Zoe looked at the thing that the man was holding. "What is it?" she asked, yawning.
"Well, I'm glad you asked. It's a family manipulator."
"A what?" Zoe was still half-asleep. Maybe she heard the man wrong.
"A family manipulator," the man repeated.
Nope, she heard right. But what the hell was that?
"You're probably wondering what that is," the man said.
"Actually ..."
"Let me explain," the man said, cutting her off. "With this device, you can create your own perfect family. I'm sure there are people that you know that would make the perfect mother, the perfect sister, and so forth. With this device, you can make them members of your family."
"That's ridiculous. You can't do something like that with ... with a machine," Zoe said.
"Oh, but you can. With this machine." He paused, seeing that she still didn't believe him. "Humor me. Who would make the best members of your perfect family?"
"Well, I guess it would be cool if my friends Athena and Zelda were my sisters and maybe Agatha Pierce was my mother." Agatha was the owner of the Goth club The Spiked Pit, a frequent hangout of Zoe and her friends.
The man punched a bunch of buttons on the machine as Zoe talked, then when she was done, he pulled a lever on the side of the device.
Smiling, he said "Welcome to your new family."
"Huh?" Zoe asked. There was a bright flash of light, then the man was gone. "Weird," she muttered, then closed the door and headed back to the bathroom. When she was done, she went back to bed, putting the strange man and his device behind her. She just wanted some sleep.
