Home Again, Home Again Part 5

"I'm well, thank you." Nicola Tesla spoke well and carefully, and I'd started to ape him.

"And what would you like to dis-cuss to-day?"

"I don't really have anything to talk about, honestly. Everything is fine."

"That is good. Do you have any new ob-ser-va-tions about your friends?"

"I'm sorry, no. I haven't been paying much attention lately."

"Why hav-en't you?"

"It just doesn't interest me, sorry."

"Why does-n't it in-ter-est you?"

"I just don't care about them, to be frank."

The Amazing Robotron was absolutely still for a moment. "Are things well with your par-ents, too?"

"The same as always. I think they've found their niches." _Find your niche_ was an expression I'd pirated from the guy who thought he was Nicola Tesla. I was very proud of it.

"In that case, why don't we end this mee-ting?"

I was surprised. The Amazing Robotron always demanded his full hour. "I'll see you on Wednesday, then?"

"I'm af-raid not, Chet. I will be gone for a few months -- I have to re-turn home. There will be a sub-sti-tute coun-sel-or arri-ving next Monday."

My calm center shattered. Sweat sprang out on my palms. "What? You're leaving?

How can you be leaving?"

"I'm so-rry, Chet. There is an em-er-gen-cy at home. I'll be back as soon as I can."

"Frick that! How can you go? What'll I do if you don't come back? You're the only one I can talk to!"

"I'm so-rry, Chet. I have to go."

"If you gave a s.h.i.t, you'd stay. You can't just leave me here!" I knew as I said it that it didn't make any sense, but a picture sprang into my mind, one that I'd been carrying without knowing it for a long time: The Amazing Robotron and me as an adult, walking away from the bat-house, with suitcases, leaving together, forever. I felt a sob hiccough in my throat.

"I will re-turn, Chet. I did-n't wish to up-set you."

"Frick that! I don't give a s.h.i.t if you come back, a.s.shole."

Chet went straight to 87 and plugged in to the apparatus. He didn't set the timer, and he stayed plugged in for nearly two days, when two fighting boys tumbled into him and knocked his hand away. He was centered and numb again, and didn't have any sense of the intervening time. He didn't even have to pee. He wondered if he was trying to commit suicide.

He checked his comm and got the date, noticed with distant surprise that it was two days later, and wandered up to 125.

The guy who thought he was Nicola Tesla shouted a distant "Come in" when Chet tapped on the door. He was playing with his ocean again. Chet felt his hair float up off his shoulders. He stopped and watched the coral squirm and dance.

"I spent nearly two days on the apparatus," Chet said.

"Eh? Very good, very good. You're progressing nicely."

"My counselor has left. He had to go home."

"Yes? Well, there you are."

"What were your parents like?"

"Nicola Tesla's father was a bishop, and his mother was an illiterate, though she was a gifted memnist and taught me much about visualization."

"No, I mean _your_ parents. Mister and Missus Ballozos. What were _they_ like?"

The guy who thought he was Nicola Tesla shut down the ocean and watched the lumps of ore tumble to the sand. "Why do you want to know about _them_? Are you having some sort of trouble at home?" he asked impatiently, not looking away from the ocean.

"No reason," Chet said. "I have to go home now."

"Yes, fine."

"The h.e.l.l have you been, boy?" Chet's father said, when he came through door.

His father was in front of the vid, wearing shorts and a filthy t-shirt, holding the remote in one hand. Chet's mother was sitting at the window, staring out into the clouds.

"Out. Around. I'm okay, okay?"

"It's not okay. You can't just run around like some kind of animal. Sit the h.e.l.l down and tell me where you've been. Your counselor was here looking for you."

"Robotron? He was here?"

"Yes he was here! And I had to tell him I didn't know where my d.a.m.n kid was! How do you think that makes me look? You know how worried your mother was?"

Chet's mother didn't stir from her post by the window, but she flinched when Chet's father spoke. Chet swallowed hard.

"What did he want?"

"Never mind that! Sit the h.e.l.l down and tell me where you've been and what the h.e.l.l you thought you were doing!"

Chet sat beside his father and stared at his hands. He knew he could outwait his father. After half an hour, Chet's father turned the vid on. Four long hours later, he switched it off, and went to bed.

Chet's mother finally turned away from the now-dark window. She reached into the pocket of her grimy bathrobe and withdrew an envelope and handed it to Chet, then turned and went to the apt's other room to sleep.

My name was on the outside of the envelope, in rough script, written with awkward exoskeleton manipulators. I broke its seal, and it folded out into a single flat sheet of paper.

DEAR CHET, it began. At the bottom of it was a complex scrawl that I recognized from the front of The Amazing Robotron's exoskeleton. It must be some kind of signature.

DEAR CHET,