Spitfire was sleeping calmly on her bed, her wings wrapped around her like a protective cocoon. Jett calmly finished his diagram and rolled up the paper sheets. He walked over to the ventilation shaft that sat just behind his bed.

He calmly opened up his arm and watched as a rotary of tools flipped out of the compartment. He selected one and began to undo the screws holding the vent cover in place. The tool whirred quietly as he unscrewed the bolts. With the screws gone he removed the cover. Setting it down quietly on the bed he grabbed the rolls of paper and placed them in the vent before replacing the cover and the screws.

With everything in place he went under his bed and removed a small case. He opened it up. Various attachments and components sat in it. He retracted the utility rotary and watched it cycle through the inside of his arm. An empty hard point and plug in appeared. He selected a personal defense weapon and placed it into the empty slot and cycled again. He selected a buzz saw and placed it in before closing the case and resealing the arm.

“Just in case,” he whispered, “For them.”

Calmly he walked over to the desk where he kept his computer and went to work. He began deleting the evidence, covering up his footsteps with precision, rebuilding broken down firewalls. After removing any trace of evidence that would lead back to him he terminated the connection and shut off the device.

He looked back to Spitfire who still slept calmly, occasionally moaning something before rolling over and getting comfortable again. On her nightstand was a book. A journal to be precise. There was a bookmark only about 1/20 of the way through it. It was a diary.

For a moment he thought about reading it.

“No. It’s hers. She deserves her privacy.”

He calmly walked over to the bed and sat down on it before rolling over and lying down and falling asleep for the first time in two weeks.

***

Spitfire awoke to a noise. A rustling to be exact. She rolled over and opened her eyes. Jett was asleep in his bed. Spitfire was surprised. For the past three days all he’d looked at in his free time were those sheets of paper. Come to think of it, what was on them? All she’d seen were quick glances of the paper and those weren’t very useful. All she’d gotten from them were surprisingly good hand drawn pictures of a topography map with various locations on it. All of them had X’s next to them.

Jett was sleeping soundly. She smiled. Well it was a start. She sighed and got up out of bed. She figured she’d let him sleep for today. She pulled off her nightshirt blushing slightly as she glanced back at the sleeping android who curled up into the fetal position a little more.

The thought of her friend waking up and seeing her was a bit exciting but unlikely in Spitfire’s mind. As awkward as that situation would be it probably wouldn’t happen. She pulled on a sports bra, tucking her wings underneath it before pulling on an undershirt and her leather jacket over it. She pulled her pants on followed by her socks and shoes. She grabbed her sunglasses before heading for the door.

She was almost there when she turned back. Her diary was still on her nightstand from last night. She walked back and tucked it under her mattress.

“There we go. Safe and sound.”

She put her sunglasses in her pocket and walked out the door.

She knocked on Dane’s room. No answer. Probably gone out somewhere.

Whatever. She was gonna meet up with her gal pals at the mall later today. But first some breakfast.

***

UEG Midnight Eternity. Three Days later. 1400 Hours.

“How’s your son doing Admiral?” Captain Hawk asked.

“My son? What happened to ‘The Seven’?” Fleet Admiral Halsey laughed.

“Oh come now George. I haven’t called him that since I was an Ensign and you were a Rear Admiral,” The Captain laughed.

“I suppose that was a long time ago wasn’t it Jacob?”

“Where does the time go?”

The Admiral sighed and sat down in the empty chair. Captain Jacob Hawk sat behind his desk in his office just off from the main bridge. Various personal items decorated the space.

“I don’t know. Just the other day my daughter was alive and now today I learn that her body was completely vaporized in the explosion. And now my son is an emotional husk. The school is worried about him.”

“Have his grades dropped?”

“Oh no that’s not the problem. The complete opposite in fact. He’s always done so well that he’s been able to indulge himself in whatever he feels like, whether it’s extra hours practicing for the flight team or just hanging out with some friends. No, his problem now is that he doesn’t do any of that.”

“What does he do then?” The captain asked.

