by Dale Mayer
She had hoped for a future in computers and had quickly come to realize that the only way for that to happen was to receive enhancements to help jump her education forward, like Charmin had gotten. Otherwise, it meant years of study, and by then she’d have to catch up again as the technology here was advancing so fast.
Levi walked over to her, bent down, and dropped a light kiss on her lips. “If you come up with something, no matter how farfetched it might sound to you, tell me and I’ll let you know if our world has anything similar.”
She brightened. “Thanks, that’s a great idea.”
He led her back to her old education unit, which now looked like some space-aged doorknob. “This is what we’ve set up for you.” He quickly showed her how to use the unit. “Give it a try and see how you do.”
Right. So much for feeling like there was a light at the end of the tunnel. She needed to focus and get out of elementary school. Everything else, even ordering stupid decorations, depended on it.
*
Levi stayed long enough to make sure Dani was fine with her new computer setup. She’d really been doing well. Considering she was still having these moments of weakness, something Charmin didn’t appear to share, it was all good. Charmin ate so much more than she did, so maybe lack of nutrition was the answer. She hated Milo’s booster drinks, though they were full of wonderful things for her. But she was a foodie like him, and he could understand her not wanting to live on the shakes.
Walking back to the main room, he caught Milo and Charmin, their heads bent together whispering. He frowned. Those two conspirators were bad news when they got together.
“What’s up?”
Milo looked back at him. “Nothing.”
Yeah right. He groaned silently. Just then his office called, reminding him of all the pressing issues he’d been avoiding. After a quick call, he said, “I’m heading to the office for the rest of the day. Looks like I’m going to have to go for a couple of days to sort out some problems.”
Milo gave him his attention. “Bad?
“No and nothing that affects you. Mostly staffing issues and more government troubles from the new Council forming.”
“If you talk to Stephen, let me know. I’ve been trying to reach him and he’s not answering my calls.”
Levi avoided answering. He knew that a lot of people avoided Milo at times. When he wanted something, he could be very bullheaded about getting it. If Stephen had time to deal with Milo, he’d have responded. But with the fall of the old Council – thanks to Dani – Stephen’s life had been overtaken with responsibilities as the new Council was being formed. Levi wanted Stephen to be part of the new Council, but there was no guarantee of that happening yet. If ever. The government system was in flux. It was all good, but just as there’d been a lot of corruption in the last government, it was all too possible there could be the same problem with the new one. He almost wanted Stephen off the Council so that he’d remain part of the government watchdog. Someone had to keep the others honest.
He opened the portal and stepped into his office. And damn if there wasn’t a lineup to the right of people waiting for him. It was going to be a long day.
Chapter 7
Dani did as many of the learning modules as she could before her head started pounding. She hated to admit it, but Milo’s shakes were one of the best answers for that. They tasted disgusting but took the edge off of the pain immediately, and usually within ten minutes they were gone for good. She walked back inside to find him and Charmin busy working on some kind of joint project. She could hear them muttering something about government regulations and firewalls. She rolled her eyes. There was nothing the two them liked better than hacking into stuff they weren’t supposed to hack into.
“Hey Milo, any chance of a small dose of that headache remedy?”
He glanced up, his gaze unfocused. They cleared and his head bobbed. “Sure.” He headed into the other room, his fluorescent yellow and black striped pants making her eyes hurt. He looked like a bumblebee. Fashion sure had changed. At least Levi was more conservative, but Milo didn’t appear to know the word.
He came back with a huge glass of pink stuff. She groaned. “What part of small drink did you not understand?”
“The part that says you are trying to avoid your boosters.”
Charmin snorted.
She glared at him as she accepted the glass. “That’s not fair. If I want the headache to go away, I’ll have to drink all of this, won’t I?”
“Absolutely. Just think, if you’d had this earlier, you wouldn’t have a headache now.”
Morosely, she stared into the pink depths and wondered why there couldn’t be a bright pink pill she could take instead. “Why don’t you with all your brilliance take this liquid and turn it into a capsule so people could just swallow it?”
“You are going to swallow it.” He gave her that you are a simpleton look again.
“Yes, but if all this nutrition was packed into one pill, I could swallow it in one gulp and not have to taste it and suffer. This is painful.”
“Hey, I made it cream soda flavored for you this time.”
Oh no. The last time he’d flavored something, it had tasted like a cross between boogers and bubblegum. She tentatively took a tiny swallow and almost barfed. “This is really disgusting,” she gasped.
He shot her a look then went back to work.
Well, she’d asked for it, and it did work, but damn, she’d hoped for something about a tenth of this size. She pinched her nose and proceeded to guzzle it down. Out of the corner of her eye, she watched Milo and Charmin high five each other, hand to paw. She stopped drinking. “Really? How childish.”
On cue, both of them imitated her by pinching their nose and drinking from a glass.
“Oh, all right.” She poured back the rest of the drink then ran to get water to clear her mouth. “There, I drank it, okay?”
