"Rider on the Storm"
Ahem. This is old, as in I wrote it originally in 1993-94. It's not done, for various sundry reasons, but it's not too bad. :-)
One note about it: Back in 1993 the Internet was "new." I was caught speculating what would happen as technology opened the distances between people, and as the gulf between the haves and the have-nots widened. So of course this is a love story between a champion for the have-nots and a champion (pawn, maybe?) of the haves.
One: “Glider”
She ran.
She had temporarily lost her pursuers, but she knew if she stopped or even slowed down they would be upon her. Gasping hugely, she ran diagonally across the small park, her boots picking up bits of the freshly mown grass. She was exhausted, her slender legs threatening to collapse under her, but she knew if they caught her she was dead.
Without stopping or looking she loped across the street at a trot. No car would hit her, she knew, but it was still surprising how many people still looked before crossing. Mostly the older ones, though. She ran under a streetlight, unavoidable in her need to reach the safety of the alley, but it left the back of her brain tingling with the certain knowledge that she had been reacquired.
She didn’t dread being caught. She knew the price and didn’t even fear the pain they’d inflict if she was eventually trapped and killed. Because death was certain, though it certainly wouldn’t be as swift as she might have preferred. The reward, if she escaped … now that was what made it worthwhile.
The alley was dark, of course. She knew it would be, and she knew where it led. Maybe her pursuers knew also, but there wasn’t time to consider that, just then. She ran toward its interior, her boot soles making hollow sounds in the narrow canyon of concrete and stone. It smelled, too, but old urine and indistinct garbage were familiar odors. Almost perfectly she visualized the position and contour of the walls surrounding her, and put on the brakes just in time to lightly touch the smooth wall marking the alley’s dead end.
She felt along the wall to the left, and just where she had expected it, was the door. Of course it was steel and quite thick, with practically no visible locking mechanism, but she wasn’t worried. She could open this door and seal it behind her, and she doubted that her pursuers could. If they did manage it, well then she was very likely dead, but she would think about that when the time came. For now she had to concentrate on getting the damn thing open.
In the blackness the lock pad was difficult to find. First she had to feel along the right hand edge of the door then judge the height of the lock based upon her own height, then feel inward the necessary few centimeters from the seam to locate the small area where the key chip could be registered. It wasn’t the kind of operation where you could simply plaster the key chip against the metal and slide it around until it found the pad. This door had a newer technology lock, and this lock was smart enough not to accept field entry of the key chip from an angle. Only straight in (within tolerances) would the key chip actuate the lock.
She found the spot, placed her fingertip on it to keep it located, and removing the key chip from one of her pockets, pushed it straight in against the cold metal. Nothing happened for an interminable second, but then the door snicked. She heard footsteps in the distance behind her, actually coming down the alley toward her, so she quickly slipped inside and pushed the door closed. She only relaxed when it snicked again, resealed.
Two: A lost encyclopedia
It better be there, he thought.
When was the last time he’d seen it? He couldn’t remember, but it was so old and (to him) so valuable he simply couldn’t have thrown it away.
It’s a shame they don’t print them anymore. Just the weight and feel of a hefty volume added to its authority. No mere display of data on the Net could have the same credibility, though you knew the information was not only factual but quite possibly as current as that morning. A paperbound encyclopedia was out of date even before it was printed. It was obsolete, quaint, designed for a time and a place where knowledge didn’t grow faster than the ability to absorb it.
And there had been such a time too, before.
But he wanted the old volume. He knew it was irrational and certainly unnecessary, but to lose himself in the quiet depths of its heavy, smooth, shiny pages was just the escape he needed. I just want to spend a couple hours, he promised himself. I want to go back; relive the simple joys of my childhood, when things were simpler; I want to recapture learning for the sheer joy of it, without either objective or time limit.
He stepped out of the elevator on the first lower level. Where the elevator’s interior had been polished mahogany and plush burgundy carpeting, the exterior hallway he entered onto was nothing but bare gray block walls and dusty concrete floor. Stark, bare, wire cage-protected halogen bulbs lit the way on intervals of about three meters. Dismal. Sighing, he turned left and walked toward the far end.
He felt his lungs begin to constrict in the musty dank. They don’t treat the air down here, certainly not to remove fungal spores. Damn, I hate not being able to breathe. But he decided to withstand it for the moment, since the storage cubicle was only fifty meters or so down the corridor. He could be in and out inside of five minutes, and five minutes wouldn’t kill anyone. If it took longer than expected he could always go back upstairs and find his medication, then return to search at his leisure, in relative safety and comfort.
