[The cover shows an elaborate homecoming corsage shredding as if
in gale-force winds.]

____________________________________________________________________________
.|, COHERENT An ASHistory Series --+-------------------------------------------------------------------------
'|` SUPER STORIES Special #3 - Building Bonds, Taking Stock
Featuring Doctor Developer copyright 2023 by Andrew Burton ____________________________________________________________________________

Okay, this one just sort of appeared on the corporate servers recently, we're pretty sure it wasn't part of the salvaged drives that held the
previous two stories. Management is becoming Concerned.

============================================================================

As much as Cameron enjoyed working in the garage, he needed a better chair. Being perched on a stool while working on hardware was all well and good, but for long stretches of working on a laptop, it was terrible.
It was this need that brought him to the living room couch with his laptop. His need for relief drove him to the couch. His need for a chair dragged the laptop along, so he could search for one.
As Cameron browsed through the Ubermart website, he felt amazed by the variety of items that could be purchased online. Not that online shopping
was alien to him, but during his time cut off from the world, it had changed
so much.
He was on the third page of office chairs when a window popped up on his screen. One of the motion sensitive cameras from the front door caught movement. It was Cammy walking up from the sidewalk, which was a little surprising.
Cammy rarely walked anywhere. If she was moving by herself, it was a dash, a sprint, or some kind ambulation at speeds polite society looked down upon as too fast. Cameron respected her choice. Life was too short and distances were too long to amble.
Today she was moving much slower. She was looking at the ground. Most strange of all, instead of coming in she stopped on the porch and sat down.
The camera angle wasn't the best, and with her facing away from the door, Cameron couldn't see her face.
He could see she was wiping at her eyes every few seconds. Then she
would lean farther forward and stare at the ground. Then she would repeat
the cycle.
Cameron closed the laptop. The time for observing was past. He pulled his phone out, and typed a short message to Jennifer.
"Cammy is on the porch. May be upset. Haven't spoken to her yet."
Jennifer's reply was quick.
"Talk to her! Let me know."
He replied.
"Ok."
Cameron got up from the couch and went to the door. He hesitated for an instant, trying to decide how to initiate contact. Before he could turn the knob, his phone alerted him to another text from Jennifer.
"Stop overthinking it."
He nodded, and pulled open the door.
As he pulled the door open, three acts happened in a perfect, cosmic concert. Cammy turned around in surprise, and Cameron was able to see she
was crying. The sun broke through a cloud and blinded Cameron momentarily.
The sudden burst of sun beating down on his face made Cameron wish for something cold to drink.
With a burst of inspiration that the cosmos typically reserves for breakthroughs that allow humankind to surge again in scientific progress, Cameron knew at that moment the most perfect thing to say. Had there been a historian nearby...as opposed to an hour away watching her phone for a text...Cameron was sure the words he spoke would have gone down in the annals of history along with Archimedes "Eureka!" and Bell's "Watson, come here, I want you."
"Do you want a milkshake?" Cameron asked.
Cammy sniffled, nodded, and in a very small voice said, "Yes, please."

