head when we found him," Ardell added. "So we are hoping that he will start getting some of his memories back soon."

"But what if I never remember? What if I never figure out what my name is?" the boy asked with a high degree of concern.

"I'm sure you will. I wouldn't worry about it," Ardell did his best to try to reassure him.

"But what if I can't? I don't want to be called puer all the time. It's like I'm nothing right now." the boy replied.

Ardell thought for a few moments. "I guess I didn't think about that. Well... why don't you just think of a name you would like, and maybe that can be your name until we are able to figure out what your real name is?"

"Is that allowed?" the boy asked slightly surprised.

"I don't see why not," Ardell commented. "Hey KLAS, are you listening?"

[[Yes, I am.]]

"Do you know about any rules in regards to someone being able to pick a name that everyone else can call them when they don't know what their real name is?" Ardell asked.

[[Not that I am aware of. However, I think it is a good idea for our friend to pick a name. What name do you think would be a good fit for you? According to my research, there is a good chance that the name you pick might be your real one.]]

"Well, I've actually been thinking about that a lot today," the boy began. "I kind of like the name Barrett a lot."

"Barrett sounds like a cool name," Trevois offered.

Ardell smiled. "Yeah, I think Barrett would be a perfect name for you."

[[I agree with with Trevois and Ardell. Let us do this... I officially declare that, until such time as you remember, or we learn otherwise, that your official name shall be Barrett.]]

The boy beamed. "Thanks Ardell, thanks Trevois," he said as he gave each of the boys a quick hug. He then jumped out of bed and ran over to the computer terminal and wrapped his arms around the display. "And thank you too KLAS."

[[He he... You are welcome... Barrett... I could hear your hug through the mic.]]

Right as Barrett was about to get back in bed, a slightly-thin blond haired boy wearing an odd looking shirt appeared between him and the bed. The boy was about the same size as he was. As soon as he appeared, he called out "Random Hug!" and wrapped his arms around Barrett.

A few moments later, the hug was broken and the boy stepped back with a huge smile on his face. A few moments later, he disappeared just as quickly as he arrived, leaving behind a small clinging sound near the floor.

"What was that?" Ardell asked with concern. "And did you see that this time, KLAS?"

[[If you are referring to a strangely dressed blond haired nine-year-old appearing in front of Barrett, giving him a hug, and disappearing, I did. Although, I am at a loss to explain who or what he was.]]

"Look what he left behind," Trevois called out as he pointed toward the floor. Ardell and Barrett looked where Trevois was pointing and sure enough there was a white plate with several light brown, thin circular objects stacked on it.

Barrett bent down and very carefully lifted the plate up and placed it on the bed so they all had a better view of the objects.

"KLAS, what are these things?" Ardell asked curiously.

[[Unknown. Those objects do not match anything in my database.]]

Trevois sniffed. "They certainly smell yummy."

Ardell reached out and poked one with his finger. "They feel a warm and squishy."

"What are those little black dots in them?" Barrett asked curiously

Unable to stand it any longer, Trevois grabbed one of the discs and took a bite out of it. As soon as he began to chew, his eyes went wide.

"Trevois?" Ardell asked with concern as he and Barrett looked toward the other boy with concern.

"Wow, these things are yum!" Trevois said excitedly. I would hate to think I would ever forget something this good.

"You're right, these are really good," Ardell agreed as he grabbed a disc of his own. "And I don't think you forgot about them, because I don't think I've ever tasted anything like this either."

Barrett grabbed his own disc, and very quickly decided that he agreed with the other two boys.

[[Do you guys mind if I have one?]]

All three boys looked toward the computer terminal. "I didn't know you could eat things, KLAS," Barrett commented.

[[I can not. However, if these discs are as good as you three are making it out to sound like. I should probably do a full analysis of one to see if I can create a proper template for the auto-chef's.]]

"You mean... you could make more of these?" Ardell asked.

[[It is certainly a possibility, but I would not know for sure without performing an analysis on one.]]

Before another word could be said, each of the boys had grabbed a disc, and offered it toward the terminal.

By some strange twist of fate, there were exactly thirteen of the delicious flat circular objects on the plate. This meant that each boy managed to enjoy four each, even with KLAS acquiring one of them for his analysis. Once the plate was clean, the boys decided to get settled back into the bed with Ardell in the center of the other two.

"Barrett?" Trevois asked after they had been settling down for a few minutes. "You don't remember anything at all before you came here?"

"Not really," Barrett answered sleepily. "I remember walking in the woods, but a lot of that is kind of blurry. I don't know how long it was. I think I remember sleeping next to a tree, but I'm not really sure."

"Okay," Trevois said as he took a small amount of comfort in knowing that he was no longer the only person who had problems remembering things.

Not another word was spoken by any of the boys for the rest of the night. Instead, within five minutes, the breathing of all three boys had become slow and rhythmic.

An hour later, the door to Ardell's room slowly crept open as Hertus poked his head inside. He had gone to check on the two younger boys, and found each of their rooms empty. He was going to ask Ardell if he knew where they were at, but as soon as he looked at the double-sized bed, all of his questions were answered.

"Sleep well, boys," Hertus whispered as he slowly closed the door to the room.


To Be Continued