Forces of Dominion

The Robotic Project

“Gabriel! Are you alright?” Mr. Winston Gray asked the minute he heard his son scream. 

“I’m alright! I’m okay, dad.” Gabriel replied audibly on hearing his dad’s voice echo from all the way down…  Winston Gray wondered why his son has been acting strange for the past three days now, though he seldom spend much time with him because he felt the teenager was matured enough to look after himself. 

“I hope you are, Gabriel! Hey, I am on my way to work already. I made oat for you already and have toasted your bread in the kitchen; you can have breakfast whenever you feel hungry…” Winston kept muttering until he saw Gabriel walking down the stairs to meet him with a bright smile filled with ecstasy. 

“Morning, Dad.” Gabriel greeted. The melody in his voice made his dad smile back at him and wondered why he was that aglow facially. It’s been a long time he saw Gabriel so happy, he quickly asked,

“Morning, Gab. You look happy, is there something you need to be telling me right now?” Winston Gray asked with a suspicious stare at Gabriel who almost proved nervous. 

“No… nah… It’s nothing, Dad. I’m just being positive.” Gabriel kind of stuttered, but Winston soon ignored suspecting there was something Gab isn’t telling him and bowed his head to finish putting on his shoes.

“Okay, um… you can call me if you need anything. Uhm… Gabriel, the lawyer handling the case told me yesterday that the only way we can get back this house is by purchasing it, because we are going to lose the case after the next meeting and there is nothing he could do about it.” Winston Gray muttered weakly as though his voice had sunk into a sea of sadness and his face covered with the mire of shame as he stood on his feet to leave. 

“How much are we talking about, Dad?” Gabriel asked before his dad could take the first two steps away from the spot where he sat to put his shoes on. 

“Ha, son, I don’t think there is any need to tell you. We have lost the case and we are definitely going to leave Hanford. I should have left with your mom when she knew it was all but struggles to retain this house. We have lived on loan ever since and you know it. Now I do not want to loan from the bank again to save myself the trouble of being embarrassed. I was only letting you know so you would be prepared just in case I come home one of the days and announce to you that we are leaving.” 

“You still have not answered my question, Dad. How much does it cost?” Gab asked with an obscure utterance and with a merciful stare, his dad could not bear keeping it from him, he said,

“$20,000; Son, that’s a lot of money we cannot afford because our contender has already deposited more than a half of that amount and has paid off the chief justice I believe. We have no other options, unless there is a miracle, and I don't believe in miracles, Gabriel. Take care of yourself. I'd be back in the evening or by tomorrow morning." Mr. Winston Gray muttered and slammed the door on his way out. 

Gabriel smiled and ran upstairs again to his room with full assurance that everything will be fine because he had just witnessed a miracle enough for him to believe.  

[Phone ringing] 

"Hello." Gabriel answered his fun with a little bit of caution, though he was very much excited. 

"Hello, we are sorry to be calling this early. Do we happen to be speaking with Mr. Gabriel Gray?" A lady on the phone asked. 

"Yes?" Gabriel replied inquisitively, wondering who it is... 

"I am Mrs. Finn, and I am a branch manager of your bank. We noticed a huge deposit in your bank account this morning and would love to know if you authorized this transaction and from whom?" She questioned. 

Without hesitations and no quick premeditation, Gabriel replied as if he knew the right answer before now, saying, 

"Yes, I did authorize the transaction and have asked the sender to keep her identity classified for security reasons. I am sorry but do you or your superiors have any problem with the amount deposited? If you do, I can close the account and move it to some other bank because it is meant to be used to execute a project I and my team have on ground and to pay for necessary expenses. Also, if you want to collaborate with us and leave your job because of a certain amount of money that has been assigned to meet a contract, then you are welcome." Gabriel uttered hastily and was very confident in his speech she believed him immediately... 

"No, Mr. Gray, I have no problem with it. It's just that by standard, you need to have a personal manager inside the bank for easy communication in case there be difficulties in your daily transactions, which brings me to the question, do you have a manager in any other branch outside Hanford?" 

"No, I don't. If that is necessary, then you should take up the task of being one. I hope you will be fine with it?" Gabriel asked politely. 

"Yeah, sure. That is fine with me. I'd only require to have you sign an official documents to declare that I am your personal banking manager." Mrs. Finn muttered. 

"No problem." 

"Thank you sir, for your time." She said and ended the call. 

Gabriel gasped the minute he noticed she had ended the call. To him that was a big risk and he succeeded in securing what belongs to him, but he felt he needed to split the money into three and so he resolved to transfer some of the money into the account of the one person he trust. 

Gabriel carried Optimus on his shoulders to the basement of the house and cleared the place properly to set up his own work space for creation of robots. He brought his laptops to the basement, trying to run diagnosis on the chips via the system software he uses to configure Optimus responsiveness and afterwards, he left the house to go pay his uncle a visit because he need to know why Optimus kept experiencing some spark in the brain region which is a very bad sign.