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random_nanorimo_stuff2012-10-25 07:25 pm
random_xtras) wrote in random_nanorimo_stuff2012-10-25 07:25 pm
Sylvia Chapter 3
Sylvia already had her nose in a book as she wandered out into the little dining room balcony that was connected to Grandfather's food preparation area. The sound of soft, ancient jazz music from Earth did nothing to break her concentration on the fascinating account of the creation of mankind as told in the ancient Hebrew scriptures.
However, the large, gentle finger that came down to block her view of the book did.
She blinked, and then looked up shyly at Grandfather's twinkling eye. "Good morning. Did you have a good night?"
"Good morning, Sylvia." He smiled, his hand withdrawing to rest on the railing at the edge of the balcony. "It was good. Though highly unproductive, since I found myself unable to resist the urging of my programming to 'go to sleep'."
Sylvia laughed softly. "The strangest habit you picked up from being human."
"Indeed." He shook his head, still smiling.
"Did you dream?" She closed her book, shook the leg that a sleepy and grouchy Zeta Zelda was clinging to, and then settled in her chair.
"I did." The smile turned reminiscent as his eye focused inward.
"About Grandmother Olivia?" She reached down to absently try and pry her friend loose. The attempt had about as much success as countless previous attempts on sundry other mornings.
"No." Grandfather shook his head with a soft sigh. "These were older memories, of before the war when I was young. My first wife was there, though we were but youngsters at that time. There was no sun yet, but the world appeared beautiful to me."
Sylvia reached over to touch his hand. "You'll see them all again someday."
"I am aware of that fact." He blinked and refocused on the here and now. "However, despite my hope to be reunited with those of my people who have died, and eventually to see the renewal of all things, I have no desire for it to happen yet. There are still responsibilities that I must carry out here and now; and your care and rearing are far from the least important of those responsibilities."
"But if I weren't here, you could go?"
"No." His hand turned to gently engulf her tiny one. "I still have many years of function left to me. If you were not here those years would be far emptier. I thank our Creator for bringing you into my life."
Sylvia ducked her head, feeling her cheeks pink as she tried yet again to try and tell Grandfather what his steady presence meant to her. She was interrupted by a cranky little voice.
"Noms. Nom time. Nom, now!"
Grandfather rumbled laughter as Sylvia reached down to poke Zeta Zelda. "Would you like a soft cooked egg?"
Sylvia looked up from the half functioning mechadrone, her expression brightening. "Yes, please, Grandfather. The ducks have started laying again?"
"Indeed." He showed her a pale green ovoid held delicately between the thumb and forefinger of his other hand. "Would you prefer it in the shell, or broken over a chopped root vegetable patty?"
"Oh! On the taro patty, please." She smiled slightly with anticipation, then leaned forward to watch as he carefully washed his hands at the sink and dried them under the hot air jet before carefully taking the taro pancake that he'd already made and setting it on the tip of his finger.
He then adjusted the temperature controls for that finger so that it was letting out just the right amount of heat before breaking the egg on top of the patty. As Sylvia watched the egg hardened to the desired consistency and the resulting breakfast food was set onto a large orange plate along with some freshly grilled asparagus and carrots. This was placed in front of her along with a glass of vitamin and mineral enriched coconut milk.
"Thank you." She smiled at him, then turned her attention to being thanking God for the meal, and then to making the meal vanish into history.
"I have spoken to the Director." Grandfather peered through the window of the smelting oven, and then turned his attention to carefully marinading a large block of meatplant stem preparatory to putting it into the slow cooker to moist roast for Sylvia's supper. "He was insistent that you displayed deviant and harmful behavior. I refuted his assertions. He then stated his intention to call the human correctional authorities in regards to your actions, and I closed off access to the trust fund that I created on the school's behalf. I then requested to see the recording of the alleged harmful and unnatural behavior..."
The massive, ancient head swung slowly from side to side. "Your behavior was not harmful, Sylvia. Nor was it unacceptable. You behaved in a very credible and commendable manner."
