“I got your message,” he began. She hadn’t even told him about her tablet yet, and she was dreading it. They were probably really expensive and she’d had hers for less than a week.
“That man was my assistant, Vartuk. He’s only been working with me for the past three months, and he’s gone out of his way to make my job easier. There was no call for you to speak to him so rudely.”
“Excuse me?” Sarah couldn’t believe what she was hearing.
“You heard me, young lady.” His tone made her feel like someone had poured cold water on her, and her heart clenched from the injustice of it. She stared at Ral in a mixture of shock and outrage.
“You’ve got your wires crossed. He was being rude to me!” she protested.
“No, he wasn’t. He came to me this morning and tried to apologize for upsetting you, then he told me everything. He was being professional.”
“What are you talking about? You would have turned my bottom purple if I’d spoken to you like that!” Sarah tried to keep her voice steady.
“I’m going to turn your behind purple for speaking to anyone like that.”
“No! The way he spoke to me! I thought you were an astro-archaeologist,” she accused, refusing to move from where she stood.
“What does that have to do with anything?” He dropped her hand.
“Well, I’ve only been in history class for a week, and you’ve told me enough times that history and astro-archaeology are different, but don’t they both try to understand different points of view? Weigh up evidence? And make inferences based on all the available information?”
Ral looked at her for a moment while he seemed to digest her words, then his face softened.
“Tell me what happened,” he said gently.
Sarah glared at him. “Why should I? You’ve already proved you don’t want to know.”
“You’re going to get a spanking for being rude to Vartuk, my poor assistant. The only out you have is to tell me your point of view. Start talking.”
Sarah related the conversation with the angry man.
“I will withhold judgement for now. However, if I find that you have lied to me, I will punish you twice as much as I would have done if you’d told me what you did.”
“Uh… so after that, I was running real late with my homework, and I was still sending it as I left the house, so my tablet wasn’t in my bag and I dropped it in the street just when a flying car appeared. So… this.” She fished her tablet out of her bag and showed it to Ral.
“Wow. That’s… wrecked. Don’t worry, it was insured; I’ll request a replacement. They’ll send you another one within an hour.” He pulled out his own tablet and pressed a couple of buttons.
They were standing at the door to their apartment building a few minutes later, while Ral got the door open, when a courier handed Sarah the parcel containing the new tablet. She was amazed at how fast it had arrived. Even stranger, when she switched it on in the living room, the new tablet told her to place it on top of the broken one. It was as if it knew what had happened. When she did what it told her, it automatically pulled the data from her old tablet in seconds.
* * *
The rest of the week passed without a single spanking, Sarah got settled into school and found the workload generally kept her occupied. She bought a spare hard drive to back up all her data, just in case anything went wrong with her tablet again, because she didn’t fully understand how her new tablet had been able to restore all her files.
In science, Sarah found her lab partner, Riela, was painfully shy, so Sarah started making a point of asking her to sit with Laila and herself at lunch.
“Are you sure I wouldn’t be in the way?” Riela asked every single day.
“Of course not!” Sarah answered every time. She decided Riela would get the message eventually. Laila seemed to think the same thing, because she had near-infinite patience with Riela’s worries about being a nuisance.
On Thursday, while they were waiting to be collected, Sarah suggested something she’d been considering for a couple of days.
“Do you two want to come to my place for a sleepover?”
Riela and Laila both looked at each other before answering.
“What’s a sleepover?” Laila broke the silence first.
“Oh, snap, you probably don’t have them in the future. It’s where a group of friends—I’m pretty sure it’s usually a girl thing—stays around one person’s house all at the same time, and they watch movies, eat junk food, stay up late, talk about boys, play games… it’s like an overnight party.” Sarah wondered if she was explaining this very well.
“I’d have to ask my daddy—and my master—before I could say for certain, but I’d really like to. Have you got permission from your daddy?” Laila asked Sarah. Sarah shook her head.
“It didn’t occur to me to ask him. I’d better check. How ‘bout you, Rie; you going to come, if we’re allowed?” Sarah looked at the quietest member of their trio. Riela looked at Sarah and started playing with a strand of her amazingly well-coiffed purple hair.
“I don’t know…” Riela looked uncomfortable.
“It’ll be great fun; it’s only me and Laila, it’s not like we’re going to be mean to you.” Sarah really wanted Riela to come too.
“Is your daddy really strict?” Laila wondered, and Sarah mentally kicked herself. Of course, Riela probably had a really strict daddy keeping her in line. That would explain why she was so quiet and indecisive.
“I don’t have a daddy. Or a master. Or anyone. I live alone,” Riela said in her soft voice. “That’s my cab. See you tomorrow.” She waved goodbye to Laila and Sarah and climbed into a hovering flying car. Laila and Sarah waved back, then when she was gone, they exchanged bemused looks.
“What d’you suppose that was about, Laila?” Sarah was baffled. Riela’s reaction to being invited to a sleepover simply didn’t make sense.
“I think she’s very shy.” It was the best explanation Laila seemed to offer. Sarah nodded, but she thought there might be more to this. When Ral arrived before Basil or Flin, Sarah asked him about a sleepover.
