Time Travel Omnibus, page 913
“Give me a moment.” Tiffany studied the map. “Yeah. I can do that.” She hoped. She’d never been to Maintenance before, and on the map it appeared to be at least as bad a warren as Retrieval. In Maintenance, however, nobody would be likely to know either of them.
“Okay. I’ll leave first. Find something to block the door open behind me, because it probably won’t open for you.”
Tiffany picked up the pressure cuff. “Will this do?”
“Perfect. Don’t move it when you leave. That way, they’ll presume you blocked the door open before erasing yourself from the system. I’d hate to leave them wondering how the hell you got out of a room you’d just locked yourself into.”
“What about the map? Won’t that give you away?”
“No.” Dannette blanked the map port. “ ‘Puter use leaves a trace. Maps don’t. Only the walls know, and they’re not allowed to remember. It’s part of that anti-Big-Brother stuff I told you about.”
Dannette turned to go, but Tiffany called her back. “Relax. You look like you’re about to wrestle alligators. It’s part of why I knew something was odd about you”—all those years ago?—”way back when.”
Dannette closed her eyes and did some kind of breathing exercise. Her posture loosened, and suddenly she seemed smaller, more vulnerable. Just how much of a risk is she taking on my behalf? Tiffany wondered.
“Better?”
“Much. But don’t try for too much nonchalance. That’s not you, either.”
Dannette turned to the door, which obligingly opened in her path. With an impressive demonstration of self-control, she stepped out without glancing right or left, turned, and was disappearing from sight as Tiffany stuck the cuff into the rapidly closing mechanism. For a moment, she thought it would be crushed, but some sensor kicked in the moment it felt an obstruction and the door came to rest with the cuff barely deformed by the pressure, like a bird held by a soft-mouthed retriever.
Tiffany waited a full minute, forcing herself to count off the seconds. When she finally moved toward the door, it not only wouldn’t open for her, it resisted her first attempt to force it open. Panic reared, and she put her shoulder, back, and legs into it with adrenaline-fueled strength. Grudgingly, the door gave ground. She squeezed through and watched its jaws slide back until they again cradled the fragile-looking pressure cuff.
The hallway was empty enough to remind her why graveyard shift had earned its name. She turned in the opposite direction from Dannette’s and began working her way out of Retrieval and from there toward Maintenance, hoping she really had memorized the map well enough to find the meeting point.
The rim was a poorly defined location that shifted outward with each construction project. Maintenance was nearby—not surprising because it was here that supplies and shift workers came in and out. Tiffany was hoping to catch a glimpse of the mysterious machines that generated the temporal field pulsing through the outer walls, but was disappointed to find nothing but cavernous supply rooms that looked pretty much like twenty-first century warehouses: central storage for everything from foodstuffs to hardware and all the other oddments needed to keep a facility of this size running. Apparently, the temporal generators were elsewhere. She regretted not having known about the maps before, though she’d not really had much time for exploring.
Inside one large storeroom, a group of men were unloading supplies from delivery-truck-sized carts. Other warehouse doors were open, and Tiffany occasionally heard the rumbling of machines or the sound of distant voices. But the place was large enough to absorb a great many work teams, while still feeling comfortably isolated.
Dannette was waiting at the arranged location, which was simply an intersection of two major corridors. She’d pulled up a wall map and was pretending to examine it as Tiffany approached. “About time,” she hissed. “The same six guys have come by here about three times. The first time, one whistled at me. The second time, another pinched my butt, and last time, I got a ‘You lost baby? I know where to show you a good time.’ ” She wagged her head in disgust. “Unfortunately, that’s what the twenty-seventh century’s been leaving us with.” She gave a microscopic wince. “Which, of course, is what we’re in the process of doing to you folks.”
“So are those guys likely to put two and two together in the morning and report that you were here?”
“Are you kidding? Guys like that don’t remember you in the morning even if you give them what they want. They figure that if they’re the only game in town they can be whatever kind of jerks they want.”
Tiffany hadn’t thought to ask how many men Dannette’s people had lost. Until recently she’d presumed it was virtually all of them, and the female-dominated Bubble had seemed to back that idea up. But the shortage probably dampened with each iteration, and a place like this would be female-dominated even if there were lots of men around. “Just how bad is this gender imbalance, anyway?”
