“Babe, slow the fuck down! You’re going to kill us.” Scott snaps.

The motherfucker has the nerve to reach his arm across the console to turn on the  speed control but I deftly smack it away before he  turns my speed down.

“Don’t you fucking dare!,” I put my foot on the brake and we make a sloppy figure 8 in the desert. “And don’t call me babe!”

“I’m serious! Slow down, you’re too fast in the turn! Ellie!,Ellie! EL!” he yells because yeah, fine, it does feel like we are about to roll. I slow the car down and get enough of a grip to keep us right side up.

I make a few more lazy donuts and U-turns,  kicking up sand until it feels like we’re going to turn over again. I push the BMW convertible’s  accelerator as hard as it will go then twist the wheel all the way to the left and release the steering wheel.

“Woooo!,” I scream lifting my arms. The wind violently blows my hair as we swerve and fishtail through the sand.

“ELLIE STOP! You’re being fucking homicidal! ,” Scott screams from the passenger seat.

No.

I was being fun.

Scott was turning out a lot more boring than I thought. I seriously regret sucking his dick in that movie theater now.

His bitching was making this test drive a lot less fun so I turn the pearly grey convertible around and head back across the wide expanse of desert  to the BMW dealership, dipping my foot in the gas until we’re going over 150 miles.

“Shit! Shit, shit, shit. That salesmen in so going to call the cops on us,” Scott hisses as I crookedly park the car at the curb of the dealership’s lot.

“Why ? I didn’t do anything wrong,” I remind him.

I open the door and leap onto the concrete of the dealership’s lot so I don’t get any sand on my new ankle boots. My exit from the car is greeted with a sprinkle of applause from my sisters.

Angel lets out a long catcall whistle. She was kind of my hype girl.

The BMW salesman, a kinda cute guy in his 30’s, looks like he’s about to shit his pants. When he said I could take the convertible for a test drive he probably thought I meant a quick circle around the dealership with him in the passenger seat.

But what was the point of having all these luxury car dealerships popping up in the middle of the desert if you couldn’t have a little fun with all the space ?

“Um, how did you like it, ma’am ?,” the salesman asks holding his hand out for the car’s access key.

I palm the access key and fold my arms over my chest. I hated that I was wearing a  boatneck shirt because this power move would have looked so much better with a little cleavage.

The salesman is probably terrified he’s going to get in trouble with his boss for letting an 18-year-old test drive the most expensive car in the lot.

But I’m about to make his fucking day.

 Dane, the douchebag at the Tesla dealership across the street, told me I couldn’t test drive their concept car without a down payment first so my sisters and I had walked two steps across the way to the BMW lot  next door.

“Does this come in custom colors ?,” I inquire loudly.

The dealerships out here were so close I knew Dane could hear me from where he was pretending to adjust the mirrors on a Tesla Fire. Good. I wanted him to hear this.

“Yes, we can do any color variety,” the BMW salesman says. “But it will take time to get it--”

“Ellie,” Atsumi, my baby sister whines. “She just called me. I didn’t pick up but I think she’s about to call you.”

As if on cue the syn in my  inner ear starts to vibrate. I graze my finger over the pale pink Swarovski crystal covering the syn and the vibrations stop.

If she’s gotten to the point where she’s calling the oldest she’s really going to be a in a bitchy mood. We had to finish this fast.

“Fuck. We gotta go. Okay, what color do you want,?,” I ask, turning to Atsumi.

“Dark purple. Oh! And with the little reflect-y things in it.”

“Angel ?,” I ask turning behind me to my other little sister.

“Red.”

“And I’ll take the gray one I just drove,” I tell the very confused looking salesman.

“I’m sorry,” he stutters.  “I--Are you young ladies talking about the car--”

“Yeah, that exact M12 coupe . Did you not get that ? one sparkly purple,  one red and one gray.”

“Uh,” he cocks his head at us. “I’m sorry, miss…you want to lease three cars--”

“No, I want to buy. Or do I need to try a third dealership--”

“Miss, why don’t you come inside.  I think you may have to speak to our financing depart--”

I tune out the salesman because I can hear Scott picking up his syn behind me and speaking in that pitiful bitch baby voice.

I go to my trust account and make the transfers, quickly bypassing all the security measures with  few flicks.

“The money transfer is waiting, I just sent your office manager the delivery address, enjoy your commission,” I tell the salesman.

