April (37 page)

He took three more of them at a time until he had ten, which was a comfortable handful and laid them on Allen's hand, which seemed to know when to appear under them without actually being held out waiting for them. "Thank you, Sir," he said very casually, like he often got a ten thousand EM tip. Who knows? Maybe he did. The other ninety he took by handfuls and stuffed in his jacket pockets, less one. One he left on the tray and nodded at the young runner saying, "That's for you kid. Might as well spread it around a bit, huh?"

"Yes Sir! Thank you Sir!" He agreed, making it disappear, retreating with the empty tray before anyone changed their mind, looking very happy indeed. He had just got a very good day's wage, for a two minute walk.

"Good night then, Allen." He offered and started for the hotel side again.

"Good night, sir. Thank you. And luck to you tomorrow too sir." He quickly called after him, with apparent sincerity.

Ernie found he had three offers of marriage, a proposed business partnership and a few less formal offers, before he could make the desk and show the fellow his Big Shot card. As he was shown into a private elevator, he hoped he would have lost some notoriety by tomorrow, or he might have to take them up on the body guard to fend people off. Mostly he was thinking how to keep any newsies from taking too clear a picture of him to compare with Eddie's public pics and wondered if he could persuade Eddie to allow him to keep some of the prize. For someone who was supposed to keep a low profile, quiet presence, he had sure screwed up. How could he explain it was a lark and he never thought of the possibility the stupid machine would pay off on a single spin?

* * *

Eddie was waiting for a reply from Jon. He had pretty much explained the circumstances he had found and firmly recommended bringing the defecting lady scientist back to M3 with Dr. Singh. In fact he was determined already to do so no matter what Jon said. He had never met her, nor been united with Singh, which was starting to irritate him. The excuse today had been they were escorting the lawyer he had intended to consult with to see him, because they considered it too risky to take him to the lawyer and he needed privacy. He found himself a house guest of the Agapitos. He was pretty sure he was a guest and not a prisoner. They provided him with a guest room in their own home last night and allowed him access to com and privacy to encrypt his messages to Jon.

He also retained his weapon and baggage. He was not sure exactly how he had made the transition from suspect outsider to trusted ally, but it had seemed to be complete by the time they left the table at the Marriot yesterday. The mail from Jon decoded with a onetime pad, stated they were getting a scooter ready, which could make the trip to pick up both scientists and him. It was a relief because the atmosphere here was even more hostile than he had anticipated, with the unexpected Chinese problem.

Agapito seemed sincere in his fear of the Chinese and being a local Eddie didn't favor second guessing him on the danger. They would have to arrange for the passengers to get to the dockage and board the scooter somehow. Their idea of having the two scientists marry was going forward, after some initial consternation on the part of the couple, but it was going to happen in private, with the station commander being taken to where they were and station security being quietly informed what was happening.

If they were asked to stop them from leaving, the marriage documents would be presented and verified and security would regretfully inform the Chinese authorities it was a basic human right under the UN charter, to not be separated from your spouse. The heavy handed Chinese were not the favorite neighbors of the other nations represented on the station and setting them up for a nose snubbing failure was something they looked forward to as a special treat. However the Agapitos were taking care of all these details.

He was very aware he had not fulfilled his other mission, to communicate with the Security head here for Jon and get an assessment of the overall view of things from his foreign perspective. He wasn't sure what his hosts would think of him wanting to meet the man. The fact they might have to wait days for pick up and he was mostly sitting waiting instead of doing something to help, was wearing Eddie down.

* * *

Wednesday afternoon Oct 13, 2083 April had to take time for herself. She craved some activity, from too much time sitting at the com. She was back at the head of the list again to use a running room and wasn't going to pass on it today. She got there early and choose a beach run. The last time she'd picked a virtual beach run it had been a Southern California beach and a blonde Surfer Dude in baggie trunks and sun glasses, had come over and ran with her.

This time it was a black sand beach in a location she was not sure of and a Polynesian girl who was as thin as a Greyhound and ran barefoot with her hair streaming behind her. She didn't want a hard workout, because she was supposed to work out for the first time with Jon's group this evening. No hill climbing, or obstacles on which she might trip or hurt herself. Just a steady even pace to leave her damp, but let her think as she ran and easy enough to go straight to supper as a cool down walk.

She listened to the news along the way as she often did and the weather was eclipsing all human activities in North America. The change of climate this century, as predicted, had finally resulted in an increase in temperature, after an unexpected drop earlier in the century. But it was apparent as such only to a scientist. A precise average temperatures seemed unimportant, when the average was briefly experienced between increasingly extreme swings. The amusing part was,  now that they finally had a small rise, most scientists were saying they were overdue for an ice age.

St. Louis yesterday experienced a morning storm, which dropped snow for the morning commute at -7°C,  followed by afternoon temperatures near 46°C. Instead of planting wheat further north in Canada and oranges well North of Florida, companies were exploring economical ways to grow crops sheltered indoors against extremes and gene mod varieties that could survive punishing winds and mild drought.

The newscaster recounted how the increase in price of food and shortages in impoverished nations, resulted in new disapproval of public displays of abundance. It drove increased membership in environmental groups and economic activists. Restaurants were faced with protestors at their doors and boycotts of beef and wine producers, were joined by a movement to drop the showy use of cake as a celebratory rite for birthdays and weddings. A bakery in Atlanta had its windows smashed out by a mob and the display of wedding cakes destroyed.

The story tempted April to turn on the video to see such a strange thing. Not that anyone could demonstrate skipping any amount of wedding cake in Atlanta, would fill a beggar's bowl with rice in the Sudan, but there were always guilt ridden people who felt they should suffer and were eager to help their fellows experience the rush of righteous self denial.

