Cale’s consciousness rocketed back into reality after his battle and it took his body a moment to catch up to what was happening. He tried to stand up, but his vision swam. The lights in the room accosted his eyes, and he could hear. So. Many. noises. It was overwhelming, and he fell to his knees as his vision blurred and even with his large feet, he couldn’t stay standing. After a minute, the feeling calmed down and he was finally able to stand. It was another two minutes before he could stand without holding on to something.

  What was that!? He thought, he had never experienced anything like that... he paused. It felt weird saying that, like his body was telling him that his own words were not true. As he dwelled on that thought, he realized he had experienced that feeling before and it was when his dad said he synchronized with his script! But his scripts were not working... right?

  He swiped over the first page of his interface and his eyes locked on the box that held the status of his wind scrip – Splitting Air of the West Wind – it still had the broken icon with a crack in the middle, but this time the crack had a companion, a little spinning line. He stared at it, hoping it would reveal its secrets, but it just spun there, mockingly, and when he tried to use his script, it wouldn’t work.

  Disappointed, but not surprised, he was about to flip his interface to his soul view when he noticed something obvious he had missed. Right below his wind script was a new box just labeled “Untitled.”

  He almost pressed it, but then thought of the invaders only moments ago. Thinking this might be a trap they left behind, he scrolled over to the soul lounge and though he couldn’t see Maggy, it seemed she could always hear him when he talked through his interface.

  Before saying anything, he quickly checked the doorway and looked for his mom, who thankfully was out of earshot and talking very animatedly with one of her coworkers down the hall.

  “Maggy, what is this new script marked on my interface?” He asked in a low tone.

  “I was wondering when you would notice.” She responded with a tone that made him think she was smirking.

  Cale watched as Maggy and the Soul Rider came into view in his soul vision, she parked the vehicle in its attached bay before continuing. “I noticed it after taking care of the hidden invaders. I’m not sure exactly what it is, but it connects directly to one of the main lines on your Trilateral Layer. I was just out there taking a look at it.”

  “Huh. Not sure what that means... Why is it un-named?” He asked.

  “Because you haven’t named it, Cale. Ugh. How can you do something like this but can’t… Just... select the icon on it. It will give you some options.” She sounded exasperated.

  Cale’s eyes glimmered as he selected the options for the unnamed script and he was asked to give it a name. “Maggy what should I name it? I don’t even know what this script does. Did you see anything in the files that might explain what I just got?”

  “Ugh. Cale, this didn’t come from the files, you just made this.”

  “I, what now? I made this? By getting the files?” He was beyond confused, and Maggy only seemed to be getting more frustrated.

  “No. Ugh. Whatever you did when you fought the intruders, the thing that caused them to crack apart, you imprinted it on your own Trilateral Layer. It shouldn’t be possible, Cale.” She explained.

  He looked at his hands and recalled the battle he had just gone through. The memories of it were fresh, and he could feel his body stirring, almost like his script was begging to be used. Seeing no reason not to try it, Cale closed his eyes and envisioned his arm having a blade of wind attached to it. Power swelled within him, and he felt the un-named script activate almost immediately.

  He opened his eyes and stared at his arm in front of him. There, attached along his forearm, running from his elbow up to the tip of his fingers, was a long, thin, wispy blade. He noticed that unlike his other one, this script activated immediately and didn’t have the delay he had been expecting.

  He rolled his wrists and twisted his arms to see what would happen. Surprisingly, as long as he maintained his will, the script followed the straightest line from his elbow to his outer little finger. Curious as to how sharp it was, and considering his other wind script could cut rocks easily, he looked at his desk in front of him and slowly moved his arm long the edge. To his utter glee, he felt no resistance as he cut off a tiny sliver of his desk, like he was peeling a carrot. Having more confidence in his script, he was in the middle of slicing off another piece when he was rudely interrupted.

  “What is going on here?” Cale felt the tone of that question fill the room like and twitched in surprise! His arm jolted outward, cleaving the entire back corner of his desk off. He watched in horror as one of the back legs separated, stuck to the piece he had just cut off, and the table crashed, causing the book to go flying and his mother to start freaking out.

  “Xavier! Cale! Whatever! What did you do to your desk? I was barely gone a minute!”

  “Sorry!” he told her awkwardly, and then quickly took the book from the ground, and set it on her desk. He felt bad that he had broken the desk.

  “Is everything all right?!” He heard from the door and saw Joury trying to sneakily glance inside his moms office.

