BIRTHRIGHT Book One: The First Key

Chapter 13

In a drab grey room Isaac stands at a workbench with an arc-welder, sparks flying from his chrome glove as the light reflects in his darkened safety glasses. Similar to Tia's room, but uncluttered by any of the comfortable furniture or personal effects, he hasn't bothered to make these quarters feel like home; it was never the plan to stay long on this backwater planet, let alone remain associated with this grating human General.

In fact, if Alexander hadn't proven so resilient to his mind bending, Isaac would already have found and smashed up the Protector's precious key and be half way home to Zek'Hasa by now. Of course, attempting to operate his ship without a functional cybernetic prosthetic would be tantamount to suicide.

So either way he'd be stuck here, fixing this chrome war machine.

Come to think of it, if it wasn't for that spoiled Akarios brat, he wouldn't need to be doing these repairs either.

Bastard.

'No, not that. Call him what you will, but Alexander, son of Archon Sasha is no bastard.' Isaac reminds himself as he grits his teeth bitterly to the sound of the arc-welder.

The sound of Isaac's work is deafening.

The General stands behind him, flinching and shielding his eyes from the blinding light that prevents him from seeing exactly what Isaac is doing.

"... but can you just take your best guess?" the General yells over the sound of Isaac's machinery.

Apparently, he's been talking this whole time.

"Well," Isaac pauses his work just long enough to answer in a comfortable speaking voice. "I'm afraid I don't know enough about the creature to even guess, General."

"But--" as Isaac resumes his work, he once again forces the General to yell to be heard. "But has it ever done anything like this in the past?

He supposes he can get about thirty seconds of work done without seeming like he's ignoring the General's question. With a pensive enough expression, Isaac might even be able to buy a whole minute. Anything to avoid talking to another goddamned human a moment sooner than needed.

After what has felt like an eternity to the General, Isaac stops welding again.

"No, not that I've noticed," glancing over the top of his shades Isaac examines his handiwork more closely. "It's a social animal, but never romantic. I can't conclusively say."

With one last blast of the soldering iron, Isaac removes his dark glasses to admire the full brightness of the green lights on his arm as the begin to spark back online, one by one. As they do, the burning sensation in his mind is relieved. Though not as much as he had expected. Perhaps he was growing used to the pain? Or better yet, he was gaining new control over the Akarios technology in his veins.

"Your best guess, Harris." the General is nearly begging.

"Dunno why your daughter would be different. Maybe he just likes your famous American women." Isaac laughs to himself. One look at the expression on the General's face is enough to tell him that was not the correct guess.

Suddenly the chrome glove emits the sound of a 1950's telephone ring, startling the General out of his anger. But Isaac seems unsurprised.

Strolling casually over to the door to his quarters, it opens to Isaac's hand print on the monitor. With a complete lack of subtlety or politeness, he gestures to the General to use it.

The glove rings its strangely anachronistic ring for a second time

"I really do need to take this." Isaac says, wearing the kind of grin that you just want to punch. "We can continue this later, General."