The Before Short Story Series.

A short story series. Part 1.

Notes from the future about the technologies of the emerging civilization.

Ayaka

‘I don’t want, I don’t want, I don’t want! I won’t— I won’t eat anything without Daddy! Let’s wait for Daddy!’ Ayaka was as restless as ever.

‘Ayaka, you know it very well: there is a certain way things are done. We always have lunch at 12:30. Don’t you remember what Uncle Manabu was saying?’ Hiromi tried to distract her daughter from the so much detested lunch.

‘No, Mummy, I don’t! What was Uncle Manabu saying?’

‘He said, honey, that the girls that follow their daily routine the right way, that follow what their parents say and do as they say, will always have good health. And as you know, Ayaka healthy girls can spend a lot of time playing with their friends. Surely you want to play with Sano and Ryuu in the afternoon, don’t you?’

‘I do!’ Ayaka frowned, picked the edge of her dress, decorated with pink bear cubs, and lifted it, drawing it onto her head.

‘Ayaka, what are you doing?!’ The mother came up and pulled the dress back. ‘So many times have I already told you, Ayaka—good girls don’t do this! Please, don’t do this again.’

‘Sorry, Mummy. I won’t— And I won’t lunch now either!’ Ayaka exploded with loud objections, only barely not crying. ‘But where is Daddy?!’

‘Good heavens, Ayaka…’

Hiromi approached the kitchen area, separated from the living room by a high bar, and tried to call her husband on her communicator.

‘Hi Keirou! are you coming home? yet long to go?’ she made sure that Ayaka was busy with something and quietly continued recording a voicemail for her husband, ‘Ayaka is refusing to lunch without you. I need you at home. Please call me back, Keirou.’

Ayaka was making her way into her new constructor kit on a sitting-mat in the middle of the living room. The Martian base kit summary read, ‘The Quantum constructor will help your child not only with assembling multi-component engineering systems of a Martian base: development of data analysis skills, systematization and information structuring, creative skills development, and yet more—these are the ways for Quantum to fully uncover your child’s potential. The kit was developed with help of experienced children psychologists and Japan Space Agency specialists. Let your child make a confident step into the new world!’ Ayaka’s straight black hair—reaching her shoulders and tied into a ponytail so that they wouldn’t disturb her playing—for some reason were curling. She was mumbling something to herself while running through the kit details. ‘I wonder whom she’s like with this. Only Grandma had her ends curl too, I guess’, Hiromi was thinking while watching Ayaka play.

‘Aren’t you cold, Aya-chan?’ Hiromi made out some air conditioning sounds in the room noise.

‘No, Mummy, thanks! I feel great in these tighties!’

Hiromi impatiently took the communicator and went out to the balcony to see if she could spot her husband’s car.

‘Good afternoon, Ms Arai!’ a low male voice startled her.

‘Good afternoon, Mr Sano!’ she greeted her neighbour, a very old man smoking on his balcony, through a barrier.

‘Isn’t the weather just wonderful today, Ms Arai? only maybe a little too hot. What do you think?’

‘Oh, Mr Sano, could you imagine it, I even had to turn the air conditioning on. I totally agree with you.’ She spotted her husband’s pickup truck coming down the hill in the beginning of the street. ‘Sorry, Mr Sano! Keirou is coming back, I need to lay the table for my family’

‘Oh, sure, sure! Have a very nice day, Ms Arai!’

‘Wow, again like a chimney—at this point the smoke will totally get into the room. Thank God the wind is the other way today. Not only did he lead himself into such a state, now he wants to help the others too,’ so thought Hiromi about her neighbour, shaking her head on the way back to the living room.

‘Aya-chan, Daddy is back! go wash your hands and we will have lunch.’

‘Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!’ Ayaka leapt up and began to run wild around the room.

‘Ayaka, please, calm down! Grandma Yano will think a volcano is erupting if you stomp your feet so much!’

But Ayaka heard nothing of what her mother was saying. Running up to the front door and having made her way through the lock, she ran downstairs to meet her father, all the while yelling loudly.

‘So many tourists in the park today. There were like two buses of Americans brought here. I don’t even know where they got so many people to begin with! Can you imagine, Hiromi,’ Keirou was telling her wife, ‘two buses! I do think though it was on purpose—it surely is a lot cooler on Deck 1 than in the city, oh yes it is. They must have wanted to save on air conditioning, right Ayaka?’

‘Keirou, don’t distract her please! it wouldn’t hurt you to eat as well, too.’

‘I think, Daddy, that air conditioning needs to be turned off. They are very inefficient energetically. It’s so hot today! Mummy turned the air conditioning on at home. And she also put some tights on me: here, have a look,’ Ayaka lifted her dress in the same way again—to show her father her white tights covering half of her belly, which had already got bigger since she started eating.

Keirou burst into laughter.

‘Ayaka!’ Hiromi called her daughter as though threatening further action. ‘Pull the dress back at once and eat on! Why are you encouraging her, Keirou?’

’I am sorry, Hiro-chan. Sorry,’ he smiled while struggling to hold his smile and throwing a glance or two at his wife. ‘Aya-chan, Mummy was right to turn the air conditioning on. Otherwise it would be too hot inside—you see, it is about two o’clock, and it’s like 30° out there right now. And it probably will get hotter yet! Meanwhile, it is cool and nice in here, isn’t it? And the tights—you were sitting on the floor, so that’s why Mummy did that.’

‘Yes, Daddy, I do agree. It is right. It is warm in the tighties.’

‘The lunch is great today, Hiromi. Thank you!’

‘I am glad you like it.’

‘I like it too, Mummy!’ Ayaka supported her father.

‘Keirou, do you remember that we need to go to Tōkyō next week with Ayaka?’

‘Tōkyō? Why would it be?’ Keirou asked, surprised.

Hiromi looked at her husband with some disapproval, ‘Next week, Keirou, our daughter is turning six. That means we need to go to the Destiny House.’

‘I sure do remember that Ayaka’s birthday is next week, right. But I did forget everything about destiny.’

‘Well now you do remember—so please, we need to think everything out.’

‘Daddy, dad-dy! Look, I’m already done with it!’ Ayaka ran up to her father showing him a finished module of a Martian atomic power plant. A lamp on the module was blinking green, indicating that the module was ready to be connected to the main energy network of the base.

‘Aya-chan, and when did you open this constructor kit? when did you start assembling it?’ Keirou was asking.

‘Sorry Daddy, I had absolutely no time for that!’ Ayaka protested, shaking her head from side to side. ‘Mummy gave me a big reading task last night, it took all my time. I only managed to start it today before lunch.’

‘Oh, I see, Aya-chan. Great job! Let’s see what you got there.’

Keirou picked up the constructor kit box from the floor: ‘For children aged 10 to 14’.

Mt Fuji

‘Have you fastened your seat belt well back there, Aya-chan? Let me check,’ Keirou turned back to the passenger seat with his daughter settled comfortably in a child safety seat. He still had that certain mistrust of the autopilot—as well as of all those novel automatic stuff like artificial intelligences, automata, and robots, which had replaced humans in so many spheres of life—Keirou preferred to drive his car by himself. And it was quite a feat to find a manually-controlled electric car. The production of such cars was limited and in the first place they were designed for special emergency services, military, and some other detachments. However, as Keirou was related—even though only quite distantly—to the Emergency Service, being a member of the foresting service of the Fuji–Hakone–Izu National Park, he had had such a vehicle assigned to him by means of a special request.