Chapter 2.2

“There he is.” Adrian casually said as he walked towards the curb of the sidewalk.

A black Mercedes-AMG CLS63 S pulled up to where Adrian was standing. The passenger window rolled down and seated in the driver's seat was an older man that seemed to be in his late thirties. Medium length black hair that touched the end of his neck, along with some glasses that weren’t too flashy. He turned his head towards Adrian and his black eyes looked full of cheer.

“Well, what are you waiting on, get in.” He told Adrian.

Adrian turned his head towards Emilia and company, giving them a signal to come on over as well. Emilia and Nate walked over, but Bryan seemed a little skeptical. He has never talked to Adrian before today, but from what he has seen so far, he would never have expected his dad to drive a car of this caliber. If anything, he expected his dad to pick them up in a mini van of some sort. He was slightly embarrassed when he compared his parents car to this one.

If Adrian’s folks were this rich, why did Adrian dress the way he did? Hell, why did he even come here of all places? When Bryan thought about it, Adrian could have probably attended one of the better private schools. The only reason Bryan could attend this school wasn’t because of his grades, but because of a scholarship.

“Hey Bryan, you coming or what man?” Adrian asked him.

To be honest Adrian didn’t really want Bryan to come, he would have just rather left him there. But he couldn’t do that, at least not with Emilia around. If he was alone Adrian wouldn’t have a second thought of leaving that guy standing there.

“Yeah… i’m coming.” Bryan responded back.

Hopping into the backseat along with Nate and Emilia, Bryan closed the door. Adrian’s Dad turned around looking at the three. “Buckle up.”

“Ah, how could we forget Mr. Miller.” Emilia smiled as she buckled her seat belt along with Bryan and Nate.

“So, am I dropping you three off at home, or are you going somewhere else?” Adrian’s dad asked them.

“Actually, since you’re in town we were wondering if we could ask you your opinion on some things.” Emilia asked him.

“Sure, we can talk about it on the way back to my house. I have to drop some things off before I get yelled at.” Laughing a little he continued, “Can’t have that now can I?”

The Mercedes got to rolling and the car went somewhat silent. In the back seat Nate was on his phone texting someone and smiling about something. Bryan nudged Emilia a little to get her attention. “Hey.” Bryan spoke softly just barely enough that she could hear him.

“Whats up?”

“I thought… you know that he was...you know…” Bryan slowly spoke.

“Poor?” Emilia finished the sentence for him.

Rubbing his hair he nodded his head. “Yeah, from the way he dresses and talks, I assumed that he was. But I guess I was wrong huh?”

Emilia nodded. “You couldn’t be more wrong, this guy is actually loaded. You should already know that my mom works for Striker Company, which deals in electronics.”

“Yeah, and she makes a shit ton of money too. You’re telling me that his dad works at the same company?”

“No, his mom does though. She's actually a director there. However his dad is the one who brings home the real money. He is a high end scientist that deals with neurology and other things that I can’t understand. I can tell you that he once worked with asteroids and space programs which is why I decided to ask him about his thoughts on the tenth planet and such.”

Bryan gulped down hard. He couldn’t even begin to imagine the life that Adrian could have if he dressed a little better and fixed his hair. If his parents were making such money, he didn’t know what he would do with it. Probably spend it all on some new sports car or something to show off at school.

Turning his attention to the guy in the front seat Bryan didn’t understand how he wasn’t a stuck up snob. Instead when he saw him in the hallways, he was usually alone or with one or two other people who didn’t seem like they were much better. ‘Why would he not like to be in the spotlight? Does he not know how much attention he would have if he were in it?’ Bryan thought to himself.

“Mr. Miller, about what I asked you earlier, would you care to give us your opinion on something?” Emilia finally asked after five minutes of sitting in the car.

Mr. Miller was so focused on driving that he forgot she even asked for his opinion earlier. “Yes, what did you want to ask me?” He asked her.