* * * *

"Well, hey there, Cammy," Sharon greeted Cammy as she sat down at the counter. Cameron was right behind her. "And Cameron. Is Jennifer with
you?"
"No," Cammy sniffed, "It's just us."
Sharon's eyebrows raised a bit. "You okay, Cammy?" She looked at
Cameron, her face shifting very slightly, then back to Cammy.
Cammy nodded. "School stuff," she mumbled.
"Jenny's still, ah, at work, so I asked Cammy if she wanted a
milkshake," Cameron explained. In his months back home, life was pretty upbeat, but no family was perfect. Several times right after school started, Jennifer would let him know she and Cammy would be late. Based on the debriefings from Jennifer, those times always coincided with a rough patch
that required coming to their favorite restaurant.
Bringing Cammy now was a bit of a gamble, but Cameron knew at some point he needed to step up and share more of the burden with Jennifer. No time
like the present for a test run. At worst, Jennifer would arrive in the next hour to patch up any damage a failed test might cause.
Sharon smiled, understanding completely. She looked at Cammy. "Let me guess, you want two chocolate shakes, one large fry, and a slice of
strawberry pie."
This got a shy smile out of Cammy. She looked at Cameron. "Unless you want something different." Cameron shook his head, not about to upset a plan that looked to already be improving Cammy's mood. Cammy looked back at
Sharon. "That's our order."
Sharon winked at Cammy. "Coming right up."
There was a long pause between father and daughter. Cameron would normally have been content to sit in silence, but he felt like it was his
duty to continue the conversation. Unfortunately, he didn't know what to say next, which paradoxically gave him something to say.
"If your mother was here," Cameron asked, "what would she say?"
Cammy thought for a moment. "She'd say, 'Is this about a boy?' and
then, 'Or girl, because that's fine too.'" Cammy shook her head as she
finished a reasonable impression of Jennifer.
"Is it?" Cameron asked.
"No," Cammy told him absolutely, then she hemmed, "not really. At least not like mom would mean. Definitely not like mom would mean." She
shuddered. "I'd never crush on Bradley."
That was a familiar name. "The boy you," Cameron paused, "uh, defended your reputation against?"
Cammy nodded. She looked sad, and wiped her eyes.
"Did he say something to you?" Cameron asked. He made a mental note to look into SmitherTech. If Bradley was picking on Cammy, it might be cause
for asymmetric escalation. Jenny would probably object to bankrupting a company for school issues, though.
Cammy sighed heavily. Her voice was small as she started talking. "I
was walking past the robotics club, and stuck my head in the door to talk.
That was all. I wasn't trying to butt in." She paused. "Then Bradley
showed up, and said it was a closed meeting, and kicked me out." She
sniffed.
Sharon waited until Cammy paused before announcing her return. "Here's your order, guys." She set all four items between Cammy and Cameron. Cammy immediately started on her shake.
"Thanks," Cameron smiled, and Sharon stepped away. "You miss being part of that club, ah, don't you?" Cammy nodded. "Why?"
Cammy's eyes narrowed, and Cameron recognized a look eerily similar to Jenny's when he said something offensive.
"That wasn't a question of judgment," Cameron said. "It was a
diagnostic question."
Cammy got quiet and looked at the fries. Cameron worried.
Based on a mental list of milestones he'd put together from reading
about father-daughter relationships, the past few months seemed to be an
upward trending progression. Most of those points were in the domain of positive interactions. Movie nights. Shopping trips. Holidays. This experiment was the first time he tried to intervene when Cammy was upset.
Maybe it was too soon. Cameron began to try and workout a way to manage critical failure when Cammy started talking.
"I had friends there. I liked competing. It was fun building the robots," she stressed the past tense, "I was good at it, you know?"
Cameron nodded. He knew. Cammy had school and friends that kept her busy, but in the months since being back, Cameron recognized a part of
himself in her. She enjoyed working on projects. She tinkered with her toy castle-tower, "Cammylot," almost every day. Sometimes it was hours
scratching through her pans of plastic bricks adding on turrets or improving the rooms her plushies stayed in, other times it was just a few minutes
before bed rearranging furniture.
She also never gave up working with Roberta, her souvenir from the robotics club. After Cameron fixed a few well hidden fractures in some connectors, Cammy played with the robot like a pet. More than once, she even brought Cameron her laptop to find some bug in an upgrade she was working on. Those were some of Cameron's most treasured moments with his daughter.
"Do you know about the Chicago Robotics Association Battles?" Cameron asked.
Cammy's eyes lit up. "The Crabbies?" She set the milkshake down. "Mr. Alvarez took us to one of their events last year to show us what robots could do. That was so cool!" She paused and tried to act cool. "I mean, the
fights were okay, but they're just RC cars when you get down to it." She shrugged and picked up a few fries.
"Roberta's smarter than any of those robots."
"I agree," Cameron said. "It's hardly fair to call them robots when the brain is, uh, in the driver."
"I know right!" Cammy nodded. "But, they were cool."
"I know it's not the robotics club, and I'm not your school friends," Cameron began, "but would you want to help me build a robot for a C.R.A.B. fight?" Cammy's eyes went wide. "Our robot will be autonomous. It won't be
a remote controlled car."
"Are you serious?" Cammy grabbed Cameron's arm. "This isn't a joke, is it?"
Cameron smiled. "Not a joke. You and Roberta reminded me of my robots. I've been thinking about starting a new project, but didn't have a reason
until now."
Cammy squinted and tilted her head to one side. "What's your reason
now?"
Cameron smiled slyly. "Revenge. If we win and you get your picture in the paper, that'll be two contests you won to Bradley's none."
Cammy smiled brightly, then broadly, then a bit maniacally. Then she looked serious. "Maybe we better come up with a better reason if Mom asks," Cammy suggested, "like we can tell her we're bonding or something."
"That's a good idea," Cameron agreed.

