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know,” shrugged the teenager’s mother.  “Three Unies in the background starting walking towards your father and then the video cut out.”
    “Why do you think the Pahnyakins guard the Gaia like they do, Mom?  I mean, you’d think they’d explain it to us, if they were really interested in helping our planet develop and find peace.”
    “Don’t start with the conspiracy theories again,” Angelica sighed.  She pointed her scrawny white index finger towards the bathroom at the end of the hall.  “Go shower.  You smell like sweat and dirt.”
    “That’s the smell of hard work,” Dresden beamed.
    Angelica rolled her eyes.  “Well, it stinks.  Oh, and feed Pierre before you get in the shower.  You know, I think that bird hates me.  I haven’t been able to get near the kitchen without him squawking bad words. ”
    Dresden chuckled and turned to her right to enter the all-tan kitchen.  The cabinets above and below the fawn porcelain double sink were pine and matched the hardwood floor.  A white round dining table pushed close to the plaster wall was cluttered with bills and clothing catalogs.  Pierre, a white macaw with blue ombre coloring down the tips of his wings waddled along the thin dowel rod that stretched from one side of his four-foot-wide white-wire cage to the other. 
    “Peek-a-boo,” he repeated wildly as he paced excitedly.
    “Peek-a-boo,” Dresden replied.  “Are you hungry, Pierre?”
    The girl approached his cage and opened the wire door.  Pierre leaned forward and waited for his master to extend her right arm as a perch.
    “Come on,” she said.  “Let’s get you some food.  Are you hungry?”
    “Give me kiss,” Pierre squawked.
    Dresden smooched her lips and carried the bird to a white box built into the wall next to the refrigerator. 
    “What do you want to eat?” she asked the bird.  “Do you want carrots?”
    “Grapes,” said the macaw.  “Melon.  Seed.  Peppers.”
    Dresden laughed.  “Pick one.”  She motioned to the bird with her index finger.  “One.  Pick one .”
    “Melon,” the bird chirped.  “Melon.  Peek-a-boo.”
    The teenager closed the clear plastic covering over a flat black pad and pressed a green button on the front of the white panel. 
    “Watermelon, sliced,” she spoke clearly. 
    “Watermelon, sliced,” replied a robotic female voice.  “Please confirm your selection by repeating your desired order.”
    “Watermelon, sliced,” repeated Dresden. 
    “Please ensure the front panel is in a closed position and do not lift the panel until the replicator beeps two times.”
    “Peek-a-boo,” said Pierre, leaning his head closer to the replicator.  “Peek-a-boo.  Melon.  Peek-a-boo.”
    “Yes,” sighed the girl.  “Peek-a-boo.”
    The food replicator-once only a dream from Star Trek -whirred loudly and hundreds of black and white nozzles extended from the interior sides of the 3-D food printer.
    Dresden was glad Pierre chose melon as his meal.  Watermelon only took two minutes to replicate.  The girl could tell when the bird was angry with her; he would throw a tantrum until she would order the replicator to produce sunflower seeds, an order that took fifteen minutes to complete. 
    The machine beeped and the teenager lifted the panel.  She pulled a thin Tupperware bowl of sliced melon flesh from the replicator pad and walked back to Pierre’s cage. 
    “Danke schön,” the bird chirped.
    “You’re welcome.”
    Dresden guided Pierre inside the wire cage and placed the bowl of melon on his food perch before closing the door.
    “I have to take a shower,” she told the bird.  “But later we’ll talk, okay?”
    Pierre bobbed his head.  “Talk later.  We’ll talk later.”
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    -5-
     
     
     
     
    Dresden hated the shower’s design, but it was all she had ever known.  She heard stories of the showers of the past and wondered what it would be like to stand under hot