by Dale Mayer
Too bad she hadn’t thought of that this morning.
Charmin raced up behind her and passed her at a steady gallop, his tail flying high. She ran past him and startled him, causing him to book it. Laughing, she gave chase. They ran down the beach until she couldn’t run anymore. When they’d first arrived in this world, all kinds of exertion had tired her out. Just walking across Levi’s apartment had exhausted her.
Now look.
“We’re doing so much better now, Charmin.”
He grinned up at her, his jowls flapping in the wind as they slowed to a walk. “Much better. I really like it here.”
“I do too.”
“But I wouldn’t mind a weekend at a log cabin with that whole Christmas look.”
“And that’s something we could probably arrange quite easily.” She amended that. “Maybe.”
He brightened, then a bit of worry traveled into his gaze. “Not that I want to be outside in winter or anything. That would be cold, wet, and nasty.” He gave a mock shudder.
“Then what’s the point?”
“The fire. The log cabin. The looking out of the window to see a Winter Wonderland.”
The way he said it almost made her nostalgic. “I can ask Levi. It might be possible.”
“Great. Race you back.”
And he took off.
She watched him go, too tired to give chase. She hadn’t realized they’d travelled so far down the beach. If she didn’t run back, it would take a good twenty minutes of walking. Oh well. Maybe the walk would be good for her.
Or it would have been, but she’d really tired herself out on that run.
Damn it. She almost wanted to sit down and wait for Levi to find her. Walking in the sand was especially hard. She trudged forward, feeling her energy drain lower and lower with every step.
Finally, she sat down to rest.
*
Levi looked up from his monitor for the twelfth time in the hopes of seeing Dani returning. The island was perfectly safe. He had no worries there. But with the ease of portal travel, anything could happen. Charmin wandered in and jumped up on the desk.
“Hey, when did you get back?”
“A while ago. Why?”
“Did Dani come back?’
Charmin plunked his butt down on his tablet – the only thing on the desk – and stared at him. “I don’t know. I ran home and she was walking behind me.” He frowned, the furry ridges above his eyes slashing down. “Is she not home?”
“I don’t think so.” Worried, Levi walked outside and stared down the length of the beach. In the distance, he saw her sitting at the edge of the water. His stomach twisting, he started toward her. What was going on? This was a side of Dani he’d never seen before. And he didn’t like it. She was always so happy, so balanced. The peacekeeper when Milo and he went at it. She added calm to troubled waters and laughter to long, tough days.
He walked steadily toward her so that she had time to see him coming. If she wanted time alone, he didn’t want her to feel like he was intruding. But he didn’t want to give her too much. And he really wanted to know why she was acting like this.
It had started after Charmin’s offhand remark about Christmas. He hoped she wasn’t missing her old world. He’d deliberately helped Milo destroy the program and equipment that he’d used to bring Dani here. It was too dangerous. They’d had to destroy it. But it had also made sure that she could never go home. He didn’t want her to go home. She was his wife in all ways. But especially in his heart.
As he came closer, she looked up. And smiled. A look that went straight to his heart. She was direct. So honest. No wonder he loved her.
“Hi.”
“Hi,” he responded in a lighthearted tone, his gaze intent. “How are you?”
“Tired.” She laughed. “I raced Charmin down the beach, but we went further than I realized.” She motioned to the water as still as glass in front of them. “I started back but got tired so I decided to sit a bit and enjoy the view.”
He plunked down beside her. “Have to still guard your strength. You’re doing so well, but it doesn’t seem to take much to remind you that you aren’t fully adapted.”
“So true.”
“Do you want to stay here longer or come back where you can lie down?”
She stared out at the water then back at the distance she still had to go and sighed. “It still looks so far away.”
He hopped to his feet and held out a hand. “Come on. Nap time.”
Laughing, she got to her feet and grasped his hand.
With a big grin, he swung her up into his arms and whistling a light tune, he carried her home.
Chapter 5
After a nasty fortifying shake from Milo, she curled up on the hammock outside and napped. God, what a life. As great as it was, she still needed to find her place in this new life. But as this last incident showed, whatever she ended up doing couldn’t require too much of her or she’d never recover. And Levi wouldn’t allow her to work, she was sure of it. Money wasn’t the issue, and as someone who had worked all her life and worked hard for every penny, this part was easy to get used to. At the same time, she felt almost useless. Levi looked after her completely.
There was no housecleaning anymore. No laundry. No cooking unless one chose to do it. And dishes were also extraneous. For the first time, she was really free to do whatever she wanted to do.
Lying on the hammock, she pondered life in the new age. She needed a hobby. Or to volunteer somewhere. Maybe she could help Levi or Milo in their company? No, not help Milo. He was way past her ability to be of any help. As for Levi, he had hundreds of employees.
He didn’t need another one –especially an unskilled one.
She just needed to find something to fill her day. But maybe not just yet.
