Complete Atopia Chronicles

It was hard to keep in mind they were just simulations, and they didn’t seem to notice because of the built-in cognitive blind spots. Most people just stepped them through a few target ages to get the general idea, but Cindy seemed to be enjoying the whole, painful process.

“Hey Ricky,” I called back.

Despite my grumpiness I couldn’t help smiling at the glee on his face. At that point a big black Labrador appeared, scuttling around the same corner the kids had appeared from, the last in the chase pack. It shot by behind my legs and into the living room to set off a new round of excited screams. I raised my eyebrows.

“Biffy is the newest addition to the family,” declared Cindy proudly.

She was sitting at the dining room table and feeding little Derek, our second proxxid. She’d seen me eyeing the dog.

“Biffy huh? I thought Derek was the newest addition to the family.”

“That was so last week, honey.”

She hardly looked up at me. I thought she was joking, but she didn’t crack a smile.

Derek dribbled carrot baby food down his chin as Cindy tried to spoon it in. He looked up at me, let go a big squeak, and pounded his rattle on the tray holding the food, sending thick orange splatters up around the room and onto Cindy. She patiently smiled in a motherly way and kept trying to spoon it in.

“Well, it’s nice to see how their personalities would react with animals, no?” she asked, wiping carrot puree from her hair with the back of one hand. “Isn’t this what we’re trying to do, to try out different things?”

“Yeah, you’re right.” I shrugged.

I had to admit, my plan seemed to be working.

Since we’d had the proxxids in our lives, Cindy had begun using her pssi more and more. To begin with, she had just added some rooms to our place, and then she’d begun changing the configuration of our home and location more elaborately to suit her needs. It was something new almost every day, and it wasn’t unwillingly like before. She was taking to it as a part of her day to day life.

Not only that, but I had to admit she looked great at it. She was sticking with the whole nine yards of the proxxid experience, feeding and changing them, bringing simulated kids over for playtime, everything. It really did seem to suit her.

“So what do you think of brown eyes?” she asked while I admired her mothering skills.

She picked up Derek and sat him on her lap, looking into his face. I walked over to the both of them.

“I like brown too,” I replied looking down into Derek’s eyes.

I still found it a little unnerving how real these kids seemed, and maybe that was part of the reason for my own frayed nerves. Not sleeping in more than a week wasn’t helping either.

While Cindy had taken to the full blown experience, I was having a hard time balancing it with all my other responsibilities. Cindy was also interrupting me a dozen times a day to tell me about something one of them did and explain how great it was and how it related to this or that genetic expression.

“You seem to like everything, Rick,” she said, gently putting Derek down.

“Go on and play with your brother,” she told him, and he squeaked and began wriggling across the floor to the living room. She turned back to me.

“Rick, you’re the one who wanted to do this,” she sternly observed. “I just want you to participate a little more.”

Annoyed, I began to stammer, “I am…I mean I’m trying…” but I was cut short by a rising cacophony of shrieks.

The boys appeared from the living room and began running around the dining room table we were sitting at, laughing and chasing a flock of tiny flying dragons. I stopped, scratching the stubble on my neck irritably, waiting for them to disappear again.

“Do we really need to have a half a dozen simulated brats running around?” I demanded louder than I intended, my frustration mounting.

On the walk over here, I had decided to tell Cindy that I was ready to have real kids, and I was annoyed to have these things running around me screaming at such an important moment.

Her eyes flashed angrily at me, and then she turned to the kids.

“Boys, boys, we’re trying to talk here,” she said softly, shooing the flock of dragons back towards the living room. “Please.”

When I wasn’t looking, they’d all skinned themselves up as miniature purple tyrannosaurs, and were affecting puzzled little dinosaur expressions looking at the two of us. Little Ricky, the eldest, could take a hint, though, and quickly turned to lead the pack squealing back into the other room.

Cindy smiled and turned back to me.

“Did you see that? How he took the lead?” she pointed out. “We need to see how Little Ricky socializes, don’t we? I mean we picked a specific set of genes regarding his personality, and I for one want to see what this really means. Expression markers on a piece of paper are one thing, but…” The noise level in the next room exploded in screeches again, cutting her off.

I shrugged with wide eyes.

“Can’t we just turn the simulation off for a minute?”

I was getting a headache.

“You can’t just turn kids off, can you Rick?”