The air was filled with flying creatures, birds, reptilian and beautiful jeweled insects along with every imaginable cute, fuzzy animal with gauzy wings attached. Rachel was reminded of her mother’s disparaging “Anything can have wings.” Which was true but in most of the cases the wings were nearly or entirely nonfunctional and the flying “pets” were held aloft by external power.
In some cases there were clashes. In the middle of the lawn a centaur and a humanoform were apparently trying to capture their pets; the centaur’s jeweled minidragon was in hot pursuit of the humanoform’s golden dragonfly but if it wasn’t fast something like a flying pike covered in glittering diamonds was going to beat it to the prize.
She looked around, shook her head and summoned her genie.
“Genie, is there anyone here I know?”
“The nearest person is Herzer Herrick,” the projection said, highlighting the teen, who was standing to one side of the mob with a drink in his hand.
Herzer wasn’t quite who she had in mind, but he was, at least, a familiar face.
She, Herzer and Marguerite had attended the same day-school from childhood through early teens. With no economic necessity for learning, most schools were not much more than socialization programs but their school had been an exception, permitting children to advance in learning at their own pace but using every modern technology to press information and the love of learning into young heads.
Given the vastness of modern information and the dependence upon the Net, determining what to learn once past the “baby steps” of reading, keyboarding and mathematics through integral calculus, the choice of emphasis and speed of advance became complicated.
Rachel and Herzer had both found that they enjoyed learning and had a shared interest in history and ethnology. Rachel leaned more towards the day-to-day aspects of life in prior centuries, from Egyptian beer-making techniques to the operation of devices like the “automobile,” whereas Herzer was fascinated by the way that things worked and were put together. He had eventually gained the equivalent of a bachelors’ degree in historic structural engineering. Marguerite had advanced at a slower rate because she spent more time on the socialization aspects. She had eventually settled upon a focus on social interaction and holistic living design.
As Rachel walked over, she noted that not only had the palsy apparently stopped, but Herzer had put on weight, muscle-mass, since the last time she saw him. Now he looked like a sculpted Greek god. The cut lines looked… good on him, but they were hardly fashionable and there was no way, in three days, he could have gone from relatively flaccid to cut and defined without some really serious bod-mod.
“Hello, Herzer, out of the operation and into bod-sculpting I see.”
“Hello, Rachel,” he said with an embarrassed expression. “It’s what my body would look like if all the exercise I was doing had done anything but keep the palsy in check. And it’s all mine, genetically; I wouldn’t let the surgeon bot touch my genes.”
“I hope not, after all the work mother did on them,” she said, tartly. Then she sighed in exasperation at herself. “I’m sorry, Herzer, I know how much it must mean to you to finally be free of that awful…”
“Condition?” he asked. “I believe the term that was once in vogue is ‘spastic freak.’ ”
“Now you’re being snotty,” she said, looking at his glass. “Wine?”
“Fruit juice,” the teen said. “It’s going to be a while before I feel… comfortable poisoning my body.”
She summoned the same and looked around. “I had no idea that Marguerite had so many friends,” she said. “It makes me wonder if she really thinks of me as a friend or just an odd acquaintance.”
“Oh, I think she thinks you’re a friend,” he said, nodding at the crowd. “She just has lots of room for friends. Marguerite is a very charismatic young lady and she makes friends easily. But I don’t think everyone in this crowd is her friend; some of them are just acquaintances or friends of friends. Everybody wanted to be at this party.”
“Where do you know her from?” Rachel asked. “We were all in day-camp together, but she’s never mentioned you since then.”
“Oh, our parents occasionally get together,” Herzer said. “But she really asked me because she knew you were going to be here and she somehow got the impression that we were friends.”
“So you’re a ‘friend of a friend?’ ” she said.
“More or less,” he replied with a bitter smile. “I don’t have a lot of friends myself. Something about a revulsion to spastics.”
“You’re better now,” she said, putting her hand on his shoulder. “And you’re going to stay better. What you have to do now is either reintroduce yourself to people or meet new people. You’ve got plenty of time, centuries, to make friends.”
“I know,” he replied sadly, hanging his head. “But I want it now. You know, I’ve never had… a girlfriend. I mean, I had a couple when I was a kid. But the damned complex popped up when I was ten and since then…”
She carefully removed her hand and gestured around. “Lots of girls to meet here.”
“Sure,” he replied, trying not to sound hurt.
“Herzer, I don’t have a boyfriend for a reason,” she replied. “I haven’t met any that I like enough.”
“Including me,” he grumped.
“The ones I like don’t like me and the ones who like me I don’t want to be girlfriends with,” she said. “Story of my life.”
“Well, I’d be happy for one that liked me,” he said.
“Is that an elf?” she asked, changing the subject. Elves were rarely seen outside of Elfheim. The relatively early genetic engineering had been locked in by the Council during a flurry of legal controls imposed by the Net in the wake of the AI wars. Since then, many of the legal controls had been relieved but a few, regarding harmful biologicals and, strangely, elves, had been left in place. Now, it was impermissible to Change into full elf mode, and even the template for them was locked; the only way to become an elf was to be born as one. There were various rumors about why such a simple Change would be outlawed but if the elves knew the reason, they were keeping their own council.
The tall figure, with the distinct height, swept-back hair and pointed ears of the elven race, certainly looked like one. Or an almost illegal replica.
“Yes,” he said. “I asked. Another one of Marguerite’s friends. Via your father as I understand.”
“Father does have some elf friends,” she said, considering the visitor more carefully. “I think that’s Gothoriel the Youth. He occasionally goes to the Shenan Renn Faire.”
“Well there’s no way we can get a chance to talk to him,” Herzer said, looking at the crowd around the distant figure.
“Oh, my word,” Rachel said as a massive figure appeared in the air and then hunted around for a place to land. “It’s a dragon!”
There were only a handful of surviving dragons in the world. Dragons, by legal definition, were sentient beings. Nonsentient beings that looked somewhat like dragons were referred to as wyvern. No person could Change into a dragon since the AI wars, when dragons had fought primarily on the side of humans and, like elves, they were “grandfathered” as a species. Over the years their extremely low birthrate had dwindled the species, long lived as it was, to almost nothing.