by Robert Reed
The field was planted with sunflowers, tall and brown with their black and yellow heads drooping toward the ground. Porsche walked straight for the glass disk, reaching it first. Dusk was falling into evening. The earth was above them, barely obscured by dust and faraway city lights. A perfect evening, Cornell thought, setting the box on the glass, then touching the glass with his fingers, his palms. The day’s heat made it comfortably warm. The earth’s reflection was distorted by the slumping spots and diminished by a layer of dust. After a moment, Cornell looked up at Porsche until she gave him a knowing smile, and she turned and asked Dad, “Could we sit over here? Please?”
Dad had unfolded the chairs and put them in the middle of the disk. “Over where?” he asked amiably.
“Here is fine. Just not there.”
Cornell flipped the latch and opened the box, trying to remember what was what. The big hammer. The little screwdriver. And the battered scrap of pine, crazy as that seemed.
“Why not in the center?” Dad asked.
Three scrupulously ordinary objects. Even if someone suspected a hidden purpose, no human tests would be able to find their delicate mechanisms or their power sources.
“What are you doing, son?”
Cornell put the hammer on the glass, sliding it with his foot until he felt a slight surge of electricity. The screwdriver went to the right of the hammer. The pine scrap was set on both of them, making a little bridge, and he saw a green glow that told him he had done it right.
“What’s he doing, Porsche?”
“We’ve got something else to tell you,” she replied, touching Dad on the shoulder. “Maybe you should sit down. With me?”
“Tell me what?” said Dad.
“If things go badly,” said Porsche, “we have an escape route. We have a means of getting out of their reach, which is why we picked this place. Are you following me, Nathan?”
Three more objects would open the intrusion. A bent nail; a second screwdriver; and the tool box itself. Cornell had sworn that he wouldn’t use them outside of an emergency.
“Hey,” Dad shouted. “Look at the sky!”
It was changing. This intrusion was awake and interacting with every other friendly intrusion, making them glow, the effect visible only for the three of them and only while they stood on the disk. But it was a wondrous effect just the same, thousands of intrusions shining like stars against the softer blues and whites of the earth. With the right tools, a person could look at an everted world at a glance, seeing just where to find gateways to other worlds considered safe—
“Nathan?” said Porsche, “May I tell something about myself?”
—and Cornell looked down again, ignoring the sky.
More from Robert Reed
Beneath the Gated Sky
In BEYOND THE VEIL OF STARS, Porsche and Cornell fell in love as they infiltrated an alien world for the sake of humanity. But Porsche it turns out, is not human, and the two return to Earth only to discover a conspiracy so deep that it casts doubt on those to whom they've entrusted their lives.
Black Milk
With a perfect memory and hyper-acute senses, Ryder is the leader of a group of five children, all highly specialized thanks to the genetic engineering pioneered by Dr. Aaron Florida—scientist, philanthropist, and genius.
These friends represent a new generation of genetically tailored individuals, created to help build a brighter future. But some effects of Dr. Florida's work were unforeseen, and Ryder and his friends will soon discover the shocking truth about the new world they stand to inherit.
The Hormone Jungle
Set 2,000 years in the future, THE HORMONE JUNGLE tells the story of hunters and the hunted, fighting on an overcrowded, terraformed Earth, inhabited by trillions of lifeforms—some human, some robotic, some cybernetic.
Chiffon is an android Flower, a courtesan created to give pleasure. Trying to escape her crimelord master, Dirk, in the steamy equatorial city of Brulé, she enlists the help of Steward, a warrior and troubleshooter-for-hire. But Steward doesn't know there's more to Chiffon than meets the eye…
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