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muchtooarrogantAWOS Writing Challenge
Lauren tried the callout again, but as had happened a few moments earlier, the negative response she received was instantaneous.
The user you are trying to communicate with is not available!
She stared up at the strange house in confusion. Unlike every other structure on the street, it possessed no visual embellishments, no object tags which would've ordinarily identified its every public detail to her mental implant, not even an outdated holographic overlay. Nothing except two stories of reddish-brown brick, an occasional window winking back at her in the noonday sun, topped with what looked like tan trim along the roofline.
Lauren sighed, and stepped off the driveway on to the sidewalk leading to the house's front door. She shouldn't have expected anything different. It was precisely this recent lack of communication, a social aloofness verging on churlishness, that had spurred her into visiting her father in person. Whether he acknowledged her presence or not though, he had to be here. He couldn't very well be wandering around in public with his implant turned off; that would be a safety violation.
James White is requesting a face-to-face conversation with you. Do you accept?
Frowning, she followed the directional line her implant indicated, turned towards the street, and saw a teenage boy standing there. He wore a gray jogging suit with navy blue stripes, had slightly mussed brown hair, and was patiently waiting, with averted eyes, until she acknowledged his invitation.
Accepted.
"You trying to find Will?" he asked, eyes tracking up to meet hers. "If I know him," he continued, grinning across the lawn separating them, "he's reading a book in the back yard."
Lauren tried smiling back, but it probably looked forced. How was it that this child, a stranger she'd never met, knew more about her father's whereabouts than she did? Was apparently on such friendly terms, in fact, that he could guess his location given nothing more than the time of day?
"Yes, I'm his daughter."
"Yeah," he agreed, walking up the driveway towards her, "Lauren, right?"
It wasn't really a question of course. His implant would've received and passed on her name to him as soon as she accepted his invitation; he was just being polite. Most kids his age wouldn't have even bothered speaking out loud, never mind the social nicety of verbally confirming identities they both already knew.
"That's right," she said, shaking the extended hand he offered her. Despite the annoyance she felt towards her father, it was impossible not to like this outgoing kid.
"Don't worry," James said, perhaps picking up on some of her frustration, "he's okay, just a little absentminded sometimes. He always turns off the implant when he's reading, says he can't concentrate on his book otherwise."
Unable to stop herself, Lauren laughed. "Is that what he told you?" At James' bemused nod, she continued, "Will Rutlidge used to be in charge of an active team of more than a hundred people for Delaware's Emergency Management Agency. Anyone capable of coordinating a group of people that size, not to mention their related data streams during an ongoing emergency, would hardly be distracted by a few incoming messages while he was reading a book."
She stopped, a little embarrassed by the flood of words she had released. What exactly was she trying to prove?
James thought about it for a second, and then shrugged. "Maybe," he allowed, "but maybe that's also why he likes to turn everything off, now that he can."
Lauren opened her mouth, prepared to dismiss what the boy had said as ridiculous, and then his words actually registered.
Her family had always been so connected, the first in the neighborhood to try out new implant advances, data speed improvements, anything having to do with information sharing. Could her father, the king of early adopters, have finally become so overwhelmed by the deluge of information at his disposal that he had wanted to turn it off? A month ago, her answer would've been an emphatic no, but now… He had changed so much in such a short time, and a large part of the change seemed to involve a pulling back from everything he had once enthusiastically embraced.
"I don't know," she admitted, feeling stunned.
The moment stretched, both of them hearing the ring of truth in what James had said, and realizing the severing of modern-day ties it implied. Then he reached towards her, as though thinking about offering some gesture of comfort, but changed his mind at the last moment, turning the motion into a wave towards the house's back yard.
"Well," he said lamely, "he'll definitely be back there."
He turned away from her, moving quickly back down the driveway, as though afraid that speaking with her any longer might cause him to stumble over another unforeseen conversational landmine.
"Thank you!" she called after him, wondering what other insights to her father he might carry inside his tousled head. He made no response, although her implant received a message from him a few seconds later.
James White has requested Level 3 friend status. Do you accept?
"Dad, are you back here?" Lauren asked, holding the wooden gate to the back yard open with her right hand.
"Lauren!" It was definitely his voice, with the inevitable verbal sandpaper she'd started to hear over the past few years. "Is it that late already?"
The back yard was awash with sunlight, regimented roses and other flowers she couldn't identify reflecting the light upwards in a myriad of different colors. A covered seating area extended from the back of the house, almost completely surrounded by flowerbeds, with only one narrow brick walkway as a concession to escape from the patio. When she finally saw her father, he was standing beside a lounge chair, holding a narrow volume in one hand, looking decidedly rumpled.
"Did I disturb your nap?" she asked, letting the gate swing shut, and advancing towards him along the walkway.
