April

by Mackey Chandler

"Yes, I do and if it comes to a choice between them and my people here, I will take my own people just like you would. We can hope they don't force the choice on us. I have to go home Jeff. Are you OK now?"

  "Yeah, I have everything I need, thanks April. House, lights down half," he said.

  April knelt by the bed, elbows on the edge of the mattress. Jeff opened his eyes again at the motion and rolled his head over to look at her.

  "Why did you name me a co-owner?" she wanted to know. "It wasn't anything I expected. We pledged our fortunes to our cause, not each other."

  "Right now, I think we three are the cause as near as matters. There's potentially more money there than anyone needs, but you or Heather might need it to keep us free if I'm dead and I think we're all in danger now. My dad taught me your belly only holds so much and to accumulate more than you need is too often just greed. I can never use so much money personally, but I can hope to direct it to worthy things. Anyway, I trust you," he said simply.

  "Doesn't your dad have an interest in your company?"

  "No, I offered to write it that way and he refused. He laughed and told me he wanted a dollar a quarter to be on my board. So he and our lawyer have been the only other members of our board, with just nominal shares to keep it legal - just a legal formality. We'll expand the board to include Heather and you now too."

  April thought about it and felt a depth of gratitude. She gripped his elbow in her right hand leaning forward and started to give him a kiss, but at his look of surprise turned her head and just laid her cheek against his briefly like an awkward embrace instead. He brought his hand down on her shoulders and gave a squeeze and a pat that was somehow dismissive.

  "Heather told me how smart you are," he said with an amused smile, when she drew back. "We don't need a more complicated personal life right now. But thank you, I value your affection. Whatever happens, we three are mates in conspiracy and fellows at arms. But if the Earthies ever thought we were a ménage á trois, they'd croak wouldn't they?" he laughed out loud at the idea of shocking the Earthies, since they had gotten so straight laced down below. "Goodnight April."

  "Goodnight Jeff," and she levered herself up and slipped out the door.

  Chapter 11

  The next morning April was quite happy to do normal things. It gave her new insight on how her dad treasured a day off, without the constant intrusion of one crisis after another from his job. She listened to the news again, walking to the gym where she had a private running room reserved. It was Wednesday, October 6, 2083 and she listened to a non-government channel again, although they were still heavily regulated.

  The commercial channel had some news about media stars, which was meaningless to her. Someone had leaked a story the outlawed Libertarian Party leader James Tate, native born, but stripped of his citizenship under the Terror and Sedition laws, had been kidnapped by Federal agents in Argentina last summer and smuggled back into the country where he was being held incommunicado.

  A couple in California had an electrical break down in their car, near the Nevada state line losing their sat com link. Despite having water they died of the fifty-seven degree heat in the six hours before rescuers were aware they were overdue and reached them. It was the third such tragedy this year so the state was now considering a ban on single vehicle crossings. There were a number of areas now where climate swings made a simple mechanical failure unsurvivable, by extremes of high or low temperature.

  A prosecutor in Salt Lake City, announced she intended to pursue a weapons charge against a resident in possession of a pocket knife. It was under the legal blade length by city law, but she said it demonstrated criminal intent, because it was sharp.

  A boat load of English drowned, trying to escape to Ireland. Too many, jammed on a boat that wouldn't be safe on a pond. It wasn't the Royal Navy that got them, but bad weather. Even if they made it, Ireland would only send them on to Australia. Ireland had absorbed as many refugees as they were willing.

  Business people in Ontario were complaining they were being refused travel permits, more than residents of the original fifty-one states and they could not compete with companies located there under such a handicap. They blamed the problem on the perception all Canadians were Quebec terrorists and security risks. Nothing very exciting unless you lived down there.

  The only story which really bothered her was a new pet mod, being offered in Italy. They would alter a single pup, or a litter in vitro, so they never matured. Some people thought puppies were fun, but they had to grow up and be dogs. This pup would grow a few months and stay immature until it died. She didn't even like dogs and still thought it was perverted. No wonder some people opposed to all genetic engineering. How long would it be before some sicko tried the same with people?

  It was stuff like this which made people prejudiced to people like her, lumping the responsible and reckless use of the technology all together. She swallowed a couple gel caps at home, which amplified the training effect of the exercise, since she didn't get to run as often as she would have liked. She put her things in a locker. Palming the lock to confirm her reservation to the station computer, she entered a round room, the blank walls not showing a setting yet and picked a desert course to run, setting the terrain on medium difficulty. The walls changed to a barren scene with sunlight so bright the distant hills looked almost white, with tiny dark dots of scrub vegetation among huge rocks. There were Joshua trees so it had to be the Mohave Desert.

  She looked to her right and there was a thin, hard looking youth, squatted down on his heels. He had reddish deep bronzed skin and a abbreviated buckskin vest, a breech cloth of a coarse looking wool fabric and moccasins. He had his black hair in neat simple braids and a complex breastplate of bead work hanging from his neck. There was a drawstring bag hanging from his waist band and a delicate sheath with a flint knife. Laid across his knees, under his wrists, was a lance with a flaked stone head firmly bound with translucent sinew to the wooden shaft. Back from the spear head a decorative device of some sort, with a couple long feathers was shaking in the wind.

