"Whatever you say." She flipped over so she was lying on her stomach in the air, chin resting on her arms. "If you wanna tell it, Iâm listening. Dark of night, whattaya, straight out of a fairy tale?" Maddox liked to be entertained. Sheâd never admit to it, but she was a sucker to hear something from actual people, something not on the internet. Maddox pretended to be unconcerned, adjusting the sleeves of her jacket.
âHold up, did you say friendship? Iâm not sure you grasp how this blasted app works, cutie.â Maddox squinted at the girl, trying to figure out what her game was. All of a sudden she seemed a little too innocent. âIâm flattered, but have you ever heard of slavery? I mean, yes, I am tethered to the phone. Not physically, I mean. In its data. So no, I canât go outside and walk around in this form.â Geez, didnât she know how a phone worked?
Well, Maddox didn't seem like she cared too much. And even though it had happened...a little over a month ago now if she thought about it...Maddie had yet to sit down and tell anyone what had happened. "Well...if you really don't mind." Giving the other a moment to interject, she eventually settled down and launched into her story. "I grew up in a tiny French village in the middle of nowhere..." Filling the other in on her lonely childhood, Maddie talked of reading her books, going off on pretend adventures, and tinkering with inventions with her dad. It soon led into the story of her father's recent passing a month or so ago. "...and then, not even a week after Papa's funeral, the village council politely informs me that, as a woman, I'm not capable of handling Papa's land and assets and in order to ensure that they are properly taken care of, I must be married off to a man of their choosing by the next week! Oh, he's such a vile thing too. All muscles and no brain. And always going on and how 'It's not right for a woman to read. Soon she starts thinking and getting ideas...' and he just wants me to carry his children, all strapping young boys of course. I was devastated. I spent all week crying and wondering what to do because I knew I wouldn't be able to live with that horrid man. Finally, the night before the wedding, I decided that I was going to be like one of the heroes in my book and run away. I slipped out the back window with a small backpack and was on the road ever since. I didn't even settle down here until last week I think..." Realizing that she had been rambling on about her past for quite some time, Maddie guiltily flushed. "Oh, sorry, that was probably more than you ever wanted to know. I haven't really talked about this with anyone and I guess I just kept on going..."
She didn't consider them friends? "But just because you're an app...I mean, you don't only have to come out for wishes, right?" Was this some contract deal she should automatically know about? Gah, technology. "I'm afraid I'm not terribly...knowledgeable about electronics and how they work I must admit..." Slavery? Maddie really didn't like how that sounded.