But why were the lights on? As far as he knew they should have been off, only illuminating as he approached. But up and down the bleak hallway all the lights were lit. How long do they stay on after you leave? he wondered. Five minutes? Ten minutes? Less than that, probably. Someone has been here, and recently. I’ll likely run into them. I hope they don’t think I’m a prowler. But that’s ludicrous. This building is built like a fortress, and guarded by all sorts of very sophisticated surveillance equipment. You can’t get in without a key and you can’t walk around without being detected. I’m probably being scanned right now. He looked from side to side, searching for some sign of a scanner.
Hell, we’re all being watched, all the time.
His storage cubicle was located in a narrow alcove. There were signs on the hallway walls indicating whose storage areas were where, and he idly read them as he walked. Good, he thought, the numbers are going up. That meant he should be coming upon his own cubicle very soon. Ah, yes, there it is. He turned into it.
It was dark there, but the light didn’t come on as he expected. Surely this one isn’t controlled by a switch. How archaic, he thought, when everything else is so automatic. He’d come to expect such effortlessness, especially in his building, but as he walked the very short five meters of the alcove’s depth he noticed how dark it became. He fumbled in his pocket for the key chip, found it, but when he reached out to actuate the door someone grabbed his wrist.
To say he was surprised would be to call a redwood forest ‘a few big trees.’ He snatched his arm back on reflex, but the person holding onto him had a grip like iron, and held him fast. It was dark in the alcove so he couldn’t see who held him so strongly. Oh God! he panicked, I’m being attacked by a mugger-a murderer! What have I done? They shouldn’t be here, this shouldn’t be happening. He thought of calling out for help, but then as if they knew what he was going to do, the person spoke and put their hand across his mouth.
“Shhh, be quiet.”
He was confused, then. That was a female voice, and young-sounding, too. Much too girlish to be the vice-gripped monster that fought his every effort to get away. He thought of screaming at the top of his lungs, anyway, but something told him not to.
She removed her hand from his lips, and he noticed the cool roughness of her palm as it brushed against them. He tried to identify the smell of her, but it was unfamiliar. He hadn’t often had the opportunity to work with machine oil up close. She on the other hand, was quite familiar with it.
She whispered, “Don’t tell them-” when loud, running footsteps suddenly broke in upon the hollow quiet behind them. She instantly let go and seemed to shrink back into the shadows at the end of the alcove. Even he knew there wasn’t time to open the door and hide her, though he didn’t have a clue why he should want to do that. What could she be hiding from?
Calm yourself, his mind urged. Act casually and they won’t suspect. The footsteps, from three pairs of heavy boots, stopped just behind him and the hair at the back of his neck prickled as he fought to keep from panicking, from trying to run. Slowly he turned, and promptly gave up all thoughts of escape as he saw they completely blocked his way.
“You there,” the taller one of the three males, said. “What are you doing?”
How odd. Someone’s giving orders? To me? Here? He cleared his throat, and dredged up a good deal of indignant self-assured contempt when he replied: “What do you mean? I live here. This is my personal storage cubicle. I should rather ask what you are doing here. This is private property.” He only hoped he sounded certain enough, and haughty enough at the interruption.
There seemed to be uneasy shifting of the three large shapes confronting him, and then the taller one spoke again. “We’re looking for someone. Female, age twenty-five, about one-point-ninety meters, short brown hair, wearing a black jumpsuit. Have you seen her?”
“Who are you, and why do you want to know?” Stay on the offensive, he thought. Don’t let them cow you into an inferior position. He bluffed, suddenly gaining inspiration, “There’s an alarm here, on the wall. If you don’t leave immediately, I’m going to set it off. There’ll be nothing you can do, and no way to get away. The guards will be here inside of thirty seconds, and they will shoot.”
There was a moment of hesitation, or so he thought, when tall one laughed and turned away, folding his arms. “Shoot him,” he ordered.
But before either of the man’s two companions could draw a weapon, three silent, swift projectiles whisked by his ear out of the dark, and the three unknown individuals immediately crumpled over. And all he could do was gape at them in open astonishment. Then fear crept in.
He was stunned, almost as if he’d been shot, too. A moment before they’d been standing there confronting him, then they were down. Were they dead, or had they been shot with something less than fatal? Either way he didn’t want to know, and didn’t want to then have the same fate befall him. Was her weapon pointed at his back? Was he going to be summarily shot too, so she could make her escape unseen? Who were the three men splayed out in the hallway and why were they so willing to shoot him, here, inside his building, so close to his apartment? Where were the guards, and why hadn’t the intruder alert gone off? Questions, questions, and no brain left to answer them.
