It was Christmas time and the Boyle family were in their house celebrating it like they have done for the past twenty years after their son had packed up and vanished. With him being the only child they had, they had searched up and down for him but they never found him. His mother, Mrs. Boyle had never given up on the idea that her son was still alive. The tree was already set up and since both couples had no one to spend the Christmas with, there were no gifts under the tree apart from the two wrapped gifts which were on their coffee table.
“Do we have to cook a special dinner since it is just the two of us?” Adam asked his wife.
“Come on now Adam. Anyone might drop by and if they don’t I can just put the leftovers in the fridge.”
“Have it your way than Mary,” Adam said.
He sat on the sofa watching the news when there was a knock at the door and with Mary busy at the kitchen, Adam rose and went to the door. When he opened the door, he realized that a woman with a boy and girl were standing by the door.
“It is nice to meet you after all these years, Mr. Boyle,” the woman said.
“I’m sorry what?” Adam asked.
Living in a small town like Gray Creek meant that you know everyone in the town and never has Adam set his eyes on this woman who somehow knows him or has heard of him.
“What mom is saying is that we are happy to meet you grandfather.”
“Grand what? Okay, what’s going on?”
The boy was confusing Adam and he wonders if this was an elaborate prank but who will try something as cruel and absurd as this knowing that their Peter had disappeared about twenty years ago.
“I’m back home dad,” A voice that Adam had thought he would never hear again said.
Standing right behind them was a figure that Adam recognized though time has had its way with him there was no way he won’t recognize his son.
“Is that truly you Peter?” Adam asked unable to believe what was right before him.
Adam was busy at the door but he suddenly called out to her something that was not usual and it had Mary rushing out to check what was wrong.
“What is wrong Adam?” She asked opening the door.
A family was standing beside her husband but he was smiling unlike never before putting a hand round the man smiling. Mary had never put out of her mind what Peter would look like now if he was still with them so she was a bit taken back by the man standing beside Peter.
“Is that Peter?” Mary asked in a shaking voice.
“It is him, Mary. It is our son and he brought his family along.”
They say pain pass with time but it had not been the same for Mary as the pain of how Peter’s life would be if he had been with them had haunted her so much that she often tried not to think about him. Whenever she sees someone that looked like Peter or walked like him or shared something that reminded her of Peter, she will break down and cry wondering what she did wrong.
“It has been a long while Mom,” Peter said as he moved to hug his mother.
“Oh Peter my son,” Mary said softly as she hugged him tightly. Nothing could compare to the joy of seeing her long lost son again. “Is this your family?”
“It is nice to finally meet you and Adam,” Peter’s wife said. “He had told us about you all these years and I finally am glad to meet you.”
“Mom and Dad, I want you to meet Sandra and our kids Junior and Susan.”
“I’m glad to meet all of you,” Mary said. “Come inside out of the cold.”
They all entered with Mary smiling and closing the door. For so long as the Christmas dinner in the Boyle’s house been gloomy but tonight seemed to be a different one. Peter had returned after a long time and he brought with him a family of his own. She has so many questions to ask him but first, she has to get them settled.
“Are you cooking your Christmas special?” Peter asked with a smile.
“You never forget cooking as delightful as Mary’s food.” Sandra smiled at Adam’s comment while she took the coats from the children hanging them on the hanger. There was something about this whole situation that made Adam felt that something was wrong but who will think that this situation was normal?
A child you have thought was long dead suddenly shows up on your door on a Christmas night bringing a woman who is his wife and two beautiful children without warning. This is not a normal day anywhere but Adam was more than glad to be witnessing it.
“I have to finish my food in the kitchen but I will be with you when I’m through,” Mary said.
“Can I and Susan join you?” Sandra asked.
Never having a daughter of her own, Mary had looked forward to the day that Peter would get married and have a wife and maybe daughter of her own which she will pass on the family’s recipe to. With his disappearance, that dream had vanished only to be reignited tonight with them dropping on her.
