Chapter II, Soldering and Bittersweet Reintroduction.

Chapter II
Soldering and Bittersweet Reintroduction.

Preston Franklin lifts himself from the couch and to his aching feet, unsure of his step in these new boots. The boy peers into one of the two other rooms, the bedroom�"the other is a tiny kitchen. There are two twin-sized beds in this room, which is ample sleeping room for a quad of eight year olds, but barely doable for a good-sized lad like himself. In the corner of this room, there is a desk on which a good-sized computer rests.
He steps apprehensively toward the machine, sitting down in the rolling chair beside it, which releases a small plume of dust into the air. The tower of the computer looks like it has not moved or been activated for a decade, when in reality it probably had been five years. Preston takes the monitor and disconnects it from the tower, aware that he wouldn’t need it, then sits it on the floor at his feet. Then, he delicately lifts the wired monitor and lies it across the desk.
The face of a small clock on the face of the tower stares back at him like a pair of sad eyes, the green digits locked on some winter day of 2144. 
 “Melody?” He asks aloud, staring at this watch face, “Melody, are you there?” 
 Suddenly the pull of his adventure seemed to fade away. Where was she? Where was the one remaining member of his lost family when he needed her? Could she really have died since the last time she had been… used?
“You used to stargaze with me,” Preston says quietly, rapping his knuckles against the metal casing of the computer, “I never cared or appreciated that, but you did.” He secretly hopes that, like in all the movies, if he becomes sentimental enough, the sleeping beauty would wake.
“I used to think you were an adult,” He begins again, “When really you were probably about the same age I am now. Funny how things like that change, isn’t it?” Again, no response. Such things would be have to be taken into one’s own hands.
Preston sighs, patting the tower sympathetically. He brings himself to his knees in front of the kitchen drawers, and begins to dig through a panoply of junk and miscellaneous objects until he finds what he needs. The boy returns with a few old pens, a lighter, a paperclip, some straws, and a coil of sold wire.
With this, he inventively concocts a homemade soldering iron, and takes apart the casing of the tower. He locates all the important fuses on the computer’s motherboard, and each that has been disconnected or rusted, he solders anew.
When finished, the boy wipes his brow and replaces the parts that he removed, and then sets the computer on the desk once more. Then he turns it on. He flops back in the chair, desperate, and closes his eyes.
“M-Melody?” He asks, “Melody, can you wake up?” He waits like this for a moment, but there is no response.
He tries turning the computer off, and then back on, which yields promising results�"an array of lights flickers to life on the face of the computer, and the hum of an internal cooling system meets his ears. However, the AI�"the clock face�"doesn’t budge.
Preston sighs in defeat, throwing himself back on the bed. It occurs to him briefly that spiders are probably in this bed as well, but he forgets about that. The run to the treehouse was essentially meaningless, if Melody wouldn’t wake up; he would have to make the long walk back to his grandparents’ house in the morning. He covers his eyes with his hands, and feels like he’s about to cry out all of his confused frustrations.
However, amidst this horrible mixture of uncertainty and tragedy, a different, more tangible feeling pervades his senses. The feeling of a gust of warm wind washes over him, and then the comfort of a soft blanket drapes over his body. Surprised, Preston opens his eyes and tries to wipe the delirium out of them
On the edge of the other bed, a teenaged girl sits idly. Her hair falls down her face to her shoulders in wavy locks, and two gorgeously refulgent green eyes stare right back at him coolly. She is, as he had guessed, about his age�"perhaps a little younger�"and she is dressed in a pair of blue jeans and a pink t-shirt with a daffodil on it.
“I know who you are,” her voice washes over him as a wave of familiarity, akin to the warmth of the blanket. “You’re the boy whom I was made to serve.”
“M-Melody,” He breathes, “Melody, you’re alive!”
“How long was I out?” She asks, avoiding eye contact.
“That depends, what year is it?”
“…Twenty-one forty… one?”
“Five,” Preston replies quietly, “Five years. It’s 2146, now.”
 “You left me here,” Melody’s eyes meet his, finally, filled with anguish. “You left me here for five years to die. I did die, didn’t I?”
“I b-brought you back,” Preston says apologetically, “Listen, I… I don’t have time to take care of an AI, I just�"“
 “Don’t have time?” Melody asks, hurt, “I don’t need time! I just need somebody to make sure I don’t fall apart!”
“But here I am,” Says Preston coolly in response, “Now I need you, Melody.”
The computerized girl is silent. This is a hologram, projected remotely by the device on the front of the computer. Preston lets out a deep breath, and then meets her tired, dolorous gaze. Melody had been made no more durable or invulnerable than your average computer program; her technology had already become outdated, and the information that she stores is probably remembered very loosely. The boy realizes that he feels inexpressibly bad for his old babysitter, the young woman who had watched over his few playdates during elementary school and watched over the treehouse when it was empty.
“Come with me,” Preston says, in a tone that sounds more pleading than commanding, “There’s been a terrible accident. I don’t know at what scale it’s occurring at, but at the most basic level, my life is in danger. Aren’t you programmed to intervene at that point?”
“I’m programmed to find your parents at that point,” Melody explains stubbornly, “Plus it appears that you’re old enough to take care of yourself.”
 “Irrelevant,” Preston silences her. He has begun to tinker with the computer tower, now, and he has wedged a screwdriver under the face of the small clock. “My parents… I don’t think they made it, Melody. That means that you belong…” A sharp crack makes the boy jump a little, and he holds his hand up triumphantly. “…To me.”
The Artificial Intelligence watches in awe and slight distress as the boy removes the face from his wristwatch. Not only does he place the batteries in the malfunctioning clock, but he laces the watchband through the unused loops in the face of the computer’s clock. Delicately, he straps it to his wrist.
“You belong to me,” He repeats flatly, looking down at his new timepiece. Then, as if a different person, he looks back up at the girl across from him with a bit of humanity; “You’re mine,” He says more personably.
He stands up, slowly, walking to the kitchen. A hidden switch hides in the wall, and when he presses it, a small trapdoor open up to the roof, and a ladder falls down. He tells her to follow.
“So that’s what it’s going to be like?” She asks, disenchanted, “I’m like a dog, now?”
“Just come on,” Preston says in frustration as he ascends the rungs and sticking his head out into the open outdoors.. This gives him another breath of early fall, and the air of wild warmth falls over him and calms him. Melody follows closely behind, and the two find themselves on the roof of the treehouse. An area of open sky presents itself to them, the absence of urban light gives them a theatrical display of the stars of the Tennessee night.

Author's Note

Ignore formatting, report grammar. Just assume this is so for future chapters- and as always, give me any feedback you have!