Chapter 4: Tom the influencer
"Lucas, hi! It has been so long." Iris greeted me, as she stood up from her seat to give me a hug.
"It has. I think the last time we met was before the whole wormhole thing." I mentioned, but as I did I saw her face drop a bit.
"Yeah." She mentioned while sounding sad, and I could see the woman with brown hair also had a sad expression on her face.
"Seems like you mentioned a sore spot for the human named Iris and this other one. Interesting, what happened during this wormhole event, Lucas?" Steel questioned from my mind, but I ignored him.
"Urm, Iris? Who is this guy?" Asked the guy with long hair that dropped to his shoulders.
"Lucas?" Steel questioned.
"Ah right," Iris said as she broke out of her stupor. "Lucas met Catlin and Cisco, they work in S.T.A.R Labs and helped in Barry's recovery when he got struck by lightning. Cisco and Catilyn meet Lucas, I know him from the time I worked here."
"Lucas? Is my communication interface not working?" Steel continued.
"Nice job Iris, you know the assistant manager, that has to score us some free lattes." Cisco said with a joking smile as he ate some candy.
"No, but the neurolink is still maintained." The annoying robot continued.
"Assistant Manager?" Iris questioned as she saw the new badge I was wearing.
"Yeah, I just got promoted today, and Barry is getting your free drinks." I added the last part as I turned to Cisco who was clearly happy.
"Nice."
"LUCAS STOP IGNORING ME!" Steel lost it, as he shouted extremely loudly, with a feeling of a massive alarm blasting inside of my mind.
"OW!" I let out a yelp, as I clutched my head in pain.
"Are you okay?" Iris asked as she looked at me with concern.
"Yeah I am fine, just having a migraine." I mentioned, "Sorry Iris, I will be back soon."
She just nodded in concern as I walked towards the toilet.
The second I walked into the toilet I checked to see that there was nobody else inside, and as soon as I did, steel popped out of my chest.
"Okay! Ground rules!" I shouted to the floating robot.
"Yes I agree! You can't ignore me like that! Aliens have feelings too!" Steel said in complete seriousness.
"NO YOU IDIOT! No shouting in my head when I am talking to people!" I explained.
"Wel what do you want me to do? I literally have nothing to do other than be stuck with you." Steel also explained his point of view.
"Well maybe we should ask Tom, he can probably figure it out." I mentioned, after pondering on the issue for a long while.
"I get the cat is special, but he cannot separate us for prolonged periods of time without damaging your Turbo Energy or killing us for negating our ultralink." Steel said.
"I get all that." I nodded my head.
"Good so we need a different rul…"
"But." I stopped Steel. "This is Tom. He can figure it out."
While steel was showing disbelief, I was dead serious.
I would be surprised if there was a problem that Tom didn't know the solution to.
Steel reemerged with me, as I walked out of the toilet with him murmuring in my head, saying stuff like," Stupid humans and their stupid need for privacy.'
And as I walked back to where Iris and her gang was, they had already left.
The remainder of my day was uneventful, I just did my job, stayed till my replacement came in at around 4pm and left back to go home.
I finally didn't have to work multiple jobs, so I had a lot more time to just sleep at home.
"Really, you have free time and all you can think about is napping?" Steel asked as I was walking up to my apartment with some Big-Belly burger in one hand, and some more knitting materials in the other hand for Tom.
"Yes. Free time equates to anime or sleeping." I said, as I opened my apartment door to see a completely chaotic scene.
My usually well behaved cat, who has done no harm to anyone in existence, had my toy chained up to the ceiling.
Below the Buzz was a baseball bat.
To the right of this whole scene was an entire camera set-up, recording something.
"Lucas! I told you this cat is crazy! It finally lost its marbles!" Shouted Buzz, but I tuned it out.
Out came from my room Tom, but he was wearing something he never usually did.
He had pants that were sagging from his waist, and reached all the way to his ankles (paws). He also had pitch black sunglasses on even though he was indoors, with a massive golden chain on his neck.
Tom was also playing Immortals by Fall Out Boys on a massive speaker that was on his shoulder and was completely vibing.
"Well well well, what do we have here?" Steel said, as he came out of my chest.
Tom, who was right now realizing I had entered the house, looked at me in shock.
He visibly deflated, and his skin turned pale in color in slight fear.
He then covered his eyes and turned his back to me, hoping everything would clear itself.
Looking at him being so shy and embarrassed, I couldn't even hold it to say anything. Afterall, he looked so cute in his outfit, and the worst thing here was an annoying toy getting punished.
"LUCAS? LUCAS! UNTIE ME! WHERE ARE YOU GOING?"
…
"So that is the situation?" I asked Tom who was repeatedly nodding his head while kneeling in front of me.
He currently passed a phone to me, something he always had apparently, and was showing me his instagram account with a million followers, and his youtube account being equally as famous.
Tom was explaining how he made it a hobby to film what he does when I was gone since he was bored, and he suddenly got really famous.
It was really cute to watch him explain how he randomly got famous, he couldn't comprehend it, but I could.
A walking cat? A cat that can play any instrument in the world, can cook and does chores?
For some reason, the world couldn't recognise him as Tom the cat from Tom and Jerry, probably some system-fuckery.
I didn't even know he made these accounts since I never used social media. I never saw the point, but maybe I should start.
"So how much money have you made?" I asked, to which he looked at me with a confused look and shrugged.
"You know you can get your account monetized right?" I questioned, to which he looked shocked.
He paused for a second, as I saw literally dollar signs appear inside of his eyes and he started to salivate.
"I don't care about what you do Tom, it's your own free time. Just make sure no one knows where we live or interrupt our private life." I said, to which he nodded very solemnly and saluted me.
He also acted out something about how he didn't need to share his food with more people.
"All done. Buzz said he needs to set up traps to take revenge on Tom so he won't join us." Steel said as he entered my room.
"Ah right. Tom, I need you to make something that can help Steel to be separate from me, but we can still merge for Turbo modes and what not." I asked Tom.
I didn't need Steel's voice constantly in my head, or for him to be with me for the rest of my life so I don't overcharge, and I was sure Tom would have something for that.
Tom thought about it for a couple of minutes with a serious face.
He was anxiously pacing around the apartment, trying to think of something to help me with. Eventually, a literal light bulb popped into existence, as he searched his pockets for something.
Eventually, he found me a necklace, and then passed it to me.
He then took a paper out with the necklace, and the paper had a detailed analysis of the necklace.
(Describe the necklace)
Apparently, the pendants from the necklace constantly controlled my Turbo Energy outputs, and directly sent the excess energy to Steel, not requiring us to Link constantly.
Steel would still die if I did, but it didn't work the other way anymore, not that Steel cared.
He was more happy he had the freedom to float around (in invisible mode) as he pleases.
It also worked as a tracker for Steel, if he ever needed to come to where I am I could send him a message to come over to me.
With that, Tom saved a massive problem for me, while Steel was short circuiting from not being able to understand how 'a normal piece of rock' could do what was described.
Well of course he didn't get it.
My cat is too great for a mere advanced alien species to understand what is going on.
And he deserves all the chin scratches and head pats in the world.