Chaos Theory (4 page)

Holding up a hand to still him, Kali whizzed around the room.
She grabbed his rucksack, his MiniComUni, his coffee flask with the
funny coder joke, his OmniLock, his TalkMe, and his security pass
she clipped onto her collar.

When they reached the kitchen, Creighton was pulling on his
trench. He grabbed his OmniLock, and shot a panicked look at the
digital clock mounted on the wall that was programmed to look like
distressed bricks.

When his vexed eyes landed on Rikard, his face relaxed, and
genuine pleasure showed in the subtle twist of his lips.

There were few things more enjoyable to Kali than watching her
parents see each other after a separation, even a short one. There
was always boundless open affection, and they never hesitated to
draw her into that warm bubble of happiness.

Whatever her DNA said, she was the daughter of Creighton and
Rikard Loklear. They had named her, and raised her since she was a
couple of days old.

Creighton gave Rikard a kiss. “Welcome back to the world of
the living. Third night in a row you’ve abandoned our
bed.”

“
Sorry. I’m being pushed hard at work. They’re ... something
big has happened, and they’ve sent me strange bits of code to
re-work.” He plucked the flask out of Kali’s outstretched hand and
refilled it from the built-in coffee machine. “I’ll make it up to
you.” He winked. “Promise.”

“
I’m going to hold you to that.” Creighton grinned.

He had a lovely smile, bright, even if his bottom teeth were
crooked.

Kali slouched on the stool and smeared a thick sweep of
chocolate spread on a dumpling, humming to herself.

“
Now princess,” Rikard began, pausing to take a sip of coffee.
“What are you doing today?”

Kali took a large bite of dumpling and closed her eyes to let
sweet, chocolaty heaven make everything better. “I’ve already had
this conversation with the alternative parental unit,” she answered
around a second mouthful. She counted off sticky fingers. “Find
employment, find employment, and, um,” she snapped her fingers,
“find employment.” She snapped those fingers twice more.

“
Don’t fool around with Maximilian all day. If we find another
stain on the furniture….” Creighton trailed off because the threat
in his tone was enough.

“
Showdowns at high noon get messy,” she defended.

“
What in the name of science do you mean?”

“
Max found a cool site on the IntraWave that
has loads of old video games adapted for HoloSphere tech.
Otherwise, I’d have to find an antiquates dealer to find me the
actual consoles they used to play, and buy a power conversion unit
since they run off electricity.” She made a face.
“
Electricity
, can you believe it?”

Creighton was amused. “Your grandmother was raised in an
electric power household. BlueAtom8 was discovered after her birth.
I’ve watched HoloVids of her as a young woman on the VidSee using
electrical items until the family saved enough money to get the
house converted to use Blue Matter.” He opened his arms for a hug
she eagerly accepted. “Don’t play this game whilst you have food
dangling from your mouth.” He squeezed her tight and popped a kiss
on her nose. “Be good. We’ll message you later if we’re going to be
late.”

Rikard stood on the other side of her and rubbed her back.
“Thank science we don’t have a RecRom.”

Kali shuddered. The idea that she would spend time in a RecRom
with Max or any man was downright insulting. She’d gotten her rec
license when she turned sixteen like everyone else, but she’d held
onto her virginity for months until an unwise tryst with Max. The
sexual log of her profile was clean apart from that
encounter.

Rikard pressed a kiss to her forehead. “We love you,” he
murmured.

She pressed her cheek into his chest and hugged his middle.
“Love you guys too.”

They left through the front door in a bustle, and a low murmur
of conversation.

She didn’t know how she would ever survive without them, and
thanked her stars she wouldn’t have to for years to come. Recent
medical advancements extended Human life significantly if you had
enough credit to afford the treatments. Kali looked forward to
keeping her parents around in prime health until they pushed a
century and a half at least.

Itching her collarbone she frowned when plastic crackled.
Cursing, she plucked the security pass off the collar of her pyjama
top.

Dashing to the front door, Howl dogging her heels, she reached
for the handle and stopped. Annoyed she yanked the door open. “Oi.”
She closed the door. When she opened it again, Rikard waited, one
foot in their trusty FloVe, a four-seater hovercraft that was
already floating off the ground. “Here.” She jiggled the security
pass between her slender fingers, making the video image of him on
the thin surface ripple monochromatic before she chucked it to him.
Kali closed the door and opened it again, feeling the tension
release. She’d have to close it another two times now she’d opened
it after the third close, but at least she had gotten Rikard his
security pass in time.

Rikard caught the pass and lifted it high in victory.
Grinning, making a ‘what would I do without you’ gesture, he blew
her a smacking kiss.

Creighton waved through the windscreen then stilled. He
cringed and retracted the hand.

Too late, her arm already returned the wave, but she didn’t
mind. Her parents drove away, and she waved until they turned the
corner. Kali kept on waving, counting to thirty.

Across the neat HiEco suburban street, a tall, well-built
blonde-haired male waved at her from his front door.

A tiger – Bengal breed with white fur and bold black stripes –
stood at his side. Howl barked a cheerful greeting to the fellow
FetchMe. The Bengal turned its head with bitchy regale.

Kali laughed as Max bounced on the spot trying to keep warm in
the chill morning air. “I’m not waving at you,” she called, her
hand still flying from side to side. “And you still haven’t
programmed Baby to accept Howl.”

“
Sure you are,” he shouted, still waving with both arms. Kali
laughed as he panted. She stopped waving when her mental count was
done. Max stopped waving too, grinning fondly. “And don’t worry
about Baby, she’s been in a foul mood all week because I did tell
her to accept him. She didn’t roar, or attack him like usual, did
she? Let me wash and throw clothes on.”

