At-Lass: Duel Of Titans: Chapter 6

A couple of days later Doctor Julius found himself working in his lab once again. This time rather than using the workbench like before he was merely using his computer, he had also made sure that the door was locked so that no one could enter without his permission. This was just so that he could work without any distractions.

He was looking over some data about the chip and how it was functioning inside of the skull of the chimpanzee. From what he could see everything was fine much to his relief, the last thing he wanted was for it to fail and the project to go down the toilet. He was adding a few small pieces of his own data for the computer.

As he worked he couldn't help but think how happy Sasha could be if the chip was fully successful and they were able to mass produce them. It would give him funds to attempt any project that he wanted and with the company's backing he could do practically anything that he wanted.

At one point he attempted to access the functions area of the chip on his computer but he was surprised to find that he was blocked out. At first he thought that it was some kind of mistake but when he tried again he discovered that he really was being blocked. The only way to access the area was with a username and password. He had been given one by Sasha which he did use but when he tried it the computer stated that he didn't have the correct clearance for the information.

This raised an eyebrow in Doctor Julius's mind as he wondered what could be in the area that he wasn't supposed to see. The functions of the chip were supposedly well known within the company so it wasn't a secret amongst the employees. He did consider that it was to prevent any unauthorised access to the information. That seemed logical but as he continued to think he thought that he should have still been able to access the data with his username and password.

Common sense would have told him to let the matter go but something inside of his mind was telling him that something was wrong. He decided that he would leave it for now but would investigate further in the near future. He knew that there was only one person who truly had access to all the areas and data on the computer network. That was Sasha so he would need to get her username and password. This was would not be an easy task but he thought that he would be successful.

His concentration was broken when he heard a knocking on his door. It took him a moment to get out of his chair and make his way towards the door. Quickly he unlocked it and he expected to see Sasha. Instead he saw a young man who was around six feet tall and from his age he guessed that he had just finished his higher education. He had short black hair and quite good looks.

"Can I help you?" asked Doctor Julius with a small amount of confusion in his voice. He hadn't expected to see the young man.

"My name is Doctor Robert Kenneth," replied the young man. "Miss Lee hired me to become your assistant."

"I told her before that I don't need an assistant. Your services are not needed here." He went to close the door but the young man prevented this from happening as he had placed his foot between the door.

"Miss Lee insisted, she said that you'd say no and that is why she has done it without your knowledge or permission. She said that you might work well by yourself but you need an assistant to unlock your full potential."

"Really?" He was a little suspicious of the man as he had never seen him before. He did consider him to be a corporate spy as Sasha had told him that other companies do practically anything to gain the secrets that her company were developing. "Wait here a moment I'll be right back."

Doctor Julius was able to close the door this time as the young man had removed his foot from the door. In his mind the young man could still be a corporate spy so he decided that it was best to contact Sasha about it. He thought that it would have been extremely difficult for the young man to even get here but he still didn't want to take the chance.

Quickly he picked up the phone and typed in the extension number that would allow him to call Sasha directly. For most people if they wanted to talk to her they would have to call her assistant before getting in touch with her. The number that he had been given bypassed that and allowed him to speak with her immediately.

After dialling the number he had to wait several seconds before she finally picked up. It seemed like a very long wait until he heard her voice on the other end which gave him some manner of comfort.

"Hello," said Sasha as she had been quick to answer the phone. She had been planning to ignore it but because she had seen that it was from Doctor Julius's lab she picked it up straight away.

"Hello Sasha," replied Doctor Julius. "This is probably going to be nothing but I have a young man standing outside of my door claiming that you hired him to be my assistant. Is that true?"

"Yes, I thought that you might need a little help with your work. I promise that he isn't going to be stepping on your toes or anything like that."

"I said that I could handle the work by myself. I've gotten by for a fair few years without and assistant."

"It would be in everyone's interest that you take him on. Despite what you might feel he isn't going anywhere and you're going to have to learn to let others help you, even when you don't want them to."

Before Doctor Julius could say another word Sasha put the phone down leaving him with nothing but a dial tone. He wanted to call her back but he knew that it wasn't going to make any difference to the situation. If anything it would only make her angry at him, he knew that there was no way that he could get around it and was going to have to accept that this young man Robert was going to be his assistant.

Robert had waited patiently outside of the lab for a couple of minutes. He saw the door opening and the short African American man answer it. There were a few moments of silence as neither of them seemed to know what to say to the other. It was an awkward silence which needed to be shattered quickly.

"So apparently you're my new assistant right?" asked Doctor Julius who still wasn't happy with the situation.