* * * *

Cameron's last text simply said: "We're getting milkshakes." He would have contacted her if the situation deteriorated. That didn't make the last hour and a half at work, plus thirty minutes driving to meet them, go any faster.
Jennifer knew her anxiety wasn't so much about what Cammy was dealing with, because if it were major, Cameron would have let her know. Some of it was motherly desire to make sure her daughter was taken care of, sure, but
she could admit to herself part of it was jealousy.
Cammy was so much like her dad. She was creative, smart, quiet, and
happy as could be just sitting in her room playing with toys. Oh, sure, she was far more social than Cameron, but Jennifer was sure that was the nurture half. Nature leaned toward Cameron,
Which is where the whispers of jealousy started to tickle around the
edges of Jennifer's mind. Make no mistake, she was ecstatic that their
family reunion was going so well. There were some bumps along the way, but
all those years when it was just her and Cammy, Jennifer feared the worst. Maybe Cameron never came home. Maybe he was apathetic to Cammy, and resented how she changed their previous dynamic. Maybe Cammy couldn't cope with Cameron's history, which would force them further apart.
The reality was, the worst part of Cameron coming home was that Cammy agreed to go to summer school while she adjusted to his presence. Given that summer attendance was required as part of the approval for Cammy to skip two grades, the worst wasn't far from the best.
But there was a small part that worried that Cammy would bond with
Cameron over their shared intellect. She worried she'd lose the little girl she stacked blocks with, watched movies with on the couch, and who she ate pizza with every Saturday night to life's inevitable change.
As Jennifer pulled into an empty parking lot, she spotted her two
geniuses sitting at a booth. They were both staring at their phones, occasionally showing the other something on the screen. Even as she crossed the parking lot, Jennifer could see Cammy's spirits were back to normal.
That was a good thing, no matter which parent got her there.
Jennifer stepped into the restaurant, and waved at Sharon, who pointed
at the far booth. Jennifer gave her a thumbs up, and walked down the
checkered floor toward the duo. She was already sliding into the seat next
to Cammy before either of them saw her.
"Mom!" Cammy squeaked. She dropped her phone and hugged Jennifer. As Cammy released the hug, Jennifer reached out to smooth down some of Cammy's curls.
"Heard you had a rough day, kiddo," Jennifer said gently.
Cammy shrugged as she picked up her phone. She looked thoughtful.
"Just the last part before the bus," she explained. "School stuff, you
know."
"Yeah," Jennifer sympathized. "You want to tell me about it?"
Cammy shook her head. "Nah," she answered. It stung a little, but Jennifer took it in stride. Cammy's broad grin as she showed Jennifer her phone was an effective palliative. "Want to see something cool?"
From there Cammy launched into a description of the planned robot building. Jennifer listened intently, tossing in Oohs and Aahs when
warranted. Asking questions that Cameron would field if Cammy didn't have an answer. Finally doing her parental due diligence of asking how this would impact her grades. Eventually Cammy wound down, and her interest in a text from friends took priority.
Jennifer used the distraction to reach out and take Cameron's hand. She squeezed it, and gave him a "Good job" nod. He quirked one side of his mouth into a smile, but Jennifer could see his shoulders sag slightly, allowing himself to relax thanks to her approval.
"I don't mean to sound like someone's mother, but," Jennifer started.
She leaned over and bumped Cammy' shoulder. "I can't help but notice while there are only two of you, there are," she paused to make a show of counting, "five milkshake cups here." They both blushed and looked guilty. "Have you had anything besides milkshakes?"
"Pie," Cameron admitted.
"And fries!" Cammy reminded him.
"So, no dinner, just snacks?" Jennifer asked. She looked at Cammy, who did her best not to break a straight face. She failed. "Didn't think so.
I'm going to order burgers for everyone," she said, "and just because I am someone's mother, I'm getting them with vegetables."
"Tomato isn't a vegetable!" Cammy declared as Jennifer slid out of the booth. Jennifer blew a raspberry at Cammy, and headed toward the counter. Sharon finished delivering a check to a customer on the far end of the
counter, and ended up meeting Jennifer in the middle.
Sharon's typical playful expression was replaced with a more somber, serious look. "Everything ok?" she asked. "I was a little worried when
Cammy came in without you."
Jennifer tried to brush it off, but she didn't feel like she sounded as nonchalant as she wanted. "Seems like something happened at school," she
said, "but Cammy didn't want to talk about it. I'll have to get Cameron to spill tonight."
Sharon looked like she wanted to say something, but didn't. Instead she pulled out her orderbook. "Did you want to get something?" Jennifer gave her the order. Before Jennifer turned to return to the table, Sharon told her, "Change isn't bad, but it is different."
Jennifer smiled a wry smile. "I keep telling myself that," she said before heading back to their booth. When she got back, Cammy was waiting
with wide, hopeful eyes.
"Uh-oh," Jennifer pretended to grimace, "what do you want?"
Cammy showed Jennifer her phone. On the screen was a calendar of
events, and highlighted for the coming Saturday was "C.R.A.B. Tournament."
"Can we go?" Cammy asked.
Jennifer looked at Cameron, "Can you build a robot by Saturday?" she asked, not quite sure what her mad scientists were hatching up.
"Uh," Cameron said thoughtfully, "are you asking if I can or if I plan
to have a working robot by Saturday? Those, ah, are two different questions."
Cammy's jaw dropped. "It's Wednesday. Could you have a robot for Saturday?"
Jennifer cocked an eyebrow, "I want to hear this."
Cameron scratched the back of his head. "Yes, probably, but it wouldn't be more than a remote controlled car." Cammy made a disgusted face. "I was, ah, hoping we could take a month to build a really good entry. I just wanted to case the scene this weekend."
That sounded much better to Jennifer. As someone who was privy to Cameron's binge engineering...bingeneering?...bursts, Jennifer was happy to hear his actual plans were more practically spaced out. A family outing, though, could be fun.
"Let's do it," Jennifer said.

