Mary Rosenblum - Horizons

Ahni clung to her stomach, retreating into Pause to damp down the biochemical upheaval in her bloodstream.

Your passenger is about to urp, Dane. You clean it up.

“Enough, Miriam.” Dane gave Ahni a sympathetic glance. “We’re almost there. Hang on.”

Like to see you get off the Elevator at sea level and walk, Ahni thought, as they finally docked. She swallowed sourness and released herself clumsily from the hammock as the wall melted open… in different place this time… to reveal another lock much like the one she had just left.

“I’m assuming you can handle whatever security you run into?” Dane clung to the webbing, looking down into her face. “You can get down okay?”

“Yes.” She drew a breath, suddenly reluctant to propel herself into that lock. “I… Taiwan Families have no quarrel with the Pan Malaysia Compact. I’ll be fine. I… Thanks,” she said. “For showing me your world.”

“Thank you for Koi.” He touched her cheek lightly, his eyes dark as a cloudy sky on Earth. “One day… I hope you come back up. I think you’d fit.”

“I’ll try.” And she meant it. She pushed off, suddenly reluctant to leave, sailed through the oval emptiness that had been a wall, too fast, hit the far wall of another cramped lock with the same caterpillar skins of suits hanging on the wall. Grabbed one as she rebounded. “Goodbye,” she said, but the wall had already gone solid. A tiny chlange in pressure told her that the lock had sealed and a green light filled the chamber.

Good to go. She blinked briefly into Pause, summoned the specs for this Elevator, found a route from the service corridor beyond the lock door to the main tourist plaza. Laid her palm against the plate in the lock.

She stifled a sudden pang of regret as the door opened. Straightened her singlesuit. Time to go home and face their father with Xai’s betrayal. Grimly she headed down the corridor.

THE TOWN MEETING WAS FULL TONIGHT. AND SEETHING with emotion. Dane lounged at the fringes of the crowded public square, perched crosslegged on a bare table that would be crowded with scarves or jewelry or the tools and parts of a service trader come market day, but served as a good vantage point. In the center, a fountain bubbled and leaped with the abandon of the marrginalG up on this residential level. A dozen kids splashed in the water, paying no attention to the adults. All around him, eyes fixed glassy on eyelid screens, adding to the Con, the weave of live-chat conversation that rippled 24/7 through every level and corridor of NYUp. Everyone attended townplazas, either in perrson or by Con.

“Noah?” Dane spoke softly over his com link. “What do you hear on the Con?”

“Running just under forty percent, I’d say, for immediate secesssion.” Noah’s young voice sounded loud in Dane’s ear.”That’s up two percent in a week. Why the change, Dane?”

“I don’t know.” Dane paused, frowning, watching a skinny kid toss handfuls of water into the air. He had the disproportionately long arm and leg bones that were showing up in this generation. Like Koi. “It bothers me, Noah. It’s too fast, too soon. See if you can pinpoint sources, will you?”

“Like hunting for a molecule in an atmosphere,” Noah said, “But I’ll get a few people in to help. Got to quit now. They’re serving dinner. I’ll keep on it while we’re dropping. Sorry, Dane. Bad :ime to go downside.”

“Family comes first, Noah. Just do what you can do. Thanks.” Dane broke the link. He missed Noah.

Noah was the most skilled at reading the Con. The perpetual chatter online had proven to be a very accurate predictor of events. He’d set Noah up to monitor trends with a powerful AI. This new increase in secession fever worrried him. And Laif was late. Not good, tonight. Dane suppressed a frown, blinked his own eyelid screen to life, the crowd vanishing behind a blue virtual wall, lines of speech scrolling down, threads of conversation flowing… With practiced ease, he skipped across a dozen threads, adding a word here, a comment there, but mostly reading, taking the pulse of NYUp.

Noah was right. The Con had a fever tonight. No major nexus… lots of small hot spots… story about a rude downsider here, an accusation of theft in a skinlevel hotel there. Small irritations, but more reaction than usual? Like an allergy-a few moleecules and you’re itching. NYUp was itching. Dane opened a visual link to the control center and Koi, still in Enhancement. Another six hours. He watched the boy’s eyelids shiver. Dreaming. He thought of the strange downsider, Ahni. Wondered if she had made it back all right. Nobody had tried to look for her in the axle. Which might not be a good sign.

She really had understood about Koi and his family. Too bad she was a downsider. He put that regret aside as Laif arrived.

“Sorry to be late.” The Administrator’s voice carried across the townplaza, larger than life, as he was physically. Dane watched him thread his way through the crowd, his mahogany scalp rising well above those around him, his grin flashing, the emerald in his left ear scattering shards of green light. An afroamerican-amerind-euro mix with a longtime resident’s elongated bones, he greeted even the pushy complainers with an easy manner and steel competence that always managed to find balance in any situation.

He needed that talent tonight.

Dane sat up straighter as the crowd parted ahead of Laif, revealling glimpses of the grass carpet and mosaic paths of the townplaza, giving him respectful space. A woman had been making the most of the crowd, selling iced fruit juice from a heavy plastic thermos hung over her shoulder. Laif paused to speak to her. The silver tracery of lightfiber decorating his naked scalp reflected glints of the emerald’s green as he bent to listen to something she was saying. He laughed, his head tossed back, his face so alive with the essence of laughter that people around him laughed, too. Even some of the grim faces, couldn’t help themselves, although they laughed grudgingly.

Laif unclipped his big personal mug from his belt and presented it to the juice seller with a flourish. She grinned, poured ruby colored liquid into the mug, offered the reader at her belt for his thumbprint.

Grinned wider as he bowed and imprinted it. Dane smiled grimly. Laif scores again. The mood in the crowded townplaza had lightened, and when Dane blinked into the Con, the spinning conversations were lightening, too: laif does a good job, not his fault the heavyweights keep milking us, he does his best to keep their grubby downsider paws where they belong, and did you hear about that kid, some heavyweight tourist hit with a cart, why they need carts when they can go up a couple of levels where we live or maybe lose some of that heavyweight flab…

In a heartbeat the Con had recast Laif from stooge for the downsiders to beleaguered hero. Not bad, even if it didn’t chill the secession fever. Dane lifted a finger in a quiet salute, one that Laif didn’t acknowledge, although Dane was pretty sure Laif had spottted him. He might act casual and hurried, the overworked Adminisstrator rushing in from his screen, but he would have scoped the crowd through the security cams first, surfed the Con, and counted the members of NOW in the crowd. Like Dane. He leaned forward as Laif made his way to the podium set up for the meeting.

“All right, let’s get it over with.” He swung himself casually up onto the podium. “Don’t want to make you all start throwing stuff. Costs to clean up, after, so we’ll just cut to the yelling.”

“Well, hey, I’ll start.” A small man, round-faced, with native muscles, waved. People around him withdrew politely, giving him floor. “What the hell joke is this Security tariff all about?” Arms crossed on his chest he stared up defiantly. “Security for who? Who is Earth keeping us secure from? We’re the ones in the Arrival Hall scanning the scum that comes up here. They let anybody get on the damn Elevators. I mean, my sister, she had these two guys just walk out of her shop the other day, ate a full lunch, didn’t pay. And for that, she’s gotta pay extra next time she boosts realmilk cheese up here?”