The Last Mystery Gift and After

[Authors Note: This chapter mostly revolves on the Mystery gift, the final leg of Christmas celebrations and Technology towards the end which I have tried keeping it as simple as possible.

The next set of chapters will be mainly around the new year and the mysterious events occurring around it. So stay tuned and Happy Reading! ]

Mr Samuel finally cleared his throat to announce the winner.

Before that he looked at everyone with a wicked grin and he pulled out the box which was a 10"x10" in size.

He addressed everyone and said "I get that when you said a watch, iPod or may be even a spell book it may fit in this box. A car hmmm, may be you were thinking about the box holding the key. But again is there option for gas on Zon? But what got me off the hook was a Jacuzzi and a Playstation" and then he looked at Ray with a sheepish smile.

Ray was put on the spot although the PS5 was suggested by his mother. He had suggested Jacuzzi out of the blue. Ray was thinking hard and came up with a very smart answer or did he?

"Dad, you see , mum and I guessed that you may have ordered it and there may have been a delay in the delivery and therefore the box just contained the paid receipt."

Ray's dad face palmed himself, did his son think he looked like a fool to place a receipt in a gift box? He looked at Ray who was giggling in a silly way. He then asked Ray to remove the anti-sneak spell to allow everyone to have a peek into the contents of the box.

Ray lifted the spell of the box and quickly peeked inside the closed box before anyone else could. He could see something was shimmering but a thin film like material seemed to cover it and this made it a little difficult to guess. He could just see some kind of shine and felt it must me some kind of ornament and this time his guess was correct although he was not sure about it.

Rachael had a peek as well and guessed something on the similar lines but Mrs. Samuel knew what it was now. She thought to herself as to how she forgot about it. Her husband had mentioned about it all his life to her.

Rachael's dad handed over the box to Ethan and asked him to open. Except for their mother, Rachael and Ray were curious to know what was inside the box as well they wanted to know who had won the Mystery box challenge.

When Ethan was opening the box, the siblings were pushing each other's head away from the box trying to see what was inside the box. They were not letting Ethan remove the gift out of the box. It was quite a funny scene.

Mr.Samuel cleared his throat in a little loud tone to stop both of them from fighting like little kids fighting for an ice candy.

Both of them immediately stopped their silly act and sat back. Ethan was finally able to get his gift out of the box. He held it in the air for everyone to see.

It was a heirloom ring which was passed down from generations. No one knew who was the first person to start this tradition generations ago. There was no record maintained to trace back the history.

The ring had to be passed to the first son-in-law of the family and if one had no daughters then it would go to the son. And the tradition should continue where the son will have to pass it over to his son-in-law or son. So even if someone wanted to trace back the zig zag history pattern it would be difficult as the ring may have moved multiple families through generations.

The ring looked ancient and majestic with a mysterious aura surrounding it. It was heavily carved with antique gold with a single oval shaped Red Diamond set in the head of the ring. The shank of the ring could be adjusted to fit the wearers finger.

It was apt for a Royal and looked like it was ordered and custom made for Ethan. Mr.Samuel who had received this ring from his father-in-law explained to Ethan the significance of this ring and the tradition behind it. He also mentioned that till date no one could decipher the main mystery surrounding the ring. The legend has it that apart from the main mystery the ring also had displayed other mysterious stuff at various time periods in history and Mr. Samuel was not that lucky to see one.

"Dad, all said and done, who is the winner of this mystery box challenge? " Rachael question.

"Hmm, good question Rachael. Ideally speaking no one is a winner as no one gave the right answer. But as per the rules set by Ray in the beginning, I can pick the closest match and that would be the Apple Watch suggested by your mother and advanced watch suggested by you."

He then paused and looked at both of them and said "So that makes both you and your mother winners and Ray should be treating as he lost it"

"Damn!" said Ray dramatically. He never hesitated to treat his family but he wanted to show a losers emotion. He knew he was being silly but he was happy that this game had lifted up everyone's spirit.

This would be the most memorable Christmas for the family although there was a tiny incident which was set alright by Ray. They all gathered around to take a photograph of family which will be part of their memory in the coming years. They held all the gifts they all had received from each other for the photo. This photo will now adorn Rachael's album of Christmas with the year mentioned on it.

