After the spa treatments and the seminars, we had dinner. The dining hall was set up like a fancy five-star restaurant in that the room was filled with round tables and real cloth tablecloths. But it also had a buffet-style line for us to go through so we could pick out our food from pretty silver trays. Then we could seat ourselves at the various tables.
By the time the people in charge left us to ourselves, I was exhausted and unable to think well enough to devise a plan out of the building.
The next day, the packets arrived for Alison and me. The packets were not at all what I’d expected. We each received a slip of paper with a code that granted us access to the lapdesks, which were run by the pulse power from our brains and rings. The actual “packet” of information had to be accessed from their internal servers. Everything was digital as far as the “paperwork” they wanted us to fill out.
The lapdesks weren’t portable like the laptop from my time. They were permanent fixtures of my room. The portable computer came from the ring, which could be projected to any surface or viewed through a fancy set of glasses Professor Raik gave us.
I chose the classes, ate the meals, attended the lectures, and felt frazzled by the fact that I was kept so busy, I couldn’t focus on how to check on Tag. I could come back and be the dutiful student as soon as I knew he was okay. I kept thinking about the words that the general had said, “has been silenced.”
In what ways could they have silenced Tag?
Three days later, I still had no clue how to get time to myself, and no clue how to beat out the IDR and entry sensors on every building in the world. Inoculations had been nightmarish. They sent us down an assembly line of nurses who held tools that looked like Paul’s nail gun. Each nurse slammed the gun into our biceps, forcing dissolvable needles and random cures to diseases I hadn’t even heard of into our flesh. The nurses called the needles
inserts
. They said that it worked the same as a regular needle from our times, but that these were far more sanitary. I left the assembly line with a ridge of inserts under my skin that the nurses promised would be gone by morning. It hurt a lot.
Monday morning found me with no ridge on my bicep and rushing along with everyone else trying to find the room for my first hour of university in the future.
“We should go to the library.” Jay suggested this during lunch. We had two more classes after lunch and then several hours to ourselves before dinner.
The library!
And a few hours that belonged to me. Tag had said he lived behind the Coliseum Library. I might be able to get close enough to the barracks to find out what happened to him.
I readily agreed to go with Jay, and Eddie readily agreed to accompany us. Eddie frowned at Jay as though somehow Jay was trying to ease in on Eddie’s territory. Eddie’s attitude irritated me.
“I’m not your girlfriend,” I told him as we walked along the garden tunnels, which I had learned were officially called the sky gardens. Jay snickered. Eddie glared over at Jay and acted offended I’d suggest that he thought anything different.
“Of course you aren’t. We haven’t even been on a date yet.” He stretched his neck as though his collar might be too tight.
Jay coughed into his hand and smirked at me with an eyebrow raised.
Eddie was from the year 1962. He’d been about to go off to Vietnam and found he’d been too afraid. So he’d shot himself instead. He’d meant to shoot himself in the foot or something like that, nothing that would kill him, but with his inexperience with guns, he made a mess of his face instead. Eddie had a habit of looking at himself in mirrors as we walked by them. I wondered if he was doing it to verify to himself that his face really was just fine. He hadn’t actually volunteered the information about dodging the draft to anyone but his roommate, James. James had been the one to gladly share that information with everyone else.
Once we were out several buildings away from the dormitories, Jay took a deep breath and grinned. “Smell that, guys?”
“Smell what?” Eddie asked with a bite to his words, obviously still not happy over Jay laughing at him.
“Freedom.” Jay turned his grin on me. “What do you think, Summer?”
A tightening in my shoulders seemed to ease the farther we moved from the dormitories. “Definitely freedom.” I had almost become used to the way the ground felt as though it swayed under my feet.
“Did you know the city sells the produce in these sky gardens to the restaurants and grocery stores? They take the profit and do, well, who knows what the government does with profits from anything. I think we should try one of those restaurants out. We should see if the government is any good at farming.” Jay seemed to be the type of person who wanted to try everything.
