Sarawatch: Has a real duty, for once. Sarawatch was sitting in her office, door open, composing an email to dutifully say happy birthday to her cousin back on Earth. Teylon was sitting at the front desk, idly flicking through some web pages that were discussing how the economies of asteroid belt settlements were totally dependent on Mars. Adalace was sitting at her desk in her office, also with her door open, her big computer humming away, as she spent an enjoyable afternoon developing a program that could look through the eyes of all of the surveillance cameras that overlooked the dome's internal airspace, and work out the trajectories of all flying and falling objects. Just because it seemed like an interesting little project to fill in the time. None of them were doing any neighbourhood watching of any sort. However, this state of affairs was shortly going to change. Teylon's phone rang. "Ah, hello?" "Maggie?" "Err, why are you sobbing?" At this, Adalace and Sarawatch looked up from their terminal screens. The office cubicles were quiet and Teylon's voice was audible. "Sorry, I..." A silence for a minute or so. "Oh. Right. We're on our way." A minute later, all three were running along the street, towards the nearest subway entrance. By the time they had gotten to the entrance, and gone down the elevator to the subway station, a priority maglev cabin was waiting. On Mars, maglev transport cost, but it was cheap, and everyone used it. But, like transport systems everywhere, it was not necessarily all that speedy, depending on circumstances. So the authorities, making allowances for the fact that there was always someone with lots of money and too little time, provided a high-speed priority service. Even in peak traffic periods, priority maglevs took precedence over everything except emergency maglevs. Of course, this cost a lot more money than the standard transport option. But then, Teylon was rich, so what did it matter? As soon as the doors closed and they were sitting, the maglev took off and accelerated hard. They were pushed back into their seat cushions. This did not stop Sarawatch, who was holding a conversation with someone from police emergency operations. "Right, so you got the medical emergency call?" "You just got it then? Why the delay?" "Well, anyway, we're going out to there right now..." "Excuse me? Why shouldn't we?" "Well, I bloody well hope I'll see some police there. Very soon!" "Yeah, yeah. Right." Sarawatch closed the call. Her face was tight. She mumbled something under her breath. "Sorry, what was all of that about?" said Teylon. "Seems like initially they weren't aware of any emergency, and even when it came through just as I was calling, they didn't seem to have any orders to do anything about it." "Right." At this point the cab stopped accelerating, the internal seats smoothly rotated around so that they were all facing in the opposite direction, and they were squashed back into their seats as the cab decelerated its way towards the training facility. This is just like the time I got kicked out of the police force, isn't it? Sarawatch made an effort to get her act together. Teylon looked glum. Adalace had decided to remain silent. She had already phoned Sarsaparilla, and promised to keep her informed. They were now at the bottom of the stairs. Sarawatch, in front, looked back at Teylon and Adalace. Adalace looks frightened. Teylon looks like he's worried about Maggie. And wondering what the hell this all means. And what am I feeling? Sigh. Right, Sarawatch, just act like a professional police officer, damnit! Even if I'm not actually one anymore. "Come on, we can do it." she said, not sure if this was for Adalace's benefit or her own. She walked out from the stairway. Their feet made swishing sounds as they went through patches of growing grass, and crunching sounds as they stepped on the patches of burnt and carbonised grass. The only other sound was that of Maggie's sobbing; she was still kneeling on the ground holding the very still body of the unknown teenager. Another unknown dead girl, soaked in blood. She knelt in front of Maggie and forced herself to have a good look at the girl. Yeah, she's dead. No doubt about that. "Maggie, if you can let Teylon and Adalace take care of you..." She reached out, and as gently as possible took the weight of the girl. Struggling a little with the weight, Sarawatch moved awkwardly back and put the girl onto the ground. She remained kneeling down. Now there's blood on my hands, too. But it's not my fault, is it? Not my fault that I wasn't able to save this girl, is it? She looked