Frozen with her eyes on the still steaming remains of her breakfast, Sylvia had to blink hard to keep her vision from going blurry with the tears that her grandfather's kindly words had summoned. "I... that's not the way that they teach us to think in school, though, Grandfather. Young people are the hope of the future, so they're supposed to be put in front of the elderly. They teach us that old people are only worn out units that can't contribute anymore to society. And Kaneesha's parents are strong business people who generate a lot of jobs, so their daughter also has the potential to contribute highly to society."
She wiped her eyes and tried to take a bite of her meal, then spoke again quietly. "And I'm so pale. You probably remember what the Aryan Future League did when the lists of who could be taken from Earth were being compiled."
"I do." Grandfather's voice was a deep rumble of sadness. "Would that we had had enough ships to carry all of Earth's people away from the nuclear holocaust caused by the injudicious use of fusion reactors. But my people had only recently ourselves been refugees, and we had only the one ship. That organization's attempts to manipulate the lists so that only their own people were included was as incomprehensible as it was reprehensible. Still..." He lifted his head and looked toward her. "None of your ancestors have ever belonged to that group. Your grandmother Olivia was of Swedish ancestry; strong people who scorned such worthless ideas and ideals of supremacy. And your colouring... is your legacy from myself. All of David's descendants are pale, and no matter who they pair with the muted colouration is passed on."
Sylvia nodded.
"I've seen the family pictures," she said quietly. "But we can't show them to anyone else."
"No. Though it would probably make your life easier." He gently set the roast into the pot and then braced his hands against the counter to rest for a moment.
"I don't want people venerating me." She shook her head firmly, delicate jaw set with determination.
"Venerating you?" Grandfather looked up, surprise clear on his worn and scarred face.
Sylvia nodded and sighed, feeling embarrassed for not telling him sooner. "Yes. Humans call the machine people the Hosts, and they treat them almost like gods. I've even seen a few temples, though they call them mutual adoration societies."
"What is humanity coming to?" Grandfather pinched the bridge of his nose, and then rumbled a sigh and started chopping vegetables to store for later use.
"You... you mean that's wrong?" Sylvia absently let Zeta Zelda sit on her lap, one arm going around her little friend as she kept her gaze focused on her grandfather.
"It is." There was incontestable surety in Grandfather's deep voice. "Putting that much emphasis on another person always causes trouble."
"Oh." She blinked with surprise as her mind rapidly pulled up data and made connections. "But wasn't Jesus a person?"
"Jesus is also deity. None of my people may truthfully make that claim. Not even the first of us, for all his power."
"Oh..." Sylvia looked down as a forkful of egg and pancake was poked at her mouth. "Whoops. You're right, Zeta Zelda. I need to eat."
"The school Director has set aside a room for your use, where you may be instructed by a tutor of my choosing," rumbled Grandfather, the edge still sounding faintly in his usually gentle voice.
"You?" She perked hopefully despite herself, another forkful of food halfway to her mouth.
"No." He shook his head, then shot her a look of affectionate amusement. "It has to be someone other than myself. So I have sent a request to the super computer."
Sylvia's mouth fell open. "The mainframe?"
"Indeed. He is eager to meet you and interact with you. He was compiling lesson plans and data files even before we signed off from our communication."
"Ohhhhhh!" She excitedly hugged Zeta Zelda and was scolded cheerfully for her pains. "So I get to learn the real history and everything, not just the files that have been censored for five hundred years! I'm so excited!"
Grandfather chuckled, his earlier ire forgotten. "Eat carefully so that you may depart on time."
"Yes, sir." The archaic term of respect and affection slipped out automatically, but she was too busy finishing everything on her plate and in her glass to notice.
* * *
Sylvia was sitting in the school atrium when the second to last class of the day let out, deeply engrossed in a paper book the size of an ancient New York City telephone directory.
"Hey, you." A foot adorned with sparkling chains and jewels and neatly adhered to a towering high heel platform sticky kicked the book out of her hands.
She squeaked and looked up with surprise, and then her heart sank as she realized that she was surrounded by Kaneesha and Kaneesha's peer group. "Please don't damage my book."
