Bright's Light (23 page)

“Thank you,” he whispered.

The bots whirred loudly, and he felt them edge in closer on either side of him.

“Thank you,” he said again, letting his gloved hands rest on their rounded tops. Something sparkled in his peripheral vision. Grassly tried to make it out what it was through the film of condensation and blurred night vision. When he realized that the pink bot was holding up the mirrored bra for him, Grassly laughed until the fog inside the helmet became too thick to see through.

His smile faded when he and the bots emerged from the privator on the ground floor and he saw the commander, surrounded by a cadre of PS officers, standing in the Choosing Room, releasers drawn.

They had been walking through the Gaming District for about twenty minutes when the peculiar feelings started. Bright felt open, somehow, and taller. She wanted to look at everything and everyone. Her steps became longer, easier. Bright had spent years rushing here and there, from stare to stare. Now she was walking down the street like anyone else, and no one cared.

“You know what I’ve always wanted to do?” she said to Fon.

Fon didn’t answer. She was tinkering with her broken halo.

“Watch some games. Like a regular person,” said Bright.

“You mean, like a plain ugly person who is just part of the crowd?” said Fon.

“Well, I guess so.”

Fon shuddered. “Why?”

“It’s hard to pay attention when people are staring at you.”

“I love it when people stare. That’s how I know who I am.”

Bright nodded. She thought that was probably true for Fon. But it wasn’t true for her. Not anymore.

“Let’s just go look at a game,” said Bright. Her breath sandpapered her throat.

“Don’t we have to get to the Headquarters and turn on the lights and all that?”

“We’re walking through Gaming anyway,” Bright pointed out. “We’ll just check out a game as we pass it, then we can turn on the lights, then go get the bots. We’ll only stop for a minute. See what it’s like.”

Fon was nodding. “I get it. If we want to look at stuff and not be noticed, we should do it while it’s still dark and no one can see us not looking our best. You really are good at thinking lately!”

Bright felt a broad smile break over her face. She tried to contain it so it didn’t stretch her collagen into wrinkle territory. Aside from her difficulty drawing a breath, Bright felt lighter than she ever had before. She laughed out loud. Fon joined in. They clasped hands and ran. Their ugly running shoes made hardly any noise against the pavement.

“These shoes,” gasped Fon, after they had run three blocks, “are quite comfortable for running.”

Bright slowed down. Her lungs ached. She couldn’t catch her breath.

“But they’re still gross,” panted Fon.

Bright considered asking Fon if she was having trouble catching her breath, but it was too much work. She just wanted to watch a game for a few minutes. Then they’d go
and do the thing with the lights and get the bots and then … she couldn’t think any farther into the future.

“Look,” said Bright, pointing to a corner where a game of Dazzle had been set up. The game was normally one of the most popular and often drew a hundred spectators. Today, only a handful of people watched and only three people played. The host trained a laser beam into the players’ eyes and then the temporarily blinded players had to make their way through a short obstacle course. It was funny to watch them falling down stairs and hitting their heads on dangle bags. One woman, a productive whose badge identified her as working at Small Toys, ran right into the barrier that was supposed to keep the players on the course. The lightweight wall fell over, and she rolled out onto the street.

“That’s like you!” said Fon.

Bright stared at her. She looked nothing like a productive from Small Toys.

“I mean, with the light and making people blind.”

Bright realized it was true. Strange.

Bright watched the blinded people stumble toward the ring at the end of the course. The few audience members who stood against the barriers didn’t yell or call encouragement or scream when the dazzled players headed the wrong way or got stuck. That must make the game much harder, thought Bright.

“Dumb game,” she said. She and Fon walked on until they reached the Spin ‘n’ Sin. The cup-shaped seats pulsed with blue and yellow lights, vivid against the deep black of the Gaming District.

“I’ve always wanted to ride this one,” said Fon. “Because it looks fun and I’m really into fun. Like, more than most people.”

“Really?” said Bright. “Is that so?”

The operator was nowhere to be seen, and no one sat in any of the cups, which could be operated individually using simple buttons.