“It’ll only be for the three of us—or maybe two if we can’t convince Riela to come—can we please, please, please?” Sarah really wanted him to say yes.
“Friday night, and only if you’re good this evening.” Ral winked at her. Sarah jumped in the air and turned to Laila.
“Ask your grownups; you’re invited to my place after school tomorrow for a sleepover!”
Laila smiled and nodded.
“This is the most exciting thing that’s happened in ages! I hope I’m allowed to come.”
“Say goodbye to your friend, now, Sarah, it’s time to go,” Ral urged.
“See you tomorrow, Laila,” Sarah said, waving.
“Bye-bye.” Laila waved back.
Sarah got into the cab with Ral and they sped back to their apartment.
“I’m so excited! I need to plan what we’re going to do. And what we’ll eat. And where we’ll sleep! So many things; maybe I should’ve organized this further ahead,” Sarah enthused. Ral nodded.
“You’ll know for next time. However, it’s only two visitors, you’re not running a circus; you’re going to be on your best behavior, and I expect anyone you bring into the house to be equally well behaved, do I make myself clear?”
“Yes, Daddy.” She was so excited and she was certain her friends wouldn’t mess this up.
For the rest of the evening, Sarah planned activities, chose food, and then went to see to the most important task: deciding what to wear at the sleepover.
“It’s a sleepover, won’t you be wearing pajamas?” Ral seemed confused with the whole concept, but Sarah didn’t mind explaining things to him. She knew Laila and Riela would love what she had planned.
* * *
On Friday, school dragged very slowly. Sarah wondered if it was a conspiracy to stop sleepovers happening. It had taken forever to fall asleep the night
before, because she’d been thinking about all the things she wanted to do tonight. She met Laila and Riela at Dagon’s Drinks for an early morning hot chocolate to start the day.
“This place is amazing!” Sarah had never been before. The decor was mostly yellow, with robin’s egg blue colored trim, and the tables were all of the square metal variety, with fixed benches either side of them, giving the whole place that old-fashioned diner sort of atmosphere. In a world of height adjustable and floating tables, and unusual tableware, this place was a delightful throwback to times when people had stirred drinks with spoons rather than spinning magnets.
That, plus the proprietor seemed to have a bottomless pit of mallows to add to hot chocolate, and he didn’t mind three students taking up one of his tables, lingering over their hot drinks to make the most of their allowances, while they waited for school to start.
“We should come here every morning,” Laila declared while they sipped at their second round of hot chocolates, and Sarah nodded in agreement. Riela smiled shyly and tucked her hair behind her ears.
“I already have been doing,” she said, but before Sarah asked her what that meant, she noticed the clock on the wall.
“Ohmigosh, look at the time, we need to vamoose.” Sarah gulped down the last of her drink then picked up her books. The other two were right behind her.
“What do you have first?” Laila asked.
“Art,” Sarah remembered.
“Art too,” Riela said. She was trying to straighten her clothes for uniform inspection. The academy might only cater to adults, but it took itself very seriously and none of them wanted to get in trouble for transgressions.
“Hey, I have art too!” Laila declared excitedly.
“You also have your shirt collar tucked into your neck bow. Here.” Sarah reached out and adjusted Laila’s attire, not breaking pace.
“Thanks. One more message home about uniform, and Daddy said he was going to make me wear it at weekends until I got it right!”
“Tell me again why having a daddy is preferable to being single?” Riela asked. Laila and Sarah stared at Riela in surprise, since she usually barely said five words together.
“You got me.” Sarah recovered first, and held the door to the main entrance open for the other two.
“Because it’s wonderful, and romantic, and fun, and it’s nice to have someone to come home to, who, no matter how long or bad or scary your day was, won’t hesitate to give you a pacifier and a bottle of warm juice, if that’s something you like, and will sit you on his knee and gently rub your back until all your troubles are gone, and all that matters is him and you,” Laila said.
“Don’t you have a master as well?” Sarah followed them into the art room, where the rest of the class was just assembling. Everyone was sitting at their desks today, instead of standing at their easels, which was a sign that this was going to be a boring art theory day.
“Yep, what can I say, I like all the soft snuggly stuff, but sometimes I just want someone to pull my hair, and tie me up, and snarl at me, and not listen when I cry.”
“That sounds fascinating, Ms. Leif-Rhodes; would you like to elucidate the rest of the class regarding your personal relationships or can you stop talking now and listen for the register?” Miss Juniper glared pointedly over the top of her glasses. Sarah watched everyone’s eyes turn to Laila, who colored red.
“No, sorry, I’m good,” she squeaked, to general amusement of everyone else.
“Wonderful, then we shall begin. Answer your names, please…” The teacher busied herself with the semi-relevant bureaucracy while Sarah, Laila, and Riela took their places at their desks. Sarah pulled her tablet out and started to type the date and title onto a clean e-page of her art theory book. She knew she needed to stay out of trouble today, otherwise Ral might reconsider letting the sleepover go ahead.
