Chapter 4: Normal Day, Normal Girl

I woke up Monday morning to my Omnus, which was sitting on the bedside table, vibrating and beeping at me about an incoming call. Groggily, I reached over and picked it up. Iris's face came up on the holo display. Confused, I looked at the time display; it was almost 8 AM.

"Iris. Kinda early, isn't it?"

"Yeah, sorry about that Rianna, but the adults over here are being really weird today. Not talking as much, sounding weird when they do talk, and looking at me funny. So can I come over? You can sleep some more if you want, I can just read."

"Well I was going to wake up soon anyway. Do you have permission to come over?"

She turned her eyes upward and said, "Fahima?" The holographic display shivered a little as a string of numbers and letters came up, and then the words 'AI insertion into call.' Iris's image became small and went off to one corner while a Middle-Eastern woman's face took over. There was something about the way the face moved that was too controlled to be a human face. This had to be the avatar of their house's AI.

"Hello," said a pleasant female voice with an Arabic accent. "I am Fahima, the AI of the Zahane household. At 735 hours, I recorded Matria Zahane giving Iris Zahane permission to visit Rianna Goode, if Rianna Goode also gave permission. Shall I display it?"

"Uh ... okay," I replied. The image shivered again and a three-vee recording of Matria and Iris's conversation about permission was displayed. It wasn't very long, but I could tell Matria was indeed acting a little oddly. Understandable, after what I'd found out last night, but still ... I decided I'd better have a talk with them at some point. Child prodigy or not, she was still a child and it was best to treat her like a normal human being as much as possible.

"Okay then," I said once Fahima's image returned. "Yeah, Iris, you can come over." Iris's small image jumped up and down a little, and she exulted and hung up. Fahima was still on the line, but soon said her polite farewells and hung up, too.

I put the Omnus down on the table and got out of bed to get ready. I still had my toothbrush in my mouth when Iris rang the doorbell. The avatar of my own house AI, Cleo (short for Cleopatra), appeared in the air before me, asked if I wanted her to let Iris in since I was busy. I gave her the thumbs-up, her image vanished, and I heard the door opening.

"Oh, you in the loo?" I rolled my eyes, since I couldn't answer. Cleo answered for me, thank goodness. I spat and rinsed, told Cleo to let Iris know I'd be awhile, and went about my morning routine.

When I finally got out of the shower and came out wearing a towel on my head and another over my body, I saw on my way to my bedroom that Iris was laying on her back on the sofa, shoes off, reading an ebook of some kind on an e-board, which is a bit like e-scrip but thicker and stiff, kinda like the front or back cover of a hardback book. They're heavier than e-scrip but not by a lot. Perfect for reading. Iris had hers held in front of her face by a flexible meta-material device that was being anchored to her head by being wrapped around her ears; looked a little odd, but kept her from having to hold her arms up for long periods of time. She even had it set to turn pages by voice command.

I came out of the bedroom later in comfortable clothes just in time to hear Iris say, "Turn," to her e-board.

"What you reading, sweetie?"

"Voice command off," Iris said, before sitting up and setting the e-board aside. "I'm still reading that romance novel you suggested to me, 'Under An Alien Moon.'"

"You enjoying it so far, then?"

Iris grinned. "Very much so."

"Excellent. Well, I'm gonna make a proper breakfast for once. Have you eaten yet?"

"No. I tried, but like I said, the adults were acting weird." There was something in her voice, in the way she said that, which was making me think that she knew exactly why they were acting weird, and was looking for some sign of it in me. I chased that particular 'elephant in the room' away by looking at Iris's thistle-purple eyes, and suddenly all I could do was sigh and smile like a lovesick fool. It took me a few moments to remember to get back to the process of cooking.

Iris followed me into the kitchen, wanting to help, so I let her get eggs and other ingredients. I was gonna cook us up some omelettes and some waffles, nothing too complicated. And with Iris's help, it went even faster than usual. Before long, we were sitting down to eat. My own omelette had ham and spinach in it, and some onions. Iris's, not surprisingly, had those things but also had so much cayenne pepper that it looked like she was eating a brownish-red pancake.

When we were done eating, and our dishes were in the dishwasher, I went into the bathroom again and used some mouthwash so I wouldn't have to brush again.

"What's that?" Iris asked.

"Odorless, tasteless mouth wash. Great for after meals. You want to use some?"

"Sure, I'll try it." She did, and looked surprised that it really didn't have any taste or odor.

