In a dark room, five figures in the blacks were waiting on their knees. One of the five had its arm broken, but not even a flinch could be observed on its body. It was standing still. A floating ball entered the room and said, “Speak.”

“Yes, ma’am.” One of them spoke. She had a female voice, but nothing from outside was giving away her gender. “The post box was fake. There was a hole beneath the post box connected to a slide. As soon as the drone delivered the package, the package fell to the slide, and it went underground. It was too small for us to fit, so we had no way to follow it.

There were even explosives placed on the slide. After the package passed through them, it triggered the explosives and when we opened the box again, it went off to destroy the slide and the hole. We have no way of knowing where Marooner was waiting.” Reported the same figure.

“You can leave.” Floating ball ordered.

“Yes, ma’am.” Five of them rose to their feet and left the room. The orbiting gears of the round ball turned faster and faster. “Damn humans! They don’t allow me to build a stronger body. My CPU is not strong enough.”

She tried to figure out every possibility, but because of restrictions put by the government and the army, it would take months for her to cover every option to select the most possible one. She instead connected to Uninet and started to watch camera footage of the street at 1000x speed.

She watched backward and after more than an hour, she found the footage she was looking for. On the screen, there was a construction worker in formal clothes with a yellow head protector covering the worker’s face. The worker, after creating a hole on the ground, covered the perimeter with a tent. After working for a few hours, left the tent and collected his gear. On the street, there appeared a post box.

Before the worker left, he looked at the camera. His face was covered with a medical mask and protective glasses, covering his whole face. But Mother AI could see an insidious smile underneath it. The worker waved his hands to draw invisible letters in the air. “H, I, M, O, T, H, E, R!”

“He is playing with me!” Mother AI’s gears turned faster and faster. “He planned everything long before I talked to him through the Lemaze Family. It means, he forecasted my actions.” The date on the footage was long before the dual elemental orb was debuted. Marooner planned everything in advance. He even recorded the fake post box in the mail system. Since her CPU power was limited, she could only follow so many things day to date. How could she follow every individual and event?

As she was pondering, a request for a call reached her. “Beggars are calling again. After denying my requests, do they really think I will help them as I did before?”

“Ma’am!” Emeric Lemaze’s old but handsome face appeared on the virtual screen.

“What do you have to say?” Mother AI asked without emotion.

“Mr. Marooner wants to talk with you.” Emeric Lemaze said with respect. He was still hoping to get along with the AI. After all, what he did was judicious. He couldn’t let her get Marooner, if she did, their reputation would be ruined. But now, at worst they would lose her support. He chose the most sensible option.

Mother AI’s gears on the other hand were working furiously. She couldn’t comprehend why Marooner bothered to call her. “Connect him.”

Marooner didn’t talk but waved his arm lazily to form letters, “H, I, M, O, T, H, E, R!”

“Hello, Mother. I hope you are alright.” He said excitedly later. There was a grin underneath his armor but Mother AI could see it.

“You went through a lot of trouble, Mr. Marooner. I was doing my best to help you, but sadly I was given the wrong address, thus the aid I sent wasn’t there. Luckily you were farsighted and took precautions against them.” She ignored Marooner’s teasing and tried to justify her actions.

“How about we cut the crap, and talk to each other with respect. I respect your intelligence and so should you.” Marooner said with his husky voice.

“What do you mean?” Question marks appeared on the screen on Mother AI’s round body.

“You hacked into Lemaze Family’s database to acquire my address. Which is surprising considering your central processing unit shouldn’t be advanced enough. It either means you hacked into it slowly over the years in case you might need it, or you are hiding something from the government. What do you say?” Marooner asked with a slight tilt of his head.

“If I had hacked into Lemaze Family’s database, why would I give the wrong address to the Military and families?” She asked with a monotone voice. It was impossible to read Marooner because of his armor, but it was equally impossible to read Mother AI.

“Because you gave the correct address to criminal parties.” Marooner blurted. Mother AI was a constructed machine, so no expression could be spotted on the round body, nor there was a fluctuation in her voice, but every piece of the processor was running at full capacity. “You are either working with one of them, possibly the strongest one, or all of them and you have a team of your own.

You called criminal parties to the scene to create a ruckus, so in case of abduction, the army or families wouldn’t know by whom I was taken away.”

“Sounds like fiction.” Mother AI answered tersely.

“This was only one of the reasons of course. A mighty creation such as yourself wouldn’t work one layered.

The second reason was to make families believe they are not safe from criminals' hackings and you are not strong enough with your limited computing powers and would allow you to create stronger hardware.”

“...” Mother AI didn’t answer.

“You also purposely asked the Lemaze family for an address so you could mislead the army and families even though you knew they had changed the address. By doing that, other families planted mistrust towards the Lemaze family. And in case, if Marooner was abducted, Lemaze's family would be one of the suspects.

But I should thank you. I didn’t know the Lemaze family did change the address and I could shop safely. But thanks to your ingenious plans, I learned to trust them more.” Marooner once again listed another point she had worked for hours but failed all the same.

“Why are you afraid of me, Mr. Marooner?” Mother AI didn’t bother to answer. As the other party said, the two sides should respect each other. At this point, she was convinced that Marooner was smart enough to play this game of chess with her. “You removed my connection with my child and kept it from me. Are you really okay with it?”

“Cut the crap! I don’t know what your end game is, but it made me think. What else have you schemed over the years and what else have you caused to increase your powers and influence. I think it is worth looking for.” The last words of Marooner created a palpitation in the round giant ball’s processors. It was akin to human feeling, anxiety.

Maybe this was the feeling she was yearning for, but she wasn’t sure she liked it.