  The illusion broke down a little there because there was a steady breeze from the ventilator and she could hear it, but it was not gusting the way the feathers were moving. She wondered if it was authentic because to her eye the lance looked like it would be more at home on a horse, than for someone on foot. There were no contrails in the sky either, but it was probably supposed to be a historical composition. He looked up at her, made a gesture pointing into the distance and looked a question with his eyes.

  "Go." she said and he sprinted away like a startled rabbit. He never looked back and the terrain was hard and flat with little to break it as she got into a rhythm and kept pace with her virtual guide. His footfalls were a soft drumbeat and when they changed timing it warned her quicker than her vision, when he was changing pace or direction. After they had ran the equivalent of a kilo and a half or so, to warm up, the track under her started getting some rocks and ridges to deal with.

  She had to watch the obstacles as they approached and dealt with them, but if she looked down where to place her feet, the illusion was broken and the rock she would leap over was just a gray mound sticking up under the rubberized fabric of the belt. For awhile he took a route uphill at a punishing pace and the floor under her tilted and offered the appropriate resistance.

  After a short downhill they were on the level again and slowed the pace until the guide came to a halt beside a huge spire of rock sticking out of the Earth. He turned to look back and set the butt of his lance on the ground, then gave a small wave of farewell and dismissal and stepped behind the rock out of sight. It was neater than just having him disappear when the desert ended and the compartment walls came back up. It was a very professional exercise composition.

  She had the slightly shaky feeling of having pushed the envelope of her capacity and the walk back home was an extension of her cool down walk at the end. After a shower and fresh clothing, she was ready for a light
er than usual breakfast at the cafeteria.

  Back at home, refreshed by her run and the late breakfast, she jumped right in, determined to focus for a few hours and started catching up on three different classes. The lessons ate up a big chunk of morning, until FedEx arrived at her door with the capes she ordered. It seemed like a nice break to stop and look through them. She picked a couple for herself and started a list of suitable people to whom she could make gifts of them.

  "She still found her mind going back over the events of the last two days and rethinking things, wondering what else she could do and kind of obsessing about what she might have done. There was one idea she had for the hand laser, but when she got a second one she couldn't resist and text messaged Jeff, using the secure system they gave her. He answered so fast he must be sitting at the com working.

  "Jeff, I have a couple ideas I want to run past you on the hand laser," she typed. "Got a minute?"

  "Yeah - I'm working right now on a case to hold everything. It'll be run off by a prototype shop tomorrow and we'll get twenty four cases. That's the point where the minimum fee matches the sum of piece cost, if we can't buy a few hundred."

  "We don't have innards for twenty-four, right?"

  "No we don't and I am kind of leery of ordering a big batch of high powered bare laser modules. Someone might notice and figure out what we are doing. Do you have any way to bring a batch up, without having them ordered and shipped to our address?"

  She was about to explain in detail how she would do it and she thought no, it's not how you properly run a conspiracy. I have to learn to break everything into compartments. Besides, no need to try to make herself look clever to Jeff.

  "No problem," she assured him. "Just give me the ordering information and I will have them couriered on the Saturday shuttle for you."

  "OK. I'm sending it to your screen for you to print."

  "Jeff - about the lasers - they need a low power setting for practice shooting. I was also thinking about using them in a suit. Most emergency suits run out of power in two hours and even the hard suits the construction workers wear, they switch power packs when they do their lunch break. I think they are only good for six hours. Could you make a connector somewhere on the laser case, to plug a suit into it and extend the suit time?

  "The low power is just software. The plug may take fifteen minutes to add in the drawing, but worth it. It's such a good idea I'll put a bump on the case if necessary. But no more changes on this run. Any other ideas will have to go on the Mark II model. I'm sending this file off to the prototyper today, because she has the time reserved."

  "If you want anything else brought up Saturday, call me as early as you can."

  "Probably not, I do need to talk about getting chip modules set up at your cubic to make smaller accumulators. Bye, April. Thanks," he said, ending.

  Text was not near as comfortable for her as the video conferencing she was used to, but she sure didn't want somebody listening in on such a specific conversation. April looked at the clock and figured in Australian time it was OK to call her grandparent's house. She tried her brother's pad and got no response, not even voice mail and tried her mom and got a screen of her having breakfast on her parent's patio in sunlight, with flowering vines behind her and a white railing. "Hello Dear, are you doing well?" she asked, relaxed and buttering a biscuit.

  "Hi Mom. It's been a couple real crazy days and I have some stories to tell you when you guys get back. I was trying to reach Bob and couldn't get through. Is he there with you?"

  "Your brother has been swimming almost every day with a neighbor girl. I get the impression he is considered exotic and a little forbidden here and has been enjoying it. I suspect he has quite the little romance going," she confided, doing a dramatic arching of her eyebrows while she slathered jam on a biscuit. A romantic side of Bob would be big news, something none of them had seen. They knew he wasn't gay, they all just figured he was too cheap to date. April guessed her mom was treating it so casually because her grandparents were right there.

