Daughter of Zeus ✔

1.2

"Kid!" The girl locked eyes with Ada. "Use the cold pack, then the ointment, then the cold pack again. And don't be such a dick. Comprende?"

The small head nodded.

Her guilt eased somewhat, Ada drove off. The image of the dangling jaw line stayed with her.

~*~

Ada couldn't shake her anger.

Which was a problem, because she had a shift at the local supermarket, Eat'n'Save. She hoped to calm before she arrived, otherwise, she was bound to fry a customer or two.

Using her mental ability, she connected with the electronic interface in the car, shifting to the auto-pilot function for the rest of the drive to work. She needed time to just sit, and that's what she did.

After the blue station wagon parked, she stayed in the car to mentally compose herself. Ada flipped down the visor to check her eyes, and of course, they sparkled a harsh shade of blue rather than their usual hazel. The color would return to normal in a few hours, but she didn't feel like sitting in the car to wait it out. She slipped on a pair of dark sunglasses.

Outside of the store, it was muggy and overcast. Odd weather for sunglasses. Inside the store, the bright lights made sunglasses seem like a good idea. Though, Ada knew the longer she wore them inside, the more she looked like a tool.

Customers breezed past her, the sensors by the door lighting from red to green, indicating a completed purchase via interface connection.  In the aisles, tall and oblong bots treaded silently back and forth, ready to answer customer questions. Only one other stocker was in the store, Julian. Long gray hair hung in his weathered face, but it was a kind face. He had told Gemina about the open position, effectively helping Ada get a job when no one else would hire her. Hand buried in product boxes, he threw a smile at Gemina, and she nodded in response.

In the back room, her boss, Mr. Tate, stopped her. "Like the song?"

He was not that much older than Ada, with a large belly and a tidy beard hanging off his pasty face. Often, he asked her about her day or which was better: wristlets versus handheld interfaces?

Ada took a deep breath before answering. "What do you mean?"

To her horror, he broke into song. "I wear my suuuunglasses at night. So I can, so I can---,"

"Dunno that song."

Mr. Tate rested his hands on his hips. "A shame."

He lingered in the backroom doorway. Ada ignored him as she opened her employee locker.

"Can't wear those for your shift."

Finally, she looked at him.

He shrugged. "It's policy."

Ada didn't remove the sunglasses. She stared long and hard at Mr. Tate, which she could tell unnerved him.

A loud pop reverberated from an adjacent room. The lights in the back room dimmed, plunging them into darkness. Outside of the breakroom, the store was pitch black. Mr. Tate swore.

"What the hell was that?"

Ada smiled.

~*~

Mr. Tate had sent everyone home, citing a power outage. In their neighborhood, it was to be expected.

Ada had counted on that predictability when she had blown the transformer.

Upon arriving at home, the car's power indicator was in the red. Ada plugged the battery into the outlet as she threw an absent look at the sky. Few clouds populated the dark purple haze, backlit by an unforgiving and blood-orange sun. If the particles in the air hadn't been clogged with harmful pathogens, the amethyst hue would have been an incredible sight. The beauty of the poisoned sky made her long for a Clean and Clear, yet her mother needed one more than she did. Her cough was getting worse, hoarse with blood and phlegm, and she couldn't afford another synth.

An observation plane, or o-plane, shook the leaves in the trees as it flew by. Two more o-planes followed, the screech of their ascent loud and insistent. When new people moved into the neighborhood, it took them months to acclimate to the noise. Time passed, and they became numb, finally realizing why the housing rates were so cheap. O-planes were an annoying part of every citizen's life, but mostly stayed out of sight, out of mind, but not for derelict neighborhoods like this. They flew in plain view, almost like a threat, or at the very least, a constant reminder that the neighborhood was being watched.

Combat mission planes, or c-planes, made their presence known with the roar of a booming engine noisier than any o-plane. C-planes had been flying out of the nearby base more often, most likely to aid in that latest war. Ada couldn't even remember the name of it.

Two children rode by on bikes. Ada waved. One smiled back at her, displaying two brown spots where teeth should've been. His appearance didn't faze her, though it had when she first moved back into her mother's neighborhood. Growing up in the area, the setting never seemed as bad as it did when she had returned as an adult. She and August had lived in an apartment downtown, close to her job at the school, and she had gotten used to the tranquility. The streets were littered with tires husks, torn furniture, graffiti-laden sidewalks, and brown grass on every lawn. As the years passed, the dilapidated conditions resulted in an outright decay.

As she neared the side of the house, she felt eyes on her and mumbled, "Sacra forda."

Her mother assured her the Latin phrase translated to "holy pregnant cow", but Ada never verified the claim. Like most of her mother's phrases, she merely repeated them.

"Still driving that electric clap-trap from 2020, eh?" Her neighbor, Harmon, locked up his vehicle, a new truck with a 70-gallon gas tank.

If he spent more money on his home and less on Prominent toys, his roof shingles wouldn't be hanging off, and his driveway wouldn't be split.

Ada mentioned none of this. "Yup. It's easy to keep a car for forty plus years when it doesn't need gasoline."

Harmon was undeterred by Ada's dig. "Well, I don't need to tell you how you're hurtin' the oil industry, costin' people their jobs."

Old Harmon ranted about his Prominent talking points to anyone unfortunate enough to listen. Instead of ignoring him, or agreeing with him as most of the neighbors did, Ada went a different path.

"It was a cheap purchase. Can't argue with cheap."

Against the glare of the setting sun, he squinted. After a moment, he smiled, though the effort seemed to pain him. "You got an answer for everything."

Just as he accused, Ada had another response ready, but it wouldn't have done any good. In her mind, she saw herself removing her glasses, showing off her eyes, and scaring the shit out of Harmon with a light show. She could've fried his heart easily, and considered it.

Behind her, her fingers tingled, hands crackling with energy. For two breaths, she readied herself for a confrontation. He would drop like the sad sack he was, and no one would be bothered with his trite comments ever again. The incident would be over quickly, and she could hide the body in the backyard.

Don't.

The voice sounded a lot like August's. He chastised her sometimes, just as he had when he was alive. He grounded her, and forced her to remember the consequences. If she fried Harmon, her mother's reputation would spiral, and her next stop would be a permanent move to a State facility. Sanity slowly returned.

Poor Harmon eyed her, probably deciding whether she was fiddling with her keys or itching her ass. She walked away from him without saying anything.

Before she got to the front door, Harmon muttered, "Goddamn Tramp hippies."

A/N: If you like the story so far, turn that vote-frown upside down.