After that was done, we lay down on the couch cuddling, each of us reading from our own e-boards for at least an hour, not talking. We didn't need to talk, just cuddling was enough in that moment. I'll admit, at first I had a hard time concentrating on my book with Iris's warm weight on top of me, but after a while I got comfortable and just lay there running the fingers of my free hand through her hair gently as we read.

I don't know how long we lay like that before Iris set her e-board away and started to look at me, but it didn't take me long to notice. I looked back at her curiously, but she didn't respond. She was just staring, with a thoughtful expression on her face. I don't know if she even noticed me looking back at her. She did this so long that I was starting to turn back to my book when she spoke. "Rianna?"

"Yes?"

She paused a moment before speaking. "I know you're pansexual and panchrono, but ... well ... do you have a preference? As far as genitalia is concerned?"

I smiled warmly. "Yes and no. Like yourself, I like girls more than guys, though I do like some guys. Technically, I'm not exactly panchrono, it's just the most convenient label; I like young girls, but not young boys. There are the occasional exceptions, some little boys that were amazingly gorgeous. I don't care if the young girls I like are cis or trans, though. It's odd, I know, that I love penis on little trans girls, but if the penis is on a little cis boy, I'm not interested. I don't care for little trans boys, either. Not sure why.

"Anyway ... with adults, I have a strong preference for women, whether cis or trans. Where men are concerned, I mostly go for older men. I've been that way as long as I can remember. I tried to seduce one of my elementary school teachers, but he wasn't even a little bit paedo.

"But also, I'm ... I guess I'd call it greysexual, or grey ace. I like masturbation, but sex I can take or leave. But sexual attraction, well, that's just another matter altogether. I masturbate to thoughts of having sex with people, but it doesn't bother me if I don't have sex."

"Have you masturbated while thinking about me?"

"From the first day I met you. Not every night, but often enough."

She smiled, a little distantly. "Good, good." I waited to see if she was going to say any more, as she was looking pensive again, and I was right. "So it wouldn't matter to you if I was cis or trans? It just matters that I'm a girl?"

I kissed her forehead. "To be honest, at this point I think I love you enough for your mind and spirit that you could end up a boy, whether cis or trans, and I would still love you and want to be with you. And I don't think it would affect our cuddles or kisses. I'm also friendly with little boys, even when I'm not attracted to them, and I think there's a strong chance you could have presented as a boy and I would still have fallen in love with you. Perhaps not as quickly, but still..." I trailed off.

Iris hugged me, her head on my chest. "I'm glad to hear that." I waited again, wondering if she was going to tell me she was a t-girl or something, but she didn't. When she finally lifted her head up again, she said, "This has been fun, but if we sit here all day, I think I might fall asleep, and it's much too early for that. We should do something."

So we spent some time discussing what to do, and the whole time we did, Iris sat on my leg in such a way that, had she been trans, would probably have hurt a lot, which deepened my confusion. Maybe she was cis, and worried that I would prefer other trans girls to cis girls? And yet I remembered the bulge against my neck the other day when I'd given her a piggy-back ride. What was going on here? I looked at her questioningly as I listened to her thinking aloud. She caught my glance and grinned coyly, otherwise ignoring my look. It suddenly occurred to me, she was doing this on purpose. Maybe she'd figured out how much the mystery of her genitalia was bugging me, and was teasing me, doing on purpose what she'd done mostly by accident the other day while we'd been kissing.

Well, I thought, if that's how she wants to play it, I'll just pretend it isn't bugging me. I got my expression under control, and contributed to the discussion. In a few minutes, we had decided just to go out window shopping. I called up Matria while Iris got her shoes back on.

"You know," Matria said after I asked her if I could take Iris out, "it's so tedious, all this asking all the time. As long as you let Fahima know where you and Iris are, you have blanket permission to take her pretty much anywhere in the city. Fahima knows what the exceptions are, and will let you know when you need to. Oh, and same time restrictions; have her here or at your place by 11."

"Thanks. You're right, it was a little tedious, but I didn't want to say anything. Can we stipulate that Iris needs my permission before she can come over here? I would prefer she not barge in while I'm in the middle of ... er ... something, if you catch my drift. Not yet, anyway."

"Understood and agreed. You two go wherever you want in town today, just have fun and be safe. Have your Omnus send in updates every now and then, okay?"

"Will do." Matria gave a small wave and hung up.

That taken care of, I grabbed my purse, and led Iris out to Jeeves. I assume Cleo told Jeeves of our plan, for his doors opened as we came out the front doors. And once we were both safely in, the doors closed. I told Jeeves a place to drop us off at, and we were underway shortly thereafter.

