Our first day turned into a bit of a bore. The Habitat was not yet open for business, so exploring was out for the moment. "Hmmm, I got an idea." I got some real long speaker wires out of storage, and brought my little speakers up to the veranda. We sat there listening to seventies soft rock, while observing the creatures in the habitat. The occasional glimpse of some predatory bird relieving some small creature of the mortal coil.

This place was so full of life, it was like Discovery Channel Live. One strange thing that puzzled me was the blue sky. The large hexagonally shaped sky panels seemed to have added an extra touch of blue to the sky as if they were neon lights, it may be some type of colored force-field. Another odd but really neat feature of the Habitat was it's bowl-like shape. This was most likely done to accommodate water flow, but it made viewing the entire Habitat easy, kinda' like looking across a valley.

"It looks like there are horses out there." Said Anna, a slight quiver of excitement in her voice.

"Where?, I don't see any."

"By the far left side of the lake, about eight hundred meters back from the shore, in that meadow with the willow trees."

Holy shit!, the part of the lake she was referring to was at least two kilometers from here, I saw a few dots moving where she was describing, and I had perfect twenty/twenty vision. Then I looked her in the eyes, those big gigantic binoculars for eyes.

"My God, Anna, just how good can you see?" She starts describing the pedals on flowers that are a click away. So googly eyes has a purpose. She would be a monster of a hunter, but I'm gonna' bet our benefactors would frown upon us shooting up the place, and so would I in a way. But hunting becomes important if the population of the animals gets out of control.

The horses did get Anna's attention, and then the memory came back.

"Kjekk, my horses' name was Kjekk." She had heard me describe her trip up the North Mountain, but I never said his name,...Now I remember, that was from a book I read. It was the closest thing to an adult read for Frozen. Other than that one title, it was all coloring books and kid stories, ugh... Sometimes this stuff is really embarrassing.

"I can't take this any more, I gotta' explore."

"Anna wait, I don't think that's..." She was halfway down the stairs. "Damn!",...she's all Anna all right.

"Boots, hiking, lace up, traction sole."

"Please place your feet on the ottoman within one meter of the replicator cubby." Anna stuck her feet up there and a beam scanned them.

"Your size has been recorded. Any additional requests?"

"Hiking apparel, cotton short pants, button up blouse."

"Please state color."

"Green shorts, tan blouse."

"Please stand in front in front of cubby, one meter distance." It scanned her again, and produced the items, she dressed right in front of me. Hmmm, she looked kinda cute in that outfit. What am I saying?, she looked cute in anything.

"Anna, I'd recommend some socks."

"Oh, right." As delicate as her skin was...

"Are you coming?" OK, I'm a glutton for punishment. I went thru the same spiel as Anna did, but I picked a blue shirt and tan pants, we didn't need to look like Raggedy Anna and Andy. Then she was out the back door. I also had the replicator make several short lengths of blue ribbon, I'd hate to get lost today.

I suggested we head for the forest and check out the hull, maybe that would attract the least amount of attention. It was fairly noisy in the forest, but it was thick, and the critters stayed well hidden. As we were walking, a large kaleidoscope of butterflies were making their way through the trees, we stopped to watch them. They had these iridescent purple wings that were about twelve centimeters in span, and they were just beautiful. They filled the sky at one point. That's when a real funny thing happened. Several of them landed on Anna, their wings slowly flapping. She took one into her hand and it just crawled along her fingers. She had it right in her face studying it, with a look of child-like wonder, her mouth hanging slightly open. She must be something special for this to happen, maybe it's her alien DNA, or maybe she just smelled like flowers, she did have that lavender scent.

Either way, the site of this was just mesmerizing. Such intense beauty, it was just crushing me. Then they just flew away, and a broad smile beamed across her face.

We made it to near the hull. It was darker here, as the sky panels didn't reach down this far. There was a grassy border between the forest and the hull. It consisted of just dull brown cladding, not a blinking light to be seen. As soon as I stepped out of the forest;

"Please turn back, you are not permitted here." Then an orb that looked like Olaf came rushing up to us.

"Oh, sorry. We've been bitten by cabin fever."

"Please turn back, you are not permitted here." OK, boring conversation anyway.

"Anna, let's head back, I think we've sufficiently skirted the rules for now." Just then Anna stuck her tongue out at the orb and gave it a raspberry. It waited for us to head back into the forest.

As we walked back, it occurred to me what my role would be with her. Mentally, she needed a father. Talk about awkward, we were a breeding pair. Why the hell did they do this, this way? Didn't they know there were taboos about such things? I mean, they did know a lot about us. I assumed they downloaded the entire contents of the internet before they killed it, I'm sure that having father/daughter sex and how horrific that was is in there somewhere. There's just something missing here, I'm not getting it, and I really don't know what questions to ask.

Olaf's answers yesterday seemed somewhat like canned responses. I'm well aware of how much I'm supposed to love her. It's still a very difficult thing for me, as in a way I'm already in love with her. But that is as an imaginary character. I learned to separate the two. You have to, or go insane, those are your only two choices when dealing with this stuff.

Now she's a real live 'human' being. I use that term human very loosely. God only knows what they put in her. If it's anything like her brain, it's a mess. She was a few meters out in front of me, stopping every once in a while to check out some plant, or bug, or whatever else caught her eye. She certainly was a curious thing, a trait I always admired in children. Ugh,...

We got back to an awaiting orb. Uh oh, Dad's mad. Now I feel like the child who got caught sneaking in late. So what's it gonna' be this time?...

"You do not have permission to enter the Habitat yet."

"Sorry, Olaf. Ms. Bouncy Pants here was was having a case of cabin fever."

"Hey!" then she slugged me in the arm.

"We are still preparing the predators who roam the Habitat. There are several forms of what you call 'big cats' in this area, along with a species of bear. Do you understand why we want you to stay close to your domicile now?"

"Well since you put it that way,... just keep in mind that we have issues being treated like prisoners, Olaf."

"I can assure you that is the furthest thing from our desires. Please give us a few more days to get this situation under control." These people had at least a year to 'get it under control', there's more to this than what they're letting on.

"Alright Olaf, I just hope I don't have to put her on a leash." Got an elbow in the ribs for that one...

So now we're stuck in the house again, and one thing I really miss is reading. We'd have plenty of time for it. My own stories can only carry me so far. Hopefully, someone here had a library as a hobby and that got brought here like my audio stuff.

Once this place is open for business, I'm going to make it a point to make some friends. If everyone here has received the 'gift' of a mate, we're all couples, and that should make things easier. I've always found friendships awkward with married couples, and at my age, that's all there was. But it looks as though we have a couple more days of boredom to suffer through, although I myself loved boredom occasionally, I've worked for the last forty plus years, I'm ready for a break. But Anna was just a little kid in the restaurant, squirming like a worm at the end of a hook. The internal age difference definitely showed.

We would be freed soon I hoped.