up. Adalace was hugging Maggie from behind, because of her height she was able to nest Maggie's head into her shoulder. Adalace looks as if she is desperately trying to avoid touching the blood on Maggie's uniform. Teylon was holding Maggie's hands and attempting to sooth her. What now? Teylon; Having more guests at his apartment Two hours later, after a half hour stop at Maggie's place so that Maggie could shower and change into clean clothes, they were all at Teylon's apartment. As in, all of the teenagers. Sarsaparilla had contacted Leroy and Erasyl, so all of these three were waiting at Teylon's front door when the others turned up. Teylon waved his wrist at the door, and it obediently unlocked itself. "Come on in. And, all things considered, I think I shall grant you all authority to open my door. After all, I wouldn't want to impede your ability to eat me out of house and home." There was a twitter of amusement at this, before they all fell back to silence. Maggie sat on the double couch, with Sarawatch next to her and hugging her. "Sorry everyone..." said Maggie, still sniffing and still dabbing at her red eyes with her hanky. "That's fine." said Teylon, "We are all concerned for you." A murmur of agreement from the others, followed by a long, awkward and uneasy silence. "Ah, I suppose everyone agrees that, while human clones are possible, it is impossible to speed up a person's development?" said Teylon. "Complete rubbish!" said Adalace, "I mean the development of the brain alone is enormously complicated and only partially understood, and then there are all of the social interactions needed to develop language and all sorts of other things!" "Not to mention that embryogenesis is complex and includes many developmental pathways which must occur in precisely controlled sequences which all take their own times to proceed. I've just done a term paper on it." said Leroy. "Although," he added somewhat quieter, "I only barely managed to get a pass on it." The other teenagers, and Sarawatch, all agreed. "Well, it seems that you lot are learning a lot more at school than I ever did." said Teylon, "However my meagre background information leads me to conclude it isn't possible, also." Erasyl half raised his hand. "I have heard a rumour at my school that Shane once attended it. But it was said he dropped out early in first year high school and never came back." "Right, so that horrible person might, just possibly, actually believe that a human clone can be grown in a month or some such ridiculous time." said Maggie. "Which means that someone lied their heads off to him, in a deliberate move to get him to murder that girl." said Sarsaparilla. "Which still makes him horrible!" said Adalace. "But - but - it sort of explains how he could possibly do such a thing." said Sarsaparilla. "And, what about that weird thing about fighting to death with another person will somehow boost one's ability?" said Maggie. A long silence. "Obviously, it's more crap!" said Sarsaparilla. "But, he believed it." said Teylon. "Shane has got shit between his ears!" said Adalace. "Although... How do abilities work? And how do you acquire them in the first place?" said Teylon. "Ah, no one knows?" said Leroy. "And, remember, sometimes abilities do interact. After all, my ability can turn off someone else's ability. Although I think I'm one of only two known examples." said Erasyl. Maggie put her head on Sarawatch's shoulder. "Well, personally, I'm sticking with the good old fashioned way of hard work and practice to increase my ability level." "I wish that would work for me." said Sarsaparilla. At this point Sarawatch's phone made a beeping sound. She looked at it with a sour expression, and answered. "Yeah, it's me." "OK, OK, you can see me." She twitched out the code that would allow the phone to send its current location to the caller, and then hung up. "That police officer who was in the team that took that girl away, he's coming here." "He's going to give us the official story, no doubt." "Bet you I already know that that story is." With this bitter comment, she stopped talking. Police officer Napoleon stood in front of the assembled teenagers and adults. He bowed his head. "Yes, I know this is very unsatisfactory, but the word from on high is that we are to take no further actions. As far as they are concerned, nothing untoward happened." Sarawatch glared at him. "Sorry, Sarawatch, I know this is pretty much the same thing as before, but, well, what can I do?" "Look after your own job?" said Sarawatch. Napoleon winced. "Sorry, sorry, but, I mean, mostly the police force does good