Chp 80 : Artificial Eyes?

Hello everyone,

Some people has been protesting about previous romance chapter and seems crazy about it. Okay casanovas, I knew some of you have 3 girlfriends at the same time while I didn't have any, I'm just a lowly author who wanted to try to write a romance and R18 chapter.

It sounded childish quick, and illogical but it is how this volume interpreted, BOYHOOD. A puppy love, harsh decision, sometimes stupidity.

Al was a regular kid, who got a sudden maturity from someone's memories and personality from the future, as I explained in previous chapter.

I pressed the word of "Fused", that's my decision in my mid-writing this book, not a regular transmigration concept.

This Volume is not only a growth for my Leading Character, but also my growth from my writing experience from a BOY writer to the next more mature volume, which I hope became better on writing it.

Okay, I'll stop my whinning, that's a rude of me to all of you. I just want my loyal reader enjoy this book and made some bucks.

Enjoy the Chapter.

~~~

30th December 1985

08.00 AM, UTC.

Al had his face planted on the pillow as he was lying on his stomach in his bed.

He heard another round of knock from the door. He lifted his head and looked in the door direction. He sighed and slammed his head again to the pillow.

If he wasn't wrong, this was already the 10th time he heard someone knocked over the door.

He didn't realize his farewell with Minnie would be this heavy. He wanted to search for her, but he promised her to meet again in 10 years.

Then he remembered how he was playing cool and confessed his love to the world. His face flushed because of embarrassment and it hit him like a truck.

"Why the hell did I say that loudly! It's so embarrassing!" He smashed his feet to the bed many times before collapsing again.

A huge smile decorated his face, '10 years, it feels like a movie.'

Finally, he said to himself that it was enough for him to mop around like this.

The knock was becoming harder this time, so he forced himself to wake up and dragged weak his body to the door and opened it.

Not surprising, the "knockers" were Mary, Jodie, and Jessica; standing right in front of his hotel room with anger, worry, and concern look on their face.

"Finally you open that damn door. Are you okay?" Mary asked in concern.

"Why am I not okay?" He said.

Mary gave a note to the hotel receptionist if a person named Alphonse Brandt was checking in, immediately contact her.

So when he was back to his hotel room yesterday at noon, the hotel receptionist immediately gave a call to her.

She imagined that she would lecture him about how important it is to inform her first if he wanted to have a night out.

She has also been curious about where did he go yesterday and gave him an interrogation once he arrived.

Unfortunately, Al locked himself up in his room. She has been knocking at his door since yesterday and has been worried sick.

He was never been like this before, even when he was a little, he would toughen up and directly confronted his problem.

They saw a nonchalant attitude from him, and went berserk, especially Mary. "I've been worried sick about you! You didn't inform us when you back, and once you back, I've been knocking on your room since yesterday! You've been sulking in your room all day, and you didn't even eat anything. And then you asked me back Why are you not okay? Are you sick Al!

Look, even you have bags under your eye!" She screamed.

"Mary let's head inside, don't scream in the lobby. you'll disturb other guests."

"Wait! Let's get you breakfast first. You haven't been eating since yesterday right?" He didn't need to vocal the answer as his stomach was the one who answered her with a Godzilla growl.

Al flushed in embarrassment, 'Why you did this when Jodie is here you prick.' He speaks through a mental connection to his stomach. As if his belly understand him, it gave another light growl.

"Wow, I never heard any creature could make that voice," Jessie smirked and these girls were laughing at him.

~~~

Hotel Restaurant.

With the mouth full of his breakfast, he told them his experience between him and Minnie, exclude the making love parts.

He felt he could not really hide everything that involved romance with them. These girls were like having a radar who could detect love affairs.

But only with men and women, because he knew Mary was clueless about Jodie liking her.

Maybe she knew but she denied it, LGBT thing is taboo in this current society, especially Mary who was a Christian.

"That is the most romantic thing ever happened!" Jodie shrieked. "Al, why you weren't born 10 years earlier?"

"I wish I was, Jodie. If I was, we could already see a girl or boy with golden locks running around by now." He teased her and made her face reddened, but then he lost his will again.

His spine was losing balance and he slumped back. "Yeah, now I feel really bad to Ione and Gwen."

"You should forget about that, Al," Mary said, which really surprised him.