“It would be a great pleasure to have you,” Mary replied with a smile.
The three of them walked to the kitchen leaving the men alone in the sitting room. Adam walked to the fridge and brought out two beers and a Diet Coke for his grandson.
“It might take a while for them to get done but we have a lot of catching up to do.”
“Yes we do-dad,” Peter said accepting the beer from his father.
Adam had asked Peter to tell him what he had been doing for the past twenty years and Peter told him that he had wandered away going to New York before he had then traveled to France to work with a company.
“I studied Computer Science and Engineering and worked there for five years before I moved to Canada where I was the head of the research unit and that was where I met Susan.”
His son had made him proud but Adam was seeing that something was not right with his story starting from the reason why he has suddenly vanished in the first place. They had treated him right and there was no reason for Peter to had suddenly decided that he was tired of his life and walk away from it. Something was not right and Peter was not telling him something.
“We searched for you all these years and your mother never gave up the hope that you are there alive,” Adam said.
“I’m sorry dad,” Peter replied. “I should have made things clear with you and mom before taking off like that.”
“What are you talking about Peter? I feel like there is something you are not telling me.”
“Just let leave the past dad,” Peter replied.
Adam had been hard on his son but that was because of the way he was raised. He had tried pounding those lessons that shaped him into his son but that had not been the case with him. Peter had taken it an entirely different way than Adam had t relax on his lessons. When Peter had left, Adam had blamed himself thinking that his way of treating the boy was the cause of why he disappeared.
“If you say so son,” Adam replied. “So tell me about yourself, my boy.”
Junior looked to his father who nodded gently and turned to face Adam.
“I am ten years old and I’m in middle school,” Junior stared. “I like playing with trains and solving puzzles.”
Adam simply nodded remembering that was the same thing as Peter did back when he was Junior’s age.
“Will you like to see your father’s toy?” Adam asked him.
Junior nodded and Adam went to Peter’s room which though was not exactly the way he left it still had all of his things intact. Adam wanted Mary to give them out but she never had the heart to part away with them since they were here only connection to Peter and for once Adam was glad she didn’t
“So you woke in the same company as Peter?” Mary asked Susan.
“Yes, Mary that was how we met and got married.”
It hurt Mary that Peter had never once tried to contact her all these years but she is more than willing to forgive him since he has walked back into her life.
“I always wondered when Peter would bring us to see you and I am glad that he finally did.”
“You are not the only one Sandra. I’m glad to meet you and the kids so tell me about yourself, Susan.”
“Oh, she is a bit shy more like me.”
Mary laughed as she washed the sauce looking at her granddaughter who was studying the wallpaper of the kitchen. Mary could see that Susan looked exactly like her mother and Junior a bit like Peter though she wasn’t sure exactly. She had never thought Christmas will be this good and she knows that this will be her best Christmas ever.
Somewhere in Switzerland,
He was at his family’s dinner when he received an urgent call from Paul who was in charge of the Software programming of their new project. The fact that the man who was in charge of the entire program had run away with the prototypes and it was proving quite hard to find him but Paul knew that his team was on it tracking the trickster down.
“I hope you have good news for me.”
“I’m afraid not so sir,” Paul replied. “We just discovered that there were a few things wrong in the programming of the prototypes.”
He hardly understood the mumbo jumbo his employees spoke but he does not need that to understand that they have a problem on their hand and he wondered what the problem might be.
“Explain what you mean exactly.”
He listened as a detailed explanation was giving showing that there was something wrong with the project that they had all thought was a success. A big one that might cause trouble because the prototypes were in the air and could be anywhere in the world right now. Peter Boyle had gotten his hand on a top-secret tech and its existence alone will bring about many innovations to the world though that was not what Henry has in mind. He does not care about helping the human race but lining his pocket with money.
“How long till you get a trace on where Peter Boyle is?” Henry asked.
