Bite Me! | lavashipping

8 | Nagging Noggins

If Kai has to look at another tree, he will go berserk. And boy, was he surrounded by trees! He was rapidly getting sick of woods. His ears twitched with the soft crunching of their footsteps and he was close, really close to just burning the whole place down. It would probably solve their problem in an effective way, so what?

He watched Pixal's hair sway from side to side as she walked in front of him. The movement was hypnotising. Left and right and left and right, like a grandfather clock. When will the bells set him free?

During their roaming around, she dutifully introduced him to her whole scheme, as if he had the ability to process the intake of information or even wanted to. She could have been talking about the weather and there would be no difference, in one ear and out the other. At least it helped tune out the sounds of the forest which he probably gained allergy to.

"Centrally powered... Cameras... Suspicious behaviour... Sectors, blind paths, alarms..." Yada yada... Because it makes perfect sense to him and it does not sound like a bunch of sci-fi nonsense. He refused to read it with Cole? Karma, he now has to experience it first-hand.

Tree, tree, tree, bush, duck under a branch, tree, tree, tree... It was official, he hated the forest. He hated it so very much. He was going to hate every forest from now on. Enemy number one. And he lives right above it. Loud neighbours would be ten thousand times better – there are ways to get rid of those without too much attention.

They stopped once again and Pixal turned to him to take out one of the robotic birds she made him carry in a box.

"I took Zane's falcon as inspiration, obviously," she explained to him on their very enjoyable nature walk, "but my technology is way primitive. I did have to make them on the fly."

"You didn't just seriously call your work primitive?" he argued then because at that point they were just about started and he had yet to find out what a great trip they were going on.

"In the scale of my abilities, it is primitive."

Kai just shook his head in response. The way she pursed her lips and looked at the robot got him rid of any doubts that she will not be able to sleep well until she comes up with something even more mind-boggling and more satisfying to her critical vision. Living in a house full of geniuses made for some fascinating observations when it did not make him feel dumb.

Now he was watching her set another on one of the branches high in the trees. The fascinating observations got quickly bothersome – he was starting to feel dumb.

"Why don't you just turn them on now?"

"Because then they would follow us and our work here would be completely pointless." It was a waste of time in Kai's eyes nevertheless. He could be napping. He could be making sure Cole was doing all right.

"Then why would you make them follow us?"

"Because our presence in the forest is more likely to be suspicious than a deer's." Deep down he knew it was not her intention but calling him an idiot would be less harsh.

"Right."

"I tried to filter out anything that would be pointless to monitor but we have to keep our minds open to any possibility. Not to mention energy saving, I should try to find a more compact way..."

"Pixal, why am I here?" Kai finally snapped, tired of all the technical jargon and safety-surveillance-monitoring whatnot. Not when he was running on a few hours of sleep and wracked nerves. "Jay would kill for this, I'm sure. Zane would kill to spend time with you. Why? Why am I here?"

She sighed and turned to him, robot-bird-camera set in place and now blindly watching over them. Had they not been all bronze-brown with a slight chrome shine, they would seem freakishly life-like.