  “Joury, yes. My... son... is just excited about not being in the hospital.” She said nervously.

  “Ah... I see...” he said, “Try to keep the noise to a minimum if you can,” Joury told the both of them, “This is a place of work after all.”

  “Of course, of course. Cale will be better behaved in the future. Right?” She said, looking at Cale and giving him that scary look that only a mom could give.

  “Yes. Sorry for being loud,” he said to Joury on the other side of the door in his best little voice while looking at his feet. If he was going to be stuck being small, he might as well use it to his advantage.

  “Thank you... Cale. I shall hope you stick to your word. Good day.” And like the previous time Cale had met Joury at his place of work, he left without another word.

  As soon as Joury was gone, his mother closed the door to her office and turned to her son. “Are you ok? What… What just happened? I thought your scripts were not working.”

  Cale let out a breath he hadn’t realized he had been holding. He had thought she was going to yell at him, but she was really just concerned.

  “The scripts from… before… don’t work.” He paused, looked at the table, then at the book, and then at his mom. “But I do have one that works. A new one…” He said, trailing off.

  “From the book?” she asked, her eyes lit with curiosity and Cale couldn’t help but smile, his mom may not be the most protective mother, but he couldn’t fault her passion, it was very evident, and infectious.

  “Not… Exactly,” he said hesitantly. “Just so you know – that little cube in the back? Super dangerous, don’t connect to it.”

  “What do you mean… connect? And Dangerous?” Her expression showed she was perplexed.

  “Have you ever touched it?” he asked her.

  “A Lot. Cale, nobody knows what that is exactly,” She said, motioning to the little black box, “It’s theorized to be some sort of information treasure, but it gives us less feedback than the crystals. I inherited it from my predecessor after they disappeared a few years ago.”

  “What do you mean disappeared?” he asked, recalling the bot that tried to activate the greater network, its reasoning still unknown.

  “Just one day he was gone. He didn’t show up for work and nobody could find him. He just vanished.” She recounted.

  Cale took the book from the desk and ran his hand along its cover and imagined the possibilities for what happened to this stranger. Could this person be 005? He quickly added it to his notes. If this person had the ability to access this data, who knows what else they could be capable of.

  “What did you mean when you said the book is dangerous?” his mom asked him, “I’ve had it since I started and its always been just a book.”

  “The cube in the back.” He clarified. “It’s booby-trapped. When you access it, it tries to… fight you.”

  “The cube? You can access it!?” She rushed forward, now only a few inches away from him.

  “Yes, my new interface let me talk to it.” He didn’t even blink an eye.

  “WHAT!?” she screamed, before catching herself by slamming her hands in from of her mouth. “What!?” she whispered between her fingers.

  Cale giggled. Her passion for knowledge was plainly evident. “I can access it. The long string of text in the front of the book was the key.”

  His mom grabbed the book and started flipping through pages of her notes until she came to a section underlined with bright blue ink.

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  “We all assumed the text in front was a code to keep us from reading parts of his text. But you are saying it was the key to the cube?”

  “Correct, but Mom, you must be careful. When I accessed the files, they were protected by something inside. Something… not friendly”

  “Not friendly?” She asked.

  “Not at all. When I accessed it… I was attacked, my soul was attacked, mom.”

  His mom stared at him with very big, questioning eyes. “Your soul? What!? Xav- Cale.”

  “I don’t know how to explain it yet, but...”

  Knock, knock, knock! They heard on the door, stopping the conversation in its tracks.

  His mom opened the door and shoo-shooed someone away. Apparently they had heard some noise along with his mom’s outburst and were checking up on them. When the person left, his mom closed the door, looked at his broken desk, and then to him.

  Cale found himself stepping back under the intensity of her gaze.

  “Talk.”

  ***

  It took him the entire rest of the morning to give his mom all the details about what happened with his battle in his soul. She took notes like a mad woman and would frequently call in an assistant to find her a book on a topic he had never heard of. By the time it had come around for lunch, they had spent hours going over the details and Cale could tell that his little body needed to move. He knew it was bad when he found himself bobbing his shoulders to the classical music Joury was playing.

  “Mom, I cannot be in this room any longer! My body feels like it is going to vibrate apart if I stay couped up like this.” He complained.

  “Oh, I’m sorry! It’s just that you are confirming and breaking so many theories and discussions I’ve had since school! This is going to change so many…” He cut her off.

  “Mom! No more talking!”

