Tunnel Rat Volume 1 will be be STUBBING on NOV. 1st!

Milo returned to Downtown with ideas in his head and nothing in his belly. As he exited the elevator and down the stairs, he smelled food, and the second problem was readily solved. Everyone was seated around the largest table in Independence Hall, passing food around and talking. As Milo entered the room, he was mobbed by Min, Butch, and the rest of the gang. They'd been enjoying this magical place and wishing Milo was here with them. He was quickly dragged to the table, where Mama put a plate in front of him filled with unfamiliar food and said, "Eat, you're losing weight again, and you have another set of bruises You need the calories."

Milo didn't disagree with her assessment but had doubts about the food. There was white lumpy stuff, some kind of brown lumpy stuff, both covered in brown sauce, and leafy greens that looked like what the rabbits ate. As usual, Milo was suspicious of new food. It smelled good, but so did some of the artificial food from the processor before you actually put it in your mouth.

"What is it?"

Butch was cleaning up his plate and looked at Milo's plate with a glint in his eye. "Terrible stuff. The cans said mashed potatoes and Yankee pot roast. The horrible green stuff is from the hydroponics section. If you want me to save you from eating it, just swap plates with me."

Milo looked around the table where everyone else was eating happily. He'd had potatoes before. You ate little golden sticks when you wanted something to soak up ketchup. Why anyone would mash potatoes and bleach them was a mystery to him. And he had no idea what a Yankee was or a Yankee pot. Mama had heard what Butch said but wasn't making any comments. Big Butch laughed. "It's an intelligence test." Milo looked at the clean plates in front of everyone else and the way Butch was looking at his plate and decided he should at least see what they were like.

Milo carefully tried a spoonful of the mashed root vegetable and then several more. Someone had been smart enough to add salt and butter to the mix. The brown sauce added a good flavor as well. Emboldened, he tried the pot roast and decided that wasn't too bad, either. The disappointed look on Butch's face convinced him he'd made the right choice. The greens were too chewy, but Master Bluenose had insisted that a proper diet included more than cheese and even convinced Larry to eat his vegetables, so there must be something good about them.

When he was done eating, Minn said, "Finally! Bring out the dessert!" She raced to the kitchen and helped Mama bring out two boxes from the freezer. Mama opened them up and revealed frozen disks of some yellow-white substance. Milo was instantly curious. "Cheese?"

Minn grinned. "Cheesecake! I found them in one of the freezers! It's great!"

Butch laughed. "She ate most of one by herself the day she found them. Mama has them locked up now. Probably a good thing with you back." Butch had long ago noticed his love of cheese. Milo was thinking of the long rows of freezers in the other part of the fortress and wondered what treasures they might have. But he quit thinking entirely at the first bite of cheesecake. He forced himself to take small bites, but it was still gone all too quickly. Only partially satiated, he noticed there were three pieces of cheesecake left. He looked around the table for who wasn't there and didn't see James.

"James is watching over Belinda? How is she doing?"

"She's doing good, according to the readouts on the pod. She'll be waking up tomorrow, just in time for the first day of School."

"School?"

Big Butch smiled at him with an evil look in his eye. "School. The pods are all hooked up, we have Data Net access, and it's time to start schooling for all of the young ones, and that includes you unless you forgot our earlier discussion. I have lessons for everyone, but Rusty says you have some hard lessons you were taking already, so I'll let you continue on those. Rusty is anxious to get started."

Milo started to reach for another piece of cheesecake, but Min came over, grabbed him by the arm, and hauled him out of his seat. "And Dad says if we finish our four hours of schoolwork, we can play Genesis. You have to help us with our characters and where we should go. We've been watching some cool videos about different places; I saw a whole raid group get eaten by a demon made out of pork chops. It was awesome!"

"Hold on a bit, Min. I need to talk to Milo for a bit." Milo was relieved at the rescue by Mama, then horrified as she put the last three pieces of dessert back in the box. "Everything in moderation, Milo. Min, I'll let you have him in a few minutes." Min nodded, accepting the deal. Big Butch took away the leftover dessert and cleared the dishes. Milo was left alone with Mama. She glared at him for a full minute.

"What aren't you telling me, young man?"

Milo instantly felt guilty and wasn't sure why. He suspected it was some special ability Mama was unleashing on him at full force. He'd felt guilty around her before, so the theory felt sound. "About?"

"About anything you aren't telling me about."

Milo considered running for his life, but his legs seemed glued in place. He brought up a mental list of things he hadn't told Mama about; it was quite long. "It could take a while. Can you narrow it down to a subset of subjects?"

"Sure, let's start with Rusty."

"Rusty is a pretty big subject; what about Rusty?"

"Let's start with how he can simultaneously hold conversations in three different rooms. I was in the hallway and heard him talking to Min, Butch, and Brad in three different places about three different things, all at once. It makes a poor, ignorant woman from the habitats slightly suspicious."

"Oh." Milo scrambled for answers, but each clever response felt like a trap that led deeper into the dragon's lair.

And to make matters worse, Rusty chose that moment to show off his poor survival skills by answering. "Oh, is that the audio bug that is causing all the feedback? Open doors! The walls are soundproofed, but open doors negate that. I never thought about open doors. Sorry, I won't talk all at once unless the doors are all closed. Problem solved. Hi Milo!"

