"That sounds way too easy to be it." Bill's parents were celebrating their twentieth wedding anniversary this week so he was coming on the trip with my family. We had been arguing for a while now.

"Well, that's the way it is. When I get back, I have to go in for an MRI to check and make sure that the tumor is behaving as planned."

"Ok, but the moment the upload is done tonight, I'm gonna tear through the programming for this thing, because I don't believe it. That and I want to see what I can do with it."

"What do you mean by that?" I don't even know why I ask. I should expect this kind of stuff from him by now. Knowing him, he probably would have thought of this kind of thing in a year.

"I just want to see how it works and see if I can't do anything to it."

"Don't toy with it too much; you might actually do something useful."

"Oh, you're funny." Bill got up and grabbed a Dr. Pepper out of the cooler and picked up one of the Playstation controllers. The PS5 powered up automatically. Sony has the power to create the best gaming system ever with some of the best games to go along with it and a semi-translucent rollout screen for easy play on the go, but lack the creativity to diverge from the numbering of their systems. "Now own up and learn how to get your ass kicked as you watch me roar into first place."

"Maybe he can lose later Bill, because we're here. Looks like the Green's beat us here, but not by much, looks like they just started unpacking. Our turn. You boys can handle unpacking everything besides the tent. I'll handle that, don't want to frustrate you two with that challenge." I could see the smirk in the rearview mirror. Bill and I hopped out of the Honda, opened the trunk, and threw the tent to my dad.

"Well, fancy seeing you guys here. Took you long enough." James managed to get that out over the huge duffel that he was carrying.

"You can just shut it, looks like you've been here all of what, five minutes?"

"That's five minutes more than you have Aiden." With that, he resumed unpacking. We started up fast, me with the mindset that I really wanted to get this done so I could go swimming. After about ten minutes of uneventful unpacking, Michelle and her family arrived. Glad to see her, but it also meant it was time to explain my story again, and once more for James, when he remembers I have (soon to be had) cancer. Her mom, Sarah, was first out of the car.

"Hey Aiden, is everyone unpacked already?"

"Just finished, but I can help if you want." Michelle got out of the car and walked over to me.

"Don't go flirting with my mom, she's taken." She whispered playfully in my ear. I just laughed and proceeded to help with the unpacking. "So, spill, what happened at the doctor's office?"

"He gave me this program that maintains and treats your DNA, keeping it the way it was meant to be, and returning what damage is already done. In my case, stop the cancer in its tracks, and then let my body reclaim the tumor. Everyone in the US is getting the program uploaded tonight at nine but I got it early because I guess the doctor wanted to get the tumor fixed as soon as possible."

"Um, ok, where did this come from?"

"Some people had started developing it years ago, but only recently had the means to implement it, least that's what he said." I put the last pieces of the tent down for her parents to take care. "Now, that we are done that, care to join everyone in the lake?"

"I have to dig my suit out of my bag, but yes." I nodded, found my suit in my bag, got in the car and quickly took of the jeans and put the board shorts on. Taking off everything else, I opened the door, ran to the edge of the lake and without losing momentum, jumped onto the big rock slightly to my left and launched myself headfirst into the water. The shock of the cold water chilled every nerve for a couple seconds. I surfaced and saw James and Bill off to my right waving at me.

"TEN!" I just laughed. "That was a world class dive comparable to the cannon ball!"

"And you're some kind of Olympic diver?"

"Well, I can't top yours, that's for sure. My limbs are frozen solid thanks to the water."

Bill sighed. "It isn't that cold; you're just too much of a little girl to realize it." I had to laugh at that one too.

"Hey!"

"I think the water is ra…" Something got a hold on my ankle and dragged me under the water. Luckily I was exhaling when I went under otherwise it could have been a lot worse. My heart began racing as I struggled against my assailant, I was released. I came sputtering up to the surface and turned to see Michelle floating next to me laughing her ass off, as were James and Bill.

"Your face!" James could barely squeeze that through the laughter.

"I'm sorry, but I just couldn't resist. You shouldn't tempt me like that." Michelle finally caught her breath.

"You scared the ever living shit out of me!" I proceeded to dunk her under water and chase Bill to do the same, but they had the sense to start swimming when I dunked Michelle. We all swam for about twenty or so minutes, James talked about a girl he was following, and we made fun of him because we all knew he wasn't going to do anything about it. Then we came in because our parents had finished unpacking and putting up their tents. My dad said it was around eight, so we started a fire the cheap way, with lighter fluid. I'm not complaining, makes a big flame. Nobody felt like actually trying to get the food out and made, so we just ate a dinner consisting of s'mores and chips. Soon afterwards, everyone suddenly got a surprised look on their face.

"There it is." Michelle, Bill and James' Mom managed to say that completely simultaneously. Kinda freaked me out.

"Getting the program?" I looked down and sure enough it was nine, or close enough, my watch wasn't perfect.

"Yup, I'll see you all tomorrow, time to start pouring over this." Bill said and closed his eyes. He was going to be oblivious to the outside world for a good while.

"It's a good thing he is social, otherwise we might lose him to this kind of stuff." It was dark so we never saw it coming. One second we heard the thunder, next it started to rain. Before we could really comprehend what had just happened, it began pouring, and I mean torrential rain. I was slowly sinking as we all made our way into the tents.

"Guess that's it, 'night everyone." My dad yelled from his tent and a chorus of good night's and see everyone tomorrow's followed. The four of us got into one tent, luckily there was enough room. Bill sat in the corner, experimenting away, while the three of us decided to play cards. James and Michelle taught me how to play Palace, and I thought I was going to get owned because I had no idea about the rules, but turns out I won my very first time. My luck went downhill from there. I didn't get one 2, lets you play a different card on top, or 10, clears the pile, for the next two rounds. Michelle sat by and watched as James and I warred against each other in a Rome themed strategy game on the Playstation.

After a while, Michelle told me she was tired, squeezed my hand, and said g'night. She went to her tent while I shut off the Playstation and we got into our sleeping bags. Bill decided to call it a night and fell asleep almost the second he zipped up the side of his sleeping bag.

I didn't go to sleep. I went on the internet to start off with. When I started to get bored, I realized the internet would be more fun with some background music. So I played some of the music stored on the bio-drive that was implanted on either side of my brain. The sounds played directly into my brain so that no actual sound was produced, but my brain thought that it heard music. After about an hour when I was sure everyone was asleep, I quietly unzipped the tent just enough to let me out. When I got to Michelle's tent, she had already unzipped hers. I guess she heard me.

"That took forever, I thought for a while that I wasn't clear enough."

"No, it's just that I wanted to make sure that Bill and James were asleep, their guys, they would have asked questions in the morning." Fooling around while camping was nothing new. We had done it last year too. With the rain in the background, it was great. This time it didn't sound like the bugs were acting as an audience. After an hour two, we said goodnight, for real this time, and I went back to my own tent and took Bill's example, falling asleep even before I decided to zipper my sleeping bag.