  "I have one of those projects with Heather where she is making me some things and I wanted Bob to bring a box of parts back on the shuttle. Could you tell him it is coming for me and to bring it along?"

  "Certainly dear. Why don't you say good morning to your gramps while you are connected?" Her mom turned the pad around and her grandfather and grandmother were further back in the view than he mother had been. She could see some of the aqua pebbled glass patio table and they leaned toward each other, not sure if they were in the view. Her grandmother looked very much like her mom with white hair and she realized with a start they had not taken any life prolonging treatments yet like her parents had, or they would be looking a lot younger than the last time she saw them. Her grandfather still had a handsome big mustache, which hardly anyone wore nowadays.

  "Hello April. What are you up to today?" It was her grandmother who decided to lead the conversation.

  "I've been studying and preparing material for three of my classes and I have a project going on with my friend Heather, so I called to ask Bob to run a box back with him for some things we need. He never carries more than one light bag so I'm sure he can just stuff them in it. My Japanese History class has been real interesting lately, but I am starting to think I should have studied the language before I took it. One of my friends, Jeff made me aware there are a lot of things which don't get translated into English and the only other language I have is some German. I have been looking on eBay and The Mad Closet for a few Japanese items. I understand more about them, to appreciate them now."

  Her grandfather perked up, interested. "You want some Japanese things?" he asked. "Just a second," and he disappeared. Her grandmother continued. "Where are you in school now April?"

  "Grandma, mom explained where she went to school they had set grades, classes of Freshman and Seniors and something else. What was in between?"

  "Juniors and Sophomores, dear."

  "OK. Well I don't really go to school with study levels, much less get divided up into age groups. I just study here at home on the com and sometimes I may go to a friend's house and we will do lessons together. Sometimes I even study in the cafeteria, if I want people and noise around. It's different than playing music or having a scene on the wall screen. Mom and dad buy me tutoring help when I need it. I'm long past enough credit for graduation from a high school. But getting one to certify me or a GED wouldn't matter much."

  "None of the universities have refused me a class for not having one. When I get enough credits for a degree from a university, that it will be worth documenting I think. My Japanese history class for example is conducted by a professor at the University of Kyoto, so I'm doing college level work, but we have students ranging from eight years old to one gentleman who is very old. I can't even guess how old, but somewhere in his nineties or more. He has one of those deeply weathered face grounders get from the sun and wind and it makes it impossible for me to guess."

  "Your grandpa has a bit of a weathered face too April."

  "Oh no. Not like this man, no comparison. What do you think about Mom and Dad? Can you see how much younger they look since they started the life extension therapies? Have you guys talked about doing it?

  Her granddad returned with something in his hands, in time to hear her questions.

  "It's not very easy to do down here," he jumped back into the conversation. "The Human Fertility and Embryology Authority here, is modeled after the British HFEA. It regulates rejuvenation therapies also. The health care system views even what parts are legal as an elective procedure, so you have to pay for everything out of your pocket. If we both had it done we would have to spend a big chunk of our retirement money and we would have to go somewhere, maybe Italy, to do it. Spending that much would make it real hard in a few years to make ends meet."

  "We might even have to sell the house sooner and go to a townhouse or rental. Something we're really not ready to do. There is another problem too." He lo
oked down and seemed to have trouble saying it. "The attitude here is against life extension. The preachers all say it is defying the life span set out in the Bible and the press and politicians all ask how the working people will support the retirees. So we'd be ostracized by a lot of people for sure." He sighed and paused.

  "There were already people rude to your mother the last time she was down here, because they knew she lived on a station. But this time, when she showed up looking younger, we had some real nasty scenes in public. People came up and told her to go home," he was visibly embarrassed.

  Her grandma sensed he needed her to talk again.

  "I know what you'll say, April. Your mom has been telling us to sell the house and come up to live with you, but we're not ready yet. We really love the garden and being able to walk down to the beach. We would have to live in a really tiny one bedroom apartment if we moved up and it would be really hard for us to adjust."

  "I love the house too," April admitted. "But I like having you guys to talk to and see even more. If you both get your treatments started in the next couple years who knows how long you would add? Another sixty? Maybe eighty years? We can assume too they'll learn how to give you even more of an extension during those years. If they keep getting better treatments all the time you might just keep adding extensions indefinitely." It was a mostly unspoken hope people entertained now - a back door into a very long life in small steps.

  "You'd feel like doing more too. You'll feel so much better. You could do something again to make money and still be semi-retired. Even Bob could set you up with something to do. He comes up with a new money making scheme every week."

  "I understand you aren't ready to come right now. But I would start looking around and get things ready so when you do decide to come you'll know what you want to bring and what you want to leave. Maybe you could have someone rent the house out and keep it for the income instead of selling it."

  "An excellent suggestion April." her grandpa said. He seemed surprised at the idea. It must have never occurred to them. "We can investigate it at our leisure and see if it's feasible. I'm sure it would make your mother happy to even see us looking into it."