Free Paradigm (9781909490406) by Ceri A. Lowe Page B

downstairs.
    â€˜It’s an intrusion,’ she said to his father, Nikolas, in a whisper. ‘Back to the old ways. I don’t like it. A screen in every house?’
    â€˜It’s better than nothing,’ said Nikolas. ‘At least this way we’ll know what’s going on. And I suppose they’re not that different to televisions. Apparently they were a revelation in their day too.’
    After that, the voices were lowered to something that sounded like the wind through the trees in autumn and Carter couldn’t make out any more of the detail. The next day his mother was teary and he spent most of the day following the Industry engineers from home to home, trailing behind them as they worked in their crisp blue overalls. He watched as they pretreated the wall with a plasma adhesive and then painted over the plasma with a grey-white solution that enabled the screen to be seen in three dimensions. While the wall was drying, one of the engineers went to collect the screen. It came in a small, round microfibre covering that shimmered like liquid silk in the palm of his hand. As he brought the box in very carefully, he set it down on the floor and then the two of them gently worked together to unfold the webby fabric into a massive cloth which became harder, the longer it became exposed to the air.
    â€˜Twist,’ said the chief engineer and they turned over the graphene plate, working every fold and crease out of the fabric until the hardening screen was ready to fix to the wall. The junior engineer balanced it on the palm of his hand, sometimes twisting it and catching it on the tips of his fingers.
    â€˜Why do you do that?’ asked Carter curiously, watching the twisting plate. ‘What if you drop it?’
    â€˜Twisting it binds in the light,’ said the junior engineer. ‘Without it the screen would be useless.’ He flipped the screen over and caught it on the top of his index finger. ‘And I never, ever drop anything.’
    â€˜What if it gets hard in the wrong shape?’ said Carter, mesmerised by the spinning of the screen which was getting larger each time he looked at it. Now it was taking the engineer both hands to turn it in high circles above his head.
    â€˜It won’t,’ said the spinner, his eyes fixed on the centre of the plate. They were in and out of the house within half an hour leaving no trace of ever having been there, except for the small cylindrical sliver of microfibre that the screen had been wrapped in. It had hardened into a thin ring of multicoloured light. Carter had kept it for years, looking at it occasionally. It shimmered in the light, and sometimes he wore it on his finger, like an amulet.
    Under the cold white moon, Carter started to shake as nausea combined with the cold air took hold of him. Lines of text gleamed brightly on the screen. The twins’ address was an old house in the South Quarter that showed five residents. Carter rubbed his hands together, listening to the regular ticking of the rain on the shelter. As soon as he could get there, he would.
    The rain shower that had started picked up the rhythm. His eyes began to close; the tin-picking was as soothing and regular as a heartbeat. He almost didn’t notice the indicator turn from amber to red.
    â€˜Move, Carter,’ he whispered to himself. ‘Move.’
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    T he rain came hard then , in thick, ugly pellets. Pellets that could, in twenty minutes, become ice crystals with the potential to pierce the skin. Since the Storms, there had been few deaths, but there had been enough that it was never worth taking the chance. He picked up speed, legs getting stronger with each step. Sloshy rivulets of water twisted underneath his neckline and down his back, making him gasp, but he didn’t stop until the track wound its way around the tacky pine forest that bled out the sweet, heady smells of wet conifer.
    The first part of his training would be