A Summer Morning

A story I wrote after participating in some ATS discussion threads. I am curious how many of you will figure out what it means. If you do, please don't post spoilers in the thread. Thanks.

A Summer Morning

Pushing a chunk of his breakfast from one side of the plate to the other, Eni looked as sullen and uncooperative as he felt.

“Answer me!” his mother demanded again, finally raising her voice a bit. “Did you go to Zim last night, or not?”

“Yeah, we did!” Eni muttered in the general direction of his glass of juice. “So what? All the kids go there.”

“One, you aren’t all the kids. Two, it’s dangerous. How many times have I asked you not to do it?”

“It’s not dangerous. They can’t catch us. They can’t even see us unless someone’s Hider fails. “ Eni looked up and rolled his eyes at her.

“Don’t you tell me it’s not dangerous! Half a dozen kids have been killed, and 3 gone that we probably won’t ever know what happened to them.” Mom’s voice took on a slightly sharper edge. The eye-rolling thing annoyed her even more, and he knew it.

“What’s that got to do with Zim? Fliers crash all the time right here at home.”

“Yes, they do. But here at home there are safeguards, and ambulances, and doctors and hospitals. If you crash on Zim, there is no help. If you want to watch Zimmies, why can’t you just go to the zoo or use a remote?”

Eni shook his head, mostly to himself. How could she not understand that watching the captive Zimmies in the zoo just wasn’t the same? Every once in a while they’d launch another escape attempt, and that was a bit fun to watch for a while, but they hadn’t done one in months. Maybe they’d finally accepted that there was no way out of the zoo. And using a remote wasn’t the same either .. it had a much smaller field of vision, could only get so far from the portal, and there was .. well, there just wasn’t that little thrill of excitement that came with the risk of actually going to Zim. Especially since the black flying machines with the spinners on top had started showing up and chasing them sometimes. But he couldn’t explain that to Mom. It would just make things worse.

“They’re my friends, Mom. If I go to the zoo or use a remote while they’re going to Zim, they won’t be my friends much longer.”

“Well then maybe you should get some different friends!”

Dangit! He shouldn’t have given her the opening for that old argument. He knew better!

“Please, son, listen to me. Ebe was one of my friends, and all the evidence suggests that he survived that crash. The Zimmies caught him and tortured him. I don’t want that to happen to you.”

“Mom, that was a long time ago. Fliers are a lot more reliable now. Besides, you’re the one telling me I need to get off my butt and get a job. If I log just 20 more flight hours in Zim, I can borrow a catcher and start getting bounty payments for escaped Neefits.”

Mom eyed him suspiciously and lowered her voice. “Really? Escaped Neefits? And just how many of those are there? Don’t think I don’t know about your friend Onu catching Mooers and selling their parts on the black market.”

Eni swallowed but managed to rise to his friend’s defense. “He has more bucks than any of us. Even helps pay the rent and buy groceries. What’s wrong with catching Mooers, anyway?”

“It’s stealing, Eni. I don’t care how stupid you think the Zimmies are, they’re more than just dumb animals, and they have those Mooers for food. You’re taking the food right out of their mouths!”

“Okay, okay. I promise not to take any Mooers.” Once Mom’s ethics were invoked, there was no getting around her. Might as well concede this point and see if he could use it to help him win overall. But catching Neefits helps the Zimmies, doesn’t it? Don’t the Neefits kill animals they eat?”

Mom rolled her eyes right back at her son, exaggerating the gesture for maximum sarcastic effect. “And how many Neefits have escaped exactly? 4? Half a dozen?” Hardly the same impact as the hundreds of Mooers whose parts have appeared on the black market. And you don’t go making any Wavers art, either.”

“What? Geez Mom! What the flip is wrong with making pictures in the Wavers? The Zimmies even go look at them all the time, even they think they’re cool.”

“Do they now?” Mom walked over and sat down at the table across from him. Eni dropped his eyes and pretended interest in his now cold breakfast. “What do you suppose they think Wavers art is? And what do you suppose Wavers are?”

Eni shrugged and picked up a piece of toast. It wasn’t too bad cold.

“Wavers are their food.”

“What? You just said Mooers are their food.”

“Look at your own plate, son! How dumb are you? They eat more than one kind of food, just like you do. And since you obviously haven’t ever watched close enough to figure it out for yourself, Wavers art frightens them. They don’t understand it, can’t figure out how it got there, and don’t know who put it there or why. You and your friends know it’s all teenage pranks and competition for the best design, but the Zimmies don’t know that!”

“Why do you care so much about the stupid Zimmies anyway?”

“I don’t. But I think we should leave them alone. What if there were some species as much smarter than us as we are smarter than the Zimmies, and they visited us? What if incomprehensible symbols appeared out of nowhere in our world, and Neefits were found dead in their enclosures with parts missing and no clue as to how it happened. How would you feel about that?”

Eni shrugged. There couldn’t possibly be a species that much smarter than them; they weren’t stupid like the Zimmies who didn’t even have force fields, or quartum energy, or anything. Some of them were still using fire for heat, for crying out loud. But he said nothing.

“If it were up to me, no one except the legitimate scientists would be allowed to go to Zim, natural portals or no. The next time I find out you’ve been there, I’ll have a restrictor put on your flier, and you won’t be able to go anywhere outside of town. And I mean it.”

Eni gave up all pretense of interest in the unappetizing remains of his breakfast and flung himself dramatically out of his chair.

“Fine! Great! I won’t get to see any of my friends until school starts and I’ll be an outcast for life. Maybe I should become a monk!” With that parting shot, Eni stomped up the stairs to his room, slammed the door, and flung himself across his bed.

Another Summer morning. He almost looked forward to school starting again.

Nice story!

I think I worked out what most of it was referring to, though even after thinking about it for a while I still can't say for the definite what the 'neefits' are but hey, it's very late at night where I am right now! haha!

Still, I love the concept, a wonderfully simple explanation of a bafflingly complex mystery.

More please!

Great story Heike..

I do believe i have cracked the plot code.

Awaiting your next installment

Its intriguing and ScirFi- so up my alley. FUnny how all families go throught the same stuff, lol.