"Well," he rumbled, in the deep baritone which had so dominated her childhood years, "I might possibly have dozed off for just a second."
Spreading both arms wide, he engulfed her in the familiar bear hug she loved so much.
Finally letting go, she tugged playfully at the book he still held in one hand. "What's this? Some relic you couldn't find through your implant?"
"Ah, this now," he responded, grinning down at her and drumming his fingers on the book's spine, "this is a volume of poetry a young lady wrote for me once. And no, it wasn't ever published for the implant." He chuckled, his eyes suddenly far away, "We hadn't even dreamed of implants back then."
She giggled, "And you're telling me this young lady wrote the whole book for you, huh?"
"Pishaw," he made a throw away gesture with the hand not holding the book, "who else would she have written it for?"
His hand's skin had a few wrinkles, but still looked strong for all that. Strong, capable, the hands that she had once believed to be infallible. His face, his arms, every piece of visible skin she could see was deeply tanned. There was a bit more gray in his hair, yes, but as he himself would undoubtedly say if she brought up the subject, "At least I still have all of it."
His silence had drawn her here, but now that she was standing in front of him, he looked so vibrant, so alive.
"I was worried about you," she said quietly, regretting the loss of their banter from a few seconds before, but suddenly overcome with the need to verify that, in fact, he was as well as he appeared. "You," she hesitated, not wanting to put him on the defensive, "you stopped answering my messages."
"H'm," he said thoughtfully, placing a work-hardened hand on her arm, and gently guiding her to a patio chair. After sitting down himself, he studied her for a moment, resting his chin on one fist, a contemplative gesture with which she was well acquainted. Usually, though not always, it meant she had overlooked something obvious.
"What?" she demanded, unable to sit still under his patient gaze any longer.
His eyes crinkled at the sides with a suppressed smile, and he kept his silence for a few more seconds, teasing her. Eventually, he straightened, dropping the fist that had been propping up his chin.
"You never urged me to go through a regenerative procedure like your mother did," he observed. "Why not?"
"I …" His non sequitur had caught her completely off guard. "I don't know. It didn't …" She stopped, searching for the right words, and finally continued, "It didn't seem like something you cared about. Like something that was important to you."
"But," he said reasonably, "your mother did it. As soon as our marriage contract was up and you were a legal adult, she started the next phase in her life." He spun his hands around themselves in a counter clockwise gesture. "Turned back the biological clock, and started the next phase in her life."
She shrugged, uncomfortable with the turn their conversation had taken. "you're your own person. I figured you'd get around to it, when, if, you felt it was the right time. But," she said hurriedly, feeling he was trying to maneuver her into a conversational corner, "there's a big difference in-between rewinding back to twenty-five, and cutting off your loved ones."
"Cutting off?" he raised one eyebrow in amused inquiry, "really, Lauren?" He leaned towards her, intent, but not angry. "After your mother and I closed our contract, I took stock of my options, and decided to make a few changes in my life." He spread his hands, the fingers somewhat callused from working with garden tools. "I retired from my job, I bought this house, and I began living less and less up here," gesturing towards his skull. "The thing is, it didn't happen all at once. Hell, just getting clear of everything job related took months. I assumed," he extended a hand, and, blinking back tears, she linked fingers with him, "I always assumed you understood what I was doing."
"I knew you wanted a change," she admitted, "wanted to try something different, but …" She trailed off, uncertain of how to continue.
He squeezed her hand. "You were perhaps hoping it would be something more impressive than growing flowers and falling asleep in a chaise longue reading poetry?"
"I… Yes!" She pulled her hand free, brushed at her eyes, and unsuccessfully tried to glare at him. "You were the dad who could do anything. It didn't matter if it was a hurricane, a blizzard, that horrible crash when the state's transit computers went offline. You were always there." He nodded. "This is all so," she waved helplessly at the back yard, "alien."
He grinned unrepentantly at her. "It's a wonderful sort of alien though, you have to admit."
Did she? What sort of place could she have in this tiny new world he had created, and how might finding that place change her? Her father had always been her rock, the one person in her life she could rely on absolutely. Now it felt as though that single point of stability was gone, as though her rock was plummeting down hill, all the while urging her to follow in its path.
"It's not forever," he said quietly, as though reading her mind. "Just a temporary refuge I've built until," his grin widened, "whatever comes next."
Lauren tried the callout again, but as had happened a few moments earlier, the negative response she received was instantaneous.
The user you are trying to communicate with is not available!
She stared up at the strange house in confusion. Unlike every other structure on the street, it possessed no visual embellishments, no object tags which would've ordinarily identified its every public detail to her mental implant, not even an outdated holographic overlay. Nothing except two stories of reddish-brown brick, an occasional window winking back at her in the noonday sun, topped with what looked like tan trim along the roofline.
