by S Breaker
“I’m not so sure about that,” Noah mumbled, huffing to himself, before giving her a look. “Look, this is not a tour. You’re not on vacation here,” he pointed out. “We’re on a very important mission. You need to stay focused.”
She shook her head again. “Boy, you really know how to suck the fun out of stuff.”
And Noah just narrowed his eyes at her again. “Are you always this annoying when no one’s trying to kill you?”
Laney stuck her tongue out at him.
Just then, the little signs mounted on the cabin ceiling clicked again, switching from saying ‘COMMUTER AIR’ to ‘DEPRESSURIZED’, and Noah looked up. “We’re almost there.”
Laney’s eyes lit up. “Hey, that means I can go outside and have a look.” She stood up, glancing back at him, still leaned back against his chair. She raised her eyebrows in a prompt. “Come on.”
“I’ve seen it before,” he replied, not moving.
She tilted her head slightly and held out her hand. “Then show me.”
Coming Home
The airship was flying silently over rolling green hills, dotted with about a million sheep, paved little laneways tracing a winding route around the greenery, with quaint clumps of bungalow houses covering the hillsides. In the distance, several dozen wind turbines mounted on hills were spinning to provide renewable energy to the smallest capital of the world. On the horizon rose a busy metropolis, providing a stark contrast to the peaceful countryside. There were also a couple of other smaller airships aloft in the area.
Laney smiled in wonder as she looked out over the deck railing.
Noah was watching her face, standing beside her. “What is it?”
“I don’t know,” she replied. “It feels…” She shook her head at the view. “It’s so beautiful. It feels like—”
“Like what?”
“Like home.”
P.T. chirped twice.
Laney smiled again. “Yup.”
The airship flew over a row of artsy wind sculptures situated along the waterfront, then a fountain in the middle of a bay, shooting water up, across from a beachside area that looked to be packed with people. Laney looked ahead, spotting the marina where the airship was going to make berth, and she saw that there were other old boats docked along a walkway lined with colorful streamers.
“What’s that?” She squinted as she could faintly see something under the water further along the harbor, something else that was docked at the marina—or it was docked, and was at the moment just pulling away, sending ripples of water crashing against the buffers before it submerged deeper into the water, disappearing from view completely. “Whoa, was that a submarine?”
Noah glanced over. “Yeah.” He nodded. “That’s the mobile submersible lab. Berry’s had some repair crews working on it, making a few upgrades here and there. It’s way better now than last time you were in there—” He rapped on the railing twice in despondence. “That you don’t remember, of course.” He blew out a breath in slight frustration.
She frowned. “I feel like I should be sorry for not remembering any of this.”
“No, I’m sorry.” He shook his head. “Maybe…it would have been better if we didn’t try to make you forget in the first place.” He sighed again. “Well, there’s no telling what would have happened, and in any case, it’s too late now.”
Laney’s stomach felt like it nosedived when the airship swung sharply down.
Noah caught her arm to keep her steady. He was already looking up at the airship’s large envelope being whipped with the sudden rise in the wind, and he bit back a small smile. “And now, we’re definitely in Wellington.”
There were a lot of people waiting at the arrival area where the airship docked. It seemed some of the scientists stationed outside of The Community rarely visited home—Noah included, so there were a lot of eager faces greeting everyone coming off the ship.
Laney amused herself to think that it must have been what coming off the Titanic would have looked like. She followed Noah down the ramp leading off the ship, and a familiar face was standing at the end of the walkway.
“Kia Ora, folks!” he greeted Noah and Laney with a small salute as they came down. “Welcome to New Zealand!”
“Hi, Berry!” Laney smiled in reply before she stopped way short. “Wait—what?”
“Hi Miss Carter, Dr. Donovan.” Berry nodded at each of them.
Same wheat blond hair, same glasses. Except, he was wearing a proper suit and tie.
Laney frowned, confused, as she walked up to him. “I thought you had to stay at GNR to do all those tests and stuff?”
