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Each Tuesday, rather than a POSSIBLY
IRRITATING ESSAY, I'd like to both challenge you and lend a helping hand. I
generate more speculative and teen story ideas than I can ever use. My family
rolls its collective eyes when I say, "Hang on a second! I just have to
write down this idea..." Here, I'll include the initial inspiration
(quote, website, podcast, etc) and then a thought or two that came to mind.
These will simply be seeds -- plant, nurture, fertilize, chemically treat,
irradiate, test or stress them as you see fit. I only ask if you let me know if
anything comes of them.
SF Trope:
Cyberpunk (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Cyberpunk)
Current Event: https://grahamm18.weebly.com/future-direction-of-drones.html
Mohamed Omar
looked at his best friend, Waris Abdi. She scowled at him over the face veil of
her hijab and said, “If you keep looking at me that way, I’m telling my uncle
and he’ll take your kneecaps with a pliers.”
Mohamed raised his
eyebrows and said, “Ooo, I’m scared.” He’d known her uncle since he was little.
He was a teacher and one of the kindest men Mohamed had ever met. “Now, are we
gonna do this or do I need a new best friend?”
Waris snorted and
shook her head, but he could hear the grin in her voice when she said, “We’re
going to do it no matter what. It’s what we were created for.”
He grunted. Of the
two of them, she was the more religious and they’d had their disagreements, but
this time she was right. They’d been made for this. His old-fashioned hand-held
phone was loaded with the flit
program. Waris’ father had gotten her the most up-to-date phone and the chip
was embedded in her hand. She held it in the air, like some of their evangelical
Christian friends would do when they sang. She said, “Ready.”
They were outside
the school in small amphitheater on the far side of the parking lot. Muhamed’s flit hovered overhead, silent on its fleshy
blades. Inside of it, him and Waris had pooled their credit and got the best brainup they could afford. It should be
just large enough to hold enough of their minds for them to have some real fun –
and maybe help their friends. They were being targeted by some of the more correct
Muslims at the school. Their friends – mainly Rodrigo and Shelly – had even
been attacked on their way to their church service one morning.
Waris said
suddenly, as if she were reading her mind, “Is this gonna be OK?”
Muhamed shrugged, “I
don’t care if it’s gonna be OK. They’re our friends and they should be able to
believe what they want to believe. People we know are trying to hurt them. This
is the right thing to do – even the Prophet said in Chapter (4) sūrat l-nisāa,
“Why do you not fight for the cause of God or save the helpless men, women, and
children who cry out, ‘Lord, set us free from this town of wrong doers and send
us a guardian and a helper?’”
She didn’t reply,
but the corners of her eyes crinkled. “All right then. Is your memory up to
date?”
“Yep, I did it
right after school.”
“I did it when I
got out here.”
They looked into
the sky. The flit came, its UHD
camera eye looking at them. In this state, it had roughly the intelligence of a
cat. It knew they owned it and it knew it would do what it could to help them.
Adding in both of
their minds would give them absolute control of all its abilities as well as
leaving them enough consciousness to appear only drowsy while they sat and
talked on the concrete bench.
Waris said
suddenly, “What if one of those thugs have a raptor?”
It was Mohamed who
grinned this time as he said, “So you think I would have just got us a normal flit?” In the distance they both heard a
sharp shriek, almost like the cry of a hawk…
Names: ♀; ♂
common Somali names
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