Note: This story was dynamically reformatted for online reading convenience.
 
 Author: Prodigy S.
Title: Nice Dreams, Tuning In...  002 (M 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: 1275 Series Word Count: 2107
   Chapter 2
   It was only a ten-minute walk back to his apartment.  Ten minutes with
his daughter, ten years into her life.  What was she into?
   She fondled the gift-box and asked if she should open it now, father. 
Knowing it was an expensive gift, a gift of meme-rights, it was hard to
tell her mood.  Was she going to be a good girl from now on?  Did she have
to be, or did she want to be.
   "Go ahead and open it now," Stephen said at the corner of Curray and
Portnoh.  Whizzing by, flying cars.  Several pedestrians in any particular
direction.
   Hilda opened the box, inside a ring.  Checking in visually, putting the
ring on.  Inside her mind, a download.  The meme-rights was to the word
"egosystem" and associated vectors.
   It was somewhat expensive due to its relation to the Power Station diner
slogan "Shepherds of the Ecosystem," somewhat due to its relation to the
general meme 'ecosystem,' and mostly due to its components 'ego' and
'system.'
   "Egosystem, huh." She shrugged.
   Here we go, he thought.
   "Nice choice, dad."
   She rarely called him dad.  Perhaps a sign, a good one!
   "What do I do with it?" she asked.
   "Make lots of money, make me proud, that kind of thing," he said, a
tentative smile.
   "I mean specifically, dad.  How do I use it?" She tilted her head back
and forth, looking for signs of sentience in dear old dad.
   "I will go over all of that with you.  I will.  Do you want some ice
cream when we get home?"
   "Blueberry pie, pop."
   "Pop?" Now this was getting truly chummy.
   "Sure, I can call you that.  That's what you are!" Real smiling?
   Stephen pumped his fist back-and-forth, Popeye-style.  "That's what I
am." Real smiling.
   ***
   Back at the apartment, roomier than a comparable Manhattan apartment,
smaller than the average Atlantisco domicile, Stephen doffed his heavy blue
overcoat and grabbed a fizzy drink.
   "Fizzy drink?"
   "Yes, please, I'll take it in my room, ok?" she replied.  "I have a room
still, right?"
   "I rented it out to a circus troupe.  So you'll have to sleep on several
people's laps, they'll just toss you around.  You're a sound sleeper,
right?" He play-batted her with fatherly paws.
   She play-punched his arm.  "I will teach those circus people everything
of what its like to be a Hilda, and dress them up like me, and you won't
know which one I am."
   "So when I make breakfast, suddenly you won't like omelettes, but just
maybe you're pretending to be one of them."
   "Or maybe they will have corrupted me and I really won't like omelettes
any more."
   Dead serious, grab her by the shoulders, look into my eyes.  "Say it
ain't so, daughter."
   "Say it ain't so," she whispered.  Was this really happening?
   "It ain't so!" Mr Barrowman shouted.
   "Dad!  The neighbors."
   "Hilda!  Soundproof walls."
   "Whoa, what are you planning to do to me, kill me dad?"
   "Worse!"
   "Yeah?  And what's that?"
   "For me to know and you to never see coming.  Haha."
   Now she was skeptical.
   "Fizzy drink?"
   "Be right there," he said.
   ***
   It was hard to raise a daughter, part-time and under the gun.  Where
were the contours of her dreams?  What line could and couldn't be crossed?
To think that he might have drawn in the outlines when she was a toddler,
and now he would be rewarded or thwarted for coloring inside or outside of
those lines.
   If he could go back in time, to know where he drew those lines...
   Meanwhile, he knocked on her door.  The door was dark blue like his
overcoat.  The light in the hall was too bright and the floors hardwood.
   She opened it just a peek.
   Handing her the cup.  "Fizzy drink, ma'am."
   "Aren't you the least bit curious why I won't open the door?"
   "Wasn't gonna ask."
   She motioned him closer, whispered.  "Did you notice I forgot to bring a
suitcase?"
   "Just now, immediately just now I've realized that," he whisper-replied.
   "So I took my clothes off, right?  You can imagine the rest."
   He really couldn't.  "What.  What happened next."
   "Well I threw them down the laundry chute of course!  And now I'll have
nothing to wear on the other side of a shower."
   He didn't have a laundry chute.  Was there an incinerator chute in her
bedroom?  He didn't remember that.
   "The laundry chute where, babe?"
   She jerked her chin in the direction of a wall panel down the hall
outside her room.
   "That laundry chute, dad."
   "That's the incinerator." She had been walking around without any
clothes on!  Wait, question.  No, better not.
   "Incinerator?!  Bad to worse, dad!  Dang it.  I always wondered why my
laundry never came back."
   That explained her excessive spending of money on clothing.  Perhaps. 
Don't change the subject.  He leaned in close.
   "So did you burn up your, you know, underthings?  Are you trapped in
your room in the total nude for the rest of time?"
   She squirmed, door barely open an inch now.
   "Fine, sorry, don't answer that.  What do you want me to do?"
   "Go buy me some clothes, silly.  Duh, dad."
   "It's the middle of the night."
   "Hardly!  Come on, I don't have any clothes!"
   "Why don't I just go pick up your suitcase from your mom's?"
   "Seriously?" She knew he wouldn't be doing that.  Belly of the beast! 
Not going there.  "Something near the mall must be open, daddy, if the
mall's closed already.  Just ping my account, you'll see something I've
bought.  Buy a different color of it, jeez Mr Barrowman, help a young lady
in the time of her need!"
   "Different color, right.  Wait, what's 'something near the mall' mean?"
He checked his watch, the mall probably was closed by this hour.  Least it
would be by the time he got there; it was already after ten p.m.  There
were other malls, supermalls, in the city, too far away on foot.  Wasn't
driving this month, part of saving money for the big purchase.  What does
something near the mall mean.
   "Ahem, other stores dot dot dot." She grimaced and smiled at the same
time.  "Big people stores."
   "Your mom let you--"
   "I went with her and Ace."
   Who the hell is Ace??  Not now, not ruin this.
   "They didn't go in with me!  They just signed and waited outside," she
hectored.  Was that better that they didn't accompany her inside?  Yikes!
Oops.  Oh shit!  Never told Dad about Ace before, double yikes!!  Not ruin
this...
   "Okay, girly girl.  Let's not overthink this, I'm going, see you
in...about an hour, I suppose.  Take your shower when I get back."
   "What happens if I don't?"
   "If you don't what."
   "If I don't wait 'til you get back in order to take the shower.  What
happens to me?"
   "Err," he grumbled.  Something terrible?  No don't say that.  "Just
wait, honey ok?  Watch TV in the living room, I won't see you in your
underwear while you watch TV if I'm not here while you're doing it." Had we
established she kept her underwear?
   "I can't watch TV in the living room, father.  I told you, I put all my
clothes in the laundry chute.  That's not a laundry chute."
   She's been standing naked here right in front of me the whole time. 
Hurry, glance down!  No obvious boner, phew...
   "Be back soon."
   "What am I supposed to do for an hour?"
   "Whatever it is, I won't be here to see you going at it!  Entertain
yourself, I'm sure you'll think of something to do, Hilda..."
   *** End of Chapter 2 *** 
  
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