Bright's Light

For James

The girl snuffled peacefully, making the contented sounds of someone enjoying chemically assisted dreams.

Since he’d started following her, two weeks earlier, he’d seen plenty of evidence of dysfunction. Twitches and jerks, an inability to remember her lines, her moves. He’d chosen her for a reason.

The maintenance department was checked regularly. She had to wake up soon. He cleared his throat, but the girl didn’t stir.

He rose from where he was crouching behind the empty bed to his full height of six feet four inches and moved to her bedside. The girl’s hair gleamed on the pillow. He pointed the device at her face with one hand and shook her shoulder with the other.

“Excuse me,” he said, his voice raspy from disuse. “It’s time for you to awaken.”

Her eyelids fluttered open and he could see her trying to focus.

His thumb pressed the button.

She screamed.

A split second later, she was moving. He stepped back as the girl slammed her body against the bars of the bed. She grabbed a wire dangling from one of the monitoring machines and gnashed it between her teeth, biting it clean through. She rolled over and thrust one end of the wire into an electrical socket in the wall. A puff of smoke and a burning smell filled the air. “Fire!” screamed the girl. “I made fire! I made light!”

She leapt from the bed, her hair smouldering, and with astonishing speed, ran from the room.

He started to follow, but stopped when he heard the sounds in the hallway. Too late. They’d already found her.

Out the side door he slipped, the device still in his hand.

Not quite enlightenment. Not yet.

Bright woke up in the darkness of her sleeping pod. It took her five or ten breaths to realize where she was, but only one more to feel glad about it.

“It’s going to be an A-okay day,” she whispered. Then she swung her legs over the side of her bed and waited eagerly for her room to appear. In response to her movement, the lights in her pod flickered to life and the music began: soft whistles and steady thumps matched the blood moving through her body until her heartbeat and breathing fell into sync. Regulated. Medicated. A-okay.

Bright stroked her sheets and blankets. It was like running her hands over thick, warm air. Her bedding was so soft she could hardly tell where the fabric stopped and her skin started.

Beside the slim bed, which was cut into the wall of her pod, was a shelf on which waited her glass of Get Started, four Maxi-Vit pills and a small bowl of Face It lotion. Her Scudding Cloud dressing gown hung on a hook beside the nightstand. Bright stared, entranced, as a pattern of clouds moved across the fabric of her robe. She touched
the optifabric and the image broke up, like a reflection in a rippling pool. When she took her hand away, the clouds reformed and continued to track from right to left.

The door to her pod slid silently open.

“Hi! Hi! Hi! Hiiiiiii!”

The voice was insistent, and Bright’s positive feelings faded slightly.

Her dressing-mate stared in at her. Fon’s hair was so large and so yellow that, backlit against the dressing room, her head looked like a dribble ball. But in a good way.

Bright’s mouth was still dry, and she licked her lips to prepare them to speak. They tasted of the gloss Pinkie must have applied before she woke. Berry Affirming. Her favourite.

“I’ll be out in a minute,” said Bright, trying to match the happiness in Fon’s voice.

Fon didn’t budge. “That is so great!” she shrieked. “I cannot wait for this shift!”

“Any chance you could wait outside?” asked Bright.

Fon’s smile remained stretched across her flawless face. “Riiiiight!” she said. “Gotcha!” She made a series of sounds that fell somewhere between a giggle and a squeak. Very adorable noises, thought Bright, as Fon and her enormous hair backed out of the room and the door slid shut after her. Bright had no noises that adorable, and she made a mental note to get some.

Bright licked her lips again, then repeated, “It’s going to be an A-okay day.” She slid her feet into her Tender Feet slippers, which looked amazing with her dressing gown. An
ache in her back was evidence of how hard she’d partied the night before, which chased away some of her annoyance at Fon’s early morning show of tremendously large hair and positive attitude. Bright reminded herself that she was aiming higher than the House of Gear. She had her sights set on being promoted to the best house in the entire Partytainment District: the House of It. Favours who worked at It were so pampered they barely even needed any maintenance. They earned so many credits they couldn’t spend them all. Yes, the House of It was her final destination. She needed to remember that.

The door opened again and Pinkie, Bright’s cylindrical bot, whirred in, turned in a circle, and emitted a loud twitter of concern. Pinkie shot out an arm in the direction of the drink, pills, and moisturizer and accidentally knocked over the glass.

“Thanks, Pinkie. You take good care of me,” Bright said, reaching for the wet pills. Pinkie scooted off to get her a new drink.

Today could be the day, Bright encouraged herself, as she headed into the dressing room, which lay directly outside her sleeping pod. No, scratch that. Today
would
be the day! She was going to put on a show no one would ever forget and she was going to get noticed by a scout from the House of It and put on a promotion track.

