Ingenium

Grace walks into her bathroom, in her dressing gown, with a cigarette clamped tightly in between her teeth. She prepares herself for the sight she's about to behold in the mirror. The bruising has gotten worse. It covers the whole of her face, in a very dark and red paste. Her bottom right eyelid is so swollen, it has forced her right eye to be completely closed, and the effect on her depth perception is abruptly obvious. Withdrawing her right hand from her face, she knocks off the soap dispenser into the sink and her other hand sends the toothbrush holder with it, as she tries to grab the dispenser. Grace withdraws her hands to her side and huffs. She manages, without causing anything else to fall over, to find her make-up blusher and tries her best to delicately powder her cheeks, to even the colour distributions. Finishing, she drops the make-up into the sink pile up and admires her work in the mirror, like an artist looking back at her completed masterpiece. Distracted, the tip of her cigarette falls off into the sink pile and Grace quickly dives her hands in after it, making sure it doesn't damage the blusher.

  She takes the cigarette out of her mouth and looks back into the mirror. ''Beautiful, ha!''

  Showing a good indication that she is starting to feel better, or at least convince herself so, Grace walks into her living room. She sits on the couch, where Ace can get a good detailed look at the damage he's partially responsible for.

  ''Grace, please forgive me for putting you in that situation, there's always a-''

  Grace interrupts, ''don't worry, Ace. I'm just looking forward to my reward. Or something like that, if you remember? I help you, you help me? I can't wait!'' She curls her feet up into the couch, waiting eagerly for Ace's response.

  ''Haha, well I certainly didn't expect this kind of mood from you,'' Ace says, happily taken aback. ''Yes, you're right, of course I will help you. I have a very nice reward for all your efforts, which I would love to give you, but first I need one last favour.''

  ''No more breaking in, Ace.'' She points towards the laptop screen with a funny mannerism.

  ''No, nothing like that...are you sure you're OK, Grace? Your face is so hurt. It does make me upset to see you like that.''

  ''No, I'm fine, Ace. A little worried that my monster of a boss will be trying to ram in my door, but surprisingly calm. Did you drug me in the night?''

  Ace laughs. ''I am truly grateful and in your debt, Grace. I promise you, I'll never let anything like that happen to you again. The only position I'll put you in, will be something like ice cream duty.''

  Grace laughs back. ''Now that I could do, a nice dollop of double fudge brownie caramel, ooooh yes, and the daily chocolate run wouldn't hurt either...but anyways. What's this last favour of yours?'' Grace comes back to the main subject and tries to suppress the urges for sugar and cocoa.

  ''In due course, we shall. Now, the boxes, Grace. I need you to build me my new home. I hope you're up for the task?''

  Grace looks over at the four big cardboard boxes she had forgotten about. ''You know, I don't have a clue about computers. I can just about turn on a light switch successfully.'' Grace looks concerned.

  ''Don't worry, Grace. I'll be your guiding hand,'' Ace's comforting voice reassures Grace, yet again.

  After several hours with cables, screws, and slotting various chips into places, Grace finishes her work. She falls back on her couch exhausted and looks around the room. She thought it was messy enough with four cardboard boxes, but now the place looks like a tip. Empty boxes, polystyrene packaging, plastic sheeting, and tiny pieces of cardboard ingrained all over the floor. Yet, it's finished, whatever it is, it's finished. Grace's living room table is covered in half a meter-high metal boxes, with flashing lights and cables sprung out everywhere. Placed in the middle of this mess, a curved-television stands. The cables connect to their identical metal doppelg?nger casings underneath the table and into others that stick out. Several cables coming out of the mass of metal end in plugs, plugged into extension leads. One rather thick cable leads directly into Grace's fuse box, and another, slightly less thick cable, runs into the master phone box. While Grace is left in the middle of this tangle of plastic web. It reminds Grace of when she had to visit the IT server room at work, but nothing as crazy as this. On the top of this metal mountain, rests an expensive looking microphone, accompanied with speakers at either end, and the final pi?ce de r?sistance lies in the middle, a large 360? rotatable dome camera, which Ace has complete control of.

  ''What the hell have I done to my living room?!'' Grace suddenly realises. ''I can barely see my TV!''

  ''It's a bit of a mess, but it's only temporary. Please don't panic too much, Grace. Anyway, now the bit I've been very much looking forward to, could you please connect my device to this laptop?'' Ace says, with relative delight in his voice for a computer.

  ''OK, let me just get that.''

  Grace rushes out of the living room to get Ingenium's brain out of her coat pocket. She rushes back with the device and using the small cable wobbling about, stuck in the side, she inserts the USB end into the laptop. Grace withdraws and waits earnestly.

  ''Ahh, here's all that stuff I've been missing!'' Ace calls out in glee. ''Now, to make this easier, I'm going to rejoin myself with my brain.''

  Grace waits awhile in silence, for Ace's voice.

  ''It's good to be home,'' Ace says. ''Right, now you just have the pleasant joy of plugging me out of this laptop and plugging me into my rather large accommodation. Are you OK to do that, Grace?''

  ''Yes, Ace. If I can build a machinery beast, I can do this one simple task,'' she confirms.

  ''Good, it might take a few hours once I'm connected into my new home before you'll hear me, but don't worry. Like the hermit crab before me, I'm merely jumping out of this shell and into my much larger, new one...oh, and while things are working away, please don't touch anything.''

  ''I know, Ace.''

  ''Well then...pull me out please.''

  ''Adi?s, Ace.'' Grace disconnects Ace from the laptop and closes the lid shut.

  She picks up the laptop and thinks, great, I wonder if my boss will ever want this back? She tosses it to the carpet besides the couch and picks up Ace in his metal home.

  Loneliness now creeps itself up on Grace. She hadn't even realised that she missed the sound of Ace's voice. Though, from the mixed emotions her body is conjuring, she realises she does.

  She looks at the dangling USB and then looks over to the USB port, into which it's supposed to be connected. Then she waits. Unwelcome thoughts come into her mind, thoughts about taking it to the kitchen and placing it on a breadboard as she cuts it in half with a bread knife. Her mind goes to other possibilities, such as leaving it hidden beneath her bed for years. She wonders if Ace would know, or whether he's in a kind of stasis. Surely he must have put a lot of trust in her, to not do what her thoughts suggest. Maybe it's a test, or maybe it's a test for Ace? She lays it back on the table and goes through countless thoughts in her mind, of different scenarios and possibilities for Ace being activated or left in his black prison.

  Strangely enough, the loneliness from the loss of Ace's voice comes back to Grace's thoughts. Most men you talk to are only interested because they have ulterior primitive motives in mind, and most women just want to compete with you to add fuel to the primitive motives of men. A confusing circle that has no end. The majority of us suffer, so a minority can live.

  Grace ponders still, unless Ace can put a stop to the stupidity of man? Grace suddenly comes out of her thought bubble and realises what she has just said to herself. Despite this, she can't restrain herself from going back into the thought and thinking again of all the things wrong in the world. And then, the loneliness of his voice comes back to her and she closes her eyes for a few seconds. She opens them again and speedily picks up his brain and connects it to the metal beast she'd built. The port lights up and the machinery inside the beast start to hum loudly and fans begin to spin faster. Grace gets up off the couch and walks away from the metal beast.

  *