The IBIF Chronicals

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'Yay!' Concrete sat on the floor, and grabbed the bowl and fork from Tybalt's hands. I hadn't payed attention closely to how they were handling the forks, so he grabbed it the way a small child would and started eating, enjoying the newly found tastes. He was a bit clumsy and got food around his mouth, but he didn't seem to notice or be bothered by it. When he was done, he stood up left the bowl on the computer's desk. He then leaned over Gerhard, curiously observing the screen. 'What are you doing?'
 
"I'm looking at information on the organization members.... correspondences and such..." Gerhard answered Concrete with a small frown.

"Concrete, wipe your mouth with a napkin." Tybalt spoke up, feeling very much like a mother. That was going to get old fast. Hopefully Concrete would learn and remember these things quickly though. "We're looking for anything suspicious to figure out who we need to start investigating first. Somethings not right with the higher ups in the organization, and we need to know who we can trust and who we can't." He tacked on to Gerhard's explanation.
 
'O-Oh.' Concrete nodded and didn't ask anything more. He observed them for a couple of more minutes, before going back to the kitchen on his own. With the definition of "napkin" in his mind, he looked for one, and he found it and used it to clean his face. He really liked the taste of pasta, and could already feel his new digestive system turning the food into energy. But since he only ate Tybalt's leftovers, he ate an amount too little.

Searching through the kitchen, he found another bag of pasta, with instructions. After observing the whole process carefully, he didn't feel confident enough to try and make sauce on his own, but the instructions for cooking pasta seemed easy enough to follow. He boiled the water, added a similar amount of salt to what Tybalt used, and waited for the pasta to cook. Getting the pasta away from the water and into a bowl proved to be a bit tricky, but he guessed he only needed more practice in the kitchen.

After trying it, and seeing how it tasted good -not as good as with Tybalt's sauce though- he smiled in satisfaction. With the bowl and another fork in hand, he went back to the room Tybalt and Gerhard were in, and sat on the floor next to Tybalt, to enjoy his new bowl of pasta. It was the whole bag; it barely fit in the bowl and it was an outrageous amount for only one person, but Concrete wouldn't know about that, and he was so happy...
 
Tybalt watched Concrete head off towards the kitchen, hopefully for a napkin, and then turned back to look at the screens. He looked up once more as Concrete sat down on the floor next to him. He wondered if he was going to have to do a Tarzan-style teaching with Concrete, perhaps complete with a cheesy montage. Then he remembered how quickly Concrete had read the dictionary and thought better of that idea. He just found it a little impossible to teach Concrete everything that meant human. Something as simple as sitting in a chair instead of the floor, for example. He sighed, only then noticing the bowl of pasta. He smiled just a little and then shook his head. For all he knew, Concrete had to eat that much now that he'd started eating in general, so he said nothing about the portion size.

"Good job on making the pasta." He mentioned, turning his attention back to the computers afterwards. "If you want, there are several books in the room down the hall. They might be useful to you." He suggested. Once he and Gerhard could make some progress with their reasearch, he would have more time for Concrete, and to help him ease into this new part of life, he supposed.
 
'Thanks!' Concrete said while he ate, having no problem since he still spoke strictly through his mind. He still was curious about how the rest of the human body functioned, but he'd feel bad about invading Tybalt's privacy, scanning his body without his permission, since part of it involved scanning the so called "brain", where he suspected the man's mind was.

He kept eating for some more, but then grew bored since the men weren't doing anything apart from staring at the screen. With the bowl of pasta, he kept eating while walked, looking for the books Tybalt told him about. When he found them, he read the titles, looking for something that sounded interesting. His gaze lingered on one titled "Divine Comedy". Inquiring it about it, the book told him its contests were really interesting, but only those who were quite intelligent could read it with ease. It also came with useful translation notes giving historical context, so it was also educational.

He grabbed the book, and sat in that place to eat while he read, quickly getting captivated by the story.
 
Tybalt and Gerhard were up until quite late, but finally Tybalt decided to call it a night when Gerhard basically fell asleep at the keyboard. He stood up and stretched, hearing his bones click into place, and then sighed. He hadn't realized how much time had passed, and he really hoped that Concrete hadn't wandered out or got into trouble while he had been absorbed in the computer screen. Luckily, they had made some progress on what was going on. Not much, but it was a start.

He went off towards the place he had mentioned to Concrete with the books and then stopped when he found the alien. He crossed his arms over his chest loosely as he watched Concrete read for a moment. It occurred to him then, how strange this was. Tybalt would have never thought that aliens - or even just one alien - would have been willing to not kill humans. Now he was working with one and pretty soon he would be helping him become passable as a human too. "Do you ever sleep?" he asked quietly after a few moments of contemplation.
 
By the time Tybalt came to see him, Concrete had finished the bowl of pasta long ago. The bowl lied next to him, untouched since then, and he had read quite a portion of the book. He was very excited, but it didn't show in his face, since most of his facial expressions were acted, and he was so concentrated in the book, he wasn't thinking of his own face beyond the point of keeping it looking the same.

When Tybalt spoke to him, he quickly replied 'No, I don't.' He then got up, his excitement finally showing on his face, and he walked up to Tybalt with the book in his arms, his eyes almost shining out of happiness. 'You said earlier you people don't know where Hell is, but this man knows! His name is Dante, and he visited the place, so he even knows how it looks, who lives there, and even more. Who's Dante? Do you know him?' He asked with a huge smile, with that innocence so characteristic of him.
 
Tybalt smiled a little when he saw how excited Concrete was, but when he started talking about hell he glanced down at the book in his hands. He sighed. "Concrete, not every book written is true." He answered. "Dante didn't really go to hell, he is just imagining it. Kind of like how I assume you imagined this human-like body for yourself. Its still an interesting read though, isn't it?" Tybalt leaned against the door jamb, his arms still crossed over his chest. "There are still some things you can learn from fiction though." He added, almost as an afterthought.
 
Concrete's expression of happiness left place to one of confusion, and then he even looked a bit disappointed. He looked down at the book in his arms, and then back up at Tybalt. 'But-- But why would Dante write a book about things that don't exist? Doesn't the sole fact that he thinks about Hell make Hell exist?' After shutting up, he was barely pouting, like a kid who had been told the Easter Bunny doesn't exist and Santa is, in fact, his uncle in disguise.
 
Tybalt wasn't quite sure why the idea of the book being fake made Concrete upset. He tilted his head to one side, his smile quickly falling off his face. "Well, because its interesting and entertaining." He answered. "Humans cant will things into existence. That would be a scary place indeed." Tybalt was not personally of the idea that humans needed that much power. They could barely handle the power they had. "Humans don't do everything for knowledge and learning. Sometimes we like to pretend, or read or play or watch pretend things. Its just a form of entertainment." He shrugged a little. "Its fun, usually."
 
'Entertainment?' Concrete repeated. He knew the definition by memory after reading the dictionary, but he didn't quite grasp the whole concept. He was about to blurt out a bunch of questions he needed an answer for NOW... But then he noticed the dark circles under Tybalt's eyes. How the way energy flowed out and around him changed since the last time Concrete saw Tybalt, leaving him with Gerhard and the computer.

'I'd like more explanations, but I think you need to sleep.' He settled for that. He knew humans needed to sleep, but ignored what happened if they didn't get to sleep. 'Can I wander out of the house? Is it dangerous?'
 
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