Both males beamed at her like she was a star pupil.
“Now that I did that, can you show me how to do something?”
Milo stared at her warily. “What?”
“How do I order a gift for Levi? You don’t have stores that I can walk into. I could possibly order from online stores, but everything is in Levi’s name. All the accounts bill him, and I don’t want to bill him. I want to pay for this myself.”
He looked at her curiously. “What do you want to order, and if it’s for Levi, why wouldn’t he order it himself? And it makes no sense for you to pay for it if it’s going to be his.” Confusion rippled across Milo’s features.
Charmin, however, was rolling around on the counter laughing. He understood because he’d come from her century.
Patiently, she said, “I want to give him a gift. That means I want to pay for it and give it to him. It’s special, and I don’t want him to know about it ahead of time.”
“Special. What is it?”
She shrugged, embarrassed. Because she had no idea what to give Levi. He was a man of means and simple tastes. But she might be able to find him an old-fashioned Christmas cookbook or something. Speaking of which, she didn’t think they had paper books anymore. At least she hadn’t seen any. “Don’t you have books anymore?”
He shook his head. “Only in museums. You can get everything in holo or digital, and they don’t degrade over time.”
“Crap.” She had to find another way. “If I wanted to get him a cookbook, where would I find one?”
“A cookbook?” Milo rolled the idea around in his head. “Online.”
“But then he’d know I ordered it, right?”
Milo nodded. “And he’d get a notification of where he could pick up his holo and how to store it for easy retrieval.”
“And if I want to buy him a real cookbook?”
Milo shook his head. “You can’t. You could possibly make one. The printer would do that, but why would you?”
Yeah, why would she? Because she was looking for something he’d never had.
That earned her another sideways glance. “On the computer.”
She sighed. “Right. So…do you think there might be a computer, some software that would allow me to make such an archaic thing?”
He shrugged. “Sure. Many hobbyists do similar stuff. Those books have videos in them and 3D images. I might have some free software around.”
“Do I have to pay for the recipes?”
Another odd look. “No. They are on the computer.”
“And by that, you mean free for anyone to use.”
He nodded.
Well, at least she had a place to start.
*
Levi raced home, an hour late and fed up. But he knew Dani and Charmin needed dinner, and they were a long ways from being self-sufficient. Besides, caring for Dani was one of the highlights of his day. He hoped he didn’t have to come out too many more times, but the messes accumulated if he wasn’t there physically.
The kitchen was buzzing when he walked in. He stopped in shock. All three were in the kitchen. And if his eyes didn’t deceive him, he was pretty sure they were…cooking?
A little hard to tell as Milo was trying to show Dani the just-add-water food, and the look on her face would have made Levi fall in love with her if he wasn’t already. She looked like she was about to upchuck. She shuddered and turned away. “There’s food in the fridge. We can make sandwiches if nothing else.”
“Why bother? That’s just as bad for you as this instant stuff. You should just have shakes and be done with it. I’m not hungry. I haven’t been hungry in hours.”
Levi didn’t let anyone know he was there. He was too fascinated at this unique view of the family dynamics in his absence. Milo was bringing other boxes of brightly colored instant food out of the cupboard.
“You know this stuff was good enough for Levi before you came, why isn’t it good enough for you?”
Charmin sidled closer to the fridge, and in a loud whisper directed at Dani’s delightful rear end as she almost crawled into the fridge looking for something edible, said, “Don’t listen to him. Anything that comes in a box can’t be good.”
She backed up slowly, her arms full, her hair flying everywhere as she tried to maneuver out of the cooler.
“Don’t worry, Charmin, I won’t be eating that stuff. Now you on the other hand…”
“Ha.” Charmin turned, rose up on his hind legs, and batted a cupboard above his head. The almost-impossible-to-see door opened, revealing stacks of canned cat food. “I’m stocked up.”
“Wow. It that all just for you?”
Dani tried to peer into the cupboard, but Charmin stood in front, his long arms outstretched and his head moving to stay in her face so she couldn’t see. “Yes. It’s all mine. Just in case the end of the world comes.”
She giggled. “Charmin, at the rate you eat, these won’t last you a week.”
He glanced at the cupboard fearfully. “Really?” And Dani snatched a couple of cans while he wasn’t looking.
“Hey, those are mine.”
“They are canned salmon. Not cat food. Canned salmon – people food,” she read the label off to him and held it up so he could read it himself. Something he was incredibly proficient at.
“Hey, I ordered that for me.”
She stopped and stared, but Levi noticed she didn’t put the cans back. “You know how to order stuff?”
It was his turn to stare. “Hell yeah.”
“Don’t swear,” she said absentmindedly. “Can you show me how?”
A crafty look came over his face. “If you put the cans back.”
She hesitated, obviously torn, and Levi understood something he’d missed up until now. Although her needs had all been met, she hadn’t had much choice. She hadn’t been able to peruse the shops and order something she wanted. Hell, he’d designed her clothing for her at home and hadn’t even considered there might be something she’d like for herself.
