JOEL WAS BREATHLESS FOR a few minutes. He waited before he called Honey.

She didn’t respond right away. When her face came on the screen her hair was tied up. Fresh faced without makeup, her camera was clipped to a shelf so it looked down at her. It also meant she tended not to look up at it too much. He liked seeing her like that. typically unselfconscious.

She told him she was sorry he had to wait and him where she’d been. He already guessed, anyway. She was visiting her counter-culture hangout for geeky losers with conspiracy theories.

“Did you save the world from the tyranny of the machin intelligences yet?" He asked her, "Are your pals ready to overthrow USCom and free all of us miserable slaves?” She didn’t approve of his disapproval, so they didn’t discuss it too often.

He’d been along to a couple of meetings in virtu with her. And, he had to admit, there were some pretty cool hackers and techies among the crackpots. He hated the philosophy and the politics just as much as he thought he would.

“You should come along more often, Joel. Your views would be welcome. And, you know, you might learn something.”

He changed the subject. “Are you going to be riding your board to the hoist tomorrow?”

“You mean am I going with my mom?”

“Okay.” he admitted, “Busted.” Her head shook gently as she chuckled.

“Yes.” He told her, stifling a laugh,“That is exactly what I meant. Is your mom taking you there?”

She smiled. “I don’t know, Joel. I hope not.”

“Me, too.”

He told her about his sim jacket mods and the test flight. “Honey, it was really convincing. Especially the crash at the end. I really didn’t mean to wipe out there. I was nearly scared when I tumbled through the air.”

“Nearly.” She had a way of putting emphasis on a pause. The little dimple in her left cheek showed when she teased him. And she did love to tease him. His mouth dried and his lips stretched thin.

After another moment she let him off. “You are brilliant with the tech, though, Joel.”

“Wouldn’t it be amazing, though, to be in a sim that was immersive enough, convincing enough that it was as real as a dream. If you could make simulation that immersive, you could practically live in it.”

“You want to be device independent, Joel? Really, you want to divorce your body? And so young.” her voice lowered playfully, “All the things you haven’t done yet.”

“Well…” he knew what she was getting at. “Maybe not a full full divorce. Possibly some periods of separation is all.”

She mimicked the breathy, sexy Idoru voice in the song that was everybody’s earworm, ‘Die in my dream, I’ll die in your game.’ He laughed.

She said, “Careful what you wish for, Joel. There’s still only one real way to become device independent.”

~~

Up and out early, before it was fully light, Joel took his airboard and set out for the hoisting. Before he started out, he onelined to Honey. Are you coming on your board? Pre-Reset punk pumped in his headset. ‘Nice Day,’ the singer snarled, ‘White Wedding,’ as he leaned into the breeze to shove the board forward. Going up he needed all the speed he could get. Starting uphill he had to begin with the wheel trucks down.

The more momentum he had on the way up, the more energy he could convert and the faster he could glide around the valley . Should be enough to cruise the top ridge and all the way down to the tethers. The long route up into the hills and around the ridge was a great ride. It gave him the chance to try out the mods he’d made to the board’s airchannels.

Their valley was surrounded in the shade of an almost complete circle of steep hills, with a gap on the North side. In the cool air along the high ridge it looked like the crater of an ancient volcano. So much that Joel imagined the grassy floor heaving and cracking, bursting upward and hurled by a pent up explosion of glowing lava. Most of their little village was a thin sprawl over the flat plane at the bottom of the valley.

At the highest point in the road, a clear, winding sweep all the way to the kite fastenings was almost all downward or flat. Way below him was the little village center. The tiny church was pale gray with a squat tower like a finger pointed upward. A little winding string of stores led to the plain, rectangular village hall and the fire department that were finished last year. Behind them, the low sprawl of stilted bamboo sheds around the hall in the center of the schoolyard.

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The air was the cleanest in the center. Green and lush, the well maintained open spaces were safe and pleasant. Stores were always stocked and the eating places were good. People were friendly.

There were three Edge settlements, inside the valley but outside the village itself. The inner zone, the middle of the village was the nicer place to live and nobody pretended it wasn’t. Of the outside Edges, the two on either side of the valley were the ‘better’ sides. Amenities in the East and West Edges were adequate, wholesome and for the most part pretty clean.

Right at the top of the road Joel pinched his glove control to pull the wheel trucks up and leaned into the turn. He loved the dip and the acceleration as the wheels came up and the board took air. Speed picked up as he started the long glide down. A crow briefly tipped his stretched wings to watch as Joel followed the turns and gathered speed. The cool wind made his jacket flap and slap and his cheeks chilled.

