A glass of brandy swirled itself above the hand of Colonel Dillo. With a twitch of his fingers, it floated to his mouth for his fifth sip in the past minute. He sat in a wonderfully plush chair that helped him relax a bit as he scanned the many screens hovering in the air in front of him. Screens wasn’t quite the right word, but the names of previous technologies seemed to stick to what they evolved to become. These were more of two-dimensional holograms.

Each screen displayed a room with two children seated facing a wall with two animated paintings. There were five rooms in all. Ten children, sure to be frightened and very confused.

A door beyond the myriad of screens slid open to reveal the ever-present scowl of Major Caps, backlit by the ring of light floating behind his head. He marched in, stiff as always, with his gray hair neatly parted, and salt-and-pepper beard well-groomed. Dillo still wished the man would give his mustache some curls at the ends, he had the perfect length to do it. And goodness, the stern man could use some character.

“Colonel Dillo, sir, I’ve been sent to aid in…” Major Caps paused, looking around a room that he would see as empty, “whatever it is that is going on here, sir.”

Dillo’s finger flicked towards a seat at the far wall and it slid up next to his own. His glass floated up to his lips and turned bottom up, draining the remaining brandy. Then with a flourish of his hand, it flew backwards in an arc to shatter on the floor. Major Caps looked appalled but said nothing.

“Great, well, take a seat and join me in playing babysitter,” Dillo said.

Major Caps complied, doing his best to remain sitting up straight in the plush seat. Dillo reached with his mind to “touch” the ring of light behind his head. It was a sensation as familiar as moving his fingers. All children of the kingdom received their Halos very young after all. That is if they weren’t already born with it.

Upon touching the Halo with his mind he felt the presence of his many applications filtering the infinity of information beyond. He imagined the purpose of the intended app and then its series of shapes. Once he did, he pulled the screen building app into his vision, a rectangle above two overlapping circles. The icon hovered in his sight as if stamped on his retinas. With a mental press, he opened the app in a burst of soft sparkling light, something like pressing an app on a phone screen.

“Phone,” another example of a term that made sense at its conception yet somehow stuck around as the name for a pocket-sized supercomputer. At least the name didn’t stick when the technology evolved to being attached directly to the human brain. That may have been funny though, an artificial section of the brain called the phone. The Halo was a much better fit in his opinion.

While Colonel Dillo’s mildly intoxicated mind drifted, the screen building app did its business, presenting what he was viewing to Major Caps.

“Babysitter?” Major Caps said, squinting at the screens. “I thought we were watching over some renegades found at Black Valley? Are those...”

“Children, yes.”

“Um, Colonel,” Caps cleared his throat, “I don’t mean to make any accusations, but why are you watching children? We’re supposed to be watching the renegades, right?”

Dillo arcs an eyebrow over an amused sideways glance at Major Caps. “You weren't there, were you?”

“Excuse me, sir?”

“At the Battle at Black Valley.”

“No, sir, but I’ve reviewed extensive reports.”

“Ah, extensive reports,” Colonel Dillo let the words float in the air as he stared at one particular screen. A boy was bouncing a ball against the wall. Now, where did he get that? “There are some details about the Battle at Black Valley that are in our best interest to not go public, at least that’s what General Voldenic said.”

“Understood,” Caps said, “so what are these details?”

Colonel Dillo shrugged. “Oh, I don’t know, that’s all the General told me. That and… That these children are the renegades.”

“What?” The Major’s eyes stretched open. “These children can’t be more than sixteen years old.”

“The oldest is fifteen, actually.”

“Well, what are we doing with them?”

Colonel Dillo rubbed his forehead with his thumb and index finger. “Monitoring their behavior for now. Their memories have been extracted at the General’s orders. So now we’re left with children with developed brains but no memories to base what they know. We don’t know how they will act. It's bound to be quite fascinating actually. So, I have set up a series of tests to study them and gradually reintroduce them to their Halos.”

“They still have their Halos?!”

“How else would we get their memories? Can’t quite suck those out with a straw.”

“Obviously, but didn’t you say their memories were already extracted? Shouldn’t you...” Caps shifted in his seat, “wouldn’t the right move be to execute them after their memories were extracted?”

Colonel Dillo rested his chin on a knuckle. “Execute them, hmm?” his chair swiveled to face Major Caps. “Would you do it?”

“I do what I’m ordered for the good of the kingdom.”

“Ah yes, yes, of course. A true soldier.” Dillo flicked a finger and another glass of brandy floated up to Major Caps. “Well then, since you’ve been appointed to me, I have some orders for you.”

The Major tightened his lips as the glass of liquor rose towards his mouth. “I don’t drink, sir.”

“Oh? Not even if ordered?”

“Sir?” Caps’ brow furrowed, “this is hardly the time--”

The glass floated away to enter orbit around Dillo’s head like a moon.

Dillo chuckled, “only a joke, Mr. Righteous, your orders are to watch the children with me and step in if any of them get… rowdy.” He focused back on the screen displaying the boy bouncing a ball big enough to barely be caught in one hand. “I know the rules when it comes to renegades that leave the kingdom borders, and I have no problem with it. But are they really the same people after their minds have been wiped clean? Are you and I not simply the accumulation of our experiences and our interpretations of them?”

Caps remained silent, focusing instead on a screen. An obvious dismissal. Oh well, it wasn't common for soldiers to be thinkers.

"Let's play with them a little while before they're gone, hm."