Occasionally Heroic A.I. (23 page)

"Maybe, I don't know. It is all a bit confusing," I answered truthfully. "Nothing changes on these breaks - healthy breaks, I mean."

Irene wasn't expecting that answer. She wanted me to agree fully with her. She immediately shifted the disapproving eyebrow onto me.

Oh, right, I'm alive. I didn't mention that. Two years ago, the rogue CBA agents completely melted down my hardware, but, what Wade, Irene and Aurora found out the next day, was that the program, A.I. Guardian, periodically backs up all A.I. data onto the linked system. Once they discovered this, they found all of my backup files in Irene's storage. Adam immediately bought a new computer to restore the backup onto. I'm now running on speedy hardware, quite an upgrade from my last system.

"Everyone is coming out of the kitchen now!" Aurora announced, which silenced the theater.

Lara, along with her mother, three sisters, and father, all piled into the dining room, placing the servings of food on the table. Mrs. Netak pointed at Dillon, and motioned for him to remove his headphones and he unwillingly obeyed. She, along with Lara's three sisters, all gave Adam very large grins. They knew what the announcement was going to be.

Mr. Netak, on the other hand, was clueless. He dished up his food and looked up, to see their unnatural smiles, only to shrug it off. Lara sat next to Adam and held his hand under the table. She was very excited about telling her father the announcement. Adam, however, looked squeamish.

"Mom, Dad, Fiona, Beth, Jaclyn, Dillon - Adam and I have something to tell you," she announced, taking a deep breath and standing. Adam stood with her. "We're getting married."

"Oh how wonderful!" Beth exclaimed, trying to act as shocked as she could muster.

"My baby sister, getting married before me. That's a little saddening, I have to be honest," Fiona laughed cheerfully. "Now I have to find a date."

Dillon cocked his head at Adam and Lara, puzzled. "You two aren't already married?" he asked in confusion.

They continued to go on, all of the sisters and the mother talked about the fantastic news. The theater was wild with talk about the wedding, as well. Dillon tried to figure out why they weren't already married, as Adam had been coming to the family dinners for two years. Her dad looked as though he had just received terminal news, and that he would have to cope with it.

After the room went quiet, and everyone looked over at Mr. Netak, he spoke. "Welcome to the family, Adam," he said, coping.

An hour later, the theater room closed. Irene was in Aurora's system, where they listened and talked to Lara in secret, as she was with her mom and sisters, talking about the wedding. Wade and I were sitting on the blue couch in his room, waiting to talk to Adam at the right moment. He was washing his hands inside the bathroom, and checking his teeth for food.

"Hey Adam," Wade said on the speaker of the phone, making him jump in surprise.

He took the phone out of his pocket and looked at us through the screen. "Hey, how are things going with Lara and the family?" he asked.

"They're all excited," Wade answered, pausing before he continued. "There is something we need to talk about. Last night, Martin and I got into a bet with someone. We lost, and now we owe him one million dollars."

"How much money do you have?"

"I just bought a new video game modification, and Martin put all his money into his foreign films, so together... we have about five-hundred and twenty bucks."

"That's not good..." Adam stated gravely.

"It gets worse, the A.I. we owe is a Ukrainian crime lord. Even their A.I. are ruthless. Therefore, either we have to rob the A.I. treasury, which are located inside the computers of actual banks, or we have to fight the mafia in Eastern Europe," I explained, unsure of how Adam was going to react.

"The CBA can't help us, and it will be far too hard for just the two of us to rob a bank or fight against the mafia..." Wade said pitifully. "We can't do it without you."

"Operation Broken Leg..." Adam muttered.

"Operation Broken Leg," Wade and I echoed.

He hung up on us. Wade and I were about to lose hope, until we saw that he hung up, to send a text message to Lara.

Going to help Wade and Martin, I'll be back. - Love, Adam

He climbed out the window.