Shine (33 page)

Rada faced the hostile group.

MV videoed her to Jeezbob, texting, "Whaddya think of this chick? Knockout tits. No bra!"

"We welcome you warmly to our school." Her voice and presence were mesmerising. The sun shone through her dress, emphasising her womanly shape. Even Wingnut stopped fiddling with his 3D glasses and gawked.

In a voice that would tame a horde of starving rioters, she continued in impeccable English. "We will give you an orientation talk in our hall, followed by lunch. This part of the school is techno free, for many reasons. We request that you remove all phones, sleeves and electronic gadgets."

She immediately quelled the low rumbling that swirled in the courtyard by pointing to beehives nestling under the eaves of the building. "One of the reasons is that your equipment interferes with the bees. We believe it may disrupt their dances."

They all looked up at the beehives. Some incredulous. Others curious.

Fortunately this did make sense. Most of them had spent the last two Springs in apple orchards, hand pollinating apple blossom. Tedious and time consuming but necessary, as in 2017 there were no apples in the stores. No one knew for sure why bee colonies were disappearing at such an alarming rate all over the world. A variety of culprits such as pesticides, varroa mites and oscillation frequency from radio towers were implicated. Perhaps this Russian girl was right. And there was something about Rada's voice that was authoritative without sounding bossy.

"Well I'm keeping my nano-wand," muttered Enrita, who zapped all surfaces for germs wherever she went.

Rada continued, "We keep our Web equipment over in the Tech block." She pointed to the other side of the large quadrangle, attractively peppered with trees and flowers. "You can put it over there."

Nobody moved. Colleen looked to MV. Armed with a scholarship to Yale, he was the most popular boy at school, the highest Flashtrix scorer and boasted the greatest number of PipStream followers.

MV tore his eyes away from the delectable Rada and noticed trestle tables outside the Tech block. It made sense to get on the right side of this chick. He wanted her. And MV was renowned for always getting the girl he wanted.

"Come on dudes, let's put our gear on those tables in the sun. At least the batteries can get recharged."

Rada rewarded him with a stunning smile.

"I'm in, dude," he texted Jeezbob.

MV walked slowly across the quadrangle, his forefinger manoeuvring his way out of the trap Jeezbob had set. He finally hit off the sound with a big sigh. The air crackled with the rips of zi-cro pulling apart, as he and his classmates reluctantly disconnected themselves from Mother Web. Glancing reproachfully at the beehives, they laid down their gizmos. Some still owned the bulkier ZiPad-3, but the flexible ZiSleeves were now all the rage. They were lighter and enabled simultaneous screens to operate. MV liked to maintain his supremacy on Flashtrix , joust with Jeezbob, download ZiTunes, upload ZiNaut, keep up with PipStream and watch baseball.

MV felt naked without his ZiSleeve and rubbed his left arm. It looked skinny and pale compared to his other. He was also dismayed to notice his skin fungus had spread. Mysterious skin diseases had become rampant. Well at least he didn't have asthma or diabetes like half of his classmates, or small genitalia, a scourge of boys born after 2012. He shuffled back across the quadrangle with his fellow web orphans, their school logo glowing green from the back of their T-Shirts. They filed in into a spacious hall with polished wooden floors.

The future cannot be predicted but futures can be invented
, was inscribed in gold above the entrance. A 3D painting that looked like a Hubble photograph vibrated off one of the walls. Light shone down through a myriad of stained glass panels. It was almost like a Church--a wooden vaulted space which sparkled with refracted light. Another beautiful girl was addressing the group.

"Hello our most revered guests. My name is Tania. We welcome you to Tekos School. May we co-create a positive vision for the future, in this our Space of Love..." Wingnut rolled his eyes and muttered, "I'll give you some positive lovin' baby!"

As she continued her welcome, MV looked around in awe. The room's splendour matched that of the outside. When he first emerged from the Solaritza, the Tekos bus which had brought them to this school in the Krasnodar region in Southern Russia, he had been impressed. Attractive low rise buildings nestled against a blaze of green forest. He had zipped an image into Archipedia, at the very point when Jeezbob forced him into a bunker full of rayzoids, so hadn't yet seen the answer. He automatically tapped his non-existent ZiSleeve to retrieve it. Damn. He would have to ask instead. As the Americans were being shown to their quarters after Tania's welcome, MV found Rada.

