Hock note: Now that we've introduced Kwin and her troubles with the cyborg, Alec, let's check in on Milo again. He's having some troubles of his own with multidimensional calculus. But what about Dr. Chocka? Has he given up on Milo and the infant? 

"Milo Skart, I'm not very happy with you today."

Milo slumped near the back door of his multidimensional calculus class. It was a small and cozy room except with a high-bay vaulted ceiling. Only a handful of students sat in the mostly empty place. Professor Hanna Nudny projected the current discussion problem as a hologram overhead while she stood at the front, a squat lady with a round pleasant face.

"Juana Razon, do you have the answer?"

Juana sat across from Milo. When the correct answer rolled off of her tongue, ancient Greek symbols streamed as white figures in the form of matrices and arrays above the class, illustrating Juana's solution.

"Very good, Juana."

Professor Hanna droned on, talking about gamma and theta and alpha, the Greek symbols swirling around the room, forming matrices and then recombining to make new equations. Although it had been a week since Professor Aidan accepted the infant, Milo kept thinking of Cale Vals. He'd grown a fond of the little guy. Of course, Milo was more than thankful Professor Aidan took the infant. The generous professor even gave him a scholarship since he lost his job at the hospital. This way he could stay in school.

As matrixes revolved overhead, thoughts swirled through Milo's head. His brain tried to synthesize the events of the past days. Who was that baby? Why did the doctor want him dead? And why was the mother executed?

Professor Aidan told him the infant was powerful, but Dr. Chocka said he carried a terrible disease. What was dark energy and what would it do to him? What would Cale's childhood be like? What would the disease do to everyone around him? Had he infected Professor Aidan and his class? Had he infected all of Atraville College? And then, he heard other students calling Professor Aidan the demon of dark energy. Was that because of the infant?

Milo imagined the disease spreading. He pictured Professor Aidan bubbling with terrible sores, his body expanding like a giant monster, passing it along to all his students, the disease spreading out from Newton Hall, turning everybody in Atraville into bloated beasts, all because of-

"Milo?" Professor Hanna said.

"Yeah?"

"What is the derivative resultant of Alpha and Theta in this sequence?"

Milo looked up at the Greek symbols overhead and then down at his sheet. He had no idea.

"I want you to have the answer by tomorrow."

Milo was thankful to attend Atraville College in person with real professors. Almost everybody in the world learned from robots or attended holo classes. He was especially thankful for the scholarship Professor Aidan gave him. But at that moment, he didn't want to be there. He didn't want to do any homework. He didn't want to work out the answer for tomorrow.

He fished through his school bag. There it was, a small black cylinder that fit comfortably in the palm of his hand. Last week, after the professor had accepted the infant, while Milo watched, the professor had snapped the cylinder together from five smaller puck-sized blocks. A tiny switch protruded from one of the pucks. The professor switched it on and handed it to him.

Milo felt the energy immediately. It was the same jolt he received when he touched the baby, except stronger. Heat gushed from his chest, overflowing into his arms and legs, and quickening his thinking.

"Do you see the energy?" the professor said.

"See what? Energy? How can I see energy?"

But he did see something, like tongues of fire where a light should be, the active walls, or where the ventilation fans would be.

The professor smiled. "You're seeing the Drommel. I want you to reach out and touch it. Not with your hands, but with your mind."

They practiced over and over again. The professor made Milo come back every day after classes that entire week. The Drommel was a place where Axion couldn't find them, where Axion couldn't see them, where they could do whatever they wanted. That's where Milo wanted to be, not calculus. As soon as Professor Hanna dismissed the class, he wadded up his sheet, jammed it in his bag, and shot out the door.

The hot sun shone down as he raced out of the Rutherford math building. It was a beautiful day. Students congregated outside, studying in groups or lollygagging on the cool mossy central campus. At the same time, a large business lecture concluded at Graham. Graham was the neighboring building to Rutherford, a trapezoidal-shaped structure on his way toward Newton Hall. While Milo rushed to check in on the infant, hundreds poured out of Graham charging in the opposite direction to get to their dorms or off-campus.

Milo slammed into one boy jumping on his board.

"Sorry."

He accidentally tripped a girl.

"Sorry- so sorry."

Another pointed at him, "You did something wrong. You've got the marks."

He tried to go around them, trotting off the walkway onto the green, stepping on some people lying there.

"Get your disease out of my way."

Trying to avoid another, he smacked into another girl. He hit her so hard that they both wound up on the ground. She was amazingly pretty, the athletic type. She sat and stared at him. He wanted to stare back.

"Sorry. Are you okay-"

That's when he spotted them. They were only a few lengths back, jostling through the crowd. "Excuse us," they said with their smiling faces and soothing synth voices. "Pardon us. We sincerely apologize."

Completely normal in appearance, the campus security guards wore trendy blue jeans and green Atraville athletic shirts, gold trim covering their fuel cell chests. Their synthetic skin stretched across their faces and hands. Their mouths turned up in a nice conciliatory smile. Although a variety of weapons hung from their belts, the simple force behind their mechanical arms and legs could crush his bones with ease.

He panicked. He'd been stupid to think he was safe here at college. Axion marked him. They would find him. And if they could find him, they could also find the baby. What if they had already taken him?

He cut across the central campus, sprinting over the spongy green moss. Dodging a girl reading her sheet, Milo smacked into a twosome.

"Ouch."

"Proton."

Milo spotted more of the green and gold coming at him from beyond Newton, synthetic faces with glassy sensors for eyes. Then he caught a glimpse of even more on an adjoining walkway. He could run faster. He needed to run faster. He must make it.

He took five steps at a time up to Newton, terrified of twisting his ankle and falling. The robots pursued right behind him. He heard their feet pounding the pavement. They sounded like an army.

He pushed through one door in a row of glass doors at the top of the steps, sprinted through the wide-open foyer, and raced up the spiral escalator. At the top of the moving steps, he faced a short dark hallway. When he burst through the only doorway, he feared they were right on top of him.

"Professor," he said, trying to yell, but gasping instead.

Before he could even get it out, androids toppled to the floor behind him, right there in the entrance to the room, falling down as if dead. Professor Aidan stood in front of his desk, arms crossed, with a vexed look on his face.

"Milo Skart, I'm not very happy with you today."