  She finally looked up from her notes. “Oh. Sorry. I bet you are hungry too, huh? Oh, look how patient you have been for Mommy. How did I get blessed with a sweet boy like you?” She said as she fawned over him.

  “Mom, you’re being sappy. Can we go eat?” He said with a roll of his eyes.

  His mom pouted at him and sighed. “Yes. Yes, we can go eat.”

  “And then can I go play some tag with Leo?” He pleaded with puppy-dog eyes.

  His mom paused as she thought about it, “That is a good idea. I have some paperwork to do and I need to review what we talked about. After lunch I’ll drop you off to play for a while.”

  Lunch went by quickly, Cale devoured the food like he was at a five star buffet, and soon he found himself being brought to daycare, only this time he had no intentions of being stuck in some caged area with the NPC’s.

  When he was dropped off, his mom didn’t even walk him through the door, she just made sure he made it into the main doors and then zoomed away. Mom really loves her work, he thought as he watched her hurry away.

  It had been so long since he had been given adult-like freedoms that it felt weird. As he thought about it, this was probably his mom’s way of showing that she respected him and he liked that.

  Bam! The door slammed open behind him before he could walk too far away. He sighed and gave a little smile, shaking his head. He should have known she would be back for one last hug or kiss.

  “Cale!” He heard his mom yell. “Oh, you are right here. Perfect!”

  “Mom, it’s been only a few seconds since you left.” He pointed out.

  “Oh. Ok, Really? Question.” She got close to him and whispered. “On your local connection, when inside your soul, did you see anything sticking out of it? Like sharp or round things?” She asked importantly.

  “Uh, not that I recall.” He said slowly.

  “Thanks!” And just like that she was gone. Nope, she just really loves work. He thought as he shook his head once more.

  “Cale! Cale!” He heard someone yell at him from across the room. He looked up and saw Leo yelling at him from one of the play area towers. Cale laughed as he saw his buddy jumping up and down with excitement before climbing down the edge and running over to him.

  As Leo ran to him, Cale figured he could give Maggy something to do while he played. She had to pay rent after all. “Maggy, can you go through those files and have a summary of them ready for me when I am available later.”

  “Of course.” She said back to him flatly.

  Cale closed his interface right as Leo got to him and they gave each other GIANT hugs. When they finished their embrace Cale noticed they were surrounded by a lot of people in a giant circle all of a sudden. Not only kids, but adults as well. He even saw one of the NPC’s… and he hated that he noticed they were wearing a new pair of pants.

  “Leo, what is going on?” he asked hesitantly, everyone was bigger than him and they were just… looking down at him.

  “Cale, you are kind of famous.” Leo smirked.

  Cale could feel his face go blank as he tried to figure out how that could be possible. He was trying to fly under the radar… right?

  “No… How??” he asked incredulously.

  “Oh, you don’t know!!??” Leo asked him, Cale even heard a few people giggle.

  “I do not. Unless maybe in tag, I tend to win that a lot.” Cale retorted. He heard the crowd laugh and he found himself having fun with it. Though he still didn’t know why he was famous.

  He held his hands out to Leo, making that ‘explain it to me’ motion, when he noticed his hands… And the purple lines…

  “Are you talking about the lines on my skin?” He asked.

  “Yes! And other things!” Leo bursted out with excitement. “And that you literally FLEW into base, completely destroying one of the stands! They say your dad came from out of nowhere and there was this loud crashing sound and blood was EVERYWHERE and got in a lot of the food. It was gross.” Leo seemed to enjoy regaling the crowd with the tale.

  “Woh, so my dad was telling the truth?”

  Leo didn’t get another word in before someone else started talking, which made everyone else want to talk.

  “Did you really almost die?”

  “Does your skin hurt?”

  “He looks like a puzzle.” He heard one person say.

  “Were you really touched by the divine?” He heard from another.

  “Did you really change your name?”

  Words flew at Cale from all directions and he had no way to answer them all. He was starting to feel a bit crowded as people seemed to get closer as they asked their never-ending questions.

  “Everyone stop!” Leo yelled, and put an arm around Cale’s his shoulder. One of the teachers finally took control and started to gently push the onlookers away.

  “That was unexpected,” Cale said to Leo as they walked toward their usual tag meetup place.

  “You have no idea. I have been asked every day about you by someone. People seem to think you are touched by the divine.” Leo said with awe.

  “That’s a silly thing to think,” Cale said immediately.

  “I think that…” Leo said quietly.

