Starlight's Edge (Timedance)

by Susan Waggoner

  Zee found herself searching the crowd for Piper. Difficult as their relationship had been, Piper was the only person who might understand what she was feeling now, or share her sense of dislocation. But she’d lost her chance and couldn’t see Piper anywhere.

  As David guided them toward one of the stairways, Zee saw that the stairs were moving and wondered how she’d manage not to tumble over the edge. But when she stepped on, the blue light rose to meet her hand and she closed her fingers around a solid but nearly invisible handrail. Only when they began to rise did she see that a transparent membrane, too thin to be glass, enclosed them and kept passengers from tumbling off.

  At Level Five, it was their turn to get off. After they’d both been scanned, a uniformed guard led them to a small privacy booth. David shot Zee an apologetic glance. “I forgot about this part,” he whispered as the guard motioned both of them to sit.

  “Do I get chipped again? Or questioned?”

  “Nope. This time it’s me. Just a few questions.”

  There was a soft whir as a holocam, or whatever they called recording cameras on New Earth, started up. The guard recited the date and the time, motioned toward a chair for Zee to sit in, then focused his gaze on David. Was the person with him now Zee McAdams, and was she his chosen passenger? Yes. Did he agree to take responsibility for her welfare for a period of no less than ten years? Yes. Did he realize she would be the one chosen passenger he would be allowed in his lifetime, even if they became alienated and independent from each other? Yes.

  “And what is your relationship to this person?” the guard asked.

  “I love her, sir.”

  A tremor of emotion ran through Zee, not a surge of joy but something more solemn, something whose meaning swept far into her future, carrying her with it.

  “And you understand, and agree, that you will be held responsible for any crime or trespass she commits against New Earth or the Alliance of World Democracies?”

  “I do.”

  “And you understand, and agree, that you will be punished as if you yourself had committed such crimes?”

  “I do.”

  Zee’s tremor of emotion turned to anxiety. What if she did something wrong without knowing, and David was punished for it? For the first time, she understood how difficult the path she’d chosen might be.

  * * *

  The ghost looked nothing like Zee had imagined. She’d pictured something like the vactrains she was familiar with, sleek tube-shaped carriages that rushed along a magnetized rail bed. Instead, the ghost looked like a blunt-nosed arrowhead the size of an airbus.

  “We’re going to fly home?”

  “Sort of,” David answered. “Sort of like flying. Underwater.”

  The large crowd they’d been in had thinned out, and as they boarded, Zee looked again for Piper. When she didn’t see her, she began to wonder if Piper had ever been there at all. The morning had been surreal, tense with emotion and anxiety. It wouldn’t be surprising if she’d been mistaken.

  Inside, the ghost was comfortingly familiar, not all that different from the London underground or a New York subway, a round tube with rows of seats facing each other. The seats looked like hard plastic but proved soft and yielding when Zee sat in one. Above the windows, there were advertisements that changed every few minutes.

  Stopping in London? Stay at the New Buckingham Palace.

  Madame Ospinskaya. Past. Future. Now. 54 Hanbury Street.

  Storr-It stores it right. Plans begin at 500 yottabytes and 10 materializations per month. Safe. Insured. Reliable.

  Deep D Clinics. Fast cures for your depression. 50,000 branches worldwide.

  This summer, make it Antarctica!

  The ghost rolled forward and Zee automatically reached for her seat belt. She realized there was nothing there but felt suction, a force pulling her tight against her seat.

  When Zee glanced at the windows, she saw they were surrounded by water. A red light began to flash overhead, and a voice counted down from ten. At zero there was a jolt forward and they began to accelerate. The pull was enormous, then there was no sense of movement at all.

  “We’ve stopped,” Zee said.

  “No, we’re in the bubble.” David explained that when the ghost reached a certain speed, tiny gas bubbles coming off the wings merged into one huge bubble to create a vacuum around them.

  “So we’re still moving?”

  “Yeah. We’ll be in London in about fifteen minutes.”