It was finally time for much awaited Christmas dinner. All of them made their way to the dining area. Rachael went to help her mother to set the table up with scented candles and flowers.

The dinner was lavish and grand with vines and cocktails

The main course consisted of

- One pot French onion soup

- Pineapple Glazed Ham

- Coq au Vin Rose

- Holiday Roasted Vegetable

The sides consisted of

- Easy Stuffed Mushroom

- Roasted Brussels sprouts

- Spinach Artichoke Zucchini Bites

- Easy Biquick Sausage Balls

The Desserts consisted of

-The classic Buche de Noel

- Cinnamon Roll Apple Pie

- Butterscotch Ice cream

- Pecan Pie Pound Cake

The family prayed and then feasted on the food. After dinner they sat together in the family hall and chit chatted for a while before retiring for the day. The mood was joyous.

However, things were going to take a nasty turn in a matter of few days.

The next day, it was time to fix the Robo assistant. Rachael suggested she stay back and help her mum with cleaning while the Ray and Ethan decided to carry the Robo to the room they had booked.

The two men gave a pretext of doing a night out party with friends and would be back the next day evening. They dismantled the Robo in the garage, before packing it and loading it into the car. Ray had built this years ago and had later lost interest to upgrade it. He knew that Zon had high end technology and completely relied on Ethan to get the Robo upgraded.

Ray also invited a few of his Techie friends who were interested in Robotics, later on the second day of their stay in the lodge once the new features were added to the Robot. The external look of the robot would mostly remain the same and Ray could change it in the future if required.

Certain details could not be divulged to his friends as those technologies were not yet available on earth and if governments of certain countries or even the underworld got a hint about it, it would be disastrous.

Ray had introduced Ethan to his friends as top notch Robotic scientist just to play things safe.

Once after breakfast the two men finally drove to the lodge where they had booked the room. Once they reached the room they removed the dismantled Robo from the package and set working.

Ray explained how he had built this Robot from scratch years ago and the technology used which was outdated now. He told Ethan whatever he could recall from his memory. He had forgotten most of how he had built. So he quickly scanned the Robot and gave him the rest of the missing details.

Ethan to start with requested Ray to help convert the code into any of the Zon machine language code. Once Ray converted it for him, he memorised the current code and current settings just if things failed they could always revert back to the current existing old model.

Both of them then discussed and decided on the new features that had to be set into the robot after researching the internet for a while.

They initially planned to even check out advanced technology on Zon using the Webopedia which was gifted to Ray by Rachael, to see if they could add any unique features. But they dropped the plan so as to not to make it too complex and obvious to the world.

Both of them slowly removed all the settings and erased the code completely and Ethan started typing a fresh code.

The new features were set in a way that the ones which were visible to the outer world was not too different from the current day Robots. They made sure the newly added features would not look out of the world. These were the features which Ray wanted to show his friends.

There were other hidden features built into the Robot, the details of which will be revealed only to the family of Ray and Rachael and will be asked to be kept a secret, hidden from the world.

They were glad that the room was booked for 2 days as it took them close to a day and a half to get the Robot working after multiple trial and errors. They had to literally struggle when it came to versioning part of it. They had no much time left to buy a new Robot and even if they brought one they were not sure if it would meet all their requirements.

Once all the features were completed and the code was translated back to the machine code of earth, the Robot was assembled back.

Ray's friends who visited them on the second day were amazed at how the new features were added. Ray and Ethan did not mind sharing the code with them except the code for the hidden features.

Rachael was good in technology but not as good as Ethan and so she had decided to stay back at home. She helped her mom clean the dishes from the previous night and helped her with cleaning the house. She later called all her friends from school and college and spoke to them.

She was waiting to see the new features on the Robo assistant and she knew that she had to wait patiently till they got it home but the only thing that worried her was how to test it and would her parents be comfortable using it.

She called Ray to see if she could visit to check out the Robo Assistant. Ray told her to come post 4:00 pm on the second day after his friends had left.

Rachael was getting eager by the minute to see the Robot but she couldn't show her excitement in front of her parents. To divert her mind she booked the parlour appointment a little earlier than she had planned, in the first half of the same day she was about to go and check out the Robot.

To be continued...

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*** Machine Language code is a language which is understood by all machines.