LeeSki_SkiMore's SciFi Site: Future.Novel: Lev.UP, page 17

Even with his eyeware's input enhanced and analyzed by the govware's spy.espware,
he didn't find anything, so Eller rushed back to the drain, while Phara rested, shining
the spongesteel.
In a servo dream, Eller replayed his earlier rendezvous in the meadow. As he reeled
in the comp at the center of today's mess, his thoughts turned to settling the score with
the Richies. With this computer on board, Eller knew he would lev way, way up in the
competitions.
The VR of Eller's last ride that the cop had dumped on the barnet to humiliate him,
was some of the best boarding he'd ever done. It was too bad he could never let it be
known. Fortunately, due to his top.lev performance after the board's computer failure,
the sportnet hadn't accessed the fact that he had brought his board in without the
prophetware computer giving him a second or so of look ahead into the storm's actions.
He was intensely proud about having flown that tornado in real time.
As sophisticated, and tough, a fight platform as a stormboard is, without the
prophetware showing the pilot what the storm was going to do next he hadn't a chance
in a tornado. If he had totally lost control--as was to be expected when flying without a
prophet--the sportnet would have known it wasn't just a bad break, but a bad comp. The
entire sportnet knew he was broke. That he couldn't afford to miss a ride much less a
new comp. He had already issued all the stock he could, and that was the only way he
could have hoped to raise enough money to get a self-contained comp powerful enough
to run the board's prophetware. Now that he had this new comp he could recover his
pride. Now he could keep himself, and OBee off the TelCo's divi.dole, and flying.
The stormboard's obsolete old patchwork of a comp had crashed as Eller dove through
the thunderhead towards the upper edge of the tornado's funnel. He had been heading
for a shallow updraft that was particularly powerful as he attempted to lev.up on Sumi,
top boarder fem, related to clan TI. The family TI that owned the original photonware
patents that had led to the creation of the eyeware and earware implants. Anyone in
clan TI held a powerful block of private stock. Sumi was one of the richest Richies, and
the main Stormer between Eller, and stormboarder fame.
The boost would have put him into the Bright above the storm, lev.up on Sumi.
Where his board would also have picked up an extra charge to run the board's servo and
logic systems, gaining extra flight time. He would have picked up spectacular win along
with a lot of badly needed points.

A charge of photon-ejected electrons was stored on the enormous outermost surface of
the trillions of bubbles making up the tailored airgels that formed the outer layers of a
stormboard. These layers held all power for the board's systems, and were initially
charged on the ground by pumping lasers that plugged into the board's skin. A high ride
above the storm's clouds allowed the photo-voltaic airgel to gather up extra charge for
extra ride time.
What had started as a perfect opportunity to lev.up on one of the top-rated, Richie
boarders, Eller's coup instead became a fight for simple survival. Of course, if it had
been his board's external shape-generating topological-comp that had failed, the fight
would have been over before it had started. With Eller's life entrusted to a tiny smart-
chute, and the shock-absorbing properties of the airgel in the board.
For Eller's sponsors who were speculators with hopes of turning a minimum
investment into a large return on a risk-sport hero want-to-be the day was a
disappointment.
For Eller it had almost turned into just another way to get killed playing in the
uninsured zones.

The prophet's comp died just before he reached his goal. Instead of gracefully slipping
into the powerful updraft, to go lev.up on Sumi, Eller plunged directly into the whirling
wind-wall of the gray-green maelstrom, with only the board's shaper-comp operational.
And, it was distracted because it had to share its flops to provide Eller with nothing
more than an emergency real-time world-view. No prophetware to show him where the
storm's chutes, tubes, shears, and bursts would appear. Used to living the storm before it
happened, Eller lost a second, his cool, and almost everything else as his world in the
storm shifted to real time.