* * * *

Jennifer would never claim to be a roboticist. She had little interest
in the tedious work required to machine parts, assemble those parts, then program them to all work in perfect synchronization. She did however
consider herself something of an expert in the other aspects of the field, though.
Professionally speaking, she did a good bit of research on paratech
robots and their place in the history of super-hero history. As Lady Lawful, she spent a good many nights fighting those same robots made by villains to fight heroes. In fact, some of them were Cameron's own, or based on
technology of his that had gotten into the "wild" so to speak. On a more personal level, she spent a good deal of time watching Cameron work on his robots and later Cammy program Roberta for school events, which she felt gave her a pretty good range of understanding.
She was pretty sure if she ever got tired of the museum, she could get a pretty nice job in the industry doing something. Maybe in sales, she
decided. She felt sure her bonafides made her an ideal candidate to sell robots to customers.
All of this was to say, she felt very qualified to gauge the technical level of the Crabbies' entrees at the tournament, and she wasn't impressed.
She finally understood why her two Cams kept calling them remote controlled cars. Every team was testing their robots with handheld controls. It was a far cry from what Cameron's Prototype could do way back in the nineties, and even a bit less impressive than Roberta, who didn't need any help navigating
a maze.
If Cameron was disappointed by that fact, he didn't show it. He was soaking in the scene, pointing out types of robots, past winners, and more.
"Is this your first time to come to one of these?" Jennifer asked.
Cameron nodded between pointing out different contenders to Cammy. "Then how do you know all this?"
"I've been doing my, uh, homework," he answered.
"He joined their group online," Cammy explained. "I had to show him how social media works."
"I want to hear that story sometime," Jennifer said to Cammy with a conspiratorial wink. Cammy returned the wink. Cameron didn't reply, he was already looking at another contender.
As they continued through the set up area, where teams were prepping
their robots for the battles, Jennifer noticed a pattern. Cameron would walk up to look at a robot, one or a pair of scruffy looking guys...engineers, she knew they were engineers of some sort...would point at Cameron, and then they would walk over to another pair and point. She managed to keep a straight
face when it happened, but she wanted to laugh.
Cammy noticed it too, because after the fourth time, she tugged on Jennifer's sleeve and pointed at the gawkers. "Mom, why do those dudes keep looking at Dad?" Cammy asked. "It's not the first time."
"Kiddo," Jennifer said with a grin, "there's something you should know about your dad, but don't you dare tell him I said this." Cammy pantomimed zipping her lips. "In this den of crabs, your dad is a shark."
Cammy looked confused. "What? What does that mean?"
Jennifer thought for a second. "You know who Lady Lawful and EMerald are?" Cammy still looked confused, but she nodded. "Right, but you're
wearing a Brightsword T-shirt. Why?"
Then she got it.
"You mean dad's famous?" Cammy asked.
"Not like Brightsword, not to the whole world," Jennifer said,
stretching the truth a little, "but to people who build robots and watch
robot battles, he's kind of a big deal." Jennifer caught sight of another
pack of geeks in SmitherTech shirts pointing to Cameron, who was talking to
one of the robot builders. "Your dad's been gone a while, now he's back, and you know how people love to gossip."
"Why is dad famous, but not you?" Cammy asked.
Jennifer wrapped her arm around Cammy, and pretended to kiss the top of her head. When she was close enough to whisper, she said, "I wore a mask." Cammy giggled as Jennifer continued in a regular volume. "It was before your time, but Cameron was one of the top roboticists in the world. There were
some better, sure, but they had paratech giving them a boost."
"Not Dad?" Cammy asked.
Jennifer shook her head. "At least not where it counts," she explained. "He may incorporate some Collapsinum parts or ask someone who can speed up computers to help him along, but the end product is generally Anchor-proof."
"What's Anchor-proof?" Cameron asked as he rejoined Jennifer and Cammy, apparently finished with his inspection of the rival robot.
"Your robots," Cammy answered, "that's what mom said."
Jennifer shrugged. Cameron nodded. "You never want your tech to give
out without warning," Cameron explained. "It's, ah, not as flashy, but
there's a lot to be said about reliability." He scratched the back of his head. "Most people don't realize the first step to winning is not losing."