I wanted to argue. The urgency to find Tag, to make sure he was okay overwhelmed me, but would my hesitance look suspicious? Besides, Jay’s idea had merit. It might be smart to figure out the workings of the world we now lived in. “They did say in our packets we had a spending account. We could get a fruit bowl or a salad or something. Well, you can get the healthy stuff they call produce, Jay. I want a doughnut.” I agreed.
Jay wrapped an arm around my shoulder and rubbed his knuckles on my head. “Exactly. If anyone asks, we can tell them we’re doing research.”
Jay and I turned right, and started walking toward where we knew shops would be. Eddie stayed exactly where he was. “What about the library?” He called from behind us. His voice had an annoying whine to it. Both Jay and I grunted at the noise.
“C’mon, Ed. We’re still heading in the direction of the library. We just want to make a stop or two along the way.” We kept walking. If Eddie wanted to come with us, he could catch up.
Figuring out my spending account was almost as important as finding out what had happened to Tag. Figure out the system. That had always been my way. Tag had mentioned I wouldn’t have to figure out the system anymore—that I wouldn’t have to cheat it anymore, but old habits die hard. Having Jay with me made it seem less like outright mutiny on my part and more like a prank.
We found a grocery store and went in. I held my breath as I waited to see if the door turned green or red with my approach. The green glow appearing around the door frame actually startled me. Jay’s grin widened.
“Good to know that works,” he muttered under his breath.
Eddie scowled as we went in. The people we passed cast startled looks at us. We definitely stood out with our naturally colored hair. A few girls in the New Youth wanted to dye their hair and enjoy the style of the future. A few guys wanted advertisement tattoos, but we were told we needed to keep ourselves separate from the others. Dyed hair and tattoos were strictly off limits to us.
I smiled at a woman in the store, but she frowned, bent her purple head and scurried away as though I was a crazy. Maybe she thought I was. I frowned, too, at least until Jay waved for me to catch up to him.
Future stores were definitely prettier than stores from my past. Everything looked more like a boutique or someone’s actual home, rather than a grocery store. The displays were beautiful—organic looking in their colors and setup. There wasn’t a lot of actual product on the shelf. The huge and elaborate displays didn’t leave room for too much product. Advertisements were more plentiful in the actual stores than they were on the sidewalks—which meant that they were everywhere—little screens advertising products and services flashed at us from every possible place.
“I have never really seen pretty fruit before.” I picked up a nectarine. It looked so shiny, it could have been a gift from the queen to Snow White, even if it wasn’t an apple.
“Or vegetables, either.” Jay had a couple of carrots in his hand. I looked around for those little plastic produce bags but couldn’t find any. No doughnuts, either. We finally gave up and went to check out, only we couldn’t find a cashier anywhere.
“Maybe we should just leave?” Jay suggested.
Eddie hurried to stand in front of the door and flung his arms open wide. “You’re not getting Summer in trouble with the law!”
I had to smile at that. It was like having my own Doberman. “Heel, Eddie. He isn’t suggesting we leave without paying. As I moved closer to Eddie, a friendly female voice said, “Thank you for shopping with Day’s Market, Summer Rae.”
I halted in my tracks and looked around. “Who said that?” I whispered.
Jay pivoted, his eyebrows climbing halfway up his forehead. He slowly moved toward us, and when the door glowed green, the same friendly voice said, “Thank you for shopping with Day’s Market, Jay Savage.”
Jay laughed and looked like he’d applaud if he hadn’t been holding the carrots. “Good to know that works, too.” He pushed through Eddie’s still outstretched arms and said, “Let’s go, guys.”
“You have to pay!” Eddie said.
“We did, Ed. Didn’t you hear the nice lady thank us for shopping with them?” With Eddie’s confused expression, Jay clapped him on the back. “You did not read enough comic books, Ed. Or all of this would be a little more comfortable for you.” Jay held out one of the carrots to Eddie who only shook his head in refusal and looked grumpy in general.
“But how much did we spend? And how much is left in our accounts? For all we know we just bought four-hundred-dollar carrots.” I took a bite of my nectarine and smiled at how exactly right it tasted. Gratitude filled me for all the things that hadn’t changed. Nectarines still tasted like nectarines. The sky was still blue, and even if there was an overabundance of people whose hair was blue, too, maybe I could deal with that. . . I could deal with it if Tag was still somewhere under that blue sky.
