We met at a Bar - A Lucas and Strade story

Wrong size, motherfucker. - Chapter 4

"Hey...Atlas... wake up." Lucas whispered to the laptop next to him, awaiting for the screen to turn blue with the accompanying simple smiling face that had become synonymous with Atlas for Lucas. It had been a couple days since Lucas's last encounter with Strade. At this point, he was wondering if the brunette had forgotten about him. Food and water wasn't too much of a problem, as he met Ren Hana, a fox boy who was living with Strade for a while not. Lucas was very concerned when he first met Ren, he was shivering, shy and covered in cuts and bruises. Some of which looked very fresh. Lucas was able to become friends with Ren relatively easily and as such, The fox boy agreed to give him food when he needed it.

After a few seconds, the screen of the beaten laptop turned a bright sky blue, indicating that Atlas was there. The flash was so bright that Lucas squeezed his eyes shut for a second as to not hurt his eyes and cause a temporary blindness. Finally, the boy opened his left eye, revealing the smiling face of the AI named Atlas. The simple colon and parenthesizes smiley face brought comfort to Lucas. Ren Hana and Atlas were very comforting to Lucas. They gave him hope that he would one day escape. True, the extent to their helpfulness was limited, as Strade could easily overpower them if they attempted to let him escape, as shown by the shock collar and many scars shown on Ren. And as for Atlas, he was just a computer. Not much he can do against a fully grown adult man.

"Hm? Why hello Lucas. Feeling okay?" Atlas asked, his polite and quiet voice whispered back, causing a small smile to form on the boy's face. It was the dead of night so they had to be sure to keep quiet as to not wake up Strade for who knows what would happen if that ogre didn't get his beauty sleep.

"I'm feeling normal, well, as normal as I can down here." Atlas and Lucas giggled at the small joke like preteens girls at a sleepover in which they only talk about..I don't know, nsync? The...The backstreet boys? I don't know, I only have sleepovers with my 10 year old cousin so I kinda know what goes on but still we mostly talk about Britney Spears because she's queen and all the other popstars are trash. Except pink, I love her. Her name is literally my favorite color.

"Oh, well, in that case did you wake me up because you wanted to talk?" Atlas asked.

"Yeah, Ren's upstairs looking for food right now. Later we're gonna play skeletons in the closet, truth or dare and prank call peop- Yeah the last one may not actually happen. We can still pretend though. Do ya wanna join us?" Lucas enthusiastically asked the robot.

Atlas didn't respond for a few seconds. Those seconds turned into minutes. Soon enough, ten minutes had passed. Lucas stared at the screen that once held Atlas's smiling face, now it was a black screen and as such, Lucas thought Atlas had just turned off the computer. Until suddenly, the screen turned to a crude looking chatroom of sorts. The sudden change startled the boy, but he was able to compose himself.

He recalled the first time he met Atlas, the laptop had said something of a special chatroom in which he could contact either Strade or Atlas's creator. Now he knew it couldn't have been Strade, as he was asleep, so the only other person who it could be would be..

"The creator!" Lucas exclaimed before quickly scolding himself on not to make too much noise as he could wake up Strade.

Getting as close as possible to the screen, he made out the message someone had sent to him.

"Lucas, you're a smart boy and by now I'm sure you've deduced the fact that I'm the creator of Atlas and the friend of  Strade who made you this laptop. Anywho, As Atlas stated on the first day of you being here, I am here to help save you from Strade. I'm aware of how insane he is and I believe it would be best for you and I if I helped you get out of this mess. I see that you can't exactly type anything as a response, but I know that the Fox Demon who brings you food, Ren Hana, he can type out something. Next time you see him have him write down your response."