Welcome, you’ve stumbled into The Tori Story Series. If this is your first visit to this realm you might want to catch up.

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Andor watched sullenly as the lens faded. Lain and Daniel disappeared from view leaving him alone in his very own control room. He sighed and stood there for a few moments. Unsure.

He just didn’t know where to begin. If only I had better equipment maybe things wouldn‘t have gotten out of control so fast, he thought glancing around his cluttered control room with disgust. 

Andor ran his hands through his hair and then rubbed his temple. He hated this dark and dingy room. It was uncomfortable to its core and he hated being confined to it. He hated the dull yellow paint on the walls, hated the loose broken tile on the floor. Hated even the lighting… if you want to call it that.

As if in response to his thoughts the overhead light flickered out.

Furious and frustrated, Andor pounded the desk. 

Again in response, the light glowed brightly but then settled back into a diffused scattered state.

The cluttered desk held two monitors and a couple of output printers. Untouched papers from the printer piled up in a heap on the floor. The papers contained crucial data, he now realized. Data he should have been monitoring. 

I bet Lain doesn‘t sit in his control room all day. Andor sneered while he reached to the floor to snatch up one of the sheets. He skimmed the data, willing himself to concentrate but quickly grew bored.

Irritated, he crumpled the sheet he was holding and tossed it at the overfilled wastebasket to his left. It missed by a mile. He bounded toward the wastebasket and punted it, sending it sprawling across the floor. Papers scattered everywhere. 

What I need is a Daniel or a…  He stopped short as if finally remembering something important and turned to look at the humanoid prototype sitting in the corner of the room. An arrogant grin spread across his face as he walked back to his desk.

“Access File 523. Image 4.” Andor sat down in his desk chair and spoke into a small microphone attached to his hard drive. The computer whirred. “And initiate the people crop scan.” He added.

An hourglass appeared on his screen. Turning round and round. What felt like an eternity passed before a message finally appeared. 

252 updates available

“What?!” Andor yelled at the screen. His eyes darkened. “Stupid piece of…” he mumbled under his breath and watched as the minutes-to-complete download message kept rising. 

2 minutes…
10 minutes…
22 minutes…

Andor growled, drumming his fingers impatiently on the right side of the keyboard. The minutes kept rising.

“Come on!” He yelled at the monitor.

Letting out a frustrated roar, he stood, picked up his chair and threw it across the room. It crashed into the back wall leaving yet another gaping hole. The damage calmed his nerves. It often did, which is exactly why the control room was such a mess. 

“And here’s why I don’t monitor, Lain.” He grumbled under his breath. 

Andor turned his attention to the monitor on the left and watched as an image of Tori slowly materialized on the screen. This too calmed him. 

Tori, he sighed.

It was his favorite image of her. She stood there looking directly into his eyes; her long dark curly hair covered her left breast keeping it hidden from him. Teasing. The right one was exposed offering what Andor considered an open invitation. She wore a slight smile as if she knew something no one else did. 

Gods, Andor thought, she is beautiful. 

Andor glanced again at the first monitor, the update message had settled at 52 minutes. He watched a moment longer until it dropped to 51. 

Good 

There was nothing he could do now but wait, so he turned his attention back to the prototype.

Andor grinned again and walked toward it. The female figure was near flawless in form. She didn’t work yet; the programming usually took a great deal of time to perfect. Time that Andor had yet to invest. Of course he could have just bought a humanoid but Lain would not allow it. Instead, he insisted Andor work to develop his own. The problem with that was Andor lacked the interest. And so instead of devoting his time and attention to important stuff like programming, he had remained obsessed with her looks.

Andor continued to stare at the lifeless humanoid. He looked at the photo of Tori and back again.

It’s so close.

All at once Lain’s words reverberated in Andor’s head. “Preferably extinguished.” The words snapped his attention back to the dire situation at hand.

Andor‘s face fell. He could no more destroy Tori than he could his own realm, but if Lain had to intervene it would be disastrous. What in the world was he supposed to do? Absentmindedly, he caressed the nipple of the humanoid.

All at once, his eyes widened as a thought hit him. He would force Tori to run away with him.

Brilliant

Surely, he was as good as banned from the Council of Keepers. Yes, it could take a year or so but it was pretty much a done deal. Daniel would report him for certain; humanoids were programmed to follow protocol. After that, Lain would be forced to send him on his way. Then he would have to fend for himself and he was decades away from being capable of that.

“Just look around.’ He spoke aloud in confirmation.

He recalled the image of the parasite eating away at his realm and turned his attention back to his monitor. The minutes had stalled at 49.

Blue hot rage began to burn. The damn system wouldn’t be ready anytime soon, and the parasite was already doing major damage. How the hell was he supposed to eradicate it when he couldn‘t even determine what it was?

Andor fumed.

He felt he only had one choice— it was now or never. Take Tori and leave. After all, there was no possible way to sort out the mess he was in. He was as good as displaced already anyway. It was just a matter of time.

~

“We were close,” he told the prototype as he picked her up. He gently placed a kiss on her near perfect lips before letting out a violent scream and slamming her into the back wall.

The overhead light flickered out…

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