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When I Get Home

by: Michelle Thomden

	I awoke that fateful morning to a red alert. As I went to check and see 
what was wrong, I discovered that my door was locked. I pounded on the door and 
shouted for the others to let me out.
	"Don't worry, Michelle," was their response.
	"What's happening?" I yelled through the door.
	"It's a surprise!" yelled Mike from the other side of the door.
	"What's happening?" I repeated.
	"Just something to show how much I care for you," Mike said.
	When the countdown reached zero, I felt a shuddering beneath my feet. As I 
looked out of the window that usually showed me the Earth, I only saw empty 
space. Not really an unusual occurrence. The window sometimes did show nothing 
from time to time. Then, the unusual part happened. I saw the Satellite of Love 
through my window. As I watched, the whole ship imploded.
	I wasn't exactly sure how or why, but I knew that it couldn't have been 
from my room exiting the hull. The shield would have compensated and it wouldn't 
have happened. As I was wondering, the com system of the room started to 
function. It showed a picture of everyone standing on the bridge.
	"Well, Michelle, this is it," Mike said in the recording. "The ship's 
inner systems are malfunctioning. We'll never be able to make it. But you have 
an actual life to get back to on Earth. That's why we're going to save you by 
sending you and your stuff down to Earth. It has been nice working with you."
	"But, why?" I asked the recording, knowing fully that I wouldn't receive 
an answer.
	"Because we care the most about you," Mike said, as if he anticipated the 
question. Of course, that was just absurd. "I knew when I took the job that it 
would only be a temporary position. All I can say is that it has meant so much 
to us all having you on with us. Especially me. Thank you so much. You helped me 
to go on. I love you..." In the background, I could hear a musical intro.
	"Can it, Nelson!" Crow exclaimed. "We only have so much time. Now, 
Michelle, I'll try not to be a hentai in my next life. That's about all that I 
can offer. I have enjoyed all the good times, and it's been a blast! Enjoy 
yourself on Earth! I wouldn't know. I've been here all of my life."
	"Well, Michelle, I think that I speak for all of us when I say that I'm 
happy for you," Tom said. I could feel a tear roll down my cheek. "Don't forget, 
we'll always have the theatre!" With that, the message ended.
	"Computer, save and store in my personal folder," I commanded. The 
electronic tone signaled the compliance of the computer system, which was, 
amazingly enough, still intact. I sat down and began to cry. I couldn't believe 
it. They all sacrificed their lives for my own. "How much longer until I reach 
Earth?" I asked the Computer between sniffles.
	"Ten minutes," the electronic voice returns. A voice completely devoid of 
emotion, lifeless. Nothing like Mike's or Tom's or Crow's or Gypsy's, or even 
Magic Voice's.
	I would never forget my stay. I then realized that my stay on the 
Satellite had been the best time of my life, even though I had been tortured by 
constant pain in the form of stories. I thought of how much I would miss my best 
friends in the world, no matter how short my stay had been. They had gone 
through the same torture as I had, and ad been there to help me, to be helped by 
me, and to be good friends in general.
	Then, I thought about Mike. I had wasted my whole stay, not telling him 
how I really felt. I didn't even have the sense to tell him on my way out. Of 
course, I didn't know that I was going until it was too late. I should have told 
him then and there, when he said that he was showing his affection. No, I had to 
be ignorantly led. For the first time in my stay, I had been led blindly to my 
fate. I had lost my chance. Now, he would never be able to know my feelings for 
him. All I had was a lousy recording.
	If I could just say something to someone, talk to anyone on my way down. I 
didn't even have any stuffed animals to talk to for comfort. I for once, felt 
alone and afraid. As I thought this last part, I screamed out in fear.
	"Three minutes," the computer said after I finished letting my aggression 
and fear out. "It might be a good idea to strap yourself in. Turbulence will 
occur."
	As much as I didn't really care, I strapped myself in and prepared for the 
worst.
	Three minutes later, I reached the ground. I wasn't sure where I was, 
because I hadn't been able to look out the window to see where the pod was 
heading. I asked the computer, and it promptly returned that I was in the middle 
of the Atlantic Ocean. I was surprised that my pod was in such a good shape 
after the landing that it had just taken. I immediately sent out a distress
signal with the equipment on the pod. While I was waiting, I tidied the pod up. 
I intended to keep it for a long time. I didn't care what anyone said, or did. 
This was my world, and had been for the past couple of months. It would stay 
that way.
	As I waited, I began to get bored. I became so bored that I had to open 
the computer files up and begin to clean them up. I trashed anything that I 
didn't think that I'd need. As I cleaned, I came across some of the transcripts 
of some of our earlier fics. I threw out all of the ones that didn't contain any 
mention of myself. I also came across a log of inventions that Mike had come up 
with. I didn't remember them, but they were on the database, so they had been 
done.
	Then, I began to look through the personal profiles of everyone on board 
of the Satellite. As I looked over Mike's profile, I found myself getting teary-
eyed. I decided to go past it and to the others'.
	Since they were robots, I found their blueprints, including a list of 
programming that would enable me to program their entire memories into them, 
including their moments of death. Crow, Tom, Gypsy, and Cambot were all there. I 
decided that I would make enough of a splash in the media community, and would 
just write a book about the whole ordeal. That would set me for money. 
Therefore, I would have plenty of time to work on the rebuilt models of the 
bots. Sadly, there wasn't anything about programming memories into a robot that 
would be able to double as Mike.
	To do this, I would need to learn computer programming all over again. I had taken a course in high school about it, but I didn't remember a thing from 
it. Not a problem. I'm a quantum physicist, right? I should be able to make 
enough money and have enough free time that I could do this within a year! Next, 
I looked through my personal belongings to see what I would and wouldn't need. I 
decided after lengthy consideration that I would need all of it. At about that 
time, the rescue choppers came to get me.

