Chapter 2
Hartford, Homeland
Fourteen year-old Milton Thomas held his empty cereal bowl up to the dispenser and pushed the button. The dispenser audibly said, “This selection is empty. Please press and hold star to reorder this selection.”
“Daaa!” Milton said. He slapped the button repeatedly, somehow hoping to get a different result with each whack.
“Th Th This . . . This selec . . . This selection is empty,” the cereal dispenser repeated as he whacked the button without obtaining a single morsel.
“Daaa!” Milton turned around and saw Beth, his little sister of 12 years old sitting at the table munching on the last of their Zoo Crunch Cereal.
“Hey! I wanted that!” Milton said.
Beth looked at Milton and said mockingly with her mouth open, “Hey, I wanted that.” She shook her head, “Eat that boring Dad cereal then.”
“Mom!” Milton said.
“What?!” Came the response from down the hall.
“I’m exasperated. Beth ate all the Zoo Crunch.” What Milton didn’t mention was the emotional discomfort he felt when anyone brought up their dad, even in an indirect way, like Beth did.
His mother walked into the kitchen. “I can’t hear you guys when you’re yelling across the house! What’s the problem?!”
Beth said, “Milton is whining because he’s too slow to get the last of the Zoo Crunch. Mmmm. This is sooo good. Mmmm. I love it. My day is going to be sooo good today. In fact, my whole life is wonderful now. Mmmm Mmmm. Num num num.”
Sharon Thomas said to her son, “How many times do I have to tell you, Milton? That cereal dispenser thing cannot biometrically read your mind, you know. It needs manual input. When it asks you if you want to reorder, you push the button. Is that so difficult for you?”
Milton said, “More like sixteen buttons. Select your vendor; Confirm your order,” He mocked. “Can’t we just put Zoo Crunch on auto-reorder?”
Sharon shook her head. “Absolutely not! Remember when you wanted me to put that Cosmos Blast Cereal on auto-reorder?! I did it like you wanted, then no one wanted to eat it and it got stale! We are not wasting money on food that we throw away!”
Beth said, “Milton was the one who wouldn’t eat it!”
“Neither would you!” Milton said.
Mrs. Thomas said, “We’ve already been through all this with the Cosmos Blast. We don’t inventory every brand of cereal available in our kitchen so you’ll just have to manually input the order when you want more. It’s not like the refrigerator that uses visual recognition to see when we are low on milk and orders more by itself. Besides, that Crunch stuff is not healthy. You guys should start eating better anyways.”
“Yeah, Milton,” Beth said, “you really should eat the boring Dad cereal.”
“Shut up and quit calling it Dad cereal.”
“You shut up!”
Mrs. Thomas said, “I wish you guys would learn to talk to each other better.”
“He’s the one!” Beth said. “I’m just very honest.”
“Honest?!” Milton said. “You just have a big mouth!”
The mother grumbled. “I’m busy. Now try to get along.”
“Mom?” Milton asked, “Is it okay if I go down to Haz today? The school said it was okay for me to go there, if it is okay with a parent. Just push the button on my device here.” Milton held up the device so it could read his mother’s fingerprint, and give Milton permission to go.
“Haz” was the common name for HAS, which was the Hall of Applied Sciences. Each city in Homeland had their own branch office of HAS which administrated the mandatory educational curriculum that all of the schools in Homeland. HAS also helped to provide online homework support and ensured homework completion.. Students thought of Haz as the tyrannical axis of evil school overlord.
Sharon Thomas asked, “Really? You want to actually go there? Can you do that?” Sharon also remembered Haz, from her own school days.
It was unheard of for anyone to physically go to HAS, when all of their information was available online. Going there seemed like an unnecessary form of punishment.
“What a weirdo,” Beth said, shaking her head.
Milton ignored Beth and told his mom, “Yeah. I just have some questions and stuff I want to ask them.” He pushed the device closer to her.
“Is this just an excuse to run around and not get your actual school work done?”
“Would I tell you if it was?”
His mom stared at him for a moment and marveled at his somewhat twisted capacity to make sense in order to get his way. She shook her head no, but she pushed the button on his device and said, “Sure, whatever. And did you make your bed?”
“Aw, Mom. Will anyone care a hundred years from now if I made my bed?”
“What?!”
“No, I really want to know. Why do I have to do school work and make my bed? What is the point?”
“What?!”
Milton saw his mother’s anger brewing and said, “No, it’s just that I don’t mind doing something as much if I have a good reason for doing it.”
“Okay,” Mrs. Thomas said, “Since I know how sensitive you are, I’ll play along and say this as calmly as I can; you have to make your bed and do other things like it so you can have a better life. If you don’t do well in school, you will only be able to get a job that is beneath a cheap robot. And you will be working for a really stupid boss.”
“But why do I have to make a better life?”
“To pay bills and be able to pay all your taxes and have something left over for you and your family. You will thank me someday. The end.”
“Why? What does my bed have to do with all of that, anyhow?”
“Milton! I’m done with this! Just do what I say! Get in there after you eat and get busy!” Sharon left the room.
Milton filled his bowl with cereal. Then he poured on the milk.
Beth said, “What are you gonna do, walk into Haz all stupid-like and go ‘Hey, where’s my brain?’ ”
“No, I thought I would go down and ask them why I have such a wonderful sister.” He took in a mouthful of the boring Dad cereal and reacted to the bland taste and rough texture by making a face.
Beth started laughing. “That cereal has special fiber that will help you with the urge to go! Ha! Ha! Try not to do it at Haz!” She was chewing her Zoo Crunch with her mouth open while she laughed. “This is really sooo delicious!”
“You’re sick,” Milton said as he poked around at the cereal in his bowl with his spoon.