work, doesn't it? And getting booted out won't actually help any future teenagers getting killed, will it?" "OK," Big sigh from Sarawatch, "I guess I will have to accept that." Mumbling his apologies, Napoleon made is retreat. Teylon cleared his throat. "But still, it was pretty decent of him to come here in person to make an apology." Sarawatch dropped her head and addressed the carpet. "I guess so." A little later. "I don't want to go home and be by myself tonight. I'm, err, just a little bit scared." said Maggie. Reluctantly and with much embarrassment. "No problems!" said Teylon. Let's see, I could invite Maggie to stay in my spare bedroom - ah, but a teenage girl staying in a single man's apartment? I know-" By this time, Sarsaparilla had moved back to her own accommodation. "Why don't you and Sarawatch stay over in two of my spare bedrooms?" Thus demonstrating, yet again, that when it came to social situations, the Teflon Rat could think very fast indeed. Eventually, after at lacklustre attempt to reduce the tide in Teylon's fridge - no one had all that much of an appetite - everyone not staying the night gave their goodbyes and left. Erasyl: Getting some time with Maggie Three days later. Erasyl stood outside Maggie's front door and took a breath. Maggie had already gone back to living at her own unit. OK, let's do it. After all, I've already done this twice before. He pressed the doorbell. "Oh, hi Erasyl. You know, I'm mostly over it by now, I don't need to be escorted to and from school anymore." Erasyl shifted his feet and fiddled with the strap of his backpack. Actually, I kind of like your company. And not just because of your pretty legs. No, definitely not just for that. "Hmm, that's OK, I'm happy to do this a few more times. And I'm sure Leroy is happy to accompany you home for a few more times, also." Shame that Leroy volunteered for the afternoon walk. Ten minutes later, they were walking through a shopping centre on their way to Maggie's school. Up to now, they had been mostly silent. Gotta think of something to say! Something which she won't try to kill me for! And must continue keeping my eyes off her lovely body! "Err, say Maggie, do you think that there's any chance of us getting Shane to not keep on doing what he is doing? I mean, if we can convince him that he is totally wrong about clones..." A frown and a sigh of exasperation from Maggie. "The whole scene keeps on playing in my mind, over and over again. And in it, I'm always trying to talk him out of killing that girl. Of a course I hope we can!" Some passersby looked up in surprise at this. Maggie lowered her voice to normal levels. "Oops, sorry. Maybe we can bring this up at tonight’s meeting?" "You bet. I'm sure the others must be thinking about this also." That evening, they were all at Teylon's place, including Sarawatch. As usual, the table was overflowing with a generous helping of food, ordered in by Teylon. "This is wonderful!" said Sarsaparilla, nibbling a pastry, "This is so upmarket, I'll never be able to eat like this on my budget!" "Yeah, and look at dessert!" said Adalace. "I am." said Leroy, "I'm making sure I leave enough room for it." After they finished stuffing themselves, they moved onto the important topic for the night. Maggie floated the idea of maybe trying to convince Shane about the error of his ways. The other teenagers were enthusiastic about the idea. The adults, not so much. Teylon was as diplomatic as possible: "Whoa there, I think you might be going a bit too fast! We all need to do a lot more research into this matter. Firstly, we need to have a very comprehensive rebuttal of Shane's erroneous ideas about cloning. And we need to work out who the hell is telling him all of this and why. Remember, Shane could be very dangerous, since apparently his ability is rated higher than Maggie's. Also, remember that if Esmeralda wants me to Judge him with a capital J, she will indicate in a way that is totally impossible to mistake. And, so far, this hasn't happened. So I urge caution here." Sarawatch was just blunt: "You kids will NOT go seeking out Shane and trying anything. For God's sake, you're a bunch of teenagers, you can't go head to head with whatever powerful entities are running this scheme with Shane behind the scenes! You'll just get chewed up and spat out. Just like I was!" The teenagers, taken back by this, did some reflection and decided that, this time, maybe the adults were correct? "OK, OK, I promise not to try anything like that." said Maggie. The others agreed. They spent the rest of the evening playing cards. As usual, Teylon won and nobody could tell how he had cheated. "Oh, I definitely cheated. I mean, I wouldn't want to lie to you lot, would I?" Erasyl, who had gotten third after Maggie, said "No, of course not. Having an Angel of Death keeping you honest must be so inconvenient." Sarsaparilla and Adalace got by far the lowest scores. I think he must be getting back at them. "It sure is!" They made plans for the next gathering, and the visitors departed.

