Free War Surf by M. M. Buckner Page A

just before the afternoon twisters touched down. Climbing through the smog in their cruiser, we caught glimpses of monstrous waterspouts, and I visualized Verinne dodging through the gale. Strange providence. Our exit came just in time, but we could hardly view the World Trade Org as a savior.
    The cops took the three of us to a detention center in Kobe, Japan, and by the time we got there, Chad had arranged a teleconference with my lawyers. I liked Kobe, nice restaurants, but we didn’t see much of it on that trip. Nor did we see a doctor, not even a cyberdoc. Following my cue, Sheeba steadily refused to give her identity—she giggled and played coy with the cops, treating the whole experience like a game—but that didn’t prevent them from sampling her DNA and tagging her with a trespass violation. Poor Win logged an arrest record, too, though he didn’t know it till later, when he woke up in a Nordvik health church with six spanking new artificial vertebrae.
    Chad paid the fines, they let us go, and for nine days, I became the laughingstock of war surfers. Nasir Deepra jokes suffused the airwaves. Lame. Stupido. But much worse than that, the Agonist crew slipped into second place in the northern hemisphere—and that jerkwad Paladin crew took first rank!
    Back home in the privacy of my condo, I tore out the signet with my fingernails. If I’d been flexible enough, I would have kicked myself in the skull. Instead, I called Shee for a therapy session. Deep-tissue massage, that’s’ what I needed. As she straddled my back on the floor mat in my observatory, I whimpered softly.
    “Surfing didn’t used to be this hard. What’s wrong with me? How could I go so limp on a freaking Class One?”
    “It doesn’t matter, beau. We saved Winston’s life.” Since our return, Sheeba had grown distracted and subdued, probably worried about the arrest.
    “I’ll clear your record, Shee, no matter what it costs.”
    She dug her thumbs into my trapezius muscles. “Do you think those kids knew they were going to die?”
    “They think I’m an idiot,” I mumbled into my pillow—meaning of course my fans and rivals, not the pathetic Gromic.Com kids. I felt too chagrined to meet Sheeba’s eyes. After all the bragging I’d done about my surfer skills, what must she think of me? That arrest had wounded me in the tenderest part of my makeup.
    “They were so small ,” Sheeba said. “I’ve heard employees tend to be stunted because of their diet, but why don’t they eat better? Their food’s free.” She leaned on my back and crushed the air out of my lungs. My spine popped in three places. “And why did they go outside without gear? That was askew.”
    “We’ll have to do a gnarly bold surf to get back into first place.” I chewed my pillow and brooded. “Something huge and unexpected. Maybe the Lorelei ”
    Sheeba’s fingers traced circles in my hair. “Kat mentioned a zone called Heaven.”
    “Kat should keep her mouth shut.”
    I twisted the pillow. Kat kept harping on the one zone we could never go near. Still, we needed to pull off a mega-mother of a war surf—and soon. What would Sheeba think if we settled for second place?
    “Forget what’s past. Focus on what’s next,” I muttered, my personal motto.
    “Because the future is certain, but the past can change,” Sheeba replied. Then she blew a raspberry against my neck. “It’s true, Nass. We revise our memories all the time. It’s how we stay happy. Like making up fairy tales.”
    More mystical effervescence. At least she sounded more cheerful. I rolled to face her. How bewitching she looked straddling me on the mat. “Well, our future certainly has to include one huge, hairy war surf to take back the top rank.”
    She grinned. “Heaven?”
    “Not Heaven. You can be certain of that.”

5
YOU CAN AFFORD IT
    “Is it not strange that desire should so many years outlive performance?”
    -WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
    “Ne-ver. Do I have to spell