Read Online Human After All by Connie Bailey - Free Book Online

the craft into flight again. A few moments later, accompanied by the soft chiming of the boundary alarm, they crossed from The Cloister to the Inner City of the metacorps’ self-contained business compounds where company workers were born and died without ever leaving their confines.

V.
     
    A FTER several seconds of uneventful flight, Jaymes was starting to relax, but his relief was short-lived. A sexless, disembodied voice emerged from the Veetle’s speakers, apologized, and requested the verification code of their travel path.
    “Ignore it,” Drue said. “Go high.”
    Jaymes adjusted the pitch of the stabilizers and applied power. As the Veetle rose, the voice faded to a faint whine. “What now?”
    “We can’t stay here. We’ll have to move on through to the Outers.”
    “No.”
    “Listen to me. I haven’t been able to contact any Jammerz with the linx Lady Alvera gave me. Without a haven, we don’t dare stay in the Inner City.”
    “You said we’d find help here.”
    “I know what I said. Don’t you think I want to make contact? If we had another option, believe me, I’d take it.”
    “I will not voluntarily go to the Outers.”
    “Spoiled T-bred,” Drue muttered before putting some steel in his voice. “Remember that request from Traffic Control we didn’t answer? You can bet Teesee has already sent someone, or some thing , looking for us. In any case, we’re a target, and I’d suggest we become a moving one, a quickly moving one.”
    “I hope someday you get what you deserve for ruining my life.”
    “If you want to make sure of it, just sit here. There’s probably a Teesee Armed Drone locked on to us already.”
    “I hate you,” Jaymes said as he tipped the controls forward again.
    “Fine, as long as you stay on this heading and don’t slow down until I tell you to.”
    His heart growing heavier the farther they flew from home, Jaymes did as Drue said until they reached the first proximity buoy of the Inner City’s outer limits. The difference in the density of light between the Inners and Outers was dramatic. “I can’t,” the T-bred said, taking his hand from the joystick.
    “We aren’t going to the Outers,” Drue said. “Just to the Fringe.”
    “What? That’s worse. Fringers are pirates who care for nothing but profit.”
    “Do you ever listen when you’re talking? Hasn’t your entire life been about profit? About earning enough capital to buy yourself? How are you any better than a Fringer?”
    “If you don’t know the difference, it would be impossible to explain it to you.”
    “There it is!” Drue said with satisfaction. “Any time you hoitys feel uncertain, you fall back on snobbery. The truth is there is no difference.”
    “I’m sure you’d like to believe that, you—”
    Whatever choice name Jaymes was about to hurl at the Exotic was lost to posterity when the craft rocked violently.
    “Go!” Drue shouted. “Go, go, go!”
    Jaymes pushed the throttle all the way forward. The Veetle lurched and froze as the air in the cabin filled with sound of turbos straining. “The Teesee drone has a tractmag unit,” he said unnecessarily.
    “Punch it again.”
    “We’ll burn out the…. Oh what does it matter?” Jaymes braced his feet against the firewall and pushed his head back against the tall seat. “Hold on,” he said as he once again engaged the emergency boost meant to aid pilots in avoiding collisions. At the same time, he changed the angle of the horizontal stabes radically. The Veetle skipped sideways, broke free of the skid, but continued to crab until it heeled over on one side and began to slip earthward. Jaymes and Drue had a glimpse of the drone diving after them before a cloud swallowed the Veetle. Tattered veils of diaphanous white rushed by as Jaymes did his best to regain control.
    “I think you lost the pursuit,” Drue yelled.
    “Shut up, you brain-wiped sperm-sponge! We’re about to die.”
    “This thing is still in one piece, and