Renegade World: Future Past Read Online Free

Rebeka Lee and her cousin Sandy.  Just months before that, the
Schmidt’s had sold their company. As employee number three, she had owned
nearly twelve percent of the company. Already well off, her new fortune allowed
her the freedom to work on her own projects. While she still consulted three
days a week and continued to work for free once a week at the local free clinic,
she spent most of her time on the family farm, continuing the breeding programs
and starting some projects that she had been thinking about for years.
    The donkey nudged her out of her daydreaming.  She looked
up and saw Aaron and Erica practicing on her range. Several years ago, Erica
had asked her to teach her how to shoot. At the beginning of last summer, a boy
began tagging along with Erica, watching her.  They would wave to her, and she
would wave back. Not knowing his name, she thought of them as Erica and her
puppy dog.
    After his fifth visit, she found out he was Ben Lieber’s
son. She did most of her consulting for Ben’s companies. Anita and I
performed a neural splice operation on Ben. I'm sure Anita did a full neural
implant on both Erica and Aaron.
    Neural splices were not a topic for open conversation since no one
outside of Ben Lieber's company except for three consultants knew that they were doing neural
splice surgery. Auditory splices had become quite
common during the last couple of decades. Anyone who was not wearing an earbud
in public probably had an auditory splice, or was very poor, or perhaps very
eccentric.
    In reality, the choice between an auditory splice and earbuds
was mainly cosmetic. Although the implants used with a splice continuously recharged using a biological battery, earbuds could go 48 hours with a recharge, and the top-end earbuds had as much processing power, memory, and communications range as an implant.
    Visual splices had yet to be approved in the US and most
other countries, so the standard video interface was still a pair of glasses or
contact lenses. Both the glasses and the contacts were capable of displaying
resolution as good as monitors.
    She watched Erica beat Aaron. Aaron's gotten much better, but I think I'll take Erica
down a bit. After grabbing her archery gear from the pole barn, she walked over and challenged them to a contest.”
    Aaron shrugged. “I'm game. Erica's beat me three times already today. It'll be fun to see her
lose. What kind of contest?”
    “A one minute contest. Total points. Ten points for the
center ring, nine for the next ring out, eight for the next and so on down to
one for the outside ring.”
    Aaron asked, “From a quiver or the ground?”
    “Your choice. I am going to use the quiver, but if you want
to stick them in the ground, that's fine. Who’s going first?”
    Aaron and Eric looked at each other. Finally, Aaron sighed,
“I'll go first. Will you say go, Rebeka Lee?”
    “No. I'll start timing when you touch your first arrow.”
    Aaron stuck his ten arrows into the turf right in front of
the shooting line. He turned to Erica, “Can I use two of your arrows just in
case I get off all ten of mine?”
    Erica handed him two of her arrows, and Aaron stuck them
in the ground, forming three rows of four.  After taking a couple of deep breaths, he set up his stance,
closed his eyes, and took another breath. After opening his eyes, he nodded slowly. “Here
goes.”
    At thirty seconds, he had five arrows
in the target and was launching his sixth. His first five were in the center
circle, but the sixth went one circle out. Although he kept firing at the same pace,
his shots became more erratic. Just before Rebeka
Lee called time, his eleventh arrow barely nicked the outer ring. He groaned. “I fell apart at the end.”
    Rebeka Lee added up his score. “You shot an 86. That's not bad.”
    Aaron walked down and retrieved his arrows as Erica set up.
When he returned, he handed her back her arrows. “How many of mine do you
want?”
    “Four.” She took his four