Running Start

by J. A. Sutherland

  “We’re taking off now, please stay seated.”

  The shuttle roared forward, pushing Mason back in his seat, which tried to softly swallow him as much as the carpet had when he stepped aboard. The world gave a little lurch and they were rising, faster than an aircar went — maybe even faster than Fuentes had taken them on the hoverbike, and he’d have sworn that wasn’t possible.

  Fuentes dug in the medkit and handed a packet of pills across the aisle to him.

  “Here, kid,” she said. “You’re probably not feeling any better than I am after that wreck.”

  Mason took the packet — pain killers and muscle relaxers. Fuentes already had her own open and downed the pills with half her drink. He did the same.

  A few minutes later, Diana told them they could get up and walk around.

  Fuentes did, taking the medkit with her to the rear of the shuttle.

  Mason got up and started looking around. There was a vidscreen in a cabinet next to the table that rose out with the touch of a button. Then he sat and looked out the window.

  They were higher than he’d ever been. The clusters of towers that seemed to cover the whole Earth when you were down in the streets stretched long and far, but there was so much more that wasn’t part of the towers. Flat land and little individual buildings, lakes and rivers — everything he’d heard about, but never seen in person.

  Even the towers themselves looked insignificant from up here. The shuttle was far above them, higher than the highest uppie and their palatial enclaves at the very top.

  A few minutes later, the door to the lavatory opened and Fuentes limped back to her seat.

  “You okay?” Mason asked.

  “No,” Fuentes said. She looked around the shuttle’s cabin for a moment, at Mason, then forward to where the attendants were busy in the galley. She sighed and her face twisted in disgust. “I can’t reach.”

  Twenty

  It was, Rosa considered, one of the more embarrassing decisions she’d ever had to make.

  After a lot of stretching, twisting, and failed attempts that left the last three fingers of her left hand bonded together with wound sealant, she was ready to give up and admit she’d need help. The gash from the broken bottle was simply in a place she couldn’t reach well enough to be able to apply the sealant and hold the gash closed properly.

  Now she was almost out of the sealant and its release formula — with so little of the latter left that she was hesitating to use any on her fingers. She didn’t want to seal her wound with the skin pulled too tight and create a ridge in her skin — or leave a finger inside.

  “Perhaps yoga would help, Miss Fuentes?” Seymour asked, then helpfully flashed a series of instructional videos across her vision.

  “No, damn it, it won’t!”

  “I meant for the next time, so that you might be more flexible.”

  “Do you really think I’m going to crash a hoverbike and land on broken glass again?”

  There was a pause.

  “That probability is not calculable,” Seymour said, then, “but given your history and current circumstance, there may be a not insignificant chance you should prepare for.”

  Now she needed help and she couldn’t decide if she should ask one of the stewards or the kid. The stewards might have some experience, but they also might ask too many questions. Or alert the flashies and divert back to land at the spaceport. She and the kid weren’t entirely safe yet and she didn’t want to take any chances.

  “Hey, Diana?” she called.

  “Yes, Miss Fuentes?”

  “Could we maybe get some privacy back here?”

  At first, Mason thought Fuentes was going to ask the stewards for help with her leg, then she asked for privacy.

  Well, he could do it, of course, anyone who lived in the lows knew how to close a cut properly — it was a skill you learned unless you wanted to spend a fortune on a doctor, waiting for basic-level care usually wasn’t worth it, or the wound was so big it needed a lot of work. You fixed what you could with what you had — that was the way of lowlies.

  “Of course, Miss Fuentes,” Diana said. “You have over an hour before it will be time to configure the cabin for orbital insertion. Just call me if you’d like meal service or anything else before then. Linens are in the overhead.”

  She stepped back into the galley and a partition slid closed — at the same time, there was a whirring noise behind him.

  Mason looked back and the rearmost pair of seats was moving.

