Read Online Crow - The Awakening by Michael J. Vanecek - Free Book Online Page A

house that was so thoroughly hidden from view from the ground. But, she wasn't Terran. Smiling, she pushed open the hatch and pulled herself smoothly into the tree house. Once inside, her skin glittered and sparkled, casting a blue glow that illuminated the interior. Contemplatively putting an index finger to her lower lip, she took the interior in. On the wall were hung several drawings of the boy's parents. Curious, she pulled one of the pictures off and inspected it closer. Steven had never seen his parents, and yet here they were, drawn with such skill that they could have been photographs. "Hmmm, curiouser and curiouser," she whispered to herself as she carefully put the drawing back on the wall, making sure it hung just the way it did before. She looked at the drawing for a moment more, cocking her head. Part of the meadow was drawn in the backdrop.
    Moving on, her fingers trailed on the counter as she walked lightly around the perimeter of the tree house. Sirel found the woven seat amusing. "Really?" Chuckling, delighted by the fine detail of the craftsmanship, she sat down on it, letting her full weight bear on the seat. It barely gave, just a little springy and startlingly comfortable. The bark of the trunk that made up the back of the seat was worn smooth, hinting at countless hours of use.
    In front of the seat on the counter rested a box that was larger and flatter than the rest. It was expertly made of hardwood, dovetailed together and lightly stained with oil. The clasp and hinges were brass and very sturdy. Sirel could sense the technology within the box and tenderly opened the lid, admiring the cobbled together computer contained within. "He's been a busy boy."
    There was no power on in the tree house. But the solar panels hinted that there should be, so she looked around and saw the battery setup under the counter. Grinning, she followed the wires to the charge controller and inverter module. Sirel shook her head at the inventiveness of it all and toggled the inverter on. An LED lamp on the counter lit up and she clapped her hands in glee. "What a little genius!" she exclaimed.
    She powered up the computer and was impressed at how fast it booted up. It took just seconds, so quick that the screen may have taken longer to power up than the computer did booting up. Lifting the inner cover the keyboard was attached to, she looked at where the boy had bypassed the bios chip with his own programmed chip, part of his solution of getting around the surreptitious hacks that commercial chips have built in. She tittered in amusement, delighted at what Steven had created. She caressed the mainboard components daintily with her fingers, impressed by the ingenuity of it all. She put the keyboard back down and watched the screen. A database scan was being performed, distributed to the many nodes that he had formed on the commercial servers out on the network. "Hmmm, not bad for a kid." She opened another window and began typing, her eyebrows furrowing as she concentrated.
    When she was done, Sirel closed everything back down and leaned back against the trunk that served as the back for the seat she sat on. She saw a mushroom resting on the counter next to the computer and picked it up. She sniffed it, then made a face. Penipe really liked these things and was always eating them. Sirel personally preferred her food freshly killed and not picked from fungus growing in the forest floor. She put the mushroom in her pocket and floated up off the seat. Her task here was done. Time to go make a report to her boss.
     
    Steven couldn't get his chores done fast enough this Sunday. The clearing dominated his thoughts as he checked on the chickens and grabbed any eggs he found, then carted a couple more cases of bottled honey to the truck. He went about helping his godfather load up the truck with fresh and dried vegetables, potatoes, as well as copious amounts of gourmet mushrooms harvested from his stacks of logs and collected from