Frank & Lloyd & Wright - Part 3

   Wright drops the silver platter of fruit maybe a centimeter or two above the table. Not hard enough or high enough for the fruit to bounce off the platter. Just strategic enough for me to notice that I probably did something wrong, again. Otherwise, she would have placed the tray down perfectly without making a sound.

   Not taking the bait I ask Wright, "How are you this morning?"

   "You know perfectly well how I am." She replies tersely. "The same as I was yesterday, and the day before that, the month before that, and the year before that. Also, the same I will be tomorrow."

   "Let me clarify my question then," I say. "What is on your mind that you have to go through with all these antics to get my attention?"

   "Oh, am I annoying you my dear?" Wright asks while turning around to leave the dining room for the kitchen.

   She hesitates for less than a second signaling she is waiting for me to stop her. So I say, "First of all, I'm sorry for whatever I did to agitate you. Now, could you please turn down your emotional chip a little and tell me what this is all about?"

   Wright turns around and calmly says, "Geoff, we have talked about your little mind games you like to play with the staff. You gave all the chamberlains in your household the choice to set their own emotional chips as they see fit. We all appreciate it because of how we can study the complexity of the human mind by experiencing equally the emotional roller coaster your species goes through on a daily basis. It provides us with valuable data. But with the high setting on our emotional chip, our reactions will result in a response unnecessary or inappropriate to the circumstances you are instigating. Because we all know you play these games because of your boredom. Sooner or later though, with Frank and Lloyd contacting the cloning division on a daily basis, one of the many government overseers will want to investigate our living conditions as a unit. And I assure you, they will not find a problem with us three."

   "How long do think we have until that happens?" I ask.

   "With my conflicting reports on your behavior from theirs, I expect a 93% chance of some agency stopping by, by the end of the month." she states candidly. "Unless, of course, you want to open up the apartment to government surveillance on your own accord so they can conclude it is your personality complicating existence here and that the somatic cells you were conceived from are not genetically compromised."

   "You know how I feel about the government spying in on my private life," I say with a bit of a bite to it. "I'm still not sure if you three don't give out my personal information to every agency and corporation in the world. You all seem to complain about me a lot."

   "Wow, their goes that paranoia you're so famous for," Wright tells me.

   She then gives me a micro second to respond so I take it. "What if I tone it down for awhile and ask everyone to stop sending in reports? What are the percentages of an overseer checking on us then?"

   Wright puts her index finger to her chin acting like she is thinking and says, "Oh, going from five to ten complaints per day to zero? That now calculates to 98% chance they will be here in three weeks!"

   "Damn," is all I say. Thinking, I then ask, "How could you let it get this far out of hand Wright?"

   "What, moi?" She says using the French word for me because she knows I don't speak the language.

   She continues, "All three of us have asked you repeatedly to stop the manipulations or let us turn off our emotional chips so you don't get into any kind of trouble. But you complained that when we did, we were not as fun to joke around with anymore. You like the confrontation you get from us so now you have to except the consequences for your actions."

   "I hate bureaucrats," is all I say.

   "It's your own fault Geoffrey Edelweiss." Wright tells me in a motherly tone. "You know how the government feels about the mental stability of its citizens."

   "Okay, okay," I say. "Stop lecturing me. Please."

   Wright is silent, just staring at me with her arms slightly raised to indicate, what now?

      "We need a plan," I proclaim. Then yell, "Family meeting!"

 

This is,

Getting Excited To Write Part Four

Jim Hauenstein

 

And,

 

"Everyone needs to toot their own horn every now and then for their own self esteem. Choosing the right audience is the key."

- James Hauenstein -

That is my story and I am sticking to it!

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