"Yes that's right," replied Robert. He still stood there with a small amount of respect in his voice. He had read the accomplishments of Doctor Julius and he was very impressed with what he had seen.

"Then you better get in so that I can put you to work." He opened the door further so that Robert could walk inside. He was glad to be working under someone with Doctor Julius's talents but he could see that the man himself was going to be difficult to work with. Only time would tell if they were to get along.

Elsewhere in her room Sophie was having to duck a little so that her head didn't strike the ceiling above her. Her extra height had not come in the form of a sudden growth spurt but rather of her standing on a chair. She was dusting the top of her wardrobe and even though she was over six feet tall now some additional height was needed so that she could complete the task easily.

Sophie would take pride in making sure that her room was clean. She had been in her brother Sean's room numerous times and she had always been disgusted by the state that he left it. She couldn't imagine what she would do if she left her own room like this so she ensured that hers didn't turn out like that.

It was a Saturday so she didn't have to worry about going to school and she was going to have a relaxing day after she had finished cleaning. She had no plans to see any of her friends and she just wanted to sit down and binge watch one of her favourite shows. She was behind on her viewing and she had a lot to catch up with.

Before she could even consider binge watching anything she went downstairs to pick up a snack for herself. Her body didn't need calories like it had before since it had stabilised after the growth spurt but she was still hungry. She quickly made her way downstairs so that she could make herself a sandwich. As she went down the stairs she briefly saw herself in the mirror and she could see that her freckles were still there.

Ever since she had noticed her freckles Sophie had examined her body on a daily basis to see if anything else abnormal happened. Thankfully there seemed to be nothing wrong and she checked her height as well as she feared that she might gain or lose some of her height. Once again everything had been normal and she thought that she might be worrying for no good reason.

Sophie had attempted to contact Doctor Julius a few times but each time she had failed. This only made her even more worried because if something really bad happened to her body she thought that only he could help. For now there was nothing serious but there was always something in the back of her mind that would nag her.

When Sophie did enter the kitchen she saw her brother getting himself a chocolate bar out of the fridge. She knew that he likely hadn't eaten any lunch yet and she was never happy when he snacked rather than eating a full meal. He was her little brother and she also looked out for him, even when he didn't want her to.

"You know you should be eating proper food rather than junk food like that," said Sophie as she was cleaning her plate. "You're going to get fat if you keep eating like that." She watched as he swallowed what he was eating and looked to her.

"Why do you care?" replied Sean. "You're not my mother." This was a typical response from him when he didn't agree with what she was saying to him.

"No but as a big sister I have to look out for my little brother." She placed her hands on her hips to show some authority.

"I'm not a kid anymore, you don't have to baby me."

"Well if you don't stop acting like a kid I'll keep treating you like a kid." She remembered the arguments that she would have with him and her older sister when they were younger. They hadn't quite grown passed that stage just yet.

"But you're still not my mom. Now why don't you just leave me alone and mind your own business!" With that he walked out of the kitchen and made his way back up to his room where he probably wouldn't be seen again for the rest of the day. Sophie remained where she was for the moment. In comparison to their previous arguments this one was actually pretty tame.

Sophie just finished off cleaning her plate before she made her way back up to her own room which was now immaculately clean. Not a single thing was out of place and that was exactly what she liked. She sat down on her bed and put on her TV to the show that she had been recording. She had five episodes to watch and she planned to watch them one after the other until she had finished. It was going to take a couple of hours at least but she had enough time to kill.

Around an hour into her binge watch she heard her phone ringing. She tried to ignore it for a moment but when it kept ringing she knew that she would have to answer it. She thought that it might be another call centre asking if she had been involved in an accident that wasn't her fault.

The phone rung again and Sophie resorted to answering it. As she said hello she expected to hear some kind of recorded voice. Instead she heard the voice of a woman and it sounded familiar to her. It definitely wasn't Lizzie's but instead that of Mary. This caught her by surprise as Mary had never called her before.

"Oh hey Mary what's up?" asked Sophie. She was caught by surprise but she was good at hiding it. The last thing she wanted to do was make it seem like she didn't care about her. "How are you?"

"Not too bad," replied Mary. "I was hoping that I could ask you something." There was a small amount of doubt in her voice. It was like there was something that she was trying to hide.

"Shoot."

"I was hoping that maybe you wanted to come around to mine for dinner next week. My folks are eager to meet you and Lizzie. They told me that I should be making friends and they're happy that I have both of you."

"That should be fine with me, I have no plans for then. Have you asked Lizzie about the dinner yet?"

"No but thanks for coming. I know that I don't really show it but I really appreciate everything that you've done for me. I'm not the easiest person to be around sometimes and the fact that you and Lizzie took the time to get to know me and spend time with me is more than I could have asked for."

