The beach was coming up fast, the whiteness a slash across the base of the reaching coconut palms. He checked right, saw he was still ahead of the curl. Good, no broken necks today. He shifted his feet, dared a quick look for her.
There she was, there on the bench. Boldly he leaned, moved, angled the board across the wave face, steered to her. Things were getting dicey now, breakers forming, the curl crumbling around him -
He looked up at the sky, the lovely blue frame around her head. Her hair, golden shade, framed her face, tickled his chest. Concern in her eyes, a half smile on her lips as she saw his eyes scoping her out.
"You idiot. Why do you do that anyway? I thought you got killed this time for sure!"
"Do what, Caroline?"
"Surf, clown. Why do you do it? At your age!"
He sat up, shook his head. "I used to surf to find you," he explained with a grimace at the ache throbbing at the base of his neck.
She looked down very briefly. Then back up, chided him affectionately. "Well, you've found me. So why do you keep doing it?"
"I do it to be with you," he explained. And she knew exactly what he meant then.
"What do you do for fun?" The climb was tough, cold. The air there at 18,000 feet was thin, making talking difficult. Economy of air, she was thinking. We take it so for granted back there in Vermont. But when it gets scarce -
"This isn't fun?" He grinned past his zinc-oxide coated nose, his eyes invisible behind the black lenses. But she knew what was in them. She felt far wiser than her years.
"You know what I mean, Mountain Man. Back in the analog world where real people do real things."
"We aren't real people, Snow Angel? And aren't we doing something?"
"You know perfectly well we've invented each other, Dave. Just like we've invented this mountain, the beach, wherever we go next - all inventions. All unreal." Devil's advocate, she thought. I'll play it for awhile. Maybe we'll stop, rest, catch our breath before we make our run at the peak.
He stopped a moment, took up some slack in the rope. As she approached she noticed the oddest faint blue glow coming from him, almost as though there was a fluorescent light inside, leaking out a little. It brightened as she approached.
Her glow was golden, and when they were face to face he reached out to her slowly, lightly touched her mittened hand. The bright electric green arc snapped and sizzled in the thin atmosphere, bonding extra oxygen atoms to already stable oxygen molecules to form ozone.
Hope for the ozone layer after all, she thought.
"This isn't real, Caroline? Didn't you actually feel that?" He certainly had, and was careful not to get so far away from her that the green arc that sizzled between them was threatened.
She nodded. It had certainly seemed real, all right. She looked around. Here we are, less than a thousand feet from the top, the temperature some indeterminate depth below zero, sparking. That's what he'd called this, that time. Sparking. On a cyber mountain. Real?
The sails were taut, the starboard rail under water. Close-hauled they raced, taking the sea in their teeth, getting soaked to the bone in these tropical waters. Caroline risked a quick glance down at herself, saw she was solidly planted on her bare feet, the wheel in her hands letting her control their destiny. Her bikini was soaked, but that was fine, because that's what they were made for. She glanced up at Dave there on the top rail, saw him smiling at her. Well, she revised to herself, that's part of what they were made for.
