Bright's Light by Susan Juby

culminated in bounce landings so that the people who went down them pinged from platform to platform. Bouncing balls lay in small groups like round huddled creatures. One purple wall billowed, waiting for people to be flung against it by a slingshot attached to a TeeterBouncer. He saw only one client. The tall woman was inside an IndieBounce tube and she was, predictably, bouncing. When she landed on the floor of the tube, it propelled her at least ten feet into the air. The stretchy see-through plastic sides kept her on a more or less straight trajectory up and down. An elasticized plastic top stopped her, just barely, from bumping the ceiling with her head.
    The expression on the woman’s face was somewhere between exultation and worry.
    Grassly knew from long observation that favours used the IndieBouncer when they needed a moment to themselves andwanted to keep a client busy. Clients couldn’t get themselves out of the device or even stop bouncing. A favour needed to change the tension on the tube to dampen the bounce.
    How long had this particular client had been ricocheting between the ceiling and the floor? The woman was still making happy noises, but with some effort.
    In another corner of the room, one of the favours sat on a spongy padded stool. She wore the pink helmet shoved down low on her head, and was doubled over so the brim of the helmet nearly touched her bare knees. The other favour was trying, without success, to force a wire semicircle covered with little light bulbs over top of the helmet.
    “It’s not going to fit, Fon. If you want to wear it, you’re going to have to leave the halo off.”
    “But Bright, the halo is totally my trademark!” said the one called Fon.
    “Only for like three months.”
    “It’ll fit!” said Fon. “Just push harder.”
    Bright was slightly rounder than the one called Fon, and her skin wasn’t as glowy. She had on a bikini top with a pair of baggy suspender pants that managed to be both revealing and capacious. She also wore a heavy pair of work gloves, sturdy boots, and a belt that sagged with the weight of many tools.
    Grassly knocked on the doorway.
    Bright looked up. She froze, as though caught in the act of doing something wrong.
    He wanted to tell her to relax, but that would make her even more concerned. PS staff didn’t say things like “relax.”
    They stood around making people feel secure and special. Until the day they didn’t.
    “Lot of options for bouncing in here,” he said, finally.
    Both favours were looking at him now, glossed lips slightly open.
    The one called Fon had twisted her head at an uncomfortable angle so that she could see him. Bright’s expression was still one of polite alarm.
    Grassly nodded, as though in answer to a comment. He hadn’t been socially gifted on H51, where the influence of the Mothers made the population one of the kindest, friendliest, and most overpoweringly helpful in existence. He was even less skilled at being social in the Store. PS staff weren’t big talkers. Nor, he realized, were they big on knocking. That knock had been a mistake. His lack of ease wasn’t helping the mission. No, he thought. Don’t be too hard on yourself. A Sending was a learning process. He wasn’t expected to be perfect.
    He realized they were staring at him and forced himself to continue. From behind him came the repetitive
wheeze-thump
of the client surging up and down in the IndieBouncer.
    “You changed the wearer of the light,” he said.
    “I, uh …” said Bright.
    “She
said
I could …” said Fon.
    “It’s fine,” Grassly assured them.
    He saw their shoulders relax infinitesimally. Their breathing became more regular. He’d succeeded in calming them. How satisfying.
    “And the light,” he said. “You have turned it on?”
    This time, only the one called Bright stiffened.
    “No,” she said. With his highly attuned senses, common to all 51s, Grassly could hear her heart hammering in her chest. Was she