ANML Chapter 2 raw

https://theprose.com/post/142410/anml  Chapter 1 of this can be found here

Rose sat in the interview chair erect and astute. Today was her 38th birthday, and she was on national television, again. She had been here so many times in the last 30 or so years, that the experience had become boring, a routine, something she could drift through without much thought. She expected to be complimented on her physique, and figure. Perhaps a few comments about her purple heels, or her matching purse, and perhaps a compliment regarding the flirty, knee high, black dress she was wearing. Her tanned skin, and dark brown curls had been meticulously cared for in the last 3 hours, and her make-up couldn’t use another mote of powder, for fear of over-doing it and ruining the whole effect.

Next there would be a few questions about Kevin, Where is he now? Why is he such a Recluse? Is Chocolate still alive? Finally the interviewer will plead to have Rose cajole her brother to come out of his self-induced privacy and talk about the collapse of ANML, his meteoric rise to stardom, and how he lost it all. She would politely decline, and say the same line she said every time. “Kevin doesn’t blame himself, but he knows he was instrumental with the death of ANML as a competition, something he loves. He simply wants nothing more to do with being scrutinized for the largest collapse of the gambling industry ever.”

The interview went by the roadmap perfectly; the late night host complimented her dress, and even noticed that Rose had worn a necklace that contrasted the shoes and purse, bringing an edge to an effortlessly classy style. Then the interviewer drove off the script Rose expected.

“Rose, tell us about your father.”

Even the least astute viewer would have noticed a momentary spray of confusion and sickness wash over Roses face, but her visage quickly restructured into quiet sobriety.

“Well, I never really knew Keith very well, and honestly, I would hesitate to call him my father. There are a few words I’d like to call him, though.” She smirked, making light of the well documented abuse Keith visited on the children as they got older, she panned and looked into the camera as she joked, adding emphasis to the punchline.

“I mean Allen, Rose. Your Biological father, not Keith.”

Rose’s internal fire was doused, and replaced with a hollow pit in her heart and stomach simultaneously. “Well, I never really knew Allen. I only have one memory before he died. He hadn’t shaved before work, and he had quite a 5-o- clock shadow. He was hugging me, and using his whiskers to scratch my face.” Rose was vulnerable. Her shields were down. She was staring into the air above the interviewers head imagining her 4 year old self giggling between hugs and kisses with her birth father, as he yelled the words “beard burn!” in between using his chin and jaw like sandpaper against her sensitive cheek

“My brother talked about him a lot though.” Rose said, hoping to redirect the conversation back to Kevin, back to the battlegrounds she knew how to navigate. “Apparently, Allen, my dad, used to like to speak in adages and cowboy logic.” Rose was struggling for composure, she realized she sounded like it was her first interview, and her face grew red, and her ears burned as her mind yawned and stretched for composure. “A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, or sometimes you gotta let the fox loose in the hen-house, or If you get thrown out of the saddle you have to get right back on, nice guys always finish last right up until the time they finish first, stuff like that.”

“That’s quite the memory,” the interviewer replied. My dad used to give me beard burn too. He called it Scratchy face” The man at the desk had realized, and felt her vulnerability, and that kind of candor on late night TV was not what he was paid for, so he took control of the situation, and used his comedic senses to lighten the conversation. He mimicked a small child being assaulted by a man with a scruffy beard during a scratchy beard attack. The interviewer derived laughs from the audience pretending as the child, he was making things right with god in prayer as the scratchy face assault continued.

The rest of the interview went as planned, but Rose never took another interview again either. The old conversation was just too little, and the new conversation was simply too much.

Chapter 2

Kevin took a few moments to realize the true horror of the situation. He had just lost to Brian, Rose had lost every penny they owned, including the money Keith had given them to purchase a pizza by betting on Kevin to win, and Kevin didn’t have a reserve stash to pull funds from.

