They walked in silence the rest of the way to Juan's bicycle. Bertie's face was drawn down disapprovingly. Not a good sign. Juan hopped on his bike and pedaled off on New Pala, up over the ridge, and onto the long downslope toward home. Bertie's image conjured up a flying carpet, clambered aboard and ghosted along beside him. It was nicely done, the shadow following perfectly along over the gravel of the road shoulder. Of course, Bertie's faerie overlay blocked a good bit of Juan's visual field, including the most natural line of sight to see real traffic. Why couldn't he float along on Juan's other shoulder, or just be a voice? Juan shifted the image toward transparency and hoped Bertie would not guess at the change.

"C'mon, Bertie. I did what you asked. Let's talk about the unlimited exam. I'm sure I can be a help with that." If you'll just let me on the team.

Bertie was silent a second longer, considering. Then he nodded and gave an easy laugh. "Sure, Juan. We can use you on the unlimited team. You'll be a big help."

Suddenly the afternoon was a happy place.

They coasted down the steepening roadway. The wind that blew through Juan's hair and over his arms was something that was impossible to do artificially, at least without gaming stripes. The whole of the valley was spread out before him now, hazy in the bright sun. It was almost two miles to the next rise, the run up to Fallbrook. And he was on Bertie's unlimited team. "So what's our unlimited project going to be, Bertie?"

"Heh. How do you like my flying carpet, Juan?" He flew a lazy loop around Juan. "What really makes it possible?"

Juan squinted at him. "My contact lenses? Smart clothes?" Certainly the lense displays would be useless without a wearable computer to do the graphics.