Zeria

It wasn’t just any typical summer afternoon; it was the first day of summer vacation. Mr. and Mrs. Harion were inside watching the News. Cindy, the family robot, was cleaning the kitchen after dinner. Myrna and her younger brother Jae were sitting on their back porch. Myrna staring seriously at the latest copy of "What’s Hot" that she had taken from her dad’s desk. Smack "I missed," exclaimed Jae. "Would you stop swatting at zims and help me think of something?" Myrna said impatiently. Jae unfolded his magazine and tried to appear to be concentrating.

Myrna asked, "What are you looking at anyways?" "Oh, it’s an Earth comic book" Jae replied.

"Honestly, I don’t see how you can read those".

Jae quite happily said "Oh they are really very interesting-see" he said pointing to a page of his book. Myrna glanced over to see what Jae was pointing at but something else caught her eye. "What’s that?" she asked pointing to a paragraph labeled "Live Sea Monkeys".

"Oh, that’s an advertisement they have loads in all the comic books. They tell you to send so much earth money and they send you a live sea monkey or a 6’ plastic skeleton or lots of other stuff."

"Hmmm" Myrna said with new interest and then she got very silent.

Jae was just getting ready to swat at another zim but Moke their pet caz beat him to it. Moke smacked the zim with her paw. (A caz looks like a cat with floppy ears like a rabbit). Moke’s pale green fluffy fur with dark green highlights allowed her to blend with the yard and sneak up on zims and other creatures that interested her. Moke is a very smart caz that has been part of the family for 3 years and knows exactly how to get her way and aggravate Jae at the same time. "Aw Moke, you cheated" Jae said disappointedly.

"That’s it!" Myrna shouted. Jae and Moke both jumped. "What’s it?" Jae asked looking confused as his sister was jumping up and down telling him they were going to be rich. I know how we are going to get the money for the transporter that we want. "How?" Jae asked sounding doubtful. "We will sell bugs!" She said as if he should have been able to guess. Before Jae could say anything else their mother called them in and told them to go get ready for bed. Myrna promised to explain everything tomorrow and told Jae to make sure he didn’t say anything to anyone at least not for now. "That will be easy, I don’t have a clue as to what your are talking about."

* * * *

Myrna’s room was a pale blue; she had her ceiling adjustment set to a dark blue-black with twinkling stars at night. Myrna’s bed started shaking gently to let her know it was time to get up. Her ceiling adjustment was set to the same alarm, so as her bed shook to wake her, the ceiling changed from the blue-black to a light purple color that offered daytime lighting. She reached over and turned off the alarm, got up, showered and dressed. She had a busy day planned and was in a hurry to get started. As she walked down the hall to Jae’s room she thought about how much fun it would be to have a transporter for traveling, now they only had her grandma’s hand- me- down one that you could only fit a couple of magazines or a very small package in.

"Jae wake up" she said quietly as she tapped his shoulder. No response, again louder "Jae, wake up now we need to get started". Jae had turned his bed alarm off, after all this was summer vacation. Moke came in to see what all the fuss was about and jumped onto the bed landing on Jae’s face. This woke him up. "Are you two trying to kill me?" Jae snapped, and what are you doing up so early? "We need to get started if we are going to have any money or summer vacation will be gone and we won’t have had any fun." Myrna answered hastily. "All right, I’ll be down in a minute", Jae mumbled as he lazily got out of bed and tumbled towards the bathroom. Moke followed him and jumped up on the sink waiting for Jae to turn the water on for her. Moke was very easy going until she wanted something and wasn’t getting it as fast as she wanted it. She could be as quiet as a shadow or make her 20 lb body sound like a 200 lb person. "Mrreenk" she said impatiently. "OK Moke" he turned the water on waited for Moke to get a drink, jump down, and go on her way then went back to getting ready.

* * * *

Myrna went down and started to fix a quick breakfast for Jae and herself. When Cindy came into the kitchen she looked surprised to see Myrna. "Uh, good morning Cindy" Myrna said. Cindy smiled; she had been programmed to interact socially as well as functionally. Cindy was 5’8" tall, had a silvery blue complexion and dark blue eyes. She did not have any hair or eyebrows. The government had passed laws against having robots appear "too human". They had decided it was not a safe practice to have them blend too freely with people.