Pat smiled at his dramatic response and was soon fully belly laughing. After about twenty seconds of that, she settled down and wiped a tear from her eye.

“Yep, Ted the tornado some folks used to call him.”

“Why?”

“Cuz if you ever bad mouthed him he was the dirtiest fighter anyone knew!”

She chuckled again and took another drink. That still didn’t answer his question.

“How do you know him?”

“Oh, that. My pa used to live in the outer reaches, a little town called Green Eden.”

Even though Luke knew very little about his father, he did know where he’d come from. So his dad must have known Pat’s father…

“He’d always come home from the bar and tell us stories of the fistfights Ted would get into with the other local men. M’sister even took quite the liking to him.”

“Your sister…”

“Louissa Tano. She worked at a lab in town here for a while actually, some mad scientist trying to mess with time.”

She said the name like it was supposed to mean something to him, but he didn’t know it at all. Seeing the confusion on his face, Pat clarified.

“Your pop and my sister had quite a bit of unprotected sex, I’ll just say that.”

“W-wait.”

“I’ll also say this, I know you’re a bastard. It doesn’t really matter to me, as you’re still half a Tano, but I do know.”

Luke looked down at his bowl of food, thoughts rushing through his head. Hadn’t his father just shipped him away to get rid of him? No… there had to be an explanation. His dad was a piece of shit, he wouldn’t actually try to help him, would he? Looking back up at Pat, Luke realized he needed a second to process this. Not only that but could the lab that his mother worked at… could it really be...

“I’m gonna go to the bathroom…”

Pat just shrugged and took another sip of her drink. On his way back he was met in the hallway by Z-mo. The bot looked very serious.

“What exactly did she say?”

“She’s my aunt… Her sister worked for a mad scientist looking into time travel. Or something.”

“Your aunt? So very strange… first Mayuri and the robot, now your landlord? Why do they all seem to be connected in the most convoluted of ways?”

Luke sat down at one of the chairs in the hallway and rested a hand on his head.

“I wish I knew…”

“Do you think… Do you think Mister Thickton foresaw even this? Did he set things up so that they would perfectly work out?”

“If what has happened so far can be called perfectly worked out then that man has a twisted sense of humor.”

“Hm hm ha ha. Still, this is too… these people are too intertwined for there not to be some truth in what I say. If this was the only instance of connection to Thickton, I would call it a mere coincidence. But really, your birth mother, whom you never knew, just suddenly drops everything and moves to a place like Green Eden? I can’t see that happening unless she was told to… Mister Thickton could have even set up your very birth.”

“My birth… No, I can’t believe that it’s a product of Thickton seeing the future.”

“Careful boy, Thickton knew the future and the past. You may not be able to comprehend something like someone setting up your birth but… I do believe it possible. Especially for that man.”