"I kinda exaggerated the problem, I only meant to tease you, hehe" She awkwardly laughed and leered her eyes at somewhere else with a guilty look.

"A selfish woman say what!?"

"Well you know, they were having a puppy love with you and they were so cute, and you'll be cute together with one of them! I can't help it okay, as a big sister, I need to help you with romance problem." She justified herself.

"Then, how about Ione and Gwen? What did they say at Christmas Party?"

"They do like you, and they prefer to treasure that friendship with you. I thought that if I always mentioned this to you and made you feel guilty, you'll be able to choose between 2 of them."

'This Woman!!' He twitched his eye.

Al sighed, "Yeah, it's also my fault. I've been ambiguous since I met them. Maybe I'll have another talk with them, I hope they won't mad at me."

Now it's time for Mary to discuss the elephant in the room.

"You can't have locked yourself in your room and lamenting your love story anymore, Al. I need you. We have some problem in the distribution things."

"What happened?"

"They canceled most of our appointment once they knew we only a small fries production film."

"And they look down on Mary because of her origin." Jessie jumped in and earned her a glare from Mary, threatened her to not tell him.

"He needs to know Mary, Al is your brother." Jessie insisted.

She looked at Al and said, "They look down on Mary because she was Latina,"

His emotion spiked, nobody looked down on his sister beside him, he asked "Why? I thought Britts is not like that anymore?"

Jessie rolled her eyes, "Duh, not with those aristocrats."

"What?"

"As you know, since the early 80s, the film industry here was shrunk by 50% and they were heavily relying on Government Funds to shoot a movie, and the shareholders of big film production and big distributors were mostly controlled by aristocrats whom, some of them may have prejudice to Hispanic born like me.

Also, they were trying their hardest to suppress any foreign films, especially Hollywood, and only accept the big production film or with British directors or actors." Mary explained.

"We have our appointment today, and this is our last chance," Jessie added.

"And why is this different from others?" Al asked.

"The owner was German, but his wife is British. They may be married but their relationship turned to business but not divorced yet. Maybe with Jodie and you to convince them, we could play our cards right."

"Jodie, are you okay with this? We're gonna using your fame you know. You don't have to do anything for this company, it's not your responsibilities?"

"But it was my responsibility to help my friend, Al. Both you and Mary had been my friend since 3 years ago, and I cherish it."

He looked at Mary and she nodded in agreement. He started to think about whether he should reward her or not.

"Jodie."

She was confused to be called again, "Yes?"

"Do you want to be part of our Muspelheim Films group? Executive producers or maybe a consultant here. You had a good knowledge of inside and outside about films and Hollywood. I could reward you handsomely, like Mary, shares of annual profit and maybe Muspelheim Films. And I promise you that it won't disturb you from your filming schedule, I just couldn't stand that you had helped Mary so much but you didn't get anything."

"Thank you, Al, I will think about that. I got anything I wanted, a friend, a true one rather than some people who wanted to know me for my connection and money or want to get into my pants."

"You think I don't?" He jokingly asked.

"I wish you will Al." Jodie teased back, which made him shocked and agape.

They threw him a napkin and cutely giggled.

He squinted his eyes and said loudly, "Oh I will, Jodie, just wait for me."

~~~

22 Stukeley Street, London.

Their car drove upon a narrow road, where blocks of houses with a brick structure were caging the road like a maze.

Once he reached the destination, Mary knocked on the door and a woman in her 40s greeted them with warm smiles.

"You must be from Mus... sorry, that name quite hard to spell. However, my husband seems interested after hearing this name."

"Oh, come in. Let's talk inside, he's been waiting for you all."

They came to the building and entered a tidy office with a minimalist design. They saw a man with ruffled hair and a thick mustache, he was a bit overweight and looked the same age as his wife.

"Ladies, Gentlemen, welcome to Artificial Eyes Distribution. I heard you want to talk about a partnership with us, please sit down. Want a coffee, tea, water?" He asked politely, although his tone was a bit rough, clearly, he was German.

"Water is fine, sir," Mary said.

"Muspelheim Films is it? It was from the Norse 9 realm, right? Usually, Americans only naming their film studios with their own name, shameless American." He grumbled.

"You are absolutely right, sir." Mary smiled politely.

He turned his sight to Al and said, "Well boy, you are the owner right? Nice to see you."

"Yes sir, my name is Alphonse Brandt." His eyebrows raised when he heard it.

"Oh, my name is Andi Engel," Then he turned his eyes to his wife.

"My name is Pamela Engel."

Weird, they were both a married couple but their relationship looked like a business partner, but who was he to judge.

"Brandt, a common surname from German is it? Are your father from German?" He directly asked.

"Uhm, yeah, but he passed away when I was 4, so I've been living in the orphanage since then. This is my big sister, who was also the CEO of the company." He presented her.

Mary also introduced herself to him.

"Can I know your father's name young Alphonse? I don't know but you awfully look familiar."

"His name is Jonah, Jonah Brandt."

"Wait, did you say Jonah Brandt? Was he a professor at Harvard?"

He nodded, his heartbeat quicken. He had a premonition that this man named Andi knew who his father was. An old acquaintance maybe.

But he was surprised by Pamela Engel, who approached him and inspecting his face.

"You are his son, that is why you look so familiar. He got your look but your hair and eyes were your mothers." Pamela holds his face with her cold hands and inspected him. 'Mother!?' That made him surprised.

If they only knew his father, it was normal, they were all European. To know that his Israeli mother, their relationship must be close. "Wait!? You knew my parents?"

"Where should I begin." Andi scratched his unkempt hair.