"Forget your stupid book." Kaneesha shoved a computer pad at her. "Since you're skipping out on Mr. Xiao you can do something important with your time."
"I'm not in Mr. Xiao's class anymore." Sylvia turned away from the pad to pick up the book, then made sure that it was still in good condition. "My tutor thought that this would be a good place for me to study."
"Tutor?" Kaneesha laughed incredulously. "Oh that's a good one. You can't even afford anything decent to wear, and you expect us to believe you have a tutor?" Then she once more shoved the pad at the shorter girl. "Get this done. I want an A+."
"No." Sylvia shook her head as she picked up her own computer pad and set it on the book. "I'm not going to do your work, Kaneesha. That wouldn't be good for you."
"Hey!" snapped one of the other girls, a tall beauty with Asiatic eyes and skin like ebony. "What makes you think you have the right to be disrespectful to Kaneesha? She's important, and her dad pays your school fees!"
"Actually, my grandfather pays my school fees," corrected Sylvia quietly as she rose to her feet, her eyes scanning the circle of young females for an opening of escape.
"Stop lying," Kaneesha ordered with the crisp ease of one accustomed to command. "And if you know what's good for you you'll get this done and stop arguing. I need those marks."
The young heiress's eyes widened with shock as Sylvia once more shook her head, and then they narrowed with rage. "If you don't do it, I'll tell everyone that you were rude and hateful to me when I admitted I liked you. You want everyone to think you're a prude as well as a Nazi?"
"I am a prude. A proud one," came the quiet reply. "I just turned thirteen years old. I'm too young to bother with that kind of relationship, and I'm just not interested."
The shock, horror, and squeamish disgust experienced by Kaneesha and her peers was beyond all words. Kaneesha had pulled her computer pad protectively close to her chest and was swallowing against the urge to be sick when the tense moment was broken by the arrival of a hall monitor.
"Classes, citizens," it chirped in its cheerful voice. "No one wants to be late for the great date with learning!"
Kaneesha and the others startled, then fled en mass, leaving Sylvia to square her jaw, show the monitor her pass card, and then settle back to the grass with a sigh as she wondered if maybe Grandfather was right and humanity was skipping the drive to insanity and taking the teleportal.
However, the large, gentle finger that came down to block her view of the book did.
She blinked, and then looked up shyly at Grandfather's twinkling eye. "Good morning. Did you have a good night?"
"Good morning, Sylvia." He smiled, his hand withdrawing to rest on the railing at the edge of the balcony. "It was good. Though highly unproductive, since I found myself unable to resist the urging of my programming to 'go to sleep'."
Sylvia laughed softly. "The strangest habit you picked up from being human."
"Indeed." He shook his head, still smiling.
"Did you dream?" She closed her book, shook the leg that a sleepy and grouchy Zeta Zelda was clinging to, and then settled in her chair.
"I did." The smile turned reminiscent as his eye focused inward.
"About Grandmother Olivia?" She reached down to absently try and pry her friend loose. The attempt had about as much success as countless previous attempts on sundry other mornings.
"No." Grandfather shook his head with a soft sigh. "These were older memories, of before the war when I was young. My first wife was there, though we were but youngsters at that time. There was no sun yet, but the world appeared beautiful to me."
Sylvia reached over to touch his hand. "You'll see them all again someday."
"I am aware of that fact." He blinked and refocused on the here and now. "However, despite my hope to be reunited with those of my people who have died, and eventually to see the renewal of all things, I have no desire for it to happen yet. There are still responsibilities that I must carry out here and now; and your care and rearing are far from the least important of those responsibilities."
"But if I weren't here, you could go?"
"No." His hand turned to gently engulf her tiny one. "I still have many years of function left to me. If you were not here those years would be far emptier. I thank our Creator for bringing you into my life."
Sylvia ducked her head, feeling her cheeks pink as she tried yet again to try and tell Grandfather what his steady presence meant to her. She was interrupted by a cranky little voice.
"Noms. Nom time. Nom, now!"