“It’s true. When I visit Gaming, the operators and crowd always comment on it. They say, ‘Wow, you’re even funner and more hot than you look.’ Which is extremely fun and hot.”

Bright rolled her eyes so hard she nearly strained an optical muscle.

“Some party favours look good, but they aren’t deep into fun the way I am. Like, they aren’t as well rounded from a fun perspective. I’m really just incredibly fun. So, can we ride it?” asked Fon. She looked at Bright.

With no hair, Fon’s head was surprisingly small. Bright imagined squishing it.

“Sure. I can operate the controls,” Bright said. “Give you a super-spin.”

“You would do that?” breathed Fon. “Just take the controls like that?”

Bright shrugged. “Sure. Why not?”

Fon looked around. The operator still hadn’t shown up. The entire Gaming District seemed off-kilter as well as underlit.

“Okay,” Fon said. “But only because my commitment to fun is near total, even when my look is not ideal.”

They walked quickly into the enclosure. Bright unfastened the opening to one of the cups and Fon scrambled up. Once Fon was settled in her seat and had latched her seat bar, Bright retreated to the control panel. One of the five cups shown on the panel was lit up with a pulsing green dot.
Passenger Secure
, read the text.

“Ready?” asked Bright, jabbing the Go Spin button before Fon had a chance to answer.

Fon’s scream was cut off by the swooshing sound the cup made as it rose from the central stalk and began spinning and tilting as though trying to rid itself of its lone passenger.

Bright felt herself smile. She just wished she could see better. Maybe she should put on her helmet. It didn’t go with her sensitive outfit, but there was no one around to notice. She dug in the parachute bag and pulled out the pink construction helmet, then flicked the beam on so she could see Fon. Her smile faded.

Using the force of will that made her a top credit getter, Fon had arranged herself inside the whirling vortex that was the Spin ‘n’ Sin cup so that she looked blurry but alluring. Her lips were pursed, though they threatened to flap in the wind. She’d angled her head so that the wind accentuated her cheekbones. Her overall posture said, “I Love to Party Even Though I’m About to Chuck.”

A familiar jealousy flared in Bright, and she glared down at the control panel. She hit the button that said Reverse, then glanced over at Fon, who was four storeys off the ground, suspended on a thin metal arm inside
a glowing blue and yellow cup. The cup slowed, then stopped, and then, as though designed to create long-term clients for maintainers who specialized in injured necks, jerked and began to whirl frantically in the other direction.

The abrupt motion tore another scream out of Fon. Bright’s smile returned.

She looked at the panel. “There must be a Turbo button on here somewhere,” she muttered.

Before she could find it, Fon’s cry pierced the air. “I’m looooving this,” she said. “You should tryyyyy it.”

Bright let out a disgusted little sigh and hit the Stop button.

When the machine lowered the cup to the ground, Bright could barely bring herself to look at Fon. “Let’s go,” she said. “We have to turn the stupid lights back on.”

Fon, whose head was cocked at an acute angle, staggered out of the cup. She steadied herself against one of the arms. “That was great,” she whispered, her voice a rasp. “Really, really fun.” She made a honking noise that seemed to come from somewhere deep in her nose.

“Great,” said Bright. She took off the helmet and stuffed it into the parachute bag. She tapped her foot impatiently as she waited for Fon to regain her balance so they could leave for the Headquarters.

But when Fon reached the control panel, she stopped. “Your turn,” she said.

“What?”

“You say you love to have fun too. It’s your turn.”

Bright swallowed and looked around for the operator. Still no sign of him. “We have to turn on the lights,” she said. “It’s important.”

“Are you a favour or are you a boring?” demanded Fon.

Reluctantly, Bright made her way to a cup and got inside.

Grassly lay strapped to the table in personal maintenance and reflected again that the ancestors did not handle discretion well. He was beginning to sympathize with the Board of Deciders, who had long ago stripped away almost all of the citizens’ opportunities to exercise their free will.

“Tell us who you work with!” demanded the PS officer who held his releaser an inch from Grassly’s nose.

The commander, who stood out of sight in the vicinity of Grassly’s feet, grumbled a question: “Is it Officer Tranger from Gaming? Is he making a move to take control of the PS staff?”

