Note: This story was dynamically reformatted for online reading convenience.
 
 Author: Prodigy S.
Title: {ASS} Nice Dreams, Tuning In...  001 {Prodigy S.} (M F g inc
nosex ScFi)
Summary: In the future, a man discovers there is more to do in life than
pleasing his daughter.  There's always that, though...
Keywords: inc, nosex, ScFi
Universe: World Family Group
   Word Count: 832 Series Word Count: 832
   Chapter 1
   In the diner a faint light shone on all the customers.  If you had been
here since before the Attack, you could have the title of patron.  Stephen
Barrowman, 34, was just such a man.
   Many things had changed in his life since then, and he never would have
guessed the turns of his good and bad luck, but here he sat with his
ex-wife Wanda, also age 34, and his ten-year-old daughter Hilda.
   The Power Station Diner sat atop a hill-shaped bunker of a building just
about the center of Atlantisco, a city of some 30 million souls.  What the
bunker contained will be revealed in a later episode, dear reader!
   The diner-bunker was surmised by Mr Barrowman to contain objects of
certain significance to his life and he knew not what.  As a patron, coming
here for years, he knew there was no hill previously; it was a disguised
building.  Power Station was on top of the iceberg.
   He would tell them this.
   "We're Shepherds of the Ecosystem, hun," he said to his ex-wife.
   "I wish you would never call me that," she replied.
   "How about her, can I call our daughter 'hun' or what?"
   "So I'm a her," Hilda moped, though not chagrined.
   "Any term of endearment, specifically," Wanda continued.
   "I have a gift for you, sweets." Stephen changed the subject and
rummaged through his dark blue overcoat.  Yes, he kept it on inside.  He's
been here since before the Attack, recall!
   "Sweets?" Hilda asked.  "I just finished my pie." Blueberry.
   "Are you trying to fatten her up," Wanda suggested, lightening.
   Stephen produced a ring-box.
   Hilda's eyes, characteristically, darkened in bright anticipation of
something potentially naughty.  She was possessed of intelligence and
imagination.  Little did Mr Barrowman know she would rarely feel so
positive towards him again.
   He should have known, though.  Puberty and the divorce.  One already
finalized, the other barely beginning.  She was a late-bloomer in the year
2353, our setting.
   Placing the small gift-box in her tiny hands, he relaunched his topic.
   "Shepherds of the Ecosystem is what we are, Hilda."
   "I know." That's the slogan of the diner, the shepherds bit.  "What's
that got to do with me?  Do they pay you to say that," she mumbled.
   "And it cost me a nice selection of change to secure it, but you'll see
once you open the box."
   Now even Wanda was curious. 
   They were meeting here to finalize new visitation rights; to exchange
Hilda to Stephen for the weekend in exchange for some vague sense of the
future.  Course, the custody was not legally dependent on her mood, not up
in the air, not subject to the vagaries of her unspecified desire, but you
couldn't separate Wanda from her train of thought with even the best
trainman's set of strong arms and thrown switches.
   Hilda wanted to wait to open it, her pleading eyes told him so.  Stephen
would later arrive at the conclusion that yes, indeed, this was the last
greatest moment in his life.  Or if he wasn't being melodramatic, the last
time his daughter admitted to herself or to him that she needed her father.
Wouldn't she always?  Life intervened.
   "Well, let's go," Wanda broke the spell.  "I can see she doesn't want me
to see what you bought her there."
   "It's a meme-rights, Wanda.  Are you happy?" It meant something like a
web domain rights license in our time, for the specific usage of a word or
thought and the right (if not the ability -- that's an additional
difficulty, an additional set of vendors!) to collect monies related to it.
   Hilda shuttled attention back and forth.
   "You know I could find out where you got that much money, Stephen.  And
why you're giving it to our daughter."
   Giving it to our daughter, Stephen filed that one away for later that
night.
   Wanda could see what he was thinking and looked grossed out.  He could
do without that face, no boners available.
   "Well, I'm more like sharing it with her."
   Hilda, miffed.
   "This is something for me and Hilda to explore!" he added.
   "Explore?" Wanda questioned.
   "Discuss," the witness acquiesced. 
   The ex was ruining the mood! 
   "Lots of money, Stephen, lots of money."
   Hilda's mood got saucier as she contemplated the unknown thing.  Hmm,
wonder how much money he's putting up here.
   Wanda continued as Stephen finished diner business like bill and tip,
remotely from his smartwatch.
   "If you think I don't have the time, or lack the discipline or the
inclination..."
   "Oh no, you've got that alright," he mused.
   "Even finalized things can become unfinalized, in their own way."
   He better grab his daughter and go!
   "Closed things can spring open," Wanda spouted, unsullied.
   Stephen hung his head back, suddenly finding the ceiling meaningful. 
She complemented his eyeballs on their honeymoon.  Stands to reason she'll
be after those.  Remembering what other body part she had liked, be after
that next.  Eek!
   *** End of Chapter 1 ***
  
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