Teylon: Being woken up early Very early Sunday morning, before the sun had managed to get up, found Teylon safely in bed, adrift in a dream - until it was rudely interrupted. Teylon’s Soul Reading of: Maggie Maggie was drifting a sedate one metre above some thick steel cables. There were cables crisscrossing in a regular rectangular pattern just beneath her, and more above her head. And a long way below could be seen the night lights of Verdant City, showing some of the main shopping precincts, and an arc of the river. Close by was one of the towers, sparsely lit by the occasional room that had a light on. The tower went down and down, dwindling into the pre dawn darkness. Teylon: Teylon sprung upright on his bed, blanket and sheet flying haphazardly off him. What the hell is that? Ah, this must be a soul reading from Maggie? But why? And where is she, anyway? Teylon’s Soul Reading of: Maggie She had trouble seeing because of the tears. She blinked her eyes, took a look down, then changed direction and kept on drifting, going uphill following the steel cables. Since she was so close, the high tensile strength transparent membrane stretching between the cables could be seen. Teylon: Teylon was shaking his head. She's on the roof of the dome? No, wait, how was the dome constructed again? He recalled from his induction that the covering dome of a city the size of Verdant came in layers. Five layers in this case, each one a sheet of transparent flexible membrane reinforced with steel cables. Each layer was fifty or so metres above the next, and the atmosphere in each was at a progressively lower pressure. So, she must be on the inside of the first layer? And judging by the brief image of the river, that must be North Tower just to one side. So she is climbing towards the centre of the roof? What's she doing there? And at this time in the morning? Teylon’s Soul Reading of: Maggie She was tired, she felt sluggish from lack of sleep. And from crying all night. Teylon: Teylon jumped out of bed, opened his wardrobe and started throwing clothes about, looking for a complete set to wear. He did not have a clue as to what was going on, but he just knew he was meant to do something. Which surely meant getting out of the apartment. He continued to get a read out of what Maggie was seeing, and also what she was thinking. Teylon’s Soul Reading of: Maggie I'm sorry, mum. I didn't mean to. I just wanted to be with you. I didn't want you to die. Teylon: Teylon managed to get dressed. He kicked away an errant blanket lying on the floor and made for the door. But, once he was in his living area, he came to a halt. What do I do? The reading from Maggie continued. Teylon’s Soul Reading of: Maggie Mum's dead. And now Dad's dead. She kept crying. No wonder Dad was distant the last few years, after Mum died. I thought he was just grieving her, but it was because of me. Teylon: Teylon put his hands to his head as he knelt down. "Maggie!" She obviously needs help in some way. Esmeralda! Let me get in contact with her! But there was no reply, nothing happened. He rang her phone number, but it was not answered. Damn, she must have taken it off. The reading from Maggie continued unabated. Teylon’s Soul Reading of: Maggie I'm sorry Mum. I didn't mean to kill you. I'm sorry Dad, I didn't mean to make you last years so miserable. Teylon: "Maggie, what the hell are you saying?" said Teylon, out aloud to his empty apartment. Teylon’s Soul Reading of: Maggie I'm just a useless burden to everyone. No one will miss me. Memories of Teylon and the other teenagers swept through her mind. She kept on crying. Once they find out, they won't want to know me either. And it was such fun being with them. Teylon: "Oh shit. Oh shit." went Teylon, "I can see where this is going." Teylon’s Soul Reading of: Maggie I'll just get higher and then fall off the roof. It's predawn, so there's no one out, so I won't hit anyone at the ground. Mum, Dad, I'm sorry. Teylon: A wave of horror swept through Teylon's mind. Cold and implacable, it shoved aside all irrelevant thoughts. But at least in the remnants it left behind, he was able to discern a plan of action. He made a phone call. "Leroy! This