Bright tossed her hair so it cascaded down her back. She picked up her pace and moved into her trademark Look Out! Here I Come strut, which was the envy of quite a few people.

Fon was already in her chair, being tended to by Peaches, her personal bot. Bright tried not look at her dressing-mate, but she couldn’t help it. What
was
that tint Fon wore?

“Don’t you love it?” said Fon, as though reading Bright’s thoughts. “It’s new. It’s called Gotta Get Some Glow On!” Fon lowered her voice even further. “I’m the first one to wear it outside of a lab. It’s a full-on pre-release.
You would not believe how many credits this tint cost me.
“

“Oh,” said Bright. Suddenly her robe and slippers didn’t seem so great.

“I had to get up super-early so Peaches could spray me. Then I had to stand in one place and not move for three whole hours so it would set properly, because it’s this very complicated formula that doesn’t dry fast. But it’s totally worth it, because I look superber than I ever thought possible. I don’t think I’ve ever loved a tint as much as I love this one.”

Bright’s shoulders slumped. Now she was going to have to get up at least three hours early so she could wear Gotta Get Some Glow On, when she could finally afford it, which wouldn’t be until the tint was in use all over the Partytainment District and hardly even hot anymore. She climbed heavily into her chair.

Despair was not an emotion that got a person promoted. So, with a fierce act of will, Bright straightened her shoulders.

“Way to go,” she said. “Good for you.”

The only thing she could do was focus on the here and now, or, as Fon liked to say, the hot and the not. Pinkie
emerged from the bot door with the new glass of nutrition in her grasper. Bright put the drink on the counter before the bot could knock it over again, and put in her order:

Tint #3a (Surf + Sun = So Much Fun)

Hair Fangle #67 (Sleek Is As Sleek Does, Yo!)

For her ensemble and gear she asked for the metallic underwear with the ultra-lightweight and enhancing chain mail dress, the shield with the House of Gear logo, and an extra-large but featherweight and flexible lance. The dress was a third release (someone from the House of It was said to have gotten the first one), but it had still cost two weeks’ worth of credits. She’d been saving the outfit for a special occasion, and this was it. No way Bright was going out there in something the clients could see in any old house when Fon wore a pre-release tint. Not going to happen. The House of Gear was elite, verging on super-elite, and the clients who got in deserved peak entertainment.

After Pinkie had sprayed on Bright’s tint, taken care of her follicle situation, and helped her into her dress, which took twenty-five minutes because chain mail doesn’t have much in the way of give, Bright did her own makeup. All favours did their own paint. No bot could be as artful in the application of gorgeousness as a highly trained party favour.

The process took just under two hours, during which Bright tried not to look at Fon. She wasn’t going to let her dressing-mate mess with her confidence or ruin the hypnotically relaxing process of striving to look her very best. Instead, Bright focused on Pinkie. Her bot always made her
feel super about herself and ready for anything. Sometimes, Bright thought Pinkie was her favourite person.

When Bright considered her complete look in the mirror, she decided that what she needed to take the whole thing over the top was an outstanding launch. Favours emerged from their dressing rooms at the start of their shifts like dreams coming true. They danced on the View Walk for the crowd on the Choosing Room floor far below. Their images were blown up on the enormous video screens in the corners so clients could check out close-up details of their hair, makeup, outfits, and signature dance moves. Then the favours descended to the floor, where the clients who wanted to party with them held up their order wands and made bids. The client who bid the most credits got to party with the desired favour. A new favour descended every five minutes or so, and clients waited and hoped for a favour they could afford.

A productive had to save for a long time to party with a favour from the House of Gear, especially one like Fon, who had been in first place in the credit scores since she was in a tube, practically. But Bright wanted to make sure that on this night every order wand would be lit up for her. She hated it when Fon got more wands and higher bids than she did, which was always. So, in addition to her incredible outfit and her tremendous posture, she needed to make an extra-fancy entrance.

Bright pursed her lips. Time to bust out the jetpack, she decided. There was nothing as exciting as the jetpack descent, so Bright had recently raided her savings and
ordered a jetpack with acro-surge capability. The slide pole, the rope descent, the swing, and, least exciting of all, the glass platform just couldn’t compete. The new jetpack would allow her to rise and turn corners using a handheld controller. Bright had even come up with an innovative routine. The plan was to swoop over the clients’ heads, then turn three complete flips to show off various aspects of her outfit and accessories. By the time she hit the ground, every client in the place would have his or her wand lit and waving in the air, throwing major credit love her way.