Ch. 2: Father and Daughter | "Cereus & Limnic"

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A distant buzzing drifted through the air, floating into her consciousness. Initially, she thought it was a component of the bizarre dream that her sleeping mind had conjured to entertain her, so she listened.

Seconds faded into minutes as she strained the limits of her hearing. Frustration gave way to fatigue as she stood silent, unable to find the origin of the tone.

The noise was accompanied by recurring visual elements of the dream: fields of grass tinted with the color of ocean water, her father, herself, and an ancient computer monitor with a flashing blue screen awaiting an input command.

With hopeful trepidation, she approached the glowing terminal, extending a trembling hand to a yellowed brownish keyboard.

Without hesitation, her young fingers began gliding across sticking keys, attempting to manipulate the machine.

Yet each keystroke failed to bring the machine to life. It remained dormant, unyielding, with only a blinking cursor winking mockingly at her entries, void of caring or empathy.

It’s broken. The thought flashed in her mind, repeating itself with the rhythm of the blinking command line cursor. Then the beeping sound began.

First faintly, barely above an audible frequency, but eventually the volume increased to an almost deafening tone after a few seconds, only to fade away until it became a quiet whisper again.

Where is it? Why can’t I find it? Her inability to find the source of sound, made her feel lost in the blue void.

A prisoner of the expanse, subjected to an unexplained wavering tone. Her vexation rising along with the awareness of her thumping heart drew her back into her conscious mind.

She lay there with her eyes closed for a few moments more, grasping in vain at wispy dream fragments.

It was an exercise in futility, but she forced herself into a momentary calm seeking to extend her limited physical senses.

After several seconds, she still heard the beeping. It was close, closer than she had ever been.

What!? Wait! It worked!?

Her eyes shot open.

In a flurry of motion, she threw her thin sheet off of her and rushed to the window of her room flinging open the curtains, squinting through her sleep-clouded vision to see past the wide lawn, and the imposing black gate at the end of a long driveway.

The source of the sound had been a garbage bot performing his collection duties.

The machine’s shape in the form of an old-timey silver trash can was an ironic reality, not lost on her. It made her picture the old world of her father.

A mixture of mismatched fashion styles, green lawns, and for some reason mustached men, converged in a sepia tone in her mind’s eye.

A caricature of a past she never knew or fully understood.

The bot used alloyed arms to lift the black bag of refuse into a gaping dark hole in its center, letting the door glide shut after the waste was deposited deep within its interior.

From her vantage point, she could not see evidence of the tiny explosion inside of the machine, turning the garbage into ashes and energy.

But she was always curious about it. Wanting to understand how they packed such a powerful explosion into such a tiny space.

Ignition method? Fuel source? How? The unanswered questions left her with an uncomfortable ‘in the dark’ feeling.

She wasn’t afraid of the dark, but she preferred the bright illumination of knowledge to guide her steps.

The garbage bot continued its movement down the street, taking her tension with it. She let her shoulders relax, and took a deep breath to fill her lungs. False alarm.

How silly of me to think that I would be able to hold on to it, she thought, pondering the dream again.

Her disappointment was quickly displaced by a strong desire to get her day going.

Moving away from the window and around her bed, she picked up her device from its appointed position by her bedside.

Her device was gold, adorned with a sticker of a rocket spitting a flame from its exhaust, another of a black infinity sign, and a third of a single white gear on the back.

The decals were scratched and faded from countless transfers in and out of her pockets. A vocal command from her lips brought the limitless device to life.

“Calendar.”

Setting the device in an old yet functional robotic circular swivel, she angled it toward a barren wall behind her nightstand, waiting to view her calendar, but nothing appeared.

Oh dammit. I forgot to set it to project mode. She was still getting used to the new model with improved projection features. “Project mode.”

Her voice produced a tiny echo in the room, a clear sign of sleep fog lifting from her mind’s surface.

The calendar flashed onto the wall in a complicated matrix of social and academic suspense dates.

A hidden code only she and possibly her best friend and rival, Harpreet, could decipher.

They had competed in all things academic ever since their fateful meeting during the Basics of Language committee some twelve years prior.

Both having been tutored at home by the finest artificial intelligence teaching programs optimized to their unique learning preferences, they became fast friends, leaving the other five-year-olds behind.

With perfect grades, both agreed to race to see who could test out of the committee the fastest.

Her competitive nature manifested early on, and she won the contest by one day.

That had been the beginning of a rivalry that continued to this day, with each girl taking the lead in every other contest year after year. Both enjoyed the shared rivalry and friendship.

It drove them to greater heights, and kept life interesting.

She found her mind wandering, but managed to focus it back to her projected calendar.

Her vision focused on the date: June 14th, 2062. Two events, one with a green rhombus, the other with a red pentagon in front of it, populated the line.

A calculus lesson at 1000 and dinner with Dad at 1900. A light day.

Feihao. Plenty of time to chill.

Sunlight, warm and bright, made its way through the window, heating her skin. I should get going.

She made her way to the body length mirror fastened to the back of her door and admired herself for longer than she wanted to.

A single gold colored shirt and an old yet reliable pair of purple panties were all she wore.

Her long black hair was a mess, falling in every direction except down. Gangly long arms appeared to sway in the breeze of the air conditioner.

