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There is an old Chinese proverb that is not too different to the one familiar in English: You can't teach a dog to stop eating crap.

But perhaps, like good wine, it is an acquired taste, a tendency that grows into a habit. At least that's what I tried to believe when I first thought about disobeying the law in 2205, just a few months before my fated twenty-fifth birthday.

I sat at my desk, staring at the TASK REQUIREMENT DUE notice before me, sent just thirty seconds ago from the creation agency. Just glancing at it made me feel sick, made my head spin into orbit.

Mother said this was the most important task I would ever complete. She said the creation agency would bring me true happiness and love, the kind it had brought her. Me, I just wanted to get the partner and move out of her house, finally become a legal adult and feel free.

But as I sat there, monitoring the computer as it answered questions about my personality, my habits, my hopes and dreams, I could feel only emptiness. Why? Because it scared me to know that this computer's personality profiling system, displaying lines of words on the holographic screen, knew more about me than I did.

I let out a deep sigh and unplugged the data-chip from my head, cutting the connection from my brain to the computer. Setting the chip onto my desk, I looked out the window.

In the darkness of the night, I could see the artificial Moon, big and bright. The real one trailed not far behind like a bothersome little brother. And with our house being so high on the hillside, I could see the tops of all the other buildings, commercial and residential, flat and white.

I felt a little smile spread over my face, and I stuck my nose up against the window, looking this way and that. The frost, like tears on the glass, did little to cool my flesh, lusty for the world outside, for the silent highs of the night.

There was no one in the streets. Then again, at three in the morning, why would there be?

Soon my breath fogged up the window, curtaining my eyes in a smoky grey. I plopped back into my seat, disgruntled, and plugged the data-chip back into my head. Immediately, the computer detected the data-chip in use and linked up with the information inside, continuing to assimilate my psyche.

What grabbed my attention again was the little blue blur, plus the thump against the window. My eyes shot up, stared back out the window, but I saw nothing.

"Charlie!" The noise from outside was so loud that it bled through the window, making me jump. I recognised that voice.

After watching my door for a few seconds to see if my mother was coming toward my room, I eased out of my chair and glanced down at the street below. This time I saw a big group of people, running, shouting, laughing.

But my eyes were fastened on the girl putting her other blue shoe on.

Grace.

I grabbed my remote control and opened the window, stuck my head out. Grace looked up at me, her eyes sparkling under the judgmental light of the moon. "Hey, loser," she said, flashing me a smile. "You coming or what?"