This Christmas thing could take enough of her energy. Now if only she could solve it. Given that Levi and Milo were busy working, she slipped into her classroom area and pretended to pick up her headset and get to work. Instead, she started working on her computer. Idle thoughts at first, then she got serious about shopping. She really wanted this whole Christmas thing to happen. Money wasn’t such an issue – she had some that Levi had given her. She didn’t want to ask him for more, but honestly, these prices didn’t make any sense. They seemed outrageous even after she took into account the inflation for over two hundred years.
She sighed and wondered what it would cost to do this. Would it be possible to just rent decorations? Could Levi’s parents have any stashed away anywhere? No, not likely. Still, maybe the rental suggestion was an option. She quickly searched and found hundreds of rental options.
But nothing even close to what she wanted.
Parties. That’s what she wanted! Party supplies. At least it would give her a place to start. She started with a wide search then narrowed it and narrowed it and came to…nothing. Absolutely nothing. Were there no parties here in this time frame either?
She looked around and sighed. It was lunchtime, and damn if she wasn’t hungry again. She’d ask the brothers how the whole party rental thing worked. Unfortunately, they just looked at her.
“Party?”
The delicate questioning tone of Levi’s voice had her stopping to stare at him. “What’s wrong with the question?”
It was Milo’s wide foolish grin that had her slapping herself up the side of her head. “Oh my Lord. I don’t mean parties like Johan’s type of party,” she cried. “I meant like a birthday party. An anniversary party. A graduation party.”
They stared at her, glanced at each other, then turned back to stare back at her. Levi said, “Birthday party?”
“Graduation party?” asked Milo, a curious look on his face. He got up from the table and walked over to the computer. She knew within seconds he’d have found out all the information that was available to be found.
“So you weren’t raised to celebrate your birthdays?”
They shrugged in unison.
<
br /> She sighed. “No gifts? Birthday cake? Friends over to have a great time together with? No?” The brothers just sat there and stared at her like she was talking a different language. As she sat back in shock, she realized she was.
They had no idea what she was talking about.
She opened her mouth to ask another question when the noise of an alarm filled the air.
*
Levi raced toward his wall holo unit as the alarm continued to resound throughout the small house. He had no idea what was wrong, but his computer system had been compromised.
He reached the main machine to find Milo already working away furiously, his face in grim lines. If there was one thing in this world that petrified Milo, it was that someone would steal his inventions.
“Milo, what have we got?”
“So far, not much. Looks like something on one of our computers has triggered a kickback on the government bots.”
“Hmmm.” That made no sense. “Still, I thought we stopped anything like that from happening with the new patches.”
“Should have. But something somehow has raised the alarms.”
“Is someone trying to hack in?” He had his 3D screen up and was busy searching the red lines that showed where the problem was. “It’s coming from Dani’s old education system.”
Milo snorted. “That makes a stupid kind of sense. That old unit hasn’t been used in decades. It probably shorted out. At minimum, it would be using old code and that likely would have triggered all sorts of alarms.”
“Time to ditch it then.”
“Shouldn’t have brought it into service in the first place, but the education material was on old tech so it required old tech to work.” He glanced over at Levi. “She should be done with them by now, right?”
Levi frowned. “I’m not sure she is.”
“I’m not,” Dani said in a dry voice. “I’m about halfway.”
Milo stared at her, gave himself a mental shake, then went back to working on the computer. “Half is fine. We might need to download the material and put it on a new medium for you though. I can’t have it triggering government security bots.”
“No, I suppose not.” But Levi caught the wrinkle of embarrassment on her face. He hated that. She’d been through so much and had done so well. How could this possibly be easy on her? “You’re doing just fine, you know.”
“Ha. It’s going to take months to get up to speed on the useful stuff.”
Milo shook his head. “Take your time. This stuff is all about our system and how we function in it, so that should be the priority for you.”
Levi was happy to see that Milo’s enthusiasm perked Dani up. Milo being the super geek, he was used to having much less intelligent people around him. He often got frustrated when they couldn’t reach his level of genius with a concept he was working on, so he often worked alone. Then it almost always took a translator to bring it down to the level of the minions in the world. Levi was often that translator. Not the same IQ level as his kid brother, but he was no slouch. Still, it was that awareness of how smart Milo actually was that helped him to understand what Dani was going through because Levi had gone through it himself all his life.
“Maybe we can find an easier system for her.”
Milo nodded absentmindedly. He was already back at work.
Leaving the computer, the breach fixed and the alarms no longer going off anywhere, Levi walked over and gave Dani a hug.
“Does this mean I can’t use that system anymore?” she asked in a low voice.
“It would be better if you didn’t.”
He wasn’t sure from the distant look in her eyes if she was upset that her education would have to take a temporary hiatus or if there was something else going on behind those beautiful eyes. Again, there was a wall, a distance between them, and he hated it.
“Lunchtime?” he asked.
“Ha! We didn’t even have breakfast,” Charmin accused. He hopped up on the countertop and glared at Levi. “Did you really think I wouldn’t notice?”
“Funny, one of the cans of salmon had been opened and tossed in the recycler,” Levi snapped and turned Charmin’s words back on him, “Did you think I wouldn’t notice?”
Charmin’s flat nose went up into the air. “That was really early this morning. It was hardly breakfast.”
Milo piped up, “Maybe we should check him for parasites.”