  First they laid themselves flat and the leg rests came up to extend them, then the one on the right side of the shuttle slid over to meet the other and form a large, flat, horizontal surface that could only be called a bed.

  Fuentes was staring at the moving seats too.

  “No,” she said, causing Mason’s face to flush hot. Then she frowned. “Well, maybe.”

  Mason’s face went hotter.

  “Not that, dumbass,” Fuentes said. “Lying down will make it easier to close this gash in my leg. Come here.”

  She limped back to the bed.

  “Come on, damn it!” she yelled when Mason didn’t move.

  Mason moved, otherwise she’d keep yelling at him and he didn’t want the stewards to hear and think … well, what they were already thinking but also that Fuentes was yelling at him to do it. That was somehow worse, but he wasn’t quite sure why.

  Fuentes set the tubes from the medkit on table near the bed. She unzipped her jeans and eased them down, causing Mason to turn away and wonder if his hair might actually catch fire. Spontaneous combustion was a thing — he’d read about it and seen a documentary. Maybe it was caused by embarrassment. Was the shuttle a pressurized, high-oxygen environment yet? If his hair ignited, would it take out the whole shuttle? What would the investigators think — would they be able to trace the ignition source back to a Mason-head shaped soot-shadow on an intact piece of bulkhead, or —

  “Kid, you need to get control of your blushes or you’re in real trouble,” Fuentes said. “Now get over here and keep your mind on business, not my ass.”

  Mason took a deep breath and turned around. Fuentes was lying on the bed face down, her jeans around her knees. He clenched his jaw and wondered how he was supposed to do that when the business was sitting there not five centimeters from what he was supposed to not think about.

  Another deep breath and he went over to sit beside her. She’d pulled the makeshift bandage of Toure’s shirt sleeves off. The wound had reopened and was sort of oozing blood, but it was partway sealed — in a jagged, overlapping, really ugly sort of way that pulled Fuentes’ skin askew.

  “You did a really bad job in there,” he told her.

  “There wasn’t enough room to even turn around — you try seeing your ass in a mirror that’s a half meter too high while you’ve got one leg on a toilet seat. Can you fix it?”

  “Yeah,” Mason said, “but it’ll probably hurt.”

  “Just do it.”

  It did hurt.

  And Rosa was really getting sick of being right about that.

  Even with the pain killers she’d taken, half a beer, and the numbing agent the kid sprayed on, it hurt like hell.

  First he had to deactivate the sealant she’d already applied and open the whole thing up again, which was sort of like being cut in the first place, except really, really slow and knowing when each new bit was coming. Then he said the cut was too deep to do all at once, so he had to apply the sealant in layers, first deep in the gash and hold that closed until the sealant took, then the next layer.

  Rosa began to wonder if the kid was as dumb as he seemed and wasn’t maybe taking his sweet time about it — either to look at her ass longer or hurt her more for embarrassing him.

  They were both things she’d do, so it was a reasonable suspicion.

  It seemed like a lot longer than the fifteen or so minutes Seymour said it took before the kid sat back and said he was done. And when, exactly, had she started t
hinking of the plant by name instead of just using it as an activation code? She’d have to give that some more thought too.

  “Does it look okay?” she asked, rising up on her elbows and craning her neck to see.

  “Yeah …”

  “Hey! Stop with the roaming eyeballs and pay attention! Will it scar?”

  The kid went redder than the blood on his hands and Rosa grinned — even though he was almost too easy to be much fun. She’d have to toughen him up a little. Not too much, but enough to stay interesting.

  “I don’t think so. I got the edges matched pretty good, I think.”

  “Good. Thanks.”

  Rosa put her head down and rested where she was for a few minutes until Seymour told her the set time for the sealant had passed. She didn’t bother to tell the kid to go back to his seat, just let him sit there — he’d done a good job so let him look for a while. She turned her head away so he wouldn’t see her grin.