  “Wow. If we’d had this before, I would have commuted from New York and never moved to London at all.” Her life had been lived in two pieces, she thought with a pang of bittersweet memory. There was her childhood in upstate New York, then moving to London to train as an empath and live in the residence hall. Leaving home at the young age required had been difficult, but she had loved both parts of her life. If she hadn’t taken the leap, she’d never have met her friends Rani and Jasmine. She’d never have met David. Now a third piece of her life was beginning with him, because of him. A sudden calm happiness swept over her. She wanted to touch his face and feel his familiar warmth beneath her palm, but realized he was telling her about the ghost and smiled to show she was listening.

  “… Actually, they were already working on the idea back then. They had the basics figured out, but couldn’t yet solve the big problem.”

  “What was that?”

  “Stopping.”

  “Stopping?” Zee felt a giggle tickling her throat.

  David nodded. “We’re going almost six thousand kilometers an hour, over thirty-five hundred miles per hour. So, stopping. Stopping was the big problem.”

  The giggle freed itself from Zee’s throat and became a laugh. “Stopping!” She shook her head. “Who would ever have guessed? Stopping.”

  “This is the first time you’ve laughed all day,” he said, and Zee felt him relax beside her.

  At Ramsgate Air Base on the eastern coast of England, they transferred to the vactrain shuttle and, two minutes later, were aboveground at Victoria Station. It cheered Zee to know there was still a Victoria Station, though it looked more like the transport base in Iceland than the station she remembered. Like the base, the station had spiraling stairways and a glass tube elevator that took them to a cab stand on the roof. David pressed a button and a pod left the elevated skyway and slipped down the curving ramp to where they stood. Inside the pod, David tapped information into the payscreen, then confirmed with his fingerprint. The cab rolled toward an on-ramp. Zee saw five layers of skyways, each with dozens of lanes stretching high over London.

  David looked at the traffic and frowned. “Friday-night rush hour. This is always the longest leg of the trip.”

  “I don’t mind,” Zee said. It was the first time they’d been alone together since leaving London that morning. Now a different London bloomed, unrecognizable, below her. A London that would be her home with David for the rest of their lives. She did what she’d wanted to do on the ghost. She put her palm to his face and felt the magic she felt whenever they touched. Some things never changed. Not even in a thousand years.

  David took her hand in his. “And now we’re home, Zee.”

  His face was eager and happy. Not just because of her, she realized. David had been away almost two years. The London that seemed like home to her must have seemed strange and primitive to him.

  She squeezed his hand. “We’re home,” she agreed.

  But when the cab turned onto an exit ramp, her nerves returned. It was full dark by now, but soft lights showed a narrow street bordered by narrower walkways lined with regularly spaced flowers and greenery. The cab stopped in front of an ornate arched gate. David helped her out, stepped in front of a retinal scan, and the gate swung open.

  As soon as the gate closed, soft, ambient light began to fill the air. Zee saw stone paths, trees, and flowering gardens, and beyond them a large three-story building looming in the dusk. Zee assumed it was an apartment complex. A very nice apartmen
t complex, with its own park.

  “Which floor do you live on?” she asked.

  David looked at her, his brow furrowed. “Floor? This is my family’s home, Zee.”

  She took in the green sweep of lawns and paths. The house had pillars and balconies and what looked like a greenhouse atop the third floor.

  “You’re rich?”

  “Not really. Well, kind of, I guess.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I thought you’d think I was trying to impress you.”

  Zee shook her head in disbelief. “I would never have thought that. Not about you.” It felt good to be having a conversation that wasn’t about time jumps or chip implants or culture shock. Before she could tell David this, the massive double doors of the house swung open and a young girl raced out to meet them.

  “My sister, Fiona,” David said as the girl flung herself at him with arms wide open. “I told you she can be a handful,” he added, glancing at Zee.

  “Did you bring me a present?” Fiona turned to Zee. “Did he?”