“I—Miss—wait--,” he checks his syn and then exchanges a quick messages with someone. “Holy shit. Who are you--”

I don’t have time to explain, not that I would anyway. I take my sister’s hands and we speed walk back towards the black Range Rover Scott had driven us here in. I try to hold in the giggles but I can’t.

“Did you hear him ? Every other word was like Miss. Miss! Miss! Miss,” Angel mimics the salesman and it makes us pile over into laughter.

“His face!,” I add. “Fuck, this was such a good idea!”

I was kind of hoping to ditch Scott out here since he was being  a wet blanket but he’s waiting for  us all shame faced at the Range Rover’s driver side door. He projects his syn and then turns it towards us to display a video call of Mom.

“I called you each three times ! Why aren’t you picking up your calls ? Where the hell are you girls ? When I told you could have the day off  this is not what I meant!,” Mom whisper-yells into the screen.  “Where could you possibly be right now ? Get you asses down here right now!”

“We’re fine. Calm down,” Angel says because even though I’m the oldest Angel is the real rebel. She’s always running her mouth and if she had her manual vehicle driver’s license she’d have been the one test driving that car just now.

“Calm down ?,” Mom says in that cool tone that shows up before Mom The Drama Queen makes an appearance. “CALM DOWN ?!”

Mom suddenly gets all close to the screen her eyes narrowing as she tries to peer behind us.

“ARE YOU AT A  CAR DEALERSHIP ? SERIOUSLY ?  DID ONE OF YOU BUY A CAR ?--”

“A car ? Technically….no,” I say innocently but Angel’s laugh-snort alerts her that there’s something she’s not in on.

“HAVE YOU LOST YOUR MIND ? HOW CAN YOU--”

 “Enough love, we can all hear you. Do you have to be so shrill ?,” Grandad chides Mom, pushing his way into the screen with that warm grin on his face.  “They’re kids. Let them have fun. Bells ? Firecracker ? Kitten ? I can’t see them, Charlotte. Do the thing so I can see them too--”

“No.” Mom hisses, moving Grandad out of frame before turning back to us. “Get. Down. Here. Now. And Scott ?”

She says Scotts’s name in a sweet vicious tone that makes him flinch.

Our bodyguard turns the video call screen  back around so Mom is facing him.

“Ma’am ?”

“As soon as you get them here. You’re fired.”

“Yes, Mrs. Washington.”

 

***

-2-

“Mom’s going to be such a bitch,” Angel huffs pulling a black iced coffee from the café automat and popping a bright pink straw in it. The straw matches her matte lipstick almost perfectly.

“Right ? She turns into such a crazy bitch around this time of year,” I say choosing a raspberry iced mocha for myself and adding extra whipped cream from the dispenser in the corner.

“You got a little coffee in your whipped cream,” Angel teases me.

 I flip her off and shake some rainbow sprinkles on top.

I’m not ashamed of my sweet tooth but Angel was going through this phase where—at 16-years-old--she was too mature to like anything more then red wine or black coffee.

An older lady in pink scrubs looks aghast at seeing my middle finger and quickly scans her purchases and leaves.

“Do we have to go ?,” Atsumi asks pulling her winter melon milk tea from the tea machine and shaking it nervously.

Whenever Angel made a crazy plan I was always game but newly minted 15-year-old  Atsumi was the baby and still had a little bit of good girl in her. Mom could get under her skin and make her feel guilty about having fun. We never made Atsumi come with us but she always insisted and there was no way we were toning down our good time for her.

Drinks in hand we follow the familiar path from our favorite  automat at Ft. Perch Metropolitan Medical Square  to the Neurology Pavillion.

“Hey, do you think Scott is crying right now?,” Angel snorts.

We’d left him with the car. He’d tried to give me some heartfelt goodbye about how he was my bodyguard and he shouldn’t have developed feelings or  let me suck him off and that we could make “this thing between us” work for real now that he wasn’t working for my family.

 I’d stared at him and then rushed away as quickly as possible.

There was no thing between Scott and I. It was a month of harmless flirting, one hook up and one regrettable blow job. I’d just had the bodyguard fantasy for years and it turns out…the fantasy was better.

“Ugh. He’s already messaged me like three times,” I tell my sisters. “He thinks we were in love or something.”