"It's no problem. Besides we tall girls have to stick together." She chuckled and she even heard Mary chuckle a little as well. This was the first time that she had heard Mary laugh at all.

"Yeah you're right there. We might not see eye to eye but you're the closest girl in the school who can if you know what I mean."

The two girls talked for a few more minutes, mostly about homework as Sophie was a little stumped with it but Mary was able to give her the pointers that she needed. It seemed that Mary was more intelligent than she had given her credit for. However eventually the phone call ended, mainly because Mary had to talk to Lizzie as well about the dinner.

When the call did finally end Sophie put her show back on and continued to watch it. Her mind couldn't help but wonder about what Mary's family was like. With Mary's height she expected her to come from a tall family. Much like her own, a tall father and a relatively average mother was to be expected.

She also wondered if Mary had any siblings. So far the taller girl hadn't mentioned any brothers or sisters but she could just have a subpar relationship with them. She knew that she and Sean could often have a war with words and when she was younger Nicki had sometimes been horrid to her. Thankfully they had patched things up long before she had moved to Turkey. Her relationship with Sean had improved but it wasn't as bad as it had been when they were younger.

One thing that Sophie did hope to answer from meeting Mary's family was why she had blue hair. At first she thought that it had been simply dyed but Mary had told her that it was natural. This seemed very unusual as blue was definitely not a natural hair colour, she did wonder if this was a mutation or that one of her parents did have blue hair. She somewhat doubted it but she still couldn't dismiss it from her mind.

While she was watching her show Sophie did put on one of her slippers but she felt that it was too small for her. She realised that they were her old slippers that she had bought before she had Doctor Julius increase her height. She gave a sigh as although her life was more stable she did miss being At-Lass. She wouldn't mind putting the suit on one more time and facing some more bad guys.

She was just thankful that she never got drunk with power when she was at giant size. Holding someone in your hands like they are toys can give people a sense of power than they have never felt before. Luckily for her and other criminals she never had this sensation and so always made sure that they were safe.

Hours later in his lab Doctor Julius was still working but this time he was on his computer as he compiled some data. He easily had access to data about how the tests with the chips had undergone. However there was something else that he was looking for but each time he tried to go deeper he would hit a brick wall much to his annoyance. At first he thought that it was just him but the more that he tried it seemed obvious that there was something there that was being hidden from him.

Doctor Julius knew that it was something worth investigating further. He was using all of his hacking skills to try and get inside but each time he failed. Whatever it was Sasha had protected them well but he wasn't sure whether it was to protect a trade secret or something else more sinister.

He had gotten Robert to perform some menial tasks for him mainly just to keep him busy. Robert seemed eager to learn as much as he could from what he saw as a brilliant mind, he didn't even mind too much that the work that he was doing even though it was below someone of his intelligence.

Right now all Robert was doing was shredding some paperwork that wasn't needed anymore. He looked over to Doctor Julius who seemed to be working away at the computer at a frantic pace. His fingers were moving at a speed that he didn't even know were humanly possible. They had barely spoken since he had been given this menial assignment and he hoped to break the tension. Robert knew that Doctor Julius didn't really want him to be there but he was willing to work alongside him for however long that he needed him there for. To learn from a man like Doctor Julius was awe inspiring.

"Doctor Wilson," said Robert with some respect in his voice. "I'm about to take these shreds of paper to recycling. Do you want me to pick you up a drink from the canteen while I'm down there?"

"That would be nice," replied Doctor Julius who was feeling pretty thirsty from all the work that he had been doing. "I'll take a cup of coffee with two sugars and some milk." As he was talking an idea popped into his mind. "Actually there is one errand I need you to do for me if you're going downstairs." He then took a pen drive from his pocket. "I need some data updating from the servers. Just stick it in the servers and I'll do the rest from here."

"Err sure." He took the pen drive out of Doctor Julius's hand and placed it in his pocket. "Anything else?"

"Yeah, don't be too long, there's still a couple of things I need you to do around here before you go home today."

"Yes sir."

With that Robert left the room while Doctor Julius now just needed to wait. The pen drive contained a program that would allow him access everything in the company's network. It was also subtle so it was almost impossible to detect any kind of intrusion. However he knew how advanced the network was so he thought that he might not have that much time until someone caught wind of what was happening.

Doctor Julius did consider that this was a bad idea but something inside of him was telling him that he had to do it. There was something being hidden from him that he thought could be sinister and he wanted to get to the bottom of it as soon as possible. He always suspected that Sasha might have some kind of ulterior motive for the chip but exactly what he wasn't entirely sure of.