“That was pretty brave of you,” she commented out loud, and very casually came around to stand in the reasonable half-light in front of him. She smiled, and he saw her face in some detail.
The woman was just as they had described: one-meter-ninety and short hair-brown, probably. Dark, at least. She was dressed all in black, a jumpsuit, and bulging pockets seemed to cover it. She had on black boots, almost military, and a black web belt slung loosely about her hips. It held a holster for a gun of some type. Said gun was returning to its home, and she in turn regarded him, hands on hips. An incongruous, lazy pose.
“You saved my life,” she said, smiling. “Thanks.”
“I hardly think so,” he replied, finding his voice, but not much of his lungs. He choked, “They were going to kill me.”
But she agreed, “Yes, they were.”
“Were they looking for you? Were they going to kill you?” But, just as soon as he uttered them, he realized the inanity of his questions. If the three men were so casually going to end his life what possible restraint would they have had toward her? That she was so willing to shoot them first attested to their deadly intent. Not that he had any particular reason to trust her. For all he knew she was the ‘bad guy’ and the laid-out three were the good guys. But what kind of good guys could they be if they were so ready to kill? What kind?
That’s what made him trust her, a little.
She didn’t answer. Instead, she motioned to him and they went out into the hallway proper. She had to step over the bodies of the prostrate three, but she made no motion to check them for signs of life. They must be dead, then.
“Did you kill them?” he asked, gulping.
“No,” she replied, stooping down to rummage through the pockets of the tall one: the talker. “That would’ve been too messy. Besides, the alarm system is going to come back on-line in a few moments, and I want them to be caught-alive-when it does.”
“Did you disable the surveillance system?”
“I can’t tell you that.”
“What do you mean? Either you did, or you didn’t.”
She stood, pocketed something. “I got in here without setting off the alarm. You wouldn’t have set it off since the system knows you live here, but it doesn’t know me because I don’t live here.” She didn’t say ‘yes,’ and she didn’t say ‘no.’ Just left it up to him to decide.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“My name is Lela,” she smiled, and offered her hand, “but they call me ‘Glider.’”
(More to come)
One note about it: Back in 1993 the Internet was "new." I was caught speculating what would happen as technology opened the distances between people, and as the gulf between the haves and the have-nots widened. So of course this is a love story between a champion for the have-nots and a champion (pawn, maybe?) of the haves.
One: “Glider”
She ran.
She had temporarily lost her pursuers, but she knew if she stopped or even slowed down they would be upon her. Gasping hugely, she ran diagonally across the small park, her boots picking up bits of the freshly mown grass. She was exhausted, her slender legs threatening to collapse under her, but she knew if they caught her she was dead.
Without stopping or looking she loped across the street at a trot. No car would hit her, she knew, but it was still surprising how many people still looked before crossing. Mostly the older ones, though. She ran under a streetlight, unavoidable in her need to reach the safety of the alley, but it left the back of her brain tingling with the certain knowledge that she had been reacquired.
She didn’t dread being caught. She knew the price and didn’t even fear the pain they’d inflict if she was eventually trapped and killed. Because death was certain, though it certainly wouldn’t be as swift as she might have preferred. The reward, if she escaped … now that was what made it worthwhile.
The alley was dark, of course. She knew it would be, and she knew where it led. Maybe her pursuers knew also, but there wasn’t time to consider that, just then. She ran toward its interior, her boot soles making hollow sounds in the narrow canyon of concrete and stone. It smelled, too, but old urine and indistinct garbage were familiar odors. Almost perfectly she visualized the position and contour of the walls surrounding her, and put on the brakes just in time to lightly touch the smooth wall marking the alley’s dead end.
She felt along the wall to the left, and just where she had expected it, was the door. Of course it was steel and quite thick, with practically no visible locking mechanism, but she wasn’t worried. She could open this door and seal it behind her, and she doubted that her pursuers could. If they did manage it, well then she was very likely dead, but she would think about that when the time came. For now she had to concentrate on getting the damn thing open.
In the blackness the lock pad was difficult to find. First she had to feel along the right hand edge of the door then judge the height of the lock based upon her own height, then feel inward the necessary few centimeters from the seam to locate the small area where the key chip could be registered. It wasn’t the kind of operation where you could simply plaster the key chip against the metal and slide it around until it found the pad. This door had a newer technology lock, and this lock was smart enough not to accept field entry of the key chip from an angle. Only straight in (within tolerances) would the key chip actuate the lock.
