3. The Good News

Alerts were following one after the other on her com, “Reach home now”, “Turn left now”, she ignored the second one “You are going the wrong way”, the deep male voice of her City-Guide sang into her com.

“O Yeah? But you don’t know this City like I do”, Lini almost squeaked back, but not taking her eyes off the rectangular passageway as she shot through it.

“Proximity warning, Ten centimeters”, this time it was her glider, its smooth female programmed to warn its riders of 'unsafe practices', but Lini just ignored it, swerving and whizzing past the much slower cars in the passage, her hands nimble on the round handles at the two ends of the steer console. She turned the console sharply, - and again, with amazing agility, and the glider followed loyally, zigzagging through the traffic, - then suddenly she took a hard left, and found herself through a rather empty and narrow round tunnel. No slow irksome cars up this glider ally, just a lone glider ahead of her, which she quickly overtook, and then she really gunned her bike. Her short hair flew wild in her face and in her eyes, but she chose not to raise the visor further up. She liked the wind in her hair, the thrill of the speed.

“You are going too fast, Lini”, more Alerts, “Please relax and slow down, there is a sharp left curve ahead”, the smooth voice of the glider advised again, and which Lini ignored yet again. Lini knew this stretch well, and kept up her speed, the glider slid up the round tunnel side as she gunned it even further through the bend.
“Cool”, she breathed out as the curve ended and the bike came down off the side and straightened, still doing 85 Km/Hr. The brighter lit end of the round glider tunnel was now visible ahead.

“You are approaching a residential passage, please slow down to 30 Kilometers per hour”, she just smiled, the alert sounded again - “You are approaching a controlled passage, your vehicle speed must be less than 30, or you vehicle WILL be subjected to external deceleration by CT Control”, this time it was a different, much deeper male voice in her audio com - City Traffic Control.

She braked just before she knew the CTC would slow her down ‘externally’, more to keep it off her record than any thing else. The glider descended off the tunnel outlet into another passageway, very different from the previous one, for it was nolonger the usual conduit passageway, and it was top open, and you could see a few of the distant twinkling cities
in the black space above. This was a proper road, very much wider with a glistening deep blue surface instead of the dull gray of the business district where Bubba's 'Café on the Edge' was. There were clusters of well lit shops every few hundred meters, and there were lots of people on the pavements on either side. She let the glider slide on for a while, slowly and silently on this road, till she got to the entrence of her home block. She turned into a flat rectangular softly lit transparent ally-duct, and you could see quaint green lawns and houses on either side. Lini was soon gliding past Tobins house, she glanced at his window, he was not there. She hurried on ahead, then turned sharply through a curved hourglass shaped opening on the side of the ally wall and she was home. She yanked the console free from the command pad, jumped out of the still moving glider, and let it slide on its own to a stop on the front lawn. She ran inside her house, shoving the console behind her into her belt .
Her mother was in the bath, lucky, Lini thought and ran to the lift. But without stopping to bring it up, let herself drop through the low gravity chute beside the lift, and swiftly 'float-jumped' down into her room.

“Lin sweetie”, her mom called out from within the bathroom, “is that you”. She obviously hadn’t seen the house log yet, or her glider records, she was so easy.

“Yeah mom”, Lini cried back, “I was with Tobin, working on my project”, then whispered as loud as she dared into her com, “Toby, toby”, no answer. “Tobin Ramark, answer you jerk” - still no answer. “Darn, where is that boy when you need him?”.

Too loud

“Maybe he is sleeping”, she startled at the softly spoken words behind her. Lini swung round,
she knew who the voice was.

“DAD”, she cried and ran into his wide open arms.

"Unlike you, most kids fall asleep by the eighteenth hour", he continued, smiling widely.

“How come you are back so early, I thought you weren’t supposed to come back up until next week”

“Yeah. But I had to come back to see my little Linikin. When I decide I have to be with my Linker Blinker, no one dare stop me”, he smiled even wider, hugging her warmly.
The hug lasted only a short time though.

“Dad, I am nearly 13, not a baby”, pushing herself out of the embrace suddenly. Then after a pause said-

“Let me see, you did some thing wrong, and the government fired you again”, Lini paused thinking, her eyes squinting, “wait a minute, then you wouldn’t be so happy, something else is up” Lini paused peering into her fathers eyes.

“Well I have good news for you, very good news…”, her dad beamed back at her.

“Corl?”, it was Amia’s surprised voice coming from above through the low gravity chute, “it that you?”

They waited till the lift went up and came down again with her.

The two grinned at each other, thinking the same thing.
“She is too old to float-jump down like us normal people”, Corl said looking down fondly at her daughter, his eyes twinkling.

“Corl!?”, Amia echoed again, a little out of breadth, this time a hint of concern in her in her voice along with the surprise. “Is everything alright?”, Amia said, still in the half open elevator tube, her face still not visible as she descended.

“Better than alright”, he announced, eyes gleaming.

Amia emerged and the two joined in a tight embrace, the sudden passion unmistakable between them. The kiss was bound to follow; she had really missed him these last few months.

“Hello, MY room”, Lini cried disgusted, then arms in the air helplessly, they were always hugging and kissing way too much. “Arghh”, She had to look the other way. “Oh come on, enough already”, but it was of no use, they were making up for lost time.

