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The Little Lemon

Today was a very special day. 3nodding

This morning I was playing some music with iTunes on my laptop in the kitchen as I made breakfast. While cracking the eggs for an omelet, I couldn't help but think about the little egg on my desktop. I kept glancing over my shoulder at it. This was a mistake. I wasn't paying enough attention to the eggs I was cracking and I got one all over my shirt. I should have worn an apron, but I'm usually not that messy. I was just distracted.

I went into my closet to get a new shirt and changed into it quickly. Upon returning, I decided that I should remain focused less I sully another article of clothing. I diced up some ham and green onions, grated some cheddar, and added this all with the eggs into a pan. It was at that moment, right after adding everything to the stove top, that I heard it. By 'it' I mean a strange sound coming from my computer; sort of a warped beep.

Turning around, I was able to witness the actual birth of a hacker. Each beep was a crack forming in the little egg. After several beeps, the eggs was littered with cracks, ready to fall apart completely as it appeared to me. My laptop's screen flashed a bright white. As my eyes adjusted after the flash, I noticed that the egg was missing. Oddly enough, I didn't see a hacker, either. Perhaps it was hiding, I thought to myself. Sure enough, it must have still been there. My computer began to glitch for a moment. I decided to try and find the little hacker, browsing through my folders to look for it.

In my photos folder, I found it. The funny thing about the pictures I save on my laptop is that they're usually pictures of things that I've cooked successfully. Funnier still was the fact that these pictures of real food were the files that my new hacker was munching happily on. I spoke toward the internal microphone, trying to sound pleasant and using a soothing tone so that I wouldn't scare it as I offered a gentle, "Hello there."

The hacker froze, finally turning to face the screen. A little speech bubble popped into view above its head, reading,

I blinked several times, very confused as to how it could know this already. "Yes, that's me," I replied, smiling warmly. The hacker smiled back, which had to have been the cutest thing I've seen in a long while. I decided to ask, "How did you know my name already? You were just born."

The hacker answered my question, but in a different manner than I'd expected. A browsing window opened up (called Finder on Macs) and the hacker browsed to the administrator's settings. There, she pointed to the name entered into the slot for the computer's owner. Sure enough, my name was there as it was my computer, after all. I laughed a bit and decided to ask another question. "Are you a boy or a girl?"

The lemon-colored creature dances across the desktop before moving in close to the screen. With a bright smile and an adorable expression, it released a text bubble that read, I nodding, agreeing that she was incredibly cute. It was then that I remembered that she didn't have a name. I had already picked one for her, but I wanted her to approve it first.

"Well, you know my name," I said to her with a smirk, "so it's time you got a name as well. I was thinking that I would name you Zest. How does that sound?"

she replied, bouncing around again. Though she looked like a lemon, her personality sure wasn't sour (as far as I could tell). Still a little naive as to the ways of hackers, I decided to keep interacting with her. I asked her questions about how she knew English already, what types of files she liked to eat, and a bunch of other things. She answered them all, not bothering to ask her own until the end. Finally, she asked me,

She's only a child, I thought to myself, but even human children knew about boyfriends and girlfriends. And human children didn't have the ability to access any information they wanted on the Internet. "No," I admitted with a frown before adding, "I'm... uhm... working on it." Even my own hacker made me get awkward. I felt like a loser. Then, she replied with another text bubble.



And that was that. She didn't ask me anymore questions. I still told her things about myself, like how I loved to cook and play games. We also discussed which files she was to stay away from. I think she understood. She told me that she really liked eating the image files of the food I'd cooked, so I promised her that if she didn't eat any recipe files or music files or anything else important, that I'd save lots of pictures of food on my laptop for her.

Needless to say, my breakfast burned as I ignored it... That was a mess. I gave up on food until later.

So, now, I'm just getting used to life with another "person" in the house. I've been alone a while now, so it's strange to me, even if she is just living on my computer.

A Rude Awakening

Sometime between night and morning, I received a voicemail on my cell phone telling me that Zest had been infected. The message was from Fiach and, considering anything to do with Zest's well-being to be urgent, I quickly went down to the shop with my laptop. Unfortunately, I was still half-asleep at the time and forgot my eye-patch. I didn't realize it at the time because, thankfully, nobody made it an issue. I spoke with Fiach and set my computer up to transfer Zest over to the shop's main computer. Fiach insisted that I rest in one of the chairs, so I settled in for a little nap. Unfortunately, that nap didn't last very long. Fiach woke me up for the second time that day. This was for the best, however, as the morning had already snuck up on everybody.

I removed my laptop and left to get ready for my appointment, leaving Zest for the time at the shop. That brings me to the whole point of this entry, what happened at the appointment.

Well, for starters, the appointment was at 9 am with a Mr. James Reed. James Reed is a property manager and owner downtown. He owns some small buildings, many of which have shops on the bottom floor and living spaces on the top floor. This trait of combined work and living space is what made me desire one of his empty shop spaces. I made an appointment to meet with him and discuss pricing so that I can move and start up my new business. Oh yeah... Perhaps I forgot to mention that I quit my job yesterday before walking out. In any case, my plan is to open a sit-down bakery with wireless Internet. I'd always planned on opening a bakery some day, but Zest thought it would be a nice place for hackers if I made it more computer friendly with the addition of the web.

After putting on some more professional threads, I left early for my appointment to speak with Mr. Reed. He was a very personable man and very reasonable about the pricing and open to my renovation ideas for turning the bottom floor into a bakery. Needless to say, the meeting went well. After a few signatures, I became the proud new tenant of the upper floor and the proud new business owner of the bottom floor. I'm going to be down at the location a lot from now until the bakery is finished, and I'll probably move into the upper floor before that.

There's just one problem... Who can I get to help me move? sweatdrop