1. The EyeCube

     I wake up in the morning, but I am surprised to see that the wake up call system has not gone off yet. I sit up in bed, forgetting how short the space is. And come fully awake when I smash my forehead painfully into the base of the bed above. Florence moans and grouchily hisses through clenched teeth "Kayla, Keep it down!".

     I notice that many other girls start stirring awake, so I clamber down the ladder and rush to do the morning list. Best to be early than to endure the wrath of Florence. I whisper to myself. I tiptoe to the kitchen and the motion sensor lights come on suddenly, blinding me for a couple minutes. Mom isn't awake yet, so I go to the main hall. As I slowly step down it I stare up at all of the pictures and engraved names of all the people who have ever been on the ZAG.

     "It is a privilege to be on the ZAG" Mr. Buxton's words ring in my head from the time the the MCA visited the Zermedine at the end of last winter, "One that not many get to enjoy, but, as president of the MCA, I'll let you in on a secret..." He had leaned close and lowered his voice to imply that I was to tell no one what he was about to say, "I think you have a VERY good chance of getting on the team. I am certain the ZLB and MCA could not resist the opportunity to place such a bright young lady in an important job. Just you wait miss Kayla... One more winter and you will be on... the ZAG"

     I have clinged to those secret words for a whole summer and now that winter is almost here, I can hardly contain my excitement. In one month I will be 7, and everything will change when the MCA makes me a member of the ZAG. People will see that I have changed, really changed.

     Ever since I was little I have always been called tiny and weak. I don't understand why, though, because I am the same as everyone else. I was newborn when my parents took me on the ship to what was to become the Zermedine. They helped build the place with their own hands!

     I guess I always have been small and light, but I should be treated the same. Instead, all the kids my age or older tease me and don't like me at all, while the adults (most of them anyway) treat me as if I was extra special.

    "Hello scrawny." I hear a mean and all too familiar voice behind me. I turn around to see Florence, the girl that seems to dislike me the most. We are almost exactly the same age, but she is a few weeks older.

     "What do you want." I say rather than ask. I know what she wants; to make me angry in hopes that I will do something that will get me in trouble. (I tend to fall for it a lot) She is nice to every one except me and a girl named Rachael. Racheal teased me once when we were little and it hurt me so bad. I taught her a lesson that day and we have avoided each other at all costs since.

     "Oh, just making sure you don't steal anything." She answers.

     I turn away and try to ignore her volley of stinging comments, but as I lean close to the window to get a better view of the "eye cubes" one reaches my ears.

     "...She was trying to break in!"

     I spin back around to see Mr. Langford looking straight into my eyes. I can already tell he doesn't believe  her, but I have to defend myself anyway.

     "I wasn't, Mr. Langford. I promise!" I say, hoping  that he will rebuke Florence for her deceit. Instead he smiles and unlocks the door.

     "I have some things I need to do before I open, Kayla. You will have to come later with your mother to get your "eye cube" installed. And anyway, the wake up call is about to go off."

     He goes into his store and as if on cue the loud and somewhat obnoxious 6:00 wake up call goes off. Within minutes the Zermedine is buzzing like a beehive and everyone is busy. It isn't until 9:00 after breakfast dishes are done that my mom is free from her work to take me to the shop to buy my eye cube.

     My mom and I step into the shop and I feel like everything is new. I stare at the strange telescope like cube tester as if for the first time.

     "Well, go ahead, pick your cube!" my mom stirs my excitement and I step toward the cube tester and Mr. Langford.

     "Alright, Miss Kayla, have a look. You have tons of choices!" he says

     It takes me close to an hour to finally decide on model 6824 and then another fifteen minutes to get it installed in my right eye. Mr. Langford tells it will not turn on until I have waited fifteen MORE minutes so I walk with mom back to the kitchen. I stare at the clock and then, in a flash my vision goes white, then black, then a rainbow until it settles back to normal except a little square icon in the corner. I turn my head, but it turns with me. I turn the other way and it follows. What is that? I subconsciously think to myself. Suddenly the icon expands and becomes like a touch pad screen that lays semi-transparent over my vision! wow!  I think to myself, Is this what an eyecube does?

     Then I hear a voice in my head, it says, "Hello, Kayla. Welcome to your new eyecube 6824! Would you like to take a quick tutorial on how it works?"

     The voice seems to wait for my response. why not? I ask myself, I do want to take the tutorial, but how-

     I am cut off by the voice again, "Great!" it says. "First, my name is Ziri. If you have any questions, just call on me. Second, everything you do on your eyecube 6824 will be triggered by your thoughts. If you think, 'I am hungry' I will tell you how much longer you must wait for meal time..."

     This goes on for a couple minutes and then it comes up with a disclaimer. Even though I am not interested, I listen.

     "Our company is not responsible if your Banana product is damaged or ruined by user experiments. Eyecubes CANNOT access other eyecube's information. You are able to call other eyecubes and call phones around your ecosystem, but NOT outside of its premises..."

     I get bored and Ziri reads my thoughts and stops the disclaimer. For the next hour I go through all the files (using my brain) and personalize everything. I look around and am delighted to find that I can see if other people's eyecubes are on! Almost EVERYONE has an eye cube! And ALL of them are on! It is a fascinating new world with a light over almost everyone's right eyes! I find that I can take pictures and videos, but I can't send them except over vmail and I can call the phones and eyecubes around the Zermedine!

     "kayla... KAYLA!" The voice finally registers in my ears.

     "Oh, sorry mom. I was just-" I start to apologize.

     "I understand, Kayla, I was the same way when I first got mine!" my mother smiles in a way I have never seen her before.  I know that she got her eyecube free as a bonus for being an original resident, and that she had already had me, but her smile tells me that she probably acted just like me, a 7 year old, when she got hers! It seems to call her back to childhood and transport her out of her duties to a memory of freedom. "I just thought you might want to know that you are staring at nothing and... you don't look very... alive."

     I catch her hint and decide to shut down Ziri for a while. I jump of the counter I had been sitting on and rush down the hall to talk to... Someone! I don't have any friends really, except adults, but most of them are at their busiest right now. Finally I decide to log in for DTT (Duty Training Time).