Grassly had no idea who Tranger was or what the commander was talking about.

“Answer the commander or face the consequences!” said the officer, allowing the releaser to drift closer. Grassly could almost feel its heat on his skin.

“Don’t release him by accident!” barked the commander. “We need his information. He’s a suspect and an agent of the opposing forces.”

“Are you behind the air-quality problems?” asked a PS officer to his right.

“Ask him if he destroyed the feed,” said the officer on his left.

Yet another officer, this one standing near his right foot, poked his leg with something sharp.

“Ow,” said Grassly.

“We should use some maintaining tools on him,” said the officer on the right. “Cut him open. Then he’ll talk.”

“Don’t take his tongue. At least, not all of it,” said the officer on his left. “I mean, if we want him to talk.”

Grassly sighed. While it was nice to see the ancestors show a little imagination, the uses they put it to were most disturbing.

He settled his heart rate and thought of his Mother. Like all 51s, Grassly went deep inside himself when stressed. He knew that if his life were to end during his Sending on Earth, it would be sad, but that he would live on in his Mother.

Sure, to leave behind an abbreviated memory would be less desirable than to return triumphant after saving the ancestors and learning all their dance moves. He would miss out on getting to mate and having offspring, not to mention the condo and sporty Splinter Continuum ship that were traditional gifts upon completion of a successful Sending, but life would go on for someone, so there was no need to panic. He still felt inclined to panic, however.

The commander and his team had cleverly realized there was something different about Grassly as soon as
they saw him taped into his too-tight spacesuit and leading two bots to freedom, and they had arrested him as a spy, although they seemed a bit unclear about what a spy was, exactly.

He’d thrown four of them across the room so hard that they’d smashed into the far wall before he reminded himself that he wasn’t supposed to harm the beings he was trying to rescue. After that, he’d calmed down and allowed them to escort him to personal maintenance, strip off his spacesuit, and strap him to a bed.

There must be easier ways to come of age, he told himself as the officer with the pointy object dug it into his side.

He slowed his breathing further. The air was thick with carbon dioxide. The seal between the ship and the skin hadn’t failed yet, but the functions that kept the air quality in the acceptable range had. The seal would give way any time now. It was a toss-up what would kill him first. He might survive a direct hit with a releaser, which stopped the ancestors’ hearts but might not stop his, at least not right away, but he wouldn’t survive prolonged exposure to Earth’s fouled air, laden as it was with lethal poisons. He was at risk of going down in history as the 51 with the most disastrous Sending ever. The scale of his impending failure could threaten even his Mother’s self-esteem! There was healthy acceptance and then there was accepting the unacceptable. Allowing his entire family unit to be damaged by his actions was the latter. He needed a plan and he needed one immediately.

The voices around him sounded farther away.

“He’s not breathing,” said one.

“Well, if you stopped stabbing him with that thing, he might start!”

“No stabbing the spy!” commanded the commander. “I have to step to the relief centre now. Make sure he’s functional when I return.”

Grassly realized that, given the advanced state of the commander’s deterioration, he probably spent vast quantities of time in the relief centre, patching himself up and disguising his symptoms.

“We might as well release him. I think he’s dead already anyway,” said another officer, digging the pointy object in even harder.

A few minutes later an officer muttered, “I don’t even know what a spy is. Is it bad?”

Grassly thought about bursting the bonds that held him but couldn’t summon the energy. The mattresses in personal maintenance were quite comfortable.

He was surprised out of his deep waiting by a scrabbling noise outside the room, followed by shouting.

“PARTY FAVOURS FOREVER!”

“Get them!”

“Stop those girls!”

His eyes snapped open. With a certainty as deep as his Mother’s love, he knew Bright was nearby. He reactivated his mental processes and bodily functions, and was once again fully present. A plan formed in his mind, along with the energy to execute it.

He gritted his teeth and focused his energy on his right hand. A moment later, the restraints released with a squeal as he pulled the metal screw from the frame. He used his right hand to free his left, then sat up and unfastened the straps that held his feet.