“Nothing, or at least that’s what his roommate is saying. Apparently she says he doesn’t sleep, eat, or do anything other than stare out the window in his free time,” The Admiral sighed, “I’m worried I’m gonna lose him to. And with Venus reinforcing their border and the Harvey administration breathing down my neck I don’t know what else to do.”

“You think it will come to that?”

“I don’t know. I hope not. It looks like what Venus is doing is a precautionary measure more than anything but what I need is a solid battle plan to get past them. Harvey wants a contingency plan that will allow us to turn that world to glass if this all moves sideways on us.”

“I don’t envy your job but I find I always work best if I take a few hours rest,” Hawk said.

“I don’t need rest I need to figure this thing out. And I can’t do that with my son having a mental breakdown on one side of the system and Venus popping and locking on the other.”

“Do you want me to get the CMO up here? She can make it an order.”

“You’re gonna pull medical on me Hawk?” Admiral Halsey laughed.

“Hey you did the same thing to me when I stayed up that week trying to solve my problems. What was it you said? ‘Take a day’s rest son. You’ll be better prepared to deal with things tomorrow if you have a ready head. Who knows? One of your problems may just solve itself.’ And from what I recall it worked. What exactly happened that week again? Refresh my memory.”

“Alright, I see your point Mr. ‘I found a faster way to Jupiter.’ Who knows? Maybe one of these things will solve itself.”

“Glad you see it my way sir. Now get your ass outta here.”

“Yes sir.”

George stood up and walked out of the room onto the bridge.

“Admiral on Deck!”

“As you were.”

He entered the elevator and headed down to his cabin. He would reach the Mars tomorrow. Hopefully something would go right by then.

The door to his cabin opened up and he stepped in. The lights were off but that wasn’t a problem.

“Computer, Lights.” The room illuminated.

“Too bright. Dim… Dimmer… There we go.” The room was scarcely lit. Just barely enough to see anything.

“Computer, do I have any messages?”

“Yes,” The automated female voice said, “One.”

“From where?”

“The Charles Lindbergh Academy of Flight and Astronomical Sciences.”

“Great,” The Admiral sighed. He walked over to the desk in his room and looked at the terminal.

“Did they leave a message?”

“Yes. They asked you to contact this number immediately.”

A contact number went across the screen.

Halsey sighed, “Call it.”

***

The Academy. One day Earlier.

I sat in Coach Ackerson’s office. I could tell he was pissed. But in my opinion he had no right to be. He saw the footage. Or at least should have seen it.

He was pacing backing and forth. On the wall were various Football photos and plaques for best coach of the year or some other award. In all honesty I could give less of a fuck. He could have the Fucking Medal of Honor for all I care. He was still an asshole.

While he cared deeply for his team, that fraternal feeling went a little bit too far. And now was one of those times.

He continued to pace back and forth. He stopped, staring at me. Intimidation doesn’t work on me. Maybe on other androids but not me. Not after what happened these last few days. The pacing continued.

My eyes began to wander. I hoped this guy was going to let me go soon. I had things to do, places to be, people to finish off.

He stopped and stared at me, “Jett Halsey.”

“Yes SIR?” I asked with venom.

He sat down on his chair behind his desk, “Jett Halsey.”

“What do you want SIR?”

“I’ve never seen much of you before now. Tell me about yourself.”

Yeah he was pissed. But then again so was I. More so than him in fact.

“What do you want to know that you can’t find out from the others? I’m sure Ryan told you all about me considering I’m rooming with the ‘bunny’ he wants. Is that what you guys do? I though humanity was past the whole ‘you have something I want so I’m going to take it’ thing. Only in his case I never had what he wanted to begin with. If he wasn’t such an ungodly-”

“HEY! DON’T YOU DARE TRASH TALK RYAN! HE HAS MORE GUTS AND CHARACTER THAN YOU EVER WILL!”

Yeah, you don’t know the half of it asshole.

“I thought you wanted to learn about me, SIR.”

