Powered Individuals

Chapter 20 - He's Human?!

I was rudely awoken at about 12 in the afternoon by a persistent knocking on my dorm room door. I groggily yanked open the door and came face to face with Tristan who also seemed incredibly annoyed. His dark hair was considerably messy and there were slight bags under his swirling green eyes.

"Ruby won't help me and I have no idea where Aer is. Please," he yawned. I groaned and followed him out the door and to the boys' hallway. He must have had a really good reason to be waking me up from my long needed rest.

Tristan opened his door and gestured inside. I peeked into the room and saw Esa repeatedly ramming into the window, not breaking it but sure as hell making a lot of noise. He seemed to have no intention of stopping.

Tristan was the only one who didn't have a roommate, so we elected to have him house Esa until we figure out what else to do with him. Merlin still didn't know, and we weren't planning on telling him until we got all the information we could.

I sighed and before I could pull him away, Esa broke through the window with a crash and flipped over the windowsill. I gasped and we both ran forward to see where he had gone. It was a two-story drop, but Esa seemed to be fine. He got up and walked toward the courtyard.

Without another word, Tristan and I bolted to the courtyard as fast as we could. But it was too late. Merlin was standing in the middle of the yard holding Esa and asking who's experiment this was.

"I would like to know now. This better not be a recreation of last April Fool's Day. I did not enjoy explaining to the head of the agency council why there were 'terminators' running around the school," Merlin said, pointedly looking at Sebastian who just shrugged. I decided to take the fall for this because he would most likely confiscate Esa without a second thought if there were no owners.

I stepped forward and raised my hand. "He's mine, sir."

All eyes went to me and I sheepishly walked up and took hold of Esa's arm. Merlin glared daggers and he looked so disappointed in me I might as well have died right then and there.

"Zoe, my office. Now."

——

I stood in Merlin's office alone. As of a few minutes ago, Esa was my problem. It turned out that Esa wasn't completely fine from the fall, so we first took him to the lab for Miles and Sebastian to work on him. That's where the others were at the present moment. I braced myself for expulsion.

"Zoe, this was a very dangerous thing to do. That robot could have had a bug in it that would have done some very large damage to the agency. The organization that made him is incredibly vicious and they will stop at nothing to uncover all of our secrets," Merlin sighed.

I hung my head and listened as he suspended me from working in the city for a week. I tried to reason with him, but he ended up suspending Tristan as well since he was the one who came with me to claim Esa. I thought that was complete bullcrap, but he thought nothing of it.

I looked at my feet and waited for him to dismiss me. I said "sorry" and "it won't happen again sir" in all the right places and Merlin soon enough let me go. I walked out of his office and, as soon as the door was closed, I sprinted to the lab building.

——

"He had a couple broken wires in his head that I repaired, but other than that he just needs a couple new fingers on his robotic side and he should be okay," Miles informed me as I jogged into the lab.

"So he won't try to jump out of windows anymore?" Ruby asked. Tristan must have called her and explained what had happened. Sebastian shook his head.