April wondered if they might have fresh strawberries today again. All the talk about food made her hungry. They did. She had a lighter than usual supper, anticipating a workout and faced the challenge of transporting her swords to the gym when she returned home. She had promised Jon a look at them and several others were interested. It would be great if somebody could do some of the graceful exercises with them, she had seen on videos. She didn't want to have them bang together, or bump on things along the way, but she didn't want to pack them up in the big shipping box either.

By next week she'd have a ballistic cloth carrier she ordered, with padding and pockets which would separate the weapons from bumping and had a shoulder strap. But what about tonight? She could leave them home, but really wanted to show them and one of Jon's friends had promised to display handling them. She was dressed in black, a black silk blouse and loose legged black pants with a black sash belt just for show.

 She went in her room and took the small blade from the rack, sticking it in the sash like she had seen in pictures and in proportion to her size it made sense. It also looked wicked as hell in the mirror. However the big blade was so huge she would have been tripping over it and dragging it on the carpet. She didn't want to just hand carry it. It was heavy, but she could sling it across her back if she had something to attach it to. A little digging found an old ballistic cloth vest, from an Australian trip her brother had outgrown and handed down. It had lots of Velcro pockets and ties and rings, for camping or as a camera vest and a stuff pocket on the rear she could put her exercise shorts and a T-shirt in. It was beaded solid with millimeter half spheres of solar powered nano-gap cooling modules. In full sunlight it would be pleasantly cool inside.

It was a slightly shiny black, of a stiff coarse fabric, with a stand up collar that hid a hood and looked good zipped partly open to show the blouse. It supported the big sword clipped behind the collar on the right, without being pulled all out of shape, like a soft garment would be. The handle stuck up behind her shoulder wickedly.

April was really getting into the look in the mirror. It worked. The black clothing and black sheathed blades looked sinister. Her black cape went over the vest swept back off the shoulders. It looked even nastier and made her smile.

She could put her left hand on the grip of the short sword in her sash and it kind of reminded her where it was hanging, so she didn't bang it on door frames and such. It made her elbow thrust out and she could feel the long sword hanging down against the back of her arm and keep track of it too. She experimented with reaching back over her shoulder with her right hand and she could reach the grip. She thought she could probably even pull it out, but doubted her control. It took considerable force to start the blade out. She knew if she did draw it she'd never get it back in, without taking everything off and starting all over. She played, posing for the mirror, thinking Heather's brother Barak would love doing this and got the giggles, but figured if you are going for a look don't do it by half measures, so she borrowed a massive silver neck chain she had seen her brother wear and changed her ear rings to silver with Onyx.

A black beret she had borrowed from her grandpa and never got around to returning made sense also. Her scanner, pad and laser on the sash added just the right high tech look to match the big wrap around spex which went with her laser and she took a black braided drawstring cord which had come out of a hood and gathered the sash in a bunch at the front with an X of the cord. It was an interesting combination of ancient and modern. In the mirror she was delighted with the effect. She didn't bother to hide the laser under the cape, because it looked like any of a bunch of common items people carried on a belt. Nobody glanced at it. She tried pulling the lesser blade out just enough to show steel and scowling, hamming it up for the mirror.

She tried stepping and turning to see how the cape moved but it was hard to see in the mirror so she set her pad down with the camera set wide and watched herself in her spex. If she stepped forward briskly and turned it flared out and swirled nicely behind her. Her mother had told her stories about dressing up for trick or treating in rural California and she thought this outfit would wow the natives if she went door to door in it. She headed for the gym in a good mood, ready to make a showy entry for her friends.

The gym was in full gravity, but almost straight across the axis, so rather than walk around the long way with all the extra junk she went down corridor a bit to where the business section started and waited for the elevator to cut across. It was hard to know what to do with her arms with all this unfamiliar stuff hanging where her arms usually went without thought. Standing there it seemed easier to slip her thumb in the sash behind the shorter sword. It was unbalanced with nowhere for the right arm to go and pretty soon she found a thumb hooked in the sash on the right was balanced. With both elbows poked out, the natural thing was to stand with the legs braced apart. It was a cocky swaggering pose.

She was thinking hard about a number of things, while the elevator took forever. When the doors finally opened up, the two fools inside just stood there like a couple dummies. How was she supposed to get in if they didn't come out? She didn't really mean to scowl at a couple strangers, but she made eye contact with the Japanese man in the neat business suit and saw a brief flash of quizzical surprise quickly replaced by an absolute mask. Then he startled her with a very formal bow in her direction.

She quickly returned it awkwardly. With her thumbs hooked in her sash and the heavy sword pulling her back it was a stiff little bow, but it would look really stupid to try a second time to do it better. She probably looked haughty as hell she thought in dismay, as she passed him into the elevator and turned around.

It wasn't until the doors were closing and she looked at the backs of the two stopped outside in the corridor that she saw the video camera floating on the second man's shoulder. He was showing the executive type something on a bright hand pad, cabled to the vid.
Oh crap
, she thought. They shot my pic and I look like a fool on my way to a costume party. Why didn't I just stuff it all in a big duffel bag?

When she got to the gym however Jon and his friends took her outfit in the right spirit and clapped their hands and hooted their approval. She shed the costume for her exercise outfit and started learning the basics exercises she needed, for the strengths and motions to catch up with the group. She didn't draw them herself but watched Jon, Jeff and another man go through a series of exercises with the swords.

They called both the bare handed exercise and the sword Thai Chi. They had a surreal quality, but all the grace of ballet, combined in with imprinting the practical motions on the mind. Her gene mods would be an enormous advantage and just like when she ran, she took medication which enhanced the training value of the motions. Her potential due to the gene mods meant she had a much wider envelope of performance than an unmodified human, if she trained to it.