“
Hurry and I’ll save you a dumpling for breakfast. The door’s
unlocked.” She rubbed Howl’s crown. “Leave Baby behind if she’s
acting funny. The last time she scratched Howl I had to send him
for healing. If she hurts my FetchMe again, she’ll have me to deal
with.”

Kali closed the door, opened, and closed it her additional two
times.

She went back into the kitchen to finish breakfast after
pouring a bowl of electric pink LiquiNu for Howl to lap at to
bolster his nutrient levels. The thick liquid was packed with
antioxidants, vitamins, and minerals, as well as other stuff the
body needed. It was possible to survive solely on LiquiNu, and the
poorer citizens of the OutRim did.

She shuddered to think of it.

Kali asked Howl to go grab her forgotten TalkMe from her room,
and read popular news feeds as she ate, easing into a comfortable
silence.

Sunlight filtered through the glass panes of the ceiling to
floor doors that led into the garden. Past the patio, was a
wonderland glistening under the early morning sun, and a pink dawn
highlighted fluffy clouds.

Done with the news, Kali slid her fingers over the TalkMe
touch screen. She brought up the remote application to turn on
music. After a brief pause, the gentle twinkling of a harp mixed
with a rocky baseline blasted through the house. The programme was
popular, analyzing the requester’s brainwaves and heart rate to
determine what genre of music the listener would be receptive to
and stringing the notes together in real time. Each piece was a
unique symphony.

Kali enjoyed hearing how she felt. It was oddly
soothing.

She finished the second dumpling, and sipped the tart orange
juice, raising an eyebrow as she read yet another story on how
agitated people were becoming due to a rumoured Quarantine that had
come into effect, the first in a decade.

Max, wet hair slicked back, strode into the kitchen, and
pulled up a stool. Dropping onto the padded seat, he snatched the
last dumpling from her hand. “Mine,” he crowed. He devoured it in
one chomp. “Hmm. Sweet.” He licked chocolaty fingers and waggled
his eyebrows.

Kali used a finger to slide him her glass of juice. She forced
a smile. She’d offered the dumpling after all. The fact he’d made
it in time to make good on the offer was standard. She’d had two
dumplings, instead of three. It didn’t matter.

Kali repeated that like a mantra; two was as delightful as
three.

“
Learn anything last night?” Max asked. His eyes roamed for
food.

He spied the cereal box and grabbed it before scowling.
Reading Max’s DNA, the box turned red, and an advertisement for a
new FloBi flickered on.

“
There should be a new box in the bottom cupboard next to the
FeedMe.”

His eyebrows plunged, and he smirked. “Aren’t I a
guest?”

“
Do I look like a FetchMe,” she snapped, and dumped the empty
box in the trash compactor.

Chuckling, Max went hunting for a bowl and milk. “You should
upgrade this kitchen.” Kali shrugged. He shook his head.
“Weird.”

“
Whatever. Last night I watched a martial arts film. Things got
interesting.”

Max dumped food on the table with a clatter. “Show
me?”

Kali jumped off the stool, and opened a draw to snag a rather
large knife. Without turning, she said, “In-between the two picture
frames on the far wall.”

The space she referred to was about an inch thick in width. As
she opened and closed the draw an additional two times with one
hand, Kali quarter turned, and without pausing to blink threw the
knife with her free hand into the opposite wall. It embedded itself
in-between the picture frames, dead centre.

“
That was my left hand,” she said proudly, wiggling her digits.
“I’m ambidextrous.”

Max clapped his heavy palms together then clicked his thumbs
to give her gun fingers. “Stellar. You still can’t apply the same
learning technique to analytical abilities rather than
physical?”

Kali shook her head then tucked hair behind her ears before
dragging her clip out, wincing when hair pulled. She held the clip
in her mouth freeing her hands to do the ponytail again. “If it’s
purely movement of the body, I watch it once, and can imitate if
it’s physically possible. But anything that requires use of
intellect, like cracking ComUni code, I can’t do.” She frowned as
she finished the ponytail with a flourish. “If I watched somebody
hack into a database then was able to hack into the same database
using the same key strokes on a VirtuaPad, sure. I’d be moving my
fingers in a certain pattern, but that wouldn’t work in any
realistic scenario.”

“
You’re smart anyway. That’s not a big deal, I
guess.”

“
Imagine how useful an eidetic memory would be considering what
I can already do.”

Kali wondered if somebody had both abilities. They would be a
force to be reckoned with.

Max shrugged brawny shoulders. “You can do a lot already,
Kal.”

He was right. What she did was extraordinary by her own
standards. Kali wasn’t known as dim. Compared to average her
intelligence quotient was frighteningly high, and her practical
left-handed-outlook to situations made her approach problems
sideways.

Nobody but Max knew about the physical skill she had, but that
was only because she’d only just consciously realised that what she
did was abnormal, and he’d been there to witness the moment it
happened.

Max and Kali shared a love of retro culture. Watching films
from the previous century, playing old video games built outside of
the HoloSphere, listening to pre-recorded music that was created by
people, not machines that analyze your mood.

They’d been watching a HoloVid about ballet, and when the
ballerina auditioned for the prima role Kali stood to mock the
dance. Her body took control. She danced the choreography as if she
had been a ballerina her entire life. Leaping across her sitting
room like a spectral being, she’d been graceful, poised ... just
sensational. Her toes had bled and her muscles ached afterward, but
she remembered being elated then decisively terrified.

She didn’t understand how she had been able to do it
considering she’d never had a lesson in her life, and she’d never
been to the ballet. Kali was the kind of girl who screamed
profanities at her favourite HoverBall team, not the kind who
strapped on satin shoes and danced around. She had always been
gifted at physical tasks, and her professors said she took
direction well, to the point they always questioned if she had
previous training.