Those pesky forms

Oliver sat in the passenger seat reading over the packet as he filled it out. The first page was standard information: name, birthdate, address, Social Security number. The next page asked for all the members of his family.

Then things got a little weird for Oliver.

It asked him to write things about his family, but not standard questions like age or hair color. Instead the questions were more abstract. For example: “What is a quality of Person A that you wish you had?” or “If Person B were stranded on a desert island, what is one thing you would give them?”

Oliver, to his credit, answered somewhat seriously for his sister and his mom. Jim’s section got a lot of sarcasm and snark.

The last portion of the packet contained another set of odd questions, but this time about him. Being in a bad mood didn’t help. He answered most of them with short, one-word responses.

Periodically Sophie would ask how it was going, and Oliver would just groan and roll his eyes.

She could tell her brother wasn’t giving the form the time and attention it needed. But she knew it would only hurt him in the end, because that form was going to shape the beginning of his relationship with the Excalibur AI.

Natural consequences, she thought to herself.

Oliver continued filling it out as they drove toward their new town.

Eventually they stopped for food.

“So are you still playing with that band you met at school?” Sophie asked.

“Nope. They need someone who lives closer,” Oliver said, never taking his eyes off his phone.

“Are you going to enroll at the community college?”

“Nope.”

“What were some of your answers to those weird questions?” she asked, trying to bond with her sibling. She had hoped they could connect a little before she told him about her birthday party. She knew it was going to piss him off.

“I don’t remember.”

“Can I talk with you about my party this weekend?”

“Sure,” Oliver said, facing his sister, though his eyes were barely open.

“So Monica and Tiffany are going to be there. I met them through a Reddit group for teens moving to Harmonia,” she said, reminding him about the two friends who would be visiting. “Monica is enrolling at Central Indiana State too. She’s super cool—we have a lot in common. We’re both planning to start in PoliSci, but she thinks she might switch to medical.”

Sophie kept talking, hoping to delay the inevitable a little longer.

“Tiff is like, so fun. She was assistant to the cheer captain last year. She’s not enrolled in college yet though. She has to take three summer classes to officially graduate first.”

This made Oliver perk up a little. It was nice to know he wasn’t the only one who’d messed up when it came to school. Plus she was a cheerleader, which probably meant she was hot.

“That sucks,” he said between bites of his sandwich, trying to sound casual.

“And then there’s one more person coming.”

Oliver noticed the hesitation on his sister’s face. He knew her well enough to tell she was hiding something.

“What’s his name?” Oliver asked, assuming it was a boy she didn’t want him telling their parents about.

“Umm… Aubrey.”

Oliver didn’t register it at first, but when he saw the guilt on her face, he realized it wasn’t a coincidence.

“Wait—Aubrey?!” he said, breaking the tension. “My Aubrey?!” he yelled louder, banging the table.

“Keep your voice down!”

“Oh, I’m sorry. How should I act knowing that my lazy ex—who just got back from saving the world—is going to see me after I flunked out of college?”

“I’m sorry, Oliver.”

“I don’t fucking care!”

“Come on, she just got back, and she’s actually starting at CIS too!”

“She is?” Oliver paused, confused.

“Yeah… she actually applied after I told her we were moving here. She was disappointed to learn that you got kicked out of school.”

“You told her!” Oliver shouted again, slamming the table so hard soda spilled onto his paperwork. “Oh my god, this is so embarrassing.”

He gathered the papers together and stormed out of the restaurant mid-meal.

“I’m not speaking to you,” he said through gritted teeth.

“Oliver, please. Can we talk?”

But he didn’t turn around as he stormed out.

Oliver sat in the back seat of the car, pouting, until his sister returned.

“Can you please talk to me?” she asked, pleading.

“Fuck you,” he shot back.

“Fine. Be that way, Olivia!” she snapped, using the nickname that used to drive him crazy when they were kids.

She could tell it took every fiber of his being not to fire back. Instead he just sneered and looked out the window.

They drove on in silence. The tension hung heavy in the air as rain began to fall.

Eventually Oliver pulled out the forms, now sticky from soda. He flipped to where he had left off.

What is your ideal future:

One where I’m free to do what I want. Play music, hang out with friends. No school. No expectations.

Create a movie you would want to see:

Okay, it’s an action movie about a guy out for vengeance or something. Doesn’t really matter. But there has to be a girl with him. She’s really hot and he has to save her. He blows stuff up and saves the day while she worships him.

Least favorite quality in a person and why:

Judgmental. Just let people live how they want.

The questions continued until traffic slowed as they approached what looked like a checkpoint.

Three cars sat ahead of them.

The first car was stopped by traffic cones. Three people stood nearby wearing clear parkas with CITY OF HARMONIA printed across the back. One held a clipboard while the others moved in and out of a white tent, handing packets to the people in the cars.

“Well, this must be it,” Sophie said as the first car drove away and they crept forward.

Oliver remained silent in the back.

When their turn approached, Sophie asked for the packet. Oliver dropped it onto the empty passenger seat. She just shook her head at the passive-aggressive gesture.

“Hello!” a middle-aged man shouted over the sound of rain hitting the car. “Welcome to Harmonia! Who am I speaking with?”

“I’m Sophie Perkins, and this is my baby sister, Olivia Perkins!” Sophie said, shooting a glare at her brother in the back seat.

He just flipped her off.

She handed the packets to the man, who passed them to his team.

“Alright, give us a second while we enter this into our servers. Once your information is processed you’ll be able to drive to your new home.”

Inside the tent the team began feeding the packets into an industrial scanner.

After a few moments another worker stepped out with a tablet. He handed it to the man speaking with Sophie and whispered something in his ear.

“It looks like we can’t scan Olivia’s demographic form,” he shouted over the rain. “No worries. I just need to enter it again directly into our system. Could you roll down the back window so I can talk to her?”

Sophie rolled the window down.

“Hello, Olivia!” the man shouted.

Oliver just smiled faintly from inside his oversized hoodie.

“When’s your birthdate?”

“April 22, 2008—”

A horn honked loudly behind them, drowning out the last word. The representative thought he heard “eight.”

He collected the rest of the information and waved them forward.

Back in the tent, the worker began entering the data—but there were still complications. A few errors prevented the forms from processing. The birthdates didn’t match, and the names on the forms didn’t line up.

Olivia was marked as the older sibling on the family forms, yet the older sister had referred to her as the baby sister.

Outside the line of cars was growing longer.

The computer must have glitched and swapped the years, he thought.

So he switched Sophie’s birthdate from 6/13/2008 to 6/13/2007, and Olivia’s from 4/22/2007 to 4/22/2008.

There was also no high school diploma listed for an Olivia Perkins.

Then he remembered Olivia mentioning flunking out earlier while he gathered the information. She must not have graduated, so he marked her as a student.

The final issue was easy. The computer had trouble scanning the name—Olivia was originally listed as Oliver on the family documents.

He corrected that too.

Everything appeared to be in order.

He hit Submit.

The information uploaded into the town servers, and Excalibur began preparing their homes for their arrival.

The Excalibur AI began interpreting the data for the Parker/Davenport family.

Jim Davenport — Head of Household, 52, male, Head of Strategy for Vertiec.

Laura Parker Davenport — 45, female, hairstylist.

Sophie Parker — 19, female, university student.

Olivia Parker — 18, female, no diploma/GED