On and Off

"Have you tried turning it off and then on agai.. . ." Meghan began her monotonous greeting.

"Yes!" A panicked voice interrupted her, "That's when all of this started!"

"Can you explain the problem that your computer is having?" Meghan asked politely, only half listening for a response.

"It's trying to eat my dog!" There was a loud banging and the squeals of an upset canine blared through Meghan's headset.

"I'm sorry, Ma'am, can you repeat that." Meghan asked, but she heard only cursing and the sound of commotion in the background. "Hello? Hello Ma'am, are you still there?"

Panting, the woman picked up her phone, "Yes, I'm still here. What do I do about this thing?! I've locked it in the cupboard!"

Meghan was unconvinced that this wasn’t a prank call, “Can you tell me the brand and model of your computer?”

“It’s not an Apple, that’s all I know.” the woman’s voice sounded distant.

“Can you describe the logo on the case?” Meghan began to ask.

“You know I wouldn’t put it past those apple people to do something like this.” The woman was rambling, “but I couldn’t afford one of those, maybe I should have. . .”

Suddenly, there was a crashing sound and a weak scream escaped the woman’s lips as the line went dead.

Meghan stared at her phone. Then she hung up, shook her head, and looked up the customer's phone number, sending a memo to her supervisor.

Clouds

Cloud harvesting was illegal.

But the conditions tonight were unbeatable, and Tamra had an anxious buyer with a bonsai terrarium that was going dry.

The combination of a moonless night with pre storm laiden clouds was as ideal as any harvester was going to find. Tamra was one of the best, she knew the air currents, the police patrol patterns and more importantly, she knew the clouds.

Cloud harvesting was the perfect game of double dutch. You needed to be in the right place, at the right time. Tamra had only been caught once. If she had been an adult she would have been executed, but since she was only 11 she had been grounded and made to live like a Terraist for five years.

Hanging underneath the police landing platform, Tamra made minute adjustments to her glider. Tonight the winds would be fun, unpredictable, but most definitely fun.

The sound of heavy boots came from above her, a change of shifts. Tamra heard the soft landings of the men coming in and watched the dark, almost black silhouettes of men taking off into the night sky.

She waited for fifteen minutes, and then four steady breaths before she prepared to take to the skies. Like a swimmer beginning a race, Tamra coiled her legs and core then simultaneously released the catch to her glider and pushed off into open space.

In an instant the clouds and darkness enfolded her.