10.37

At noon Harry knocked on Simon’s door politely.

Simon had just closed his bag, for his trip home, when the knocking sounded so he had his hands free to open the door. Not that he would really need them because the door still opened with a swish of his light brain.

Seeing that Harry didn’t have any food with him, Simon scowled. Seeing Simon’s face, Harry could only smile.

“I thought we could go to the cafeteria together for a change.”

Snorting, Simon followed Harry through the hallways and came to the packed canteen. He would have found it better if he could eat in his room, no, of course, it wasn’t because he wanted to be alone with Harry. He just thought it was kind of noisy with all those other people.

As the two sat down together at a table and waited for a robot to serve their food, someone came over.

“It’s been a while since I have seen you here.”

Simon looked up.

“Yes, how is your research going?”

In front of his table stood a young man with red hair, green eyes and black rimmed glasses. Everybody knew that those glasses were only for decoration because in the interstellar age, glasses were not needed, no matter how bad your eyes were they could always be healed. And because of that it was actually a rarity to see someone with glasses. This person was the only one, of thousands of people, who bothered to wear glasses in the whole research faculty.

“Like always, but why did you suddenly come here to eat when you normally would only get the food and eat elsewhere?”

The glasses dude observed Simon with a strange gaze, almost like he wanted to cut him open with his eyes.

Harry coughed, he didn’t like how this person looked at his baby. When the two turned to him, Harry raised a brow.

“Right, Harry, that person is the constructor of the first mecha Ty. Ty, that idiot is Harry a friend of Darius, marshal Caries, and helps me with some data.”

“Seriously?! I used the mecha you constructed in the great war against the zergqueen, without them we would never have gotten out alive and let’s not even talk about killing her. You saved a lot of lives with you work!”

Simon and Ty were both stunned, Ty hadn’t thought that Harry’s attitude would change that much after knowing who he was, and Simon had never seen Harry so enthusiastic with someone other than himself. Just when Simon wanted to blow his top, Ty took a step back and hummed slightly. It was clear that he was uncomfortable with Harry’s enthusiasm.

“It’s unusual for you to come out of your laboratory, did something happen?”

Simon, who was pleased with the distance Ty put between himself and Harry, threw a threatening gaze at Harry before he finally asked.

“Did you notice something strange?”

“What do you mean?”

“Unusual many people come down to my laboratory to greet me and ask about my research, did something happened at the front line that I missed?”

Simon glanced at Harry, who shacked his head.

“Not that we know of.”

Ty pushed up his glasses and glanced at a table further away.

“I will be out of the faculty for a while, take care of yourself.”

Ty said before he walked away without waiting for the two to react.

“What was that?”

Harry was confused, were all geniuses that strange? Ty had constructed his first mecha at the age of ten and had since then not worked at anything else, just improving mechas for all those years. Maybe it had made him a bit strange in the head

“Normally he wouldn’t come out of his laboratory if it wasn’t important. I should send a message that nobody is allowed to intrude on him, so he can work in peace. But he is right, there wouldn’t normally be people who bother him since he is usual unfriendly to anyone who comes to his laboratory, besides, his research is top secret and nobody would risk to go to prison just because he wanted to greet him.”

Simon gazed at the table Ty had glanced at and frowned. Those people who sat there wouldn’t normally sit together but there were enough free chairs for them to sit elsewhere.

Simon shook his head, he was getting paranoid, just because he searched for a traitor in the military he shouldn’t assume that something was wrong with those researchers. People could always make new friends.

Trying to forget his scary suspicion, Simon began to shovel the food that had arrived into his mouth.