Chapter 7: Saye Strikes Again

I walked into the heavily heated up exhibition hall with sweat on my forehead and little trickles of it trailing down my bare neck. My eyes searched for Fiona, to hide behind her and blend into the darkness.

Fiona's bright red hair glittered under the cold white lights as she jumped up and waved from our stall. I made my way over but stopped short, looking at our project display.

There it was, my robot, standing there like nothing had happened to it. I didn't know what to say. Fiona had fixed it? B-but how did she even do it?

I looked up at her in shock as I slung my bag off my shoulder, "Reincarnation?"

Fiona laughed and leaned on the table, balancing her chin in her hands, "Come on over to this side, li'l genius," she joked. I let out a laugh for the first time in a few days and squeezed myself between the tiny gaps between booths to stand behind the project, ready for presentation.

"I called you many times yesterday to tell you that the robot was fixed. Why didn't you pick up?" She asked running her eyes over me in concern. She looked pretty today, with a little make up and the cute dress her aunt gave her last New Year. Her aunt had good taste.

"My God," she exclaimed, finally taking my presence in. Did I mention I was normally invisible to people? "You...look like you just got out of jail."

My heart shot with a pang again. Adrien. The guards had hand cuffed him and took him away. Where did they take him? Was he at the company?

I shook my head, "Was just worried about today," I lied through my teeth. Head hurt. Hands trembled. My brain registered the different signs on my body and worked for a solution.

Solution: Change topic.

I looked at Fiona and gave a wide smile, "How did you get the robot fixed anyway?"

She reflected my smile, "Oh that! I came back to school to get the solder I left here and then I found your robot sticking out of the bin and I took it home....." she rambled on and I tried to listen. But my mind was shifting continuously now, bouncing to Adrien and pulling itself back and focusing on meeting these professors' expectations.

Then jumping back to Adrien again. The way he looked at me as he dug his hands inside his pockets. It was pained, yet I felt comforted.

Then reality dropped in front of me. I was standing for an exhibition right now. I didn't know I had stopped breathing when the large hall doors swung open and in came the judges.

The old ones wore glasses and big reed coats. Among the younger judges, the girls had their hair so perfectly done along with sparkling formal attire and the boys had the hair gelled back and wore attractive dark tuxedos.

I heard something and looked around but just shook my head when I realized it was just half the girl population in the hall swooning at the sight of those guys.

They weren't nerdy looking, I'll admit. Nice smiles.

"But not as good as Adrien's," my mind shot back at me and in front of those hundred, two hundred people, I blushed. I turned my face away so Fiona won't catch me in the act.

An hour into the start of exhibition, Fiona was literally on the floor.

So many people had come and gone and my throat ached now at the unusual stress on my vocal chords. Explaining the same workings over and over again was harder than I thought.

I pulled Fiona up and handed her our last bottle of water, "Drink this...we got the last judges on their rounds soon."

Fiona slowly stretched up and drank the water. "Tell them to go awayyyy!" She whined.

I sighed and leaned closer to her ear so that judges in question wouldn't hear, "They are from Harvard."

I nodded very seriously and Fiona straightened up, morphing her puppy face to that a of a bull dog.

We heard heavy important footsteps and simultaneously turned to see two people come closer and stand in front of our weak teenage frames. In front of them, my robot and other projects looked like nit bits kept in a flea market.

Any second grader would have guessed that the man in the front demanded nothing less than pure respect. His black rimmed glasses was balanced perfectly on his nose and he dipped it slightly with his finger so that he could scrutinize our display.

The man standing beside him—about the age of my brother, maybe one year younger—was equally tall and looked like he had come out of an American reality show.

I glanced at Fiona and she didn't have to even speak, for me to understand that she had fallen for him. Personally, I never expected college students to be so good looking. But. But.

Something was off.

I felt like I have seen them before.

I would list to you the cutting questions they had asked about our work that made us feel like worthless pieces of slum dump but I need you to stick with me for a little bit longer and not leave by realizing how incapable and useless and tiny I am compared to the normal world.

"Hmm," Professor Martin finally said as if he was building the plan of an entire city in his white haired head. Fiona's and my eyes went wide as we waited for him to say something.

Instead of him, the younger man spoke, "It's an interesting project. It might even have some commercial value if you integrate more mechanisms other than simply AI and motion sensors."

I started to speak. It wasn't simply AI and motion sensors. It had an automated call system to notify either an ambulance or police in times of distress and to notify the owner in times of house break ins. Features that Fiona and I had worked on for weeks, brainstorming, correcting and re-correcting.

But then I stopped short. Maybe Professor Martin was right. It wasn't enough. This was my first try for the exhibition anyway. Why should I win? There were so many other better projects. If I spoke up now, I'd only come off as foolish.

"Yes, sir," I agreed instead. The young man lifted his head and looked at me through his dark eyelashes, and raised an eyebrow. I met his weird gaze. This was awkward. I didn't know where else to look. I couldn't look down or even at Fiona. No safe place to turn to.

He didn't look away either. Just held the questioning stare, like we were two people on two ends of a crumbling bridge. I felt the bridge tilt slightly but return straight again. A strong wind blew.

But then someone brought upon the knife and cut the ropes of that transient bridge. I blinked in surprise and looked behind the man. A girl had swung her arms around his neck, "Lucas!" she trilled at him before turning her head at us.

Two smiles immediately dropped. Hers and mine. But she smirked instead, and looked at me up and down, "So you came. I almost thought you backed away like a pussy."