	It has been a year now, and I was wrong. After the choppers came to get 
me, I was transported, along with my pod, back to my childhood home. My parents 
still lived there. There was a teary reunion, at which time, My parents asked 
where I had been. I told them, that I had been in a dream that was over. A 
rather cliche answer, they said, but sufficient. I got back to my employer to 
find that my job had been taken over by my former boyfriend (the one that I had 
had before I was taken). They didn't even need me on the team. Although, the 
profits from the book and interviews have kept myself and my family fed for the longest time. I've decided that after I've finished rebuilding my past, I'll 
take the sadness and loneliness out on Forrester. I will take my friends and go 
searching for him and his flunkies.
	Right now, all I have towards my goal is a couple of switchboards and 
micro-chips, but I'm getting more all the time. The casing is on order as I 
speak. The first one that I'll rebuild will be Tom, then Gypsy, then Crow, and 
finally, Cambot. I don't want the Mads, who will receive a signal from Cambot, 
to know that I'm coming for them until I'm knocking on their front door.
	My room has been kept clean by me, myself, and I. I'm the only one who I 
allow in my own room. There will be no man in my life for a long time. I won't 
have any time for romance until I've taken out the evil ones so that they can't 
injure anyone. I'm surprised that they haven't already used something to try to 
take over the world already. Every night, I watch the final message again, 
listen to it over the intercom while I'm working on the bots. I have it 
memorized by now, and can even do perfect imitations of the voices at the 
precise moment of recital. I sometimes find myself saying it in my sleep. Don't 
ask me how, I just know that I've been saying it when I wake up.
	I dream about Mike every time that I go to sleep, and I wake up sometimes 
crying, sometimes cursing my own sloth for preventing me from saying what needed 
to be said. My parents are starting to get worried about me, thinking that I've 
gone mad or that I'm on some sort of drug. I only wish that it was that easy.

	Another year passes, and I've finished Tom and part of Gypsy. Tom is a big 
help with the whole process, and understands completely. Everyone loves me again 
now that I've finished my first project. Just before Tom was activated, the 
money had almost stopped completely. People had lost interest, or had just 
stopped believing that it had ever happened. Now, the money has begun again. We 
need it, too. Mom has gone into the hospital for surgery, and our insurance just 
ran out. We're getting gifts from sympathizers all across the country.
	One day as I was watching the news, I saw a report that one Dr. Clayton 
Debra Susan Forrester, and one Television's Frank had been killed in a 
mysterious carjacking. There were no points of evidence, except for the letters, 
"MJ" inscribed in blood on the concrete nearby. I couldn't believe it. My 
crusade to kill them had been ended just like that. Now, all I had to do was 
finish constructing the bots, and I would be ready to lead a normal life. Or so 
I thought.
	One thing was nagging at me. I needed to know who it was who had done my 
job for me. I couldn't worry about it at that moment, though. I had to finish my 
first thing first. That is the way it is, is it not?

