“Unless, um, unless I wanted them to.”
“What do you mean?” He drew away from me.
“Well, I might be willing to continue the project in this secret place if and only if it’s completely under my terms, and with you in charge.”
“Really?” With wide eyes, he gripped the steering console. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah. Not for Gifford or Dr. Little, but for my friends, and for you and Victoria, too. I’ve already put enough people in danger. I don’t want to let the whole world fall apart. And,” I continued, smiling and lifting my shoulders, “you can teach me about genetics, and I can help you. I can’t be a paleontologist, but maybe I can be a geneticist assistant or something. I already know a lot about science. It’s something I love. We’ll reinvent the Van Winkle Project—turn it into something ethical and humane.”
“Yes, of course, we could do it,” he said with so much enthusiasm, his words ricocheted off the windshield. “I know we could, and I know the people there would be willing to help, too, and let us take the lead.”
My shoulders relaxed as the weight of my words, something that gave me new strength, settled in my heart. I could only hope he was right, and I didn’t just make the biggest mistake in my life.
“We just have to get there first,” he said.
With a voice command, Michael made the car door open, and he helped me step out of the mover, proving chivalry still existed in 3025. My offer seemed to give him a new round of enthusiasm.
“We’ll put our bags in these”—he opened the trunk—“so we look like commuters instead of people who plan to be gone for a while.” With the pull of an orange tab, a slab of plastic the size of a brick unfolded, taking the shape of a thick, small trash bag.”
“Wow, what are these things?” I asked as he handed me the other plastic brick.
“They’re metered grocery bags, designed to count and deduct units from the buyer’s account as items are placed inside them. Everybody owns one, and during this time of night, we’ll fit right in.”
At the depot, we quickly spotted our flight number and stood on the platform. The hoverbus, an extra, extra-large version of a hovercar, lowered next to the curb and we boarded, relieved it had three empty rows near the back. We kept our heads down as we walked, hiding our faces from any obscuras, and avoiding direct eye contact with the other passengers even though we knew our false identities should help us remain safe.
“Scared?” he asked when I grabbed his hand.
“A little.”
“Don’t be. You’ll get used to it. We aren’t as high up as it looks.”
“How fast does this thing go?”
“Once we’re over the ocean, between eight hundred to nine hundred miles per hour, but don’t worry. It won’t feel like we’re going that fast.”
I cringed and whispered, “What about the bot?” The seat next to the driver was occupied by the most human-looking bot I’d seen thus far. With a full uniform and lips that moved in perfect cadence with its words, I didn’t realize it wasn’t a person until after we boarded, and it said, “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Hoverflight Fifteen.”
“PORTS announce flights and help passengers with their baggage. They occasionally walk the aisle, sometimes more than once.” Michael leaned lightly against my shoulder and whispered, “Let’s inactivate our bands just in case it makes more than one pass and the identities we entered with have changed. I’m not sure a PORT could pick up on that, but it’s better to be on the safe side.”
“How do you know they haven’t downloaded our faces onto every Liaison in the world and offered a reward for information leading to our arrest?” I murmured, scanning the people sitting ahead of us. Even though it was late in the evening, no one looked as tired as I’m sure I did, especially the women with their stiff hairstyles and tailored shirts made from fabric that refused to wrinkle.
“Well, for one, it’s never been done before. Our crime rate is so low, and the crimes that are committed are mostly pranks, nothing too scandalous. The public wouldn’t know how to react other than panic, and I’m sure the president doesn’t want that,” he whispered back, his lips practically brushing my ear.
“So you don’t have any regrets coming with me?” I turned and noted the soft blue of his eyes, the perfect angle of his nose, and his shoulders, broad and strong.
He stroked the side of my arm. “I don’t regret coming with you. I only regret,” he continued, firmly planting his cupped palm on my shoulder and dropping his voice to a whisper, “not telling you everything I knew about the S.T.A.S.I.S. program.”
This wasn’t the place or the time for my anger to resurface, but I couldn’t contain my rage as it swept through my being and settled in my heart. I crossed my arms over my chest hard.
“Please forgive me. I didn’t tell you because it wasn’t something you needed to know.”
“I’ll forgive you—eventually,” I said, a little louder than I meant to and turning onto my side, so he’d know I didn’t feel like talking about it anymore. This conversation had to take place when we were alone.
The cry of a baby behind us made me jump, and after its cry turned into a full-blown wail, its mother made her way to the bus’s changing station, a plastic, rectangular table that was folded flush to the wall and of the same color. The only distinguishing mark was a small symbol in its center in the shape of a diaper.
Michael and I sat, barely exchanging words, my thoughts too full for small talk until the baby being changed began crying again. Infectious like a yawn, another baby somewhere near the front of the hoverbus started to cry, too.
“Like coyotes,” I said, imagining Victoria in my arms.
“What do you mean?”
“One starts to howl, and then all the others join in. I love the sound of coyotes howling in a pack, especially when there’s a full moon.”
I unrolled the E-Paper and elbowed him as he was also drifting off into slumber. “According to this, when we land we’ll be in Region Two, Sector Five, Division Thirteen. That’s London, England,” I gasped when I recognized the country’s distinct shape on the map. “Is that even possible?”
