Your Rescue? No, My Rescue
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“There’s a flyer in the guest airbay over here. It came in earlier.”
“Will it work?” asked Bork.
“What else can we do? If we get off the ground we might escape.”
“To where?”
“Let’s just go,” she said as they came to a low building with no roof. It had torn off like paper and lay crushed against the walls. Inside, the flyer still stood on its charging grid. Besides the roof, the whole place was fine. Samantha waved at the flyer and lights came on as it hummed to life.
“Luck’s in. It’s ready to go.” She helped the hurt woman into the back seat with Bork.
“Pilot?” said Samantha.
“Checks done. Ready,” said the machine.
“Do you have navigation?” A pause.
“Yes, aerial. No contact with ground stations.”
“You know my brother lives pretty close?” said Bork.
“Fuck your brother,” said Samantha. “Take off and head for Safeish.”
“3-2-1,” and the flyer rose into the air, thrown by wild winds, shaking and rattling like a box in a storm. They both screamed like maniacs, letting out all the fear from their escape. Dirt, clothes, metal pieces, sheets of building parts flew around them, but the flyer dodged anything big enough to hurt them. The zero-point engine pushed harder as it shot more infinities into the void. With a sharp machine screech, the flyer blasted straight up above the storm and curved away from the wrecked prison.
Through the filth Samantha just made out a huge shape right in front, like a giant wall rushing at them.
“What’s that ahead?” she screamed.
“Island. Mayday,” said the flyer as if this was normal. “Landing.”
“Avoid it!” But the flyer ignored her and hit the ground with a hard jolt, something it should never do.
“Why have you landed?”
“Master emergency call, await instructions.” The wipers slowly cleared the window. They saw they’d landed on a plain of wheat, all crushed flat. A harvester lay upside down with wisps of gray exhaust curling flat along the ground.
“Where are we?” she asked.
“We are at a height of 790 metres, moving in a southerly direction at 1 metre per second, rotating—”
“What’s the name of this place?”
“Jolly Farm 7, part of…” The pilot stopped short. “I am recalculating the position data.” Outside, they saw clouds of mud and objects flying through the air, though the ground seemed stable, like they sat on a big dish.
“So who are we rescuing?”
“Arriving now.” Suddenly someone hammered on the canopy. It wouldn’t open, so Samantha bashed the inside handle until it gave. A big man covered in mud glared at them.
“Why so long? I nearly died. This place stinks.” He jumped in clumsily and rolled the canopy shut with a rough clang. The inside filled with farmyard stink and the aircon blasted on full.
Outside a few people came out of a metal hut and ran through the dirt toward the flyer.
“Take-off,” said the man and the flyer jumped into the air.
“What about those people?” Samantha shouted over the noise. She grabbed the joystick and forced the flyer down again.
“You’re mad, get out of here,” screamed the man. “I own this plane.”
Samantha ignored him and pushed open the canopy. Three people threw themselves in. The cabin stretched back and more seats opened on their own. They fell into the seats, gasping, bringing more farm smell. Bork yelled in protest. The woman had passed out again. The canopy creaked shut.
“Who are you?” Samantha asked the angry mud-man. “You have a duty to rescue people, you understand?” She was used to bad behaviour and bossing prisoners.
“Well fuck you,” he said. “I’m Prince if you must know and you’re lucky I rescued you. This is my flyer and I called it here to get me. I don’t even know you. I hope you’ve got plenty of EMUs.”
“I’m Samantha Smith, pleased to meet you,” she said. “Are you the Prince or a Prince?” He just stared. Copy performers made big money entertaining bored people. Bork groaned and the new riders in back jeered. Maybe this was her lucky day after all, she thought. She did have extra EMUs, as prison jobs paid high rates for bad hours.
Easy Money Units, or EMUs, were invented to pay the basic income everyone got to keep the world from turning into one giant riot. They’d become the standard money for everything, including all kinds of shady deals. They traded in a gray market through exchanges with clever mixing tricks. Once money went digital, anything was possible. Most people took time to figure this out. Each person got a certain number of EMUs, which they could use for anything, just like cash. The low-level EMU economy was a vast sea of digital tokens quickly taken by collectors, half-legal operators and fixers, then reused higher up, until useful things, like orbital weather tech and space homes, could appear like magic. This grand pyramid scheme seemed to work for now, leaning into the future like a world-sized wave of electronic credit. People lived idle lives, but rarely starved, kept busy by celebrities and occasional disasters, side-effects of constant change.
Prince ignored Samantha and gave the flyer a new course.
“Are you a farmer?” Bork asked Prince.
“Are you an idiot?” Prince snapped. “I was just doing a personal show for these yokels.” The three new riders – farmers, or maybe investors – started whistling with mockery.
“He’s shit,” said one, “And he looks like it too.”
Everyone laughed until Prince jumped up and hit his head on the canopy. The flyer shot past clouds of flying and floating junk. Soon they were out of the danger zone, which seemed to centre on the prison. With a flash that made her jump, Samantha’s Blink came alive again. She quickly checked news about the disaster. She Blinked to the console and the flyer showed maps, red swirls where the disaster hit. Everyone went quiet seeing how big it was. Starting at the prison, it spread across the land in a huge spiral. The nearby city Future Golden, FG, had escaped the destruction. They were still in the danger zone. Great clouds of debris flew around or just hung in mid air. The flyer kept going, sometimes hitting dark clouds then bursting into clear air. As they dropped over what looked like a giant trash pile, Prince grumbled and grew more upset.