Her eyes, umber brown, shining and thin, reflected brilliance, hinting at unrealized greatness. She allowed a small smile onto her lips at the thought of her eyes.

They projected her presence and intellect, and made her more memorable. Unforgettable.

Some told her that her gaze was as intense as it was beautiful; she tended to agree with that observation.

Her face was slim and flat, with a small nose set in the center.

Her eyes scanned downward, toward her (in her opinion) unremarkable breasts, when she noted a tiny red swell on her cheek.

It was sensitive to the slightest prod from her finger, and stung whenever the muscles of her face moved.

She twitched her face several times to confirm its presence

A pimple. Great. She reached for nearby facial cream in her nightstand and began to methodically apply it to the red menace.

As she made tiny swirls with her finger, a knock on the other side of the door startled her.

“Jinhua? Are you up?” The voice of her father resonated clearly from the opposite side of the door.

“Yeah I am. I’ll be out in a minute.” Jinhua finished applying the cream, then hurried to her closet and to dress herself.

The night before she had set aside a simple green t-shirt and shorts.

The clothes swayed on plastic white hangers, undisturbed, until Jinhua hastened to rip them down and throw them on her body, after changing out of her sleepwear.

She hadn’t realized how behind her usual schedule she was. Damn dream. Stupid trash bot.

When she opened her door, her father stood before her, a neutral expression on his face.

“You have to get ready for committee.”

He paused, noting his daughter’s uncharacteristically disheveled appearance.

“Did you sleep alright?” There was concern in his tone.

He knew that she was usually ready to go by this time in the morning.

“I slept great. Are you heading to the office?”

He was dressed in a sharp looking steel-colored suit accompanied with a sky-blue dress shirt. The tie was neatly pressed, accented with cerulean and white stripes.

It looked new even though she had seen him wear it off and on ever since she was little.

His face shared Jinhua’s features, but was wider and rounder, making his brown eyes less pronounced to a casual observer.

A full head of grey hair sat above the chiseled wrinkles carved at specific points on his face.

Her father’s face reminded her of a weather-beaten statue. After decades exposed to the elements, it had history, and related a different story when viewed from distinct angles.

Every Wednesday he made the two-hour journey down to Sacramento to meet with the city government down there.

Though he never really discussed the details of the meetings, he always came home with a mantle of sadness about his slim shoulders.

“I’m about to leave right now. You know how slow the bus can be,” he said.

“Slower than the orbit of Mars.” Jinhua covered her mouth to conceal a giggle. Her father chuckled as well.

Li Ma looked at his daughter, the little girl turned young woman, now 17-years-old.

In a flash of nostalgia, he recalled the first time that he took her to the Powerhouse Science Center in Sacramento.

She was only a girl then, but she already had a sparkle in her eyes whenever she viewed something she liked.

The sparkle appeared as soon as they entered the planetarium.

The infinite collection of projected stars seemed to stretch beyond the walls of the physical space, swallowing him and his inquisitive daughter by his side whole.

Though the room was packed with a sprinkling of other parents and a class of elementary school children with chaperones, it felt like they were the only two in the room.

At that moment, it was Li and Jinhua’s planetarium.

Li had watched her eyes glowing with wonder, captivated by the endlessness and untold frontiers of space.

Swirls of overwhelming emotion, threatening to break the surface of his stoic veneer, manifested as a hint of satisfaction and silent joy on his face.

Jinhua was oblivious to his gaze. Her entire being was focused on the astronomical projection.

To her child mind, the blanket of stars beamed back at her, calling her to wonder, imagine, and explore. My future is up there, she had thought.

Ever since that day, Li had tapped all of his connections within and even outside of the organization to find her the finest resources and mentors to fuel her interest in space, science, and mathematics.

First, he started her out on books for children, but she quickly devoured them and subsequently surpassed all of her peers in her honors basic Space Science Committee.

He found his old Arduino robot kit, thinking that it would serve as a suitable challenge for a nine-year-old.

But by her tenth birthday, she had designed three of her own projects with no assistance from him or any of her committee scholars.

It was unheard of within the organization for someone so young to study directly under a scholar, but with a few back-door connections, he had made it happen for her.

She was truly gifted.

“Dad…are you ok?”

Jinhua nudged Li back from his thoughts.

“Fine, fine.” He smiled warmly. “Don’t forget dinner at seven tonight.”

“I’ll be there.” Jinhua looked back at her device in the swivel, feeling slightly embarrassed.

“You know, we don’t have to go out… we can just eat something here.”

“No, we should. It’s not every day they let teenagers into the Junior Space Cadets. It’s a big deal.”

She didn’t protest. Despite all of her academic success throughout her life, it still felt awkward when others talked about it directly, even if it was her dad.

“Don’t be late.” He leaned forward and gently kissed her forehead, then walked down the long corridor toward the staircase to go downstairs.

His small, yet powerful footsteps left faint impressions on the thick carpet as he walked away.

There was a time many years ago when she would walk behind him to try and fill those footprints with her own tiny feet.

Jinhua felt the urge to follow him now, but stopped herself when she remembered that her feet were slightly larger than his now.

Instead, she stood and watched the impressions for a few seconds until they were completely swallowed by the carpet material. Have a good day dad. I love you.