Art turned into biology, one of the two sciences Sarah was studying, and Sarah was barely listening to the teacher’s long explanation of the similarities between classifications of animals on different planets. She knew she should care but did she really need to know why most planets had frogs and insects so she functioned on Minos Kerala?
“Sarah, what would go here?” Mr. Inger pointed at a space on the interactive board and Sarah looked at the pattern. She knew this; it was high school biology.
“Chordata,” she said. “All the classes and orders afterwards relate to creatures with a spine.”
The teacher nodded and the class moved on, leaving Sarah to her thoughts. When would it be home time? She was about as bored as a person could be and Mr. Inger’s voice just had a certain pitch and speed that was lulling her into a coma. How did anyone make biology so boring? How? She knew she was three hundred years behind the times but shouldn’t science be super exciting and Earth-shatteringly awesome in the future? Science was the future. Yet here she was, as bored as ever, unable to talk to Riela despite the fact she was sitting right next to her.
At long last it was break time and Sarah and Riela caught up with Laila.
“Music was great! We were playing with heterodynes; they make so many weird noises! What did you guys do?”
“Biology. It was meh,” Sarah said.
“Really meh,” Riela added.
“Oh, I have general science next! Do you guys have Mr. Tarik? He’s great—can you believe he teaches science and literature? So well-rounded; if I didn’t already have two guys all to myself I might see if I could do some extra credit, if you see what I mean.” Laila talked animatedly and some of the residual brain death from biology ebbed out of Sarah. “Hey! Rie-Rie, you’re single! You should schedule in some remedial classes with Mr. Tarik,” Laila enthused.
“Hot, but I’m good, thanks.” Riela smiled like she had a secret. Sarah wondered whether there was more to this than not wanting to date a teacher, but she didn’t want to be rude. Riela was a private person; she’d tell them what she wanted them to know. Sarah was sure that if Laila and Riela ever pressured her to tell them how she felt about Ral, she would just die of embarrassment.
“We have math next, then we have Mr. Tarik for literature, last.” Sarah hoped math wasn’t going to be as dull as biology. She almost envied Laila taking general science with the same teacher, because she never had the boring Mr. Inger. Every class seemed dull today for some reason.
After math, which proceeded at glacial speeds through the uses of the cosine rule, time dragged just as slowly through literature; they were currently studying mime-poetry, a form of language that the Speakeasy chip translated, based on the mime language of the planet Inverno. Sarah loved to lose herself in a good book, but poetry held little interest for her at the best of times, let alone mime-poetry. Who cared how iambic pentameter had been expressed with footwork? Sarah wasn’t even sure what the difference between this and interpretative dance was. As a small child, she’d dreamed of being a ballerina, but after a year of classes, the teacher had quietly asked her parents to remove her from lessons. She was so uncoordinated that she was never going to get out of the novice class. After that, Sarah had lost interest in movement-based activities.
Instead, she had become an expert in computer programming. She’d spent most of her free time messing around with computers since her parents had bought her first PC, a type that had been called a 386, when she was five. It had been secondhand and definitely not top of the range, but she had loved it. She learned so much from it over her formative years.
Now, none of what she’d learned was useful, or relevant… she was completely obsolete. Like that 386 had been, three years later, when she’d wanted to run the latest operating system. Buying memory and a new Pentium processor with her pocket money, learning what she was doing from PC magazines, Sarah had improved the computer until it was faster than anything her friends had. Everyone went to her house to play the latest video games, and her parents supported and encouraged her to explore computing.
Eventually, it didn’t all fit in the original metal ca
se, and one day, she had to accept that nothing from the original 386 remained. Unlike the computer, Sarah was pretty sure she couldn’t take herself apart and rebuild her body from new components to keep up with modern times. Wasn’t that why she’d been sent back to school, though? To rebuild the parts of herself that were obsolete?
In that moment, she remembered what happened the night she’d been cryogenically frozen.
* * *
“Sarah! Do I need to bug Davis to stop working you so hard? C’mon, we’re about to open the champagne!” Her best friend Carolyn had a good point. Sarah had wanted to leave at five and it was now eight-thirty.
“I’ll be there as soon as I can.” She held the receiver against her ear with her shoulder as she continued working.
“Nuh-uh. I hired a car for the night. It’s gonna come get you. It’ll be there soon. You’re coming to my engagement party right now! Love you really!”
“See you soon.” Sarah ended the call and looked down at her satin dress. It was red, and matched the red sparkly shoes she had found at the weekend. Her hair was straight and locked in place with spray and next to her computer terminal, her bejeweled clutch purse cried out for her to stop working and party.
She glanced over the lines of code one last time, putting a ruler to the screen to check that she was reading it correctly. For three months she’d done nothing but this one project, and now it was done. Unless she’d made a silly mistake somewhere.
It had been particularly frustrating because the organization that had contracted her office wouldn’t let her run the program to test if it was working. Not only that, but they had specified that only one person could work on this contract, and she’d been selected by her boss, so she hadn’t had anyone to bounce ideas off or ask for input when she’d hit a snag. There had been several setbacks.
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