  Twenty-One

  Mason settled back into his seat and wrapped the harness around himself in preparation for orbital insertion.

  The last hour or so of the flight had been interesting.

  Fuentes laid on the bed until the sealant dried, then got up. She sent him off to the lavatory with the blood-soaked sleeves and a few alcohol wipes they used to clean up the blood that dripped on the cream leather of the bed, as well as the paper towels they used to clean up the dried blood on her leg.

  Those went into the trash, but when he came back, Fuentes was up and had bed linens out of the overhead compartment. She mashed a couple pillows and tangled up one of the sheets to toss onto the bed.

  “What?” she asked when she saw his expression. “That’s what they think we were doing, so it has to look like it, right?”

  She patted his cheek as she walked past him to the lavatory.

  “Muss your hair up so it looks like you had some fun,” she said.

  The meal service was different, too. It seemed like nearly anything you wanted could come out of the tiny galley up front, and he really wanted to get a look at the machinery to see how it accomplished that. He ordered a cheeseburger and, at first, thought there was something wrong with it — the taste was too different. Then he figured out that it was real meat, not soy, and real cheese instead of colored vegetable oil. The bun was soft, too, and not half-stale. It wasn’t what he was used to — still good, but he wasn’t sure if he liked it better than a normal cheeseburger or not.

  Now it was time for the shuttle to really take off with its own engines and leave the wing-assists behind.

  Once his harness was attached, he rested his arms on the chair like Diana told them to, and the seat molded to him. Inflatable cuffs wrapped his lower legs and arms to monitor and regulate his blood pressure.

  A vidscreen lowered in front of him so he could watch the procedure from the wing-assists if he wanted, as well as look out the window to his right.

  There was a little shudder and the wing-assists dropped away, leaving the shuttle with its own, stubbier wings it used mostly for landing. The assists fell back, their own engines not up to the shuttle’s, and banked away, keeping their camera on the shuttle itself. The assists would make their way back to the port and be mated with the next shuttle taking off.

  As soon as the assists were clear, the shuttle’s engine roared to life, pressing Mason back into his seat.

  The shuttle streaked away in the camera’s view, which struggled to zoom and keep up with it, then eased into an upward arc.

  Mason’s seat squished around him to ease the pressure, but he still felt it, like a heavy, lead-filled blanket draped over his body.

  That eventually eased and became more like he was simply lying on his back, then there was a brief time of no pressure while the view out the window spun around. The shuttle had reversed itself and was decelerating to meet up with the station.

  It was a little disappointing that they’d have no time in free-fall, but the shuttle burned fuel over time and had the engines on nearly all the way. All except for the turnover and a few minutes as they came to dock, when they had to be strapped into their seats anyway.

  The station wasn’t very interesting visually. Just a tall, spinning cylinder with gaps in its outer surface, like a series of twelve wheels on an axle. It was hard to reconcile what he saw with the size he knew it to be — two kilometers across.

  The shuttle eased closer until he could make out details on the station’s surface, and now it was interesting. He really wanted to know what all the pipes and boxes and hatches were for. The windows were all on the walls of the wheels, so the outer surface was covered with fascinating things he’d like to explore.

  They docked, the stewards helped them transfer to an airlock where they strapped in again, and the lock accelerated to match the station’s rotation. It took a few minutes for that, and for the lock to match up with their destination, then the lock door opened and they stepped out into more luxury than Mason had ever imagined.

  The space was huge and open, maybe fifty meters high — two full levels of the station, at least. They had actual trees growing, which Mason hadn’t expected to see on an orbital station, but he supposed it helped the air scrubbers. The walls of the space were filled with the rails of balconies overlooking the open area.

  People milled about in little groups while others rushed through the space as though their errands were the most important things in the universe, and their voices echoed and merged into an ever-present murmur.

  A man in a suit stepped up to them before they were two steps out of the lock.