"Like your buildings. Who's the architect?"

"We are. We designed it ourselves."

"Yourselves?"

"Yes and built it too. This is the third building we have constructed. The first two were burnt down."

"Burnt down! By who?"

"By 'whom,' surely?"

"Yeah, yeah, whom, whatever." She was really unnerving him.

"Oh, by the Church."

"The Church?"

"Yes, a local branch of the Russian Orthodox Church. They think we are a cult and are dangerous."

Rada and Tania, demure in their braids and cotton dresses, certainly did not look dangerous.

"The Church burnt you down? You must be joking."

"No." Laughed Rada. "When Communism collapsed, the Church vied with the Mafia for control. Alexey II, the first post-Soviet Patriarch, reputedly ex-KGB, was very rich and drove a BMW. A perfect example of a new breed of autocrat, jostling for power."

"What a drag!"

"A drag?"

"Demoralising to have to rebuild," he translated.

"No not at all. Our designs have improved a lot! We have incorporated more sustainability." She pointed up at the walls. "Used more natural products. Our buildings breathe--they are healthier. And we have managed to accommodate the bees better in the new design."

"Why don't you have them in the garden?" (
Like normal people
, he refrained from adding.)

"Oh, they love being near us. They thrive better and they create beautiful honey for us."

MV ignored this as loony and loopy. Reminded him of that sugary, whole-Earth business his grandmother was into.

"The bees are very fragile at this present time--they are a barometer for how much we have wrecked the world, so we take extra-special care of them."

The front of the building was graced by a spectacular, 3-dimensional piece of art. His right hand automatically went for the Digiclick, to send it to Wikiflickr. Again he had the unusual task of having to ask a real person.

"Who's the artist?"

"We are--we students created it together."

MV was stunned. He had heard that this school was exceptional; that kids young as fifteen were completing university degrees, excelling in Maths and Physics. This had been the whole point of Colleen forcing them away from the Crystal Park--to check it out. Most of the Tekos kids had gone home for the summer but three seniors, Rada, Tania and Vassily joined their principal Michael Shchetinin, as hosts for their American visitors.

"Shove over MV! Hogging all the chick action again!" It was Wingnut, barging in as usual. "Hiya Rada. I'm Wingnut." He ogled her.

"Wingg-nut?"

"Yes, let me introduce Wingnut," said MV, ignoring Wingnut's unbelievable social ineptitude, "called so, not because of his political views, or sticky-out ears, but because he resembles the old Ninja character from the affluent times. And his father is still rich as fuck."

"Ri-ich as fuck ?" repeated Rada, quizzically

The way the well elocuted 'fuck' burst forth from those rosebud lips was enough to send Wingnut into a paroxysm of hysterical giggling. He didn't know where to put his goofy self. He went automatically to his Zi. He had no idea what to do without it. No wonder his grandparents smoked themselves to death, he thought. Without zyburbia at your fingertips, what else was there to do?

By this time the trio had circled back to the hall where drinks and lunch were laid out. Sumptuous salads, freshly baked breads and pies overspilled the plates.

"Ooh, cherry pie!" Wingnut swooped. "That looks cocklickin' good." He couldn't stand the way that Rada was looking at him. Spooky. He dived into the cherries, drowning himself in their delectable sweetness. He, like his classmates, was embarrassed to eat naked, as it were. They couldn't bear being without their earchips for non-stop music, their screens for the latest podcast or video, or their Zi-boards for surfing and texting. Rada, Tania and Vassily were attentive hosts. There was so much TALKING going on. It felt a bit much!

"How can you guys stand it without Live-stream?" Rachel asked, stuffing her mouth with potato and beetroot salad. "Don't you even have laptops?"

"Yes, I have a laptop and a phone," said Vassily, "but they are in the Tech building. I only use them sometimes, and then in the evening."

"God, how boring. What do you do?"

"It is not boring at all. We dance, sing, have fun."

Rachel nearly spat beetroot in disgust.

After lunch there was a massive rush for the ZiSleeves.

