“So she’s going away for two days?” Cody asks after taking another bite of meatloaf.

 

Right after chasing Mrs. Natsume around for what seemed like forever, another class came before the lunch hour. When I got to the cafeteria, I went directly to where Cocoa and I sit, but came across no one, not even Jasmine or Avery. Looking at the other seats, I didn’t even notice them here. I decided to sit alone.

Sitting alone, however, got rather lonely very quickly. I didn’t do much more then stare at my meatloaf and hope that someone would show up, that Cocoa would see me alone and come join me. Finally taking my eyes off my meatloaf, I spot Cody sitting by himself on the opposite side of the cafeteria. Grabbing my tray, I decide to go join him instead of being by myself. I had just finished explaining what happened during and after Mrs. Natsume’s class before taking a bite of meatloaf.

 

“Yeah, and no one knows where or for how long.” Shifting in my seat, I decide to ask him about the glowing rock as I try to get comfortable, never really having seen it myself before.

 

“Can’t say that I have,” he replies, staring at the meatloaf almost as if it were gold. “Why? Did it look important?”

 

“Well, not entirely. But when I went ransacking through the junkyard before, I saw her holding something similar, and I have an itching curiosity that never seems to be satisfied,” I add in.“Bleh, this meatloaf is bland,” I tell him, pushing my plate away. “How can they be allowed to serve this?”

 

“Heh, it is lacking in spices.”

 

Turning toward his back pack, he pulls out various spices, some I’ve never even seen or heard of before.

 

“With just the right amount of flavor though,” he sprinkles 4 different spices on his meatloaf then cuts a piece and uses the fork to bring it toward my mouth, “anything can go from bland to perfection,” he adds in coolly.

 

Looking from him to the fork and back again, I nervously bite the piece of meatloaf, not knowing what to expect. Within seconds of it touching my tongue however, I can immediately tell the difference. It went from a bland brick to the taste of a well done steak that had just come off the grill. I couldn’t help but reveal a bright, white smile, which also caused me to blush with

embarrassment. I couldn’t remember ever having something this good.

 

“Good, isn’t it?” he chuckles.“You learn a thing or two when you have to cook for your family almost every day. Metalworks aren’t my only thing, you know,” he added, winking.

 

“Really good,” I reply, trying not to drool. “I didn’t know something could taste so good. Think you could do the same to mine?”

 

“Easily.”

 

Much like before, he put the same spices over my meatloaf and I ended up scarfing it down, making Cody smile. I don’t even think that the machine at home could make food quite this good and it usually turns out beyond delicious.

 

“So what other classes do you have? Besides Mr. Reeds?” he asks me as I take my last bite.

 

“Mr. Bits, where we work on different AI programming and applications. It’s informative, but rather dull at times, as I know a lot of it already. But it was a class I wanted to take, to better familiarize and challenge myself. Not that there’s been much of a challenge yet.”

 

“Well, one of the other classes I have besides Metalworks,”he follows up without me asking, “is a cooking class. I’ve always wanted to try my hand at applying what I learned at home over the years, but I couldn’t till this year, as the cooking classes always filled up way before I could even think of taking them.”

 

“I’m no good with food,” I tell him, shrugging.

 

“By the way, where’s your friend at? I always see you two walk to school together, but today you were alone. You two fighting?”

 

Now that I think about it, I had forgotten all about Cocoa till he mentioned her. That caused a knot in my stomach, making me feel like I could hurl back up the meatloaf, no matter how good it was.

Looking down at my lap, I didn’t know how to respond to his question. Cocoa’s life and mine were kept between us and not really shared much with anyone else, since no one really ever bother talking to us half the time. But since it was Cody and I didn’t want to lie to him, I told him as much as I felt comfortable without violating anything regarding Cocoa.

 

“It’s…something like that. We’ve both been really busy and haven’t had much time to…talk to each other.”

 

I couldn’t tell if he read my mind or my facial expressions, but he let the subject drop and left us in silence while he finished his meatloaf. I wanted to speak up, to say something to him, but I still felt upset at forgetting my best friend, who I was determined to find today. But why did I always forget about her when I was around Cody?

I didn’t have time to think about because as soon as lunch was over and we parted ways, it was time for Mr. Bit’s class.

 

“Hello everyone, I hope you’re ready for today’s lesson.”

 

Sighing, I pull out my minipad and open the folder containing Mr. Bit’s class information. Upon doing so, multiple folders and files appear on the screen in newest to oldest, allowing me to quickly navigate to any previous material. It’s one of my favorite features and allows me to quickly access everything from a specific section then recompiles it into the same folder when I’m done with it.

 

“We’re going to be applying what we’ve learned over the past few days today on certain computer programs and how they react. I’ve also thrown in some things that I’ve mentioned briefly but never went into depth upon yet, which I hope you all have been reading up on and paying attention too.”

 

Thankfully for me that was easy, as I had all the documents open at my side. But I wanted to test how well I knew the material, so I turned it off and put it aside.
After pulling up the program, I began changing various inputs and outputs to alter the course of the various commands. Most of it flowed out from my mind, but others parts I had to think about before it finally clicked. For the most part, I was enjoying it.

 

That was until Mr. Bits random inconsistencies started interfering, which made it more complicated to keep it on the correct path. The patterns became intertwined within themselves and I had to sort through it all.
Quickly typing along the keyboard I was able to sort out most of the problems before they accrued, even though I kept wanting to pull out my minipad to have a refresher by my side, but pushed the urge away. What happened next though shocked me.

I had different programs running that weren’t of Mr. Bits and they were of a higher level threat. The odd thing was though, they were coming from a computer in the classroom, and I only had one guess as to who it could be: Aurora. Even when I glanced over to her as I continued to stop it, she had a devilish smile across her face that said, “Don’t try me.”