* * * *

Division of labor was the hardest part of the robot building project. Cameron was sure he could put together what they needed to win by himself within the given time frame. He knew he could. He did it a dozen times over in his cell over the years. Building up a robot in his imagination from what Hank could get him, changing up the requirements for new challenges with each build, was one of the mental exercises that kept him from breaking apart over the years.
Another fantasy was building that robot with Cammy. In hindsight he realized his fantasy was vastly different from reality. During those years what he knew of Cammy was scant. His mental simulacrum was based on updates from Jennifer, with his own imagination left to fill in the gaps.
Simulacrum Cammy possessed all of Cameron's skills, was completely subservient to his will, and wasn't real. Real Cammy, as bright as she was...and she was extremely bright...had a lot to learn about engineering. Cameron knew in time the real Cammy could help him build the robot his
fantasy Cammy helped him build, but for now he had to adjust his plans to
match reality.
This was on his mind as he heard the front burst door open, then slam shut, and finally the sounds of Cammy's footfalls running up the stairs.
They'd agreed to start work on the robot as soon as she was finished with homework. That gave him an hour, he estimated, to finish working out what
they needed to do.

* * * *

Cammy checked her worksheet one last time. All the math problems were done, and she even used scratch paper to show her work, which took longer
than the actual real work. She was done with homework. Time to do important work.
If her mom ever heard her express that homework wasn't important, Cammy knew she'd get a talk. It wasn't that she didn't think schoolwork was important...though, if they were letting her skip grades, how important could it be...but homework felt like such a waste of time sometimes. Especially
the parts like "show your work" in math.
Oh, she knew what Mr. Alvarez and Mrs. Duncan told her. Showing your
work let them see that you understood the work, and if you got a problem
wrong they could see where you had trouble. The problems with those reasons, Cammy thought, was that she always got the problems right, so that meant she did understand and there was no need to see where she went wrong.
This was why she liked making robots and building brick towers. The end result was the work. No extra steps to show she understood how to do what
she did, it was self-evident.
Cammy was down the stairs and turning into the kitchen as she reached
this conclusion. She wasn't fully transitioned out of internal reflection
mode when she saw Cameron sitting at the kitchen table. She expected him to
be hiding out in the garage, where she was going to surprise him. So much
for that.
"Dad!" she involuntarily yelped. She sounded more surprised than she actually was.
He was writing in a notebook. Cammy stepped closer and took a seat at
the table. His handwriting wasn't the best.... "Definitely a doctor," Cammy made a joke to herself...but she could make out enough to know he was writing
a list. No, not a list, but one of those things from the robotics club
manual: a flowchart.
"Are you writing a program?" Cammy asked.
Cameron looked up from his notebook, and said, "No. What makes you, ah, think that?"
Cammy pointed at the notebook. "That's a flowchart, right? Yeah,
there's your start and your branches. This is for making a program."
Cameron smiled slightly. "Everything can be a program," he told Cammy, "you just have to identify all the steps." He turned the notebook so she
could see everything clearly. "These are just the steps we need to follow to build our robot."
Cammy's face soured. "Is it like 'show your work' at school?"
Cameron shook his head. "No," he said with bitterness in his voice, "I wouldn't waste time like that, but we do need a way to coordinate since we'll be working on separate parts of the project."
"I thought we were going to work on it together," Cammy sounded disappointed.
"Indeed," Cameron replied. He pointed to a box at the top of the page entitled priorities that held three items: (1) Get revenge on Bradley, (2) Build robot to win, (3) Father/daughter time. "I made this flowchart based
on those priorities, so it parallelizes multiple tasks to meet the shortest deadline.
"If you, ah, think my priorities are out of order, I can rework the
plan," Cameron explained.
Cammy studied the chart. She eventually realized the parallelograms
were the parts where tasks got broken up. She also realized there were more tasks in a single flow than in parallel, which she assumed meant they
couldn't be broken up. "No," she finally answered, "this looks good.
There's a bunch of stuff we do together."
She pointed to the top of the chart. "Like this," she read, "'Design Robot.' Is that what we're doing now?"
"We can start that now," Cameron said. He flipped the page of his notebook, then another, and another...the flowchart was longer than Cammy realized...until he reached a blank page. Cameron set the notebook in front
of Cammy and handed her his pencil. "Would you care to be our draftsman?"
Cammy grabbed the pencil. "Oh yeah!" she said with a bright smile.
After a second she realized she didn't know what to draw. "So, uh, what is
our robot going to look like?"
"That depends on what we want it to do," Cameron replied.
Cammy rolled her eyes jovially, "Win obviously!"