“Oh.” Berry jumped as though he realized something. “Sorry. This is Berry’s AI prototype. It’s designed to simulate an exact replica of Dr. Berry Vermillion.”
Noah’s eyes widened. “Cripe, I’d almost forgotten what Berry’s last name was.”
Laney’s eyes were also wide as she warily peered closer at him—it. “No kidding.” She breathed. “Whoa…he looks so real.” She had to squint really hard in order to even detect the faint mechanical joints. “I guess Berry had to level-up from building tiny robots eventually, huh?” She cast a glance down at P.T. in her pocket. “What do you think, P.T.? You’ve got a big brother of sorts.”
“It utilizes the cutting edge of meta-materials science to simulate human skin tone and elasticity,” the Berry-AI went on. “As well as voice approximation and a complete faculty for physical movements. It is also designed to have a grasp of humor, and as a bonus add-on feature, it can be configured to converse using a wide variety of contemporary slang. What up, bruh?” He chucked his chin up with a grin. “Would you like to enable this feature—?”
“NO,” Noah cut in almost immediately.
“Dude, it’s going to be really creepy if you’re going to keep referring to yourself in the third person as ‘it’,” Laney remarked.
“Noted,” Berry-AI replied with another nod. “I act as Dr. Vermillion’s liaison on this side of the world. I was only activated at oh-six-thirty hours this morning, so I’m still running in alpha-testing mode, but I am, of course, a learning program. I have been tasked to receive you on this end of the world to accompany you to Dr. Chambers’ lab.” Then Berry-AI gestured to his right. “This way please.”
“Whatever, I’m still reeling from remembering Berry’s last name,” Noah muttered under his breath, even as he moved to lead the way.
And Laney laughed.
As they walked past the port docks and onto the boardwalk to head further into town, Laney couldn’t help looking around in absolute and complete wonderment.
The weather was stunning and everyone was out—everyone, that was, what looked like the entire population of about a dozen high schools, as there were barely any adults around. “Jeez, it’s like ‘Lord of the Flies’,” she mumbled in amusement.
“Interesting analogy,” Berry-AI remarked, glancing over at her. “Have you read the book?”
She raised her eyebrows. “I read the Cliff’s Notes.”
“You mean the Coles Notes?” Noah prompted.
“What?” Laney asked, looking at him as though she’d heard wrong.
“Interesting,” Berry-AI remarked again before addressing Noah. “In our dimension, Coles Notes was never adapted for other countries. On the other hand, Coles Notes was revised to bear the name Cliff’s Notes, named for Clifton Hillegass, an acquaintance of Jack Cole, after the 1950s in this Laney’s world.”
Laney shot Berry-AI a strange look. “How do you know what went on in this Laney’s world?” she asked, pointing to herself.
“Aside from a huge database of information, I am also equipped with all the data gathered from the Quantum Jump Project, including the records regarding the worlds that were surveyed during the project,” Berry-AI relayed.
“I thought everything related to the program was destroyed during the military siege of the lab?” Noah asked, looking displeased.
“A team has been trying to reconstruct
what was lost from archives and offsite backups. This work has been on-going since the military seceded from GNR. I have partial records recovered, but they are not 100% complete as of today.”
Noah cursed sharply. “That damn Berry,” he muttered, looking livid.
Laney shot him a look. “What’s the matter?”
“He didn’t tell me.” Noah gritted his teeth. “He knew I would be totally pissed off so he didn’t tell me.”
“What’s wrong with recovering a bunch of records?” she asked, confused.
“I believe Dr. Donovan is upset because the destruction of all the records was one of Dr. Laney Carter’s last wishes,” Berry-AI inferred.
And Noah glared at him.
“I believe Dr. Donovan doesn’t like it when someone else spells out what he’s feeling,” Laney whispered loudly to Berry-AI.
Berry-AI blinked at her. “Noted.”
She met Noah’s still-dark gaze briefly in amusement before she shook her head.