The professor looked at the girl sideways, "Saye. Mind what you say to your friends."

"Oh, I'm sorry, Papa, Ashe and I are such good friends that I'm pretty sure she understood I was," she said the next word with venom that could only sting me, "joking."

Papa. Lucas. Saye. Of course. That's where the familiarity came from. Standing in front of me was one shitty family reunion. I have to appeal to Saye's dad to get into Harvard?

Please.

"But Ashe…you have to, or you will never be able to work for your dad's company without being looked down by the other employees. Accepted into System Games just because you were born into it. Not because you were worth it. You are useless, Ashe. Everyone knows that. " my little hedgehog mind poked at my brain cells again.

I laughed, and tried to shove Saye aside, "I understand what you are saying, Mr Lucas, but this robot is of a much higher standard than normal ones." Then I finally listed out the features to impress Saye's father and brother, just to spite her.

She didn't back down though, "Sweet. But if, by mistake, something falls on it, this fragile little cutie will crush into pieces. Then what use is there, Ashe?"

"Uh.." I stammered. I wanted to throw her against the walls right now.

"Are you a judge, Saye? Learn your place," Fiona said, now all fired up and defensive.

"Oh look, Ashe, now mommy Fiona has to save you. What a weakling you are," Saye retorted pointing her stormy eyes directly at me. Lucas was silent and tried to act as if he wasn't in this world. I wanted to throw him against the walls too.

The only person who had a little bit of sense was the professor, "Girls." He nodded towards Saye in…wow, was that disappointment? "Saye, go back to your stall."

She did as she was told and I was supposed to feel happy. But she walked away with a smile on her face. This game too, was a lost case for me.

"See, Ashe and Fiona," the Professor finally spoke, reading our names from the placards, "Your project does have good intentions and commercial value. But there are too many manufacturing defects."

I took a breath in. Of course there were. This was just an eleventh grade project. But then I looked at the other projects. Laser holograms drones, a fan that air conditions, a retina scan that detects which disease you have...all those weren't just halfway done. They were full, thought out, cutting edge products.

"So I'll give you a proposal, girls. I'm a part of Evertech and if you lend your idea to us, we'll work on it to commercialize it. Your robot can reach normal homes easily this way," he suggested.

Well. That wasn't the college invitation I was looking for.

"Do we get credit in the end?" Fiona cross questioned and the Professor was silent. and just gave a tilted smile. Of course we weren't going to get credit.

"Business is business." Darren's words echoed in my mind. They would use our ideas as a base, spice it up a little and sell it under their brand, pushing the original creators into the dust. Evertech? Maximum profits. Fiona and Me? Losers.

"Then no, I'm sorry, but we'll have to decline," Fiona answered for both of us with firm determination. I sighed internally.

The Professor smiled sadly and handed us two Evertech business cards each, "Keep it in case you girls change your mind. It would be a waste to see such good ideas go unnoticed."

And the two of them walked away, carrying away my hopes of a seat in Harvard as they went.

"Fiona..."

"Can you believe that old codger? Some nerve! He was basically asking us if he could steal our ideas, Ashe. Aren't you even a little bit angry?"

"I am..."

"Grrr....some bunch of entitled people they are. Thank God we aren't going into Harvard to work for people like them." She vented out before grabbing our bags, "Whatever, now come on, let's get ice cream..."

"But I'm lactose intolerant..." I tried to protest but it came out as a feathery whisper that barely touched Fiona's ears and disappeared into the rush of the hall.

At the parlor, I simply ordered waffles and bit into them piece by piece while Fiona scooped her sundae and tried to call her mom to pick them up. Fiona's family was going on vacation for a week.

Odd timing for a vacation, I had thought first. But only afterwards did I realize that the vacation was for Fiona's little sister, Rumi, who was a victim of ALS for the past three years. This vacation might be the last one they could have before Rumi completely loses the ability to move.

Cold air rushed inside the parlor as the glass door opened and the wind chime above it tinkled pleasantly. But the person who came in didn't seem so pleasant. I frowned and stood up as he came in and stood in front of me.

Fiona looked up from her phone, confused. She slowly put the phone in her ear waiting for her mom to pick up and waiting to see what would go down between us two.

"Why are you here Darren? I can come home by myself."

"You can't stay her anymore," he warned, "Come home now."

I crossed my arms, "I'm a grown up girl Darren! I can go wherever I want. You can't control me forever."

Darren rubbed his temples in frustration. I saw sweat dripping down from his hairline. "Azu, please...."

He was tense, that I knew. I sighed and closed my eyes. Subside useless anger, subside. I opened my eyes again and this time more softly I asked, "What is it Darren?"

"You can't go to school anymore. You have to stay home."

"Are you kidding me, brother?" I ask, super annoyed.

"I'll tell you more on the way," he said and left the shop, beckoning me to come. I looked back at Fiona who smiled as if to say "It's okay" and shooed me away as she talked on the phone. I slipped my bag on my shoulder and walked out from the heated ice-cream shop into the cold air.

Darren had parked his car a little far away. As we walked towards it, I felt a cold sensation at the back of my neck. I shook it off first. But then only moments later, it came again.

As the feeling grew stronger, cold and condescending over my other senses, I whipped my head back to see if someone was stalking us.

My eyes headed over to the parlor and I saw the frivolous flap of a dark tuxedo disappear behind the glass doors and out of my sight. I knew that color. I had just seen it.

"Lucas...?" my hedgehog mind guessed.

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