Slave Life Online Page 18

  “Ty, you need to clean that panel again.” he snatched the panel and rubbed the surface, angrily not watching Honey and Kier as he heard Honey’s laugh. (Linked Comment)

  There were three kite barrages in all. The village was saving some of the revenue from exporting the juice to set up another barrage near the entrance of the valley. The hills there were the lowest, so that was the last good site that remained. After that, they would need to have some more territory.

  The morning sun made the valley look magical, even to Joel’s eyes. He heard Honey’s sparkling laugh and he looked up at the sound. He knew her voice instantly. Probably from any distance. Kier was working close to her. She and Kier exchanged a look. Joel felt sick.

  He had twenty-eight panels left to replace. Beside him, Ty was jiggling a panel to refit it. He lost his grip and it skittered away over the edge of the kite. Joel called to Malik to let him know about the loose panel. Then he took some time to show Ty again how to fix them safely and securely. Thinking he ought to have got it by now.

  Ty was still clumsy and after another attempt, Joel just said, “Give them to me, Ty.”

  He was annoyed with himself for being impatient with the kid.

  Lost and broken panels cut into the village’s income, though. The village was having a hard enough time getting by with only their three barrages of kites. There was enough juice for the village, but they needed more for revenue.

  Every time Joel looked over to Honey, Kier seemed to be closer. Their heads bent nearer together. And he didn’t see her looking up for him.

  Soon everyone was climbing down from the number one kite. Hannah ran around the lot with her arms out, singing and shouting. Honey’s mom was still talking to Taylor. Joel had four more tiles to replace. The kite was very soft now. It had been under-inflated when they first brought it down. After having everyone climb over it, it sagged.

  The whole wide wing tipped to one side. Voices were raised below, but Joel couldn’t see what had happened. Malik called and he saw the call on his headset. His juice was almost completely out, though. The kite tipped and lurched. Joel hear Malik say, ‘Hannah’ in his headset and the signal cut.

  At the same time, Honey’s mom shouted Hannah’s name, and the inflatable kite was ascending. He saw the fabric tugging by the nearest ladder. People below were shouting. Some screamed. Honey’s mom’s voice was in there. Joel was already down to the edge of the kite, almost as far as his rope would go.

  The wing lurched and dipped. Joel thought he knew what had happened, but he couldn’t believe it. As he gained altitude, it was starting to be a long way to the ground. Joel peered over. As the shadow of the kite shrank on the ground, Hannah’s face was red and screwed up.

  She swung, clinging to the bottom rung of the ladder. She would never have the strength to pull herself up. He would have to climb down the ladder to get her. He unhooked his belt from the rope.

  He hoped Malik and the others were getting the bot to help them steer the kite back down, but now, immediately, he had to get a hold of Hannah. He just hoped that his weight and hers together wouldn’t tip the limp kite too far over.

  If it did, the kite would plunge straight down the side of the valley. With himself and Hannah. There was no other way but to go after her as fast as he could and hope. As he climbed down, he saw that Hannah was distracted by the screams and shouts from below.

  The shouts distracted her and she was panicked already. He wished he could make them all stop. All he could to was to shout to Hannah as he climbed.

  “Look up, Hannah. Keep your eyes on me.” Loud, firm and as friendly as he could make it, he called down, “Just hold on tight. Don’t worry about the silly people on the ground,” He kept smiling into her eyes and kept up the babble as he climbed. “We’re going to have a nice ride and it’s going to be fun.”

  He opened his eyes wide as he nodded. Hannah grinned as she nodded back. “Just hang on, I’m coming down to you now,” The inflatable was rising more slowly. He was glad that Hannah kept her eyes on him. The ground below swung sickeningly and the drop was dizzying.

  The balloon jerked and Joel almost panicked. But it stopped rising as he clung on. Firmly and as fast as he dared, he went hand over hand to the next to the last rung of the ladder. His shoulders felt like they were going to rip apart.

  “Hannah, Are you okay holding on? Just for another minute?” She smiled, but her eyes were becoming nervous as she nodded. Her little fingers must be hurting like hell, he thought. He smiled back, like this was the best fun they could ever have. “Keep a tight grip, okay?”

  The ladder swayed. He held a rung tight with one hand as he swung down and grabbed Hanna’s waist. “Now, I’ve got you.” He smiled. “You put your arms around me and hold tight onto my belt.”

  Her little hands grabbed his waist. She held him so hard, he thought her fingers would go through his flesh. When he was certain her grip was steady, he said, “That’s good. Hold me tight. I’m going to let go of you now.”

  “NO!” her fingers dug into his waist.

