22th of Glory, in the 1st year of the reign of House Canaigh (331 A.F), on Ceres Media
The night before their lives changed Salamah and Aaqilah Laurent were sitting around the table eating chips with an open bottle of a sauce popular on Ceres Media--and almost nowhere else--as they discussed the ledger, which sat off to the side of the table in the crummy apartment.
The apartment had three rooms. The rather large (or at least, large in comparison) center room, in which the living room, kitchen, dining room and bedrooms were all somehow combined into one, a closet, and a closet-sized bathroom. That was it. Saving space was important, especially at the cost-per-foot of apartment space, and they'd had this one for two years. It was, compared to their last one, practically a mansion.
They were arguing, even though it didn't sound like, or even feel like, an argument to Salamah. He dipped his chip, brought it to his mouth, and took a bite.
His sister was dressed as she always did after a night with her...lover. Dressed as if the last thing she wanted to have was a female body, at least one that drew attention. She wore a long sweater, and sweat-pants, which covered a body that was lithe, but which had gentle, subtle curves. Her face was quite similar to his, beautiful in its way, her eyes glimmering near-gold, her hair dark and long and unloosed, framing her face in a rather charming way. Her smile was beautiful and honest as she said, "This dip is quite good, I thought I'd never get a taste for it." That smile was for him, and for memories that most would regard as horrific but, when shared between two people, acquire their own sacredness.
The Businessman from Ceres Media, the moghul, he had breath like the dip, and his vomit...
Salamah moved past those thoughts and said, "One can get a taste for anything. But yes, it is quite good." He watched as she took two chips, and used them to trap some of the dip between them, before eating both, and getting a tiny little dab of it on her nose, which she wiped off.
"But it could use to be a bit cooler," she said, and there it was, the slight edge, the hint of worry.
Their refrigerator had been turning off and on more and more often, the programming breaking down. It had to be replaced...eventually. She wanted that to be soon, and for it to be a better model arguing, using extensive algebraic equations--they were both geniuses--that over the long run, say a year, her idea would save money.
He wanted to wait, challenged where they had money they weren't saving for an escape-route to pay for it, and returned back with his even-more-complicated math saying, essentially, 'no it won't.'
It had been an ongoing feud for a week, and he almost wanted to give in, just because he didn't like seeing her so on edge, even if that edge was only noticable to him. But where would the money come from? They could reduce their food budget, but if they were doing that, why just not get anything refridgerated, why not just eat cereal and save the money? There were a few other places they could cut, and one place they could never cut, would never...the budget they gave Marcus for games, toys, food...his allowance, essentially. Both of them would have (both of them had nearly) starved before cutting that.
"Look," he said, about to break his policy and simply directly address the issue. And then the door slid open and Marcus bound in, holding a small, finger-sized piece of metal in his hands, triumphantly. He wore shorts, a long, flowing short of rather good material, and a smile that matched his body. He was somewhat short, slightly lighter in color than either of the two, and he had about him a boyish air, as if not only would he never grow up, but he would never die. His greenish eyes flashed with excitement.
"Lookit, lookit, brother, sister!" he shouted, and they turned, every idea of arguing entirely abandoned. If there was anyone both of them cared more about then each other, it was him. Themselves were a somewhat distant third, and the rest of the universe was an incredibly distant fourth.
He held it up and said, "Daniel," the boy he played with, the one he had to, "Let me borrow his Galaxy Fighters: Conquest of the Space-Worms!" They both cocked their head. They had grown up in a world where they only rarely got to play games...Marcus had only been one when they'd spirited him away from that, and so, well, he had a knowledge base vastly different than either of them. It was, they both gathered very quickly, a video-game, and a new one.
He babbled on excitedly about it, and they both took turns asking questions, some of which, of course, he was leading them to ask just to get a chance to babble onwards. They relaxed, and it turned into general chatting about their days--lies abounded, but the comfortable sort, since they hardly wanted to implicate Marcus in a number of crimes, did they? And they told the truth as often as they felt they could without endangering Marcus.
Finally it wound to, as Marcus was plowing his way through the chips, the reason he'd brought it up, "Hey, could you both play with me!"
They were only half-way done for next month's plans, and updating their ledgers. They could spend hours trading gossip, an activity that some did for fun, but they did with deadly earnestness, trying to pick up on trends in fashion, preferences...any trend that might lead to money.
As one they glanced at each other, the answer in their eyes. "Sure, of course we could..."
"Don't you have ledger stuff to do?" Marcus asked. Marcus had started helping them out with the math part--more to teach him than anything else--two years ago. (They taught him in their own way, at their own sporadic pace, and he was currently working on Algebra when they taught him math. These ledger sessions had led to the demolishing of his bed-time as a thing they could enforce.)
"No, of course not. We're pretty much done, just a few final touches left, and we could use a break anyways," Aaqilah contended in her soft, beautiful voice. The last part might have even been true: they were not going to make much progress on their main argument tonight, so perhaps a break was really in order.
They piled onto the couch, Marcus between them. Below the wall-screen was the thin, beautiful, curving silver-black body of the lasted game console. They put on the visors, for the three-dimensional vision--they were no more cumbersome than a pair of glasses. Less, really. Marcus jumped up and stuck the metal game-card into the machine, and it loaded it up, and off they were playing for the next few hours.
It was a rather ridiulous game, if quite advanced. Fighting, action, lasers, guns, giant plant monsters, exploding planets, exploding ships, count-downs. The story was entirely incomprehensible, but the gameplay was complex and dynamic and the characters, while not much more than two-dimensional figures, had their own unique moves, and skillset, and paths...it was a very well made game, but really a bit too silly for such serious people. Not that anyone watching could tell as they laughed, joked, gawked, got into it and left their reservations at the door.
Eventually, though, they got tired, even as Marcus was too into the plot to want to stop. "Just a bit more," he'd say, and then they'd accede. Finally, Salamah said, "Your sister probably needs to rest, why don't us two continue it..."
She looked at him gratefully. She had a big day tomorrow. Jorge was going to be in a bad mood, he always was as his wife's birthday approached--he couldn't imagine anyone marrying someone they hated that much, but there it was--and she'd need all of her charm. Plus, she could sleep through anything, while Salamah was woken by anything. If she stayed up to play, he wouldn't be able to sleep through the sounds--the machine had been gotten off the back of a hover-truck, slightly damaged, and so sometimes it flickered to stereo-sound, and filled the room with temporary noise.
"Sleep well Sister," Salamah said earnestly.
She smiled in return, and went in the bathroom to prepare.
Salamah stayed up for two hours, until Marcus fell asleep, playing the game, and then saving it--Marcus would be distraut if he lost any progress. Then, he too went to sleep. They had only two beds. He picked Marcus up and set the boy down next to Aaqilah: he liked sleeping in the same bed with one of them each night, and they indulged Marcus.
As he fell asleep Salamah realized that he and Aaqilah were like Marcus' parents. They had raised him since he was almost one, and just about everything he knew or believed about the world, they either gave him, or allowed him to decide, or discover...it was a weird thought, really. He was being a father, in a way--though certainly not a husband, such an idea was quite disgusting. With that thought he went to sleep, and dreamed of a very different childhood. Dreamed of very different dreams.
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