Kevin’s mind plummeted into an abyss for a few moments. Remembering the first time Keith sent Kevin to the store to buy a pizza. Kevin came back with the wrong one. Keith said triple pepperoni, and Kevin brought back meat-lovers. To say that Keith was angry would be an understatement; Keith was inconsolable. He picked Kevin up and slammed him against the dining room wall, next to the table and chairs. Kevin’s elbows, and balls of his heels, and the back of his head rebounded off the wall with a sickening thud, the candlesticks on the table fell over with the reverberation of the slam. Keith was yelling something, but Kevin’ couldn’t recall exactly what as his mind swirled and his nostrils raged with the fire of the concussive blow to the back of his head. He remembered a shrill piercing ringing coming from his sisters’ mouth, as she screamed at the scene. Keith looked to Rose and bawled for her to shut up, and when she didn’t, he dropped Kevin to the floor and began to stalk towards Rose, intent on silencing her with pain. Kevin kicked the dining room chair into Keith’s path, and Keith’s legs tangled and jumbled with the chair legs, and Keith fell headfirst into the door-Jam, knocking him out cold, as the weight of his body came to a rest on his chest, a half full glass flask of whiskey shattered and shredded Keith’s shirt, imbedding shards of glass deep into Keith’s chest. Kevin’s mind re-surfaced from the misery of the memory to the present, his fading thoughts dwelled on the fact that they moved away for a week, before Keith apologized to Kevin’s Mother, and she took Keith back. Living in that hotel for the week was one of the best weeks of his young life, and it was ironic that the best time of his life only came after a terrifying run in with the real beast that Keith was.

Kevin stood in the crowded warehouse panicking, as Rose sobbed on the floor, hugging her knees. Even though people were milling around talking, and Brian the Brain was painstakingly re-describing, loudly, to anyone who would listen his ANML’s harrowing victory, the receding caucophony of the memory of Keith’s drunken abuse made Kevin abjectly feel silence in the world around him crushing, despairing silence. Kevin grabbed the silvery metallic sphere and marched over to Beanpole.

“Bean, I’m stuck for cash. I’ll sell you my Sphere for $150. Then I’ll buy your X210 model for 120.”

Beanpole stood unbelieving for a few moments. “Kevin, that Zturbo model cost you $400, I’ve never seen someone work so hard for a pro-level unit.”

Kevin lied through his teeth “I’m sick of ANML right now, I can’t even beat Brian, I need to take some time off. I have my X215 model at home, but it’s about 30 bouts over its life expectancy… so I want a fun unit, but if I can’t beat that turd wrangler, I can’t go pro”

Beanpole seemed panicky, and unsure. “What if I loan you the money, Kev? I mean, you’re goddamn DangerX, you’re the winningest dueler here, by a wide margin, you’ll be a pro some-day you can’t let one bad match throw you, I was considered a great at the sport, and I only won 55 of every 100 matches I was in!”

Kevin’s face got red and hot. “I need time Bean, are you in or out?”

“What about a loan, how much do you need Kevin?” Beanpole was negotiating a losing position and he knew it. He’d seen so many people throw in the towel in this situation, but he couldn’t fathom why Kevin was being so hasty, so rash.

Kevin thought back to his father, Allen. It’s better to be broke, but out of debt, than to have a million dollars, and be stuck for every penny his father used to say. Allen never really liked loans, and he shared that logic with Kevin once during a playful family argument about where to get food that night. Kevin had taken the standard 6 year old child’s position that a loan was suitable for a cheeseburger, while Allen was being far more level headed in his approach to money.

The lesson stuck “Tell you what, How about sell it to you, and you hold it for me Bean, and if I decide I want back into the game, I’ll buy it back from you.”

Beanpole found this amenable “Deal” he said, reaching into his back pocket and pulling $30 bucks out of his wallet and tossing it to Kevin. “Grab any X210 from my case. The top layer are my oldest, grab from the bottom, the units are newer.” Kevin hesitated as he handed his competition sphere over to Beanpole. He walked over to the case, and dug to the bottom, fishing a new, entry level nano-sphere out. With his money problems solved, he packed his ANML tacklebox up and picked Rose up, dusting her off.

