It's a big day for Mama Clematis too. After all, her little darlings are going to get access to the whole of the archive, and with it access to their life-float accounts, which have been accumulating funds without being spent since they were born. To say that little kids tend to get up to interesting things when you give them access to their accumulated UBI savings is an understatement.

Clematis is worried that her poor darlings will do something rather unwise, but she's done her best to be there when they had questions before, and she's going to try and be there for them through this too. It's their money, and for all that she wants to be able to tell them to take good care of it it's theirs to spend. 

On the other hand, she frankly can't be more excited to see what the little ones get up to, since she remembers the thrill of getting access to her accounts when she was small too! Oh, the spending spree she went on...

She suppresses a smile, and lays out the pair of clam-shells she's gotten on the table. Each one is a book-sized and slightly chunky device of hardened plastic that folds on a hinge, concealing two inner screens, one touch, one a simple display. There are also some hand controls to either side - a d-pad, two confirmation buttons, and a left and right shoulder button. They're both a soft rose-gold color. 

"Morning!", Clematis says in the best bright cheery mom voice. "Nice to see you down bright and early, Audrey. And where's Mae?" 

Mae tramples excitedly down the stairs after Audrey, giggling.

"I'm here!"

She's so excited this morning! She's played a bit with her moms' clamshells, but this one is going to be hers! She's going to use it to listen to so many books! Being six is going to be so great!

She knows Audrey's been looking forward to this a bunch, too: her happy face this morning was so cute! As much as she's looking forward to this, she's just as excited to be around her sister as she experiences it too—Audrey's happiness and excitement are infectious!

When she gets to the bottom of the stairs, she immediately runs over to give Clematis a big hug before climbing up into her chair.

"Aw, there's my little treasure!" Clematis scoops Mae up, hugs her, then sets her down with a little oof of effort and lets her run back to her chair. 

"Alright, Mae, Audrey, you're going to be starting your clamshells today. You'll be registering with the Archive, too, which is a very important thing to get right so Mama will check your work and make sure you get all the words and numbers right. You remember the cards I showed you last month with your archive numbers?" She lays them out on the table where the girls can see them. "The clamshells will ask for your archive number, name, and date of birth when you open them for the first time. We're going to do the setup steps together, and then you can explore the archive and see what there is to see!"

Audrey takes a clamshell and boots it with its power switch (she remembers where it is from playing games on mama's earlier), then looks at the start-up screen and sounds out the words. 

"Ar- archee- Archeyevee - archive! And the second word is number. Archive number."

She slides over one of the cards, checks that it has her name on it (that much she can recognize by sight) and starts carefully tapping it in digit by digit like a good diligent girl. 

Tapping on the little numbers with the little stylus is still a little tricky for her, but after a couple tries she manages to get the number in. 

"Mama, is this right?"

"Looks okay to me! Tap enter!" 

(Clematis whisks the archive number card away before Audrey can misplace it.)

"Okay, now it says... my name..." 

Clematis takes a moment away from Audrey to check in on Mae. "How are you doing, sweetie?"

Mae has cleverly bypassed the task of actually reading the text by looking at Audrey's screen to see which boxes she's typing in! This has saved her almost no time, but it makes her feel smart, and that's its own reward.

She's just finished entering her number, and is moving on to her name.

Mae looks up as Clematis comes to check on her.

"Good, I think! Did I get my number right?"

She lifts her clamshell to show her screen.

Clematis checks it over and nods. "It looks like you did, sweetie. I'll just store your card again so you won't lose it for now. The little arrow on the right side of the keyboard will bring you to the next thing to enter."

Oh! Mae presses the arrow, and sure enough, it automatically brings up the next text-box. Computers are fun!

She happily taps her stylus away on the keys to enter her full name, only occasionally messing up and having to press the "backspace" key.

Audrey taps out her name happily - it was one of the first things she learned to write - and moves on to the last cell. 

"Bee eye arrr thhh - birth - daaaayte... Um, Fleuruary twenty-third... ummm..."

... That gives her the day and month, but what's with this third box? 

Yeee arrr? Year? 

... it's... she doesn't remember what year it is. Or what year she was born.

She looks sideways at her sister's screen to see if it remembers when she hasn't.

Mae definitely has no idea what year she was born, but that's no challenge to one such as her!

She looks around the screen until she finds today's date in one corner of the screen.

…Jackpot! She quickly enters the year, and…

…Wait, no no that can't be right, she wasn't born this year…

Eventually, after a bit of figuring, subtracts six from the year and puts it in the box!

Audrey blatantly copies her sister's work, and looks to clematis. "Okay, all done!" 

"Alright, you two."

Clematis checks both their informations, corrects a fatfingering of the year Audrey has, and nods. "Okay, just tap the arrow one more time and it should check against the database!"

Yay! That's easy!

Audrey taps the arrow and waits.

Mae pokes the button, then sits there expectantly kicking her feet.

Audrey's screen pulses with with a little heart symbol once, twice, three times, then zooms out in a cutout view to a new screen with a tiled background of pink hearts. 

A slightly artificial feminine voice begins to speak from both devices at once, in a bright but slightly unsettling monotone. 

"Welcome to the Archive, young heroines! We can see that Mae and Audrey are connected now, as well as their advisor and perhaps saboteur, Clematis. Please be advised that the network is watching and listening and any attempt to prevent the oaths of civilization to our young heroines from being fulfilled may have consequences."

Clematis shivers slightly. It's true that trying to suppress or subvert connection to a child's UBI account is fraud at best and child abuse at worst, but she always finds it unsettling when the Network informs her that this is something important enough for Civilization to keep records of. It's not usual that she goes through her days being recorded - but, well. That's the same kind of oath between the Network and her. 

"I have no desire to interfere," Clematis says, loud enough for the microphones to pick up. 

"We will see about that."

Audrey and Mae's screens fill with an options menu, reading:

ARCHIVE ACCESS

LIFE-FLOAT ACCOUNT

CALL AN OATHBOUND ADVISOR

DEVICE STORAGE

"Please direct your attention to your screens, young heroines. Your duties and rights as accessors of the Archive and members of Civilization are beginning to flower."