“Yup, we’ll be in Region Two.” He didn’t even sound surprised. “We’re traveling a lot faster than it feels. Once these buses are out of the zone, they increase their speeds. We’ve been flying over the ocean for at least thirty minutes.”
“According to Magnum’s notes, once we land we need to take two additional hoverflights. The first flight doesn’t drop us off in the zone where Travel’s brother lives, so we’ll have to walk to his house. He’s continuing to take us off the beaten path.”
“He sure is,” agreed Michael as he yawned.
An hour later, the hoverbus stopped and lowered but continued to float, sending an inaudible vibration throughout the bus.
“Reactivate your band,” I reminded him as I touched the screen on mine and the hoverbus landed.
“Damn it,” I heard him say as he walked down the aisle behind me.
“What is it?” I whispered, turning my head.
“My band. It won’t reactivate. Quick,” he said. “Trade places with me. I can’t be the last one out.”
Knowing he’d be invisible to not only bots but body counters, he dodged past me as I momentarily cut back into a row of empty seats so the automatic door wouldn’t start closing before he reached it. Minutes later, Michael was safe, and I became the last passenger on Hoverflight Fifteen to step onto the pavement.
It was dark outside, but the sun was just begging to rise, casting a natural glow that sharply contrasted with the artificial lighting of the terminal. We waited for the other passengers to disperse before we turned to locate our next flight.
“These are early commuters. What time is it?” he asked. He lifted his inert L-Band, repetitively tapping the screen, but nothing he tried gave it any life.
“5:32 a.m.” Too early for me, though the thought of going to Australia, a count
ry I always wanted to visit, gave me renewed enthusiasm. “How long do you think it will take to get to Sector Nine?”
“I’m not sure with all of this backtracking, but according to Magnum, backtracking is the best way to keep the authorities off our trail.”
All of this region-sector-division talk was so confusing. But I figured it out, and basically after London, we were going to Australia, back to London, and then on to New Zealand. After New Zealand? Well, that was still a mystery—at least to me.
I turned until I was facing the terminal sign. “This is not the way I remember London. Everything looks just like it did in Los Angeles: the buildings, the streets, the people. It’s so sad. I mean, where’s Big Ben?”
“Who’s Big Ben?”
“It’s not a person; it’s a clock, a large clock tower that reigns over London, shadowing the River Thames.”
“I’m sorry, Cassie. I’ve never heard of it.”
“The essence of what makes London, London is gone.”
During our wait, a bot walked into the terminal. I put my head down and moved closer to Michael.
“Don’t worry, it’s not a PAT,” he said.
“A PAT?”
“Patrol bot. Now those,” he said, giving a discreet point, “those are PATs.”
“And check out what they’re doing,” I whispered.
The pair of PATs stopped a couple pushing a stroller. The stroller settled to the ground and one PAT read the couple’s L-Bands with a hand scanner while the other picked up the dainty, banded wrist of the baby and did the same.
Satisfied with their readings, the PATs passed along a row of waiting passengers and stopped once again when they reached a woman with a baby in her arms.
“There’s another PAT and another one,” he said with a tap of his elbow against mine.
“What about that guy?” A human matching the PATs in terms of uniform strolled into the terminal, his head shifting from side-to-side like he was examining paintings on the wall in a museum. He stopped periodically to talk to some of the bystanders, his nods and expressions indicating that he was asking questions.
Michael looked at his wrist, forgetting again that his deactivated band wasn’t automatically displaying the countdown for the arrival time for our next flight. “That’s a government patrol officer.”
The officer pointed to a woman with a bundle of baby in her arms. In the next minute, he read the mother’s L-Band and then the child’s. His upper lip stiffened, and he moved casually until he spotted a stroller.
“See? It’s a good thing Victoria’s not with us,” Michael whispered. “Especially since my band is broken.”
“Yeah, you and Magnum were right,” I said, though it still gave me little comfort in the fact that she wasn’t with us.
“And they’ve obviously discovered we’re gone, but it also means they don’t have Victoria because if they did, they wouldn’t be checking babies.”
“Exactly. We’re safe for now.” I sighed.
The officer approached a young couple, a girl with flowing brown hair and a guy whose hair was short, like Michael’s, with longer strands at the crown. The two held out their wrists, and their bands were scanned.
“They match our descriptions,” I whispered after a bump to Michael’s ribs.
“It might just be a coincidence.” His eyes flashed to the monitor above our heads. “The bus will be here any minute. They’re always on time.”
“Let’s split up until it comes. If they are looking for us, they will be looking for a man and woman. I’ll stand next to those two women, really close, so it looks like I’m with them. You move over there,” I ordered, motioning behind me.
“Good idea.”
He strolled away to stand among a pack of male commuters, and I made my move to fit in with the other women at the edge of the curb and twisted the length of my hair into a bun, fastening it with a locked strand of hair. From our separate places, we pretended to be minding our own business as the patrol officer and PATs made their rounds, first questioning parents and young couples, then moving on to men and woman in our age range.
