Broken Age (The Novel)

2 (Shay)

I wake up in my bed, but I don't open my eyes, I'm still tired. I hear my Father trying to wake me up. "Wake up, son! I'm almost off duty, your mother will be here soon, and you know how she is..." I hear the sound of him leaving my room, and I hear my Mother's chirpy voice immediately.

"There's my little angel! Time to wake up Mr. Man!" I open my eyes and stare at the orb that contains her face. She's bright, both literally and figuratively. She has rays coming from her orb, so she looks like the sun. My Dad is blue, so he looks like he's the moon. Both of my parents are computers. "What a good boy!" She cries happily, and two yarn arms come down and pick me up, dragging me towards the shower.

The curtain slides around me, and a tube sucks off my clothes so I'm only in my underwear. I'm rinsed off and scrubbed, and then put back into my clothes. I'm not lazy, I'm really quite active, but the spaceship likes to take care of me.

I walk to the kitchen and sit down at the one person table. My mom hangs down a yarn arm holding a cereal box. "Choco rockets?" She asks.

"Yikes. No way," I answer. I decline all the cereal she offers until she doesn't take no for an answer. I end up eating SPLARGH. The yarn arms set down my bowl, and my spoon.

"Hello, Commander Shay!" My spoon says to me. I grab him and begin eating. "Now sir, I don't just serve food, I also offer up nutrition facts!" I ignore the facts that Spoon rattles off, when suddenly the alarm signal goes off. "Uh...Commander Shay? Aren't you going to see what the deal is?" Spoon questions. I just keep eating, there's never anything alarming here.

Once I finish eating, I go to my controls. "Okay computer, what's the big emergency?" I ask, a hint of sarcasm in my voice.

"Oh, I wish you'd call me Mom, sweetie," she sighs, the smile still stuck on her face.

"And I wish you called me Captain, computer," I reply.

"Okay, Captain Sweetie!" The computer winks, then tells me about the attacked vessel "Friendship Circle", then about the runaway train, next, there's the Avalanche victims that need rescued, and a mysterious object on the hull.

"Better suit up and investigate that foreign body," I decide, and push buttons on my controls.

"Oh, I don't like you going out there! Let's use the safety suit!" My worrying computer says.

"Ah, come on!" I complain. The safety suit is the worst. It's big and bulky and impossible to move around in. And computer puts on a SCARF, just in case. Really, computer?

I'm sent up to the hull in my bulky safety suit and see the orange mysterious body. It looks like something that washed up from the ocean, with seaweed-and-shell-like properties. I approach it closely, and a small part of it explodes. Something plops in my hands. A...present. I sigh, and I'm pulled back into the ship.

Next, I decide to protect the friendship circle. Once we arrive, I slide into the main observation deck of the ship and look around. I see one of the crew members, a blue yarn pal my computer knit, in distress. I hurry over to it. "What happened?" I kneel next to it.

"There...was...an...ATTACK!" It shrieks in it's high-pitched voice.

"Who attacked you?" I keep questioning.

"It...was...," the yarn pal starts.

"Yes?" I lean in.

"A...HUG attacking!" The yarn pal squeals, and two other yarn pals leap in, and I'm enveloped in a group hug. I sigh.