Chapter 9

"I.P.M. they're the sheet we've got! Institute of Physics and Mechanics!" said one exited girl to another. She shook with delight.
"Oh yeah? Well we got T.C.I. the Technical Computers Institute." said another girl, her partner walking off looking around. It had been five minutes now since the boy's vanished back through their window. The girls were all running home now to find their best dresses, suits, and other clothing. Some went driving through the streets, the younger ones on the bus, looking for all-night malls and clothing shops. By the end the campus was barren of girls, only a few tents and sleeping-bags remained. The girls took care of the boy's papers like they were even more precious than diamonds, rubies, or gold! Crazier girls broke into stores, and looted them, but the four boys would also be doing some rather unexpected stealing that night. They were about to steal some things so big that nobody had ever done it before.

It was only a few minutes after the screeching of tires and chattering of girls had faded into the night that the two boys were resting comfortably on their beds, Kaleb drinking his rootbeer, Mitsuhiro had already changed in the bathroom, and was laying in his own bed, reading a magazine about the world's greatest pilots ever, and what they did. He found one certain pilot that particularly interested him. He yawned slightly and then finished reading the short article before motioning Kaleb over. Kaleb put down the drink.
"Hey Kaleb, doesn't this look like you, but older?" Mitsuhiro asked, raising the magazine up. The picture was of a blond guy, in his early twenties, probably. It actually looked very much like Kaleb. It was sort of eerie, Kaleb found himself staring back at the picture.
"He's the Head of I.P.M., that creepy company, that one that everyone thinks is finally making peace with the rest of the world. Hnnh. I'll bet that it's just a cover-up!" but there was much more to it. Allot more than either boy would have ever imagined.

"Hey guys! I need you! Now! We've got a really big problem! I mean, really, really big!" Mitsuhiro's old roommate burst in, through their doorway. Sensing the urgency the two leaped up, Mitsuhiro dropping the magazine. Kaleb locked the door on the way out, thinking sensibly, and then they ran down the hallway, up three flights of stairs, and finally entered the engineer's room. He pulled them towards the telescope. They both peered in. As if on cue the two gasped. The engineer nodded fearfully.
"Do you know what that is?" Kaleb nodded slowly, but Mitsuhiro shook his head. The third boy just stood there shaking.
"Well, are you going to tell me?" asked Mitsuhiro. He looked at the engineer for an explanation, but the boy could give none.
"It's I.P.M.! That's a battle-robot!" Mitsuhiro gave a blank look. "They plan on blowing up the entire country except for their own company!" explained Kaleb desperately. The engineer was turning more and more pale by the second. The thing the other two boys hadn't seen when looking through the telescope was the massive beam cannon, or the huge missile launchers on the sides and below the huge space-robot machine.

"We've got to stop the bastards!" cried Mitsuhiro, even he knew it was impossible though. They decided to focus on smaller things for the moment. The engineer explained the pieces that were missing, on their robot. Unfortunately there wasn't enough time before Saturday to find the pieces, or even go to a store. They only had two days, both of which they would be occupied with school and other matters. Then Mitsuhiro had yet another ingenious plan. The school was full of odd devices, the pieces had to be in some of the class-rooms. The first thing that they needed was a projector. They ran through the dead of night silently, as there were no girls there to cheer them on. The four of them, they went and talked to the girl and brought her along since she had missing pieces too, crept through the darkness towards the auditorium in building A. They broke in through a window, Mitsuhiro knew all the ways to get into the school buildings by now, and they went to the slide room. They ripped open the projector, and took out a small device that whirred when the thing was running. The engineers put it in a plastic bag they carried. Then they closed the projector back up, screwing it back on tightly, with electronic screw-drivers and things. They had certainly come prepared if nothing else.

The next thing they had to get was a number counter, so that the device could scan the thing using the projector's piece backwards, and then gathering the information needed, as in the phone-numbers. The engineers knew of a device like this in a special telephone in their engineering class-room. The teacher had specially designed phones like this, they were very expensive. So they went into the teacher's desk after Mitsuhiro picked the lock, and opened a telephone, they took out the number counter, and screwed it closed again. Then they needed a digital displayer, something that would transform the image code of the numbers into the positioning of the buttons on a telephone. There was only one thing, the engineers decided, that could do this job quick enough. A simulator. The only simulators in the Learning Institute were in the piloting classes. Sadly Mitsuhiro showed the engineers the way into the room. He couldn't bear it. The simulator was the one place he felt at home- felt alive. He walked towards the main station of the simulator. The engineers gave him a minute alone with it. He sat there staring at the thing, the thing he had won so many victories on, the one thing that kept him going. He may have been annoying, and jumpy, and excitable, and always energetic, but deep down he really felt alone. Even Kaleb and the girls and the other pilots were no help. He was truly terribly miserable with his life. He walked towards the simulator, and suddenly a vision came to him.

He was inside the very same room. Except it was the middle of the day now, and he was elsewhere in the room which was full of students and a different teacher than his current one. Troops from I.P.M. broke in, they held guns up to the students. The teacher gasped, and was shot, blood came from his wound like orange juice from a squeezed orange. Then the nasty man continued to shoot the students, many were hit, the rest hid in the simulators, or under their desks, one by one they were picked off like flies. Mitsuhiro stood there feeling useless. He couldn't do anything, for it was merely a vision, and he was non-existent in these visions. More troops entered, shooting the students, and behind them came a man wearing a white hat. He wore a golden suit. He had blond hair, and blue eyes, and looked similar to Kaleb. It was the man! The man from the magazine! So they were lying! Mitsuhiro could see the future at certain times, he figured it out a long time ago. He didn't know why, or how, but he knew that it was certainly the future. This must have had some sort of relevance to him, or he wouldn't be seeing it. Then the vision from the future faded into nothingness.
"Mitsuhiro? Are you okay?" it was Kaleb. How long had he been standing there? Kaleb had a hand on Mitsuhiro's shoulder. The boy felt a tear running down his cheek, but he didn't feel sad, he felt nothing but despair, and a longing to leave this terrible place at once. He didn't want to get involved with I.P.M., but somehow knew he would, there was no other way to his destiny. He nodded a yes.