Gliders

Gliders

         I’ve been a reporter for almost a decade and have been a glider for nearly twenty.
Getting my first pair of glider shoes and gloves when I was just a kid was the biggest thrill of my adolescent life, they not only freed me from the problems at home they just freed me from the confines of my physical body.
Flying down the streets at speeds normally reserved for cars made me feel alive and free, it quickly made me the menace of Falkner St. but it didn’t matter me there were no boundaries to me anymore. It made everything pale in comparison that was until puberty set in and I discovered something that made gliders pale in comparison.

Now was my day at the office the story that would make my carrier, one that could possibly get me that raise and corner office that I’d been dreaming so much about, when gliders would be elevated to the point of Baseball or Basketball in this country. But no when handed in to my boss he simply glanced over it taking in only the highlighted details he put it on the usual page and simply dismissed me from his office no fanfare included.
This nearly made me snap. Three months! Three months! I’d been working undercover on this project not to mention sending in articles on the local glider races and new tech and finally discovered the identity of Moon and Cloud the two most legendary gliders in the sport. Ok that was it, my mind snapped and I lost it.
“Fuck you! You lazy pill popping testosterone factory. You couldn’t find appreciation if it waved a neon sign in front of you! You’re not talented in any sport what so ever and the only reason you have this job is because of that fancy degree from Harvard, and don’t even think of firing me you Fucking Blowjob because I QUIT!” Everyone in earshot went silent, nobody talks to the editor this way, nobody, not even his most prized reporter, not even his boss.
Not even waiting for his answer, I took his standing lamp and broke it over his desk then using the shoes that were already on my feet glided out of the office and over to the courier window and out onto the side of the building.