  “It’s okay, Hannah. You hold on to me now.” He pulled her and himself up the first few rungs with just his hands, keeping Hannah between himself and the ladder. Finally he was able to get a footing.

  He climbed. The kite sagged toward him. At the same time it began to descend. But slowly. Joel hoped he could get to the top of the ladder. Then he would be able to grab his rope and fix them safely with it. He went slowly, hand over hand up the swaying ladder. When he got all the way to the top, of course, his rope was blowing in the wind like a ribbon at a summer fayre.

  From below, Honey’s mom yelled Hannah’s name in a rage.

  Hannah squealed and wriggled and stretched her arms out and cried at the sound. Joel kept his voice as sweet as he could. “Keep your eyes on me, Hannah. We can do this together.”

  Joel kept Hannah gripped tight to him. Malik and the others finally got to the kite under control and winched it down to the ground. When the kite was tethered and he clambered down, Honey’s mom seized the girl and pulled her from him. Hannah’s finger were still dug into his flesh.

  “What the fuck were you doing with my daughter?” she shouted in his face.

  Joel just stood. Speechless. As she bustled away, scowling and shouting at Hannah while she enfolded her to her chest, Malik patted his shoulder. Quietly, with a wry smile he said, “Man lesson of the day, son. No good deed ever goes unpunished.”

  ~~

  Malik and Taylor went back to winching and directing the teams. Those two kites were on their way back up for another four weeks. A USCom truck would be up the next day to milk the cells..

  Joel sat away from the others to look over his board. There didn’t seem to be anything worse than some scratches. He hated to see more scuff on the finish. But he wouldn’t know how it was for sure until he got it charged up.

  Sat by the entrance to the lot, he looked out across the valley. He couldn’t see any sign of the USSecur operation. Maybe they’d already got what they came for. Found it and gone. Some chance, he thought. If they had, somebody would have seen them leave and they would have said so.

  It may have just been coincidence that they arrived exactly at the time that almost the whole population of the village was making its way up the hill to the barrage.

  A cool hand rested softly on his shoulder. “Sorry I was late.” Honey’s voice was soft and bright.

  He turned his face up. “It’s okay,” he said.

  Her mom didn‘t look at him or her as she whirled by. She grabbed Honeys wrist and yanked her away. Still looking back to him, Honey made letters in the air with her finger. ‘H A.’ She meant the place on the subnet where she liked to hang.

  She called it H A or Hopes’ He never knew what the ‘A’ was supposed to be for. For Joel’s taste it always seemed too fringe and too counter-culture. All the odd protocols to get there, every time he visited it the location had slightly altered.

  All the rituals.
It wasn’t enough for them to use passphrases. They had a whole creed and they’d make you recite parts of it, like a call and response, before you could even get in.

  He thought that was all too much. They took all of the anonymity a step too far, too. It seemed like the kind of place where conspiracy theories were born and mad rumors got started.

  Honey’s mom threw a glower over her shoulder back at Joel. Then she turned and smiled to Kier. As she dragged Honey with one hand and Hannah with the other, she tipped her head to Kier to encourage him to follow. Kier grinned and looked at Joel as he ran to join Honey, Hannah and her mom.

  Before they disappeared out of sight, Hannah screwed herself around to give him a big smile and a wave.

  Furthest from the entry to the valley, the South End was the village’s dark side. Dimly lit bars, clusters of stacked trucks, trailers, and containers, inhabited vehicles, industrial sheds and shacks. This was where people would go, often in secret, looking for all the things they weren’t supposed to have.

  Off grid comms, cheap booze, lax and unlicensed entertainment, even some unCert pharmaceuticals, code and kit were all on sale for whoever knew who or how to ask. Anyone looking for shady pleasures found their way to the South End. The most affordable accommodation tended to be found mainly in the South End.

  Joel lived in a trailer on top of a container with the woman he called his mom. Theirs was one of the few homes with internal ladders. That was their ‘step up.’ Mom had the container. She always said she wanted Joel to have the upstairs space because it had air and light.

  “But you’re always behind a visor in a virtu. You have the blinds shut most of the time anyway.” Which was kind of true.

  It was nice of Mom to let Joel have the space in the trailer and he was grateful to her. Mainly for the elevation. It was practically the highest up space in their Edge. Being so near to the hillside, he got the one of the strongest comm signals in the whole valley floor.

  ~~

  Joel still had the glove he’d uprated for Dale Cartwright with the Neuromesh, and the pyrotechnic spinners. He’d forgotten about giving them to him. The day got so messed up, he didn’t even notice whether Dale was at the hoist or not.