  Cale punched him in the shoulder and smiled, “Then it is even more silly,” He grinned.

  Leo punched him gently back and smiled. It was good to be amongst friends again.

  ***

  Cale played until he could barely pick up his big feet anymore. Normally he didn’t mind them, but today they felt so heavy. Not knowing when his mom was going to show up, he decided not to wait and see if anyone would actually stop him from leaving. Turns out, they didn’t. When he left, he just made sure to wave at the NPC with the new pants, just so they wouldn’t be in a panic looking for him.

  He wanted his freedom, and at his size he needed to show he was being mindful. He only got a couple of looks when walking in the hallway, but nobody stopped him. When he got to his mom’s office, he found that he couldn’t get in. He hadn’t realized they locked the doors during the day, so he knocked on them until someone became curious, or annoyed enough to check them out.

  “Cale, get in here! Why are you not playing?” he heard his mother say as the door opened. He was kind of hoping someone else would open it. He wanted to see their reaction.

  “I got tired, I haven’t moved my muscles in like a week and I need to rebuild them.” He explained.

  “Cale, it’s weird how you know that.” His mother noted.

  He just looked at her and shrugged, he had no idea what to say.

  “Well, it is good you are here. I just got word that one of the higher-ups want to talk to us today and by how sweaty you look. You need to take a bath.”

  “Higher up?” he asked her. “Like your boss?”

  “No, not my boss. My boss’ boss. Vice Vinyatte.” The importance of the title clear in her voice.

  “Ohhhh,” Cale mouthed, “Are we in trouble?”

  “No. But there are rumors going around and I think the church wants to get ahead of it. But let’s move, we don’t have long before we will be summoned upstairs.”

  Cale was nervous and excited. As they walked home he asked her about the rumors, but she said she herself didn’t know all what this was about.

  “Should I be nervous about my… you know…” Cale asked her with a nervous energy.

  “You will be fine. I was told they just had a few questions about the lines on your arms. That is all.”

  Feeling calmed, Cale got cleaned up and was dressed in some of his best clothes. He hoped his cuteness would help him here. After checking himself over, he found that his mom was still getting ready. Somehow he had taken a bath and gotten dressed before she got done changing.

  Finding some extra time on his hands, he thought it would be nice to take a picture, so he perused his interface for some sort of camera app. He wasn’t sure it had one, but considering how important cameras were for phones back on Earth, he thought it would be crazy if they didn’t have one.

  Sure enough, he found an icon that looked like a lens that opened up a camera and he was instantly shown his own view in the interface, only the interface was not in his view. He quickly found the button to snap photos and he took a few of himself as he made poses in the mirror.

  “Hey, Maggy,” he whispered, “Which one do you like most?”

  “Whose Maggy?” he heard from the door.

  “AAHH!!! Mom! You Scared me!” Cale exclaimed.

  “Sorry! I just heard you laughing and I thought you were talking to someone. Like this Maggy…” She prompted.

  “Oh, that. I am just trying out some voice command features.” He said it, and instantly regretted it.

  “A voice command feature! And this is the first you are telling me about it! UGH, why did Vice Vinyatte have to come today of all days! I have so many questions! AAHGGH!!” She screamed into the air.

  Click, Cale thought to himself as he took a photo and did his best to keep a straight face at the roaring face of his mother he now had.

  After her outburst, she calmed down and let Cale know that they would be leaving in a few minutes, and then left Cale be. Once alone again, he looked under the door to make sure his mom wasn’t listening in this time. Confirming he was alone, he continued.

  “Maggy, how do I look?” he asked her. He had his interface up to his top right, on the edge of his view as he tried different cute looks to see which looked more adorable in case he got desperate.

  “I can’t see you, Cale, the camera on this end is one way.” She informed him.

  Thinking it might be a setting, like the drinking one he had to turn off previously, he searched through Maggy’s settings, and there was now a new tab in there that must have shown up after he used the camera app.

  It had basic options like giving your M.A.I.G permission to use the camera, and let him put some quick commands on his main interface page to turn that access on or off. Realizing he didn’t have much time left, he went back to his interface, looked in the mirror, and gave Maggy access to view it.

  “I see it! Looks like it is working!” Her excitement was palpable.

  “What do you think of my clothes?” He asked with haste.

  “Stop looking at that kid so I can see you.” She impatiently demanded.

  “Maggy… I am the kid.” A beat passed and all Cale heard next was, “WHAT!”