Never in my life had I felt like I do now.
Free carefree in fact and not caring about the world or the consequences of my actions, it was just like the first time I’d mastered my gliders as a kid. Now wearing the new Turn Table X-9 gloves and Sidewalk Surfer shoes it was freedom in the purest of form.
“Yo Article where you going?”
Slowing down my descent by dragging my hand, letting the electronic attractors do their job and slowing down enough to land gracefully on the sidewalk then transfer to the street and begin pumping my legs. Mentally keying in my microphone “Back to base, got another delivery to go through, U?”
Past a few taxi’s at a standstill between two delivery trucks that decided they liked each other very much and underneath an eighteen wheeler, all with the grace and poise of a choreographed dance. “Fucko! Yeah opposing traffic’s a bitch, taking the cross downtown strip gonna hit the Birdhouse for a quickie then it’s back to work” A quickie usually meant a meal or a drink, non-alcoholic or not, they were fast energizing meals that fed the powerhouses that were our digestive tracks.
The strip was exactly as it sounded a strip of electrical fabric used to cross great distances or just to cross between buildings.
“Cool see ya after work, same place?”
He laughed back, “You know it?”
Leaping over a car going in the adjacent direction as it sped, well tried to, past me landing on the road and quickly flipping up and over a hatchback with its back wide open, gliding for a few seconds before twisting over to the sidewalk and up the nightlight strip and leaping over a busy sidewalk to the Courier Base on top of a one story package company. Course the delivery entrance is downstairs for larger packages even Gorilla can’t carry.
Sitting at the delivery desk wearing a black sweater with three buttons undone in the front wearing a white shirt underneath and short blond hair cut to look messy holding a book and looking very bored at his post. Yet he perked up, slightly, when he saw me coming. “Hey Article”
“Hey Boss” he was Moon.
Rumour has it he was the fastest most graceful glider back in the day his nickname came from the distinctive backpack he wore all the time when working. It was a circulars shaped backpack that had on it, surprise surprise, the crescent moon in all its glory.
“Package going to the Antennae for the CEO, hand delivered. Got your clearance?”
Pulling out my pass around my neck scrolling down to the pass for the upper-class district, high level buildings, government, TV, healthcare headquarters, the important stuff, along with a few of the fortune five-hundred businesses/mega corporations. “Yup”
He looked back and a little girl, who was actually around twenty years old, carefully picked up the brown envelope and set it on the desk, this time without tripping, before she fell flat on her ass. “You ok Package?”
She nodded and stood up rubbing her ass, “I’m fine” in her little squeaky voice. She may seem like a klutz but it’s a phase she’s going through apparently, as did her mother the original Cloud, she was the predecessor.
“Thanks,” Stuffing it in my wrap around backpack, and then taking off using the cross street strip and landing in some moving traffic, tracing my finger along a cars hood while the driver ignored me.
Taking a few long strides then pushing off into real speed through the slower cars and traffic, after all that are what couriers where made for.
Making my way through the now expensive cars, Bentley’s, BMW’s, Mercedes with my ball cap on backward and glasses tinted black and a t-shirt and skater shorts as a trail of electrical discharge marked where I’d been only seconds before. They cursed and shouted at me, but that only made me dial up the sound on my boom box to the point where the speakers on my pack blasted out the good ol’ rock and roll from my era, today was Papa Roach’s new data stream and they hated it.
Sirens could be heard far off down a street I was coming up on. Stopping between two business men and there Mercedes as my music blasted away, the ambulance went blasting by, and both men were most likely shouting at me to turn off my music. Turning my head to see that they were, gliding in front of them backwards I gave them a one fingered salute old school underhand and kept on going.
At about forty clicks launching myself over a parked car landing in a crouch about five feet from it, amidst businessmen and women who watched with either muted fascination or open criticism. Giving one very cute one a slap on the ass, looking back to see her asian face blushing as a result, standing up blowing her a kiss then turning around to leap up to a buildings courier wall.
The wall is basically a single wall that touches the ground made of typically straps to give us the initial charge necessary to go up the buildings.
Reaching out with my hands and basically finger pressing my way up as well as kicking it made for quite a sight as I came up to the top floor and its courier window. A single open window with something akin to safety bars on each side, seeing as no one courier ever goes in a window the same way twice.
Coming up from below grasping the bar flipping my body over into a roll and using the forward momentum to pull me into the room for us, planting my feet and doing a few spins to bleed off the speed, coming to a full stop in amidst an electrical storm in a room only twelve feet long. Turning them onto low speed with a setting from my finger, for old school gliding at speeds more akin to a running person, then opening the door and gliding down the cubicles lowering the volume on my pack speakers and turning them onto headphones, as the quiet office barely took notice of me past my electrical entrance. Doing my little dance led me to the CEO’s office as the secretary saw me and buzzed me in as I did a little bow and glided in not stopping a beat.
Like all CEO’s he took no notice of me as I dropped the package on his desk and glided out through the same open door. Then over to the courier room closing the door taking my boombox off headphone and blasted it to speaker, cranking the volume. Then boosting up my feet and blasting out the window, grasping the bar at what seemed like the last second sending me upwards instead of down. To land gracefully on the roof among five different straps.
Choosing one at random, still in tune with the beats blasting from my pack charged the strap like it was an adversary, leaping into the air landing on the strap like surfer then just as I was about to reach the lower building right next door, leaping off and landing on the buildings wall sliding down still completely entranced by the music. Spinning my feet doing all I could to dance to the song before slapping the wall with my outstretched hand to slow me down to a crawl the song just ending.
Dialling down the music I let out an ear piercing, “WHOO!” People looked at me weird, some smiled and nodded as if saying, ‘hell yeah man’ and watched as I glided off.
“You look happy” As I was flying through traffic, looking over it was Sleepy who was lazily gliding through cars as if she was in a daydream.
“Today just can’t get any better”
She smiled to me, her eyes perpetually closed, not because she was sleeping because she was blind, never had corrective surgery because she says she can ‘see’ the electrical current of life or something. No ones ever gotten a clearer answer than that, don’t really need one as she glides as one of the best of them. “I don’t know we’ve got a party planned for tonight, the big news has finally taken our sport seriously”
“Ok fuck that, HELL YEAH!” As I fell backwards onto my hands then flipping backwards onto my feet, she giggled at me. “Ok now you’re going to tell me that I won a million dollars”
She laughed at me. “No, just be thankful for this little tidbit”