His footing on the board was like an organic connection. He felt that the board, the road and the air and his body all flowed together as one. His legs felt the trembles and bumps on the road and the currents of warm and cool moving air. He was reading the road and the breeze. His body’s concentration in perfect focus connected him to the wind and the land. He felt free.

And fast. He didn’t use instruments to track his speed. They sucked too much juice. He knew the distance well enough from previous runs. He checked the time at the start and he’d take it again at the end. He must be a little over sixty miles per hour. Each turn in the road, as he leaned in, he lowered his body. Spread his fingers. Picked up another half a mile an hour. Gaining momentum. Channeling energy.

The tight curve around the halfway point was coming up. A cluster of bare trees on the valley side of the road was the start of a short rise. After that, the bend was around a steep drop. That drop was where he would pick up the most speed.

He crouched as he passed the trees. One day he’d try taking this run but straight across. Off the road. He’d need a lot more off-road practice first. But he would get there. The time would come.

Where the road rose he lost a little speed. More as he swung through the uneven curves.

As much as he dared he cut along the center of the road, drifting side to side to make his course as straight as he could. The blind drop coming up made it risky. If anything came up the other way, it could be game over. The board leaped as he crested the hump and his stomach followed when he plunged and hurtled down the slope.

The thrill of almost free fall down and around the widest and fastest sweep of road in Joel’s world made him shout. As he did the sound died in his throat. He stiffened and tipped the board and angled it to slow down. Coming into the valley on the far side were four small, black drones, a larger three-rotor drone and a black USSecur transporter.

His attention was distracted on the dark convoy in the valley. It made him late to spot the rockfall. It was small but it had left a scattering of debris all across one side of the road. He didn’t react as fast as he should have. A jagged stone was right in his path. It wasn’t huge.

The rock would only have scarred the finish on his board. He mistimed the swerve to avoid it. The airboard slid off the side of the road. Joel splayed and clawed the air as he tumbled after it. He fell with no view of how long the drop was.

Thorny shrubs tore at his hand and rubble grazed his thigh. He rolled, bouncing hard. On his ass and the heels of his hands, he skidded down the steep slope. When he stopped, he had no idea where the board was.

Angry with himself, Joel checked over his arms and legs. He’d scuffed his pants and he’d have a few cuts. Nothing was broken though. But he couldn’t see the board. He tried to raise it by calling it from his tablet. It didn’t respond.

The range was usually only a few feet, ten at most, so it wasn’t so surprising. If he’d had the instruments on he could have called it up that way. As it was, he’d have to climb down and hunt for it. The rocks were steep. He lost footing and slid twenty feet or so.

Not too far ahead was a sheer drop. If the board had gone over there, he could be in for a long and dangerous climb. He searched, thinking the metallic paint should stand out pretty well from whatever kind of scrub it had dropped into. He couldn’t see it above him, or either side.

To peer over the ledge, he had to lie on his stomach and lean out. Below him was a seven or eight foot drop. His airboard was belly up on loose rubble and scrub on a very narrow ledge. Over the ledge was a long drop. If Joel lowered himself down, he would drop to the rubble and likely over the ledge.

He tried to communicate with the board. It lit up. Getting it to move would be tricky. It was the wrong way up. There was a move where he could make it stand on one end and then jump. If he missed catching it, though, he might not get a second chance. He tried it.

First it didn’t want to move. Then it just shook from side to side. But he caught the timing right as it wobbled and he got the board to stand, nose down. He could almost reach it from there. Rubble shook from under him as he stretched out.

He made the board jump as high as he could and reached out for it. He caught the side.

But the board slipped through his grip. Before it fell he turned it up to full levitation. There was hardly enough juice for it to hover. He stretched his hand out as far as he could. A twitch on the lift control and he got it to rise another inch.

As he got hold of the board, its reserve power ran flat. He had to carry it and climb. Scrambling back up, onto the road, earned him a couple more gashes. He had to snick the wheel trucks down by hand and push to roll the rest of the way to the East winches.

A winding snake of vehicles, a couple of boards, and people on foot were making their way up the road on the far side.

Feeling flat, he rolled onto the lot. He stopped and turned to watch the drones and the black transport buzz smoothly into the middle of the village and then fan out.

Joel shuddered. He had a hunch the operation was a search for somebody.