"Science Fiction" means—to us—everything found in the science fiction section of a bookstore, or at a science fiction convention, or amongst the winners of the Hugo awards given by the World Science Fiction Society. This includes the genres of science fiction (or sci-fi), fantasy, slipstream, alternative history, and even stories with lighter speculative elements. We hope you enjoy the broad range that SF has to offer.
All my life--since before I can remember!--you've been telling me to take care of Emmy, and I have! I do! Better than anyone. I always make sure she's got food and I take her everywhere I go and make sure she's ok. She almost NEVER gets hurt when I'm watching her, and ok, there was that one time, but that wasn't my fault! She just stuck her hand in the maker--how was I supposed to know she'd do something like that? Everyone knows you're not supposed to--it says so right on the front!
Besides, her fingers grew back fine.
That's her problem; she's always poking at things. Every time I watch her, half the time I'm pulling her back from poking her finger in something. Like the maker, or the TV.
I don't know why you're mad. I take the best care of her, in the history, of like EVER. I even let her play my games! Look at her right now! That's MY game she's in.
That's where I got the idea--from games. She could poke and play around as much as she wanted without hurting herself. Or messing up the fridge. And when she was playing, I could play with her. It was great!
Only, she wouldn't stay. She'd get bored and wander off while we were playing and if I didn't notice right way you'd come and get mad at me when it wasn't my fault at all!
Look, I've fixed her! She's safe and happy, and won't wander off anymore. Now it's really easy to take care of her! I did a good thing.
When I asked her why she wandered off she'd just say "not real" and drool or bite something or some other stupid baby thing. So I thought--what if it was realer? And I know we're broke so I didn't even TRY to ask for a new console, even though it would have solved EVERYTHING and it turns out we didn't even have to spend any money. There's this guy on the internet and I know how freaked out you get about it but he's really cool and he built this machine that lets you LIVE in your games! And it's free! All I had to do was download a CAD for the maker and put it together, which was hard, but there was a really good YouTube video about it and I did it on the first try!
About the maker feed--I know it was expensive and I promise, I'll pay you back. I already have MOST of the money to do so, because I'm responsible, like you said. If I wasn't I'd have just left her alone and played video games.
But yeah, you just put together the machine and plug it in, and it downloads something, and then you have to make a little cut on your neck for the wires, but I was SUPER careful, and look! It worked! You can see her in there, Dad.
Doesn't she look happy?
The End
This story was first published on Wednesday, September 9th, 2015
Become a Member!
We hope you're enjoying Taking Care by Jonathan Holmes.
Please support Daily Science Fiction by becoming a member.
Daily Science Fiction does not have a paywall, but we do have expenses—more than 95% of which are direct payments to authors for their stories. With your $15 membership, less than 6 cents per story, we can continue to provide genre fiction every weekday by email and on the website to thousands of readers for many years to come. You may also choose to support us via patreon.
Rate This Story
Please click to rate this story from 1(ho-hum) to 7(excellent!):