	A year later, I've finished with the bot building. Tom, Crow, Gypsy, and 
Cambot are finished. We then embark on the mission to discover who it was that 
had killed our adversary. A couple of months earlier, I had seen a report on the 
news that had said that a branch of Gizmonics Institute had been destroyed. 
Coincidentally, it had been the same branch that had housed (or covered) Deep 
13. I used logic to figure out that if I knew how this person was working, the 
mads, then the lab, then I knew that they'd be going for the center of it all, 
Gizmonics Headquarters.
We got free transportation to the Gizmonics Headquarters, because I had 
had an invitation lying in the back with some of my other stuff to go to the 
Headquarters for a formal apology from the president of Gizmonics. I decided 
that I wouldn't need it any, so I stored it away. Apparently, I was wrong.
When we get there, the bots station themselves around the compound so that 
they can cover the widest area possible. I'm the first one to see the culprit. 
Actually, it was plural culprits. I couldn't believe that we were right! The 
waiting and working had paid off. I call for the bots to come to me. That make 
the culprits run, of course. I chase after him, calling for them to stop. As my 
voice reaches them, one slows down and brings the second one down to his own 
speed. I catch up to them, and get good look at them.
I can't see their faces, because they are completely clad in black.
"Who are you?" I ask cautiously. The first man takes off his mask slowly. 
When I see his face, I almost faint. When Mike sees me, he has the same reaction 
to me, though stronger. He actually does faint. I rush to his side, crying the 
whole time. I can't believe my own eyes. As I glance back at the bots, who have 
finally arrived, I can tell that they're hiding something.
The second man joins me and takes off his mask. I don't recognize him, 
though.
"Damn him and his over-emotional self," says the man. The bots apparently 
recognize him, though because they are all piling on top of him, trying to talk 
at once.
"Joel! It's you!" Tom exclaims.
"We missed you, Joel!" Gypsy exclaims.

"Hi, Joel!" Crow exclaims. I make an educated guess that this guy's name
is Joel.
"Hi, guys!" Joel says back to them. "What's up? How did you get down here 
in one piece? I thought that the Satellite had blown up!" I was trying to figure 
out how he knew about the Satellite. Then, I thought to myself, "He was with 
Mike, stupid. He probably found out from Mike."
"Excuse me, sir, but is there something that you can do for Mike?" I ask.
"Yeah, sure," Joel says. He goes searching through a small satchel that is 
hanging by his side and comes up with some smelling salts. He opens them up and 
puts them under Mike's nose. Within a moment, Mike is awake again.
"Mike! Wha...? How...?" I am at a loss for words. I can't believe that he 
is actually alive. How had he survived? Where had he been for such a long time? 
Why hadn't he contacted me? Did he even know that I had survived?
"I'll go first," Mike says. "I awoke on the day that the Satellite had 
exploded to find that I was floating in my room towards Earth. I landed in the 
Australian outback, where I was found and helped by Joel here. After that, we 
went and decided that the Mads needed to pay. We found them and killed them, 
then..."
"You destroyed Deep 13. I know," I finish for him. "Then, the only logical 
place to go to make sure that this didn't happen again was to the source of it 
all. I figured that I'd follow you. And thank you for doing what I was going to 
do for myself."
"So, what's been happening to you?" Mike asks.
I explain to him the whole story, starting with the morning that ruined 
most of the days afterwards. I end up with coming to the headquarters building.
"That's interesting," Mike says. "I've been wanting to ask you something 
for the past couple of years. Did you mean what you said in that final message?"
"You know, I've been wanting to ask you the exact same thing," I say. 
"What did I say in the message?"
"That you loved me with every bit of your mind," Mike says. "What did I 
say?"
"The same thing in not so many words," I reply cautiously.
"Well, did you mean it?" he asks back anxiously.
"Two things, I didn't say it, but yes I do."
"Well, even though I didn't say it, I meant it as well."
"Good," I say. "Now that that's settled, let's get to the bottom of all 
this. The bots seem to know something that they're not saying." I looked back at 
the bots, hopefully with the stern look that I try to effect whenever I mean 
what I'm saying. "Now, what's going on?" I ask in an intimidating (or at least, 
I think so) voice.
"Well, we knew that you guys wanted to get off the ship," Tom says, "And 
we found this one particular operation in the ship's control banks about what we
could do when the ship was about to be destroyed. We decided that we would put 
into action by setting the auto-self-destruct sequence to go. Then, we sent the 
fake messages to each of you and sent you in opposite directions. We also were 
hoping that one of you at least would find the plans for us and re-construct us. 
We never knew that you would take it this far. We didn't want to make you into 
murderers or cut-throats. Well, at least the mads aren't a problem anymore. 
We're completely safe."
"Okay, so you've achieved your mission," Joel says. "Now, what do we do?"
"I say that we go somewhere and do nothing but watch good movies for a 
while," I say. "You know, a little vacation from ourselves."
"I'm all for that," Mike says with a smile. He leads the way as we head 
off into the sunset. A cliche ending, but a happy one.

The End

Now, I'm going to file this away into my personal files and no one will 
ever see it except for a choice few. I just wish... that I could... GET THE HELL 
DOWN FROM HERE! If I portayed Joel incorrectly, I appologize. It's not like I've 
ever met him to know exactly what he's like. I just heard about him from the 
bots once. As for my portrayal of Mike and my feelings towards him, I will make 
no comment to that at this moment.

Filed under: Michelle's personal stuff
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