Olivia snuck in through the kitchen window, it wasn't necessary, no one would have noticed if she'd kicked down the front door, which was unlocked. Her mother was most likely shut away in her dark bedroom with the curtains drawn, using her computer, lost in that Virtual World. Her father, well he'd been around a bit when she was younger, but then the Favela had gotten its meat hooks into him.
"Ollie girl." He'd said one morning while they ate grilled crickets on skewers for breakfast. "You might not see me for awhile. I feel a shadow falling." He swooped his hand over his head almost like a scythe blade swinging down to lop it off. "Better if it falls somewhere else. You dig?" He finished, eyes darting south and away. Was he sad or just ashamed? She was still wondering.
Not long after that her mom had found an old computer in the communal dump. One of those retro one-piece things, but rugged. God only knew how it got there or how her mom had managed to wrestle it away from the Favelos. Maybe it had been used for something illegal and they didn't want it up in their business. Somehow her mom had wired it up to their stolen electricity and got it working.
One of Olivia's brothers had disappeared in the jungle (probably eaten), the other had been killed in an airstrike. At least that's what the text had said, it's not like the Chuteiras delivered a body. She was almost thankful, he'd been some kind of sociopath, could hardly wait to enlist and start killing Povos. So to make a long story short, the house was practically empty. She snuck in through the window because she liked to pretend that someone was expecting her, and that she was late. Also it gave her a little thrill.
Poised precariously on the edge of the sill her phone vibrated in her bandoleer, it was so startling that she squealed and almost slipped into the kitchen sink. It was positioned right over her left nipple which was oddly sensitive and erect for some reason. She cursed silently, slinking down to the tile floor with all the grace of a Jaguar. She fished the flimsy device out of the clear sleeve which had originally been designed to hold a state ID card. The phone fit with room to spare.
A text from her mom. "Cricket tamales in the fridge." It read somewhat cryptically. Although she had seen it countless times before. For some reason her fright moments before along with the glib message triggered a totally unexpected fit of rage. Tears suddenly gushed out of her eyes and Olivia screamed gutturally throwing her phone at the door of the refrigerator with all her might. It spun with weightless impotence through the air and bounced harmlessly off the gray gunmetal, spinning into the living room.
Trembling with rage Olivia stood stiffly in front of the sink with her feet planted widely and her arms stabbing rigidly down her sides. The house was eerily silent. No one came to investigate, no one yelled out to see if she was okay. No one cared. Her shoulders slumped and her tears stopped even though her eyes were still stinging. Stumbling forward with blurred vision she chased after her device. It was on the carpet in front of the couch, unharmed.
She didn't sigh with relief, she didn't even care. Olivia stuffed it back into its pouch and kept walking forward until she ended up in front of her mother's bedroom door. It wasn't entirely closed, in fact it was open about 20 centimeters. Temporarily jolted out of her fugue she squeezed her head into the space until the door opened enough for her eyes to peer around its ragged edge.
There was her mother, as expected, almost the living picture of her imagination: slumped back in her old rocking chair, her face obscured by an olive-drab Virtual Reality band, her mouth hanging open stupidly. The computer sat in front of her, monochrome screen glowing faintly, amber lines of text appearing line by line on a black background. Overtaken by curiosity her daughter craned her neck forward until she could read the writing.
"Datebook: A Place to Meet." It said at the top of the screen. On the left hand side was a grainy pixelated picture of her mom including a caption: "33, F, Bowa Villa. My name is Marcella and I'm looking for that special someone." On the left was an apparent in-progress conversation. "No, of course I don't have any kids. Didn't you read my profile?" In dull ocher and then on the other side in canary yellow: "What about your boobs, are they big?"
Olivia suppressed a snort, her mother's baleful scowl was visible across the room despite the band covering one fourth of her face. Marcella was practically flat chested, it was one of her most sensitive areas. That fool, whoever he was had just signed his death warrant. The right side of the screen went blank. She had ended the exchange. Olivia smiled, it was a small thing but it had pleased her greatly for some reason. "Serves you right for lying about me!" She thought, maliciously.
Now a list had materialized, scrolling by rapidly, she could make out small pictures of faces with short descriptions next to each. It was a dating site, she'd heard of those. An artifact from the old world, only hipsters and old people used them now. Out of morbid curiosity she pulled out her phone and did a search, to her surprise an app was listed, although it was almost 30 years old! It might run with emulation she mused, before installing it on a whim.
"So you don't have any kids, is that right?" She murmured quietly into the darkness as she moved away from her mother's door and headed back towards the kitchen. "We'll see about that." Acting mostly on auto-pilot, with one hand Olivia put two tamales on a plate before squeezing a couple drops of thermic enzyme on each. A few seconds later she was seated at the table, occasionally forking a mouthful of steaming cricket and maize into her maw while typing away rapidly with her thumb.
By the time she took the last bite she had created a fake profile on Datebook.btc, replete with a stock-photo picture of a handsome dude that looked a little like her AWOL father and one of her spare forged ID codes that she used to buy luxuries like toilet paper and chocolate at the Gray Bazaar. It might be true that her mother had grown distant lately, but that hardly meant she was a stranger. Olivia knew Marcella as well as anyone and far better than most.
For a moment she paused, thumb hovering over a glowing red button, a twinge of doubt tugging at some long-neglected corner of her heart. "What am I doing?" She asked out loud, almost laughing, then clapping her hand over her mouth, afraid that her mom might actually hear her. A moment later she realized that her mother, safely wrapped in her digital cocoon, might as well be on another planet. She wouldn't leave her bedroom even if her daughter were screaming and on fire. Olivia scowled and clenched her teeth, angrily her thumb mashed down.
A few minutes later she received a notice. "Marcella has accepted your date request." And that was how it started. At first she tiptoed, pouring on the charm, digging deep down into her earliest memories, searching for those precious nuggets of intimate knowledge about her mom. Everything she liked and disliked, her dreams, her fears. The sky began to darken, the stadium lights switched on outside, the loudspeakers announced curfew.
Olivia leaned back in her chair, kicking dangerously away from the table until her head almost hit the oven. She smirked, they had been 'talking' for hours. She imagined her mother in the other room, drooling onto her chest as she subvocalized each new line of text. Olivia herself had switched to passive IR scanning, her thumb long since exhausted. Suddenly she realized that she was enjoying herself.