“Currently we are tracking his location to the United States. He seems to have gone there and we will track his location after all four people won’t be able to disappear completely like that.”
They have to find Peter Boyle where ever it was he is and hopes that the things he had escaped with don’t go and cause havoc that none of them had ever thought could happen.
Never had Peter thought he would have a reason for returning to his parent’s place but here he finds himself and if it wasn’t that he needed somewhere safe for Sandra and the kids, he never would have brought them here. It was nice seeing his parents but he might have placed them in danger by coming here and he would have to leave soon when it is morning while leaving Sandra and the kids here. “The spirit of Christmas has brought us here as a family and I am happy that we are gathered here,” Mary said before they started on dinner.
“We all are glad to be here,” Sandra replied.
Peter was keeping a watch on his family though he was not sure exactly how they will react to his mom’s food. He would have told them not to eat but it would have been hard explaining to his mom and dad the reason why he doesn’t want them to eat her food.
“Let’s get started right away then,” Adam said.
They all started eating and it seemed as if Sandra and the kids were able to eat the food though they had barely eaten all day he does not know well about their capability for passing off as humans. How was Peter going to explain to his parents that the first time he appears to them after being gone for twenty years, he is coming with three AI in tow? They definitely won’t believe him considering how well Sandra and the boys looked like a human. It was the exact thing that took him away from his family twenty years ago and after all this while, he had gotten his dream realized but his boss wants to weaponize them.
After dinner, they all played for a few moments before it was time to go to bed. Mary had cleared both the guest room for them with Peter and Junior sleeping together while Sandra and Susan sleep in the guest room. Sandra had thanked Mary and they all retired for the night at least everyone except for Peter.
“It seems as if you can’t sleep also,” Adam said joining his son in the sitting room.
Peter was running through the programming for his ‘family’ and he looked up to see his father standing beside him.
“Not exactly dad. I was working on something that’s why I am still awake.”
“It doesn’t matter Peter. I’m just glad to see you again.” Adam joined his son glancing at the computer that his son was working with. He could barely operate his laptop without much difficulty so he could not make sense of the program his son was working on.
“You look like you are in some high-grade job,” Adam said.
“This is the next evolution of the human race dad,” Peter replied. “It is the reason why I left and never looked back all these years.”
When Peter was in college, he had been approached by an organization that had heard about his program and they wanted to recruit him. Peter had almost signed up before he realized what was wrong and he knew that he had to escape and he left cutting contact with his parents. If not for the fact that the same thing he had avoided twenty years ago was about to happen and that he needed somewhere to hide, he won’t have risked coming here.
“What are you talking about son?”
It was time he came clean with his dad though maybe not entirely but at least up to a certain level. Peter explained to his dad that their lives had been threatened twenty years ago because of the program he was developing and he had run away because of that.
“And why did you return now?” Adam asked calmly.
“I have succeeded dad but the same thing is about to repeat itself.”
Before Adam could ask for further explanation, there was a beep on Peter’s computer and he turned to look at it. He realized that there seemed to be something wrong with the program that Sandra and the kids were running on.
“I have to fix this dad,” Peter said as he started working. Adam watched his son type away and he remained silent wanting to hear the rest of his son’s story. After roughly an hour, Peter was done and he blew a hard breath. “There was an error in the code and I will have to update Sandra and the kids.”
A raised eyebrow was Adam’s expression to his son’s statement as Peter turned to him. Since he had already told his father about the reason why he left twenty years ago he might as well level up with him.
“I have something to tell you, dad,” Peter started. “Sandra and the kids are not my wife and children.”
“What do you mean son?” Adam asked in a raised tone.
“What I mean dad is that they are not humans but AI in synthetic bodies.”
The movie Terminator made Adam familiar with the terms AI and stuff but he had never thought that it was something possible and now his son was telling him that he had been sitting with three all night long.
“But they ate your mother’s food and acted normal,” Adam responded.
“I’m not sure exactly but I think my company made sure that they can fit into society.”