The Birdhouse was a place were all Couriers gathered after a hard day or right in the middle to rest, eat, or just hang out for a little while between jobs.
Called the Birdhouse because not only was it high, it was built on top of the Fox Oil tower and made to look like an old school birdhouse on a pyramid base made of steel girders, how anyone got them up there is anyone’s guess.
But it’s big enough for three levels and about a hundred people at a time, which was perfect because at any given time there are about eighty to a hundred and fifty glider couriers in the downtown area. Not to mention the numerous straps and wires going up to the Birdhouse keeping it stable against winds and well, gravity.
Leaping onto a strap and sliding up behind Sleepy we landed on the top level were a Vid wall was broadcasting the daily news. Some kids were passed out on bean bag chairs from to much work or to little sleep, and a few were in the kitchen grabbing a bite, it was surprisingly empty today only Gorilla, Wheels, and Texas were at the pool table playing a tag team it seemed against Gorilla. Sleepy and myself dialled down our shoes and I killed my boom-box letting the Birdhouses usually good taste in music take over as we glided over to the rec ‘room’ and flopped down on a couch watching the game.
Gorilla got his nickname from his massive size and the fact that being fingerless gloves he uses the back of fingers and knuckles just like a Gorilla, and for some reason he wears sandals. Which is odd, because even though he wears insulated sock like the rest of us prolonged exposure to the electrical output of these shoes can cause serious nerve damage, yet now there are no risk to the wearer whatsoever unlike back in the pioneer days.
Wheels is called that because his gloves are the only ones with a half sphere on each palm allowing him to ride them like they were shoes, only thing is his stopping power is severely reduced, making him one of a kind. He also ahs a habit of overtaking cars on the highway with his also one of a kind custom made shoes.
Texas isn’t exactly from the Deep South he’s just bigger than life, and he’s also what we call a city cowboy. Cowboy hat unshaved beard over a rough worked face, deep blue eyes and that long hair all cowboys on TV have and a white t-shirt with a plaid long sleeved shirt rolled up to his elbow and stone washed jeans. That’s where the similarities end. He’s got hiker like gliders and a regular school backpack along with biker like gloves that go to his fingertips.
They call me Article because of my little data-book that I keep on hand. You can find me at least once a day chronicling my day’s events or making another article about the day and the life of a glider or something about or culture. Now since I was technically out of a job my articles were up for grabs and were going to go to the highest bidder that wanted them.
“Hey everyone there showing the first race, come on!”
We all ran over, having turned off our gliders inside the birdhouse and stood to watch the TV as the broadcaster stood on top of a building with seven competitors, including Cloud and Moon and five other very nervous locals, not to mention half the gliders in the courier business on opposing or the same rooftops watching. No wonder there was nobody here.
“Welcome to what hopefully will be the first of many glider races here in beautiful downtown Tsunamis. Today’s competitors include a few locals Moon, Cloud…” He listed off a few more nicknames one that I recognized and four that I didn’t, not everyone knows everyone else’s nick. You keep your circle of friends and that’s about it, a few names of worthwhile float around but there are only about ten or so of those. “The referee is known as North Shore he’ll be making sure no mods are assisting the competitors and that no one is purposely affecting anyone else. It looks like were about to begin so we’ll be cutting to our droid cam and commentator Mitchell’s”
We went to a picture of the seven competitors who were waiting along the red marked line waiting for the go.
“And Go!” they all leapt off the building, with several straps leading to the opposite building for just this occasion. “Holy cow just look at them, each an expert on gliders, for our viewers who don’t know what they’re watching. Gliders use electronic currents to hover above most known substances, it also assists in propelling them forward or over our cars whenever we’re in the downtown area. It takes incredible skill and mastery to able to handle them at this level of…..Oh my god there they go, they’ve landed on the straps and are going along to the next building.
“Remember this course is built from the top of Union Tower to the railroad tracks only ten kilometres away, but travelling at speeds of up to fifty kilos it should be a short race”
We watched as Moon and Cloud leapt from the straps onto the cylinder tower spinning around the side, holding onto the wall sliding down at only five feet a second, making there way around to the other side before leaping off onto a single strap leading down to the lower buildings.
It was an intense race with Moon and Cloud going neck-in-neck the whole race. Coming to a surprising conclusion as one of the couriers I didn’t know leapt over both Moon and Cloud winning at the last possible second. “Oh my god that was intense” having been on my toes the entire race it was finally time for me to take in a breath.

