As soon as the bearded male guy walked into the video frame, both Leo and Luke’s facial expressions turned from that of joy and emotion, to suspicion and frown.
“Hey, who the hell are you? What the hell are you doing in our house?” Leo asked, his voice unlike his usual calm self, but rather sounding like the top player, ‘TheBoss’.
The man raised an eyebrow, looking at Leo with a frown as he wrapped his arms around the crying Elena, trying to comfort her.
“Oye, oye, oye, don’t touch our mother…what the hell! Mom, who is this guy?” Leo said once more as he did not recognise the man at all, however, apparently Luke already did.
“Long time no see….Father” Luke said, with spite audible in his voice as the man on the other side of the frame grinned ever so slightly.
Leo’s eyes widened in disbelief, for a moment he could not believe it. But then as he superimposed the bearded guy’s image to that of their dad, Leo realized that he was the same dude.
“No way….. ain’t no way…..” Leo said in disbelief as his brain froze for a moment.
*********
A thousand different emotions came bubbling out of Leo’s inner self, however, his eyes were trained on the video call duration clock 01:01. It was already past a minute mark and was costing them a lot of MP.
“Luke, Leo, are you two okay? Why do you look so thin? Have you been eating properly? How is the job there? Have you been fighting with each other?” Elena asked a lot of different questions at once as she became extremely excited to see her children for the first time in a long time.
“We are doing good mom, don’t worry. Also, this call costs too much money so we don’t have too much time for idol chatter.
There is something very important we need to tell you first” Luke said, regaining his composure as he completely ignored the presence of the man sitting beside their mother.
“Oh-” Elena said, her mouth opening and shutting multiple times as she really wanted to talk with her children for hours if possible, however, from the urgency in Luke’s tone she understood that it would not be possible.
“Mom, there will be a second round of arc ships leaving Earth in roughly three months from now.
Me and Leo have earned a lot of money and can buy you a really nice seat onboard that ship.
Our plan is to buy you a guard that will help you make it safely to the ship and a nice ticket so that you can safely leave Earth before it’s destroyed completely.
So stay safe till then mother, if you leave 3 months later, we can all meet on planet Terra Nova again in three years time while video calling each other often in the meantime” Luke said, as he cut straight to the chase and conveyed the most important information to Elena for which he scheduled this call.
“What? My children have became so rich that they can buy tickets for me now? But doesn’t an arc ship ticket cost too much?
Leo, Luke, have you sold a body part to get me this ticket?” Elena said emotionally as the first thing she suspected was that her dumb children made an emotional decision like her to try and get her a ticket.
“No mother, we haven’t done anything of the sort. Me and Luke are sort of a big deal here now, we make lots of money, we can afford this.
You just need to be ready to leave mother, once you’re on another arc ship we can even pay for an organ regeneration surgery for you.
You will get your kidney back mother, we promise….” Leo said, as he assured Elena that they had done nothing wrong to earn the money for her ticket.
“Oh…*sob*…*sob*, you hear that honey, you hear that? Luke and Leo are going to get us both out of here! They will help us leave this dying planet, our children have become so capable!” Elena said, as Luke and Leo grimaced at her choice of words together.
“No honey, I didn’t hear them say that they will get us out. I just heard them say, they will get YOU out…..” said the man, as he tauntingly looked into the video screen, making both Leo and Luke feel the blood rising to their faces.
“No, of course they will get us both our honey. Right kids? Surely you won’t leave your father behind to die will you?” Said Elena as she desperately looked towards Luke and Leo with pleading eyes.
As much as both the kids wanted to scream and say ‘No-‘, as much as they wanted to abandon their father the same way he abandoned them all those years ago, they felt themselves being powerless against those eyes of their mothers as they hung their heads low and did not say a word.
“Know this Luke….. I won’t leave this place without him….. send two tickets or don’t expect me to board that ship” Elena said authoritatively, as she talked directly to Luke knowing that he was the decision maker amongst the two brothers.
“I understand mother…. We shall send two tickets” said Luke obediently as he grit his teeth and stared into their father’s eyes with vengeance.
“We could have afforded an A class ticket for mother if she were alone, but because of a dead weight like you, we can’t.
Remember this…
You! Are holding this family back” Luke spat angrily as he picked up his finger and was ready to disconnect the call which was at 02:55:00.
“Well it’s good to at least be acknowledged as family” said the man shamelessly, as Luke disconnected the call.