Noah cleared his throat as though prompting them to change the subject. “Dr. Chambers’ lab is at the University,” he said, pointing to the furthest clump of buildings on top of a hill, seemingly across town. “There.”
Laney’s gaze traveled up the hill toward where he pointed. “Are we just walking?” she asked, surprised.
“This is Wellington,” was Noah’s matter-of-fact reply. “Everyone walks.”
They passed a beautiful old red brick building with a clock face above a set of columns. Laney craned her neck to look through one of several revolving doorways and from across the wide lobby, she could just see the smoke from a black steam engine train wafting over the train tracks behind the building. “Wow…” she marveled.
Everything looked almost normal enough to Laney that she could almost think she was back in her own world, except for the few details here and there that were distinctly other-worldly.
There weren’t many tall buildings and most of the architecture looked like a fusion of well-preserved colonial English and modern Asian techno. Instead of neon, holographic signs flickered above shops.
It was absolutely mind-boggling to think that this small country now consisted of every other nation in the world.
Laney’s eyes were drawn up toward a large holographic billboard mounted on what looked like the ‘Good Year’ blimp as its screen switched on just then, and a curly-haired boy of about twelve years old appeared on it.
“Good morning, citizens! In these trying times, I’m calling on each and every one of us to always choose hope. Hope in the face of uncertainty. In the face of difficulty. The belief that there are better days ahead. The audacity of hope.”
“That’s President Lineham,” Berry-AI relayed.
Laney nodded oh-really, listening intently, as the President went on.
“Ask not what your Community can do for you, but what you can do for your Community. Be well!”
“Wow,” Laney remarked.
“And don’t forget powwow on DFS tonight at 9:30! Oh, and to that guy who crashed my flight sim server last night—huttboi five-oh-one-oh—whoever you are, be careful I don’t confiscate all your F-18 jet model skins.”
And Laney couldn’t help a laugh. “Wow.”
“He’s…smarter than he looks,” Berry-AI said, looking almost apologetic.
“I hope so,” Laney said, still chuckling.
“As a matter of fact,” Berry-AI began. “President Lineham has a Ph.D. in Anthropology. He co-wrote a paper on ‘Global political strategies for multi-faceted small-scale governing synergy’. He won a Nobel Peace Prize. We’re actually lucky he ran for president. Not many intellectuals have the stomach for the big office.”
“Really?” Noah raised his eyebrows. “I thought he ran for president just so he could get to host country-wide MMORPG gaming tournaments.”
Laney laughed again. “I’m not sure a twelve-year-old president is something I’m going to get used to any time soon.”
“Where are you going?” Noah asked as Laney veered off to the left.
“Uh, the University?”
Noah jerked his thumb to the right. “It’s this way.”
Laney shot him a look. “Right, of course.” She nodded. “I don’t know why I thought there was a shortcut through this street,” she mumbled.
Berry-AI glanced up. “Actually,” he began, meeting Noah’s gaze. “There is.” He gave Laney a questioning look. “But being that you have never been here before, it would have been improbable for you to have known that.”
Laney met Noah’s gaze briefly again but she just shrugged. “This does sort of look…familiar somehow.”
Berry-AI tilted his head before suggesting, “New Zealand was largely unaffected by the cascade bomb fallout, so a lot of the things here are as they have always been. Perhaps this country has even developed in the same way as the one in your world.”
Laney raised her eyebrows, casting the street a cursory once-over look.
The three of them had stopped to cross the street, waiting for the light to change on an air drone directing traffic in place of a traffic signal. The girl in front of Laney, wearing a stylized bowler hat with an all-black floor-length taffeta dress, was talking on a hologram-type phone on a chain around her wrist. She moved aside to let a guy walk his bicycle past. Then the guy paused, pressed a button on his road bicycle, making it shrink down to about three inches big, stuffed it into the pocket of his moleskin trousers, and kept walking.
And Laney wrinkled her nose. “Somehow, I doubt it.”
