Yabbies - a novel

Bootstraps

Jeni comes out of the back of the miner's cottage to find Steve sliding the bright purple frame from the trailer to the ground. She leans against the door-jamb looking both puzzled and amused.

"You been getting into sculpture, Steve? Or what?" She shakes her head in happy incomprehension. "What is it?"

Steve makes a proud sweeping bow. "Your bootstrap."

"My what?"

"Bootstrap. You said you needed a bootstrap to lift yourself with, so here it is." A wide grin. "Thought I'd add another seat so I could come too."

She stares at him for a moment; stares at the frame; bends forward, hand over mouth in delighted shock; runs across the yard, laughing, and gives him a wild, crazy hug.

"You're mad! Brilliant!" She laughs. "Probably both!" A brief pause for thought, then "Wait here, I'll get the bender."

She lets go, turns and runs back across the yard.

A few minutes later, Steve is kneeling inside the frame of the bootstrap, mounting the bender into its cage. Wires trail off about twenty metres or so, to where the harness is resting on the ground. Jeni leans against the frame, grinning.

"Don't break it, Steve! But no disaster if you do, it's only the spare. Works okay, though – tested it last week." She leans in, checks one of the dials. "Yep. Working now. We got sync." She looks again, a little more closely. "A lot. More than I'd expect. Hmm..."

Steve plugs in the harness cable and looks up, the assembly complete. "You can run this on your own?"

Jeni nods.

"Where is Kim, anyway?" Steve asks.

"Inside. In the room for her. You heard about Kyle?"

"Yeah. Took it bad, did she?"

"Uh-huh. Cried the eyes out the past two days. Gone through every bottle in the house. Poor Kim." She glances back at the house, looking pensive. "Hope she gets the act together soon, though. Good job we've no bookings till Wednesday." But she brightens up. "C'mon, you mad thing, let's try this out!"

Steve fits the last anchor-panel in place, and they move across the yard to the harness. Jeni pulls on the helmet with practiced ease, clips on the harness straps, sets the joystick control-rests under her wrists, and switches on. Within moments the bootstrap drifts upwards and settles, floating about two metres up in the air, silently, the air flickering around it. The 'ta-ka-te' sound-pattern can be heard faintly over the hum of the bender.

"Well, that works", says Jeni, now very definitely the professional. "Should do, of course, but it's the first time anyone's bootstrapped a bender. Wasn't sure the cables'd take it."

"What do the controls do?"

"Not so much controls, more a focus. A bit like dowsing, if you've done that. Displays what should happen, so I can guide the PK. Sort of feed-forward rather than feed-back?"

"Yeah, I get you."

"Right's movement: forward, back, left, right, up, down." She moves her hand slightly on the right-hand joystick of the harness as she gives each direction; the hovering bootstrap moves briefly in each direction. "Left's rotation: left, right, up, down, roll left, roll right." Again the bootstrap echoes her movements. "All relative to self." She grins. "I'm self-centred, y'see!"

She turns to kiss him, forgetting that the mask is in the way. In the confusion the bootstrap crashes to the ground.

"Oops..."

"Women drivers..."

Both burst out laughing, then Jeni returns to 'professional mode' again. "A lot easier than I expected. Almost no load. You feel anything?"

"Not much. Like I've lifted a heavy pack or summat, not the whole frame."

"Odd. No idea where the extra power's coming from, but some lifts are like that. Hmm."

Steve gives her a playful nudge. "C'mon, you can analyse later, it's playtime now! My turn!" He runs off toward the grounded bootstrap.

Jeni is uncertain. "You sure you want to do this?"

"Yup!" He vaults into the 'passenger seat'.

"Ready?"

Grinning wildly, Steve nods.

"Okay – rolling!"

The bootstrap moves smoothly into the air, the faint 'ta-ka-te' pattern again audible over the hum of the bender.

Steve, it's clear, is having the time of his life. "Woo-hoo!!"

Jeni tweaks the controls, moving the bootstrap a little each way, as before, then smoothly to the ground again. Steve barely waits till the flickering stops before jumping out and running over. He can hardly contain his excitement. "See, oh grand master? Witness-inhibition fixed for us poor slobs? C'mon, let's nail ownership-resistance!"

He pulls her, with some resistance, to the 'driver's seat'. "Your carriage awaits, mam'selle!"

He mimes opening a car door, bows, ushers her into the seat. The harness fits neatly into the seat recess, the controls facing forwards as if there's a steering-wheel between them. He closes the imaginary door, re-opens it, tucks in the harness cable that had been trailing on the ground, closes the 'door' again.

"Oops. Can't leave your skirt hanging out, can we?" He runs round to the other side of the frame. "Wait for me!"

He jumps into the 'passenger seat', stops, puts his hands in his lap, looks straight forward with a silly grin on his face, then side to side in a parody of a tourist. He turns to look at Jeni, wearing her harness and helmet. "Nice crash-helmet you got. Racin' bootstraps, the latest sport." A brief pause for another parody of a rubberneck tourist, then "Well, are we goin'? Are we there yet, Mum?"

Jeni splutters with laughter, shakes her head. "Mad. Totally mad."

Both convulse with laughter. Jeni struggles to resume her 'professional' face, and promptly loses it. "Do you have any idea how stupid this looks?  A couple of overgrown kids sitting in a play-cart? "She collapses with laughter again, and pulls herself together by parodying a take-off check. "Sync?  Check. Engines?  Check. Brakes?  Oops, can't find 'em."

"Tower to Bootstrap One, you are cleared for take-off", says Steve, in a parody voice of air-traffic control.

"Bootstrap One", replies 'pilot' Jeni. "Thank you, Tower. Rolling!"

At "rolling", the bender hum cuts in, the 'ta-ka-ta' pattern clearly audible behind it. Seen from over Steve and Jeni's shoulders, the view flickers between the normal and the hyper-real as the bootstrap rises. Both yell in excitement as Jeni tweaks the harness controls, twisting the bootstrap around from about two metres up.

After about ten seconds the bender hum fades out rapidly, followed by the sound-pattern. The flickering vanishes. Like a cartoon character running over a cliff, the bootstrap hangs in the air for a moment, then crashes to the ground.

"Oof!" laughs Steve. "'What goes up must come down', hey?  Good thing I did use the sprung truck-seats!"

Both again convulse with laughter, turn round and hug each other. Jeni checks the bender's controls. "It's out", she says  "Still running, but no sync. Not surprised after that beating. Wow, what a ride!"

They climb out of the now slightly distorted frame. Jeni pulls off the helmet and harness, drops them to the ground, runs to Steve and throws her arms round his neck. "Didn't know that was impossible, did you?  But you did it!  Brilliant! Brilliant!"

They turn towards the house, to discover that Kim is leaning limply against the frame of the open door. Her eyes are bloodshot, her hair disheveled; frankly, she's a mess.

"Nice to see someone's havin' fun...", she says, in a bitter, sarcastic, self-pitying voice.

"Oh,Kimmie-love, you poor thing..." Jeni walks toward her, with Steve close behind.The two women hug, then all three move into the house.