Earth

Merriment redoubled when she actually reacted! A sudden moue of surprise and revulsion replaced that glassy stare. She rocked back and turned away.

“Astonishing!” Roland cried, mimicking their least favorite teen-behaviors teacher at J. D. Quayle High School. He continued in a snooty, midwestern drawl. “It should be noted that this small urban band’s totemistic i

“Shock value!” all three of them shouted in unison, clapping hands, celebrating a minor victory over their natural enemy.

Used to be, you could break a babushka’s stare with an obscene gesture or show of muscular bluster — both protected forms of self-expression. But the biddies and codgers were getting harder to shake. Any time nowadays you actually made one of them yank back that awful, silent scrutiny was a triumph worth savoring.

“Freon!” Crat cursed. “Just once I’d like to catch some goggle geek alone, with fritzed sensors and no come-go record. Then I’d teach ’em it’s not polite to stare.”

Crat emphasized his point with a fist, smacking his palm. Today, since it was cloudy, he had forsaken his normal Stetson for a plaid baseball cap, still acceptable attire for a Settler. His sunglasses, like Remi’s, were thin, wire framed, and strictly for eye protection. Nothing electronic about them. They were a statement, repudiating the rudeness of geriatric America.

“Some people just got too much free time,” Roland commented as the three of them sauntered near the babushka, barely skimming outside the twenty-centimeter limit that would violate her “personal space.” Some oldsters were gearing up with sonar, even radar, to catch the most i

These days, in Indiana, juries were composed mostly of TwenCen grads anyway. Fellow retirement geeks who seemed to think youth itself a crime. So naturally, a guy had to accept the endless dares, skirting the edge whenever challenged.

“Gra

Remi worried Crat might spit again. Even a miss would be a four-hundred-dollar fifth offense, and despite Gra

Fortunately, Crat let Remi and Roland drag him out of sight into the formal hedge garden. Then he leaped, fist raised, and shouted, “Yow, tomodachis!” pumped by nicotine and a sweet, if minor, victory. “Patagonia, yeah!” Crat gushed. “Would that be dumpit great? Kits like us run it all there.”

“Not like here, in the land o’ the old and the home of the grave,” agreed Remi.

“Huh, say it! Why, I hear it’s better’n even Alaska, or Tasmania.”

“Better for Settlers!” Roland and Remi chanted in unison.

“And the music? Fuego-fire’s the only beat that Yakuti Bongo-Cream can’t meet.”

Remi didn’t care much about that. He liked the idea of emigrating for other reasons.

“Naw, cuzz. Patagonia’s only the first step. It’s a staging area, see? When they open up Antarctica, settlers from Patagonia’ll have the jump. Just a hop across the water.” He sighed. “We’ll have new tribes, real tribes when the ice melts enough. Set it up our way. Real freedom. Real people.”

Roland glanced at him sidelong. Months ago they had qualified as a youth gang, which meant mandatory tribal behaviors classes. That was okay, but Remi’s friends sometimes worried he might actually be listening to what the profs were saying. And sometimes he did have to fight that temptation… the temptation to be interested.

No matter. It was a good afternoon to be with pals, drooping out in the park. It was well past the sweltering heat of midday — when those without air-conditioning sought shade in the hedge garden for their siestas — so right now people were scarce in this section of the garden. Just a couple of seedy ragman types, slumped and snoring under the fragrant oleanders. Whether they were dozers or dazers, Remi couldn’t tell from here. As if the difference mattered.

“Real privacy, maybe,” Roland agreed. “You just make sure that’s in the constitution, Rem, if they nom you to write it.”

Remi nodded vigorously. “Dumpit A-okay! Privacy! No gor-suckers watchin’ your every move. Why, I hear back in TwenCen… aw, shit.”

Sure enough, bored with just talking, Crat had gone over the top again. With no one in sight from this hedge-lined gravel path, he started drum-hopping down a line of multicolored trash bins, rattling their plastic sides with a stick, leaping up to dance on their flexing rims.

“Sweet perspiration… Sweat inspiration …” Crat chanted, skipping to the latest jingle by Phere-o-Moan.

“Sniffin’ it stiffens it… ” Roland countertimed, catching the excitement. He clapped, keeping time.

Remi winced, expecting one of the bins to collapse at any moment. “Crat!” he called.

“Damn what, damn who?” His friend crooned from on high, dance-walking the green container, shaking its contents of grass cuttings and mulch organics.

“U-break it — U-buy it,” Remi reminded.

Crat gave a mock shiver of fear. “Look around, droogie. No civic-minded geepers, boy-chik. And cops need warrants.” He hopped across to the blue bin for metals, making cans and other junk rattle.

True, no goggle-faces were in sight. And the police were limited in ways that didn’t apply to citizens… or else even the aphids on the nearby bushes could be transmitting this misdemeanor to Crat’s local youth officer, in real time.

“An aroma for home-a, and a reek for the street …”

Remi tried to relax. Anyway, what harm was Crat doing? Just having a little fun, was all. Still, he reached his limit when Crat started kicking wrappers and cellu-mags out of the paper-recycle bin. Misdemeanor fines were almost badges of honor, but mandatory-correction felonies were another matter!

Remi hurried to pick up the litter. “Get him down, Rollie,” he called over his shoulder as he chased a flapping page of newsprint.

“Aw petrol! Lemme ’lone!” Crat bitched as Roland grabbed him around the knees and hauled him out of the last container. “You two aren’t sports. You just—”

The complaint cut short suddenly, as if choked off. Picking up the last shred of paper, Remi heard rhythmic clapping from the path ahead. He looked up and saw they were no longer alone.

Bleeding sores, he cursed inwardly. All we needed were Ra Boys.

Six of them slouched by the curving hedge, not five meters away, gri

Remi groaned. This could be really bad.

Each Ra Boy wore from a thick chain round his neck the gleaming symbol of his cult — a sun-sigil with bright metal rays as sharp is needles. Those overlay open-mesh shirts exposing darkly ta

One thing the Ra Boys had in common with Remi and his friends. Except for wristwatches, they strode stylishly and proudly unencumbered by electronic gimcrackery… spurning the kilos of tech-crutches everyone over twenty-five seemed to love carrying around. What man, after all, relied on crap like that?