“What is it about you ? They always think that,” Angel says.

“He was cool. I kind of liked him the best of all our bodyguards,” Atsumi admits quietly.

“Me too,” Angel adds. “Thank a lot, Ellie.”

“Hey,” I say standing in front of the doors to the Neurology Pavilion’s private waiting room. “Don’t you dare gang up on me. Once I open this door Mom the Drama Queen is going to be in full effect.  We need to be a united front.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Angel agrees, taking a long sip of her black coffee.

We do a quick sisterly three way pinky swear and then I scan my retina to open the doors to our family’s private waiting room.

This year the waiting room was decorated in pale blues and other cool purples that I guess were supposed to be relaxing. The hospital administrator re-decorated it every year even though I think we were the only people who used it.

Mom is sitting on a plushy aquamarine couch with Aunt Minnie on one side of her and Grandma Sara on the other--each holding one of Mom’s hand while they did their usual waiting room time passers. Grandma Sara is frowning at two tablets while Aunt Minnie and Mom are watching something on her syn that they have a lot of opinions on. Mom is laughing—which is good.

Luce is pacing one inch forward, then one inch back in his  mobility chair.  Alan Gray is slumped over in  a white papasan chair absorbed in his syn. I spot Grayson curled under the couch clutching his tablet and doing some activity about mixing primary colors. He’s wearing his adorable school uniform and the thick blonde curls on top of his undercut fall across his eyes.

Grandad is sprawled on the blue couch across from everyone else, wearing a purple  romper and showing entirely too much waxed leg.

Grandad happens to look up and sees us enter first. His face explodes in a smile. I love him to death but I wish he could keep a low profile for just a minute.

“Bells, Firecracker, Kitten. There are my girls!,” he shouts his nicknames for us.

I was Bells because it rhymed with his other nickname for me—Els. Angel was firecracker because my sister didn’t take shit from anyone and I guess Atsumi was kitten because she was cute and still kind of timid.

Grandad hops up from the couch and dances excitedly, his many necklaces tinkling as he moved. “Look at you today! Pretty, pretty, pretty. ”

He corrals the three of us into a group hug, probably to protect us from the wrath of Mom but it’s no use because I can hear the clack of her kitten heels as she walks over to us, her hands cartoonishly on her hips.

“Now, Charlotte, leave them alone,” Grandad coos  to Mom. “You’re not yelling at my babies--”

“Move.” she says pulling Grandad away from us.

Mom’s constant yelling would probably be more effective if she wasn’t the least intimidating woman on the planet. Probably off of it too. Today she has a tacky pearl barrette in her flat pixie cut and the flared black polka dot dress she’s wearing is way too long and one size too big.

She is momentarily thrown off her lecture game when she notices we made a stop at the salon earlier today. Her eyes slide over my newly defined waves and the pin curls in Angel’s bleached bob but she zeroes in on Atsumi.

Mom runs her hand through Atsumi’s thick lower back length  strands and stares at the $500 rainbow highlights. It had been Angel’s idea for Atsumi to get the rainbow hair. It was only on the underside and  we’d thought Mom wouldn’t notice if she didn’t wear her hair in a ponytail around her.

“Atsumi! What did you do to your hair ?Is this permanent!” Mom frowns.

“Oh, come now,” Grandad interjects. “It’s not better than that godawful chop job you--”

“JEAN,” she snaps at Grandad and he backs off,  going back to his seat on the couch.

 “You girls are really something else today,” Mom says folding her arms.

Classic lecture start.

“We’ve talked about responsibility haven’t we ?,” she goes on. “You each had jobs to do today, remember ?  You say we should trust you more but you can’t even get your shit together enough complete the one job we gave each of you today.”

Angel is staring at Mom defiantly and Atsumi’s looking at the ground.  I try to keep my face neutral but I also can’t remember what job they had given me for today.

“Angel, you never picked Grayson up from school,” Mom says.

Angel’s defiant face cracks and she looks at the floor too.

Okay, that was a bad one.

Grayson was already seriously anxious for a 6-year-old. I wasn’t sure how he was even functioning in Day School but someone forgetting to pick him up probably wasn’t good.

“Eloise--”

“Ellie,” I correct her.

It wasn’t the time but the correction just slips out.

