Release 1.18

Eugene stood up and looked in a quick circle around the room, his gaze not seeming to land on anything in particular. He didn't acknowledge my presence, which I found extremely irritating considering the circumstances.

"What happened, Eugene?" At the sound of my voice he finally seemed to realize I was in the room. "I thought you were dead for a minute there."

He stared at me, unblinking, and I found myself becoming as annoyed by his stare as I had been when he was ignoring me. "sleep()," he said, emotionless.

I let out a small chuckle, but Eugene kept his vacant stare. "Well, you're the company hero for the moment, kid," I congratulated him. "I guess you earned yourself that nap."

"#define nap," he said, monotone.

He was still staring at me, and there was something about the strange symbols that kept popping up in his speech that was really starting to unnerve me. "You know, sleep. Eugene, are you sure you didn't hit your head on something?"

"Head... OK," he informed me.

I'd had enough of the Commander Data bit. "Yeah, whatever. Let's get back to the data center. Maybe you can explain to Anabella what happened in here. In sentences."

Eugene shuffled along behind me, and I heard him mumble "return; goto dataCenter."

He didn't speak another word on our trip back, and I didn't feel like engaging him in conversation. As we approached the door, though, he stopped. His eyes were closed, and he stood there as still as a statue.

"Eugene? Hello? Earth to Eugene?" He was getting on my nerves, but I was beginning to worry about him. His attention span wasn't usually long enough to be this unwaveringly bizarre for this length of time.

"Link established," he said, and his eyes popped back open.

"Link? What link are you talking about?"

Something changed in Eugene's look; something that made him look just slightly more human. "What link? Oh... the network link. It's back up, right?"

Thank God. He was using subjects and verbs again. "Yeah, Eugene, you did it. I'm impressed. Now let's get in there and let Anabella know you're all right."

"Yes, let's do that," he agreed. "I have a lot I want to tell the two of you."