“Hey mom … pops.” Vixen hurried past her parental holograms on the way to the breakfast her mother had programmed. She frowned at the biscuit, soft boiled egg and clumps of tricolor berries. The breakfast hadn’t varied in four days. Past, present, future blinked. The countertop grounded her in the now until her timeline realigned.
Oh, momma, is it really that bad?
“Is that anyway to greet your mother?”
Taking the plate and eating utensils to the table from the nutrition dispenser, Vixen baited the woman on the other side of the world before sitting at the one real chair at the table. “You didn’t complain when Gina did it.”
Foxhole’s premiere female fatale of Length stories, one-shot entertainment video narratives between two and three hours often shown in group situations like the old movies of Earth, pulled out a chair and sat, the hologram program overlay transposing whatever milieu she was in to the kitchen in the personal module where Vixen lived. “Really, Environmental Fail? When did you manage to get past the age protections on that? … And Gina was killed in the next scene for not respecting her parents’ instructions.”
“Mom, it is only restricted from the concrete thinkers. I’ve been rated abstract for over five years.” Vixen shoveled food in, trying to make up for lost time.
Father’s hologram lacked interaction since he was still on circuit. He left a placeholder with a half-eaten plate of food in front of him, distracted from eating by the fan twisted open with whatever news or laws he was reviewing. Not far from how he would be if he was really there, though he would be demanding the half-helm be removed. “People need to see you more than you need to be connected,” he would say. Still, he was one to talk since he was never without a fan, snapping it open and close constantly to study esoteric laws from hundreds of worlds and outposts as his brain danced from one problem to another.
“It’s restricted to parental review for the non-citizen. And I know I have made certain all of the fictional parental review programs are locked, even if you father unlocked all the non-fiction.”
“Yeah mom, you need to talk to him about that. I stumbled over the Coord Outpost Full Recreate yesterday studying for today’s test.” Vixen shuttered dramatically while returning the plate for disposal. “Cannibalism, and other ick. Really didn’t need that in my head in vivid smell and space-time color. What the heck rating did that have? You were in it, so I know you got to know.”
“Citizen only, with verified mental stability of three or above.” Tamatha sighed. “I am not going to win that argument, and neither are you. Not with your father. Now, let me see.”
Caught with her hand on the door, nearly fully recovered from time lost at the closet, Vixen shoulders slumped and she turned.
(words 488; first published 11/3/2019)