“El-o-ise,” she says emphasizing each syllable of the cringey ancient ass old lady name Dad let her give me. “You didn’t go to your volunteer shift and Atsumi--”

“I did my job,” Atsumi says quickly. “I called your assistant last night and picked out the food for the party today.”

This takes Mom off guard so she turns her attention back to Angel and I.

I look at the clock in the corner. I’d totally flaked  and forgotten about my volunteer job  but luckily my volunteer job was at this very hospital and I still had 20 minutes left in my shift.

“I can still make my volunteer shift,” I say quickly and run off before she can call back to me.

-3-

I felt bad leaving my sisters to Mom’s wrath but Atsumi seems to have a brownie point for actually doing her job and Angel can fend for herself.

I practically do a full on sprint to the Palliative Care Pavilion, take the elevator up to the Bright Sea’s Dependent Living Community and bolt through the waiting room. When I get to the staff desk Destiny, the other teen volunteer who started when I did, is  folding washcloths.

If looks could kill she’s have me dead on the floor.

“I did your shift for you,” Destiny says all haughtily. “I had to stay two extra hours.”

This girl was such a brown noser who always needed to feel special. We’d only exchanged first names so she didn’t know who I was. That my family owned MBC Group, the conglomerate that owned this hospital. I was basically her boss.

I’m saving that bit of information for when I can really put her in her place. For now I just put on a fake ass smile

“Thanks! But I’m here now. Where’s Haley ?”

“124,” she says pointing to one the patient rooms. “You don’t have your uniform on so you can’t just go in there--”

I ignore her and walk into room 124. I probably  couldn’t  make beds or anything but I could still pass out pudding cups or something for credit.

Haley is sitting on the bed of the patient, or resident as we are supposed to call them. It’s odd because I feel like never sitting on a resident’s bed was the very first rule he told us. Haley stands up abruptly when I come in.

“I need privacy--,” he starts but when he turns and sees me he cuts himself off. He’s holding a bottle of the nutritional milk they spoon-feed patients who have trouble swallowing.

“I am so, so, so sorry, I’m late,” I apologize. “But I’m here now!”

He studies me, his expression is at first annoyed but then it goes neutral.

His  hair is down, falling around his shoulders-- I don’t think I’ve ever seen it that way at work but I’m wearing a mini skirt right now so I can’t exactly call him out for dress code infraction.

He looks at his watch, it was an analog one because staff weren’t allowed hi-tech in this ward. It messed with some of the sensitive resident’s cybernetics. I brush my hair over my ear so he doesn’t see I’m also still wearing my syn.

The resident in the bed is an elderly guy but he seems like one of the more alert ones. I’m surprised he’s not training in a mobility unit like the other more able residents. The resident’s dark eyes start moving quickly across the thin glass interface set up on the beds of the quadriplegic residents who could only move  their eyes.

THANK YOU, IM FINE. THANK YOU, IM FINE. THANK YOU, IM FINE. THANK YOU, IM FINE.

The cool computer voice of interface says, interpreting the words spelled out by the resident’s eye movements. 

“It’s okay that you’re late. Don’t worry about staying today,” Haley says to me putting his hand gently on the shoulder of the resident.

The resident in the bed is making super intense eye contact with me and then goes back to his interface.

H-E-L the computer voice spells out and then it stops and seems to reconfigure.

H-E-L-L-O. Hello. Hello. Hello.

 “Hi,” I respond and look  over at the name on his bed. “Is Mr. Maxwell okay today ?.”

Haley turns the volume down on the interface.

“Yes. He’s just one of our more difficult residents. He doesn’t want to eat today for some reason.” Haley shrugs, sweeping his hair up into a ponytail in the middle of his head. “I think his machine is just a little glitchy. Come on, my shift is over and yours was over 10 minutes ago.”

When Mom suggested I get a volunteer job at the hospital I was kind of into it since I’d always been amazed by everything going on at the hospital. Plus,  wearing scrubs seemed kind of cool. I thought I’d get to rock newborns or run around the ER with live organs but Mom  made me go to Bright Seas Residential facility because Haley worked there and was in charge of the volunteers. She thought he wouldn’t be intimidated by my last name

She was wrong, but I usually tried not to take too much advantage.

This is a shitty thing to say but, Bright Seas creeped me the fuck  out. A few residents were just unfit for cybernetics and learning to use adaptive tech  but most residents were the rare cases where a person’s cybernetic enhancements reversed on them—like Luce’s had.