“YES I DO.”

“Well I’m a cyborg freak. As appointed by your arrogant football players. I’m son of Fleet Admiral Halsey and the CEO of one of the largest spacecraft manufacturers in the system. That’s all you need to know, SIR.”

He walked over to the door and opened it, “You see that?!” He pointed out the door. I leaned back to see what he was pointing at. The trophy case. Full of trophies and metals the football team had won throughout the years. Various photos of the team were scattered around the awards. Though one person always seemed to pop up in them. Heh funny, cause just down the hall is where they had to pick up the shattered glass from the bulletin board.

“THREE of those belong to Ryan Kingly. THREE of those he won for the school himself! The rest he was a MAJOR Player for the team.”

He sat back down on his desk. It was kinda funny. If I had an egg I could probably cook it on his face if I wanted to.

“Yeah that’s cool Sir but if you look up the hallway there to the school lobby you’ll see the flight team trophies. You know the difference between us and your team of arrogant demigods? Our Wins rarely rely on one person. We do a team effort.”

He turned red. He was probably about to blow a head gasket. He walked up to his desk and removed a picture from his desk. He took a knife and carved it in half. He slammed it down in front of me.

“Do you know what Chess is?”

“I’m not STUPID sir. I know what Chess is.”

“Well then let me explain what Ryan and the rest of those players are. Ryan Kingly is the QUEEN and the others are the knights, bishops, and rooks.”

He pushed the photo closer to me.

“You see this?! Tell me what it is!”

I stared at it. There was a team photo of your typical jocks and cocks in football pads. Only about half of them were missing; including Ryan. I laughed inwardly.

“YOU. TELL. ME. WHAT. THAT. IS!!!”

“It’s the football team?” I asked.

“WRONG! Half the football team! All I have to work with this season! And you’re the cause!”

“To be quite honest with you sir,” I sighed with a bored expression on my face, “I don’t give two fucks. I honestly don’t care. In fact, to demonstrate this, I have a math problem for you. Take any number, times it by itself, square root, ad five, subtract the original number, ad five, and subtract ten, and that’s the number of fucks I give about your team.”

Ackerson’s face turned red with rage. He was known to have quite the mouth when it came to discipline but for some reason the school let him get away with it. A lot of people could remember times when a cheerleader would leave his office crying after getting ‘spoken to’ by Ackerson for some supposed error she had made that distracted his ‘Soldier team.’ For some reason his player’s girlfriends never entered his office. I wonder why.

“You are so lucky hitting students is illegal you wise fuck!”

“I’m also lucky you’re such a pussy and probably wouldn’t do shit if you could!”

Ackerson slammed his hands on the desk. I did the same only there was a difference between the effects of his and mine. Where my hands impacted there were dents. We stood glaring daggers, swords, knives, and any other stabbing weapon you could think of at each other.

Ackerson sighed, “You are just one fucking problem after another! And I have the privilege of watching you until the principal arrives with spooks from the Office of Naval Intelligence!”

“Or you could let me go back to my room. I have things I’d like to attend to.”

“After what you did to the best heroes this school has?! Not a chance in fucking hell!”

“They didn’t do anything heroic! You have access to the footage!”

He was yelling again, “I don’t care what they did! You know what the most minor injury one of them has is? Shattered ankles!”

“Well bullying does come with its hazards.”

“They weren’t Bullying!”

“You are correct on that one, only one of them was being an asshole. And it was your ‘Star Player’ as you put it. The others were just following orders or testosterone. Probably both.”

Ackerson started grinding his teeth, “All he was looking for was a prom date; which is something you won’t be attending after this!”

“Look at this face!” I said smiling in an overly happy expression that was almost demonic, “This is me giving a FUCK! You want my honest opinion of prom? A fucking waste of my time. And why? Because your judgmental, arrogant, football players like spreading rumors and making my life a living fucking hell when I’m here!”

“They’re judgmental?! You’re the one who’s calling them arrogant!”

