"Hello?"
"Umm, hi... is there a Cliff there?"
"Yeah," Corinne said, frowing a little at the female voice. "I'll get him for you. Who's calling?"
"A friend of Frankie."
"Umm, right. Just a sec."
Corinne put the phone down, and headed towards the computer room, where, as always, Binar and Cliff were playing games.
"Cliff? There's some friend of Frankie's on the phone for you," she said.
"Oh, umm okay..." Cliff said in a pained voice, as if he was being interupted at a bad time.
Corinne turned and left the room. She hadn't told him yet. For some reason everytime she had tried to tell Cliff that it was over between them, something always happened to interfere.
Cliff wasn't too far behind her after he had gotten himself to a point in his game where he could take a breather. He picked up the nearest phone.
"Hello?"
"Is this Cliff?"
"Yeah, who's this?"
"Julie. You tried hacking into my game last night and my friend Hunter caught you."
"Oh, so you're Julie."
On the name 'Julie', a vision came to Corinne. Her hands shot to her temples and she fell to the floor. Cliff looked up and frowned.
"Just a second - Rin? You okay?"
"I'm fine, I'm fine. Just a vision," Corinne said, waving a hand at him.
Cliff shot another concerned look at Corinne (which she didn't see, being to focused on the vision), and went back to the phone call.
"Sorry about that," he said.
"So you should be," Julie replied. "Hacking into my game like that is just rude and inconsiderate."
"Ahh, you're just made because you don't have any computer powers."
"If that's anti-human pred-"
"Nah, that's ego-inflating you're hearing," Cliff cut in. "Like your latest update. Pretty cool. There's a little bug with the Pixie's cuteness power though. I thought I might do you a favour and -"
"While I'm glad that you enjoy my game enough to want to fix it, I would rather you didn't make changes behind my back. You wouldn't like it if I did it to you."
"You couldn't do it to me."
"That's not the point, bucko."
"How'd you find me anyway?"
"Hunter told me Binar's name. I remember finding out who was doing the CGI for Frankie's movie and figured it must have been Cliff. That's how. You're obviously aware I'm running his movie website."
"Yeah. That's pretty classy."
"Thank you. But compliments are not going to get you out of hot water, mister."
"Look, Julie -" but before Cliff could finish his sentance, Corinne had snatched the phone from him. "Julie? This is Corinne. I hope you don't mind that I was listening in, but I had a thought... why don't you and Cliff work together? I mean, it's a big game, it would hurt to have some extra help with the programming."
Cliff stared at Corinne, and Julie was silent for a moment.
"Well," Julie said slowly. "My partner keeps talking about getting more hands on deck..."
"Why don't you try Cliff out for a trial?" Corinne went on. "Better yet, try a new game from scratch and see where that goes, that way you don't have people interfering with your baby. If things work out we could look at a more permanent arrangement."
"Rin?" Cliff frowned.
"Well, it's an interesting idea... but we haven't really got the resources at the moment to actually take anyone on - "
"Cliff'll donate his time. He's great with programming but not so much with designing, and I know he's always wanted to program his own game. Think of it as an apology."
"Sounds good to me."
"Great," and Corinne went on to give Julie Cliff's e-mail address. The girls concluded the conversation and hung up. Cliff stared at Corinne.
"What was that all about?" he demanded.
"Our future," Corinne replied. "That premonition before? You... Binar... all of us, we're going to start working with Julie and her partner."
Cliff frowned.
"You sure about that?"
"Have my premonitions ever been wrong?"
"Well - "
"They haven't and you know it. Except maybe when I was very little. But that's not the point. The point is -" Corinne paused as a brief image flashed across her mind, "you're going to get an e-mail very soon, with an idea that Julie's wanted to use for years but had to put it on the back burner. She has some idea of what technokinetics can do, so she's currently mixed between hope and doubt that you'll make something good with it."
Corinne leaned forward.
"Believe me, Cliff. This is going to provide everyone with what they want and need. The partnership we'll form with Julie and hers is going to provide for all five of us."
Cliff looked hesitant, then nodded.
"Okay," he agreed. "Okay."
He kissed her lips softly, then headed back into the computer room. Corinne touched her lips tentatively. It was true, her promontitions had always come true. Even most of her childhood ones when it was still developing came true. Maybe there was still hope for her and Cliff.