The next day Moon was not happy, he barely said a word when he handed us our morning packages. After receiving numerous folders to deliver at each corner of the downtown area, and well on my way through downtown traffic, I got a phone call in the middle of one of my narrative sessions. “Datapad stop recording, phone answer. Hello?”
An executive sounding voice answered the line sounding very happy, “Mr. Gerber this is Vernon of the online sports column The Athlete’s voice, perhaps you’ve heard of me?”
Of course his company had been a direct competitor against mine, “Yes sir what can I do for you…whoa! Fuckoff! Sorry sir, traffic”
“I understand I was a courier in my hayday,” That was a surprise couriering was not an easy job. “How’s Moon is he still reading?”
A smile passed my cheek as I leapt up to a wall and began climbing, “Everyday like clockwork. You said there was something you wanted to talk to me about, excuse me” Landing in the thirty second floors courier room creating a nice lighting storm.
“A job Mr. Gerber, one I’m sure you won’t refuse”
Dialling down my shoes and taking some time to listen, after all the packages weren’t urgent. “Not so sure about that”
“Now that gliding has become an overnight sensation we’d like a columnist who’s on the inside as it were,” Opening the door and gliding around the cubicles handing out four packages and ten letters some of them personal, company-to-company romances most likely. “and since you’ve arrived I’d like to talk to you face-to-face. Please my secretary will be expecting you” and he hung up.
Stopping taking a moment to look at the company sign on the wall, The Athlete’s Voice, whoa he’s good, sliding to the big man’s office, stopping at the secretary “Mr. Gerber?”
“Yeah”
She keyed something. “Go on in he’s expecting you”
Just as I crossed the threshold my phone rang again, he nodded and allowed me to answer it. The voice was deafeningly familiar. “Gerber! Where the hell are you? I need your report on that race that just happened”
What is he an idiot? “Sir,” Taking an immense amount of pleasure in this, telling him as if he were an infant “I quit” Hanging up on him.
“Perhaps we could talk about a new job as our gliding reporter, out in the field of course as a courier you’ll have access to every possible bit of information on the races, upgrades, players, legends, after all this will be a big sport now that its gone to the Vids. What do you say?”
Become a reporter again but be able to keep my job as a courier, “How about the latest datapad?” why not ask for the impossible in just such an occasion.
As if we were discussing flipping a light switch. “Done” He stood up “We good?”
A smile on my cheek as we shook hands, “We’ll find out”
“Fair enough” He said nothing else as I slid out of is office and into the courier room, dialled up the shoes and then took off out the window, grasping the side bar and sliding down the flat side of the building in a Spiderman grab, feet planted on the surface as well as my hands behind me my body pointing out from the building. Flipping around then slowing down just inches from the ground by pressing harder and harder until I came to a dead stop. Touching down then taking off, to return to my datarecording and package delivering.

At the end of the day Moon, who’d cheered up after his defeat, which for him made his face look like he’d just spent the whole time cataloguing fifty thousand identical products, handed me a package. “Just for you, delivered not two minutes ago”
Holding the package, it was signed the CEO of The Athlete’s Voice. He was good.
Back at my home, one I’d moved into for this undercover assignment, called the grav-lifts. Seeing as you needed to be at least a novice glider to reach an apartment. The government leased the block to package companies who rented it out low cost to there employees, making our lives, and not to mention parties, very comfortable.
In my room I opened it up to see the very latest, in fact it wasn’t even in stores yet, datapad. And there was a note, ‘Hope to see your first report tomorrow, our download time is seven am’ So setting my new datapad to transfer all the details from my old one, setting the transfer of some files to The Athlete’s Voice as soon as it was finished, laying down in my bed looking at the ceiling, it looked like I was getting two paychecks from now on.