Since Haley left the Atlas Star to be closer to Luce he’d been working at Bright Seas doing all the shit nurses and doctors wouldn’t do. He never treated the residents like they were lesser. He had this weirdly calm energy and almost beat out Mom in the least intimidating human in the world contest. All of the residents fell in love with him—except this one apparently.

Mr. Maxwell keeps staring at me. I wondered if it was my miniskirt, which isn’t even that short. Then again there is a pretty strict visitor policy so the people in here probably don’t get much action.  I start to  ease out of the room, walking backwards.

“Maxwell. Next time you’re going to swallow it all or I’ll be very angry,” Haley says quietly to the resident. He’s shaking the bottle of nutritional formula and says it in a light tone like it’s a joke but the resident doesn’t seem to get that.

Haley turns the television from the news streams to a channel that played annoying children’s music  and lowers the lights before following me out of the room.

“Does he like that channel ?”

“Mmhmm.”

“Do you want me to put in a maintenance request for Mr. Maxwell’s machine ?,” I ask as Haley clocks out.

“Why ?,”

He presses his thumb against the lockbox in the wall and picks up his two syns. He had a basic government-issue  matte black one for personal use and the silver hospital-issue one with that winged medical logo stamped on it.

“You said his interface was glitching,” I remind him.

 “Oh. No, I’ll add it to my list,” he says putting both the dots in his inner ear.

His list of things to do always seemed never ending. I once heard my parents saying he never knew how to take help.

“Oh, hey, um,” I say as  walk head back to the Neurology unit’s private waiting room. “Do you think  when we go in there you can tell my Mom I helped ? She’s on the warpath today."

“What happened ?,” he asks in that totally non-judge-y tone. The one that allowed him to ask a resident which ball they needed scratched without making anyone feel uncomfortable.

I take a deep breath.                  

 “Well…somehow a quick sisterly trip to get breakfast tacos this morning turned into a virtual paintball session turned into a hair salon trip  turned into shoe shopping turned into…a luxury car dealership visit.”

He squints at me confused at the last part.

“We just totally lost track of the day.  That’s why I forgot about my shift and--”

I realize he hadn’t had his syns in all day so he probably didn’t know what had happened but my mouth is faster than my brain.

“--oh my god, Angel totally bailed on picking up Grayson--”

“She what ?,” he frowns as I scan us inside the private waiting room.

The minute we step into the waiting room I hear the sound of little feet as Grayson slides from where he’d been underneath the couch and runs right into Haley’s legs.

“Hi, sweetheart,” Haley smiles kneeling to Grayson’s level and hugging him. “How was school ?”

“Daddy, I was by myself at school waiting for a long time,” he says in his quiet little kid voice that makes even my bitchy heart melt.

“So, I heard. It’s okay….It was just a mistake-”

“It’s not okay,” Mom calls and smacks Angel’s shin. “Angel, apologize to Haley too,”

Angel rolls her eyes.

“I’m so sorry--,” she beings dryly

“No eye rolling!, “ Mom snaps and Aunt Minnie starts rubbing Mom’s shoulders like she’d just finished a round of boxing. “You scared him half to death! I had to sort the whole thing out with the school! How did you like it when I left you somewhere ? Oh, wait I never did and I had three of you and a business to run and your grandf--”

“I’m sorry,” Angel practically shouts. “Seriously. I feel really, really, really bad.”

And I knew she did. Grayson was the most fun once he warmed up and my sisters and I have death matches over who gets to babysit him when Haley leaves him at our house.

Haley stands up and Grayson grips the sides of his dad’s blue scrub shirt like someone is going to take him away. Haley checks something on his hospital issued syn.

“It looks like Zacharias is almost out of the recovery room,” Haley informs us.

“Do you see anything about the results ?,” Mom asks.

“No, I don’t have that level of authority,” he says untangling Grayson’s hand from his shirt and holding his hand. “I’m going to change and then I’m going to show Grayson the hospital green space. We’ll just meet you at the car.”

I think what he really means is he didn’t want Grayson to witness any more of Mom’s banshee wails. On the way out of the room Haley  stealthily runs a hand across Luce’s stubble but Luce’s eyes don’t leave the tablets in front of him.

Grandma Sara looks up from her own tablets  and scoots over into the corner of the couch so I can  sit right next to Mom.