“I’m so sorry, Kevin, I’ll help you buy it back, I promise. I promise!”

Kevin grunted back at her, he was angry with her, but he promised himself, he would never be as angry with her as Keith was with them. It was his job to protect Rose. Nothing! Nothing, would ever change that. Keith strode out of the warehouse into the fading afternoon briskly, Rose’s hand in his, nearly dragging her along with him to the corner store.

The walk to the store may have taken 30 minutes, or it may have taken 3 hours. In Kevin’s bewildered state, he didn’t pay much attention, but it happened far too quickly. They walked in, Kevin bought the pizza that Keith wanted, and saw there was a deal on the pizza, 2 for 1, so he purchased a second one. Then he walked all over the store, buying cereal, bread, peanut butter, jelly, and even managed to conjure up a smile as he tossed a bag of gummy fishes at Rose for her to catch. They purchased the food and began the trek home. On the way, Kevin took the Gummies from the bag and opened them, savoring one for himself. He held it above Rose’s head and mocked her with it.

“You can only have these, if you promise to listen to me, next time I tell you what to do. Collecting bugs, being quiet when you’re pissing off a rattlesnake, or even betting more money than I tell you to. It has to stop. We’re on our own here.”

Rose tried to argue with a loud drawn out “Awwww, but”

Kevin interrupted her emphasizing each and every word. “On. Our. Own.”

“I get it” she sighed. “I’m so sorry Kevin, so so so so sorry.”

He dropped the gummies into her outstretched arms and stole another one from the bag before she could jam a handful into her mouth.

“I know you are, you little shit” He tousled her hair and they walked silently home, the fading sunset painting the evening sky with the same color reds and pinks as their gummy fish snacks.

The rest of the night went uneventfully. Kevin snuck behind the house and hid everything but the 2 pizza’s in the garage. The plan being to sneak the other food into his room after Keith fell asleep. It was a dangerous plan, but he could still feel this morning’s hunger pangs under his ribs and above his hipbones. He wouldn’t be doing that again, willingly, any time soon. He and Rose spent 90 minutes washing dishes, and brought one of the whole pizza’s into Keith and his Mom. He baked the other pizza for himself and Rose and settled into the couch to cuddle and watch a little bit of TV before bed.

That night, after he crawled into bed with an overly full belly, nearly nauseous from having overate. He let his mind wander, trying to imagine the things a boy of his age could lose himself in. He sought the imaginary inklings of spaceship battles, or giant robots, or even exploring a monster laden dungeon in search of a magical sword, anything. Instead the echoes of Keith’s abuse ricocheted around in his mind, like a bullet he could see from inside his skull. After a few hours, he got up and flopped onto the wooden floor of his bedroom via the tri-angle that was formed by the bed posts and celing/roof of his house. Snuck down to the garage and retrieved the food, stuffing it away in his dresser drawer

He then rummaged under the shelving unit against the far wall next to the door leading into the hallway, and re-assembled an ANML containment ring that looked like it had been re-built and re-furbished with more wire and insulation than was probably in the original unit.

Kevin was experimenting with his old sphere in his favorite way. He reached into a “useless reagents” box and swirled and mixed all of the discarded bits. Toenail clippings, crab apron castoffs, shed snake skin bits, a birds feather, cockroach shells, plant matter, dirt. Everything he’d tried to make the next great ANML warrior with. He catalogued the bits, and tried to guess what it would look like. In this case, he had a few caterpillar hairs, a bird’s feather, and a few bits he couldn’t identify. Between tired yawns he worked away, pouring a powdered strengthening reagent onto the pad.

“Whatchya doin Kev?” Rose was standing in the doorway “you’re being so loud, what time is it” she demanded, rubbing her eyes with balled fists.

“Shhh, don’t wake up the parentals” Kevin said. I’m almost done!

Kevin grimaced, he was out of fixer and life extending reagents, but he didn’t plan on having the bot do any battle, so he didn’t think too much of the resulting creature to realize what he was doing was incredibly dangerous.