The trip did not take as long as the trip to the pole dancing concert had, maybe 25 minutes this time. Iris was talking at me about something she'd read in the book about how to build a VC, and since I knew nothing about any of that stuff, I just listened to her voice but not her words, getting lost in thought about the mystery that was Iris as I did. As it was, Iris had to prod me out of my stupor when Jeeves arrived at the destination. We got out, and Jeeves went off to find a parking spot.

"Let's try not to get anything today, we're just looking, okay honey? Of course, if you see something you absolutely must have, I might be convinced to get it for you, but I don't think your family will appreciate you bringing a whole bunch of things home."

"Gotcha," Iris said, immediately running to the nearest clothing store to goggle at the displays.

I suppose I should briefly explain about Paxum's economy. Some ignorant people say we just have machines make everything and we don't do any work, but that's not true. One thing that is true, is that we don't really have money per se. We have a system by which AI's and other computers track how many hours we work; those hours are put into personal accounts and work a little like money, in that we trade minutes or hours of our own past or future labor time in exchange for either someone else's labor, or products. And as an added incentive, the prices are usually 15% higher, so that if you spend - for instance – 60 minutes working on something, it gets sold for 69 minutes.

But basically, everyone's hour is worth the same, and there are people who take that idea further by refusing to charge extra, so that an hour working at a library can buy an hour-long dentist visit, or even an hour with a lawyer. Everyone gets their work time recorded by their Omnus; even artists record how long it takes them to make their art, including time to purchase and retrieve materials. Teams of AI's analyze the footage to make sure nobody is purposefully dragging their feet. You can take as long as you like to do something, but only time spent actually working counts. It's not as bad as it sounds; a lot of jobs entail a lot of waiting around for things to happen, so most of the time spent on the work site on those jobs counts, since you're not at home. And since prices are fixed so they're always just 15% longer than cost on most things, there isn't much inflation. And if you work for a corporation, at least half of the profit is always passed on to the employees, so the better the business does, the more the employees get paid, which is incentive to do your best work. The rest of the profits are restricted in what they can be used for: expansion of the business, donated to public works and other community-enhancing projects, or passed on to the employees.

You can save your work-time towards expensive goals, too; but there's an earning cap. I don't remember exactly what the earning cap is, but I do know that somebody with a million hours in their account would start to be investigated for fraud the instant the AI's spotted it, which would be a nanosecond after it was entered. Oh wait, I remember; the earning cap is 500,000 hours. No more than 500K hours in an account at any one time. That's roughly 57 years, and even with a projected lifespan of between 170 and 230 years, that's 146,400 hours (roughly 16 years) more than you could work in 170 adult working years. Though I'll grant you, only a corporate account would have anywhere near that much.

And now enough of that boring old nonsense. I've exhausted my knowledge of the subject anyway.

"Ooh, look at that!" Iris said, pointing at a crown with excitement in her voice. It was just a cheap toy crown, probably came out of one of the lower-quality 3D printers, as it only cost 6min, a price that was probably based mostly on what it cost the owners of the shop to lease the template and maybe the lease on the printer. I doubt it took more than 30 seconds to actually print it out. But it had something of a "queen" aura about it, and didn't look too bad for a 6min product.

"A crown fit for a queen," I said. "Want to take a closer look?"

"Yes please!"

"Okay then." We went inside and the store clerk looked up from something he'd been writing to look up at us with a slight smile, glad to have customers.

"Welcome to Tomas & Tomas Trinkets and Toys," the middle-aged Caucasian clerk with glasses and a balding head announced to us. "Looking for anything in particular?"

"I wanna look at the crown closer," Iris announced, pointing at the crown in the window.

"The 6min golden one?"

"Yes please."

"Sure thing," he said cheerfully, fetching it for Iris to look at.

I let her examine the crown while I looked at the things in the transparent display case that doubled as the man's transaction desk. The things in there were significantly more expensive, ranging from 30min to several hours in cost. I wasn't actually planning on buying anything, but then I saw a pair of beautiful necklaces that cost an hour apiece, and came as a set. They had the CL logo heart-within-a-heart; both the hearts were pink in this version, and it looked very well made. I wanted to look at them more closely, but I didn't want to alert Iris to it. I wanted to get them, but between feeling like I was rushing things, and thinking it would make a great birthday gift for her in October, assuming we were still dating by then, it would be a great gift. And if it didn't work out, well ... something to remember her by.

Luckily for me, Iris set the crown down after trying it on, and told me to keep it there while she wandered off to look at other stuff, because she wanted the crown enough that she offered to dip into her allowance to pay for it. I watched her wander off, and when I could only just see the top of her head behind a display, I turned to the clerk and quietly told him I wanted to look at the necklaces.