“Hmm, Now I remember why I married you”, Amia cooed softly.
“Gross”, Lini protested
“We’re done, you can turn back now”
“Are you sure?” Lini wasn’t sure at all.

“Ok now, brace yourself ladies, for you are now looking at the new Senior Quality Assurance Engineer, at Pikona Minning corp.”, he paused in expectation, but the jubilant response never came.

“Yeaaa”, came Lini’s delayed sarcasm. He was the best Dad possible, but he just found the most boring jobs in NU, and in the dullest cities in all of Noesis.
He looked at Lini’s blank face then his wife’s more confused one.
“Well I haven’t taken the post yet, I just got the acceptance, had to talk to you first, of course”
“Are you sure you haven’t said yes already”, Amia’s voice was low and serious “do you still have your old job, or have you resigned already”.
“O come on, what do you take me for, I am not that stupid…”
“If I remember correctly, that is exactly what you did last time”, Lini almost sang in, then rambled on in her usual rapid style, “and then we had to move to this horrible city, can you imagine, not one decent place for kids to hangout, no Travel clubs, no Game Zones, no race circuits …”
“Ok, Ok I got it, that was a mistake perhaps, but this will make up for all that and I promise you, a lot more. This - is all our dreams come true”

Amia was about to speak but Lini didn’t give her the chance, “But how Dad, last I heard Planet Pikona was about 23 light years from NZero, I learn things in school you know”. She was almost shouting, then added lower but with definite resolve- “I am NOT going there"
“Relax, and let me complete one sentence will you”, Corl was unflustered, “Kids cant go on Planets as large as Pikona any way, have you learnt that in school?, the gravity will kill you, you will be crawling on the ground like a worm with those spindly legs of yours”, he was clearly having fun, he knew her mood would soon change. “But as I was saying, if I take this job we will be stationed on” he paused, he had the complete attention of two women he loved the most -

“Opal City, Modern”, he finished emphatically.

“Eeeeeek” came the instant screech that rang out through the open window, Lini sprang up from the bed, like a frog, straight at him, flinging arms and legs around him like a chimp climbing a tree, and nearly taking her father down. Her arms hooked on to his neck like she often used to when younger, and pulled herself up, hugging and kissing him madly.

“Opal Mod!?”, it was Amia’s turn now, surprise and disbelief clear in her voice, “as in Opal Mod, Cluster seven ?”

“Yeah baby, Opal Mordern, smack in the heart of cluster seven!”

Opal Modern, or Opal Mod as more often called by sevenites, was the one of the largest Mega Space City in Noesis, a truly modern metropolis in the heart of Noesis Universalis. It was known as the business capital of cluster seven, but it was also equally well known as the preferred residence for some of the richest and most influential people in Noesis. Space Ball player Din Corva lived there, as did the great explorer and scientist and High Phil awardee Dr Jill Bonisti, and many others. Anybody who was somebody had a place there.

But more importantly for the Sunoes Family, Opal Mod was near Silnosa Poli, the largest and most populous city in cluster seven, and birth place and home city of Amia Sunoes, and still home to Amia’s mother and Lini’s beloved Grandma.

“Well this is good news, …”, Amia started to say.

“This is great news”, Lini sprang back onto her bed, again nearly toppling her father, “Finally he does something right”.

Corlin looked at her amused, for a moment, she sounded uncannily like her grandmother, but Lini was too busy to notice. She was bouncing up and down on the soft polymer bed shouting “We’re going to Opal City, we’re going to Opal City”

“There is more”, Corlin was enjoying himself now thoroughly.

Lini’s put her jumping on pause, Amia looked at him intensely too, he had the two women's attention easily this time

“It pay’s a cool 3 mil a year, plus a 500 Square meter class one private home range with a mansion and its own pool, in a place called ‘Green Orb’, I have been informed its one of the poshest places in the whole of NU”.
It was Amia who exulted this time,
“Green Orb?”, her eye brows raised in pleasant surprise, “Why that is about the classiest place on Opal City, in the whole of Noeverse, and the most expensive”, her cluster seven accent suddenly back in her voice. Amia couldn't stop herself from smiling.

“Lini’s cries now changed to “We’re going to Greenorb, we’re going to greenorb”, she had no idea where or what ‘Greenorb’ was but it sounded nice, anything on Opal City Modern sounded nice.

“Nicest place in NU, but living is very costly up their, one single cubic meter costs well above a hundred thousand Rols, and you have to be a billionaire to get into one of their clubs, or even afford to eat in a restaurant”.

“Relax, most of our expenses will be paid for by Pikona Minning, and I am quite sure it has its own club, a company the size of Pikona- got to have its own club. As for your fine dinning- I think we could afford that with the 3 million Rols a year, that’s two hundred grand a month, minus taxes.”.

"Three mil is a lot of money", Amia's voice seemed to drift a bit, she was already imagining her grand life there in Green Orb's elegant luxury.

They embraced spontaneously. He knew she was happy, she was born in Silnosa Poli, another great metropolis in ‘space-heaven-cluster-seven’, she was going back home.

“So, do I say yes?”, he asked, but he knew the answer already.

“Yes, you surely may say yes”, Amia smiled back softly, that adoring look in her eye he loved so much. And Lini went “Yes – Yes – Yes” each time she soared up high above her bed.

They were hugging and kissing again, but this time Lini didn’t mind, she was too busy bobbing up and down screaming “we’re off to Opal City”.