“I need to see your band,” said the officer to a lady just ahead of me. She held out her banded wrist unconcerned, and the officer swiped it across his Liaison. “Thank you,” he said, and asked the gentleman next to her to do the same thing.
No, no, no! Did I trust my L-Band? What if mine suddenly stopped working, too, or my band told the officer my name was Fred? Were Magnum’s modifications gender specific?
I took two steps backward, allowing a man to my side to slip ahead of me, just in case. Our hoverflight came into view and landed. Yes! I circumvented the officer and boarded, breaking a sweat and holding my breath. I could only hope Michael was able to sneak aboard, wedging himself between commuters.
Rushing to a seat, I turned to see him coming down the aisle with his hands in his pockets. When he sat behind me, I heard him exhale and take another deep breath. We’d made it before being interrogated.
Once we were hovering above water, I inconspicuously unrolled the E-Paper and examined the route we would take on foot once we landed and had to backtrack to a different terminal. Periodically I turned my head to gaze out the window.
The sea below was deep blue, marked with white lines of surf, the bus’s regulated hoverment low enough for its exhaust system to blow downward into the ocean, sending the body of water into a state of unrest just like me, my feelings turbulent, unsuspecting, and unpredictable.
He moved into the seat next to me and leaned his head on my shoulder and whispered, “We’re safe. For now.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
“This flight’s a lot longer than the flight to Region Two,” I said to myself.
Michael’s closed eyes fluttered, and his chest noticeably expanded as he took a deep breath. “Sorry, I fell asleep. I wasn’t much company.”
“That’s okay. I already had my nap. It was your turn to get some rest. Look,” I said pointing out the window. “The moon’s following us.”
“Cassie, the moon doesn’t—”
“I was kidding. My mom used to tell me that when I was little. When you look out the window from a moving car, it looks like the moon’s following you. Didn’t you ever notice that before?”
“No, you don’t notice something like that when you’ve spent most of your life on the fourteenth floor of a two-hundred-story building.” He sighed and stretched into a yawn. “You still think about your mom a lot, don’t you?”
“Every day.”
Michael set his hand on top of mine.
“Hey, I think we’re flying over Sector Nine,” he said as he looked out the window. “Clear to Region Three and then back to Region Two. We’re certainly doing a lot of backtracking, but it’s working. If they were on our trail, they would have grounded our flight.”
“Or they could be waiting for us when we get off.”
“Hopefully not. We’ll find out in a few minutes.”
The terminal was empty, with the exception of a handful of late commuters. There was a light breeze cascading against the landscape, and Michael had to brush his hair with his hand several times against the current of wind to keep it in place.
Australia looked exactly like London—tall metallic buildings and crisscrosses of roads with oval- and egg-shaped cars and buses either parked, hovering, or in flight, following the lines of the road below. I didn’t see Sydney’s famous Opera House at the water’s edge looking like an alien ship with its concrete sails, but I didn’t bother to ask him about it either. Just like Big Ben, I’m sure it was gone, making this city a clone of the one we just left.
“It’s 6:20 p.m.,” I said, as I glanced at my L-Band before examining the evening sky.
“It’s hard to keep track of the passing hours when we’ve been in three different time zones.” He readjusted the tote strap on his shoulder, put his hands on his hips, and took a whiff of the night air. “It’s a strange feeling.”
&nbs
p; “What?”
“Not being connected to the system. It’s disabling in some ways, but in another way, I feel so liberated, free. It’s a type of independence I’ve never felt before.”
“I know exactly what you mean. My L-Band never made me feel like I belonged to the thirty-first century. I always felt like an intruder on an invisible leash. Besides, my L-Band made everything too convenient. I wasn’t used to that,” I said, staring at the moon and deactivating my band for the time being. “I like this feeling. It’s called freedom. It reminds me of home.”
We hastened to the next terminal on our itinerary, four blocks east, and three blocks to the north, in order to catch a hoverbus back to London before returning once again to Australia. I shivered. “We’re in a different season, too. Our summer is their winter,” I said, looking down at my short-sleeved shirt and Michael’s T-shirt. “I wish we’d had more time to prepare for this.”
“We’re mentally prepared, and that’s all we need.” He smiled, and the golden specks in his blue eyes became visible as we passed under an obscura-free light post.
We shared the sidewalk with three additional couples and a handful of stray commuters who also chose to hurry against the sharp wind. The others were dressed more appropriately than us, but no one seemed to notice. He visually checked every pole and sign, fixed or hovering, for obscura lenses, like he did every time we were on foot, but again, he didn’t see any. Magnum’s schematics were accurate and up to date. So far his diligence kept us safe and undiscovered.
“That’s the terminal, Michael.”
The terminal was busier than I expected. Small groups of travelers stood huddled together and lone shoppers stood or sat with metered grocery bags or compact, bag-loaded carts floating next to them.
There were two PATs on patrol. One had his hind wheel down, chasing a small dog that had managed to get away from its owner, while the other one stood at attention, watching a row of passengers descend from a bus that just arrived. It approached people at random and scanned their bands.
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