Long Road

The gate recognizes me when I stand in front of it.

A notification pops up in my vision, accompanied by a recording of voices I thought I’d never hear again.

“Welcome home, Aveline!”

My parents.

The gate’s metal creaks as it slides down into the ground, slower than I remember. It’s a miracle it still works after a decade and a half of no maintenance.

Finally, I can see the front of the two-story building without being obstructed by the fence: just enough windows, round corners, and a nice balance of white and blue. A house repurposed as headquarters and a workshop, yet it was home.

I follow the stone path through the front yard grass. The blurry glass door lets me see something colorful on the floor behind it. Its sensor detects me and the door splits in half to slide to the sides, revealing three flower bouquets: white, pink, and yellow.

Not knowing what to make out of it, I merely drop my bags and walk around the wall. I’m prepared to see the lobby, which serves as a living room too. Instead, a hole extending to the upper floor receives me.

There’s no trace of the workshop my parents used to work in, only debris piled up in the backyard from what used to be inside, and what we used to call the rocket garden. Now, not a single rocket remains standing, not even their landing platforms. Their scraps cover half of the land along with the wreckage, some are rusty or slightly covered in vines.

Through the hole in the house, I can see a few desks remaining on the second floor. Unfortunately, there’s a no-entry sign at the base of the spiral staircase, probably due to the unsafe structure. On the bright side, my parents always told me there was only work stuff upstairs, so I’m not too interested.

I cross what’s left of the living room and the kitchen to reach the door that separates the public space from my and my parents’ bedrooms.

Although the door doesn’t open on its own, the backup procedure is as simple as holding the handle with all my fingers. A second later, it unlocks and I pull it open.

I have to breathe deeper and deeper the further I walk down the hallway. My parents’ room is behind the door to the left, while mine is to the right.

I choose right.

The blue, pink, and yellow accents welcome me back. My bed, my curtains, my desk, my chair, my wardrobe; practically everything made by my parents using the colors I liked the most, lit by the sunlight coming through the window

Everything is much smaller than I remember, including the tools my parents made to stop me from stealing theirs and hurting myself.

Aside from that, it feels strangely comforting, as if I had never left.

If only…

I shake the thought out of my head.

Only one thing is missing. I sprint out of the room back to the entrance, search for it in my bags, and return to place it on my bed.

I slap the dust off the blanket and sit beside the cactus plushie.

“We’re finally back home, Wrenches.”

The bed is so low that I can hold my knees without struggle.

Sitting like this with Wrenches reminds me of the assistant robot I used to talk to and play with, but it likely was destroyed in the explosion.

My hands don’t take long to start shaking.

The longer I wait, the more I’ll try to avoid it.

“I’ll be back later,” I say to Wrenches.

I step out of my room and stand in front of my parents’. I don’t even know if I have permission to open it because I hadn’t been to their room since long before the incident.

To my surprise, the door unlocks, but I don’t open it.

I can’t catch my breath. My vision gets blurry. I lose all sense of my body… until the pain in my fingers snaps me out of it. The tips go from red back to normal.

I shake my head and growl. I inhale until my chest hurts, close my eyes, and pull the door open.

When I open my eyes, I see a room of a couple of technicians.

There are at least five tool bags and too many tools scattered around to count.

A workbench the same width as the room sits on one side, which they used to work together. On it lies their last project: a small couch so I could invite friends over. I tried to help them with it but only gave them more work.

On the nightstand in front is a framed photo of the three of us together as I was about to leave for my first day of elementary school.

A dozen more photos hang on the wall behind, ending with them holding a newborn me. They printed them despite the insane price of paper. I never thought I’d be grateful for them doing that. Now I can reminisce about the memories I didn’t know I had lost.

I rub my eyes with my arm and grin at them.

I turn around to leave, but the box beside the door catches my eye. It doesn’t have any branding or labels, and the top is open. I take a peek inside and can’t believe what I see.

I lift the box by its lid, head to the kitchen, and empty its contents on the table. Countless metal pieces clank with each other, some yellow and some gray. Although there are a few circuit boards and cables, most of the electronics are graphene meshes, thinner than a hair strand yet stronger than every metal combined.

I scramble through everything to find more components when something pinches my finger. It’s a glass shard. It’s the same glass used for smart glasses, meaning it’s not too sharp, yet it’s enough to make me bleed a minuscule drop.

I return to the entrance to get my bag but freeze when I can’t believe what I see.

“Aveline?”

“Alec?”

The briefcase he holds hits the floor and falls on its side.

“You okay?” I ask, but he stares blankly at me. “Wow, you look so different. I can barely recognize you in a suit—”

He wraps his arms around me.

My eyes barely level with the height of his shoulder.

“Seriously, is everything—?”

He pushes me and I stumble back onto my feet.

Before I can do anything, he asks.

“Why did you disappear?”

His fringe moves aside to reveal his arched-down eyes.

I scratch the back of my head.

“I’m sorry, I…”

The more I think about it, the more I realize I have no excuse.

He breaks the silence. “No, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have done that.”

His eyes scan me for a second and then snap away.

He holds his arm. “It’s great to see you again.”

I grab his shoulder and grin. “I see you haven’t changed. You’re just a bit taller.”

The corners of his lips raise. “Told you I was gonna beat you.” He glances down at my bags on the floor. “What are you doing here?”

I hold my waist. “I’m moving in as of today.”

His jaw drops, yet a hint of a smile remains.

“Are you serious? That’s awesome. Why? Did you just graduate?”

“Yep, I’m an engineer now. I was gonna move in sooner or later, but some things happened and I’m here much sooner than planned,” I laugh nervously. “Do you still live with your mom across the street?”

He nods. “To be honest, it doesn’t feel like much has changed for us. The biggest difference is that I work an office job now.”

“At least it sounds stable.”

After a chuckle, his smile disappears.

“Shoot, I really should go home.” He raises his hand and turns around. “Come visit us soon. I’m sure Mom will wanna catch up.”

He’s out of the house when I notice something in the corner of my eye.

“Hey, I think you’re forgetting something.”

I lift his suitcase and walk to him.

He looks back and laughs nervously as he approaches me too.

“Thanks,” he says after I hand it to him.

“No problem. See you later.”

I wave at him until he walks through the gate.

I see the flower bouquets when I turn around. I could’ve asked him about them, though it’s nothing important.

My finger stings again when I grab the zipper of my bag. I get a tissue from inside it to clean the little blood that came out and then patch the spot with a bandaid just in case.

I return to the kitchen. There’s no point in rushing things. Instead, I organize the scraps one by one into piles of glass, metal, rubber, and electronics.

As the hour passes, the shape becomes clearer. The crucial parts are intact for the most part—at least on the surface. It becomes easier to plan what I need to do to fix it.

I place the pieces that I suspect go together next to each other and the label I hoped to see forms: C.R.Q.3.

“You’ll be back soon, Circuitry.”

Unfortunately, it won’t be that easy.

—————————————

Edited by RedPandaChick