13 Create Space pt. 2

Sara sat on the floor of the gazebo laughing in a carefree manner.

Before her was a pile of junk. There were stacks of paper, cups, empty bottles of soda, cookie containers that were now empty, a large trunk, an office chair, a foldable table, a crystal chandelier, a porcelain doll, a pair of expensive looking shoes, an empty cardboard box….

Sara was currently testing out this new "ability" she had. So, she began making the first things that popped into her mind.

The avatar floated at the side watching Sara with excitement showing on its face. It has to be said, the avatar was like a newly hatched chick and the user was like a mother bird. It would learn and develop according to the user. Truly…this avatar would grow to be something…that no one could predict.

"Na-Na! Look what I made this time!" Sara held up a pile of foam in her hands to show the avatar.

Na-Na beamed at Sara, laughing in her shared excitement. She nodded and reached out to touch the foam in Sara's hands.

Before Na-Na had the chance to touch the foam, Sara threw it into the air and jumped to her feet as a new thought crossed her mind.

"AH! Bubbles!"

As the words left her mouth, the air around them filled with bubbles, floating softly and gently. More appeared and soon the air was filled with bubbles.

Sara jumped up and down in excitement.

"Ah! I can make a bubble castle! Holy shit, this is cool!"

As she spoke, the bubbles began to come together a short distance away, sticking together and forming a large structure. Sara wasn't too familiar with castles, so she decided to base its form on a well known one-Disney's logo.

As the bubbles came together to form the castle, Sara jumped over the railing and stared wide eyed at its shifting form.

As it slowly began to take shape, she ran toward it, calling over her shoulder as she did.

"Na-Na! Grab the chandelier!"

Sara raced toward her castle. As she reached the enormous doors, the bubbles finished coalescing together as the final one rested at the very tip of the castle.

Sara wasted no time as she pushed open the door.

Unfortunately, Sara didn't think about the fact that…obviously, bubbles were not very durable.

As she pushed her way in, a feeling of absolute excitement and joy settling into her chest, a domino effect began to take place.

Rapidly, Sara didn't have time to react as her castle of bubbles began to collapse in on itself. The effect was audible as the millions of bubbles popped.

Sara watched in horror as all her "hard work" went to waste before her eyes.

An indignant scream pierced the air.

"Uh-Ahhhhahhhhhh!" Sara stood holding air as the door no longer existed, her face contorted with disbelief and discontent. Her eyes watching as the last of her castle popped itself into nothingness….

As Sara stood staring in horror at what had happened to her castle, Na-Na came up behind her, holding the crystal chandelier.

"Sara Smith, what do I do with this now?"

Sara spoke without looking to Na-Na. "I told you, call me Me-Me."

"Me-Me, what do I do with this now?"

Sara tore her eyes away from the terrible gory site of a million slaughtered bubbles to glance at the crystal chandelier. Her mouth formed a stark frown.

"Nothing….just set it down."

Na-Na did as she was told. She continued to watch Sara as Sara's mood further plummeted.

Sara groaned. "What do we do now…."

Na-Na answered her in a cheery voice.

"If it's a castle that you were wanting, you can create it again, though its inadvisable to create it out of bubbles a second time."

Sara continued to stare at the desecrated bubbles. She walked forward and scooped up some of the soapy foam and held it in her hands as if cradling something precious and lost.

"I really wanted to have a castle…."

Na-Na repeated her statement from earlier.

"…inadvisable to create it out of bubbles a second time."

Sara blinked and turned back to Na-Na. "What? Did you say something?" She dropped the foam that she had earlier been cradling like something precious and wiped her hands on her shirt. She moved to stand before Na-Na, with her arms crossed over her chest, waiting.

Na-Na repeated what she had earlier said a third time.

Sara stood frowning down at the cute little girl. She paused for a moment in thought before waving her hand and creating a cone-like hat from the air.

She placed the hat atop the little girls head.

"Dummy. If I just wanted a castle, then obviously I could have just made it out of something else. I mean, I could have made it out of crystals or stone or something. But, I don't JUST want a castle; it has to reflect me and my delicate and precious demeanor."

Na-Na took in Sara's words and her pointed ears drooped as her gaze shifted to the floor in a pitiful manner.

"Na-Na's sorry…."

Sara waved her hand. "It doesn't matter. You're not in trouble, but you have to wear that hat until you come up with a good idea to redeem yourself."

The little avatar instantly perked up at the mention of redemption. Her eyes flashed with determination, though Sara didn't see as she had already turned away from the little one and begun to think of a solution to her castle problem.

She stroked her chin as she thought.

A few hours after Sara's interaction with her little avatar, a few hundred miles away, there was a room filled with computers with a few people typing away at their keyboards. Their voices were low, but their fingers seemed not to make any sound as they typed and worked without slacking. Upon closer inspection, one would find that these keyboards were not actually real and were in fact being projected onto the tables before the people working.

As they worked, a door behind them opened to reveal a three individuals walking in. Each wore a suit and looked to be rather important. Many of the people working didn't acknowledge the three that walked in, but a few glanced over, then continued to work.

The person that seemed to be leading the group of three walked over to the person closest to the right side of the door, a woman dressed in office attire with her hair pulled up, and spoke a few whispered words before that women stood and walked to the other side of the room. She seemed to print off a few documents before returning and passing the information over to the man that had spoken to her.

The man was a balding skinny man that was shorter than average, but seemed friendly. He walked back to the other two that had accompanied him to the room and, after glancing at the paper work, passed it to the second man. He was a larger man, perhaps six feet tall, who seemed to be in his forties with graying hair and sharp eyes. He gave a polite smile to the balding man as he took the paperwork and began flipping through it.

"These are just the samples that were pulled randomly?" The larger man asked without lifting his eyes from the documents.

The balding man nodded in affirmation. "Yes, there's too much to go through manually, so we have a program analyze the information and put it into categories based on our own standards and that program then puts the cases that seem to be able to best represent those categories at the top. These are just the lists of category tops."

The larger man listened and frowned after the other finished speaking.

"These are just the representative cases? There's multiple pages here…."

The balding man nodded. "Yes, this is the information and data that we've collected since the program was started, so it's almost a decade of information that needs to be categorized."

The larger man continued to frown. "Is there any way to simplify this process?"

The balding man hesitated, glancing at the women standing beside the larger man before turning back and answering. "Other's have attempted to…your predecessor certainly tried, but all attempts have lead to information being…lost in translation seems an appropriate term to describe it."

The man nodded. "In other words, 'keep out of it and let you do your job,' am I right?" He gave a light smile, to reassure the balding man that he wasn't meaning anything by his words.

The balding man gave a low laugh, but didn't know what to say in response.

The larger man continued to look over the information, though there wasn't much he could see from it. These were mostly codes given for specific cases and individuals. He'd need to enter them into the computer in order to actually get any information out of this list. He sighed.

"Alright, I'm going to take this" he lifted the documents in his hand, "with me and look it over."

He turned, though waited for the balding man to accompany him out. He didn't have to wait long, as the other man immediately gave his approval with a nod and started leading the other two out.