Tag took us to the kitchen and closed the big slatted shutters over the windows before pulling out his flashlight and turning it on. He was careful with his light, careful to keep the sweeping beam away from the windows, careful to shine it toward the ground where it would be less likely to leak out through those big slats and offer evidence that the house had some uninvited visitors.
“What if the police are on their way?” I asked again, feeling certain that cops were surrounding the house as we stood unaware inside.
He let my hand go and shoved his hand into the beam of his light. “See this ring?”
A thick silver band sat on his left hand, on the finger where a wedding band would traditionally go. The ring’s surface was ornately worked with grooves and scrolls in intricate patterns.
“It’s a nice ring,” I offered lamely, wondering if he was trying to propose. With all that talk about being able to have babies, it was the only thing that seemed logical to me. My mind had been fried beyond the ability to string together any rational thought.
“It’s an IDR. An ID ring. Everyone has one. Even people who can’t afford one. The government offers basic models to the povs.”
“Povs?”
“Poor people. You know—poverty. Rich people can afford the nicer models, ones with comms and drives. Mine’s a 420b.” He puffed out his chest as though this meant something important. I stared at him blankly, wondering when he’d switched from English to this alien language.
He shook his head, recognizing how I’d become more baffled than impressed. “What it means is that each ring is a like a fingerprint of the person wearing it. No one uses keys like they did in your time.” His face twisted up as if keys were one of the dumbest ideas in the world. “The IDR scans the entrance to the house and unlocks the door for the people keyed in as approved for entry. If an unapproved tried to break in, the entry sensors would spark and notify the authorities.”
His explanation only made me more nervous. There was no way his ring would be programmed as approved for this house. “That doesn’t answer my question. How do you know the cops aren’t about to throw in gas bombs through the windows?” Every sci-fi movie I’d ever watched flashed through my mind. Paul had liked old science-fiction movies. We watched them together. I could only think of
Terminator
and how the future was this horrible place where people lived in the smoking ruins of a technological wasteland while robots hunted them down. I suddenly felt that Hollywood had done me a huge disservice not to give me better information on how to protect myself in such a future.
“Look.” He moved toward the window and waved his hand in front. Nothing happened. “Did you see?” he asked.
I shook my head.
“The ring would glow red if the sensors felt I was not approved. It would glow green if the sensors had approved me.” He waved his hand over the window once more. “But see how it doesn’t glow at all? No entry sensors yet. We’re fine.”
“That doesn’t mean they don’t have an alarm system that tripped when you opened the window.” I peeked out to check for cops. The trees swayed softly in the breeze, but nothing else moved in the shadows.
He shook his head again. “Technically, you opened the window. But alarm systems aren’t what they were. Ring law was instated in 2090. Everyone has to have an IDR. By 2095, every other form of contact for emergency service was discontinued. If you didn’t install entry sensors in your home or business, then it’s your problem.”
I looked out. Nothing. I relaxed. The police weren’t coming. Once Tag felt I was under control, he nodded and led us back to the kitchen. He inspected the pantry, pulling out cans of things that might be edible. There were bulk-size cans filled with beans, rice, and flour. I watched as Tag mixed some of the beans up with the rice and put them in his humidifier. “Sorry it’s taking so long. The dehydrated foods work better because they were designed for the humidifier. Real foods work differently.”
“Isn’t there running water here? Why are you using that when there’s a stove right there?” I pointed at the stove.
He grunted and looked abashed. “Habit, I guess.” He maneuvered over to the stove, trying to get the pilot light to catch. When it wouldn’t, he pulled a plastic bottle from his jacket and tapped out a match. Blue flame sparked to life around the burner when he touched the match to it.
I turned my hands over and really looked at them for the first time in hours. I was filthy. I got up and moved to the kitchen sink. But simple hand washing wasn’t enough for me. I wanted a bath. The idea of walking through the dark house alone to find a bathroom made my heart quicken with fear. “Tag?”
He looked up from the stove.
