Matt Black - Book 1 of Re-Forge

Back to School

Matt woke to the sound of Carl's insistent alarm. He had grown dependent on Carl warning him whenever relevant information came to hand. He acknowledged the alarm by asking: "What's up, Carl?"

Carl said: "There is an incoming call from your sponsor in twenty minutes. I woke you so you would have time to refresh yourself. You and the barperson got on famously last night if you remember?"

Matt rose from the bed to clean his teeth and shower, and when he returned to the bed side, he said: "To answer your last question, I do remember, and I deserve this hangover after letting that guy buy me so many drinks. Nothing I said would convince him that I didn't get dumped."

Carl said: "It's easy to understand why he thought you were in denial, Amy looked way above average in her outfit and considering the effect she had on your biorhythms, I'm impressed that you turned her down."

Matt replied: "Joshua will be disappointed after setting me up, but she is not the one. Anyway, stop teasing me."

Carl replied: "If I must. Oh, don't worry about the barman having to pay for all those drinks. Everything you both drank was charged to Laura's room. Her family is rich, so she won't even notice."

Matt did not want to know of Carl's manipulation of hotel financial records so redirected the topic back to the expected call. He said: "Hmm, a video call from the Luna Defence minister, I wonder if we're getting our migration notice."

Carl said: "I have not seen any movement information referring to you or Josh on the system regarding migration."

Matt asked: "What is it about then?"

Carl said: "You need to put your Impervium suit on."

Matt thought: "I have become used to Carl's abilities, Answer evasion through redirection is too human. He still doesn't make sense, even after being with him for so long."

Matt lifted his Impervium space suit off the back of the chair and noticed it had lost much of its flexibility. The cogs in his brain turned a little slow from the effect of his hangover, as he struggled into it, worming his legs in first, and then pulling it up over his body and finally managing to get his arms in. It was awkward, stiff, and cold.

Matt held his breath, waiting for the suit to warm up, self-seal and insinuate itself into his nether regions, but nothing happened. With growing frustration, Matt said: "Carl, what the hell is wrong with this suit? God, my head is pounding."

A soft, very human-like chuckle came from Carl, and he answered: "Remember yesterday? The first thing Joshua did was clip me onto the forearm of the suit?"

Matt felt annoyed with himself. He remembered Josh clearly saying an AI-com was needed to activate the suit and it would not function correctly without one, then he said accusingly: "You laid on the table the whole time and let me fall all over the place fighting with it and said nothing. You are evil. You're not usually lacking when it comes to voicing your opinion or giving advice, so what's different today?"

Carl chuckled again and said: "I could tell you so many things, but all of those would be lies. Your display of cavorting around the room naked and falling all over the place was just funny to witness." Carl chuckled again.

Matt noticed Carl's screen was facing the wall and asked: "How were you able to watch me?"

Carl answered: "I'm networking with the room's AI, and that allows me to monitor your actions through the rooms visual communications system. I'm sure you will never again forget to connect me to the suit."

Matt thought: "Another Carl oddity. I can't explain away the behaviour of my AI-com, but Carl was still right. I'll never make 'that' mistake again."