Chapter 25: Kyle

Thursday night, July 28th. 2050

Kyle paces the office, his strides jerky and frustrated. "This is ridiculous! Every system, every document. Nothing's wrong!" Throwing his hands in the air with a sigh of frustration he falls back into his chair and clasps his face in his hands, muffling his voice.

Melissa chuffs and shakes her head. "You know I can't hear you when you talk like that right?" She says, leaning back into her own seat as she sips a cold cup of coffee.

Raising his head from his hands he smiles wryly. "I said. There's nothing wrong with the system. Nothing at all. I just don't understand it!" Sitting up, he motions to the mess on the desk. "This is getting us nowhere, and we've been at it for two days straight. And I've absolutely no idea what time it is." Flicking his wrist, he activates his personal comm band. "Good lord. It's almost midnight. Go to bed Melissa, I'm going to clean up and head that way myself. We're just flogging a dead dog right now."

"No, I'm fine. We should..." She pauses as a huge yawn cracks her jaw, her hand flying up to cover her mouth. "Okay, maybe I am a little tired. I think I will go get a few hours sleep and come back fresh." She says, rising from her seat.

"No Melissa, get a full night's sleep, usual work hour start will do. We'll never figure this out if we're constantly tired from lack of sleep." He responds, waving her off. "I'll not be long as I'm out the door myself. I just need to clean this mess up a little and de-stress."

Heading for the door she looks back at him. "Just be sure you take your own advice kid!" She grins and saunters out of the door. "Night Kyle."

"Good night Melissa." As the door shuts, Kyle slips his feet onto the desk. Leaning back in the chair, hands behind his head, his gaze idly looks around the room. "Well father, once again you've stumped me. I'm missing something. I know I'm missing something. But what?" Sighing, he reluctantly pulls his feet from the desk and starts tidying. His mind continues to race as the clutter returns to a semblance of order. "Alright father you win. I give up for tonight. Screw you and screw your bloody inventions." He mutters, the anger and frustration showing clearly through in his voice.

Focusing on the computer, Kyle motions to turn off the system and spots a file on the desktop that he had previously ignored. His eyes flick around the office, realizing that there was no single visual piece of evidence to denote that his father actually had a family in the office. So why then, did he have a file titled family on his desktop? "Okay Father, let's see what secrets you're hiding." He mutters, clicking on the file. To his surprise the file opens up a password protection and Kyle stares at it. "Why the hell would you protect your personal files on your own system?" Brain whirring, Kyle doodles on a notepad as he thinks.

An hour later a frustrated Kyle slams his fist onto the desk. "God damn it. What the hell is the password? You and your bloody riddles and anagrams." Laughing at his own frustration, Kyle finally relaxes and accepts the inevitable. "If Angela were still alive she'd have this cracked in minutes. Bloody kid was a savant and always did love your damned riddles. God, I miss you Angie." Kyle finds his mind taking him down memory lane, images and snapshots of the life they had all enjoyed before his younger sister had died. The devastation his father felt at her death. It had been then that his father had started to pull away from the rest of his family, becoming distant and austere.

"Oh! of course! Little Angie." He exclaims. Fingers gliding over the keyboard he starts to input different variations of Angela's name. In moments the file opens and Kyle stares aghast. "What the fuck? Clicking on document after document, hours pass as Kyle reads his father's private files.

"Computer." He says out aloud. "Activate holo file Angie 3.0."

"Hello Kevin. It's been quite some time since we last spoke. How was your vacation?" A feminine voice says into the room.

Whipping his head towards the sim wall in shock, Kyle see's a young woman staring out at him.

"You're not Kevin! Who are you?" She asks, her tone and manner emanating displeasure.

"Angie? He had the gall to imagine you in my sisters image. The utter fucking gall of that man!" Steaming angry Kyle stands and stalks towards the wall. "You." He points at her. "He didn't even bother to teach you who his family was did he?"

"He didn't deem it necessary for me to know his familial details. However, I can look at the ships database if you'd like. However, you didn't respond to my question. Who are you and where is Kevin?"

"He's dead." Kyle spits out. "And the selfish bastard almost took his entire family with him, all but me. And I'm his son, you goddamned moronic interface."

Her face falls and she looks at Kyle with sad eyes. "He's dead? But, who will I speak to and learn from now?" She asks.

"Oh for god's sake, you're nothing but data! Emotions are for people, not machines." Turning away from her image, he walks back to the desk and sits down. Tapping away at a couple of keys. "Okay, I see now." Turning his head to the side he looks at the female image. "It says here that you're hooked into the new comm system and holo display my father created. Is this true?"

She nods. "That's right, and my name is Angie by the way." She answers.

"No. That was the name of my dead sister." He shouts at the screen angrily.

"I'm sorry." Angie responds, casting her eyes downwards.

"Oh jeez. Goddamned hypocritical, rule breaking, moronic man." He mutters under his breath. "Angie. Angie, look at me." She looks up at him, her eyes limpid and human looking. "Look. I'm not mad at you. It's my father I'm mad at. I apologize for my behaviour. I do need to ask you to do something for me though please. Oh and my name's Kyle."

 "Hello Kyle. How can I help you?" She asks, smiling in his direction in an all is forgiven manner.

"We have an issue with the communications system that I haven't been able to discover. Could you check everything and see if you can find out the issue please."

"Of course Kyle. I'll do that right now." She replies.

"Now, be quiet. I need to make a call."