“Well, this Soul is no slouch,” Omlion thought. “If only I could give him some time… Can I break out? This thing is too strong, I can’t even move. Look at Arewa – she is hitting it with her hands, biting it, and is not giving up. Why can’t I? Come on, Omlion, you’ve just found new friends, it would be stupid to screw up on the first day. And… And I never made that stupid smoothie…”
Omlion evened out his breath and concentrated, trying to remember everything Ameed taught him. Calm came to his head like a stream of fresh air, his heart began to beat slower, and his entire body seemed to be filled with electricity trying to break out. “Concentrate…” Omlion recalled Ameed’s words; they sounded clearly and distinctly in his head as if he was at another training session. “First, concentrate well before the strike and only then hit.” Having accumulated as much energy as he could hold, Omlion grit his teeth and released it.
The basement of the coffee shop was shaken by the shock wave, and plaster started falling from the walls. There was a roar all around – heaps of random items that had been stored in the basement for long years got scattered around and above. Somewhere in the corner, wooden shelves cracked and crumbled, glass shards rattled iridescently, metal parts started to make a screeching sound. There was a cloud of dust. Bewildered, the robot looked at the place where its arm used to be. Not finding the limb in the right place, it switched on the alarm lights and buzzed, trying to locate the invisible enemy. Red flashes ran around the basement, as if in a crazy laser show, and stopped at a dark silhouette next to the wall. A large white lion stood there, surrounded by fragments of glass and ceramics. Lit by the scarlet alarm lights, it looked truly minacious. The beast roared, bared its flawless fangs, and crouched to the ground, preparing to jump.
If the robot were not a robot, it would have gotten scared. However, there was no such function in its program. Having estimated the changed amount of the surrounding space, it took a defensive position and unclenched its hand holding Arewa. Once free, the girl, without thinking twice, picked up her bolas and rushed to Soul.
The lion’s silhouette, illuminated by the lights, rushed towards the enemy and hit the core of the robot with its paw. The claws pierced the metal plate, leaving four deep grooves on it.
“Oh my god, Soul, did you see that? That’s… That’s impossible!” Arewa shouted as she ran up to the programmer.
The walls of the basement shook from the fight, and the ceiling began to slowly crumble, threatening to bury everyone under the rubble. The lion kept on shredding the robot, which, in turn, leaned on it with all its weight in an attempt to immobilize the angry animal.
“Stop, you’re distracting me!” Soul said, out of breath. “Password guessing is over, I’m getting the root rights. The only step left is to enter the command.”
With trembling fingers, the boy typed into the console:
root: /stop executable process GolemActivation password: LionBoy596.
A message appeared on the screen: “Are you sure у/n?”
Once Soul removed his fingers from the keyboard, the robot’s red eye switched off; it stood still for a second, and then it fell down. Its arms broke into dozens of pieces, burying the white lion.
Soul and Arewa looked at each other, breathing fast, and exclaimed at the same time, “The lion!” “Omlion!”
CHAPTER 2. FRIENDSHIP FOR DUMMIES
Please come in, it doesn’t bite. Usually. With rare exceptions… Although, not that rare. Well, you’d better stay away!
Rasens’s place was fabulous. Arewa’s father knew a lot about elegant interiors and was not overly modest. Unreasonably expensive furnishings seemed to shout at Soul from each corner.
Rasens was shouting at his daughter and the newly minted hacker, angry with their foolish actions. You could understand him: any parent is prone to hysterics once they find their child miraculously saved from mortal danger.
“Dad, but we won! Wasn’t it you who said that there is no success without risk?”
“Are you being serious right now? I was talking about investments, not about fighting a combat golem!”
“But…”
“With no weapons, no plan and, most importantly, without my knowledge! You’re in deep trouble, Arewa van der Hope.”
“We had a plan, actually.” Soul tried to stand up for his friend.
“Who are you anyway, and how do you know my daughter?”
“Well, you know… I met her today.”
Rasens’s face got covered with deep wrinkles, and his gaze became so scary that Soul envied Omlion, who was sleeping peacefully on the sofa in the living room.
The boy remained unconscious since Rasens pulled him out from underneath the rubble. He appeared as if out of nowhere when Omlion got pressed down by some parts of the robot, and Arewa and Soul tried to get him out, unsuccessfully. It should be noted that the very process of his extraction impressed the kids just as much as the white lion. Rasens sorted out the rubble quickly and easily, as if the piles of scrap metal weighed nothing. Arewa was simply amazed by the incredible strength of her father – she had never seen anything like that before.
As Rasens was about to start ranting about responsibility and prudence once again, Arewa began asking questions that had been left hanging in the air for a long while.
“Dad, I’m quite scared now, you know? And… I don’t want to be afraid of you, too. Why did Omlion turn into a lion? And, and… this thing… golem? Or the robot? Some kind of bionics! Where did it come from?”
At this point, Rasens, who looked adamant, seemed to have lost his footing. Instantly turning from a strict mentor into a kind and caring parent, he sat down on the edge of an armchair and looked at sleeping Omlion sadly.
“It’s too early,” he began, looking down. “Ameed and I always knew that sooner or later this would happen. The creature… no, the machine that you encountered, was to train you and Omlion in about eight years, when you are old enough,” Rasens raised his head, and a sickly smile appeared on his face. “I can’t imagine how you defeated it…”
“It was me who hacked it, its software was merely prehistoric.” Soul chuckled.
There was an awkward pause and then, to the surprise of those present, Rasens laughed out loud, stood up from the armchair, and looked at the children with unabashed pride. “You have no idea, my young friend, how prehistoric,” he said. “This machine, the golem, to be precise, was constructed by me and Ameed out of an old research probe. Its task after arriving on Earth was to study organic and inorganic samples. It had to be re-equipped a little, so to speak, its functionality had to be expanded, although it was not meant to fight teenagers.”
“Arriving on Earth? Does this mean it’s from outer space?” A surprised voice came from the sofa.
“Omlion, you’re awake!” Arewa exclaimed and jumped up to her friend to help him get up.
Once the boy sat down, he started coughing violently and spit out a ball of white fur on the carpet.
“Please excuse me,” he said scratching the back of his head, “I don’t remember eating this.”
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