Kevin flipped the power unit on the ANML ring that rested on the floor. Cracked and faded black plastic seemed to groan and vibrate gently as a blue light pulsated inside the ring in a clockwise direction.

“What do you think it’s going to look like Rose?” He asked, anticipation growing for this creation.

Rose studied the catalogued reagents list, they had played this game a hundred times before, and she was never right. “A giant capertillar!” she said.

“You mean a Caterpillar? I think it’s going to look like a Dragon!” he smiled as he put the ball and the reagents in the middle of the circle.

Rose crossed her fingers as the old Nanounit began to shudder and seize as it crackled and dissolved like wet sand all over the floor. It was a sure sign the unit only had a few uses left in it, the bots don’t act like a liquid metal. Kevin said “Don’t act like a liquid metal” out loud as creature formed on the floor of his bedroom.

An elongated pink worm formed first, with a single onyx black globe on the center of one end, 2 antanae sprouted above the globe as a bright pink pupil formed in the middle of the globe. Brown and Golden hair begain to sprout with labored effort from the skin, until the worm was covered with a thick, coat all over its body in a matter of seconds. Two small padded stumps grew out of the front and 2 more out of the back, forming a sort of stubby leg, that raised the bot just a few inches off of the ground.

“It’s so pretty!” squealed Rose, and her hand shot into the ring to pet the bot.

“Wait” Kevin yelped. “There’s no fixer!” He shot his hand in to block hers, and they touched, but her fervor to pet the bot was stronger than his will to block her hand, and they both touched the bot at the same time.

Fixer is incredibly important to the bot for several reasons. It extends the life of the nano-bots during their ANML phase, because receptors have been shut down and are no longer seeking for material to bond with. It also renders the bot inert, allowing for interaction with the bot, such as carrying, or touching the bot, without causing the Bots to begin to use the carrying host as a literal food source for the bot itself. Finally it stabilizes and strengthens the bot’s bonds, allowing for more trauma to occur to the bots body during battle.

The bots skin tore away with the gentlest touching of their hands, revealing a metallic shell that looked as if someone had created the shape of the bot by using aluminum foil. Kevin stared in horror at the fine silver dust that covered both his and roses fingers. Then the pain surged forward like hot glass shards under their skin. Nanobots tore at and rended the skin on Kevin and Roses fingers. They both brushed their hands together, trying to brush the bots off of themselves back onto the caterpillar, but this just spread the bots to other parts of their skin. Electric pain raged in their fingertips as the creases around their nails began to bleed, and Rose half choked half screamed in agony as Kevin coughed and gasped in pain himself.

Oh god, this is it, I’m going to die to nanobots He thought, as he passed out onto the floor with a loud thud. He remembered hearing Roses body thud against the ground before the swirling blackness enveloped him.

Daylight pierced through the window at the head of his bed, and a shaft of morning light rested on Kevin’s eyes, the warmth of the sun itself brought Kevin gently awake, his hands burning and raw, he looked down to see they appeared as if they had been subjected to a hundred little papercuts. The events of the night flooded his memory, and he twisted his head to look at Rose. She was petting the Caterpillar as it was laying on her chest.

“I woke up like this, he isn’t hurting us anymore!” She giggled “You really hurt us, didn’t you?” She pouted as she continued to pet the Nanobot Caterpillar that appeared to be nuzzling and snuggling against the inside of her neck.

In the History of ANML and nanocompetitions, no ANML had ever lived longer than 1 hour 17 minutes and a few seconds. The batteries in the Nanotech would run out and the bot would dissolve into a metallic puddle on the floor before re-forming itselfself into a sphere again. These bots were created and maintained with the most expensive equipment and the newest bots on the market with teams of scientists. Some kid, with an entry level sphere that had been used 40 or 50 more times than the expected lifetime of the sphere, shouldn’t be able to beat that.

“I’m going to call him Chocolate, his fur looks like chocolate” Rose giggled again.

It had easily been 7 or more hours since he and Rose had collapsed in pain after touching the Caterpillar last night.