Charmin howled. “What?”
“Hey, it happens to all of us.” Milo barely held his grin back. “Your excessive appetite could be a symptom.”
“Excessive? My appetite isn’t excessive. I’m a cat, what would you know?” Charmin stalked towards Milo, his fur standing out at odd angles. Then his attention was caught by something dashing across the 3D monitor.
“What the—”
Milo cuffed him lightly and he shut up. Plunking his butt down on the counter, he watched the screens dance by.
Levi frowned. It was very unusual for Milo to actually hit anyone, let alone Charmin. But what was even more unusual was for Charmin to take it.
Under normal circumstances, Milo would be fending off claws and teeth for that attack. He glanced at Dani to see her reaction, but she was staring down into her empty cup. She hadn’t even noticed.
And that was another anomaly.
Worried, he led her over to the big easy chair, waited until she’d curled up and it had expanded to suit her, and then watched in amazement as it stretched upward as if to cup her. He’d never seen the chair do that before. Dani was enclosed, curled in a ball with her head resting on the top as if this was normal.
And maybe it was. Levi just hadn’t seen it before.
He took the empty cup from her and walked past the other two staring at the monitor on his way to get her a fresh cup. He nudged Milo and nodded toward Dani.
Milo turned to look. He reared back slightly, frowned, looked at his brother, then back at Dani and the chair. He lifted his shoulders in bewilderment. Charmin, never one to miss something going on, studied Dani, too. Then being a cat, he jumped down, raced to Dani, and jumped up on the back where he lay down by her head. Instantly, his engine kicked in.
Chapter 6
“Problems?” Charmin nudged her neck when her hand stopped moving on his back.
“Not really, just…stymied.” She loved that word, and it suited her mood. She wasn’t as much frustrated as she didn’t know how to move forward. At least not alone. Therefore she might need someone’s help. And how could she do that when she wanted something no one knew about, where the concept was so foreign that she couldn’t see how to explain it to anyone other than her family without letting on about her secret history? And that had to be guarded.
So what to do?
Maybe give it up, but that really wasn’t what she wanted. They had a calendar here, but it wasn’t what she was used to. It was part of her next lesson, and of course she’d managed to delay that all over again.
They had so many wondrous things, and sure, there were apparently a lot of get-togethers, just not as she knew them. Parties like Johan’s had probably been around during her century, but she hadn’t participated in swinging singles parties or group sex. Those she was sure were part of Johan’s party definition and apparently Levi, like any healthy male, had also participated – at least initially. Thankfully he’d decided they weren’t for him. But it left her wondering about what she wanted.
If she were to bring it up, she’d be reminded of her weakened state still. And after this morning, that was still true. But maybe not in a few months from now. She could be fully healed. Although portal travel still caused her stomach to revolt. Not as bad as the first couple of times, but still more than she liked so travelling wasn’t an easy solution. Given the amazing times, she shouldn’t complain.
Without realizing it, another heavy sigh escaped.
Charmin nudged her hand. “Hey. If you are depressed, the best way to get out of it is to be with your pets. I’m your pet,
and I need more attention.”
She looked at him, and that same big wave of emotion swept through her. She swept him into her arms and hugged him tight. Outside of his initial yowl, his engine kicked into super tanker mode and rolled through the room. “I’m not depressed. I’m just looking for a way to fit in.”
He reared back and gave her a beady look. “I told you to lay off the extra treats, you know. If you’d listened, you’d have no trouble fitting into stuff.”
Behind her, she heard Levi’s strangled laugh. She shook her head in exasperation. “I am not having trouble fitting into my clothes.” She glared at him. “I’m having trouble fitting into this life.”
He jumped from her arms to the floor, took a few steps, and launched himself up to the counter. “Whatever. If you do need bigger clothes, Levi can adjust the program, you know. Just saying…”
“Charmin, that’s not very nice.” But damn if her hands didn’t slip down to her waist and on to her hips, manually judging if she’d gained any weight.
Catching his smirk, she glared at him. “It’s all right if you are useless. You’re just a cat, but in my old world, I worked every day. I don’t know what to do with myself now.”
Levi studied her. She threw up her hands. “I know. I need to heal. I need to fully recover, otherwise I’m a handicap in the workforce. I guess I was thinking there was something I could do.”
“Then find it and do it.” Milo’s head had lowered as he studied the bottom portion of his monitor. “That’s what I do.”
She glared at him. “That’s not the same thing.”
“Well, it is. Find what you want to do. And do it.” He stared at her like she was simple. Which compared to him – she was.
“And how do I find what I want to do?”
That made his eyebrows fly upward. “If you don’t know the answer to that, how do you expect anyone else to tell you?” He shook his head. “Know thyself. Remember that phrase.”
She groaned. “You can be so irritating.”
“Hmmmph. Just trying to help.” He pulled out his weird headset, plugged it in, and tuned her out. She knew the words would be showing up on the screen going directly from his mind to the computer. The technology fascinated her. She’d been good with computers, but not gifted like so many of her coworkers had been. And they would be completely blown away by Milo’s talent if they were here.