~~~

After a brief story about his father and mother, he understood that the person name Andi Engel was really close with his father.

Pamela and his mother, Avigail were only met when his father, Jonah introduced them to her when they were both already married.

"Yeah, it was the day that the Berlin Wall was built, I was in the West, while he was on East because his family was there. We're both only 20 that day. He was so eager about astrophysics and rocket science or any of that crap I didn't understand.

I saw him again 7 years later when my..." He turned to his wife direction, "Wife and I married and we gave him safe passage to the USA."

Then he whispered, "He said he was running away from KGB or something, he looked so scared."

His words made everyone in the room stunned silent. Turned out his father was more mysterious than he thought.

"He was the brightest mind I ever saw, he had a dream to build German from scratch, too bad his parents was stuck in Eastside, he would be respected in West power."

"Then a few years later, he came back to London to meet me, he brought along his wife. A Jew, surprising right?" He said while laughing.

"He said he had a son, but because of something, he needed to leave him back in the US, even his wife and Pamela became friends in a heartbeat. Right honey? Uh, I mean Pamela?" He realized his slip tongue and immediately corrected it.

'Wait, they were married, right? Why there must be a correction?' Al thought.

"Y-yes dea-Andi."

'Damn! So much mystery veiled! I need to ask Mom if she knew about something.' He fell into deep thinking once again.

"If I knew you are Jonah's son, I would definitely help you kid, I treat your father as my brother, just call me Uncle André, Al," He beamed happily like he found his long lost relative.

After they knew that he was the son of their friend, their attitude between Andi and Pamela looked more harmonious.

They went out in the evening with a happy face. Andi and Pamela were immediately agreed to help them in the distribution in the UK.

Not only that, they gave them a market price like local films, even lower than Big studios.

Pamela even promised to help him manage the distribution channel over France and Andi would help him over Germany.

Andi advised Al not to do anything rash, he already saw it from Al's face he want to dig into his parent's mystery.

Although Andi didn't know what his parents may involve in, his father once mentioned KGB and CIA, it may be something dangerous.

"Kid, be careful. I told you everything about your parents so you won't dig into them further. They were good people and want their son to have a peaceful life."

"I will Uncle André." He said, and Andi patted his shoulder.

Jodie's role here was insignificant, but she was more a shoulder for Mary to lean on if things went south.

Although it was a happy deal, Al still went back with a gloomy aura.

First, the rejection from Minnie even though she also liked him took a toll on him. Now, the death of his parents might not be an accident, their death was abnormal.

It was likely they knew that they were being targeted by someone, and left him on the daycare the day they died.

Maybe Mrs. K kept a secret from him, but maybe not. She was just a nice caretaker lady and has no involvement in this. But he thought she must be hiding some files about his parents.

His thoughts were broken by a soft head pat to his head. He saw that it was Mary who was comforting him.

"It's okay Al. I'll always here for you." She said.

"I..." He didn't know what to say anymore, "Thank you, Mary, you are the best. It's a tiring day." He leaned to her shoulder.

She caressed his scalp and gave a little soft pressure. He finally able to relax for the first time since yesterday.

To Be Continued...

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