“We shouldspeak up a little,” she said, setting the example with her ownvoice. “The laws on ageof consentare there to protect children from being abused. You wouldn’t havegiven this anythought because you’ve all been physically adult from the firsttime you opened your eyes.
“To give you anexample, if I were to defy my mother and pursue a… physicalrelationship with…” She leaned over. “Sorry, I didn’t getyour name?”
“Hack,” heoffered, darting a nervouslook at Adelina.
That’s his name? And he workswith nanite code? “Hackhere, would be guilty of a misdemeanor, probably.”
“Depending on hisage,” Adelina protested, “he could be…”
“Hang on,”Gabriella cut her off, “I’m getting to that.” She waved as Lunawalked in. “As I was saying, Hack would be looking at some time inlockup for committing a misdemeanor.”
Luna’s eyebrowsbetrayed her interest at this comment. She adjusted her trajectory toend at her relatives’ tableinstead of at the chow-line.
“I, on theother hand, might be guilty of a felony,” shesaid, stopping there so she could enjoy her mother’s reaction.
“I think you haveyour sentences backwards, chica,” Adelina said. She looked at hersister as she sat opposite her. “Age of consent,” she explainedfor the newcomer.
Luna nodded, thenlooked at Gabriella, a grin spreading over her features. “I thinkour girl has it right, Sis.She’s three times Hack’s age.”
Adelina couldn'thave looked more surprised if you’d stucka finger up her nose.Gabriella leaned over towhisper in her ear. “They’re too young for us bothso keep it in your pants, Mrs. Robinson!”
Adelinalet loose a stream of invective but it was all in Spanish so theothers only knew she was pissed at whatever the daughter had justsaid to her. She stopped forbreath.
“It... is...not... funny, young lady,” she insisted, but a smile was nowcreeping onto her face.
Gabriella simplysmiled back, trying, perhaps a little too obviously, not to laugh.She let a giggle escape.
“You’re allused to a pretty loose attitude toward sex,” Luna told the room.“But now you’ve got to realize there’s a new dimension toconsider. Frankly, we should have thought of this before thewedding.”
“Oh!” Gabriellacovered her mouth with her hands. “Luna! You’re a felon forsure!”
“Kill me now,” hermother muttered, staring up at the ceiling, face red.
“That’s just afigure of speech, folks,” Luna said, “not a command.” Shegrinned, looking at her sister. “Right?”
“Hey, Hack!”Gabriella said loudly, catching the young man off guard. Shecontinued into his lab, moving around to get a better look at what hewas working on.
“Oh, hey…Gabriella,” he said after a pause. He had probably been about tosay ‘my lady’ again.
“What are youworking on?”
“I, um, I’m justtrying to isolate the bits of code that specify the look of thetown,” he said, pointing. “See that cluster of code?”
She lookedcloser. Oneof the holographic hexagons had rows of cuneiform and a link to aminiature holographic streetlight. “You’ve got the code for thepublic lighting?”
She read thecharacters. “Every intersection node with additional inter-nodeinstallations to provide a minimum of five standard imperial lumenson all paved surfaces.”
He touched the lamp anda new code hex popped up. “You can alter the look of the lamps byediting the sub-elements, shown here in orange code.”
“Cool! But thelamps are already kindof awesome. It’s thewalls and buildings that arekind of lame.” She tucked astrand of hair out of the way.
She looked over at him,wondering why there was so much silence. He looked away from herquickly, his ears red.
“I can pull up thetown wall but I’m still looking for the houses in this thing. It’spretty old code.” He opened a new hex and slid it over in front ofher. An image of a wall section popped up next to it.
“Should you be here?”he asked her. “I mean, alone, without your mother?”
“My mothermight say I shouldn’t.”She shrugged. “This is part of why I’m here though. Some day, youmight have a daughter of your own and this is how she might act.You’ll try to set boundaries and she’ll try to circumvent themevery chance she gets.”
“And will sheget some poor programmer in trouble with her mother as well?” Hackasked mildly.
“I doubt my mom wouldget angry at you,” she said. “I’m the one who ditched her downin the hangar bay and snuck up here to talk about town design.”
“Maybe,” he saidguardedly, “but she’ll probably see the guilty look on my faceand assume the worst.”
“Why the hells wouldyou look guilty?”
“Because I’mnot entirely certain what’s correct in a situation like this,”he said. “And, frankly,you’re quite pretty.”
“You’re sofull of it!”
He shook his head. “Youwild Humans are very attractive.”
“Okay,whatever.” He needs to get out more. “I’mpretty sure my aunt trusts you to behave yourself and I’m not goingto force myself on you or anything. I’mnot ready for that just yet. I may be a legal adult in a couple ofweeksbut I’m setting my ownschedule.”
“So, yourmother sets a boundary and you push it back only to set a similar oneof yourown?” He smiled. “Your mother seems to be doing a good job.”
“Yeah,” Gabriellaagreed. “She’s a hard-ass but she’s the best.”
He looked like he wasabout to say something about that but his smile morphed into a lookof alarm as he looked over her shoulder. “I wasn’t asking herabout your backside,” he insisted, hands up. “She just said thatfor no apparent reason.”
“Wha…” Gabriellaremembered what she’d said and she doubled up laughing.
“‘Hard-ass’is a figure of speech,” Adelina explained, strolling into the room.“As you can plainly tell,thanks to these damned under-armorsuits.
“I don’t know whatI missed but I clearly showed up here at the right moment.” Shegave her daughter a hug.
“How long were youstanding in the hall?” Gabriella’s muffled voice asked.
“Long enough.”She let go. “As for you, Hack, youseem like a decent guy. I don’t have any complaints about mydaughter working on a shared interest with you.
“What I do have a problem with,” she continued, turning a raised eyebrow on herdaughter, “is people sneaking off on me. I was probably talking tothin air for a good three minutes down in the hangar!”
“Yeah,”Gabriella said. “My bad.Folks are gonna think you’re eccentric.Sorry. I just wanted to seeif Hack was interested in working on the town design and I figuredyou’d make him nervous.”
“So,instead...” Adelina nodded at
