Lucky Us

CHAPTER 1

Darius pushed his way through the crowd as he heard the doors closing. He wasn't going to make it.

"Next shuttle arriving in one minute," the computerized female voice said over the loudspeaker.

Darius looked again at his watch. 22:14. His flight was boarding now, and would finish in one minute. He had to make this train.

He grimaced, closed his eyes, and Rippled.

The train doors shuddered to a stop as Darius raced toward the train. They would stay open exactly as long as it took him to make the train, thereby making it to his flight, thereby getting to the job interview on time. It was a small ripple, so it didn't take much out of him, but he could already feel the absence of the neurons he'd burned in doing so.

He jumped onto the train and the doors shut behind him immediately. It was like the train had been frozen in a block of ice. It lurched forward, temporaly correcting itself as reality attempted to reconcile itself between what Darius had done and what should have been.

"Really gotta make your flight, huh?"

The words came from a young man in a grey hoodie sitting down near the end of the train. He must have recognized Darius as a fellow Rippler.

Darius nodded. "Last one of the day. Only way to make Phobos by nightfall without doing some major Rippling tomorrow."

"Well," the hoodie-wearing stranger said with a shrug, "I hope it's worth it."

So do I, Darius thought. With each ripple came a price, and no one liked to pay it.