[Author's Note: I'm taking a break from /r/WritingPrompts. Instead, I want to expand/combine a couple of the existing posts. This will continue from from where yesterday (Mo Gets Home) left off.]
When the door opened, it was not Mo's mother on the other side. Instead, Mo was greeted by a slim teenager. A boy. Shirtless, wearing ripped jeans and sucking on a piece of jerky. Hairless, his scalp covered in a full map of tattoos complete with continents of chips and circuits, seas of scalp and faults of blinking lights.
"Who the hell are you?" Mo asked, taking a step back. The boy did not directly respond. Instead, Mo saw a local, point-to-point connection request in her HUD from an entity calling itself Lisp. She accepted the connection.
"Hello," a voice, male with a bored tone. The jerky never left his mouth, his lips never moved. "I self-identify as Lisp. Am I to understand that you are the bio-spring of my green mother?"
"Um, yeah, I guess." Mo responded in kind over the link. "I'm Maureen, but self-identify as Mo. Do you live here?"
"Yes. I've been here for six weeks now. You are the first person with whom I've been able to properly communicate with during that time. It is a pleasure."
"Glad to help. Have you seen my mother?"
"Yes. She is in the restroom and will be out shortly. Please come in and have a seat in the mean time. May I get you something to drink? We have some fresh lemonade."
"Yeah. Lemonade. That would be great." Mo entered and sat on the old sofa she remembered from the apartment she had grown up in. There was a new afghan across its back and the cushions had some newer stains, but the cloth pattern was the same. It reminded her of when they had still been a family. When Dad was still alive. When Mo was still 'Reeny (and also alive).
"Lisp, dear?" came a voice, her mother, from the back of the hut. "Who is it?" The voice previewed the impending presence of her mother. It was lower in tone, less stable of pitch, but still her mother's voice. It had strains of grey hair and sagging boobs, a thickening waist and eye bags. Changes, sure, but only on the surface.
"Shomeone named Maureen." Lisp's human speaking voice was choppy, shifting from alto to bass at a moment's notice. This coupled with the slurred esses explained his preference for direct connections. "Shaysh she'sh your daughter."
"Oh my," came the thready response. "Well get her some lemonade and tell her I'll be in a moment." Lisp did not respond, but nodded to himself as he poured the already offered lemonade into a glass. He brought it to Mo on the couch and then sat himself cross-legged on the floor.
"I assume that you heard," he said directly into Mo's ears. "Vocalizing is so impersonal. Imprecise. Insecure. I had almost forgotten how before I came here."
"And what did bring you here?" Mo sub-voc'd back.
Lisp rubbed a hand over his scalp and rolled his eyes. "My parents were disturbed by my latest upgrade. They felt that I was losing touch with humanity, with nature, and sent me to live here for a while."
"Ahh." Mo put a sympathetic expression on her face. "I've recently gone through a period of enforced disconnection. Only for a few days, but still. It was less than enjoyable. How are you handling it?"
"I am trying to see the adventure in it, but that is not easy when you are digging up potatoes. The instant access to answers is what has challenged me the most. For instance, I had to learn what poison oak was the hard way."
"Yeah," Mo's expression turned wry. "That can be a bummer. How long are you staying?"
"Until my parents deem me 'cured'. It is hard to know exactly what they mean by that. I suppose that the first step is for my hair to grow back."
"I would have thought that after six weeks, more would be showing."
"I have to keep it shaved for another month to ensure that the tattoos and chips remain embedded properly. They I can let it grow out. If I choose."
"So, what's with the scalp implants anyway? Isn't it easier to have your PTN on parts of your body where it can be hidden if that's what you want?"
"If that is the goal, then yes. However, this is not a traditional PTN. It is a neural lace. It allows me to think commands at my system and receive information more directly. No more gesture control or adaptation to human perception."
"Cool," Mo raised her eyebrows. "No contacts either?"
"Correct. Visual cues, when they are needed, are inserted into the mental stream behind the optic nerve, at the visual processing centers of the brain."
"When they are needed?"
"Most of the time, instead of an alert or set of directions, I simply 'know' the new information."
A throat cleared at the back of the room. Both Mo and Lisp turned to look. Mo's mother stood there and glared at Lisp.
"August," she said, hands on hips. "You know that you are supposed to be talking out loud."
"Yesth, Mithuth Carmichael." August's (Lisp's) face and scalp turned red. He stood and headed into the back of the shack. Mo's mother turned and faced her, hands still on hips.
