Chapter 1: Swiped Life

A Smart-Helmet-clad girl is fixated on her phone. Of course, the phone isn't really there; and neither is the masked hunk covered in scuba-gear, in the "simage" on the sim-phone's sim-screen, or "seem."

Lacy smiles, head tilted, and swipes right. The next one is wearing a pink thong.

"Eww, eww, eww, eww..." Lacy cries out as she struggles to swipe left but nearly knocks the virtual phone out of her own hands. "At least he could have put on a man-bra!"

The next guy is well-dressed. You can never be too well-dressed, however clearly, he's over-compensating for his face. Left!

She swipes left, swipes left, swipes left. She looks out the window from high atop Beacon Hill, where the famous Beacon once stood to warn the then British-colony of invaders, be they Indians or seafaring pirates, or both. She overlooks the Boston Garden through the storm, a 3D-virtual fireplace billowing hot air into the room, as her fingers continue swiping left.

Knock! Knock!

Lacy jumps. "One moment, Mrs. Evans," Lacy ekes out.

She stuffs her virtual phone under her pillow. But then, she remembers it's not an actual smart phone. She chucks it on the floor. The glass smashes. Lacy smirks.

"Take that, soopid phone," she whispers. She calls it a "soopid phone" because she prefers the augmented reality version of her dating app, where she just swipes 3D holograms out of the way. Unfortunately, Boston passed a law against it after too many innocent, actual people were "swiped," resulting in thousands of hours of litigation for broken knees. Lacy's Law Firm properties confided to her that "Augmented Dating" had been the best thing since the very first carelessly written email, resulting in greater-than-anticipated capital gains for not only the Codmans, but most of Lacy's friends. But alas, her father was instrumental in pushing legislation against the craze. Presently, the legislation was being challenged at the Supreme Court level, and, well, that was just fine by the law firms, even those who couldn't admit as much.

Lacy yanks her Gooble Smart Helmet upward. As she does, a shock node zaps the back of her neck. Lacy winces in pain, as the gap between the shock nodes continues to buzz her neck. She relents, and keeps her Smart Helmet on.

KNOCK! KNOCK!

"Miss Codman, the mail came late today."

Lacy whispers, "Okay, Gooble, fix my smart phone."

As Lacy rushes to the door, she watches her phone on the floor reconstitute into a working whole.

Lacy pauses a moment at the door.

"Is there anything of note?" Lacy speaks to the closed door.

"You know I wouldn't waste your valuable time if it weren't," says the elderly female voice behind the door.

After glimpsing a golden flash of light underneath the door, Lacy exclaimed, "Daddy wrote today!" And she throws open the door, snatching the letter from Mrs. Evans. "I knew I saw the presidential seal!" Lacy exclaims. Will that be all, Mrs. Evans?"

"Well, your Father finally found you a new bodyguard." And, a pause. "Would you like to meet him?"

Creaking the door open just a tad bit more, so that the light from her virtual fireplace flickered just faintly upon his face, the figure standing there did indeed seem to be a new model, however he seemed somehow familiar. Now, where on earth had she seen this big handsome man before? In any event, it was about time Father delivered on his promise. Max, bless his heart, had failed to launch during an attempted mugging down by the Cheers bar - you know, where they filmed the old television program, and the media drones almost got in. Max had confided to Father that he never did feel quite the same after saving President Trump #3 from a bullet, but Mr. Codman was charitable like that. Oh, well. In with the new!

Looking the new model over well, Lacy simply replies, "I'm still recovering from the last Muscles."

Benjamin extends his hand. "It's an honor to meet you, Miss Codman. My name is Saltonsalt. Benjamin Salt-"

Lacy replies, "Yes. Mrs. Evans, please see that Muscles Two gets a golden bicep bracelet as a token of our professional acquaintance. And please see that he doesn't lurk in the shadows. I still suffer night terrors from the place where everybody now knows my name."

"Miss Codman, Mr. Saltonsalt saved the lives of-"

"Riveting," Lacy cuts off Mrs. Evans, again checking out her new guard, whose brow knits as his chest expands. "I'm sorry, am I angering you, Muscles Two?"