Tremors
Laney felt the cool air rush past her face as the three of them turned down a shaded alley and she looked up ahead. A large dimly lit tunnel was sheltered between the pastel-colored buildings. Laney thought it was an odd place for a tunnel, but it seemed to be in no way obscure as quite a few other people were headed toward it as well. Then she saw it—the trolley car painted cherry red, with pale shuttered windows and a shiny number plate, waiting at the station.
“Is that a cable car?” Laney looked surprised.
“Technically,” Berry-AI spoke up. “This is a funicular cable car since the car is attached to the rail, but this is the oldest functioning funicular cable car in the world.” He went on, “Although, I do believe that there is still another one in Norway that is still functional, but for obvious reasons, it is no longer used.”
Noah met her gaze. “We need to take the cable car to get up to the University,” he explained.
“Oh.” She nodded, before narrowing her eyes. “I thought you said ‘everyone walks’ in Wellington?” she mocked his earlier statement.
“Up a hill? Don’t be ridiculous.”
“The funicular goes up an incline of about 18% through three tunnels and three bridges, rising 120 meters—that’s 394 feet up the hill,” Berry-AI went on as he and Laney followed Noah and nearly a dozen other people who were in line to board the cable car.
Laney paused, furrowing her eyebrows as she strained to hear the music playing in the tinny radio mounted up front beside the driver’s seat. “What is this music—is that Crowded House?” she asked, as she settled into a bench seat.
“Of course.” Berry-AI nodded with a smile.
“This same song was also playing at docks…and the airship,” she noted in recall.
“It plays everywhere,” Noah said, offhand.
“Crowded House is the most famous band in our world,” Berry-AI relayed. “Are they on yours too?” he asked, before relaying. “My records regarding your world’s music cut off at around about the 1970s.”
She made a face, somehow not wanting to ruin his enthusiasm for the ‘most famous band’ claim, and replied as diplomatically as she could. “Um, I’ve heard of them.”
The cable car jolted slightly as it began to ease up the rail and into the first tunnel, creaking as it went on.
Laney turned to look out the window, eager for the car to emerge out of the darkness. This may not be a vacation, she thought, but she
might as well enjoy the sights while she could.
Slowly, the cable car passed through the tunnels and Laney could see the view from up the hill in the window. “Wow.” Everything looked so green and so beautiful. She smiled to herself. She could still see the lighter airships aloft in the air across the sparkling blue harbor.
She glanced down in her pocket. “What do you think, Toto?” she whispered to P.T. in jest.
P.T. whirred in response.
She squinted upon spotting a large clearing in the distance, where there was a tall, narrow structure with a curled sculpture top, protruding amidst the rows of low buildings. It glinted where it caught the sunlight. “Hey, what’s that?” she asked.
Berry-AI looked over from his stance, standing in the aisle. “It’s a Koru Peace Memorial,” he answered.
“Peace memorial?”
“It was built in 1953,” Berry-AI began. “This country has always generally been peaceful, progressive, and through the decades, its culture has eventually been absorbed into everyone else’s. Although the ease of achieving worldwide peace likely also stems from there being few enough people in the world that there are sufficient resources to sustain everyone, and therefore nothing left to fight about.” He paused to conclude. “Consequently, there has been no war on this world since 1952, as that monument stands to signify.”
“Wow. That…is absolutely amazing.”
Noah’s forehead was creased as he watched Laney’s expression.
Perhaps it sounded impressive to someone not from this world, but knowing what Noah knew, worldwide peace was not all that it seemed to be on the surface. His world definitely still had its flaws. Everything that had culminated in the near-total destruction of the entire multiverse eight months ago was just one example.
But for some reason, he knew that the Laney of eight months ago would have already felt the same way.
Laney was watching the third tunnel lights change when she noticed that the lucky cat fastened to the front control panel of the trolley car had begun to rock gently up and down. She watched it curiously as the rocking began to get rougher. “What’s…?”