Power Stuff Girl

It is a wet, pale, dreary morning. The clouds are thin, and high, as though last night's violence drove them away from the surface of the sea. They are enough to obscure the sun, though, and my short walk to the City's edge is grey, and cheerless. I stop a meter and a half from the sharp, rusty rim, and plunk down my electric winch next to the thin steel rope that disappears over the side. The vibration of this finally activates the Safnet field. I jump back about fifteen centimeters - I must have gotten too close again, and the buzzing electric shock of the repulsor shield takes me by surprise. Glittering reddish sparks shimmer in pulsing waves from the contact point, confirming that the Safnet is indeed working this morning. Sluggishly, as usual, but working. Slowly, I push the winch onto the rope, and activate its automatic function. With a soft chunk it latches on to the wire, and begins to crawl along it, nearer and nearer to the force field. A special radio signal from the device parts the force field around it, and it creeps to the very edge, clamping itself to a large rivet-bolt there. The machine whirls, then growls, beginning to slowly reel up my energy collector-panel set.

I back up a step or two, put a scrap of oiled canvas over a reasonably flat, lightly rusted outcrop, and sit down to wait. I dig my hand into the deep pocket of my coat, and rattle the water-tokens there. I scoop them up, and draw them out.

There are only three. One half-liter, and two tenth-liters - round coins of stamped metal, shining on my palm. It's just enough to buy a good breakfast, and maybe a drink of tea later on. If none of my panels charged up, then I'm really in for it. No cooking my own meals. No bathing. I can wash my hands and face for free at the public toilets, of course, but I need this energy-haul to be worth it. . . I would like to eat again sometime within the next week, and my hair desperately needs a steam-rinse. Truth be told, I need a full steam-bath, and have for several weeks. I have thirty full-liter tokens back in my tent, but those are for renewing my salvage license - it's due in ten days, and that's only half of what I need. Not everyone is allowed to pull power right off the sea, after all. . .

My winch beeps loudly, signaling that the collector panels have reached the decon level. Ten or twenty meters down from the edge, hanging from the rim of the city, is an unbroken ring of AR gel vats. Anything brought in from over the side gets bathed in the thick, RAD-absorbing stuff, and then rinsed with high-powered jets of our best distilled water. In fact, the rope I've been winching up has gone though this same process too - it still shines with the damp residue of gel and water. But now the panels must be treated, and the spool rocks slightly as an unseen robot arm catches the rope, and lowers my panels into the nearest vat. A few moments later, the rope hums in time with the heavy, direct streams of water.

At last, the winch stops turning, and begins its slow crawl back up the steel rope to me. The panel set is gradually dragged into view. It is inelegant and bulky - a round steel plate with twelve mismatched rectangles of steel-framed radiation-energy collectors trailing from it - but every one of my panels comes from New Boston itself, Skycity 28 - far and away the best manufacturer of anything and everything silicate-based to be had in this hemisphere. Frank was somewhat more than mildly obsessed with energy salvage, and this isn't the first time I'm glad he was. His hobby is my livelihood now. . .

When everything is finally back though the Safnet, I unhook the panels, and sort them by size.

The smallest two are thick, 15 centimeter squares - so thick they are almost cubes. The dark brown silicon glows yellow with long-term slow-release energy. I'll keep them for charging my space-heater, and slow-powering my cooking pad and comm radio. They'll last me a month or two, if I'm careful.

The next smallest three are the slim, purple-glowing bars of specialty fast-charging panels. They're 60 centimeters long, but only 4 wide. Easy to stick into a skycar's charging port, or a home-generator's battery slot. These are the newest and best quality panels, and all three glow brightly - fully charged. I'll rent them to one of my Central Township customers for an afternoon - each one is worth twenty full-liter tokens, easy.

Maybe I'll be able to afford a full steam-bath after all. . .

The five middle-sized panels are a ragtag group of reddish-orange and pinkish-white glowing squares of various sizes, from 30 centimeters wide to 44 or so. General-use energy, for quick-powering comms and cookers, and everything else that runs on standard batteries. Street value - 30, maybe 35 full-liter tokens total, mostly in smaller change.

Which is nothing to scoff at, of course. I once paid my license fee in nothing but tenth- and fifth-liter tokens.

Cash is cash, and I'll take what I can get.

The real prize, though, are the two largest panels. They are the oldest ones, some of the first Frank ever bought, and they are slow, and worn, clunky and huge at a full 60 by 90 centimeters. But they glow an all-over deep blue-green. Fully charged, with pure industrial-grade energy. I can sell it to any farming or filter station for 40 full-liter tokens each. My contacts at GenTech in Core Township's research quarter might actually pay up to 50. Industry-grade panels are rare, and New Boston-made ones are very hard to come by, even old, hard-to-charge ones like these. I very rarely get a full charge on either, and almost never on both at the same time.

I bless the North Atlantic algal mats, and their legendary radioactivity.

Visions of brand-new tent canvas, an actually comfortable sleeping roll, and, heaven help me, new clothes are dancing in my head as I slide each panel into their protective covers. The fast-charge-sticks and industry panels I'll sell tomorrow. I stow them and the two slow-charging cubes in Frank's father's old footlocker, and close and lock the hasp, before slinging the five midsize squares over my shoulder. Today, all I need is food, and a bath. North-3 Township Market is only a fifteen minute walk from here, and the nearest steamshower station is only two levels down and five streets over from there.

I start in to town, my step lighter and prospects better than they have been in months. For the moment, nightmares and strange fears have no place in me.