Grandfather rumbled laughter as Sylvia reached down to poke Zeta Zelda. "Would you like a soft cooked egg?"
Sylvia looked up from the half functioning mechadrone, her expression brightening. "Yes, please, Grandfather. The ducks have started laying again?"
"Indeed." He showed her a pale green ovoid held delicately between the thumb and forefinger of his other hand. "Would you prefer it in the shell, or broken over a chopped root vegetable patty?"
"Oh! On the taro patty, please." She smiled slightly with anticipation, then leaned forward to watch as he carefully washed his hands at the sink and dried them under the hot air jet before carefully taking the taro pancake that he'd already made and setting it on the tip of his finger.
He then adjusted the temperature controls for that finger so that it was letting out just the right amount of heat before breaking the egg on top of the patty. As Sylvia watched the egg hardened to the desired consistency and the resulting breakfast food was set onto a large orange plate along with some freshly grilled asparagus and carrots. This was placed in front of her along with a glass of vitamin and mineral enriched coconut milk.
"Thank you." She smiled at him, then turned her attention to being thanking God for the meal, and then to making the meal vanish into history.
"I have spoken to the Director." Grandfather peered through the window of the smelting oven, and then turned his attention to carefully marinading a large block of meatplant stem preparatory to putting it into the slow cooker to moist roast for Sylvia's supper. "He was insistent that you displayed deviant and harmful behavior. I refuted his assertions. He then stated his intention to call the human correctional authorities in regards to your actions, and I closed off access to the trust fund that I created on the school's behalf. I then requested to see the recording of the alleged harmful and unnatural behavior..."
The massive, ancient head swung slowly from side to side. "Your behavior was not harmful, Sylvia. Nor was it unacceptable. You behaved in a very credible and commendable manner."
Frozen with her eyes on the still steaming remains of her breakfast, Sylvia had to blink hard to keep her vision from going blurry with the tears that her grandfather's kindly words had summoned. "I... that's not the way that they teach us to think in school, though, Grandfather. Young people are the hope of the future, so they're supposed to be put in front of the elderly. They teach us that old people are only worn out units that can't contribute anymore to society. And Kaneesha's parents are strong business people who generate a lot of jobs, so their daughter also has the potential to contribute highly to society."
She wiped her eyes and tried to take a bite of her meal, then spoke again quietly. "And I'm so pale. You probably remember what the Aryan Future League did when the lists of who could be taken from Earth were being compiled."
"I do." Grandfather's voice was a deep rumble of sadness. "Would that we had had enough ships to carry all of Earth's people away from the nuclear holocaust caused by the injudicious use of fusion reactors. But my people had only recently ourselves been refugees, and we had only the one ship. That organization's attempts to manipulate the lists so that only their own people were included was as incomprehensible as it was reprehensible. Still..." He lifted his head and looked toward her. "None of your ancestors have ever belonged to that group. Your grandmother Olivia was of Swedish ancestry; strong people who scorned such worthless ideas and ideals of supremacy. And your colouring... is your legacy from myself. All of David's descendants are pale, and no matter who they pair with the muted colouration is passed on."
Sylvia nodded.
"I've seen the family pictures," she said quietly. "But we can't show them to anyone else."
"No. Though it would probably make your life easier." He gently set the roast into the pot and then braced his hands against the counter to rest for a moment.
"I don't want people venerating me." She shook her head firmly, delicate jaw set with determination.
"Venerating you?" Grandfather looked up, surprise clear on his worn and scarred face.
Sylvia nodded and sighed, feeling embarrassed for not telling him sooner. "Yes. Humans call the machine people the Hosts, and they treat them almost like gods. I've even seen a few temples, though they call them mutual adoration societies."
"What is humanity coming to?" Grandfather pinched the bridge of his nose, and then rumbled a sigh and started chopping vegetables to store for later use.
"You... you mean that's wrong?" Sylvia absently let Zeta Zelda sit on her lap, one arm going around her little friend as she kept her gaze focused on her grandfather.
