Who wants a Microchip?

Tiara almost didn't hear the doorbell ring under the loud volume of the TV. She groaned and lifted her head and switched off the television. Silence washed over her for a good two seconds and she felt at peace.

And then the doorbell rang again.

"Percy!" she yelled. "Someone's at the door!"

Percy groaned against the pillow and got up at the annoying sounds of the doorbell and the girl's high-pitched voice. He stumbled out of bed and stepped out of the room with narrowed eyes.

"Ooh," Tiara jumped up like a chipmunk when she saw him. "Open the door already."

Percy tried to rub the sleep in his eyes. He bent down and lifted his shirt to wipe the drool from his face, then realised that his tummy might show. He glanced at Tiara who was focused on the books kept under the table and for some reason, he felt his heart sink. He slapped his cheek lightly before letting his shirt go.

"No one is supposed to be here, though," he said.

Tiara turned back and shook her head. "I told you right? That someone from the Project will come to give supplies and monitor us. It's probably that uncle."

"Oh yeah," a light sparked inside Percy's head. He walked over to the eyehole and to his surprise he saw what looked like a man almost his age with sunglasses, blond hair neatly gelled back and a black suit worn over his defined body. Overall, he looked like a Russian spy. If Percy could decipher this much through a peephole, he wondered what he would see if he opened the door. "Is this guy really from the project?"

"Who is it?" Percy yelled, without opening the door.

The man on the other side looked down and took out a card and placed it in front of the peephole.

Percy recognised that symbol from Mitchel's black jacket and he thought he had seen that on Hazel's hand too. It was a small but intricate symbol of two circles linked together with an arrow curling through them. "It's the symbol of the Eternal Golden Phoenix Sect," he mumbled and opened the door.

The man smiled up at him and lifted a box. "I bought pizza."

"We don't even know who you are," were the first words Percy said to him.

"Oh that's fine," the man laughed and stepped inside the house, holding another official looking black bag in his hand. "As long as you know my best boy Mitchell."

Percy closed the door and watched him closely as he placed the box and bag on the dining table and turned to meet Tiara's curious eyes. She was silent and observing.

"Tiara! Been 8 years huh? Felt like 8 days." He took off his sunglasses and raised his hands.

Tiara glanced at Percy in confusion and the other boy only shrugged.

"Oh come on, you don't recognise me?" He said as if he was talking to a baby. He then bent down and ruffled his gelled up hair and let it fall down to his forehead. He also unbuttoned his collar and loosened his tie, mumbling curses on the 'damned uniform.'

He looked at hair again, now a totally reformed person. If anywhere else, he would have looked like that attractive man you see in a park with headphones and walking his labrador.

"I'm Alexander! Alexander the Great!"

Percy smiled sheepishly. "Last I checked, that dude got sent to hell two thousand years ago, are you here because even hell didn't accept you?"

"Damn," Alexander waved. "Chill off, dude. I'm here with a white flag. Peace!" He held up a hand.

Tiara laughed at Percy's sudden rudeness. "He just got out of bed."

"You mean, I just got out of bed after trying to sleep and failing because of the volume," Percy retorted back.

Tiara shut her mouth and looked at Alexander. "I still don't remember who you are supposed to be."

"Tiara, Tiara, my queen!" Alexander said dramatically. "I was a part of yo brother's gang. Mitch, V, Thom, Goy and Alex-- me!"

Tiara's jaw dropped. "Woah. You're my brother's friend? Oh yeah Mitch did say he was sending a friend. So you're in the Project too?"

"Yeah! Mitch and I went to the same college and we both knew the doctor well. Sadly, he liked Mitchell more. Well anyway, it's nice to see you both," he smiled at Percy and opened his bag. "I take it that you guys haven't signed contracts with us yet regarding the Partner thing. So while I'm here, we'll go through that and here, help yourselves!" He placed the box on the table in front of Tiara and she took a piece readily.

Percy too took a piece and then munched on it while he watched Alex explain all the details. Alex ran a hand through his hair everytime it fell on his face and then let it fall back down again. Tiara giggled when she noticed that.

Alex and Percy looked at her with different looks and the girl just shrugged before lifting the pizza piece. Alex smiled at Tiara's cuteness and shook his head. Percy noticed that and tried to shake away the uneasy feeling inside his chest.

"Thanks for the food," Tiara nodded.

"Anything for the Keeser fam," Alex winked and took out two microchips.

"Gah!" Percy stepped back. "Two microchips, I can already sense that it's for Tiara and me, what is your motive?"

"Relaxx," Alex sat down opposite Tiara and opened his bag to take out a long cylinder. He asked Percy if he still had any of the vials of the liquid left. Percy nodded and took the box out of their room. There were still 3-4 vials left.

"Ah this won't be enough for a long term experiment," Alex explained. He looked at Tiara and smiled again. "Watch closely." Tiara nodded, now filled with curiosity.

Alex opened one vial and poured it inside the cylinder he took out from the bag. Then he inserted the chip inside a slot on one end of the cylinder. He placed it on the table and pressed a button.

The three of them stared at the device blink yellow, then red for a while. After sometime, the red changed to green, indicating that the process was finished. Alex let out a whistle and took out the chip from the slot. He lifted it so that both of them could see.

"Your point is?" Percy raised an eyebrow.

Tiara raised a hand, "Did you just convert all that liquid into that chip?"

"Correct answer!" Alex grinned.

Percy shook his head in disbelief, "How did you know that, Tiara?"

"It was a calculated guess," she shrugged.

Alex laughed, "The world is theirs who can imagine without boundaries."

"You're a scam," Percy pointed at him. He scratched his bedhead, unable to make sense of anything. "Are you saying that the Project Dream System designed a way to dive into the game without injecting the liquid?"

Alex nodded and proceeded to do the same thing with the other chip. "The vials are convenient for those who go into the game once in a while. But when you have to go all the time, you guys can't keep using the vials. So once we came to know that your diving was a success, we designed this little baby." He said proudly and took out the second chip.

"Where are you going to put it?"

Alex pointed to his triceps, "Right under the skin here."

Percy's and Tiara's faces went pale with shock.