  “Good morning, Ms. Fuentes, Mr. Guthrie, welcome to the Waldorf,” he said. “My name is Frederick and I’ll be your butler for your stay. If you’ll follow me, I’ll show you to your suite.”

  Mason leaned close to Fuentes as they followed him and whispered, “You took more than a couple million, didn’t you.”

  Fuentes grinned. “Yeah. Yeah, I did.”

  Seymour, you did good, Rosa subvocalized as she followed the Waldorf guy to the lift.

  If the lobby was any indication, their suite was going to be spectacular.

  “Thank you, Miss Fuentes. The Waldorf has a four point nine eight two average rating across all evaluations and seemed to fit your criteria of ‘something stupid-swanky.’”

  Good job.

  The lift took them up.

  “Your suite is on level ten at the outermost edge of the ring,” Frederick said, “providing some of the best views of Earth available on the station. It will also place you at point-five g, which will allow you to acclimate somewhat to the lower gravity, as I understand your ultimate destination is Luna?”

  “Maybe farther,” Rosa said.

  Frederick nodded. “Level ten will also help you acclimate to Mars’ one-third g. The lobby is level zero, Earth-normal. Your shuttle crew indicated you brought no luggage?”

  “We were rushed,” Rosa told him. “No time to pack.”

  Frederick smiled, but she thought he might be looking over their clothes, which were clearly some lowly attire.

  Maybe he’ll think we’re shabby-chic, she thought.

  “There are some fine shops in our lobby, of course,” Frederick said, “but if you have a particular style in mind I will be happy to you point you in the right direction.”

  “Leather,” Rosa said. She missed her jacket. “Maybe something more conservative for the kid,” she added, nodding at Mason.

  “I’ll compile a list of appropriate shops and message your implant,” Frederick said. The lift came to a stop. “And here we are.”

  The lift doors slid open to a small, richly appointed room with four doors leading from it.

  “You’re just over here,” Frederick said, gesturing. “Would you like me to familiarize you with your suite’s amenities?”

  “No, that’s all right.” What Rosa really wanted was a shower — the enclosed space of the lift made her realize how bad the kid smelled, and she couldn’t be much b
etter. She was surprised the Waldorf-guy hadn’t thrown them out — or had the shuttle staff hose them down.

  “Very well, Miss Fuentes,” Frederick said. “Again, welcome to the Waldorf Orbital — if you need anything at all during your stay, please don’t hesitate to ask.”

  Twenty-Two

  The door to their suite opened at Rosa’s approach and the kid followed her inside. The door closed automatically once they were both in, and Rosa felt her muscles relax a tension she hadn’t really been aware of. She’d been a little worried they might not make it to the suite — maybe even not off the shuttle — but they had. And now they were safe, because the stations were neutral — neither Earth nor Luna wanted to escalate their tensions to the stations they both relied on, so neither exerted control. Only the station administrator’s word mattered.

  It was either that relief or the lower gravity — maybe both combined. She felt like she was bouncing as she walked into the suite.

  And then she stopped for her face to split in an aching grin.

  “Oh, yeah, baby,” she whispered, then rushed to take it all in.

  The whole wall in front of her — pretty far in front of her, at least twenty meters from the door — was glass, showing a view of space and stars that was simply amazing. Part of the view was blocked by the next wheel over, but it was still fantastic.

  A short hall led from the door to a circular room cut off by the windowed wall. The center of the room was sunken with a curved couch around half of it, and steps on the other. The patterned marble of the hall gave way to thick carpets and the upper portion of the room was lined with statutes and paintings. Double doors led off either side, open now to reveal they were bedrooms.

  A banquet table by the windows was covered in food and Rosa made her way there.

  Fresh fruit, whole and sliced, quite a few she’d never seen before, cheeses, folded meats, crackers and rolls, shrimp — real shrimp, she thought, and not molded soy flavored with scraps of white-fish — in fact, she thought it was all real food, with not a bit of soy in sight.