  Before he made his virtual way to H A, Honey’s virtual kingdom of the terminally weird, Joel calibrated his jacket and headband for the Ghost Ops scenario of Vulcan’s Finale. He had a saved level with an armored sandbuggy and a screaming village of Wahaab fighters. He wanted to try the run with shudder, shake and temperature control.

  The frame had particles of a shatter grenade frozen and the sandbuggy hung with its fat tires in mid-air. Joel had the jacket coded for rumble and shock responses. He’d co-ordinated the temperature controls to make a synthesis of heat when the player passed by fire as well as cold and vibration for a rush of wind outside the vehicle.

  It all looked good. Now he’d see if Honey was at her geeky hangout. If he could even find it.

  ~~

  Political slogans greeted him.

  Resist

  Don’t believe the hike

  The Reset was a heist

  He reached the entrance sign. Hopes.’ There was a space underneath the word, like there was more to come or it wasn’t finished. A clown’s face appeared and asked him,

  “And who might you be, lost and alone, out of your way here?” Joel took a slow breath as he gave it his throwaway username and address. Then a password. Then the clown said, “Things can change.”

  The ritual annoyed him but he gritted his teeth to say, “It doesn’t have to be this way.”

  ~~

  “Aww.” Honey was waiting, just inside and ready for him. Her avatar was a nineteen-eighties pop star in a ninja costume, but with a blue belt and yellow edges on the jacket. “You gave the proper creed response. Well done.”

  “Be the change,” he parroted another part of the creed. He wore his usual avatar, the vintage red and black costume of a snarky superhero.

  “Be the change,” she grinned as she said it back. Or at least her avatar did. “Joel, you’d be for it. You’d be a part of it if you only gave it a chance.”

  When he didn’t say anything she said, “I was sorry we were late and it meant we couldn’t work together this morning.”

  “Your mom has ESP about where I’m going to be. What is it about her? She’s happy enough for Kier to be hanging around you.”

  “I think she understands Kier. She says that you’re more of an unknown quantity.”

  “Really? Is that it?” He had never asked her about it before but it was starting to get to him. “She acted like I was to blame for Hannah dangling on that ladder.”

  “She went up there because she wanted to see you.”

  “Hannah did? You’re kidding me.”

  “She idolizes you. You know that.”

  “I don’t.” He blinked. “Does she?”

  “Joel.”

  “Okay, okay. I believe you.” He said it, but he still had no idea if it was true. “Still doesn’t explain why your mom acts like I’m the Gabriel’s evil gimp.”

  “His what?”

  “You know, like Doctor Frankenstein’s dwarf, Igor or something. Some evil thing that goes around evilling everywhere.”

  Her cheek dimpled. “I thought you didn’t believe in The Gabriel.”

  “I thought nobody really believed in him. Do they?”

  And she gave him her breezy, innocent look. “I don’t know.”

  “Really?”

  “No, I really mean ‘I don’t know.’ I have no idea about any of it.”

  “Oh. Okay. Well, I think your mom feels like she should have kept a closer eye on Hannah. That’s why she wants to put the blame onto me. I still can’t believe that she wants to blame the guy who risked his life for her, though.”

  “I saw what you did, Joel.”

  “Yeah,” he tried to walk it back, “It wasn’t that big of a thing.” He shrugged, “I was just surprised to get a slap in the face for it. That was all. Really.”

  “Yeah.” She smiled. “Have you seen the drones?”

  “Not since this morning.”

  “They’ve been all over the East Edge.”

  That was where Kier lived. A lot of other people lived there, too. Probably half the people in their year at school were from the East Edge.

  ~~

  Cool morning air fanned Joel’s face and his chest on the road to school. Honey’s voice was high in his headset mix as he leaned to sweep the air board around the tight downhill bend in the road. Shadows of the kite collectors high above striped the side of the hill.

  The board glided smooth and fast as he swayed through the turns. In his pack was Drake Cartwright’s high end glove and his throwing spinners. Joel lined the glove with nuromesh for him. That was juice, too, even though Drake had tried to chisel him on the price.

  With all the juice that Drake had, trying to penny pinch for high-end kit, Joel didn’t see how the kid could hold his head up. Probably just because there’s nothing to weigh it down, he thought, leaning in the turn toward the highway, where the road flattened out. Joel should definitely not have the explosive spinners.

  Now he was going to have to walk into school with them. His backpack had anti-surveillance lining but so far, nobody knew that. Which was kind of the point of stealth tech. When he gave the spinners to Dale, he’d know that Joel got them into school undetected.