Realtime | Page 2

voice very well. Maggie brushed a thin strand of silver from her eyes, stopped rocking, and said with dead certainty, "I have absolutely no use for one of those things."
Helen was visibly taken aback. She recovered quickly, though; Give her credit for that, Maggie thought grumpily. She's got guts enough to argue with an eighty-year old woman. "Mother Archer, I'm sorry, but you can't go on this way. The banks don't even honor handwritten checks any more. I can't imagine where you get the things."
Maggie moodily stroked Miss Kitty for a while. She looked up suddenly, her eyes blazing at Robert. "Must I have one of these things installed?"
Robert Archer looked troubled. He had hair as silver as his mother's. At sixty-one, he had an unfortunate tendency to think that he knew it all, but he was still a good boy. Maggie even agreed with him most of the time, but she was and always had been confounded at the faith he placed in the dataweb. "Quite aside from the very real services it will provide for you," he said slowly, "doing your banking, making your appointments, doing your shopping and house cleaning...." He broke off, and then met her eyes and said flatly, "Yes. The law is very clear. Every residence must have a Praxcelis."
Maggie ceased stroking Miss Kitty.
Helen smiled as though she were putting her teeth on display. "You do understand, don't you? We only want what's best for you?"
"For a very long time now, I have been accustomed to deciding what's best for me."
Robert approached her rocking chair. "Mom," he said gently, "the Praxcelis unit has a built-in sensory unit that will monitor your vital signs; it can have the police, fire department, or an ambulance here in no time." He lowered his voice. "Mom, you last checkup wasn't good."
Helen came to rejoin her husband, like an owner reclaiming lost property. "Mother Archer, it's not the twentieth century any more. In the 2030 census you had the only house in Cincinnati or its exurbs without a Praxcelis." The expression that she assumed then was one that Maggie had seen her use before on Robert; she was going to get tough.
"It comes down to this, Mother Archer. If you persist in being stubborn, you'll either be moved to other quarters...."
"Helen!"
Helen cut her husband off impatiently. "Or else a Praxcelis unit will be installed by court order, doubtless with a tie-in to a psychiatric call- program. You know it's true, Robert," she said self-righteously. "It's the law." What could only have been an expression of joy touched her. "And patients under psych-control are forbidden access to children. You'll no longer be able to read stories to your great-grandchildren. Your Praxcelis won't allow it."
Maggie Archer stood up, trembling with anger. Lines around her eyes that had been worn in with laughter deepened in fury. She was all of a hundred and fifty-five centimeters tall. The cat in her arms had extended its claws in reaction to her mistress's anger. "Very well, bring on your machine. I suppose even having one of the damned things in my home is an improvement over being moved to a hive for the elderly. But...."
Helen interrupted her. "Mother Archer, they're not hives...."
"Shut up!" snapped Maggie. Helen gaped at her. Maggie glared back. "I'll take your silly machine because I have no choice. But don't you ever," she said, freeing one hand from Miss Kitty to point it at Helen, "ever use my great-grandchildren to threaten me again."
There was a dead, astonished silence from Helen. Robert was struggling valiantly to keep a straight face. With grim self-control, he kept it out of his voice. "Mother, you won't regret this." Helen turned and stomped wordlessly out of the living room. They heard the sound of the front door being slammed; what with doorfields and all, Maggie thought that her front door was probably the only one Helen ever got a chance to slam. She was sure the door-slammer type.
Robert grinned and relaxed as she left. "I'm going to get lectured all the way home for that, you know."
Maggie scowled. "It's your own fault. I never knew I raised a son who was spineless."
Robert shrugged expressively. "Mom, I don't really like this any more than you do. I don't want to see you be made to do anything you don't want to. But since you have to have a Praxcelis unit, why don't you try to look on the good side? There will be advantages." He stopped speaking abruptly, and got a distant look on his face. Maggie recognized the symptoms; he was being paged over his inskin dataweb link. That was another sign of the gulf that separated her from her son; the thought of allowing such a thing to be implanted in her skull made her