"Maureen," she said, voice firm if not outright stern. "What an unexpected surprise. Whatever brings you to the... what did you call it when I moved here? 'The Valley of the Luddites'? Yes, that was it."
Mo stood and faced her mother. She crossed her arms and tilted her head to one side. "Mother," she said. "How are you?"
"Oh, fine, fine. You know, getting older and stiffer and none-of-that-matters. What are you doing here?"
"What? Can't a girl visit her mother?"
"A girl can. You can't. Not after three years, seven months, four days and..." Her mother looked at a clock sitting on a bookshelf. "Five hours, sixteen minutes. Not after what you said to me. No. You cannot just show up here."
"I'd have called, but you don't have a link or email or TB+ or a phone or, as far as I can tell, two tin cans with string. How was I supposed to give you a heads up? Smoke signals[1]?"
"Humph," her mother said. This added to the memories initially raised by the sound of her mother's voice. It was how she answered aggravating questions to which she did not have an answer. Mo had heard it often growing up. "Be that as it may, you still have not told me why you are here interrupting my afternoon and corrupting my young charge."
"Hey, that was totally his fault. He started it."
"Again: why are you here? I seem to remember someone saying that she hoped never to see my wrinkled face again."
"I did, didn't I? Well, if I could have thought of anything else to do, please believe me, I would have done it." Mo took a breath. She should have been more prepared for the aggression, the suspicion. Her mother had reason to feel the way that she did. Mo had her reasons for feeling the same way about her mother. "I need a place to hide. I place off the grid. This was all that I could think of."
"No."
"'No'? That's it? Just no?"
"Correct: no. You may not stay here. You may not use me as some out-of-the-blue safe house for whatever trouble you've gotten yourself into."
"It's not my fault!" Mo knew it was a mistake to say those words to her mother. She had said them too often growing up and then more after the accident and the Institute. The whining in her voice set even her own teeth on edge.
"I don't care. Please leave."
"Fine," Mo bowed her head and let her breath out. She uncrossed her arms and buried her face in her hands. She stayed like that for a minute, collecting herself, recovering. Breathing. Inside, she sub-voc'd to Erics, "Any thoughts?"
"Yes," the virus said. "Give in."
"Huhn?"
"Both of you are being stubborn over some past history where you both believe yourself to be in the right. It does not matter. Your pride in this does not matter. Punishing your mother does not matter. What does matter is finding some place where you can hide for a few days or weeks or even months. Despite my earlier concerns over the lack of communications, that works for us as well. This is a good place to hide. If that means allowing your mother to win whatever fight you have been having for three years, seven months, four days, five hours and sixteen minutes, then let her win. It is not important."
Mo groaned. She knew that Erics was correct, that she was in a situation that transcended her experience and her pride and that was beyond her ability to handle alone. She needed help. And coming here had been her choice. She lifted her head and looked at her mother. "I'm sorry."
"Excuse me?"
"I'm sorry."
"For?"
"For coming here. For the things that I said three years ago. For everything. I'm sorry."
"It's a little late for that, don't you think? Now that you need something from me, you're sorry? Too convenient and too late."
"I know. And still, I am sorry. Dad died and I blamed you. But I know you weren't in the car, I was. It's too late for all of it. I'll leave now. I don't think we will see each other again. But know that this time it's not by choice."
Mo turned to the door and walked out. She shut it softly behind her and headed back to the auto-car. She got in and sat in front of the map table in the compartment and tried to think where she could go now. Nothing specific sprang to mind. She supposed that she could pick a direction and go until the car ran out of charge. Some place off the Transport Loop routes. She traced a line on the map with her finger that ran southwest into the mountains. Maybe that. Or maybe head east into the wheat and corn. Mo thought that it was as easy to get lost in both directions. But the mountains had better scenery. She taped on the town of Salida and told the car to take her there. She would have a better plan when she arrived.
As she was fastening her seat belt, there was a tap on the car window. Her mother stood outside. Mo rolled it down and looked at the older woman.
"You must be in real trouble if this is the only place you could have thought to come. I suppose the least I can do is offer you some tea and at least listen. If you want."
Mo nodded and unbuckled her belt.
[1] Ms. Carmichael had studied smoke signals as the Ken Caryl Coop (KC2) used them with their two watch stations during the day. Mo had no way of knowing this.
