The virgin & the bad boy (Gravity)

Chapter/28 First quarter day

George had twisted my arm to go mountain biking in the Swiss Alps with her, Leo, and some others who had gone to Celebrate 'First quarter day'. By twisted my arm George had said 'we are going mountain biking in the alps do you want to come along?' and I had said 'yeah that sounds great'. Kentro got me a bike, I had gone out the day before and praticed. My bike balance was good the extra weight made you go down faster but the air made it feel more extreme. It was like free riding with your head in a 30 inch sound system. Unlike Mars you can't do quadruple somersaults on the leaps on way down apart from that it was good.

'First quarter day' was the first day of that year's new funding. On this day people recovered from 'the last quarter day' excesses and did something they regarded as 'frugel and sporting'. These days this meant an expensive trip mountain biking. Yeah, it didn't make sense to me either, but as a young kid I never got how Santa Clause got from the south pole on Earth around the entire solar system in one night and everyone else seemed good about it to, so what do I know. My parents said Santa Clause was actually from the south pole on Mars hence the red clothes but since we were mining all the dry ice from his home to make an atmosphere I never understood why he went round giving presents. Plus how did he get through the airlock without triggering the decompression bell?

George and I had gone half way down a gorgeous twisty run which had enough launch boards to make me feel I was a cat leaping for pleasure. I had fallen off a couple of times and my bike armour expanded making me look like I was a marshmallow girl. I was getting up a second time and deflating when Leo and a friend called Smith caught up with us and stopped to check I was OK.

"You OK?" said Leo pulling his helmet off.

"I'm fine" I said getting up.

"George this is Smith" said Leo introducing his friend. George nodded.

"Yo Sister" said Smith, his dreadlocks shaking after his nod.

"Waz up" said George. I had never her heard speak so formally before.

Suddenly there was a huge white streak over our heads. I looked round and heard a whoop. Following George's gaze I looked down hill and saw a fast moving white dot.

"What by the great hip cut was that?" I said.

"That's a wing suit, given how insane he was flying I'm guessing that Dante is coming to join us" said George.

From what I could tell people would parachute by jumping from mountains. No seriously. To make this worse they would wear wing suits which make them look like squirrels and fall/fly down before parachuting on some non spiky landing point. It seemed mad and insane and I really wanted to try it.

"Oh I so want one of those" I said.

We continued on our wild ride down. As soon as I had cycled to the bottom, I had followed George who leapt on the next ski-lift up the hill. George had gone first and I was close on her tail. I had just done a huge jump when someone shot by on a bike. Someone did some insane moves and cracked past me. I let go from what little pull I had done on the break leaver and tried to keep up with the maniac. I wanted to let him know how dangerous the idiot was. I left George behind up the hill. When we both got to the bottom the maniac undid his helmet and I discovered it was surprise Dante.

"Yoh Pajamas how's it going?" said Dante.

"I thought you were, what's it called?, Based jumping?" I said.

"You haven't gone base jumping in a wing suit? It's life, life form" Dante said.

I pulled my helmet off "Mars, no atmosphere, I'll leave you to fill in the gaps".