"This is what you bought the children for Christmas?" Tina picked up the clear package and examined the contents. "It certainly looks a lot better than the virtual reality headsets my brother and I had when we were little."
"It's not VR." Gary took the package from her and held it at arm's length. "Thirty-two terabytes of memory with a port for additional hard storage and disks the size of credit cards. Why, this little device has..."
Tina rolled her eyes and tuned him out. Once he got started talking about hardware he was unbearable.
"You're not listening again."
"I'm more interested in what it can do than in how it does it." Tina looked around the bedroom for a matching box.
"Where's the other one?"
"Other one what?"
"The other Opti, silly. I mean, you DID get two of them, right?" Tina watched Gary lay the box on the Christmas wrapping paper and carefully trim around it. The back of his neck was the only part of his body showing and it was flushing deep red. "You mean you only got ONE of them?" Tina glared at her husband as he slowly raised his head and fumbled with the tape dispenser.
"Bob said--"
"Bob? When did you talk to him?"
"A few weeks ago, when we had that conference you walked out on. Remember? After your emotional outburst I stayed behind and listened to what he had to say. His theories about sibling bonding--"
"Were garbage." Tina opened her mouth and raised a finger, paused a moment, and then shook her head. "Gary, when you grew up you didn't have a caseworker assigned to supervise your development. You don't know what it's like." She licked her lower lip, clenched and unclenched her fists a few times, realized what she was doing, and clasped her hands behind her back. "Everything Bob has urged us to do has resulted in exactly the opposite effect to the one desired. The kids got along great before the State sent him as a caseworker and now they're within inches of killing each other. You give them a toy like this to share and it's going to push them right over the edge."
"Or bring them closer together." Gary folded the wrapping paper around the box and taped it in place. "Bob said we need to encourage the children to play together. Let them take out their feelings of hostility on inanimate objects."
"Feelings which HE caused." Tina grabbed a small stick-on bow and threw it at her husband, who picked it up and tossed it over his shoulder.
"Oh, Gary. I just wish I could make you understand how out of touch with reality this guy is."
"Dear--"
"The children liked playing with one another when they were little. We were just one big happy family until the caseworker found out how well Jay could hear me and sent that idiot Bob to supervise his development. Then Karey started listening in and interrupting, and the numbskull decided he could foster more rapid psi development by setting them up in competition against each other. All hell broke loose after that!"
"Dear, lots of brothers and sisters get along well with one another and then start squabbling when they're old enough to--"
"Then why did the fights start within weeks of him stepping through the door?"
"Dear--"
"Why is it that everything he's advocated to lessen hostility has actually intensified it?
"Dear. Excuse me. But could you stop talking long enough to hear what I'm trying to say?"
"Sorry. I get so upset every time I think about that Freudian caseworker and his outdated--"
"Dear--"
"And why can't the state keep its damn nose out of our business anyway? When I was little the state sent a caseworker only when abuse or some other aberration occurred. Mothers didn't have to stay home with the kids, either. You could have a career and a family and not have to meet some stupid state guidelines for family development. Who came up with this drivel anyway? And--"
"Dear--"
"--Just because our kids have an ability that most people don't have--"
"Dear! I'm still waiting."
"Oops. Sorry again. Go ahead."
"I have a one-word response to your complaint about Bob: Coincidence."
"What?"
"It's just a coincidence that the children started fighting at the same time Bob was assigned as our family's caseworker."
"May I give my one-word response to that?"
"Certainly."
"Bullshit!"
)
Since their children inherited their mother's psi ability, Gary and Tina must raise them under the supervision of the state's caseworker. His instructions on ways to help the children form sibling bonds and eliminate their arguments escalate the intensity and frequency of their fights until Gary and Tina begin to suspect that this is exactly what the state intends.