Rada reached for MV as he set out to join the surge. Her touch on his pale arm was warm and inviting. "Would you like me to show you the forest, MV?"

He felt his eyeballs burning as she looked into them. He thought of his PipStream, which would be overflowing; and Jeezbob, waiting for his next move. "Yeah sure," he said uncertainly, "after I do a quick pip shuffle."

A flicker of her disappointment flashed between them. He felt like a junkie; starving for his next fix. However he was reminded of another kind of fix altogether; the way her arse curved brought warmth to his groin. He'd heard Russian girls were hot. "Okay," he said impulsively, "I'll come." He couldn't remember the last time he had even gone for a walk, let alone without his ZiSleeve.

Rada led him through a garden that radiated out from behind the Tech building. Flowers spilled onto paths, intricately laid with attractive stones. Rada picked a daisy and threaded it into her braid. The clear skin on her face glowed in the streams of sun that filtered through the trees.

She led him through the solar garden and past the windmills.

"Are you totally off-grid here?"

"Of course," she trilled. "We have very hot summers and in the winter when the wind sweeps down from the Steppes, the windmills take over. Like how you would say...?" She chose her words carefully. "The demented howling of the wind is miraculously converted into the sounds of a flute concerto by Mozart--beautiful to listen to on a wintry evening."

"You are beautiful to listen to all the time." The thought bubbled from him like within a cartoon. The way she spoke fascinated him. Her words held a beauty that stirred a small neglected pebble resting somewhere in the vicinity of his heart. It felt starved of juice. He promptly dismissed the sensation as sentimental hogwash.

They walked towards a forest of cedars that swayed tall and majestic, whispering their distinctive hum in the breeze. MV breathed the sweet pine scent into his lungs.

"Do you have forests near you?" asked Rada.

"We did have but they are disappearing fast." MV tried to push the dreadful fires of 2016 out of his mind. Angeles National Forest had been razed to the ground, taking with it many human lives including those of his favourite uncle, aunt and cousins. "In the north of California some forests do remain, but many are dying." He looked up at the cedars but did not see the tell-tale brown foliage which was causing the demise of many of those trees. "Your trees look pretty healthy."

"In Russia, forests cover 45% of the land mass--the most extensive reserves in the world. Also this area is full of rivers, mountains and rich black earth. In the last ten years there has been a massive cleanup of the industrial pollution that was a legacy of Stalin, and the American factories which poured in during the 1990s. Now our trees are very happy. They love to supply us with fragrant air." She went up to one and spread her arms upwards in worship.

Oh no, not a treehugger too.
The thought was rapidly followed by another.
This babe is in perfect position for me to ram her against the tree trunk.

But before this thought could be brought to fruition, Rada skipped lightly away and led him into a glade with a pond. She ran about frolicking and did several cartwheels, her light summer dress cascading over her womanly body in such mesmerising whirls that MV couldn't tear his eyes away. Her reddish gold hair escaped from its braid and fell in waves down her back.

Wow, this chick is hot--I'm sure she ain't wearing knickers!
If only he could vid-port this gorgeous sight to Jeezbob.

"Can you cartwheel MV?"

Cartwheel! MV had never cartwheeled in his life--that was so uncool! He shook his head vigorously.

"Oh please try." With that she did a series of perfect arcs around him ending in a spectacular somersault.

"Well--er--er--" he stuttered.

"Oh, come on. Try!" Her eyes danced, green like the light through the trees. So hard to resist her plea.

So he tried. It wasn't good. His ZiSleeve arm was weak and the other crippled by a wii tennis injury. He crumpled unceremoniously to the ground, cursing violently.

Rada ran up to him with concern and massaged his arm. He felt the pain ease. He smelled the mead of her breath. Now was the time to make his move. Slip his tongue into that honeyed portal. But something stopped him--a strange emotion. Was it shyness? This was bad--he needed Jeezbob to knock some macho sense into him. What was wrong with him? He always found seducing chicks so easy.

"Let's go for a swim. It is so hot!"

With that she peeled off her dress and dived in. He was right. No knickers. Hell! She came up laughing. "Come on."

MV was still reeling with shock at the glimpse of her brown body unencumbered by undergarments.

"Come on," she repeated.