"Requisitioning that was a PAIN! You had better be nice to it!" Alex yells at Katelyn who has already opened a bag of chips and spilled them everywhere. She shrugs at her as if so say, 'oopsie.' Alex rolls her eyes to the sky and back again. Kelly laughs at her, shoving the last bag of food into a compartment under the passenger's seat. The large hover bus is possibly around 3 years old; it's life beginning with the four of them. Alex gives her speech like a broken record player, even if there isn't a mess.
Alex was the first one who wanted to get away. She was always different, and she liked it that way. When every one else was planning out their surgeries, or playing tricks, she was busy in her room with her Oodle, that wasn't an oodle yet. (They didn't get upgraded from the Odin till after her surgery.) She was alone, until she met Kelly.
Kelly was in her foreign language class. A small class; who was going to need a foreign language when they had everything they could ever ask for in a wall? There was no need to travel in this day and age. They started to talk one day, and were apart about as much as Siamese twins for long after. Their dreams grew together, and soon they were mapping out road trips on Alex's Oodle. Alex had very high up parents, and always had the latest versions of every little gadget.
A few months before their trip was about to start, they met Katelyn and Aja. Katelyn was working in the garage, where they were scoping out hover cars. Alex's distant cousin, Aja was supposed to be chaperoning them, even if she was about a year or so younger. Aja was in all advanced classes and they were optimistic for her future. A neurologist they said. She was going to follow in Tally Youngblood's steps and rid the world of the nanos. She was going to find a less controlling way of doing all this; she was going to save the world. Of course, she was responsible. Thus, when her family found out she was running away with her three other cohorts in crime, to lands unknown, they were a little angry.
"Aja! Hurry up and get out of the bathroom! I swear! You take longer than anyone I know!" Katelyn yells through the restroom door as the hover bus jerks into motion. The familiar feeling of movement passes through the bus as it swiftly picks up speed. Outside the window, there is a field of yellow grass. They had hit the only rest stop for miles, not that they needed it. The hover bus is equipped with two pull out double beds, a bathroom with shower, projector screen and blackout shades. It also has a little mini kitchen, table with chairs, and a couch. Katelyn dances a little in front of the bathroom door. "AJA!" Finally, the door slides to one side, and Katelyn runs in almost before Aja can squeeze out.
"How long was I actually in there for?" Aja asks Kelly, who is sitting on the couch reading. She smiles and shrugs. Aja shakes her head and walks up to the front of the bus, plopping down into the passenger seat. "How're we doing?" She asks Alex, who is pushing the buttons on the control panel, plotting out the autopilot's course. Alex does not look up, nods her head, and mumbles something about the solar panels. With a laugh and an, "okay then," Aja pulls two small circles and places them in her ears. Her music floods into her head through the ear mice. They were a gift from Alex a few years ago. She pushes a button on her belt, and a thin camera slides out from the top. She was one of few that thought the retro super-belts were still stylish. She pulls up her old files and scans through them while the yellow landscape passes by monotonously. She laughs at her family, and friends, quietly to herself and before she realizes how much time has passed, she is looking up, questioningly feeling a tap on her shoulder. It is dark outside already.
"C'mon loser, we're on cruise control, let's go to bed." Kelly commands, once Aja's taken out her ear mice. Aja agrees and follows everyone back into the now dark bedroom, which was once a cozy living room. Aja and Kelly share a bed, while Alex and Katelyn have the other one. They all say goodnight and finally Kelly says goodnight to the room and everything powers down to conserve their energy. Aja rolls over to one side and stares at the clock projector, it tells her that it is bedtime, but she can't sleep. She waits about an hour more. She can tell Kelly's already dreaming of a new shirt by her loud snores and mumbling. When they first began their venture, she used to have to wear her ear mice on silent setting, just to get to sleep.
Creeping up the ladder, by the back door she opens the roof latch and climbs onto the roof. The crew usually doesn't come up here, and they don't know that it's one of her favorite places. She disables the alarm, so it doesn't wake her companions, all of this routine by now. A giant solar panel blocks most of the wind, and she closes the latch quietly, to lie on top. The stars are still there, staring at her in their white brightness. She stares at them, and listens to the animals, and the whoosh of the wind all around her. Her little super belt magnetizes and sticks her to the top, so if the wind picks up, she stays put.
She first figured out this was a great place to snooze, when she got the lovely job of cleaning the solar panels. If they go anywhere that's too cold, they get icicles stuck to them and they don't absorb as much energy as they normally would. To clean them you just melt them off with the heater and wipe it down. It's not exactly the most fun job in the world, because it hurts your eyes, and it gets bitter cold outside when there's nothing to break the wind currents. Finding a little oasis was natural. Whenever she gets into a fight with one of the other girls, she just sneaks out to the roof and listens to her ear mice, or the hum of the hover van.
Her eyes are just about to drift shut, when she sits upright abruptly. Looking around, Aja does not see anything. She pretends to go back to staring at the sky, but she hears it again. Someone is attached to the bus, the metal clink is undeniable. She lies still, but listens carefully, and silently slides her mini nail filer out of her belt. A round head shape appears over the side of the bus, coming out of nowhere. Aja's heart is beating rapidly from the adrenaline and she prepares to swiftly dispatch of the intruder. Her mind is running quickly through all of the different self-defense feeds she has seen on the projector screen. She decides a few are a little over the top, but by that time the person, obviously a male, has already started to approach her. He is not sneaking around, just walking, but Aja just figures he cannot see her. Aja always was short. They did not call her shrimp for nothing.
"Eat nail filer robber man!" Aja's war cry spills out of her mouth as she kicks out her leg to trip him. She rolls onto her knees and whips out her nail filer, but stops stock still, as she recognizes the long face, with his glasses perched on the bridge of his nose.
"What are you going to do, file me do death?" Bill asks with a laugh in his voice. He walks into the light, and Aja smiles as his dorky glasses reflect the light into her eyes.
"What are you doing here? It's practically midnight, and we're on top of the bus…" Aja looks at him puzzled. "I think Katelyn would agree that this is a little bit creepy."
Bill laughs, "Well it was supposed to be a surprise. I was going to wait up here until dawn and then go wake her up. I just caught up to you. The last ping she sent me was at the rest stop." He points behind him, to the hover car following close behind the hover bus. "I didn't exactly expect anyone else up here with me. I'm kind of glad you are though. Was that locked?"
"The latch? Yes, it was. I think it would have made your entrance a lot more interesting if you hadn't been able to get in." Aja laughs at him, and opens the latch. "Come on in, you can sleep on the floor, until morning," she whispers to him quietly and ducks into the bus. He follows behind her, closing the latch tightly before descending all the way to the floor.
"Are you sure the other girls won't mind that I'm in here?" he whispers.
"You're betrothed, I think they'll understand. Just, make sure you stay on the floor all night." She gives him a look with raised eyebrows, before turning around to requisition an extra pillow and blanket for Bill so he can sleep on the floor. He takes it gratefully and sets up camp in front of Katelyn and Alex's bed. "Just make sure you're not in the way of the bathroom for any of us," she whispers over to him.
Sufficiently satisfied that Bill's settled in and everything's going according to plan, Aja quietly lays back down next to Kelly, who's bragging about her "new shirt" still. She smiles a little bit, and stares up at the glow-in-the-dark star shaped stickers on the ceiling. With a smile on her face, Aja ends up falling asleep, thinking about the beach.
Chapter Two
[under construction