  David laughed. “That’s not allowed, remember? This is my friend Zee. She’s going to be staying with us.”

  “Really?” Fiona looked excited, as if Zee herself was the present. When she smiled, her cheeks turned into plump, blushing apples. While she shared David’s dark hair, her eyes weren’t gray but clear, sparkling plum. “Come see my room. I got Nano Beans for my birthday.”

  But Zee didn’t hear her, frozen in place by what she saw over Fiona’s shoulder. Stepping from the darkness, an enormous tiger walked lazily toward them. “There’s … there’s a tiger behind you.”

  Fiona started to run toward the animal.

  “No,” Zee said, forcing her voice down to a whisper. “Don’t move. Stay still.”

  “It’s just Tommy,” Fiona said as the tiger loped toward them.

  “It’s all right, Zee,” David said, touching her shoulder. “He’s a family pet.”

  “Pet?”

  “Genetically altered. No claws, no killer instinct, dainty teeth. Just, uh, don’t put your hand in his mouth if you’re playing with him. Powerful jaw muscles.”

  The tiger rubbed against David, and David scratched behind his ears. “How’s it going, Tommy?” The cat rumbled a deep purr. “Let him sniff your hand,” David said, “so he knows you belong here.”

  Zee did, and the cat rubbed his enormous head against her. She wasn’t sorry to follow Fiona into the house.

  They walked through the double doors, down a softly lit corridor, and into a large airy room flooded with light. Not artificial light but sunlight. Zee realized she was standing in what seemed to be an inner courtyard, surrounded on three sides by half walls and pillars that bordered corridors and rooms. She looked up, past the second-floor gallery, and saw the greenhouse she’d seen outside. The floor was glass, letting the sunlight pour through. Despite the fact that it was night out, Zee glimpsed blue sky and drifting clouds.

  David saw her look of wonder. “Smart glass,” he said. “You can adjust the rate at which light passes through the glass, or save the sunny days to use later. You can save cool rainy days too. Great for heating and cooling.”

  “I told you it was him!” Fiona had dashed out of sight, but her voice echoed from the shadows. Footsteps sounded, and two people, clearly David’s parents, hurried into the room.

  “And this must be Zee,” his father said, coming immediately up to her. “Welcome.” He looked like a slightly older version of David, but with hair that had just begun to silver.

  David’s mother stood back, appraising, and Zee could have sworn her lips formed a silent oh, dear when David introduced them. When David moved off to greet his father, Zee felt stranded. She didn’t know what to say to Mrs. Sutton, and she couldn’t stop looking at her blond hair. It glowed. Not just the glow of a good conditioner. It actually glowed. If someone switched the sunshine off, Zee thought, Mrs. Sutton could light the entire room with her hair.

  “You have a beautiful home,” Zee said at last, because it was true and because she couldn’t think of anything else to say.

  “Thank you. And you … David told us you worked in something called a hospital? As a fortune-teller?”

  “As an empath,” Zee corrected her, and stopped when she saw Edith Sutton’s eyebrows knit together in confusion. It was going to be impossible, she realized, to explain her old life to anyone on New Earth. After a long, awkward pause, she said, “I like your hair.”

  “Oh, thank you. It’s Bondi Beach,” Mrs. Sutton answered. “We can have yours done too, if you like. Tomorrow. And see about getting you some clothes. I nanoed some for you but … but I’m afraid they’ll have to be broken down and returned. I thought you’d be taller. And more—more—” She lifted her hands helplessly.

  Zee felt a capsizing thud in her stomach. Whatever David’s mother had expected, Zee obviously wasn’t it.

  CHAPTER THREE

  COEXISTENCE

  The next morning, Zee resumed her search for everything she hadn’t been able to find the night before. Like a toothbrush. Or a wall screen. Even house internet. The room baffled her. It was sparsely furnished, with just a bed, desk, and dresser, yet almost one whole wall was taken up with detailed miniature figurines that floated against it. They were too solid-looking to be holograms, yet when she reached for one, it gave her an evil look and shouted, “Do not touch me!” then went back to the business of spinning a tiny globe on the tip of its finger.

