“Could you get it for me, TE-Les?” Howard asked.
“Certainly,” the child-sized figure raised an arm. The nanomachines that comprised it unfolded into a long tentacle and sprouted five fingers to grasp the phone. The arm retracted for TE-Les to hold the speaker up.
“Howard?”
“Yes, I’m here. Forgive me for taking a few rings to answer. It must be almost morning somewhere on Earth. What do you need?” he yawned.
“Report to the consulate immediately for assignment,” said the voice in the receiver.
“The consulate? I work for Wellsworth now. Or are you suggesting otherwise?” Howard murmured, daring only in the lingering daze of his nightmare.
“Watch it, Carver. The WCC is calling you in. You answer. You’re needed for an assignment off-world,” the voice warned. That sent a shiver under Howard’s sheets. He turned his head from the receiver to whisper.
“TE-Les, get me my jacket.”
“Right away, Mr. Carver,” chimed his nanotech friend. She glided on a tide of microscopic supercomputers to the coatrack and back. Howard put the speaker to his lips.
“I’ll be there in an hour,” he said.
Chapter Three: Outerworlds Outlaw
“What are they waiting for?” Dawn let loose into her empty living room. She had expected to sail the rings of Saturn or tear over the terradomes of Mars by now. She at least expected to see the inside of the Lunar Launch Station. But so far, nothing. Dawn had graduated the SkyLine Piloting Academy three months ago, and all she’d seen were the streets between her apartment and the gym. “Maybe I should pay them a visit? If the offers aren’t coming in... I guess I should look for them?”
She stared out her apartment window-wall for the answer she knew wouldn’t come. Still, the smoggy sunlight was warm on her tanned fair skin, which felt nice enough to linger. The musty light gave her highlighted brunette curls the sheen of rose gold. It filled her hazel eyes with midday glow.
Then Dawn spun and paced across her living room yet again. She stopped by her bowl of fruit for a crisp bite of an emerald apple. Much as she loved the taste from the last few farms of Shanghai’s outer limits, they still made her lips pucker. This one was especially strong. The acidity must be getting worse, Dawn tried to distract herself. Come on, Dawn. Quit stalling. She shook it off and picked up the phone. A deep breath steadied her fingers to poke in the number. A sharp ring from the speaker tightened every muscle in her body. It uncurled her hand. The phone rattled across the floor.
“Damn!” she laughed while she chased after it. Her chuckles froze halfway up her throat, threatening to suffocate her when she saw the dial code on the screen. Center Shanghai - the WCC Consulate. It took her thirty seconds of ringing to force the blockage down. The same ringtone that usually brought her a smirk with the promise of a fondly rejected bar invite became a tremor through her soul. She never pictured her first fight-or-flight moment of her career as a SkyLine pilot would happen in the living room of her apartment. She fumbled the shimmering phone to her ear and tried for the first option. “He-he-hello? Hm,” Dawn gave her throat a thump with her fist. “Can I help you?”
“We certainly hope so,” a woman’s voice, flat as slate, came through. They really do just start like that, right away, Dawn marveled.
For a moment, awe overcame her nerves. She thought to grab her screene
r remote in an idle wander across the room. The dim city lights of Shanghai’s endless high-rises through the smog was hardly an appropriate setting for a milestone so epic as a phone call from the WCC. Dawn thumbed in the code for her favorite scenery. At the click of change scene, a fusion power grid pulsed across the glass of her apartment window-wall. When it dimmed away again, the dreary midday cityscape was nowhere to be seen. Instead, Dawn’s apartment now overlooked craggy islands of stone in a twisting ocean of clouds. The Huangshan Mountains were her favorite spot on Earth. Dawn could think of no better place to have the conversation that might liberate her from this waning rock.
“This… is the household of Dawn Redding, certified SkyLine pilot, is it not?” said the voice in the speaker. Dawn snapped to attention. She had completely lost track of how long she stared at the Huangshan Mountains.
“Yes ma’am,” Dawn forced out.
“This is the Office of Councilman Marcus Brass. We could use your help with something if you’re free,” said the woman.
“Free? I’m…” at the oddest time, a lesson from her mother crept into Dawn’s mind. Never seem too eager. “Let me check.”
“This is a time-sensitive offer, Ms. Redding,” the secretary tested her. Dawn tapped her foot, fighting every urge, to persevere.
“Right, right, just… checking,” Dawn sweated. She held the speaker away to take another nervous chomp of her apple. She downed the bite. “Looks like I’m open. I’ll be there…”
“Today. By noon,” said the secretary, and the line went dead. Dawn barked a laugh of triumph. Then she noticed the time on the wall-clock. Already nine. She jumped into her graduation suit and sprinted down the hall to the stairs. She forgot about the screener, and so the Huangshan Mountains remained permanently across her apartment window.
“Dawn Redding. I’m the… SkyLine pilot?” she told the secretary in person when she arrived at the citadel-like World Crisis Committee Consulate. Dawn’s echoing footsteps through its curving stony halls, veined with steel supports, had led her to the office. Well, to the waiting room for that office anyway.
“Take a seat in the back. Councilman Brass will be ready for you shortly,” the secretary told her. Dawn lasted five minutes before she started twiddling her thumbs. It was ten before the shoe-taps. When Dawn’s watch said fifteen minutes had gone by, she started analyzing the two other men in the room with her. Both of them looked back at her, both in very different ways.
The man in the far corner by the entrance regarded Dawn with a slow head bob. His scruffy lower lip protruded in something like a frown, though he looked anything but upset. By the light in his amber eyes, he seemed to be quietly enjoying his wait for Councilman Brass. Aside from the occasional yawn or stretch of his limbs, solid for a man with that much gray in his hair, he only watched Dawn and the other man. Something about them seemed to provide the old man great entertainment. Dawn was almost bored enough to ask him what.
This other man, straight across the cushioned waiting room from Dawn, was far closer to her age. He might have had a few years on her, she figured by the mature stress lines across his cheeks and forehead. The fuzz of his short brown hair was dull in comparison to his crystal blue eyes. He looked at Dawn too, though not with any sort of enjoyment. It was more of the occasional eye-dart of curiosity, almost familiarity. But Dawn stared back, and she was sure she didn’t know him.
“Dawn Redding,” the secretary’s voice made her jump.