Extras

Down and Out "Moggle," Aya whispered. "You awake?" Something moved in the darkness. A pile of dorm uniforms rustled, as if a small animal stirred underneath. Then a shape slipped from among the folds of spider silk and cotton. It rose into the air and floated toward Aya's bed. Tiny lenses gazed at her face, curious and alert, reflecting starlight from the open window. Aya grinned. "Ready to go to work?" In answer, Moggle flashed its night-lights. "Ouch!" Aya squeezed her eyes shut. "Don't do that! It's vision-wrecking!" She lay in bed another moment, waiting for the spots to fade. The hovercam nuzzled against her shoulder apologetically. "It's okay, Moggle-chan," she whispered. "I just wish I had infrared too." Lots of people her age had infrared vision, but Aya's parents had this thing about surge. They liked to pretend the world was still stuck in the Prettytime, when everyone had to wait until they turned sixteen to change themselves. Crumblies could be so fashion-missing. So Aya was stuck with her big nose -- definitely ugly -- and her normal vision. When she'd moved out of her home and into a dorm, her parents had given her permission to get an eyescreen and skintenna, but that was only so they could ping whenever they wanted. Still, it was better than nothing. She flexed her finger and the city interface flickered to life, layering across her vision. "Uh-oh," she said to Moggle. "Almost midnight." She didn't remember dozing off, but the tech-head bash must have already started. It was probably crowded by now, packed enough with surge-monkeys and manga-heads that nobody would notice one ugly extra snooping around. Besides, Aya Fuse was an expert at being invisible. Her face rank was proof of that. It sat unmoving in the corner of her vision: 451,396. She let out a slow sigh. In a city of a million, that was total extra-land. She'd had her own feed for almost two years now, had kicked a great story just a week ago, and was still anonymous. Well, tonight was finally going to change that. "Let's go, Moggle," she whispered, and slipped out of bed. A gray robe lay in a shapeless puddle at her feet. Aya pulled it over her dorm uniform and tied it at the waist, then perched on the windowsill. She turned to face the night sky slowly, easing one leg, then the other, out into the cool air. She slipped on her crash bracelets, glancing at the ground fifty meters below. "Okay, that's dizzy-making." At least no monitors were skulking around down there. That was the kick thing about a thirteenth-story room -- no one expected you to sneak out your window. Thick clouds hung low in the sky, reflecting worklights from the construction site across town. The cold tasted of pine needles and rain, and Aya wondered if she was going to freeze in her disguise. But she couldn't exactly throw a dorm jacket over the robe and expect people not to notice. "Hope you're all charged up, Moggle. It's drop-time." The hovercam drifted past her shoulder and out the window, settling close against her chest. It was the size of half a soccer ball, sheathed in hard plastic and warm to the touch. As Aya wrapped her arms around Moggle, she felt her bracelets trembling, caught in the magnetic currents of the hovercam's lifters. She squeezed her eyes shut. "Ready?" Moggle shivered in her arms. Clinging to the hovercam with all her strength, Aya pushed herself into the void. Getting out was much simpler these days. For Aya's fifteenth birthday, Ren Machino -- her big brother's best friend -- had modified Moggle. She'd only asked him to make it quick enough to keep up with her hoverboard. But like most tech-heads, Ren took pride in his mods. The new Moggle was waterproof, shockproof, and powerful enough to carry an Aya-size passenger through the air. Close enough, anyway. With her arms wrWesterfeld, Scott is the author of 'Extras ', published 2007 under ISBN 9781416951179 and ISBN 1416951172.