Chapter 21: Frank

First thing Ida does when she's back in the present is call her boyfriend.

"Didja miss me?"

Marlin responds with confusion. "What do you mean, you're back? I thought you said you were going to leave after graduation. Did you skip?"

Ida is confused now, too. "No," she says slowly. "I did not skip, I went to graduation and then I went to the future and then I came back.... Oh...." They both see it at the same time: three days to Ida was no more than a second to Marlin and the rest of Sunset Valley. Ida could smack herself; of course she would return to the same point in time that she left.

"Does that mean you're older? How many days did you just age in the space of a second?"

"Just, um... three... look, it's okay! We're closer in age now, isn't that good?"

Marlin sighs. "Just... promise not to go back there again, okay? At least not for more than a day. Please."

Ida doesn't mention that she has absolutely no plans to go back to the future; Marlin doesn't really handle pressure well, and she doesn't want to give him any ideas about having triplet girls anytime soon. The truth is, she doesn't want to see what her supposed future descendants look like ever again. And suppose she goes back and Emily Wan really has ceased to exist? The implications frighten her, make her queasy. She agrees to Marlin's request.

"All right, but it really has been three days since I last saw you, so can you come over? I know you just saw me and all but, I really missed you...."

"I'm on my way."

"I brought this really cool bed back from the future... Do you wanna... check it out?"

Shanti and Alex are at the library so Ida and Marlin make the most of their time alone.

Nice.

Soon afterwards, Marlin has to leave for work, so Ida makes quick work of registering herself as a self-employed Bot-builder at City Hall, and starts working at her new bot-building station she sets up in the basement.

It takes some getting used to. Luckily, she's also brought back some bathroom objects from the future and set them up in the basement as well, so she doesn't have to go all the way upstairs when things like this happen.

In her excitement, she forgets to paint one of the walls. 

She also forgets to put on a shirt.

Several hours later, she finally figures out the right combination of whodads and whatsits to create her very first plumbot!

She calls it Frank and immediately sets to work installing it with trait chips; she only knows how to make a few, now, but she manages to do all right. Her first bot sale elevates her to level four of the bot-builder career right away.

Thanks, Frank!

The next several days are a frenzy of creating nanites, designing trait chips, and upgrading bots. Ida manages to sell five plumbots, named Frank 2.0, Frank 3000, Frank 4, and Frank 550. She is promoted to level six of her career.

Not everything goes smoothly all the time, though.

Meanwhile, Shanti plays with the toy Ida brought her from the future.

Shanti doesn't quite believe her daughter's stories about Oasis Landing and its technological wonders; she is certain that Ida is building all these things on her inventing bench. Never mind the fact that the inventing bench has been sitting unused for so long that it's started to collect dust.

Alexander got a holo disc, too:

And even some neat new plants!

Alex thinks Ida's probably telling the truth about her adventures, but whether or not he cares is a different story. "As long as you're happy and healthy," is his motto.

As a belated congratulations to her father for making the top of her career, Ida cooks a garden salad for the family. Ever since that time she nearly burned down the house, Ida's been getting quite good at preparing salads.

"I hereby sentence this salad to be eaten!! Om nom."

Sandi French finally marries Arlo Bunch and Shanti invites her over to congratulate her.

While Shanti rambles about marriage and love and how lucky she's been to have found someone like Alexander, Sandi remembers that one day she will die.

Don't worry, Sandi, I feel the same way when I see old people.

They share a sweet moment, and laugh about the fact that this has been the first time in a while that Sandi's come over while not pregnant.

Wait. No. Seriously?

I suppose it's too much to hope that she just ate too much pie? Yes, it's confirmed, the third Arlo-French baby is on its way!

Alex gets a call from Doo Peas Corporate; they heard through the grapevine that Alexander is painting masterpieces in his home but refuses to sell anything. As part of their initiative program to support local art, they are offering to put ten pieces of Alex's artwork on display and pay him a sizable sum of money to boot. Alex is old and has nothing else to do; he accepts.

Get to painting!

Apparently, this is considered a masterpiece. Um, okay.

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Notes -

I've never seen that weird blue painting before. o.o

More Arlo-French babies, I can't believe my luck in this town. I'm contemplating a move next generation, party because of genetics being awful in Sunset Valley but mostly because I'm kind of bored with it. I want something with more of a city-like feel (lots of venues!) and I'm not sure how good Bridgeport is for legacies. Does anyone have any suggestions of places I should look for custom worlds? I have almost no experience in using CC and I have no idea where to start looking, so any help would be greatly appreciated.

Next chapter: some drama!