I really want to sit on the couch with Granadad but Atsumi already beat me to that seat.

 “Those are cute,” Mom says when I squeeze between her and Grandma Sara, noticing my new boots for the first time.

“I know, I got them in dark pink too.”

Mom shakes her head but I bet she’ll be ordering a pair in her size when we get home.

Grandma Sara pats my hand but doesn’t say anything. My grandmother wasn’t a woman of many words, especially on days like today. A piece of her messy ear length faded red hair is in a thin braid crown. It’s actually really pretty and I’m sure Grandad was responsible for it. He braided hair when he was nervous and  he always recruited the nearest head. Right now Atsumi was getting an elaborate fishtail braid that made her new  rainbow highlights look fucking amazing.

I’m always happy when Grandma Sara and Luce come to things. They ran their small cyber security firm  and were both reclusive workaholics who were getting worse every year. As far as I knew they only left their shared apartment  in the inner Sprawl to come to our  family events.

 I don’t think they were always like that. When I was like 8, Grandma Sara was gunned down at a tea shop. Mom tried to sugar coat it but I overheard Dad talking and learned someone put a contract kill out on her. They’d stalked her and meant to kill her. Dad took  me to the hospital to say goodbye because I was the oldest but then she miraculously recovered. It let her with an artificial heart and  a badass scar down her chest.

 When she got out of the hospital, Grandma Sara moved in with Luce, stopped taking Dad’s money and they opened Fallwater. She and Luce did all the tech work and Aunt Twyla, a lawyer who lived in the East, helped part time with client-facing stuff.

Luce wasn’t as bad off as the people in Bright Seas but his system was shotty and completely burned out three years ago. I don’t know details except that he has to be connected to a server in a custom mobility chair to keep himself running. I know they’d been trying  to get him fixed, but no one seemed to be able to understand how to help.

Their situation sucked but I always thought it as nice they had each other. I always figured Grandma Sara’s silence was  just her intensity but Luce’s silence was usually full of fury.

Still, Luce was my favorite family member because he didn’t have a filter or take bullshit from anyone and mostly just got away with it.  I desperately wanted to be like that one day.

“They’re all here. You need to tell them,” Aunt Minnie prompts  Mom.

My sisters and I’s eyes meet across the waiting room in a threeway stare.

 “Tell us what ?,” Angel asks in a small voice.

I hated being out of the loop on things. My whole fucking family had secrets  from us that I’d spent most of my life uncovering.

Mom sighs.

“Well, if you’d girls stayed home through breakfast you would know,” Mom huffs. “But since you had to go gallivanting off--”

“Char.Lotte.” Grandad says in an actual stern voice giving Mom a pointed look.

Mom sighs again, pursing her lips.

“Your cousin Kenji arrived this morning,” she says. “He’ll be staying at the house for a while….He went into  the surgery theater with your father.”

“Wait, what the fuck?,” Angel asks.

“Kenji ?,” I say, testing the name.

“We have a cousin ?,” Atsumi asks.

That was the real question.

Mom was an only child and our Aunt Twyla always said she held a baby once and then had her ovaries promptly removed and donated.

“He’s your second cousin. He’s your grandfather's only nephew,” Mom explains. “His name is Kenji Washington, he’s in his late twenties. He grew up at Arkham  Academy and in Neo-luddite settlements.”

I feel like my jaw is literally hanging open. Grandma Sara, Aunt Minnie and Grandad are staring at us to see what our reactions are going to be. Alan Gray and Luce don’t bother to look up from their devices.

“Wow,” I finally manage. “He must be so freaked out by how nice this hospital is.”

“So, now that everyone is up to speed….what’s he like ?,” Aunt Minnie asks Mom excitedly.

“You don’t even know him ?,” Angel asks.

Aunt Minnie always knew everyone and everything.

“That side of the Washington family has always kept to themselves,” Aunt Minnie explains.

“I didn’t meet him yet.” Mom admits. “We figured it would be overwhelming so Zacharias picked him up from the airport and they came straight here. Alan knows him though.”

All eyes turn to Alan Gray and he makes a noncommittal sound.

“Years ago when I went to Arkham to use the labs,” Alan says. “He was like a toddler then.”

“So, he’s like never seen a syn or tablet anything before ?,” Angel asks. “How does he know anything ?”