“Well, we are doing a project on the tenth planet and we were wondering if you had any thoughts into this? Although everyone thinks that there isn’t a tenth planet, we would like to know an expert's thoughts on this matter.”

Using one hand to rub his rough chin Mr. Miller was silent for a minute or two. “The tenth planet huh. If you asked me I would say that there was one that existed, but that doesn’t mean it still does. To be honest, back when I was working for NESP we looked into the tenth planet but we could hardly find anything about it. We spent at least four years looking for evidence, and what we found amazed us.”

Bryan wasn’t interested in this project before, but knowing that Adrian's father was a scientist he was interested now. All those documentaries that he was shown in school didn’t have anything on hearing a real one speak in person. The way his voice was transmitted was astounding. Bryan was fully focused on every word that Mr. Miller spoke. However Bryan wasn’t the only one interested in this matter. Nate who was on his phone was all ears as well. Sure he may be texting a few of his buddies, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t paying attention to what was going on in the car.

Adrian for one had his head leaning against the window looking like he was ready to take a nap. To him, this subject wasn’t that interesting. He wasn’t like his parents at all. He wasn’t good with his studies and always needed extra help in mostly all of his subjects. He wasn’t that athletic, just barely above average. As for his looks, he was totally normal. Compared to his parents, Adrian didn’t think he had much to look forward to in the future. If worst came to worst, he would join the military.

“Finding out more information about the tenth planet took us back billions of years ago. But how could we easily find information like that? We had to talk to a few different Archaeologists to continue our findings. They all pointed us in the same direction. That direction lead us to Rome, where we were lead to an ancient shrine. Not going to lie to you kids, the shrine was pretty cool. There were different human statues there, but they were huge at least four times as big as we are. The writing on the walls were old and hardly readable due to the aging of the shrine. It took us a year and a half just to find that place. The rest of the time we spent trying to decode some of the language, but we only managed to understand a few words.”

“What, what, what was it!” Emilia exclaimed.

“Everit, Planet Zome.” Mr. Miller said slowly.

“What's that?” Bryan eagerly asked.

Mr. Miller shrugged his shoulders. “No idea, we couldn’t figure it out. However, we figured Planet Zome was the tenth planet and after that we gave up on trying to decode more. It seemed like finding out about the tenth planet just wasn’t meant to be. Or… so we thought!”

Adrian finally spoke. “What does that mean dad? Don’t tell me you guys actually found something?”

Mr. Miller smiled. “Exactly. The reason i’m back so early is because they found something. They asked me to transport it to the lab here.”

“Does that mean it’s in this car!?!” Emila’s eyes grew wide as she asked.

“Yup. Adrian if you could, open that compartment and inside the container is what we found.”

Adrian moved quickly and pulled out a black box. The box look plain, but it had strange writing carved into it. He opened it slowly and inside there was a glowing crystal that shined light blue then switched to purple. It continued flickering back and forth endlessly.

“Wow, cool.” Bryan spoke.

“What's that thing?” Nate finally spoke up.

“That Nathaniel is what we believe to be a piece of Planet Zome. We don’t know what it does or if it even does anything, but that's what we are going to find out.” Mr. Miller spoke.

A vibrating noise was heard, and Mr. Miller slipped his hand into his pocket bringing out his phone. It looked like Adrians A 5, but it was slimmer and longer. Adrian shook his head, his father had the A 7 while he was stuck with the older version. He cursed his mother for not buying him the newer model, but it was nothing that he could do about it. She didn’t want to spoil him, so she only brought him things if he excelled at something. Knowing Adrian, she knew that he wouldn’t excel at anything unless he really put his mind to it.

Mr. Miller put the phone to his ear, but the phone slipped and landed on the floor. He hurriedly reached to grab it before anything could happen. ‘Phew, that was a close one.’ Mr. Miller thought to himself as he looked back up towards to road.

“Dad watch out!” Adrian yelled at his father.

Boom!

A quick little chapter for today. Made this one very quick, so might go back in a change a few things after I get back home later tonight.