She found the spot, placed her fingertip on it to keep it located, and removing the key chip from one of her pockets, pushed it straight in against the cold metal. Nothing happened for an interminable second, but then the door snicked. She heard footsteps in the distance behind her, actually coming down the alley toward her, so she quickly slipped inside and pushed the door closed. She only relaxed when it snicked again, resealed.
Two: A lost encyclopedia
It better be there, he thought.
When was the last time he’d seen it? He couldn’t remember, but it was so old and (to him) so valuable he simply couldn’t have thrown it away.
It’s a shame they don’t print them anymore. Just the weight and feel of a hefty volume added to its authority. No mere display of data on the Net could have the same credibility, though you knew the information was not only factual but quite possibly as current as that morning. A paperbound encyclopedia was out of date even before it was printed. It was obsolete, quaint, designed for a time and a place where knowledge didn’t grow faster than the ability to absorb it.
And there had been such a time too, before.
But he wanted the old volume. He knew it was irrational and certainly unnecessary, but to lose himself in the quiet depths of its heavy, smooth, shiny pages was just the escape he needed. I just want to spend a couple hours, he promised himself. I want to go back; relive the simple joys of my childhood, when things were simpler; I want to recapture learning for the sheer joy of it, without either objective or time limit.
He stepped out of the elevator on the first lower level. Where the elevator’s interior had been polished mahogany and plush burgundy carpeting, the exterior hallway he entered onto was nothing but bare gray block walls and dusty concrete floor. Stark, bare, wire cage-protected halogen bulbs lit the way on intervals of about three meters. Dismal. Sighing, he turned left and walked toward the far end.
He felt his lungs begin to constrict in the musty dank. They don’t treat the air down here, certainly not to remove fungal spores. Damn, I hate not being able to breathe. But he decided to withstand it for the moment, since the storage cubicle was only fifty meters or so down the corridor. He could be in and out inside of five minutes, and five minutes wouldn’t kill anyone. If it took longer than expected he could always go back upstairs and find his medication, then return to search at his leisure, in relative safety and comfort.
But why were the lights on? As far as he knew they should have been off, only illuminating as he approached. But up and down the bleak hallway all the lights were lit. How long do they stay on after you leave? he wondered. Five minutes? Ten minutes? Less than that, probably. Someone has been here, and recently. I’ll likely run into them. I hope they don’t think I’m a prowler. But that’s ludicrous. This building is built like a fortress, and guarded by all sorts of very sophisticated surveillance equipment. You can’t get in without a key and you can’t walk around without being detected. I’m probably being scanned right now. He looked from side to side, searching for some sign of a scanner.
Hell, we’re all being watched, all the time.
His storage cubicle was located in a narrow alcove. There were signs on the hallway walls indicating whose storage areas were where, and he idly read them as he walked. Good, he thought, the numbers are going up. That meant he should be coming upon his own cubicle very soon. Ah, yes, there it is. He turned into it.
It was dark there, but the light didn’t come on as he expected. Surely this one isn’t controlled by a switch. How archaic, he thought, when everything else is so automatic. He’d come to expect such effortlessness, especially in his building, but as he walked the very short five meters of the alcove’s depth he noticed how dark it became. He fumbled in his pocket for the key chip, found it, but when he reached out to actuate the door someone grabbed his wrist.
To say he was surprised would be to call a redwood forest ‘a few big trees.’ He snatched his arm back on reflex, but the person holding onto him had a grip like iron, and held him fast. It was dark in the alcove so he couldn’t see who held him so strongly. Oh God! he panicked, I’m being attacked by a mugger-a murderer! What have I done? They shouldn’t be here, this shouldn’t be happening. He thought of calling out for help, but then as if they knew what he was going to do, the person spoke and put their hand across his mouth.
“Shhh, be quiet.”
He was confused, then. That was a female voice, and young-sounding, too. Much too girlish to be the vice-gripped monster that fought his every effort to get away. He thought of screaming at the top of his lungs, anyway, but something told him not to.
She removed her hand from his lips, and he noticed the cool roughness of her palm as it brushed against them. He tried to identify the smell of her, but it was unfamiliar. He hadn’t often had the opportunity to work with machine oil up close. She on the other hand, was quite familiar with it.