is Teylon. Get your flying suit on and take off! Maggie has gotten into her head to be suicidal and is planning on falling off the roof of the dome, somewhere a little towards the centre from the North Tower!" "Ah, sorry? Ah, Maggie? Ah, this for real?" "Yes!" "OK, I'm on my way." "And stay in contact!" He made another phone call. "Adalace! Can your computer access the surveillance cameras of the dome and track objects falling from the dome roof?" "Guk, ah, what is the time...? Err, yes? Five minutes later, Teylon and Adalace were making their separate ways to the watch centre. Leroy was accelerating upwards through the sky, aiming to a point about half a kilometre below the roof and half a kilometre out from the North Tower. As he explained over the phone: "If we don't know where exactly she is, then I can only do my best, get to some point from which will hopefully be easy to intercept her." Teylon’s Soul Reading of: Maggie Maggie, still crying, drifted ever upwards along an endless series of crisscrossing steel cables. She came to one of the walls that divided the interiors between the layers into lots of independent cells. She cycled through a nearby air lock and kept going. Teylon: While catching his breath on the short maglev ride, Teylon contacted Sarawatch, to ask her to come to the centre also. And to contact the other two teenagers. Adalace was now sitting at her computer desk, with all eight large monitors on and showing various scenes of the North Tower and the dome roof. "Sorry, I can't access the cameras inside the layers, they're under Dome Engineering control and I don't have the passwords. And when I try to look up into the roof cavity from cameras inside the dome itself, the just rising sunlight hitting the dome cover is drowning out any other images." "That's all right, but can you set up your system to tack all objects in the air in the general area that we know Maggie is at?" "That's what I'm doing now." Her eyes flickered over the monitors, the one straight in front of her showed an ever changing series of code windows, while the top four monitors showed images of objects of interest in the airspace. Even just before dawn, there was a lot of air traffic. No less than three emergency response medicos were streaking through the sky in the lower atmosphere, their bright flashing blue lights clearly visible. They shared the way with half a dozen people flying from point to point, while higher up, at the one kilometre range, were two more flyers who were circling each other in rapid aerobic loops. Presumably enjoying themselves before starting a week of work, and waiting to catch the sun soon to be visible at their level. Even higher, at the two-kilometre point, was another flyer, slowly drifting towards the same approximate location as Leroy was. And, at two and a half kilometres, stationary in the air, Leroy himself could be seen. "Leroy, we can see you. I've set my system to track any falling objects." said Adalace, speaking into her lapel mic. "OK. It's bloody cold up here, good thing I've got my flight suit on." Teylon’s Soul Reading of: Maggie Maggie came to an airlock that allowed access to the dome space itself. She hovered over it, and poked the cycle button. She went through and ended up suspended one metre below the airlock frame, with nothing but three kilometres of thin air between herself and the ground. It's so painful. There's no point in delaying it any longer. She turned off the part of her ability that she was using to heat herself. The cold air, chilled because of the altitude and because of the night that had just passed, gently wafted around her, cooling her. I'm sorry Mum, I only wanted to dance with you one more time. I hope Teylon and the others don't miss me too much. It's getting cold, really cold. I don't deserve anything more. She had some stray thoughts, being hugged by Sarawatch, making fun of Teylon, eating ice cream at the Frenzy. She remembered threatening Erasyl with mayhem - you know, the green tree frog admirer was occasionally quite nice... He vision began to fade out. Teylon: Teylon was beginning to lose his cool. "Shit, she's going to be unconscious soon! Adalace, can't you see her yet?" "I'm trying, but there's too much glare from the sun..." At this point Sarawatch, who had entered just before, put her hands onto Teylon’s shoulder and pulled him back from Adalace. "Teylon, looming over Adalace won't do any good. We need you to keep relaying to us Maggie's state, so you need to get yourself under control." "Oh, right." Teylon took a few deep breaths and got himself under control. He was now