23rd June 2029

A little girl is playing alone in her father’s study, studiously cutting up pictures of rabbits for a paper chain. At the far side of the study, bathed in warm early evening sunlight that pours through a large oval window, is a flat round terminal. There’s no keyboard, no mouse, only a bowl filled with a white sponge. On the screen, an anti-aliased red circle is throbbing in the centre, beating in a slow, steady rhythm.

A dull hum pervades the room, growing in volume until the girl, engrossed and happily snipping away, finally becomes aware of it. She looks up and with a squeal of pleasure pulls herself out of a beanbag and rushes up to the terminal. The scissors and half finished rabbit chain lies forgotten on the wooden slats on the floor. She brushes her fingers lightly on the screen and it pulses into life. Already she knows who it is, but an impatience-fuelled frown of dismay sinks into her pretty features.

His face isn’t on the screen, where it should be. “Uncle?” she wails, “why can’t I see you?”
His voice comes across clear, but well travelled, losing both soul and personality on it’s digital path. “Sorry Becky, they still don’t have visual here.”
‘Here’, Becky knew, was a remote oil-refinery somewhere in sun-bleached southern Texas. Becky had only ever spoken to her uncle three times, and tonight was the night where they were going to be able to see each other on the screen for the first time.
Would he look like Daddy? she had wondered only yesterday. Now, she was as eager and impatient as only a little girl could be. Daddy and Uncle Peter had ‘made friends’ after, like, twenty years of not talking to each other.
“Is Daddy there?” Uncle asks her, impeding on her own thoughts.
“Hold on!” she says breathlessly and runs out of the room, bare feet padding on the wooden floor into the hallway. “Daddy! Uncle Pete’s here!”
Although he wasn’t exactly ‘here’, daddy knows what she means.
“Be out in a minute hon, “ his muffled voice comes back over the rustle of falling water – he is in the shower. Before he finishes yelling his reply she is already bouncing back into the study, repeating the words to her uncle. Mere seconds separate the gap.
“Okay…say, do you want to link up now? “ The voice says.
She does looks down cautiously down at the sponge in the bowl, and the sensible girl in her reminds her that Daddy never, ever lets her use it without him being in the room. Something geeky like ‘firewalls’ and ‘activation’, horrible computer stuff that her friend Tommy yaks on about, trying to act smug as he does (but Becky things he would look a lot smarter without the jello permanently smeared over his mouth).
“Daddy says I shouldn’t do it alone, “ she says.
Uncle Peter comes back fast “ – and he’s right sweetie, but it’s me, and you know I’m a safe little bunny, don’t you – ” and then there was an indelible pause. Becky, who was, ok, a bit of a techie, suspected data lag – “and I can’t wait to link up with my little niece…”
“Uh, okay, “ she says, now a little unsure of herself. Her hand reaches out to the sponge.
“Ready?” the voice is eager, and for the first and last time, Becky feels a trickle of doubt run through her, souring the excitement. A sudden, instinctive thought crosses her mind:
Maybe this isn’t uncle Pete
and she smiles uncertainly, “yeah, “ she replies, less sure of herself.
These thoughts come too late, too slow, and before she has time to think she has already acted, and her hand is resting on the sponge. There is a moment of quietness, of digital transfer, then little Becky lets out a shuddering scream that peaks so highly and with such force that she throws herself backwards of the chair onto the hardwood varnished floor. Lying shaking on the ground her feet drums a spasmodic rhythm. Her breath comes in shallow gasps, and starts to slow. The screen fires out red lines of static, which seek to take shape, take form, and fails.

Her breathing is normal now. The body flexes, and then brings itself up, sharp, alert.
On the screen, a quiet, suddenly scared voice whispers into life: “Uncle?”
Becky gets to her feet and staggers, unaccustomed to her weight and size. A different light now shines in her eyes, older, wiser and suddenly free.

She looks at the scissors, opened on the floor, and the first thought she has is that she wants to use them on someone.