She whispered, “Don’t tell them-” when loud, running footsteps suddenly broke in upon the hollow quiet behind them. She instantly let go and seemed to shrink back into the shadows at the end of the alcove. Even he knew there wasn’t time to open the door and hide her, though he didn’t have a clue why he should want to do that. What could she be hiding from?
Calm yourself, his mind urged. Act casually and they won’t suspect. The footsteps, from three pairs of heavy boots, stopped just behind him and the hair at the back of his neck prickled as he fought to keep from panicking, from trying to run. Slowly he turned, and promptly gave up all thoughts of escape as he saw they completely blocked his way.
“You there,” the taller one of the three males, said. “What are you doing?”
How odd. Someone’s giving orders? To me? Here? He cleared his throat, and dredged up a good deal of indignant self-assured contempt when he replied: “What do you mean? I live here. This is my personal storage cubicle. I should rather ask what you are doing here. This is private property.” He only hoped he sounded certain enough, and haughty enough at the interruption.
There seemed to be uneasy shifting of the three large shapes confronting him, and then the taller one spoke again. “We’re looking for someone. Female, age twenty-five, about one-point-ninety meters, short brown hair, wearing a black jumpsuit. Have you seen her?”
“Who are you, and why do you want to know?” Stay on the offensive, he thought. Don’t let them cow you into an inferior position. He bluffed, suddenly gaining inspiration, “There’s an alarm here, on the wall. If you don’t leave immediately, I’m going to set it off. There’ll be nothing you can do, and no way to get away. The guards will be here inside of thirty seconds, and they will shoot.”
There was a moment of hesitation, or so he thought, when tall one laughed and turned away, folding his arms. “Shoot him,” he ordered.
But before either of the man’s two companions could draw a weapon, three silent, swift projectiles whisked by his ear out of the dark, and the three unknown individuals immediately crumpled over. And all he could do was gape at them in open astonishment. Then fear crept in.
He was stunned, almost as if he’d been shot, too. A moment before they’d been standing there confronting him, then they were down. Were they dead, or had they been shot with something less than fatal? Either way he didn’t want to know, and didn’t want to then have the same fate befall him. Was her weapon pointed at his back? Was he going to be summarily shot too, so she could make her escape unseen? Who were the three men splayed out in the hallway and why were they so willing to shoot him, here, inside his building, so close to his apartment? Where were the guards, and why hadn’t the intruder alert gone off? Questions, questions, and no brain left to answer them.
“That was pretty brave of you,” she commented out loud, and very casually came around to stand in the reasonable half-light in front of him. She smiled, and he saw her face in some detail.
The woman was just as they had described: one-meter-ninety and short hair-brown, probably. Dark, at least. She was dressed all in black, a jumpsuit, and bulging pockets seemed to cover it. She had on black boots, almost military, and a black web belt slung loosely about her hips. It held a holster for a gun of some type. Said gun was returning to its home, and she in turn regarded him, hands on hips. An incongruous, lazy pose.
“You saved my life,” she said, smiling. “Thanks.”
“I hardly think so,” he replied, finding his voice, but not much of his lungs. He choked, “They were going to kill me.”
But she agreed, “Yes, they were.”
“Were they looking for you? Were they going to kill you?” But, just as soon as he uttered them, he realized the inanity of his questions. If the three men were so casually going to end his life what possible restraint would they have had toward her? That she was so willing to shoot them first attested to their deadly intent. Not that he had any particular reason to trust her. For all he knew she was the ‘bad guy’ and the laid-out three were the good guys. But what kind of good guys could they be if they were so ready to kill? What kind?
That’s what made him trust her, a little.
She didn’t answer. Instead, she motioned to him and they went out into the hallway proper. She had to step over the bodies of the prostrate three, but she made no motion to check them for signs of life. They must be dead, then.
“Did you kill them?” he asked, gulping.
“No,” she replied, stooping down to rummage through the pockets of the tall one: the talker. “That would’ve been too messy. Besides, the alarm system is going to come back on-line in a few moments, and I want them to be caught-alive-when it does.”
“Did you disable the surveillance system?”
“I can’t tell you that.”
“What do you mean? Either you did, or you didn’t.”
She stood, pocketed something. “I got in here without setting off the alarm. You wouldn’t have set it off since the system knows you live here, but it doesn’t know me because I don’t live here.” She didn’t say ‘yes,’ and she didn’t say ‘no.’ Just left it up to him to decide.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“My name is Lela,” she smiled, and offered her hand, “but they call me ‘Glider.’”
(More to come)