Alan shrugs

-4-

I don’t know why I’m suddenly learning about a new neo-luddite  family member but I know I’ll be the one to babysit him. I make a mental list of my few older  friends who would go out on  a pity date in exchange for an I dated a neo-luddite story.

After another hour the doors on the opposite side of the waiting room whir open, and Dad walks in. He’s wearing a wrinkle free tailored black suite with his favorite a violet brocade vest and matching pocket square. Except for the thick white bandage across his forehead, he doesn’t look at all like he just came out of a 4 hour brain surgery.

Two  doctors are at his side along with a bodyguard and a man who must be Kenji.

Kenji has the same features as my sister’s and I but his skin is paler and his dark hair is in a neat top knot. They must have stopped to get him normal clothes because his cowl neck maroon shirt and dark jeans look expensive and like they came from a regular store. He’s even got a gold plated syn nestled in his ear.

“Everything has been removed,” Dad announces. “And I’m fine.”

Mom the Drama Queen comes back out for an encore. She leaps out from her seat and into  Dad who catches her awkwardly in a hug and laughs.

Every year on his birthday Dad came to his brain specialist to have  an experimental procedure done to remove his recurring brain legions.  The legions showed up a few years ago and it was kind of dark because Mom started preparing us for Dad’s death but the doctor just removed the legions year after year and he never had any damage.

 We’d been warned that there was always a chance the legions could get stronger. That he’d die slowly like his Dad did or he could become brain dead during the surgery. But this year, like every year, he was fine

“Kenji,” Dad says adjusting his arm around Mom’s shoulder.  “This is my wife Charlotte and these are your cousins; Eloise, Angel and Atsumi--,”

“Ellie,” I correct and Dad just smiles at me while Mom crosses her arms.

“We’ll do the rest of the introductions later,” Dad smiles looking out at the rest of the family in the waiting  room. “I’m ready to get out of this hospital.”

A/N

I think some of you saw it coming that this was about Rias's daughters . I think someone mentioned in a comment in Burn that they should get a novella and the idea kept niggling at me. Sunshine takes place roughly 18 years after Pulse and 6 years after the events of Burn. It imagines that Charlotte and Rias got married a year after Pulse and had children soon after. They do this because Rias needs an heir and they both don't have a reason to wait.

Or to put it more simply...Sunshine takes place 38(ish) years after the start of Vice. Yes, now all my characters are really old now. I really want to tell 2009!Shawna that her idea for Veritas is cool but just wait until she writes about Sara's grandkids. That said...I kind of love writing older characters. I liked imagining how their lives "turned out." I know it's weird but hang in there with me.

Brief RetCon: In Burn, Phoenix/Sky meets Charlotte and the girls are babies. I'm retconning that entire scene out because I need them to be older. I also made Rias and Charlotte a love match instead of doing the "If I'm still single at x age let's get married." I'm also fudging some of the character ages but we'll get into that in a later post.

Last thing! That first scene of El driving in the desert is a "send up" of the scene in chapter 6 of Vice when Alan is driving with Jean across the desert. I took this scene and kind of re-wrote it. Like I said this serial shaped thing called Sunshine is kind of indulgent and weird.

CPShawna: Wow, you do realize you stole yout MC's name from Lile  ?

SHV: What ? No, I didn't I intentionally picked a name that--

CPShawna: Hellur. Eleanor in Monet Drive

SHV:😬...well in my head she goes by El--

CPShawna: Oh, you mean like the bartender at the Luxor ?

SHV:It's...different

CPShawna: How ?

SHV: Well....for one...um...

CPShawna: Also...Grayson ? What is that about ? Is he like...named after Alan Gray ?

SHV: No..um...that was a place holder name and when I tried to change it, it just didn't feel right. I had the find and replace ready to go and I just couldn't do it.

CPShawna: But...but like it rhymes with the name of Juliana's son in UL ? Mason. You couldn't even spell it differently ?

SHV: Yeah...um, yeah it does. I know. It just didn't look right to me spelled Greyson. Shawna is Unoriginal and all that.

CPShawna: Also, I feel like the trauma survivor nursing assistant paired with a moody man in a wheelchair is like...exactly what Lile is doing right now. I mean what's next ? Excessive tattoos, economic anxiety,  reconciliations of past trauma, the burden of emotional labor and mommy issues ?

SHV: