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  Tiona finished assembling the flycycle and to Vaz’s alarm threw her leg over and settled onto the seat. “Wait!” he said, standing. “I made a… a tester for the flycycle.”

  Tiona frowned, “A tester?”

  “Uh-huh, if you’ll just pull the seat back off.” Vaz picked up an eight inch cube of steel and walked over to the flycycle with it. A camera was mounted above the cube on a tube.

  Giving the chunk of metal in Vaz’s hand an odd look, Tiona bent down and loosened the knob that held the seat in place. She pulled the seat off and Vaz settled the cube onto the frame in its place. “How much does that weigh?” Tiona asked

  “A hundred and forty pounds. I know, that’s more than you weigh, but it seemed like a good test weight should be a little heavier than you are.”

  Tiona blinked a couple of times, “Really? You didn’t look like you were carrying 140 pounds.” She grinned at him, “Are you trying to trick me? I’m not going to find out it’s actually hollow, am I?”

  Embarrassed, Vaz said, “Um, I’m… uh, strong. I’m sorry, I’m kind of a freak…” he trailed off.

  To his surprise, Tiona stepped to him and gave him a little hug, “Hey, strong’s nothing to be ashamed of. Ladies like strong men, you know?” Tiona turned back to the flycycle. Vaz saw her surreptitiously try to lift it. He thought the look on her face might indicate surprise, but wasn’t confident of it. She said, “How are we supposed to test the flycycle with this big chunk of steel on it?”

  “Oh, the weight’s supposed to represent the rider’s center of gravity. The tube puts the camera at about the height of your eyes. I’ve got a station over here where you can practice flying it.” Vaz led Tiona over to where he’d installed a duplicate handlebar to the one on the flycycle. It had a viewscreen in front of it. “You can test fly the flycycle without getting injured if you crash it.”

  Tiona looked back and forth from the flycycle to the test station. “Are you saying that this test station is wirelessly hooked up to the flycycle?”

  Vaz nodded.

  Tiona seated herself at the test station and gently lifted on the handlebars. She turned to see what was happening with the flycycle and saw it lifting off the basement floor and rising toward the ceiling. She eased off the pressure on the handlebars and the flycycle stopped and hung about halfway between the floor and the ceiling. Twisting the bars, she watched the flycycle spin around the axis of the seat. She banked it side to side and pitched it front to back, watching it scoot those directions across the floor. “So, you’ve set up the software to maintain the same altitude as I do different maneuvers unless I’m pushing down or lifting up on the handlebars?”

  Vaz nodded wordlessly. When the flycycle neared the wall, it pitched itself so that it stopped before actually touching it. Vaz said, “The flycycle’s AI should also keep you from running into things—unless you tell it to let you hit them.” After a moment, he elaborated, “It’s got collision avoidance radar like a car does.” He frowned, “Well, actually, it’s better than a car’s collision avoidance radar because it also keeps you from hitting the ground or running into things that are overhead too. I’d programmed software to prevent those kinds of impacts for the flying car, so I just adapted it for the flycycle.”

  Turning to look at the video screen, Tiona remotely drove the flycycle around the lab a few times. She turned to her Dad, “Are you thinking I need to practice this more? I don’t feel like I’m learning anything.”

  Vaz had been watching intently. Now he said, “No, I just didn’t want to find out there was a controller glitch while you were on it. Better to have it crash while you’re driving it remotely.”

  “Oh.” Tiona grinned, “Well, I’m taking it out for a ride then.”

  “Um,” Vaz said, getting up and opening a cupboard. He looked a little embarrassed, “I made you a safety harness. I think you should wear it when you ride the flycycle.” He shook out a set of straps that looked like the kind of harness that a parachutist would wear. He pointed to a disc attached to the straps, “This is a ten inch thruster that should sit over your shoulder blades. It has one of my new graphene fuel cells inside of it with a 5 kilowatt-hour capacity. It can generate twenty kilowatts for about fifteen minutes, so the disc can produce 200 pounds of thrust for that amount of time.”

  Tiona was staring at the harness wide-eyed. Vaz thought maybe she didn’t believe him, so he elaborated, “I know that’s not much, but it has an AI chip that uses GPS to calculate the best way to use that energy to protect you.”

  Tiona turned an intent gaze on him, “How do you mean?”

  Vaz stared at the harness while he gathered his thoughts for a moment, trying to think how to explain it. He pointed to a large red button set into the front of the harness, “If something happens, of course you can talk to it with your AI, but in an emergency, you could just slap this button here on the chest.” He tilted his head, wondering if she understood. “It’ll have been following your velocity and position by GPS. If you’re falling, it’ll calculate the best way to use its energy to slow you before you hit the ground and will also move you laterally so you come down in a flat area. If you’re traveling at a high horizontal velocity, it’ll use its thrust to slow you down and to avoid objects in your path.” He pointed to a number of small metallic buttons on the harness and said, “Low powered collision avoidance radar units like on a car or your flycycle.”

  Tiona took the harness, “How do I put it on?”

  Vaz helped her step into the harness and buckle it in place. She reached back and felt the disc which was seated over her shoulder blades as Vaz had described. She frowned, “This is pointed front to back. If I’m falling, it’s not going to be able to slow me.”

  “Oh, it’s just held against your back with a Velcro tab at the bottom.” Vaz stepped behind her and jerked the bottom of the disc out away from her mid back. It lifted up until a couple of straps stopped it in a nearly horizontal position. “Here, I’ll lift on it,” he said putting a palm underneath the horizontal disc and lifting it straight up into the air so that Tiona dangled beneath it like a skydiver beneath her parachute. “See, once the Velcro releases, it should hold you up just fine. Just like the saucer, it’s made up of a hexagon of smaller thrusters all wedded into one big thruster. Its AI can tilt it various directions to guide your descent.” Vaz looked at Tiona as she hung there and noticed her eyes were quite wide. He remembered Lisanne telling him that wide eyes could indicate dismay or fear, “Are you okay?”

  Tiona barked a little laugh, “Yes, can you put me down?”

  “Um, yeah,” Vaz said setting her down. He’d been enjoying the muscular effort of holding her up and had forgotten to consider that she might not like it. “Sorry.”

  Tiona shook her head a little, “No problem.” She tilted her head oddly and said, “Holding me up wasn’t… difficult?”

  Vaz shook his head, surprised that she would think it would be. “Um, no. You’re not very heavy.” He lowered the disc down until the Velcro stuck its bottom edge to her back.

  Tiona glanced back over her shoulder, “So, I could tell this thing to give me 100 pounds of lift, then leap way high into the air, huh?”

  Vaz gave her an uncomfortable look, “You could, but it would use up some of the power you might need to save yourself if you get in trouble.”

  She grinned at him, “Maybe I need to power it with a fusor, huh?”

  He frowned, “A fusor won’t fit inside the disc.”

  She shrugged, “So, I carry it somewhere else. Being able to fly around in just a harness would be way cool.”

  He shook his head, “You’ll have a lot better control with your flycycle.”

  She grinned at him, “Speaking of the flycycle, I’d better go fly it.” She turned and picked up the bicycle seat, “Do you mind taking the weight off of it?”

  Vaz stepped over to the flycycle, loosened the nut holding the weight to the frame and lifted it off.

  Tiona slid the bic
ycle seat on, tightened its nut, and threw a leg over. She lifted the handlebars and floated up into the air a little ways. She rode the flycycle around in a couple of small figure eights, then settled it back to the floor. She looked oddly at Vaz, “Holding that weight isn’t… making you tired?”

  Vaz glanced down, embarrassed to realize he was still holding the hundred and forty pound weight a little in front of him. He’d been mildly enjoying the strain on his arms, but he quickly turned and set it down, “Um, no.”

  She got off the flycycle and picked it up, “Well, I’m going to go drive out in the country, looking for a place where I can ride the flycycle without attracting a lot of attention.”

  Vaz frowned, “You shouldn’t do that all by yourself. What if you get hurt?”

  Tiona gave a little laugh, “Between your collision avoidance radar on the flycycle and the safety harness, that doesn’t seem very likely.”

  He shook his head, “It’s new technology. There’s a substantial possibility that something’ll go wrong!”

  Tiona got crinkles around her eyes and she bit her lip for a second. Vaz wasn’t sure what that meant, but then she said, “Okay. You want to go with me?”

  Fighting the mild panic that welled up inside him, Vaz said, “Okay… Um, but I might not be the best person to help if something goes wrong…” he trailed off.

  Tiona stepped over and gave him another little hug. He made uncomfortable little patting motions on her back. She pushed herself back out to arm’s length, “That’s okay Dad, I’ll get someone else.” She frowned in puzzlement at her hands where they gripped his upper arms, “Your arms…” She waved it away, then said, “Never mind, I’ll see you later.” She turned, picked up the flycycle, and headed up the stairs.

  Lisanne looked up from her book when Tiona came out of the stairwell from the basement. Tiona had something that looked like a strange relative of a tricycle in her hand. It had handlebars like a trike and a big wheel in the front and two smaller wheels in the back, but the wheels were oriented horizontally rather than vertically. “What’cha got there?”

  Tiona looked down at the thing in her hand, “It’s my new flycycle. These are lift discs and I should be able to fly it around up in the air. Nolan and I are going to go look for an empty field to try it out.”

  Lisanne frowned, “Are you sure it’s safe?”

  Tiona smiled, “Dad’s installed collision avoidance radar and done a bunch of programming to make it safe.” She waved at the black strap harness she had on, “Beyond that, he’s made me this safety harness that has a lift disc to act like a parachute!”

  Lisanne felt her expression soften as she looked at the harness, “Your Dad has a hard time expressing his emotions, but those are pretty concrete indications of his love, aren’t they?”

  “Yeah.” Tiona hesitated, then she said, “Dad’s… he’s… astonishingly strong.” She shrugged, “I guess you already knew that, huh?”

  Lisanne gave a little laugh, “Yeah, though he covers it well. His body’s… astonishing.”

  Tiona tilted her head questioningly, “What do you mean?”

  “He’s ripped! Washboard abs. Chest and arms like you wouldn’t believe.” Lisanne realized she’d been sounding a bit dreamy and tried to make light of it with a little shrug.

  Tiona frowned, “How come I’m not aware of this?”

  Lisanne laughed again, “Believe it or not, he’s embarrassed by it. He thinks his body looks grotesque and I can’t convince him…” Lisanne had been about to say how sexy he looked, but decided that wasn’t the right thing to say to her daughter, “I can’t convince him it looks good. So he wears those big baggy shirts and loose pants to cover himself up.”

  Tiona thought back to the time she’d seen her dad’s sweatshirt bounce up while he was hitting his heavy bag. She’d thought she’d seen rippled musculature, but had gradually convinced herself she must’ve imagined it. Then she thought about all the exercise he’d done that day. “So he exercises a lot?”

  Lisanne nodded, “He says it helps him focus, mentally.” She snorted, “He thinks his musculature is an ‘undesirable side effect’ of the exercise he does to help himself think better.”

  Tiona shook her head wonderingly, then started for the door, “Well, I’m off to meet Nolan and try out this flycycle.”

  “Be careful!” Lisanne called after her.

  ***

  Nolan said, “Over there! It looks like a big empty pasture.”

  Tiona looked. There was a line of trees making it a little hard to see the pasture so she hadn’t really noticed it until Nolan pointed out. She told the car’s AI to slow down and stop. They both looked out the driver’s side window to the west. North and west of the pasture were more trees. On the south side a field of tall plants grew. Tiona thought they were corn. “Looks good to me,” she said, opening her door.

  Nolan looked askance at the flycycle in the trunk of the car. “That’s all there is to it?”

  Tiona looked at it too as if seeing it through new eyes. “Yep, three lifting discs…” She went on to describe the handlebars and point out the radar emitters as she carried it through the trees to the pasture.

  “What’s the big lump down at the bottom?”

  “Thirty kilowatt fusion plant. Gives it enough power to lift 380 pounds.”

  Nolan blinked, “Why’s it down there at the bottom of the leg?”

  “Makes the flycycle a little more stable. Especially when it’s just standing on its leg by itself. Having a substantial chunk of the weight right down on top of the foot makes it a little harder to knock over.” She shrugged, “And, even though it doesn’t emit many neutrons, having it a little farther away from you seems better.”

  “I thought you said it didn’t emit any.”

  She gave him a look, “Radiation’s never black or white. It emits very few neutrons so it’s well within the levels that are considered safe, but radiation falls off as the cube of distance, so I feel a little better without it being right under my crotch ” She’d set the flycycle down. Now she threw a leg over it and settled onto the seat.

  Nolan snorted, “Well, if you put it that way…”

  He watched her gently lift the handlebars. The flycycle and Tiona gently floated up into the air. He saw her twist forward on the grips and the flycycle tilted a little bit to the front like a helicopter does when it’s flying forward. Sure enough, she started moving ahead. Nolan walked along beside her for a moment, but then she twisted the grips harder and started moving faster. He trotted beside her a ways, but then she outpaced him. He saw her lift the handlebars and rise higher into the air. With about five feet of altitude she banked around in a big circle, then made a figure 8. He called after her, “Looks like fun!”

  “Yeah!” She shouted, swinging around toward him again. The flycycle tilted back, slowed and came to a halt near him. “This is really cool!”

  “Do I get a ride now?”

  She settled the flycycle to the ground and got off of it. “Let me test the safety equipment first.” She spoke to her AI and a second later the disc on the back of her harness lifted up to horizontal with a rip of Velcro. The harness pulled up tight around her. To Nolan she said, “I’ve got the safety disc giving me 100 pounds of lift. I’m going to try jumping.” She lowered herself and then leapt up into the air, shooting about twenty feet high. “Whooeee!” she cheered delightedly as she floated back down to the ground and landed.

  Nolan frowned, “It looked like you slowed down right before you got to the ground?”

  Grinning like a fool, she said, “Yeah! Dad programmed the software for it. The sensors increase the lift to slow you right before you land.” She spoke to the AI and the disc flopped back down against her back, loosening the harness.

  “Oh, that’s awesome! Too bad it doesn’t have enough power to lift you off.”

  “It does,” she said unbuckling it, “I just don’t want to use up the fuel-cell in case you do something stupid and need it
to save you.”

  “‘Do something stupid?!” Nolan said, widening his eyes in sham dismay. “I’m aghast that you could even think such a thing!”

  She laughed, “My dad was only thinking of the harness as a safety device. The fuel-cell’s enough to get you to the ground in one piece or slow you down if you’re about to hit something, but I’ll bet that with a small fusor, these things might be more popular than the flycycles.”

  Picturing himself floating around from place to place suspended by the harness, Nolan could imagine it. Tiona helped him strap into the harness, adjusting it for his larger frame. She showed him the panic button on his chest and explained the panic words that would activate the harness through its AI. Finally, after he mounted up on the flycycle, she explained how to fly it.

  In about ten minutes Nolan had worked up to swooping around the pasture at an altitude of 10 to 20 feet. He practically wanted to shout with the joy of it.

  Then he noticed a young girl standing just inside the gate to the pasture. She held the bridle of a horse and stared at him. He slowed and dropped his altitude until he was just a foot or so off the ground. When he’d approached to within thirty feet, he settled to the ground and said, “Hello.”