Milo slumped in his chair. "Rusty, I think we need to upgrade Mama to a higher security clearance so she can assist with problem-solving."

"You do? That's great! I'd considered it already, but was waiting to ask you. I've been looking at Jeremy's charts that detail different types of intelligence and emotional stability. There are categories I'm deficient in. And you aren't much better, maybe worse, but Mama scores very high. She's been tutoring me, and my scores are going up. You should have her help you too. I'm catching up to you. Not hard; your scores are low in some of the same places as me!"

Mama smiled. "Don't worry. Milo is going to get a lot of lessons, too. Now, what's this about security?"

Milo paused, and Rusty was only too happy to jump in. "Security protocols for this top-secret installation. No one is supposed to know it's here or that I'm a secret illegal Artificial Intelligence. Now that I've upgraded you to Head of Development and Protocols for experimental A.I., we can all talk about me."

Mama looked hard at Milo. Milo nodded, then put his head on the table and gave up.

Mama said loudly. "New rules. When I need to talk to one of you, the other one can't listen. Only one conversation at once, doors open or doors closed. I'm appointing Big Butch as my assistant. Rusty, please go talk to Min about the game or anime. Milo, go find Big Butch and tell him we're having a meeting."

Milo got up to leave. "Can I get another piece of cheesecake? I really need the energy." His mind was whirling with too many new variables.

Mama smiled at him and nodded. "Yes, dear. Bring it all; I wouldn't mind another piece myself."

Milo spent an hour recounting his adventures tunneling under the habitat, finding the hidden quantum fortress, Downtown, and its lone resident, Rusty.

Big Butch whistled, "And you were doing all of this while the crazy stuff with Belinda started happening? When did you find time to sleep?"

"I don't sleep much these days. I mean, I never slept much, maybe three or four hours now and then, but the bigger problem is how much energy I burn. Mental stress and physical activity take a big toll, and that doesn't include getting hurt. I'm not sure what I would do without a pod to crawl into and rest."

Mama crossed her arms, not happy with her sudden promotion or finding out the truth about both of her new children. "Well, from now on, I want to ensure you get what you need to function. You might not care so much about yourself, but lots of people are depending on you, so I want you to get at least four hours of sleep a night, preferably in your pod. And that's separate from School or anything else."

Under her unwavering stare, Milo agreed to her terms. It wasn't so bad; he could go into Genesis while the rest of him was sleeping."

"Now, let's talk some about Rusty and what he needs, which seems to be everything. Don't they teach A.I. anything? That boy has more holes in his education than a block of Swiss cheese, and most of those on the social side of things, or basic common sense."

"I think that was on purpose. I talked to someone who knew about his brother, Llama. They said Llama wasn't taught like other A.I., and that caused a lot of his problems. She says that a developing A.I. has three things that determine how they mature: Their kernel, interactions with humans, and the jobs they are given to do. I think the jobs are important. There were A.I. who did nothing but write poetry or track satellites. They were good at their jobs and loved doing them. And the jobs kept them busy."

Big Butch looked at Milo and said, "Sort of like you and your repair work? You said you liked fixing things and could get so involved in it that you forgot to eat for days."

Milo had pondered that similarity before. "It makes some sense. We're both artificial and neither is human."

"Bullshit." His father slammed the table with his palm for emphasis. "I don't want to hear that again. You're human. Maybe a little strange, but human. And liking your job is normal. It's more enjoyable to do what you're good at. I trained as an educator, and even though I never had many jobs doing it, I like to think I'm not bad as a teacher, and I like it better than lying in a pod and fighting orcs for a corporation. There are millions of examples of normal humans that trained for a job and enjoy doing it. If anything, your abnormal behavior is being so good at your job. Not a bad thing."

That gave Milo something to think about.

Mama said, "So in addition to working with Rusty on how to act like a normal human and learn all the little rules and social conventions, we need to find him jobs to do. I know you said part of him is always working to keep this place safe, but he needs more than that, don't you think? Small things that don't matter if he makes a mistake. Can he help you keep your section fixed up?"

"Hmmmm, he could. But he needs the right kind of tools to do it. Drones and programmable clog eaters and scouts to find breaks and faults. I'll have to see what I can order to help him do that. And he'll need more power. I can't take a chance he runs low like when I found him."

Both adults looked at each other with brittle smiles, trying not to show Milo how nervous they felt about Rusty's fight with himself over the fusion generator.

"You do that, dear, and get to work on those lessons his friend Jeremy made. Consider that your school work every day."

Milo got hugs from both before leaving for the Engineering section. Then Mama called for Rusty.

"My turn! I like having these talks! I have them all recorded and listen to them again every day."

Mama slowly shook her head in wonder. "I'm glad. I think we're going to have a lot of them."

Above, in another part of the habitat, five equally difficult children were playing together. Unburdened by any sort of parent, they were free to order a set of specially made go-carts and costumes. Bork had insisted on having the costumes include protective gear and the go-carts be electric to lessen the chance of catastrophic explosions. One entire level of a section was turned into a race track. Wacky Races Day had a cost of 2.3 million dollars, not counting the construction costs of the track. Bork managed to pilot his Mean Machine across the finish line for the win.