Lauren sighed, and stepped off the driveway on to the sidewalk leading to the house's front door. She shouldn't have expected anything different. It was precisely this recent lack of communication, a social aloofness verging on churlishness, that had spurred her into visiting her father in person. Whether he acknowledged her presence or not though, he had to be here. He couldn't very well be wandering around in public with his implant turned off; that would be a safety violation.
James White is requesting a face-to-face conversation with you. Do you accept?
Frowning, she followed the directional line her implant indicated, turned towards the street, and saw a teenage boy standing there. He wore a gray jogging suit with navy blue stripes, had slightly mussed brown hair, and was patiently waiting, with averted eyes, until she acknowledged his invitation.
Accepted.
"You trying to find Will?" he asked, eyes tracking up to meet hers. "If I know him," he continued, grinning across the lawn separating them, "he's reading a book in the back yard."
Lauren tried smiling back, but it probably looked forced. How was it that this child, a stranger she'd never met, knew more about her father's whereabouts than she did? Was apparently on such friendly terms, in fact, that he could guess his location given nothing more than the time of day?
"Yes, I'm his daughter."
"Yeah," he agreed, walking up the driveway towards her, "Lauren, right?"
It wasn't really a question of course. His implant would've received and passed on her name to him as soon as she accepted his invitation; he was just being polite. Most kids his age wouldn't have even bothered speaking out loud, never mind the social nicety of verbally confirming identities they both already knew.
"That's right," she said, shaking the extended hand he offered her. Despite the annoyance she felt towards her father, it was impossible not to like this outgoing kid.
"Don't worry," James said, perhaps picking up on some of her frustration, "he's okay, just a little absentminded sometimes. He always turns off the implant when he's reading, says he can't concentrate on his book otherwise."
Unable to stop herself, Lauren laughed. "Is that what he told you?" At James' bemused nod, she continued, "Will Rutlidge used to be in charge of an active team of more than a hundred people for Delaware's Emergency Management Agency. Anyone capable of coordinating a group of people that size, not to mention their related data streams during an ongoing emergency, would hardly be distracted by a few incoming messages while he was reading a book."
She stopped, a little embarrassed by the flood of words she had released. What exactly was she trying to prove?
James thought about it for a second, and then shrugged. "Maybe," he allowed, "but maybe that's also why he likes to turn everything off, now that he can."
Lauren opened her mouth, prepared to dismiss what the boy had said as ridiculous, and then his words actually registered.
Her family had always been so connected, the first in the neighborhood to try out new implant advances, data speed improvements, anything having to do with information sharing. Could her father, the king of early adopters, have finally become so overwhelmed by the deluge of information at his disposal that he had wanted to turn it off? A month ago, her answer would've been an emphatic no, but now… He had changed so much in such a short time, and a large part of the change seemed to involve a pulling back from everything he had once enthusiastically embraced.
"I don't know," she admitted, feeling stunned.
The moment stretched, both of them hearing the ring of truth in what James had said, and realizing the severing of modern-day ties it implied. Then he reached towards her, as though thinking about offering some gesture of comfort, but changed his mind at the last moment, turning the motion into a wave towards the house's back yard.
"Well," he said lamely, "he'll definitely be back there."
He turned away from her, moving quickly back down the driveway, as though afraid that speaking with her any longer might cause him to stumble over another unforeseen conversational landmine.
"Thank you!" she called after him, wondering what other insights to her father he might carry inside his tousled head. He made no response, although her implant received a message from him a few seconds later.
James White has requested Level 3 friend status. Do you accept?
"Dad, are you back here?" Lauren asked, holding the wooden gate to the back yard open with her right hand.
"Lauren!" It was definitely his voice, with the inevitable verbal sandpaper she'd started to hear over the past few years. "Is it that late already?"
The back yard was awash with sunlight, regimented roses and other flowers she couldn't identify reflecting the light upwards in a myriad of different colors. A covered seating area extended from the back of the house, almost completely surrounded by flowerbeds, with only one narrow brick walkway as a concession to escape from the patio. When she finally saw her father, he was standing beside a lounge chair, holding a narrow volume in one hand, looking decidedly rumpled.
"Did I disturb your nap?" she asked, letting the gate swing shut, and advancing towards him along the walkway.
"Well," he rumbled, in the deep baritone which had so dominated her childhood years, "I might possibly have dozed off for just a second."
Spreading both arms wide, he engulfed her in the familiar bear hug she loved so much.
Finally letting go, she tugged playfully at the book he still held in one hand. "What's this? Some relic you couldn't find through your implant?"
"Ah, this now," he responded, grinning down at her and drumming his fingers on the book's spine, "this is a volume of poetry a young lady wrote for me once. And no, it wasn't ever published for the implant." He chuckled, his eyes suddenly far away, "We hadn't even dreamed of implants back then."
She giggled, "And you're telling me this young lady wrote the whole book for you, huh?"