“Because it’s what they are! And quite frankly, you are too. Ever since Ryan showed up here three years ago you’ve been wrapping yourself up in the glory of being the coach of the team that’s been the national champs for the past three years!”

“They couldn’t pay me enough to put up with your BULLSHIT! You know, have you ever given it thought that those rumors of you being a crazy, cyborg, freak are correct!? You’ve done nothing but bash the best people this school has since you’ve stepped into my office.”

“Because quite frankly SIR your team is full of assholes,” I said matter of factly, “And you have no idea what you perfect child has done to people since he’s been here! Arrogance, a sense of superiority, insolence, that’s what you football team is! And about me being crazy, that one is true! I’m crazier than you could possibly imagine and you sir are just as judgmental and arrogant as the rest of your team.”

“And your flight team isn’t?!”

“I won’t lie. We’re not perfect. Far from it! But we don’t go around beating people up because we think we’re better than everyone else!”

“No, what you do is steal the glory from people who deserve it!”

“Yeah, uh huh,” I said sitting back down, “They deserve the glory. You know I remember when playing sports wasn’t about glory but about playing the game the best you could. Things like HONOR and RESPECT were what the teams stood for. But obviously COACH none of that means a damn thing to you or your team!”

“They are the most respectable people this school has ever known!” He roared.

“Yeah, sure. If only there was something about them to respect.”

“You know, I think you’re jealous of them,” Ackerson smirked smugly. Oh ho ho he did not just say that.

“EXCUSE ME?!”

“Yeah! I think you’re just envious of how charismatic, strong, and attractive they are.”

“Why would I be JEALOUS of a couple of pompous, arrogant, sadistic sons of bitches who like to harass and bully others until they get what they want?!”

“Because all the girls in the school want to be with them and people like you want to be them!” Oh, so he’s going for a nut shot on this one.

“If I was them I would do the world a favor and eject myself out an airlock! And as for the girls, they can have them! Good riddance to trashy garbage!”

“You know, I think that’s the reason you’re such a bitter son of a fuck. You’re LONELY, USELESS, NO GIRL WOULD WANT YOU!”

“YOU’RE GOD DAMN RIGHT ABOUT THAT ONE SIR! BECAUSE I WISH I WAS LIKE THEM SO I COULD ATTRACT ALL THE TRASHY WHORES THIS SCHOOL HAS! You know maybe I should give ONI ONE more reason to come here.”

“What’s a shrimpy freak like you gonna do?!”

“The same thing I did to your GOD DAMN TEAM!”

“OH I am seriously considering smacking you right now,” Ackerson laughed, cracking his knuckles.

“You know your football team tried the same thing. Look where that got them!”

“You think I’m afraid of you? You mechanical piece of garbage!”

“YOU ARE JUST AS BIASED AS YOUR SO CALLED PERFECT TEAM YOU HIPPOPOTAMUS LOOKING PIECE OF SHIT!”

***

Principal Jenkins sighed. This wasn’t the first time ONI had been called to the school. The two androids in his charge had almost always been involved in some kind of trouble. While most of the time it wasn’t their fault and most incidents were minor, this one was a bit more serious.

The ONI official looked through the incident file, “This is all of it?”

“Everything we have is in there Mr.…”

“Dowl. Mr. Dowl. Thank you for assisting us in this investigation.”

“Well I love to help where ever I can. To be honest with you sir your two special projects make things a little more interesting around here. But this thing is a bit more serious than the other times you were called here.”

“So I’m told. And you say this was over a girl?”

“Well that is what the subject material appeared to be about. As for the actual incident I can assure you your android did nothing to provoke it. If anything he was quite restrained. But I guess he just snapped. I can’t say I blame him, he’s been under a lot of emotional stress lately.”

“We know. While we deeply feel sorry for the subject, his reactions have given us valuable insight to further development of the project.”

“Further development? You mean he’s only a prototype?”

“Yes. And we can’t thank you enough for your participation in this experiment.”

“Oh it’s no trouble at all. But do they all do that when angered like that?”

