Chapter 1
Rowan
The drywall tore as Theodore's fist slammed into it. His knuckles cracked audibly as they ripped from their sockets. "OW!" he bellowed. His voice caused wine glasses to wobble on the kitchen counter. He brought his injured hand to his mouth, using his left to pull paper towels from the roller to his right. Stumbling backwards, he earned himself a slide on the linoleum floor. He waved his good hand frantically, attempting to regain balance, but to no avail. His foot slipped out from under him as he caused a cascade of dishes to topple off the counter. His elbow shot out behind him, awkwardly cushioning his fall.
Theodore had always had trouble with balance, but he mentally kicked himself for that one. My bones are weak enough as it is. One more fall like that and I might just break something, he thought. He'd never broken a Nano-Bone, but even so, he knew it would be the biggest mistake he could make on the Surface.
He lay there, wincing at the throbbing pain in his hand for several minutes. Drawing a long, deep breath, he focused on blocking out the pain. It will go away in a second; the nanobots are just realigning my hand. One last gush of agony signaled that his hand was nearly reassembled.
As the pangs ebbed, he sat up slowly and wiped the shards of broken china from his back. Using the counter for support, he stood up, surveying the room.
It was a bland room, and a bland house, too, for that matter. He stood in a kitchenette that contained only a microwave and an oven. The walls were painted a dull beige color and the ceiling was white and patterned horizontally. The linoleum floor peeled at the edges, held to the ground solely by a weak adhesive.
This house was almost no different than the last house: It was empty. Theodore had been through three houses in the past two hours, and each one had been stripped of supplies. Normally, he would only loot one or two houses a week to get what he needed. Ever since he'd moved to this neighborhood, though, resources had become more and more scarce. Thus the punch to the wall.
He pulled a chair from the table and pulled it to the sliding glass door. He sat down and put his head in his hands, sighing as he ran his fingers through his hair. He gazed absently out the glass door, scanning for anything that might become of use. Out of the corner of his eye, he observed an odd shape on a tree. He got up and moved the chair away from the door in an attempt to see the tree clearer, but it was too far to the side to make out any details.
He grabbed the door's handle, but when he pulled, it resisted. Another damned lock, he thought. Theodore hated locks. They were too intricate and delicately designed for the likes of him. Luckily he was usually strong enough to break through most locks. This time when he pulled, the door appeared to bounce to the side, but was quickly pulled back to its original position. Theodore took it as a challenge; the door was mocking him. Putting his whole body behind his push, the wooden frame broke and moved into the glass, causing it to shatter. Glass cascaded down in front of him, startling him into shooting himself away from the glinting edges. His ears were filled with the shrieking of glass being crushed then broken.
He checked to see if he had any glass shards in him, and when he found he did not, he stepped through the jagged broken-glass door. Careful not to step on any shards, he inched away from the door. When he found there were few, if any, shards left threatening his feet, he quickened his pace. The patio below him jutted out ten feet from the end of the Colonial-style house, after which point it was swallowed by overgrown grass and shrubs. The tree he had thought to be abnormally shaped was standing before him, and he realized why he perceived it as oddly shaped. There were two-by-fours nailed to the side of the tree, each one ten inches away from the last. They reached up to the top of the tree, where a seemingly untouched tree house stood, hidden by the leaves of the very tree it was built on.
Humans were such an ingenuitive race, He thought to himself. Even their early offspring could put design a miniature house in which to spend Time. The Holten may have had more advanced technology, but the humans advanced quickly.
Confidently, he started off toward the tree. He sidestepped a miniature sandbox and as he did, he noticed that the tree house's little fabric-covered window rustle. He thought nothing of it at first, but his instincts told him to be alert when the hatch on the bottom of the tree house unlatched. He swiftly jumped for cover behind the particularly dense patch of overgrown grass behind the other side of the patio, which was at a distance which was no problem for him.
He peeked out curiously from an opening in the grass's fronds, only to see a stunningly intelligent creature descending from the tree. He didn't know why he couldn't sense her before; Her mind was so prominent among others. He didn't delve too far into her consciousness for fear of being detected, but He did notice a few things of her appearance as she descended.
She had blonde, as the humans would have said, hair. It was cut relatively short, ending at the jawline. She was obviously female, with no more explanation being needed as to why that was. She was fair-skinned as all the Holten were. She was not powerful, judging by the way she climbed down the ladder. Gravity did most of the work, and her feet barely kept her from going into freefall. She was wearing a striped, blue and black shirt and Tight jeans. Human clothes. Theodore regretted wearing human clothes, but, secretly, he knew they were more comfortable than the clothes designed for his race.
As her foot hit the last rung, she sprang backwards into a backflip. Her limbs flew as far out as physically possible, stretching themselves out quite visibly. As she landed softly, she boomed, "GOOD MORNING, THEODORE!"
Startled, confused, and angry all at the same time, he opened his mouth to speak but was cut short by her nonchalant remark. "Helluva punch you got there. Felt it from all the way up top." Theodore was about to ask her how she knew his name, but before he even could bring the words to his lips, she responded, "You're not too good at hiding your own thoughts. 'Incredibly intelligent'? Made my day, but you thought it so loud my ears popped. You're odd. I like that."
She sauntered over without missing a beat. "Now, let's see here. You've been travelling for almost three years with your friend, you've been running low on supplies recently, you're incredulous as to how I know this, and you seem to enjoy my curvature. Am I wrong?"
Theodore crossed his arms and stood face-to-face with her. "No," he responded. Realizing she'd been reading his consciousness for a while, he read hers as well. "You're Rowan Winters, you've been living in that tree house for about a year, you've got plenty of supplies, you think you're everything and a bagel, you enjoy my smile, and like that I'm competitive." He held out his hand. "Nice to meet you,"
She smirked and put her hand in his and curtsied playfully. "Pleasure. I will be accompanying you back to your base of operations, and staying with you for an indefinite period of time. I'm bored of this place, and you seem like you'll make for entertaining company. I'll go get what you'll need from me."
Theodore liked that she could read his mind. Since she seemed to have already made up hers that she'd be coming with him, he thought that the whole mind-reading thing would save quite a bit of time.