“Will you help me find a bathroom?” I guess I should have felt guilty for making him be responsible for the food. I should have felt some need to pitch in and do my part. But he was the kidnapper. This was his party and his responsibility. If he didn’t like it, he could take me home and be rid of me. Even as I thought these things, I had to force down the twinges of guilt that
did
bubble up. It wasn’t in my upbringing to be served.
He guided me through the house until we found a bathroom bigger than the master bedroom in Aunt Theresa’s house.
A huge fluffy towel that could have been used as a blanket hung over the side of the tub. It was too dark to make out any colors, but the bathroom had the feeling of being elaborate and posh. Tag pulled a couple of sticks from his jacket and snapped them in half, giving them a brief shake and dropping them on the counter by the mirror.
“Glow sticks?” I let out a nervous laugh.
“What about them?”
“I’d expected something high tech like your ring.”
“Some things don’t change. If an idea was perfect to begin with, why alter it? If you keep them by the mirror, you’ll get the light from the reflection, too. It will make the room brighter.” He gave a slight bow, like a butler being dismissed. “I’ll leave you to clean up. Food will be ready when you come out.”
He left the bathroom, very deliberately pulling the door closed tight so the latch caught with a click. I hurried to cross the room and lock the door, feeling grateful the door did have locks.
I wondered if Tag was outside—if he’d heard me lock the door. Would he be offended by my not trusting him? I snorted at my image in the mirror. Did I care if I offended him? I frowned. Unsure why some part of me
did
care.
Giving myself a good shake for the insanity of such thoughts, I yanked off my clothes and stepped into the tub. I turned the shower to hot and scooted back from the spray so the cold water in the lines could warm up. I waved my hand in the water, but the water remained icy cold. Muttering curses about water heaters, I stepped back out, wrapped the blanket sized towel around me, and poked my head out from the bathroom door.
The empty dark hallway reminded me of the horror films I’d seen, the one where the evil guy’s blade glimmers at the end of the hallway as he walks toward the terrified teenager wrapped in a towel. “Tag?” My shaky voice made my face flush. What a baby I’d turned out to be.
He called out from the kitchen. “What?”
“There isn’t hot water. Do I have to do something to make hot water come on?”
“The heating unit must be broken. I don’t know anything about flash heaters. Sorry. My training was history, politics, and soldiering, with a slight emphasis in physics.” His voice moved closer and his faint form moved at the end of the hallway. “I’ll heat some on the stove.” With that, his shadow moved away again. I shut the door, trying to shake the respect I had for the space he seemed so willing to give me. A
slight
emphasis on physics? He helped invent a time-travel watch and considered his abilities to be slight?
After a fairly long wait, he tapped at the door. “I’ll leave the pot here. You can get it when you feel comfortable. I’ve already started several smaller pots so you’ll have enough.”
I held my breath and listened as his footsteps whispered away on the hall carpet. I edged the door open and found a large pan of water. I felt vulnerable standing there in a towel, but Tag had thus far been a perfect gentleman.
I hefted the pan into the bathroom and up onto the counter, hoping it didn’t burn the countertop for the owner. “A perfect gentleman?” I looked in the mirror. “Perfect gentlemen don’t steal girls from their time zones.”
“But you’d be dead if he hadn’t,” I argued with my image, green in the glow-stick light.
It comforted me to argue with my mirror image, almost like arguing with Winter. Except Winter had never been so dirty and travel worn.
If I tried getting into the tub while covered in volcano droppings, I’d be bathing in a swamp of black, sooty water. I sighed and glared at the bathtub. The warmth could be enjoyed after a quick rinse cycle.
I jumped into the shower and clenched my teeth against the shock of cold against my skin. The soap and shampoo came from two smaller curvy looking faucets that released a small squirt in my hand once placed under the nozzles. I soaped up outside of the spray then stepped back in for the final rinse. A small cry against the cold erupted.
Tag knocked on the door again. “Is something wrong?”
“Just c-cold.” I stuttered.
“There are three more pans of water ready for you. I can bring them in . . . if you trust me. Just close the curtain. I can pour the water through the curtain. I won’t look.”
I hesitated. Even the most altruistic boy would have trouble keeping that promise. A kidnapper? But I hadn’t relocked the door, and he hadn’t tried to enter. “Leave them by the door.”