“In all honesty we don’t know,” Dowl smiled, “So far the Seven is the only one to react like that. If anything, the data says he’s becoming more human.”

The ship shuddered as the docking arm locked it into place in the school’s hanger and the airlock connected to the side.

“Well here we are. And the school is cleared out like you asked.”

“Where is it?”

“Currently it’s being watched by one of the athletic directors. Though I’m not sure which one. I told Marcy to find the first available teacher for the job.”

The principal and the ONI team stepped off of the ship and into the school. They began walking down the hallway towards the main lobby. Muffled yelling could be heard echoing down the hall.

“… STUPID SHIT EATING…” one voice yelled, clearly upset.

“… ENVIOUS UNGREATFUL BLOOD…” another yelled.

Jenkins sighed.

“Who is it?”

“Ackerson.”

The sound of shattering glass was heard down the hall.

***

“THIS IS WHAT I THINK OF YOUR PERFECT FUCKING TEAM!” I grabbed the snow globe off his desk and hurled it out the door. It smashed into the trophy case. A few of them fell out onto the floor in a pile of shattered glass.

“YOU WORTHLESS MOTHERFUCKER! PICK THAT UP!”

“NO.”

“WHY CAN’T YOU JUST RESPECT YOUR SUPPERIORS?!”

“Sir, I mean this in the absolutely worst way possible: Go fuck yourself.”

“You know, this is what I think your punishment should be: go apologize to those players and then do whatever they want of you for the rest of your time at this school!”

“Is that for breaking you little trophy case?”

“That’s for being an ungrateful little shit eater!”

“You know SIR. I don’t need this. In the words of my generation, UP YOURS YOU FESTERING FUCK!”

I stood up and slammed the chair against his desk before opening the door and walking out. After slamming the door I grabbed the handle and bent it upwards. I laughed as Ackerson attempted to open it only to find the handle didn’t turn. I could still hear his profanity as I walked away from his office.

I was almost to the elevators when I was stopped.

“There, there he is,” I heard Principal Jenkins say.

“Thank you. Jett Halsey?” An authoritarian voice said.

I turned, “Yeah that’s me. What do you want?”

A man wearing a black suit and sunglasses flanked by two others in similar garb walked up. They had their hands in their jacket pockets. Just in case. As they should. They must have heard all about the homicidal android from Ganymede. The man removed his sunglasses.

“I’m Director Dowl from the Office of Naval Intelligence. We need to talk.”

I sighed, “Yeah I figured as much.”

***

Spitfire was lying down on the couch in the dorm staring at the ceiling. Dane was flopped over in an armchair on the other side of the room.

“When will he be back?” Spitfire asked.

“After what he did to those guys? I have no idea,” Dane said, “He’s probably being grilled by Ackerson for putting his boys in the hospital.”

“I’m worried.”

“Yeah I would be to. I’m surprised he didn’t do some Indiana Jones thing and ripe their hearts out and eat them in front of them.”

“I’m not talking about the football players,” Spitfire said, “Forget them, their total assholes. After what they were planning on doing to Jett they deserved that.”

“Not sure they were expecting that,” Dane laughed, “After they beat him up the first time I’m guessing they were all stupid enough to think he wouldn’t take the time to learn self-defense.”

“No, I’m worried about Jett. What do you think will happen to him?”

“Well there’s a rumor going around that ONI is coming but I’m not sure. They probably want him for questioning before they cover this whole thing up and say the football team got mauled by bears or something.”

“They would do that?”

“Well when a school football team tries to assault the Navy’s best artificial intelligence project and he puts the team in the hospital… yeah they probably will.”

“Well at least that’s all we have to worry about now.”

“You talked to him about… you know?”

“Yeah… That wasn’t fun. I honestly though he was going to do it.”

“What made him change his mind?”

“I don’t know. All we did was talk.”

This Children is what we call a clusterfuck. This is the result of events that began in chapter 18. Now next chapter we learn just exactly what happened during those missing days.