Free The Bringer of Light by Pat Black Page A

It’s too cold. I saw you struggling with the sled.”
    “I’ll make it,” he said. “Now you go on home. I don’t want company. Can’t you understand?”
    A strange spasm crossed her features; so quick Cutwater might have guessed it was an illusion caused by the interference of the snow in his visual field. But he knew better. For an instant she looked angry. “Do you own this part of the valley?”
    Cutwater managed a smile. “Which one of your watching millions asked you to say that?”
    “You do own this valley, don’t you? Out here? Wherever we are?”
    “No, I don’t. If you want to claim it, feel free. I have to move on.”
    “Well then.” She beamed again, and her voice became shrill. “I think I’ll stay here with you.”
    Cutwater waved her away, and trudged on. Behind him, the girl glided forward, cleaving a molten trail through the snow. 
     
                                                  **************
     
    -She’s gonna do the bump
    -Reckoned
    -Bump for sure
    -*** 2/1 Cutwater and Joon bump***
    -Nice odds
    -Stars I’ll have
    -Coming
    -Me too, coming
    -Uh, imagine if they bumped. Coming.
    -They’ll bump #coming
    -I’m not coming
    -Frowny
     
                                                  **************
     
    “I’m serious. I need you to leave. Go.” He gestured with a tin fork towards the orange glow.
    They were sheltered in a rocky outcrop, and Cutwater had a fire going among the slabs of stone. It would not last long; even the accelerant he’d carried in his pack, his one concession to modern technology, would not last forever in the howling wind.
    Secure in her orange cocoon, the girl said nothing, but the Unix unit embedded in her head, obscuring one eye, seemed to flash, like the windows of a passing jet catching the sunlight. Her visible eye jerked and rolled, like a puppet on a string. Since he’d opened the tin of tuna, she’d followed his every move with razor-edged keenness.
    She said: “It’s a free world.”
    “I don’t want you here. Please leave. You’re getting in my way.”
    “Sorry. No.”
    “Who sent you?”
    She shrugged. “No-one special.”
    “You’ll be recording this, yes? Is that a Unix unit?”
    “Newest one – Firebird 461.”
    “A 461! Whoa. Impressive stuff. Ten times better than the RS232 Interface III?”
    “Naturally. What’s an RS232 Interface III?”
    He laughed. “I’m joking. It’s a joke. I wouldn’t know a 461 from a tin-opener.”
    “Oh.” Again, that wave of activity stirred her features. “RS232. Now I see. Jokes.”
    “That’s it.” He gestured towards her with the knife. “Want some tuna?”
    “Tuna was banned in the 2092 Committee, sub-section three.”
    “Not everywhere. Not in this country.”
    The girl leaned over, the corona of light bubbled around her head. “How old is it?”
    “I dunno. This tinned stuff lasts years.”
    “Hey – you want some of my food patches? You could come in here. Get warm. I promise I won’t try and bump you.”
    Cutwater almost choked on his food. “Awful decent of you!”
    “You’ll come in? You might freeze out here. Your vitals aren’t scanning rightwise.”
    “I’m just fine as I am. I’ll be moving on, soon.”
    “Why won’t you come in for some heat?”
    “It wouldn’t be the same if I used a heat shield. I don’t want a heat shield. And I don’t want to be anywhere near a Unix unit, even by proxy.”
    Her features rippled. “Five hundred and twenty-two people have died on this mountain in the past thirty years trying to reach the walled city known as Tegrut. Bodies lie less than two hundred yards from this very map-in. That’s where you are going, isn’t it? Tegrut?”
    Cutwater shrugged. He gazed into the sputtering flames, at the rising smoke torn asunder by the wind once it rose above the outcrop.
    “I don’t understand why you would risk your life. Is it for