by Andrew Gubb
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ROMA-NOVA
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A novel in instalments by Andrew Gubb
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0.7 05/06/08 [written] 16/07/08 [uploaded] He wasn't anywhere nearly as skilled at this as his recent opponent had been... for several seconds the windows and balconies flashed past before him without change... then, agonisingly slowly, the tecnique came back to him, and Rocio was able to change the angle at which gravity acted on him by a tiny increment. To his view that meant that the building's wall which was like a flat plane beneath his feet angled upwards and became a very slight slope... and gently his feet drifted towards the surface. Deepening his desperate rapture despite a throbbing pain at his temple he urged a few more degrees. Not enough. More. More! The slope was at ten degrees or so. More! Rocio's feet kicked off the surface and he went flying outwards. Twenty degrees. Thirty degrees. His feet connected again and he made another leap which skipped over an outreaching platform. This was getting harder and harder to maintain. Forty degrees. His feet touched the surface again and suddenly he was running down a forty-five degree slope in massive bounds. It took all of his concentration not to stumble. Another second, two seconds, three and there was no improvement. Hopeless. He resolved to use the crystal. Rocio reached down and felt its surface, which burned like fire but soothed like water and gave in to his will, becoming energy and entering his body like a possessing spirit. Rocio grinned furiously -- Suddenly a balcony loomed into sight. A huge balcony, Rocio realised. Covered with people. A party. In these moments it had already tripled in size. In a panic he redirected the gravity manipulation out wide and flung himself into the open air, missing the ledge by a bare metre or so. He thought he saw some interesting expressions as he passed. The crystal burnt out. Rocio listened to his cloak flapping about him in the rush of air. Great, he thought. The building was a long way away, and there really was nothing left to try. Suddenly a head appeared upside-down in his field of vision, smiling. It had soulful black eyes and scruffy black hair. The body it was attached to was naked except for a pair of black jeans and dominated by the huge black wings that held close to speed the dive. "Need help?" "About bloody time!" yelled Rocio. Noré laughed and pulled Rocio into her chest. And teleported. 0.8 18/07/08 Kale and Rowan slumped against the bar, dizzy and savouring the aching of their tongues. "Why can't we taste things every day!" cried Rowan in lament. "What," Ronaldo grinned, "Vitalwater doesn't taste good enough to you?" "Vitalwater doesn't taste," said Rowan. "Why do we have it?" "Because it's cheap," said Ronaldo. "Food isn't. In the Old World, people would often starve to death." "I'd rather live in the old world! I wouldn't mind dying maybe if I could eat everyday!" cried Kale. Ronaldo laughed. "And they don't have piped music or kinematics or good healthcare or books or warmth or law enforcement..." "I don't care! And I don't need law... enforce-ment. I can just be nice anyway," said Kale. "Well... sometimes things aren't easy, I suppose," chuckled Ronaldo. "I don't care. You'll see." Ronaldo grinned at Kale's defiance. "That's the spirit!" * And when Kale came home, as late as he could safely manage, and saw a fresh bruise on his mother's face, he said "maybe we could go live in the Old World?" and she only smiled then cried and said he didn't understand. 0.9 27/07/08 Core 6 was a gargantuan building, but Kale didn't even think of himself as living there. He didn't think of himself as living in Roma-Nova for that matter, just as most people don't imagine themselves as living in "the world" -- what else is there? Kale lived in Urbanisation Centre 49, or Urb 49, or usually just "Forty-Nine". There was a small botanical garden in 37, so he had gone there a few times; and for school trips they had gone to a few other places, though they all looked the same. But Kale had never gone outside Core 6. And why would he? The buildings of Roma-Nova had been torn out of the earth by the godlike powers of the White Angels many years ago as an empty shell for people to come and fill. And so in many places they had remained empty. The complex held alternating strata of choking, dusty claustrophobia and vast echoing spaces. It was a place of sickness and squalor and of great unused resources. Abandoned equipment worth thousands of aurei were rife a few levels down, but the locals couldn't find a use for it and whoever could was too far away to know. Probably, the paperwork had been lost decades ago. Kale and Rowan were too young to take that sort of thing seriously, though. What they cared about was to explore. And with adults too busy to track their movements, there was more freedom in this concrete skeleton than any open field. * Kale was extatic, and so was Rowan. The dust was so thick here that they left distinct footprints and stirred particles into the air in their wake. "This place must be millions of years old!" cried Kale. "Yeah!!" cried Rowan emphatically. He sat down and slapped dust into the air and watched the motes sparkle before his eyes in the dim light. Kale had already moved ahead. At the end of the corridor there was a door. It seemed locked, but after tugging on the handle several times there was a crunching noise and it swung open suddenly with a long agonised whining. Inside... was a dragon. Or so it seemed. It was a piece of machinery that had been dismantled long ago, gutted for valuable materials and left strewn across the floor in pieces. The pale red light of a power cell glowed in a corner and set the thing alive with a seeming alertness. Dust spiralled in the grand space, disturbed by some draft and ablaze with sunlight. The children sat down and stared in silence for a long time -- how long, they didn't know or care. Then Kale got up and ran to the glowing light. He pushed aside some pieces of junk and uncovered it -- a rod, about big enough to sit comfortably in his hand as he picked it up. "Is that okay?" breathed Rowan. "I think so," said Kale as he stared at the beautiful intensity of the light. Then he dropped it suddenly. "Ow." "What?" "It's nice, feels tingly, but it gets too hot after a while." "Kale, look! The dust!" "What?" "The dust in the air, it's like swirly." Kale followed his gesture, and saw suddenly how the dust in the air seemed to dance around the rod as if it had some strange affinity. Then he noticed that the dust in the air around his hand danced the same. And as he stared closer, the particles sparkled and swirled even harder. "Look, look!" "I'm looking!" Kale frowned and stared as hard as he could and suddenly the dust rushed away from his hand. As he jumped in surprise, the particles rushed back and clung to his skin. "No way!" yelled Rowan. "How did you do that?!" "I dunno! I think... I think the red thing let me do it!" "What?" "It's like... it's like the red is... vitalwater for the dust, or something! It gives it strength!" "Wow!" cried Rowan, and grabbed the stick. * And so the two children spent a long evening getting their hands as burnt as they could stand and finding ever new ways of moving particles by no other power than their attention and the heat that flowed into them through the red bar. They didn't question the meaning of the phenomenon at that point. All they knew was that there was a new thing to play with.
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