Jon was frozen in place, but even if he could move the only escape was those stairs. And something told him he should hang on to this remote rather than drop it and run. He watched as a familiar pair of feet trudged down the steps, the words "son" and "neighbor" bounced back and forth in his head. Leonard got to the bottom of the stairs and looked at Nancy, then Jon, then his eyes went wide as he locked on to what Jon was holding.
"Holy shit, Jon, how'd you get that?!" He sounded shocked and baffled.
"Watch your language young man!" Jon snapped. "Wait, why did you just call me Jon?"
Leonard looked like he was struggling to hold in his anger.
"Mom..." he said, trying to be reassuring. "You... shouldn't be able to do that."
"Do what honey?" Nancy said, "I was just doing the laundry and your little project here caught my eye."
"Well that project is uh... very delicate and you need to put it down!"
The name "Jon" was now bouncing around in Jon's head. He knew intuitively that it was his real name, but hearing Leonard call him something other than "mom" was weird and unsettling. The tone in his voice rattled something loose in his mind too. The remote looked very familiar now. He looked down at it, trying to make sense of all the buttons.
"Honey," Jon said, "I feel like I've seen this before. What does it do?"
Leonard was having a hard time hiding his panic, "It's umm... just a prototype, to control my other computer systems... But it's not finished so I need you to put it down." He moved closer to Jon and held his hand out.
"Young man, I've raised you your whole life. I know when you're lying to me," Jon felt more in control than he had in a while, but Nancy's motherly instincts and personality still dominated his own. "Now tell me what this is!"
Leonard scowled for a moment, then sighed. "No," he said defiantly. Then he shot his hand out in an effort to yank the remote away from Jon. He recoiled at the sudden action with a gasp, and as he did so he felt his thumb press down on the big red button on the remote labeled "FUSE". The remote's emitter was pointed straight at Leonard.
"NO!" He yelled as his eyes went wide. But the basement went silent as a blinding white flash engulfed the room.