“How about I leave them on the counter. Then you won’t have to leave the bathroom at all.”
When I didn’t argue the idea, he said, “Okay. I’m coming in.”
Standing outside the cold shower spray, almost without feeling the backsplash of the cold droplets, I waited.
The door clicked open. I held my breath and listened to him heft pans in and place them on the counter, one by one. The oddity and danger of the situation did not escape me. Only a thin sheet of cloth stood between me and the person who’d ripped me from my life. If he wasn’t to be trusted, now would surely be the time he would attack. His shadow moved against the shower curtain, causing me to cast a quick glance around for a weapon I could defend myself with. Nothing looked very weaponlike in the tub. Thinking of the dirt I’d thrown in his eyes, I put my hands under the shampoo dispenser and filled them with shampoo—the most pathetic weapon ever.
His shadow stopped moving. He faced me—I could tell by his silhouette on the curtain. We stood there, facing each other in silence on opposite sides of the curtain for several long moments. “I’m leaving,” he said finally. The door clicked shut again.
I inhaled sharply, relief flooding over me that there had been no need for me to defend myself. I rinsed my hands off, pulled the towel from the top of the rod, and peeked around the curtain. True to his word, he’d gone. I tied the towel off around my chest and used the pans to fill the tub until the steam rose up in little curls of comfort. I added cold water so as not to scald myself and got in.
Everything seemed like they did in my time. The way the tub worked, the mirror in the bathroom, the towels. I wasn’t sure what I expected to be different, but nothing really was. Tag’s words came back to me, “If an idea is perfect to begin with, why alter it?” Bathrooms must have been close to perfect before. The only real differences existed in the curves of the ornate handles on the faucets and the palatial size of the room.
Once settled into the water, my mind calmed enough to consider the implications of my situation. Tag hadn’t looked—hadn’t even tried. Nathan might have tried.
Nathan’s dead.
What had our funerals been like? Did the whole school attend the teenage tragedy? Had Winter worn black? Did she put white roses on my casket? I loved white roses.
Winter, Aunt Theresa, Nathan.
Winter
.
How would I survive without Winter? How would I make it in a world where she wasn’t there to read my feelings and thoughts? Where she wasn’t there to understand when no one else could or wanted to? Where no one else knew I liked white roses? How would I live in a world where she
wasn’t
?
And how would she survive? Who would get her through college? Who would make her dinner while she studied so she didn’t starve? Who would be there for her?
I gave in to another bout of misery and sank down in the water. I cried a long time.
“Summer?” His voice through the door startled me.
I sat up, the water movement echoing off the cavernous bathroom walls. “What?”
“Does your head hurt?”
What a weird question. My head ached. My brain felt like it had been split into a zillion pieces and now those pieces were colliding into one another. “A little.” Even that small confession of weakness bugged me, but my head did hurt. Maybe the headache was a side effect of time travel. Maybe every time we jumped, it scattered our brain cells.
“Crying usually gives people headaches.”
So he’d heard me. How long had he been there listening?
“I have something that will take the headache away.”
“I don’t do drugs!” The words came harsh and fast—an automatic response to Theresa’s preaching about my mother’s addictions.
“No, I don’t mean . . . I wouldn’t be allowed to administer them if I had them. Soldiers are never given access to those things. We’re required to build our own defenses against discomfort. When you come out, I’ll show you.”
Curiosity and the cooling temperature pulled me from the water. I dried off and grimaced at the clothes—dirty, wrinkled, ripped, ruined. I dunked Winter’s shirt in the bath water and rubbed shampoo on it. Carefully, I washed the shirt, working hard to keep it from tearing or fraying further. Much less care was used on the jeans. I hung them both over the shower curtain rod so they could dry, looked at my underwear, and harrumphed. They weren’t as dirty as the jeans, but they’d been through a lot. “Yuck.” I grumbled and then laughed. I’d likely set a world record. I’d worn the same underwear for over eighty years. I washed those, too, unable to bear the idea of putting on dirty unmentionables.