“In my IDR class, they talked about finances and how the IDRs keep track. They said something about pulse power. I’ll find out how we access the balance,” Jay said.
I nodded. We walked along the shops more, noting how the shops all seemed very specialized instead of all-encompassing like the stores of my time. All the shops were in areas like malls, each store catering to one specific need. I did find a Dunkin’ Donuts and got me a Boston Kreme.
Jay looked around at all the stores and the people moving in and out of those stores and frowned. “Do you guys wonder what the dark levels are like?”
Sweat beaded up on Eddie’s forehead as he shook his head violently. “No, I don’t!”
“What do you mean by dark levels?” I asked
“The levels lost in the shadow of the skyscrapers. I’ve heard them called the dark levels because sunlight never reaches the ground. We could buy things in these shops here, where the businesses are doing okay for themselves, or we could go down and spend our money in the stores that are probably struggling. What do they call the people in the dark levels? Povs?”
“It’s dangerous down there.” Eddie insisted.
“How do you know? You’ve never been there.” Jay’s attention stayed pointedly on me. Whether we went down or not would be my decision.
“We could at least look. If it feels unsafe, we can always come right back up,” I said.
Jay grinned. “You’re outvoted, Ed.” And we walked to the nearest elevator, knowing he’d follow along.
In all honesty, a part of me thrilled at the idea of seeing what lay beneath the city, and another part of me cowered in Eddie-like fear. But I wanted my feet to touch the ground—real solid earth. People weren’t meant to live in buildings in the sky like giants out of fairy tales.
Going down
, the friendly elevator said. And down we went, Eddie’s nervousness reflected in the mirrored panels of the elevator. My ears popped with our descent, and then the elevator stopped.
The doors opened onto another sky garden walk. We were in shadow but definitely not darkness. Jay frowned and jabbed his finger on the requested level another time. The friendly elevator voice said, “I’m sorry, Jay Savage, but you are not approved for travel to the lower levels. Please make an alternate choice.”
“Who says I’m not approved?” Jay grumbled and hit the level he wanted again.
“I’m sorry, Jay Savage, but you are not approved for travel to the lower levels. Please make an alternate choice.”
Eddie’s relieved sigh served only to fuel Jay’s agitation. The elevator doors had stayed open. With a frown, Jay got out. “C’mon, Summer. There has to be stairs. What would they do in a fire?”
We searched for stairs or fire exits for another hour, but could find no way down past the elevator police. Jay finally gave up, grumbling about the lack of safety, and led us to the library.
The Coliseum Library was easily the most beautiful building I’d ever seen. The glass columns reflected light like huge prisms, casting rainbows on everything. Once inside the glass building, I turned to Jay and Eddie. “I’ve got some research to do, and I’ll get it done faster on my own. I’ll catch up with you guys in a little while, okay?”
Eddie became visibly nervous. “But what if we don’t find you again? We don’t know any of these people.” He cast a quick glance at the rainbow-colored heads slipping around him and trying to avoid the evident stranger among them. The people worked hard to avoid all of us as if we were rabid animals ready to bite at any moment. He lowered his voice. “They aren’t like us.”
“I’ll meet you right back here in two hours.” I pointed down at the spot where I stood. I wanted to disagree with Eddie’s assessment of the other people not being like us but still feared that maybe crazy law might not be as effective as the government hoped. The people acted so skittish around us, they all may very well be crazy. And at the first day of biology class, we’d learned about the disease that brought us to this future. Every person in this future who was not of the New Youth was tainted. We were not allowed to associate with them in any way that would allow us to develop relationships with them as they were beneath us. Any sexual relations that might transpire between a New Youth and anyone outside the New Youth would end in a trial and the severest of punishments. They never said execution, but they may as well have. No wonder Tag acted so weird around me.
Keeping Doberman Eddie around might make me feel safer, but he’d never approve of the person I hoped to find. He bought into the idea that we were better than the rest of the world.