Luckily I was able to keep up with most of it before class let out, but couldn’t understand why Aurora would attack me like that. I wanted to ask her afterwards, in the most unkind way possible of course, but my top priority right now was Cocoa.

 

After heading to my locker my next stop was Cocoa’s locker. When I got there though, I found no trace of her. “A little too late,” I mumble as I head toward the exit to try the hot chocolate shop.

“Has Cocoa been here?” I ask the owner; sweat beginning to bead along my forehead.

 

“Actually, she was in here yesterday with a blue haired woman. I was surprised when I saw it wasn’t you.”

 

“Thanks,” I tell him, turning to leave. So she is spending time with Aurora.

 

After leaving, I stop outside to look up and down the sidewalks, trying to think of any place she and Aurora would go. I didn’t know if she’d take Aurora to our favorite spot in the park or not: I didn’t know Aurora, but I did know Cocoa, or I thought I did. I remember how Aurora never wanted me to go to her home, so I wondered if she’d take Cocoa there because she liked her. Then I shuddered; the thought of walking toward her home gave me the chills. The only spot I could try was the park.

 

Meanwhile, Aurora had plans of her own.

 

 

 

“Ah, welcome home Miss-“

 

Before he could finish, Aurora marched past the butler, almost completely unaware of his presence.

 

“Crystalere,” he finished, although a bit sadly.

 

Aurora’s home was twice the size of Random’s. Her walk in from the front door was a hallway with dark red walls with trims of yellow along the top and bottom, all lined with paintings of plants and flowers from roses to violets.

At the end of the hallway was the kitchen, painted sky blue and lined with coral blue tile. In its center sat a large counter top with various burners, sinks, and utensils lined across it. Pots and pans hung from hooks along its top, rectangle wooden rack, along with spices. The walls across from the entrance were lined with two refrigerators on either side of the threecounters in-between them, holding knife blocks, cutting boards and meat hammers. The adjacent walls had dishwashers and shelves lined with more food from fruits, vegetables and things I didn’t recognize than a single family knew what to with. A door also closed off what appeared to be the basement.

 

Back down the hall held two swinging doors, almost like the ones found in a restaurant leading to the kitchen. From the front door, the one on the right led to the main room of the house, which held a large, flat screen plasma TV that hung on the wall, at least 90”, a large corner couch that could fit at least 20 people, a coffee table to match, and more pictures of flowers. A surround sound system was also there, mostly used for more of a movie effect.

The other door led to what appeared to be a large dining room, with two chandeliers hanging above the 25 foot table. You could easily fit 50 along it. A dark blue carpet was laid out underneath it and 3 rows of candles sat along top. It was already lined with plates, silverware and cups all on top of a light blue table mat, like dinner was about to be served at any moment.

 

The Second floor held two bathrooms, an empty guest room and Aurora’s room. Her room was rather empty, but organized and clean. It had a bed, dresser, computer desk, closet, and a door leading to one of the bathrooms. All of Aurora’s clothes hung nicely in the closet and the rest were placed inside her dresser. Her bed was neatly made and desk was more organized than someone’s sock drawer. The walls were a dark purple and the floor was made of marble. Unlike Random’s, you could walk around without fear of tripping.

 

But out of all of these rooms, it was her basement that she was heading straight to. Walking down the dark stairs in the kitchen that led to her basement, she entered a large room filled with machines and computers along each wall, spitting out information and feeding it to the giant orb in the center. It had a large cylindrical bottom with 7 coils extended out from it and a spiked sphere floating just above it equal in size, slowly rotating in all directions and emitting small amounts of energy and electricity.

 

“Ah, so you’ve finally acome,” whispered a small voice from just near the center. His speech was slightly slurred. It would have sounded Italian if his voice wasn’t so deep.

 

“Yeah, yeah. I told you I’d be here. Just had to get rid of someone,” Aurora replied as she headed toward him.

 

The man who stood in the center wore a black bowler hat and suit to match. He had dark sunglasses covering his eyes, even though the room was very dark and he held a cane in his left hand, even though he looked perfectly healthy at a little over 6 feet. He gave Aurora a smile that would probably scare most children, given that his facial features were rugged and firm. The smile looked more like a look a clown gives when they think they’re being funny, when it’s more creepy than funny.

 

“So whata did she say?” he asked her once she got to his side.

 

“She said it’s the most amazing one she’s seen since she was a young girl.”

 

The man let out a deep laugh. “That’s my men for ya. So you a sure it won’ta fail like all the others? I’m notta paying you so you can further youra research, ya know.”

 

She turned away from him in disgust before saying, under her breath of course, “Yeah, you just wait, you damn idiot.”

 

“Didja say somthin?”

 

“That I need to see if this rock you got will work to your expectation,” she said, feeling her stomach nauseate. He smelled like old leather boots that sat in the sun with rotten eggs in them for far too long.

 

She began to stroll over to the opposite side of the machine, glad to get away from him, and punched in a code before a small flap opened: it was sealed with a button combination. Inside the small opening held a stone that looked like the one she had, but it was slowly decaying, like time and erosion had finally reduced it to almost nothing. Aurora stuck her hand inside and touched the stone, causing it to turn to black ash.

 

“Another failure…” she whispered sadly. The machine began to power down once it disappeared.

 

She then began to place in the new stone in place and shut the door, making sure the number pad reset itself. She then strode over to what appeared to be the master computer and began pushing keys, causing lights to flash along the other monitors. After several keystrokes, she stopped and turned to look at the orb, which began rotating faster and letting loose more electricity than before.

 

“That’sa more like it!” the man bellowed from across the room, laughing maniacally.

 

But Aurora just placed her left hand on her right arm and looked down at the floor, as if looking at the machine was causing her pain and she wanted nothing to do with it.