Bright's Light by Susan Juby Page A

chin to indicate how serious she was. The piece of wire crusted with lights hung in front of her chest in a way that looked quite unsafe from an electrical standpoint. “I mean, I am at the very top of the credit scale. Way high value. Who else are they going to watch?”
    She cast a guilty glance at Bright, whose lips tightened.
    He had to move this along before they all got released from their contracts. He needed them out of the way while he figured out what to do. “Just don’t be how you are,” hesaid to Fon. “Non-elite people often have trouble understanding how things work in super-elite situations. All you need to know is that you three must get to the Natural Experience because the House of It has something amazing planned there. Very fun. Once you get there, go along the main path until you reach the skinny tree. Then turn left and go straight. You’ll come to the right place.”
    The two favours still shifted uncertainly, lips parted in vacuous expressions of dismay.
    “You are being timed,” he said. “I’m timing you.”
    “Timed!” Fon gasped. “That’s so hard-core.”
    “The House of It is, uh, watching. Waiting. Let me repeat my instructions: Do not let anyone know you’re from the House of Gear. Do not let anyone know that you worked the third shift. That’s also part of the test.” Grassly looked around at the bodies of the PS officers and the fallen members of leisure unit 7. “I’ll take care of all this once you’re on your way. Just remember to turn left at the skinny tree.”
    Fon nodded and a look of steely determination came over her face, as though she’d just spotted a patch of rough skin and was about to go after it with a sander. She strode over to the shirtless crawling boy. Using some sort of wrestling/dance technique Grassly hadn’t seen before and liked very much, she flipped the boy onto his side, then hauled him to his feet.
    “Come on, Bright!” Fon yelled. “The House of It is waiting and we can’t be late! We’re coming and we’re bringing a light-altered favour, which is, like, proprietary to the House of It! Don’t worry about them.” She jerked a thumb at thebodies strewn about the room. “They’ll all be back better than ever at some point!”
    Suddenly, the girl was practically as strong as a badak, the sturdily built horned creatures famous on H51 for using the Mothers’ pyramids to test the astonishing strength of their shoulders. The constant ramming of the leathery grey brutes into the pyramids made them the bane of many a Mother’s existence.
    Bright grabbed the helmet and turned to stare at Grassly, as though waiting for him to ask for it again. He decided she might need it.
    “Briiiiight,” came Fon’s voice from the hallway. “I can’t do this on my own
forever
!”
    “Go ahead,” he said. “Be safe.”
    “So there’s no chance the light in the helmet will alter us?” Bright said at last.
    “You appear to be immune.”
    She made a noise that sounded like
pffft.
But she stuffed the helmet into her parachute bag and rushed out of the room. Music crawled out of the speakers, and the fun pipes hung uselessly from the walls, emitting faint hissing noises and giving off intermittent whiffs of mind-altering gases.
    Grassly looked around at the carnage. Sleek, slender favours lay half in and half out of their settle chairs. The pair of PS officers sprawled on the floor like a single black-limbed creature. At this rate, there wouldn’t be any ancestors left to save, enlightened or otherwise.

13.00
    “So awesome!” said Bright as they carried Slater past the greeter at the door. She was a different girl than the one who’d welcomed them on arrival.
    “Best time!” added Fon, unwilling to let Bright sound more positive.
    “Thanks!” they said together as they pushed through the door without slowing.
    The greeter took two steps toward them, but they were gone before she could say anything.
    Outside, Bright gulped the soft, quiet