Chapter 22: Mum

~~ Delta - Apr/03 - (Earth - Oct/2095) ~~

My mum is one of those people who when she makes up her mind, changing it is like shifting a mountain.

Luckily, we magicians can shift mountains. She had a look at the transport box that Sean had provided. She went and walked around her apartment. Lee and Sean popped off to Sean’s dad’s place to take care of feeding Jackson and their little wizard’s problem.

With Sean jumping around all over the place, Lee had to help with it, plus they liked to have sex when feeding the kid. Vince and Mum understood. They had also noted this little problem cropping up after they had been practising their magic.

Vince said it sure spiced up the sex life. I gathered he didn’t have any complaints about having to get relief from mum. She had just smiled indulgently at him. No grumbles from that department either, I gathered.

Vince said he had to go to work to get his current jobs transferred to one of the other people in his department and get packed up and hopefully he’d only be gone a couple of hours.

Mum helped him to get dressed, while I showed James TV, he was fascinated. “Why do they keep interrupting the program with those weird bits of information?” he asked. I explained advertising to him and that it was people trying to sell you something.

He shook his head, “Then why not put them all on one channel, so if you’re interested you can go look there?” 

I laughed and swapped to a shopping channel for him. He just shook his head and changed to another channel that was showing news. He liked this one to start with and listened for a bit then asked, “When is the good news?” he asked.

“Sorry, what do you mean?” I asked.

“It’s all doom and gloom. Like this person blowing up some other person or shooting them. No wonder humans are depressed if that’s all they got to see on the news,” he replied.

“Yeah, it can get a bit depressing. I think that’s why people don’t watch as much T.V. anymore. Most like to surf the net and find old movies.”

“They don’t make as many as they used to because of download piracy. People like getting things that they see are for free and don’t think about the work other people put into creating the entertainment.”

“Everyone bitches that they don’t make movies like they used to but don’t see themselves as the cause of the problem. Even the internet here has gotten so that you have to pay for everything, so people try to find ways around it.”

James nodded. We then switched to a talk show, and they were discussing the new planet that Lee had told them about. They had called it Terra. Probably the only thing they had agreed upon. We shook our heads in disgust.

It turns out that every nation or self-interest group that could get their hands on a ship had sent one to claim a continent or one of the larger islands. They were all now busy sending troops to protect their claims.

They had already had squabbles over some areas as different groups tried to claim them. The people back here were busy bitching at each other, as to who got to where, first.

They were also discussing a rumour that several nations from the Asian block were considering pulling out of the Harmony contract. They had managed to claim one of the largest continents on Terra.

They were squabbling over, if it should belong to the block of nations (the block Lee had put together) as a whole, or if it should be split up between the countries that actually got there first.

I felt that Lee would just shrug and send their people home if they did pull out. She still wasn’t happy with them. Not, that it was all their fault, as the Prols had an issue with inter-racial couplings that Lee was still working on.

James changed channels again and to my horror found a re-run of a re-run, of the cartoon show called South Park. People had a weird sense of human back at the change of the century. While he didn’t understand the historical references, he did get the weird humour.

I was relieved to turn it off so we could see Vince off. We discussed with mum what she wanted to do. She suggested that I take James sightseeing and shopping and she will pack what she intends to take for now and decide about the rest.

I agreed and introduced James to public transport. Mum gave me her travel card and said we should be able to use it for both of us, just swipe twice. We walked down the hill, and I took him to the train station.

He was fascinated by all the skyscrapers and the number of people. I’d got him to dress in jeans and a T-shirt, so he didn’t look out of place. It was early autumn here like it was on Harmony and it was a beautiful morning for Brisbane.

James started sneezing. “What is in the air?” he complained. I smiled as he wiped his nose.

“The joys of humanity in a large, populated city. Exhaust fumes from trucks, pollution from large industries and humanity in general,” I informed him.

“Well I don’t like that bit,” he said and sneezed again. His nose settled down a bit as we walked, and I pointed out different sights. We got to the train station, and he liked the train ride. We got off in the City Centre and walked around.

It was a Friday here, and plenty of people were bustling about doing whatever it is they needed to do. I took him into a department store, and he was amazed at the consumerism.

“Do people really buy half this stuff?” he asked, as he couldn’t see why there were things for sale that he could see no use for. I smiled at his astonishment at what people were buying.

For fun, I took him to the toy department. This section of the store had him fascinated at the things people perched for their kids to play with. I found a small drone that looked a lot like a linger.

I explained that you added a program to your Peeper and then you drive the drone from it. He asked if he could have one. So, I purchased him one. He also wanted the big train set with the electrical grav-rail, so I humoured him, and we got one.

He then found a tiny china dinner plate and tea set and said that he bet Arnett would love them, so we got them too. Lee had mentioned our Mads could still be used here if went shopping.

As we wandered around, I also decided to hit the pet section. James looked at the stuff and shook his head, “Now I see why the dragonets are spoilt. You, humans, love your pets.”

We found some items we decided the dragonets would like and purchased them. We then hit the baby department. I knew Lee and Sean had put a lot in the system, but I just wanted to see what was new and found a couple of items I didn’t think we had, that would be nice.

We hit the electronics store, and we found a miniature holo-projector that James got for Kale. He also took a liking to a weather station, so it got added to the pile. We were starting to get overloaded with all the purchases.

I had James walk around to the side alley of one of the shops, and I blinked back to mums and dropped off the stuff. She was still packing, so I blinked back to James. I suggested coffee, and we stopped for a quick feed.

He liked the look of all the cakes and knowing some of his likes, I suggested the chocolate mudcake. He happily ate it but said it wasn’t as good as Erving’s was and I’m afraid I had to agree. I could taste all the preservatives in it that we didn’t use.

We were just about to get up when we heard a lady scream, we turned to see a young man came running towards us and James put out his leg and tripped the bloke. He went sprawling and the handbag he had been clutching tumbled to the pavement.

James went to pull his wand, and I stopped him and shook my head. He frowned at me, and I explained, “If you extend it, it will be considered a weapon, and you will be in more trouble, than the thief.”

The lady that had been robbed caught up with us. She grabbed the bag and then kicked the thief who was still sprawled out on the ground. “Little shit, get a fucking job,” she spat at him and walked off clutching the bag tightly.

Everyone just shook their heads and went back to what they were doing. James got up and helped the young man up. “Are you okay?” he asked.

The youth looked at him, “Yeah, fuck it, I’ve no bloody luck.”

“Why did you take the bag?” James asked.

“Gotta eat man,” he said, rubbing his knee where he fell and his rib where he was kicked.

James held out his wrist, “Do you have a bank account?”

“What?” the boy asked in shock.

“I believe I need your number to transfer you some funds, so you may eat.”

The kid just stared up at James. I had to smile at my lovely man. If he’d had a pocket full of cash, he would have just handed it to the kid, I was sure. I got up and put my hand out to the young man, “Hi, I’m Trixy, and this is James. He is serious about his offer to help.”