Like he was told Robert walked downstairs towards the servers. On the way he was able to dispose of the paper he was carrying. It only took him a couple of minutes to reach the server room which was much larger than he expected. He had to go through a security door but when he was able to get inside the first thing that he noticed that the room seemed to be cold. For a moment he shivered but carried on with the task at hand.

The server room itself had numerous hubs that were amongst some of the most advanced in the world. He didn't know why Doctor Julius had wanted him to perform this task but he felt that he had to do it nonetheless. He had worked very hard to get to his position and he didn't want to do anything to jeopardise it.

There were security cameras inside the room but none of them were able to register that he was actually there. This was because Doctor Julius had been able to hack into the security cameras in the room and run a loop through it. He had considered shutting them down completely but he thought that it was too suspicious so he just looped some footage. This meant that anyone watching would see exactly what they were expected. Just the servers where they were without anyone close to them. Eagle eyed viewers would notice that it was looped but since it was only going to be for a couple of minutes he hoped that it would do the trick.

In the server room Robert did find a place to insert the pen drive like he had been requested. With his task done he made his way back to Doctor Julius's lab just as the man himself got to work. With the pen drive inserted it gave him full access to everything on the server which included all the data collected on the chip that he had been working on.

As fast as he could Doctor Julius saved the every file related to the chip onto a second pen drive and he wanted to take it away and look at it in detail in privacy. He was just able to finish copying the files over when Robert arrived back in the lab. However there was one other thing that he had noticed, a series of files that caught his attention that he also copied over to the pen drive.

"I've done what you asked," said Robert as he entered the lab. It was quite close to the end of the day and he was pretty tired. He had been able to complete every task that he had been given.

"Thank you very much," replied Doctor Julius. He too wanted to get back to his own personal lab as soon as possible. Although he could say that he was able to live with Sasha for now he needed to be alone. "You've worked hard today, I think it is best that we went home."

"If that is what you wish. I still get paid though?"

"Of course, I'll put a word into Miss Lee and I'll ensure that you're paid even though we're going home early."

"Do you think she'll mind?"

"Of course not, I'll talk to here and there won't be a problem. Thank you for today, have a safe trip home."

With that Robert left the lab and a few minutes later Doctor Julius himself left the lab and made his way out of the building. He even walked by the two guards who had caused him some hassle when he first arrived. It was funny to think now that if he wanted he could have them both fired if he gave a little word to Sasha. However he wasn't that kind of person and just left them be.

When he was out of the building he didn't waste any time in driving back to the warehouse that he still owned. It had remained virtually untouched which is just the way that he wanted it. One thing he did notice was that both At-Lass suits were where he had left them. The regular suit was ready to go and he saw the new micro suit looked as if it hadn't been worn. In truth it had only been worn once but he couldn't focus on them as he still had work that he needed to do.

As soon as he could Doctor Julius booted up his computer and inserted the pen drive into it. He uploaded the data that he had stolen from Foresight Industries and quickly began to go through it as quickly as he could. Most of it was data that he had already seen but as the minutes ticked by he began to go through the data that had been restricted before. His eyes were irritated after everything that he was seeing but he carried on anyway simply because he knew that Sasha was hiding something.

Just as he was about to take a break he finally saw the smoking gun that he was looking for. From the data he could see it seemed that the chip had an additional function, it seemed that it could also access the information stored in a human brain. This was something that he found to be both amazing and yet terrifying. It meant that the chip could basically read the mind of the user and it seemed that all this information came back to the company.

For him this seemed to be a great invasion of privacy and there was no doubt that people wouldn't accept such a thing. It also meant that the company could know every little thing about a person whether they wanted to or not. Worse still if the chips were hacked it meant that criminals could prey on the information stored in the brain.

This was enough to convince him that he needed to confront Sasha about this but he also began to look over the second cache of data that he had stolen and he could see something that was eerily familiar. Behind his back Sasha and was developing her own suit based on At-Lass's regular suit. From the data he could see that she wasn't planning on making one but instead mass producing it so that the military could use them effectively.

If Doctor Julius wasn't annoyed before he was now. The device that he had created to help protect people was now being turned into a weapon of war. He felt blinding rage and it was enough to slam his fist down onto the nearby table. He had done it so hard that it left a bruise on his hand but he felt that it could be much worse.

With the truth now clear to him Doctor Julius wasn't sure what he was going to do next. He had to tread carefully but one thing that he knew for sure was that he wouldn't let Sasha get away with this. He needed to come up with a plan and he was considering calling Sophie out of retirement, however he didn't know if she wanted to be At-Lass again or if she preferred to remain a normal high senior