To infinity (And beyond)

Chapter 7

Joseph, May 27th, 2019, Joseph's garage

I haven't  told my mother about axle yet, but I'll tell her eventually.  As I walk into the garage I make sure to close the door quietly, as it's only 6:00 A.M. in the morning. I've been asking axle questions, about the asteroid, about why he's here. He hasn't given me any real information other than that he thinks that the asteroid has lots of power and he knows insults and words from a couple centuries ago. I decided to check the news to see what's happening. Nothing else new about the asteroid. Axle persuades me to, since I'm dressed and mom isn't up, to go check out the asteroid. I put Axle in my shirt pocket and hop on my bicycle.

It takes about 10 minutes to ride to the site.

 I hop off my bike about 25 feet away from the vehicles in front of the caution tape. It must be a shift change for the police because the only cars here are none marked and empty. They look dented and really banged up. I wonder why. 

The asteroid sits in the crater, humming, and glowing. It hasn't given of a pulse recently, actually, I don't think it's given of any pulses since Axle was jump-started. Axle is super jittery and I have to hold him in my pocket to keep him from falling out. As I walk closer the air starts to taste metallic. Axle jumps from my pocket and runs to the asteroid. Electrical currents jump from the asteroid to Axle and the asteroid starts to shake. Actually, I take that back. The asteroid isn't shaking, the ground around it is. I step backward, struggling to keep balance. 

A small square of the asteroid falls back into the rock a couple inches and slides to the right. A minuscule camera comes to the surface and scans Axle's body. After this Axle's body falls to the ground, lifeless. "Axle!", I shout, falling to my knees. He's gone. I can't believe it. I've been so irresponsible. But as the asteroid rumbles, I'm persuaded to believe otherwise. As I attempt to get up, the asteroid starts to hum and what looks like rock starts to fall off or fold inward as metal slowly replaces it. The metal folds, slides, or gets pushed out to form arms, then legs that help the body stand and form into a torso that then has a head fold upwards. The head has lips and a nose, with eyes and eyebrows. 

"Axle?", I ask, afraid.

"Ahhh", he says. "That feels better".

He stands about 8 or 9 feet tall and looks down at me with surprise.

"Why do you look frightened?", he asks. "Uhhh, maybe because you just grew 9 feet and actually have a robot body?"I retort.

Just as I say this I hear sirens in the distance. Helicopters start to fly in and a Swat team suddenly appears out of nowhere, screeches to a halt and has its doors thrown open as 10 or so men rush out. One officer runs towards my slumped body and cuffs me. "I don't know what you did," he grunts. "But your gonna regret it." I look over my shoulder to see if Axle is there, but my vision starts to blur and before I know it he's long gone.