"Oh… shit…" I said.
"Watch your language young lady." The head said.
"Sorry mum…" I said.
"That's better," my mum said, "now where are you?"
"Erm…" I said, "well…"
"You shouldn't just run off like that," she said, "your father and I have been worried sick, haven't we dear."
"Not really," I heard my dad say, "she's a smart kid, she knows what she's doing."
"Thanks dad." I replied.
"Anytime my little firefly," he said, "you have fun."
"I can never get this thing to work properly," my mum said, "I can't see where you are…"
"That's probably a good thing mum…" I said.
"Your aunt has been worried about you," my mum said, "she has been to the school and everything…"
"She's not worried about me mum," I replied, "she's worried about what I know."
"Not all that Bohemian nonsense again," my mum said, "when will you learn they aren't real, they exist only in the imagination of children who have too much time on their hands."
"I guess that's where I'll exist from now on then…" I said.
"Excuse me?" my mum said.
"Goodbye mum… and tell Ryan he can have my music system, I'll be making real music from now on…" I said, closing the laptop.
"You okay…?" Meat asked me.
"Oddly enough…" I said, "yeah."
"Your dad sounds… interesting." Meat said.
"He's err… different." I said.
She laughed.
Macca came over.
"Meat, Brit is organising a team to go on a food gathering mission…" he said.
"Because we all know how well that worked out last time…" she said.
"This time he'll be more careful, and the end results will be better." Macca said.
"Couldn't really be much worse could they." She said.
"What happened last time?" I asked.
"They were gone for 4 days, we expected them back in two," Meat said, "turns out Cliff got stuck in a storage container filled with all kinds of chemicals and nasty stuff… he was in there for nearly 12 hours before they got him out…"
"Was he okay?" I asked.
"Chemicals effect your brain, and we're not sure when he last had one of those, so it's hard to tell." Meat said.
"I heard that." Cliff said.
"You were supposed to." She replied.
He laughed.
"See?" she said.
I laughed.
"Not many places store food anymore," I said, "most homes on Planet Mall have been switched over to the food replicators…"
"The what?" Meat asked.
"Machines that replicate food…" I said.
"Like vending machines?" Macca asked.
"No, vending machines have food put into them that people can then purchase…" I said, "food replicators actually replicate food… you put in something and tell the machine what you want, and it makes it. Its easier than finding ways to store food, and its cheaper in the long run…"
"They have machines for everything these days," Meat said, "what was wrong with the days where you could go and kill a cow and eat it…"
"The cows all got killed…" I said.
"Not the point." She replied, slapping my arm playfully, "before you know it they'll have machines that do everything for you, go to the toilet, make love…"
"Well…" I said.
"Oh please tell me that Killer Queen hasn't made some 'app' that does that…" Meat said, "people on Planet Mall will die from boredom if they can't reproduce…"
"You can actually order babies now," I said, "it's still in its early stages but its happening…"
"That woman needs to be stopped…" Meat said, "people need to remember how to do things for themselves, to think for themselves…"
"The majority of people on Planet Mall haven't had an original thought in their lifetime…" I said.
"Which is why she needs to be stopped." Meat said.
"Back on to these food reproducing machine like things…" Macca said.
"Food replicators." I said.
"Yes," he said, "where can we steal one?"
"More importantly what do you put in them?" Meat asked, "I'd like to know what I'm eating before we steal something to make it."
"At the moment it's a jelly like substance…" I said, "you can buy it…"
"So we can steal it…" Meat said.
"Well, yeah…" I said, "the machine itself might be an issue… all the buildings that make them are kept under tight security… But a factory recently closed down on the edge of the Outlands, I'm pretty sure we'd find an almost completed one in there…"
"Almost completed?" Meat said, "so you ask it for chicken and you get an egg?"
"No," I said with a laugh, "almost completed as in we'd have to fit some of the components ourselves, but it can't be that difficult."
Macca looked at me with an odd look on his face.
"What?" I asked.
"I like you," he said, "I think you're going to make a good addition to our family… note down everything we'll need and I'll send the team out."
With that he walked away. I looked at Meat.
"I like you too…" she said with a little smile.