As Lizzie was dragging the heavy trash bag across the garage floor, the motor in the ceiling clicked on. With a whirr, the door in front of her began to roll open. She quickly tossed the garbage bag into the bin, while a pair of headlights lit up the interior and her mom's SUV pulled in. Lizzie froze in a panic as her mom got out, carrying two grocery bags.
"Hi sweetie! I see you decided to take the trash out on your own. Good job! There's another grocery bag in the back, be a dear and bring it in with you, ok?"
"Uh... w... ww..." Lizzie tried to tell her mom to wait but her panic made it hard to get the words out. The woman went inside without a second thought. Oh no! She couldn't let Mom see her brother and his best friend half dressed in her bedroom! She dashed inside to try and stop her, but her mom was already busy putting away the groceries. And she had help. Jason and Eric were right there beside her, dressed identically in her mom's work clothes: a red blouse, black pencil skirt, and sheer black stockings. They even all had matching silver hoop earrings!
Jason turned to her. "Lizzie, honey, did you listen to me? I said to get the last grocery bag out of the car!"
Eric finished his thought: "You don't want the ice cream to melt, do you?"
Lizzie's eyes were wide as saucers, but she didn't know what else to do but go out and grab the groceries. If her mom wasn't even reacting to what was going on, there was no way she was going to convince her anything was wrong! On the way back out, she noticed three separate pairs of black pumps beside the door - it was as if Eric and Jason had just returned from her mom's grocery trip as well, even though they'd been at the house the whole time!
Lizzie wordlessly hefted the grocery bag onto the counter, then started to hurry out of the kitchen - she had to get back to her room and hope to get the program under control! But her mother (the real one) tried to stop her.
"Hold on, missie," she said, "Can you help me put all this stuff away?"
"Sorry mom, I uh... have a lot of homework to do."
"Wow, you're never this eager to do homework. Everything ok?" Jason said with a laugh.
"Yeah... just er... a big project. Yeah!"
"Well I'm glad you've decided to buckle down and focus on your schoolwork," Eric said. "I hope that means we'll see an improvement on your next report card!"
Lizzie nodded, just trying to get out of there, and ran back up to her room to check the Master PC.
REALITY BUFFER HOLDING: 60%
FURTHER EDITING LOCKED UNTIL BUFFER REACHES 100%
TO RESTORE BUFFER, REDUCE SUBJECTS' CONTACT WITH OTHER SENTIENT BEINGS
She had to read it a couple of times to figure out what it was saying - she remembered "sentient" from a book she was reading. The buffer was lower, too. Was that because her mom came home? Was the buffer not going to go back up if Jason and Eric were around other people? There had to be something she could do! Just then came the sound of three hands knocking on her door at the same time.
Eric spoke first, "Sweetheart, don't forget your father and I are going out tonight for our anniversary!"
Her mom continued the thought: "There's cash on the counter for delivery, whatever you want to order!"
Lizzie nearly panicked. Anniversary? Her parents had a date night?? There was no way she could let Eric and Jason leave the house like this - and what would that do to the reality buffer? She had to find a way to stop them, or fix them! But she realized she didn't have much time as she heard a second car pulling into the garage - Dad was home!