"Pishaw," he made a throw away gesture with the hand not holding the book, "who else would she have written it for?"
His hand's skin had a few wrinkles, but still looked strong for all that. Strong, capable, the hands that she had once believed to be infallible. His face, his arms, every piece of visible skin she could see was deeply tanned. There was a bit more gray in his hair, yes, but as he himself would undoubtedly say if she brought up the subject, "At least I still have all of it."
His silence had drawn her here, but now that she was standing in front of him, he looked so vibrant, so alive.
"I was worried about you," she said quietly, regretting the loss of their banter from a few seconds before, but suddenly overcome with the need to verify that, in fact, he was as well as he appeared. "You," she hesitated, not wanting to put him on the defensive, "you stopped answering my messages."
"H'm," he said thoughtfully, placing a work-hardened hand on her arm, and gently guiding her to a patio chair. After sitting down himself, he studied her for a moment, resting his chin on one fist, a contemplative gesture with which she was well acquainted. Usually, though not always, it meant she had overlooked something obvious.
"What?" she demanded, unable to sit still under his patient gaze any longer.
His eyes crinkled at the sides with a suppressed smile, and he kept his silence for a few more seconds, teasing her. Eventually, he straightened, dropping the fist that had been propping up his chin.
"You never urged me to go through a regenerative procedure like your mother did," he observed. "Why not?"
"I …" His non sequitur had caught her completely off guard. "I don't know. It didn't …" She stopped, searching for the right words, and finally continued, "It didn't seem like something you cared about. Like something that was important to you."
"But," he said reasonably, "your mother did it. As soon as our marriage contract was up and you were a legal adult, she started the next phase in her life." He spun his hands around themselves in a counter clockwise gesture. "Turned back the biological clock, and started the next phase in her life."
She shrugged, uncomfortable with the turn their conversation had taken. "you're your own person. I figured you'd get around to it, when, if, you felt it was the right time. But," she said hurriedly, feeling he was trying to maneuver her into a conversational corner, "there's a big difference in-between rewinding back to twenty-five, and cutting off your loved ones."
"Cutting off?" he raised one eyebrow in amused inquiry, "really, Lauren?" He leaned towards her, intent, but not angry. "After your mother and I closed our contract, I took stock of my options, and decided to make a few changes in my life." He spread his hands, the fingers somewhat callused from working with garden tools. "I retired from my job, I bought this house, and I began living less and less up here," gesturing towards his skull. "The thing is, it didn't happen all at once. Hell, just getting clear of everything job related took months. I assumed," he extended a hand, and, blinking back tears, she linked fingers with him, "I always assumed you understood what I was doing."
"I knew you wanted a change," she admitted, "wanted to try something different, but …" She trailed off, uncertain of how to continue.
He squeezed her hand. "You were perhaps hoping it would be something more impressive than growing flowers and falling asleep in a chaise longue reading poetry?"
"I… Yes!" She pulled her hand free, brushed at her eyes, and unsuccessfully tried to glare at him. "You were the dad who could do anything. It didn't matter if it was a hurricane, a blizzard, that horrible crash when the state's transit computers went offline. You were always there." He nodded. "This is all so," she waved helplessly at the back yard, "alien."
He grinned unrepentantly at her. "It's a wonderful sort of alien though, you have to admit."
Did she? What sort of place could she have in this tiny new world he had created, and how might finding that place change her? Her father had always been her rock, the one person in her life she could rely on absolutely. Now it felt as though that single point of stability was gone, as though her rock was plummeting down hill, all the while urging her to follow in its path.
"It's not forever," he said quietly, as though reading her mind. "Just a temporary refuge I've built until," his grin widened, "whatever comes next."
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no subject
Date: 2012-08-24 04:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-25 02:53 am (UTC)Dan
no subject
Date: 2012-08-24 07:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-25 02:52 am (UTC)Honestly, I can understand both Lauren's and her Dad's viewpoints in this story. A part of me would love, love, love having access to all that information and interactability, but I think I'd be turning it off for some quiet times in the back yard as well. LOL
Thanks so much for reading and commenting!
Dan
no subject
Date: 2012-08-28 06:22 pm (UTC)You asked me if I like the sci-fi genre. The short answer is no. But, as with everything in my world, there is never an absolute. If I'm perusing for something new to read, I will rarely if ever gravitate towards the science fiction section in the bookstore, however, if I get to it in roundabout means, as in, the fact that it's sci-fi is just a minor detail in an engrossing story, then that's ok. This was still a story about people, not robots or human-bots or some such thing. I enjoyed it and wonder if there is more to the story. :-)
no subject
Date: 2012-08-29 01:49 am (UTC)Hahaha, as a writer yourself, you should already know the answer to, "Is there more to the story?" There is if I think of it. *grin*
Dan