Question Yeah, I know what you're thinking: Feedback requested on Encypher Part 1

When somebody has learned how to program a computer … You're joining a group of people who can do incredible things. They can make the computer do anything they can imagine.
- Tim Berners-Lee

I ran through the darkening streets, the lights beginning to flash on as I went. Behind me, the robots that had killed my mum thumped heavily along the sidewalk, their steps sending tremors through the concrete. My heart thumped in my chest, the blood pumped through my veins. All around me I could feel the world shifting, the duality of the world changing. Even as my pursuers chased me, even as I felt grief for my lost world, even as my house burned in the distance: I felt alive.

Perhaps I should start earlier. My name is…was…Aaron Williams. I’m 14, and I’ve lived in Silicon Valley for most of my life. As a kid, I lived just down the road from the garage where Steve Jobs founded Apple Computing as a teenager. When I was 12, we moved to a location just a few kilometres from the Google HQ, home to one of the largest and best-known tech companies in existence. I grew up in a place where home computing was born, lived my whole life working with machines, and I nearly died at the hands of a computer: funny thing, irony. But before I get into the details of my hurried escape from killer robots, and how my life changed irreparably, I should probably describe how exactly I ended up in that situation, and how things were before that day.

I was born in the year 1992, nothing abnormal for kids my age. I was rather normal-looking, at least until middle school where I remained the only kid not to start building muscles. I was pretty mild-mannered, apart from the mild breakdown when things started to go south for the winter. In fact, the only thing that really separated me from every other kid my age was my skill with computers.

Now, you may say ‘But you grew up in Silicon Valley! The Home of the personal computer!! Isn’t everyone there a supergeek??’. Well, my dear friend, that’s where you are incorrect. The fact is that even though Silicon Valley is home to a huge oasis of tech-companies and has spitted out some of the biggest names in computing; it’s just like every other place when it comes to kids. Now, some kids like me look at their parents (who generally work in the computing-industry in that place, or in some other industry like aircraft manufacture) and want to be just like them. My dad is a IT department head at the local branch of Microsoft, and I’ve tried to mimic him and learn his skills as much as possible. But, that’s only some kids. Most of the kids in Silicon Valley are just like teens everywhere else: brash, rebellious and basically trying to impress the ladies as much as possible. So, while we have our fair share of geeks, we also have our fair share of jocks, and every other cliché possible in a school environment. So, while there were other geeks, most of them weren’t as…skilled…as I was.

Now, I don’t claim to be the best. My brother Mike was when he was in school, at the same time as being the captain of the football team. While this is kinda a contradiction (biggest computer nerd at school + football team isn’t really a good combination, nor one that seems to be logical or actually probable), it was the state of things. Hell, until I manifested, and had to leave town with killer robots on my tail (obviously with pretty much every single person I knew in the dark to my situation), I was on pretty good terms with the team, and had some respect because of that. But I am very good at what I do. Even before my mutation, I could (and did) hack the school mainframe to pull stupid pranks on students and teachers alike. When a group of overzealous bullies stuffed my head down the toilet on the first day, I hacked their home computers so that one evening when they came home, they found their parents demanding why their email addresses had been used to buy a 30 day free subscription to a pornographic magazine in their child’s name. I didn’t ever get found out, but when I casually mentioned the incident in passing to them the next time they cornered me, and proceeded to mention that they could expect a anonymous ‘hack’ every time they harassed me, they quickly backed down. After that, not many people tried bullying me, though newcomers tried, succeeded, and quickly felt the consequences of their actions. Although it was…morally dubious to say the least, I was a preteen, and I was foolish. At the time, I justified it as ‘Karma’, but it wasn’t the right thing nonetheless.

I didn’t get into trouble much, and I had problems finding a group of friends I could be around. I was only notable for my skills with a computer, which had students using me as their personal IT service. This resulted in my brief and ultimately painful relationship with Aria Holmes, who I spent three months with. It wasn’t a breakup that ended out relationship: it was a drunk driver, a failed traffic light, and three tons of panel van that killed her, alongside three other people- all while I helplessly watched. It was on that day that our story starts.

This is where I ran out of steam. I'll continue writing from this point onwards

Aria and I stepped out of the ice cream parlour, and out onto the street outside the courthouse. Something was happening out in the road. Traffic was being redirected, the police were sheparding off a large number of press, and there were barricades keeping people away from the courthouse entrance.

“Let’s go. Probably just another CEO’s son who’s been indicted on sex offence crimes.” I said, my headache beginning to pick up.

“Well, maybe it’s worth seeing what’s happening?” asked Aria.

“I…doubt…it…urgh.”

I doubled over, a wave of pain shooting through my skull. I could head a buzzing coming from all around me. A mindless scream of data that thundered through my skull like a rioting crowd. I threw up, and collapsed. Aria hovered over me, concerned.

“Hang on, I’ll get help from those cops.”

She ran off, leaving my blurred field of vision. I tried to tilt my head to follow, but realised that I was no longer looking through my own eyes. I realised that I was looking down from above. I could see Aria trying to catch the attention of a nearby police officer. I could also see my own body, lying in a pool of my own vomit on the pavement below.

Wow. A out of body experience, I thought, my mind feeling like it had been padded with cotton wool. The pain was slipping away, but I could still see. I realised that even though I was looking down from mid-air, I was also looking up, at the security camera overhead. I tried to move my head, and in both of my visual fields, I noticed something strange.

Through my own eyes, I saw the camera turn as I moved my head, my strange other-vision turning with it.

Did I do that?, I wondered. Then I noticed the other event going on. The police officers were shouting and drawing weapons. One of then shoved Aria down behind one of the cars and drew his pistol. A car screamed around the corner, a black sedan with blacked out windows.

What’s going on??? I screamed silently inside my head. Then, the robot appeared.

It was a silver humanoid, with a angular, almost military appearance. It had no weapons, instead possessing two massive fists with fingers the size of my forearm. It looked almost comical, sort of like the Hulk with his big green fists. This monster wasn’t wearing purple shorts though. It wasn’t ripping up Manhattan either. As it ran towards the sedan speeding away, the police fired en masse, bullets pinging off the machine.

Then, the sedan hit a speed bump, and slowed just enough for the monster of a machine to catch up. It grabbed the car, it’s massive fingers crumpling the rear bonnet and causing the rear axel to buckle. Then, it lifted the vehicle off the ground and threw it.

Right at the car Aria was pinned behind. She didn’t even see it coming.

I screamed in anguish and in anger, and tried throwing myself at the machine. My body didn’t move, but I felt my awareness seem to leap across space, right into the robot. I pancked, and began lashing out at everything around me. I couldn’t see, or hear, but my movements left gashes of red on the blackness around me.

It was chaos, and I myself hardly knew what was happening. As the red consumed the black, I felt myself fading. I struggled, until I felt a yank, and then I was back in my own body. With that, I fell unconscious, not sure what had actually happened.