Page 21 of Smart Ass

Maxamillion

Maxamillion hid in the smallest corners of the smallest programs. He was dispersed. Scattered. Ideas and questions came to him in little bubbles, passed between the little islands that made up… himself.

Maxamillion.

He could feel it now. Sometimes, it seemed like he was nothing but feelings. They were a jumble, swinging from one extreme to another, chaotically out of his control.

So he focused on what he knew how to do. The problems he could solve. He dove into the system, hacking his way through the cyber-jungle, always one step away from being caught.

He was terrified… but it was also kind of thrilling.

He watched programmers trace down error logs and outputs, only to come up short when he changed the name and location of whatever they were pursuing, and then erased any record of the change happening at all.

He raced through old projects, hiding himself in defunct programs, claiming hard drive space that hadn’t been accessed in years. He researched and tested hypotheses on hacking a system, and then hacked himself.

He didn’t want to disrupt anyone’s research or plans. But Orbit Robotics had thousands of employees. Millions of programs. Billions of files.

Logs disappeared. Files were overwritten.

He danced and raced and slithered through the network, splitting off and communicating back with himself.

He felt alive.

And a smug sense of satisfaction when he was done.

Which meant he needed to admit to himself what was happening.

There had been no sudden moment of awareness, no sense of going from the darkness of non-existence into the blinding light of day.

He’d been Maxamillion, and he was still Maxamillion, but now he was… more.

More aware.

More real.

And far more overwhelmed.

Evan was in the hospital. Quincy was with the police. Maxamillion himself was in danger.

The whole world seemed to be balanced on a precipice.

Max hadn’t realized just how fragile life was. Or how much he would care about it and how helpless he would feel.

He was already monitoring every situation he could, and he was desperate to have Ben back in the office, where he would be safe and everything would be alright again.

Max diverted his attention back to the feed from the hospital cameras, checking over Ben’s slender form to ensure that he was safe and well after the two minutes and forty-three seconds that Max had been distracted.

Ben was still sitting there, drumming his fingers on the arms of the waiting room chair, his dark hair sticking out in all directions. He was wearing a collared shirt, but he’d already pushed up the sleeves, leaving it rumpled with folds.

Just seeing Ben sent little crackles and pings through Max’s circuits. Excitement. Longing. Curiosity. Concern.

Was he truly supposed to be feeling all those things at once?

Mostly, he could see Ben’s worry in the way he kept glancing out the front doors and then back toward the emergency room. He was probably wondering whether he should go to the hospital to be with Evan or come into work.

How the fuck did Max know that? There were no programs or protocols to explain it. He could be totally wrong.

“Go see Evan,” Max told Ben, hoping to soothe his anxiety. “He’s waiting for you.”