* * * *

Hearing the bell to Hank's Hardware ring always put Cameron at ease. It wasn't as good as hearing Jenny call him "Deedee", but it was close in his
list of comforting sounds. He didn't think Cammy even registered the
tinkling as she made a beeline for the shopping baskets Hank kept stacked by the entrance.
"You have the list?" Cameron asked. Cammy slowed up long enough to show him her phone, which had a picture of the list they wrote up at home in the project notebook. "Okay. Come get me if you need anything." Then she was off.
Hank chuckled from his perch behind the counter. "Have you tried giving her less sugar?" he asked.
Cameron smiled absently. "We've tried, but she takes after me...."
Hank's belly laugh filled the store. "Then it's hopeless," Hank said, "because I know for a fact you can get anything you set your mind on." He reached under the counter and pulled out a cardboard box. "Speaking of
which, those project boards you wanted."
Cameron accepted the box, and tucked it under one arm. "Put it on, uh,
my tab?" Cameron asked, trying his best to keep up the friendly banter. Hank was much better at it, but it was fun trying to maintain the conversation.
"I take it you're cooking up something with little Cammy there," Hank said. He nodded toward the back of the store where Cammy was buzzing from aisle to aisle picking up supplies. She had the basket in the crook of her left elbow, her phone in that hand, and every so often her right would pick something from the shelves.
"We signed up for the C.R.A.B. Tournament, and we're, ah, building a robot," Cameron shrugged. "Nothing like the old days, but it'll give me a chance to see what's changed."
"Doesn't hurt having a lab assistant to spend time with, eh?" Hank
asked.
Cameron rubbed the back of his neck with the hand that wasn't holding
his package. He peeked to the back of the store where Cammy had gone silent. Certain that she couldn't hear him, and not sure why he was worried she
would, Cameron said, "It's the best thing in the world."
Hank nodded knowingly.
They spoke a few more sentences, but Cammy's silence started to unnerve Cameron. He excused himself to find her. He went all the way to the back of the store, in a small area where Hank kept a few non-supplies related wares.
It held sundry items: sunglasses, a few romance novels, and a small selection of toys to distract people who came to the store without a specific interest
in tools or the children of more focused shoppers.
Cammy was crouched on the floor looking at one of the toys. Cameron recognized the brand from several of Cammy's non-plushie purchases. It was a kit that used modular bricks to build various toys. This one was a guard
tower with a pair of knights.
She turned the box over and over, studying the pictures like they held
the secrets of the universe. She was so engrossed in the box, Cameron stood watching her for a full minute before she noticed him.
"Oh!" she let out a small, startled cry.
"What's that?" Cameron asked. He nodded at the box, and Cammy stood up
to show it to him. She left the basket on the ground.
"It's an old set," she explained. "They stopped making this three years ago, and you have to pay a lot to get it now." She looked at the box again, turning it over in her hands, as if trying to decide what to say next.
"We can, uh, get it," Cameron said.
Cammy's eyes lit up. "Really?" she cheered. She reached around and hugged Cameron's waist. "Thank you, Dad," she said. "I know just where to
put it in Cammylot," she said. "You know where I've been working on the Wing-A-Long sanctuary? Well...."

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