"It is." There was incontestable surety in Grandfather's deep voice. "Putting that much emphasis on another person always causes trouble."
"Oh." She blinked with surprise as her mind rapidly pulled up data and made connections. "But wasn't Jesus a person?"
"Jesus is also deity. None of my people may truthfully make that claim. Not even the first of us, for all his power."
"Oh..." Sylvia looked down as a forkful of egg and pancake was poked at her mouth. "Whoops. You're right, Zeta Zelda. I need to eat."
"The school Director has set aside a room for your use, where you may be instructed by a tutor of my choosing," rumbled Grandfather, the edge still sounding faintly in his usually gentle voice.
"You?" She perked hopefully despite herself, another forkful of food halfway to her mouth.
"No." He shook his head, then shot her a look of affectionate amusement. "It has to be someone other than myself. So I have sent a request to the super computer."
Sylvia's mouth fell open. "The mainframe?"
"Indeed. He is eager to meet you and interact with you. He was compiling lesson plans and data files even before we signed off from our communication."
"Ohhhhhh!" She excitedly hugged Zeta Zelda and was scolded cheerfully for her pains. "So I get to learn the real history and everything, not just the files that have been censored for five hundred years! I'm so excited!"
Grandfather chuckled, his earlier ire forgotten. "Eat carefully so that you may depart on time."
"Yes, sir." The archaic term of respect and affection slipped out automatically, but she was too busy finishing everything on her plate and in her glass to notice.
Sylvia was sitting in the school atrium when the second to last class of the day let out, deeply engrossed in a paper book the size of an ancient New York City telephone directory.
"Hey, you." A foot adorned with sparkling chains and jewels and neatly adhered to a towering high heel platform sticky kicked the book out of her hands.
She squeaked and looked up with surprise, and then her heart sank as she realized that she was surrounded by Kaneesha and Kaneesha's peer group. "Please don't damage my book."
"Forget your stupid book." Kaneesha shoved a computer pad at her. "Since you're skipping out on Mr. Xiao you can do something important with your time."
"I'm not in Mr. Xiao's class anymore." Sylvia turned away from the pad to pick up the book, then made sure that it was still in good condition. "My tutor thought that this would be a good place for me to study."
"Tutor?" Kaneesha laughed incredulously. "Oh that's a good one. You can't even afford anything decent to wear, and you expect us to believe you have a tutor?" Then she once more shoved the pad at the shorter girl. "Get this done. I want an A+."
"No." Sylvia shook her head as she picked up her own computer pad and set it on the book. "I'm not going to do your work, Kaneesha. That wouldn't be good for you."
"Hey!" snapped one of the other girls, a tall beauty with Asiatic eyes and skin like ebony. "What makes you think you have the right to be disrespectful to Kaneesha? She's important, and her dad pays your school fees!"
"Actually, my grandfather pays my school fees," corrected Sylvia quietly as she rose to her feet, her eyes scanning the circle of young females for an opening of escape.
"Stop lying," Kaneesha ordered with the crisp ease of one accustomed to command. "And if you know what's good for you you'll get this done and stop arguing. I need those marks."
The young heiress's eyes widened with shock as Sylvia once more shook her head, and then they narrowed with rage. "If you don't do it, I'll tell everyone that you were rude and hateful to me when I admitted I liked you. You want everyone to think you're a prude as well as a Nazi?"
"I am a prude. A proud one," came the quiet reply. "I just turned thirteen years old. I'm too young to bother with that kind of relationship, and I'm just not interested."
The shock, horror, and squeamish disgust experienced by Kaneesha and her peers was beyond all words. Kaneesha had pulled her computer pad protectively close to her chest and was swallowing against the urge to be sick when the tense moment was broken by the arrival of a hall monitor.
"Classes, citizens," it chirped in its cheerful voice. "No one wants to be late for the great date with learning!"
Kaneesha and the others startled, then fled en mass, leaving Sylvia to square her jaw, show the monitor her pass card, and then settle back to the grass with a sigh as she wondered if maybe Grandfather was right and humanity was skipping the drive to insanity and taking the teleportal.