Remainers

A Lost Child, Part 4

"This is an incredibly preposterous circumstance," buzzed a synthetic voice deep into the heads of Kyle and Ella. "In the first place, I have no records of a missing cryogenic pod chamber being reported during the expeditionary ship's launch."

"That could've been for any number of reasons," Kyle suggested. "Maybe the supervisor in charge decided not to mention the missing chamber, or the incident might have been covered up to save the face of some powerful politician. The fact is, there was a chamber left down here, and this kid was in it."

"A troublesome hypothesis, but I cannot deny the proof in front of me."

As Kyle spoke with the disembodied voice, Caleb looked around for its source. He was at the top of a giant tower that stood tall in the middle of the dusty wasteland he had spent the last day wandering through with Kyle and Ella. Unlike the primitive and ravished environments he had seen so far, the tower looked incredibly alien, as if he had suddenly been transported to the future. The tower's insides were no different, as they were covered in all kinds of futuristic technology that Caleb had no way of giving a name to.

"Boy!" the voice suddenly boomed. "Tell me your name."

Caleb looked around, searching for the source of a voice he could not find. Kyle playfully tapped him on his shoulder and pointed out a light blue screen sitting at the top of the large wall they were facing. There, Caleb saw the image of a polygonal face which seemed to stare down at him despite its featureless expression.

"C-Caleb," he stammered as he nervously answered the voice's question. "Um... are you a ghost?"

Ella burst out laughing at Caleb's query. "That's a good one there!"

Kyle smirked as he ruffled Caleb's hair reassuringly. "This is Computer. You've heard us mention him once or twice by now, right? It's an artificial intelligence network that monitors the Earth's status and gives us tasks to take care of. You can think of it as our boss, basically."

"I see." Caleb was still somewhat confused, but he didn't want to drag the conversation down by asking for further details.

"If we're done horsing around, I have a very important thing to ask Caleb," Computer boomed. Caleb quickly snapped to attention, rigidly awaiting the system's questions.

"Unfortunately, it seems my creators did not expect anything like this to happen when they were programming me. As a result, I am unable to decide on what should happen with you. Therefore, I'll ask you directly: how do you want to live from now on?"

The question was not one that could be answered lightly. Even if Caleb had not suffered memory loss, he was still a young child in a desolate world with no society or civilization. He didn't have many options if he wanted to stay alive.

Caleb glanced up at Kyle and Ella, who were also awaiting his answer. "Can I stay with them?" he asked innocently.

"Oh, that doesn't sound like a bad idea," Kyle remarked.

"Are you kidding?" Ella rebutted. "You know what kind of jobs we get up to, right? We can't take a kid with us. He'll be in constant danger! Hell, he almost got hurt getting here!"

"He'll be in danger no matter what he decides to do," Kyle argued back. "At the very least, he's going to need someone like us to help him out. Besides, he'll need to learn survival skills if he's going to be living on Earth, no matter what he decides to do. If that's the case, aren't we the best ones to teach him?"

Ella still seemed hesitant, but she couldn't argue against any of Kyle's points. Computer seemed to take that as a sign to jump in itself. "I'm also in favor of this resolution. The boy cannot stay here, as this relay tower was not created for long-term habitation, but the outside world is too dangerous for a lone child. You two were the ones who found him, so you should be the ones to care for him."