He couldn’t remember even asking. He’d been so wrapped up in taking care of her that he’d forgotten to ask what she wanted.
That was something he’d fix. But for the moment, he wasn’t going to do anything to disturb this comic relief playing out in front of him. It was exactly what he needed at the end of a shitty day.
Chapter 8
“I need both these cans,” Dani scolded. “Don’t be greedy. We can order you some more.”
His flat face scrunched up and he said in a pitiful voice, “What if the end of the world comes before it gets here?”
She rolled her eyes. “Like that’s going to be an issue. Deliveries are almost instantaneous here.”
He gave her a fat grin. “Then order your own and it will be here in time for you to eat it for your dinner.”
She glared at him, loving and hating that her cat could argue her into circles. “I’m making something simple for Levi. He’s had a tough day, and I want to do something for him tonight.”
Charmin gave a big nod of approval. “I like the idea of you making food. But you can have one of Milo’s shakes and just use a single can for Levi.”
She glared, spun around, and slammed the cans down on the counter. “I’m taking two.”
“Greedy,” Charmin muttered. But he immediately headed to the kitchen comp, pulled the big 3D monitor up, and started pressing the holoscreen with his fat paw. Milo sat open-mouthed through the whole thing.
Dani lifted her head and saw Levi partially turned back to where Charmin had been. He must have heard at least part of the argument with Charmin, and bright pink rolled across her face.
As she watched Levi’s shoulders shake as he tried to contain his mirth, it bubbled up and out to bounce across the room.
“Well, I’m glad someone enjoyed that,” she muttered.
Levi strode across the short distance, snatched her into his arms, and twirled her around. When he put her back on her feet, he reached up, cupped her cheeks, and gave her a resounding kiss.
When she was free again, Dani laughed. “And here I was thinking you must have had a crappy day and was trying to do something nice for you.”
She pointed to the cans of salmon on the counter. She glanced down at them and froze. Damn it. She spun around, pointing her hand at her cat. “Charmin, put that can back.”
He slammed the cupboard shut and turned to glare at her. “That’s what I was trying to do.”
His head high, he hopped off the counter and stalked to the big chair in the living room. She swore she heard him mutter thief as he passed her.
She groaned. “Is this what a mom with little kids at home feels like while daddy is at work?”
Levi chuckled. “Probably. Although that scenario is likely not as much fun as this one.” He gave her a second. “And thank you for thinking about dinner. We can have salmon sandwiches if you’d like, but I did pick up something to bring home.” He motioned to the box on the floor.
Charmin’s head popped up over the top of the chair. “Food?” He bolted in the direction of the box, beating Levi by seconds. He rubbed all along the sides, his nose in the air. “I can’t smell anything.”
“That’s because it’s in a special case.”
Levi lifted it and carried it to the table. He did something that made audible clicks and removed the lid.
Dani gasped. “Oh my. What is that?”
“It’s roast beef with all the vegetables.” He smiled at the look of awe on her face. “When I realized I’d be late, I ordered this to come home with me.”
She smiled. “It smells heavenly and sure beats take out as I know it.”
Levi pulled out plates and cutlery then proceeded to serve the ready meal.
Charmin danced in his place, his eyes glowing with eagerness. Dani got up, walked to the counter, grabbed the lone can of fish, and placed it on his plate. “There, you wanted it, now you can have it.”
*
Levi loved it.
/> He could watch Dani and Charmin for hours. A warm rosy glow filled his heart. This was the family he hadn’t realized he wanted – needed.
They’d just finished dinner when the wall unit beeped, indicating a call. He turned to check the caller. “Stephen.”
He walked over to the circle, turned on privacy mode, and answered the call. Dani and Milo cleared the table, one eye on the conversation. Dani couldn’t hear the conversation unless Milo let her. Levi made a quick motion so his brother would do just that. With the two of them listening in, out of the sight of the screen, Levi said, “It’s nice to see you, Stephen, but given the lateness of the hour, I gather something is wrong. So what’s up?”
“Your number has been coming up as having restricted searches going on and bouncing off our firewalls.”
Levi frowned. For one, there was no need to do that as both he and Milo were perfectly capable of bypassing any of the government firewalls to search for any information they wanted, yet this could be part of the trouble they had earlier. “That doesn’t sound right.”
“I know. Like you guys would make that mistake, right?” Stephen ran a tired hand over his face. “I guess I’m thinking this might be Dani attracting attention without realizing what she was doing. I’d hoped she’d caught up with our technology and our laws by now after living with you two, but maybe not yet. It’s a lot to assimilate.”
Levi shook his head. “She’s not quite there and most likely was looking for something that she had no idea would cause alarms.”
“I’m sorry, but they do cause alarms,” Stephen said, spreading his arms. “How damaging could it possibly be to have people learn that our ancestors celebrated holidays, religious and otherwise?” He shook his head. “It boggles the mind to think they felt it was so dangerous that no one should be allowed to know about it.”
