Then falling. . . .
“Oooh. . . . I think I’m going to be sick,” Avril’s voice wailed.
“Please don’t.” Eric, coming in on the lab mike.
“Where are you, Kev? We’ve lost you in the sun.” Corfe, from the water’s edge.
Kevin cut the band, freeing his limbs. He let himself fall for a few seconds to develop a slipstream, and then released the chute of baled silk attached to the mec. Looking up, he saw it billow out above him as it filled with air against the sky. “Yowee, perfect!” he whooped.
“Okay, we’ve got you now,” Corfe relayed. “You’re looking good.”
Silence and peace, the freedom of a cloud; drifting between earth and sky. . . .
“Okay, I feel better now,” Avril announced. “Say, you know something, guys. This is really nifty.”
The tops of the trees were coming up and expanding around him. Below on the grass, he could make out the three figures of Corfe, Taki, and Ray, their faces upturned.
“Definitely replete with ample nift,” Kevin agreed, overcome with the euphoria. There was a slight breeze along the shore. He experimented with pulling lines to spill air from the chute, and after a few tries succeeded in keeping on course, aiming toward where the figures below were standing. The figures grew into monstrous effigies the size of the Statue of Liberty, Taki waving, Corfe with arms outstretched, beckoning, heads tilting to follow him down. Then, for a moment, Kevin was floundering in a morass of pine needles and grass . . . and the folds of silk came down over him. He stabbed a finger to activate the Control menu and exited from the system.
“Very good. You’ve earned your wings—virtual ones, of course,” Eric told him. Kevin snapped open the collar and removed his headpiece. Eric was already helping Avril out of her equipment.
“It needs the bigger mecs for the weight,” Kevin said. “I don’t think the ‘chute would open properly if we tried it with anything much smaller.”
“Then maybe you don’t use a parachute with smaller ones,” Eric said. “Perhaps you go to something like silk cotton-candy, like spiders do.”
“Hm. That’s a thought.”
“Do I get a turn now?” Janna asked. “It looked great on the screen here.”
“You wait until you try this,” Avril told her as she stood up from the coupler. “It’s like you’re really there.”
Eric called Corfe via the mike. “Is Taki coming?” Taki was due to take the next ride, with Janna as “passenger.”
“He’s on his way,” Corfe’s voice answered from a speaker.
“Well, we can go ahead and get you organized while we’re waiting for him,” Eric said to Janna. He motioned toward the coupler that Avril had vacated—it was one of the converted airliner seats. “Make yourself comfortable. It’s nothing like the dentist’s.”
“It’s a really weird feeling, looking at the house from the outside and knowing you’re really in there,” Avril said.
“Here’s Taki now,” Kevin said, looking out the window. “I’m going down where Doug is to watch it from the other end.” Then, to Avril, “Want to come too?”
“Sure.” She went with him to the rear door. He held it for her and followed her out. They crossed the gravel behind the house and began descending the slope toward the water.
“It must be great having a dad who’s into stuff like this,” Avril said as they walked. “Mine just watches football and works in the yard. So the yard’s just something we all look at. No one’s allowed to do anything in it.”
“Yeah. My dad says something similar about museums and houses. But you’re lucky in some ways. Most times he’s involved with something or other up at the labs. I guess this weekend he just decided to take a break.”
“How about your mom? Didn’t you say she was some kind of scientist too?”
“Yes—she’s my stepmother, actually. She doesn’t get too involved in what we do here at the house. She keeps more to the business side of things. . . .” Kevin picked up a pine cone and threw it at a trunk, not really of a mind to pursue that subject. They passed Taki coming the other way.