Back home, Blackjack rode his mother’s big tyres that she had used to bike around with her squad in the early 18’s. The vintage chopper still made a noise in the hood. Blackjack lived with his sick father, a former Pathologist.

“You know I killed your mother?” Parker asked, following the question with a bloody cough.

“Dad, we already talked about this!” Blackjack exclaimed as he helped him back onto the bed, making his pillow more comfortable.

“I have been sick for 10 years now, and that’s how long you’ve held on to the hurt.” Parker held onto Blackjacks hand, “You have to let it go, son!”

Blackjack sedated him into an induced coma and he sat there looking at his father, asleep. He thought about the perfect moments that he used to share with his parents during their time together. Then, one day, his father came home with a lethal infection. He explained that it was his own invention and was something that could change the world but that it should be kept secret. Sadly, his wife Lesley got infected and Parker was forced to shoot her.

The court ruling dropped the assault charges because Lesley did not die. Instead, she escaped from the hospital and stabbed 16 doctors to death in the process. No one knew what had happened to her, but she was probably still out there, murdering people.

Lesley left Blackjack when he was only seven years old. Ten years later he proved to be immune to the infection. Parker’s body may have lost the fight but he had engineered his disease into an extraordinary form.

Meuron, is an airborne brain disease that feeds heavily on emotion. The infection has a window period of three minutes before you go insane. The first few symptoms involve headache, red eyes, painful chest, heart disorder and hyped excitement…it is therefore nicknamed love fever.

When you get angry the body cells die quickly, so Meuron triggers oxytocin hormone which acts as the catalyst and happiness remains the best medicine.

The most profound part about the virus was that your brain never died, which meant you became immortal. This was the trait that professor Parker had been searching for, for many years, in his hypothesis. The only problem was keeping the subjects healthy; otherwise things could really get out of control, eternally!

Blackjack switched off the light to his dad’s room and headed for his own. The metallic house was full of scraps, broken wires and loose screws. Like his father he also wanted to change the world and preach ‘One Nation’.

Blackjack hoisted his bed up, unlocking the closet hidden underneath it. The dark space housed a robot. He had always fantasized about building a human machine; so he had built a fine grown man who now stood lifeless beside him. Blackjack took his remote tablet and used the device to control the robot.

“Hello, I’m Blackjack, the One Nation!” said the robot

Blackjack was amused by his robots actions but was interrupted by his father coughing again from his room. Blackjack switched off the remote tablet, took his medical box to his father’s bedroom and measured the dose that he injected into his father’s veins. He then extracted the brain from his father’s head. After that, he filled the robot’s skull with his father’s brain, stored inside the cerebrospinal fluid.

Blackjack pressed the power button from his remote tablet and the robot powered up. He backed few steps away as Parker opened his eyes as a bionic person. Parker stood still for a while…then suddenly, the robot walked out.

Blackjack shouted: “Dad! Dad! Where are you going?” he tried to stop him and then gave up, with a shake of his head.

The silver man climbed the stairs and left via the kitchen door, heading out into the night. Parker decoded every piece of information from the environment and then applied it to his data base. He searched for his ex-wife, Lesley, and found her location 200 miles away. The silver man began to run fast towards his lost lover, causing accidents on the road.

Blackjack grabbed the keys for the chopper and sped away to find his father. He managed to find the silver man, still running around the city. He tried to talk Parker out of it, but his father took advantage of alleys and high walls, managing to escape his son. Blackjack drove around the empty streets of the night trying to find Parker again. The silver man ambushed the biker. He grabbed Blackjack by his throat, and, with ease, lifted him off the ground with one hand.

“I’m still infected!” Parker spat, then let go of Blackjack and walked away from him.

Blackjack took out his remote tablet and pressed all the buttons, trying to stop his father, but the silver man did not stop walking and was about to disappear around a corner. In desperation, Blackjack finally destroyed the remote tablet, which saw the silver man lose power and stand motionless.

***

Tell us: Do you think the earth will be inhabited by robots one day?