being watched by Sarsaparilla and Erasyl also. "She's having some last thoughts - actually she is recalling being hugged by you, Sarawatch." "Oh." Sarawatch froze in place; she blinked her eyes a few times. "And she called Erasyl the green tree frog admirer. What's that about?" Now it was Erasyl's turn to be slightly shocked. But before he could produce any reply, Teylon received one last reading from Maggie. "She's falling!" Everyone went silent, as Adalace twitched the fingers of both hands, controlling the images on the monitors. "I've got her!" There, on the middle monitor, was of a golden spark, reflecting the rays of the rising sun, plummeting from the dome's roof. Adalace zoomed in, and the monitor was half filled with the image of Maggie, beginning to tumble in the slipstream as she went faster and faster towards the ground. "Leroy! She's about three hundred metres from you towards the centre of the dome, and four hundred and fifty metres above you!" "OK, I'm calculating... I'm on my way." Leroy's voice was audible throughout the office. And in his background, the sound of the wind streaming past him could be heard, picking up volume and turbulence as he accelerated up and out. By now Adalace had produced on yet another monitor a graphic representation of all bodies moving in a kilometre cube surrounding Maggie. Maggie was represented by a straight down arrow, while Leroy was represented by a sloping upward line that then curved over, joining the line that represented Maggie's position. Purely by chance, the other flyer that was at the two kilometre mark, was also caught in her computational net, represented by a slightly curving upward line. "Hey, I can now see her. She's just a dot but approaching fast!" said Leroy. The others could hear his background noise rising, then plateau and start to decline. He was in the braking phase of his manoeuvre. It vanished to a whisper as he reached the apogee of his flight path, then it rapidly became louder as he accelerated towards the ground in an effort to match Maggie's velocity. "She's now clearly visible. She's tumbling something bad, but." Adalace wiped all other images off her monitors, and showed just the image of Maggie and Leroy in the centre monitor. The camera view zoomed in as they approached each other, Maggie from the top going straight down and Leroy from the side and below, moving sideways and matching speed. The flapping of Maggie's clothes in the slipstream was clearly audible, along with the whistle of air going past Leroy's flight suit. As Leroy got within a metre of Maggie, he reached out and caught her hand has she spun around. It slowed her spin a little, and he promptly let go so as not to wrench her arm. Several more taps and nudges and she was almost stable in the air, facing diagonally upward. Leroy took this moment to move in and hover just below her. He pulled her to him and wrapped his arms around her. "I've got her!" His audience started breathing again. "She's freezing to the touch!" Keeping one hand around Maggie's waist, he used the other hand to pull out one of the flaps of his insulating blanket. After some fumbling around, he had it half around her and held in place with his arm. He swapped arms and eventually managed to wrap Maggie up, so she was lying, facing upwards, on his body, with both of them horizontal. Except for Maggie's feet and head, the rest of her was now covered. "Adalace, how high am I now? I've lost track." "Right now, one thousand eight hundred and fifty two metres." "OK. Since she is so cold, and it’s still freezing up here, I'll freefall to the thousand metre mark, and then decelerate gradually." Teylon clenched his fists. You're going to keep falling at that velocity? Are you crazy? But he restrained himself. He's the one that can calculate the equations of motions in his head. And Adalace is doing the same on her computer, and doesn't seem fazed by this. "OK" said Adalace. They tracked him all the way down, until he ended up stationary just above the pavement outside of the watch centre. He righted himself and allowed Teylon and Sarawatch to take Maggie's weight as he released her from the harness. Since Adalace was still at her computer, they all moved back inside and crowded in her office. Sarsaparilla and Erasyl had, in anticipation, already dragged in a sofa, which Sarawatch and Teylon sat on, cradling Maggie's unconscious body between them. At a suggestion from Adalace, Sarsaparilla then ran back out of the room, to the storeroom. She returned with a blanket and Teylon and Sarawatch wrapped it around Maggie. Everyone else was silent and waited.