"No, Miss Codman."

"Good. Merry Christmas to both of you."

Mrs. Evans protests, "But Miss Codman-"

"And the niftiest of New Years!"

Lacy slams the door and quickly dead-bolts it, turning around, and resting against it a moment to catch her breath, before turning her attention to the envelope in her hand.

"Eek!" She squeals.

Lacy holds the gold seal up to the light. Her grin is so wide she could eat the proverbial banana sideways. She chuckles, and exclaims, "Daddy!" And she pauses a moment, swallowing before plopping down at her powder table, in between the virtual fireplace and the window, to read the letter.

"Okay, Gooble," she exclaims. "Light on!"

An electronic voice replies, "Right on, Dudette!"

"No, no no." Lacy protests. "I said 'light on.'" This time, she is very careful to emphasize the "L" sound in "light on."

The Smart Helmet confirms, "Bite Juan?"

Now, Lacy is livid. "Okay, Gobbledy Gookkle! My father is the President of the United States, and he will shut you down if you don't turn the light on this instant!"

But as she finishes her threat, her eye is caught by a blinding green flash from beyond the window, as -

Magically, her desk lamp finally turns on.

With a satisfied "Hmm!" Lacy hastily grabs her letter opener. She lifts up her golden letter opener eagerly, but, squinting, she can't help be distracted by the continuous emerald glow emanating from the Boston Public Garden Lagoon across Beacon Street. As she hastily, even angrily, slices open the envelope -

"Ouch!"

A thin stream of red trickles down from her finger. She fixates a moment upon the glimmer of fake fire, reflected on either side of the drop of her own blood on the tiny blade she lets fall to the floor.

A sniffling Lacy sucks her finger, as her childhood medic had taught her to do when this type of thing happened - which was surprisingly frequent. Tears suddenly follow the drops of red dripping on her powder table, but Lacy doesn't understand where the drops are coming from. Her simulated in the mirror informs her that she is smiling, just like her emoticon. Putting a finger to her mouth, she can clearly feel that her lips are not forming anything close to a smile, her eyes drooping down to look at the letter on her table.

"Deep breath, Lacy." And she successfully composes herself. "At least we got it opened."

And she quickly attempts to remove her helmet, but then winces in pain from the inevitable jolt in the neck.

"I don't care how difficult this is. I'm going to read this letter without any help from my Stupid Helmet!" And with that, she turns her eyes downward once again toward the page.

It's not that Lacy is illiterate. She spent years consuming educational smart helmet programming to learn to read.

Lacy attempts to sound out the letters, but the words seem to mock her from the page.

Lacy clinches her teeth, more determined than ever.

Finally, she sounds out: "D-E-A-R." Proudly, she repeats, "Dear! I'm smarter than Torey The Explorey!"

And then she looks back down at the letter, but -

Bling! An electronic voice tells her, "Smart helmet activated. Now playing, The Letter App."

And just at that moment, Lacy is surprised to find that sitting directly beside her are bunch of dancing letters, resembling theme park characters - like people dressed as smiling letters. Six of them!

Lacy exclaims, "No, it's okay. I'm determined to read this without any help. Please leave me."

At this point, the holographic costumed letters form a circle around Lacy forming the word "Letter."

"But we're The Letter App!"

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All the costumed letters fall on the floor, rolling around, laughing, as Lacy is.

Lacy can hardly control her guffaws. She bends over to avoid expending too much breath from laughing. As she catches her breath, the costumed letters on the floor begin to vanish. "Where are you going? That was so much fun!"

And then Lacy notices the letter from her father on her powder table.

She lifts it up to her face, suddenly (and literally) shocked by the neck node in her Smart Helmet.

Suddenly, all the words in the letter are blurry.

Grabbing her hair, she mutters:

"But Gooble, what does the letter from Father read?"

She kisses the note, before ceremoniously placing it in the top drawer, atop the pile of other bloody letters, before crying herself to sleep.

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