  The bath had been fun, more of a plunge pool sunk into the tiled floor than a tub. But it had taken a while to figure out that two round tiles, a sun and a moon, caused the water to heat or cool instantly. And she’d only discovered by accident the button that caused the pool to empty, rinse itself clean, and refill.

  A roar filled the air, and Zee raced to the window. The gardens behind the house were even more beautiful than the courtyard in front. And there, rolling on his back in the spring sunshine, was Tommy. So, Zee thought, her restless dreams about tigers running free had been real. As had flying underwater at one hundred kilometers a minute and Mrs. Sutton’s look of disappointment when they were introduced.

  Disappointed or not, Zee hoped Mrs. Sutton had been serious about shopping for new clothes. Luggage wasn’t allowed on time hops, and Zee had only the clothes on her back and the precious silken pouch she’d hidden under her pillow before falling asleep. She slid the cord back over her head. Nothing illegal about it. She had, after all, worn it here. She just wasn’t ready to share it yet. She’d given up everything to follow David. Wasn’t she entitled to this one secret?

  There was a knock on the door. “It’s me, David. I come bearing toys. And breakfast.”

  She tucked the pouch into her bra, hoping it wouldn’t show. Mirrors, she thought, were another thing this room could use.

  David handed her a cube-shaped object the size of a large egg and an item that resembled the seed balls her mother used to put outside for birds in the winter. “Which is the toy, and which is breakfast?” Zee asked.

  “Breakfast is the ball in your left hand. Eat it while I explain the other one.” He told her that the object was known simply as a cube and it was essential to life on New Earth. Each of the six sides was divided into small squares, 25 squares per side, 150 in all. Each square had a slight depression, just right for a fingertip. The squares were color coded and seemed to work as a miniaturized combination of all the gadgets she had ever known—smartphone, computer, messaging, banking, video, holo, and a nano center that could create objects from thin air and deposit them in front of you in a matter of minutes.

  “Wow,” Zee said, wondering how she’d keep it all straight. “It really does everything.”

  “Which reminds me,” David said, pressing the small square that said BANKING. Instantly, the squares above it turned into a small screen. Zee saw her name and the word Balance, followed by numbers. “I opened an account for you and loaded in some Emus,” David continued. “Tell me i
f you need more.”

  “Emus?”

  “Technically I-M-Us, International Monetary Units, but we call them Emus, like the bird. I had to create a password to load the money. It’s casualty61518. That’s—”

  “The place and date we met,” Zee finished. Casualty, Royal London Hospital, June fifteenth, 2218.” She looked at him, and they held each other’s gaze for a long moment. That first meeting, when she was called to treat him for a wound, he’d looked at her so long she’d lost her focus. It was something that had never happened to her before, either on duty as an empath or during training.

  She knew David was remembering that same life-turning moment, and she wished they could have some time alone, just the two of them. But that wasn’t possible today. David’s mother was probably already wondering why she hadn’t come down yet.

  “So,” David said, breaking off his gaze. “I guess we’d better finish Cube 101.”

  The top row of squares on each side were marked M, S, T, H, and E. “For Menu, Search, Tools, Help, and Escape,” David explained.

  “I will never remember all of this,” Zee said.

  “Trust me, you will. Let me show you how it works.” He turned the cube to the blue side and handed it to Zee. “How about creating a computer?”

  Computers. The blue side. This was starting to make sense. She tapped the start-up key and a drop-down menu shimmered in the air. She saw an “enlarge” icon in the lower right corner and touched it. Out of curiosity, she touched the circle icon next to it as well. The menu doubled in size and took on a solid look. O for opaque, Zee thought. More menus offered her choices of screens, sound, keyboards, and other peripherals—so many choices she hesitated.

  “Pick anything,” David said. “You can always change it later.”