“Overall, only a few percent. But that leaves us with a lot more single women than men—and too many of the men are idiots like those guys. Speaking of which, I think I hear them coming.” The map port winked out. “This way.”
She was barely quick enough. As Dannette led her into a side passage, Tiffany heard jocular voices and the whir of electric motors. Then the side passage branched into another, which shortly after reached a dead end. “That’s it,” Dannette said, pointing to the blank surface at the end of the corridor. “You’re one doorway from freedom.”
Tiffany wasn’t sure what she expected, but the wall looked no different from any other: bland, white, magic plastic with no trace of the esoteric energies it conducted. Earlier, Tiffany had been working to keep Dannette from showing too much tension. Now her own pulse was again racing. Freedom, failure, or true nonexistence? The next few moments would tell the story.
It was difficult to keep the fear out of her voice. “How do we get a door?”
“We just ask for it. Like calling up a port.” Dannette pulled a device the size and shape of a cigarette lighter from her pocket and held it before the wall. “Exit,” it commanded in Ngawa’s most peremptory tone.
Dannette glanced at Tiffany. “Not only her voice print—recorded by me when she was yelling at me one day—but her full-body induction scan. I didn’t know what I’d use it for when I recorded it, but this is perfect. As far as the wall can tell, Ngawa’s standing right here with us.” The wall shimmered and turned semi-transparent, in the process creating two archways, one on each end of a vestibule-sized tunnel. Beyond, the mysterious Outside revealed that graveyard shift really was in the middle of the night. Rather than the sunlight, sky, and green, growing things Tiffany had been quietly craving since she saw Randall’s backyard, a pale, dimly lit surface spread before her, complexly striped with glowing pastel bands. It took a moment for her mind to adjust. Then she realized that it was an enormous parking lot, surfaced in some relative of magic plastic.
Tiffany’s chest tightened. It didn’t look like home, but it was the pathway to it. How ironic that both journeys would begin in parking lots. She turned back to Dannette, remembering the odd duck who’d accidentally drawn her so far from home. The now-familiar face no longer looked exotic, and the eyes glinted with almost-tears. But both the face and the eyes still held the same fierce determination. “It’s like an airlock,” Dannette said. “That shimmering light is the temporal barrier. There’s one at each end of the lock, so the Bubble’s always fully contained. Just walk normally through both of them. You won’t feel anything unless it rejects you. Then it’s like walking into a trampoline. It’ll stiffen but not so quickly you get hurt.” Dannette paused, searching her memory. “Oh, you’re not carrying anything valuable, are you?”
Tiffany shook her head.
“Good. It’s also an anti-pilfering system. Unobtrusive but effective.”
Even at night, Outside was a very busy place. Several giant trucks were moving through the lot, bearing the logo of some nameless supplier. Or maybe it was the Bubble’s own logo. Tiffany never had learned much about this place’s organizational structure. She turned back to Dannette. “You really can’t visit me?”
Dannette wore sadness with the awkwardness of one unaccustomed to showing weakness. “Not possible,” was all she let herself say, followed by, “Go.” Outside, a truck was moving toward what appeared to be a loading dock, although the curve of the building obscured most of the structure from view. “But I might find a way to get you a message,” she added.
“Do that,” Tiffany said. She hugged Dannette, who responded stiffly—more unaccustomed behavior?—then Tiffany released her, steeled herself to step forward—and watched the exit disappear.
“What the hell?” said Dannette. She pulled the cigarette-lighter device back out of her pocket. “Exit,” Ngawa’s voice commanded again, with all the resonance of real life.
Nothing happened.
Dannette fiddled with the device and tried a second time, again with no result. Then, like wind spilled from the sails of a mishandled boat, her trademark vitality faded, leaving a slender, defeated woman. “Dumb,” she said. “Really, really dumb. Ngawa’s out of the building, and even though they aren’t really designed for that kind of security, the walls figured it out. I could still use this to call up an entry but not an exit.” Her voice became flatter, even more defeated. “Time for plan B.”
She stuffed the device back into her pocket and suddenly Tiffany knew what plan B had to be. “No!” she said before Dannette could summon up an exit in her own name. “I can’t let you do that!”
As long as Tiffany had known her, Dannette had been one to fling herself headlong against obstacles—the win-or-die-trying approach. Stymied, she didn’t know how to fight back with finesse. Now, there was no emotion at all in her voice. “You have to go. Staying here does nobody any good. Whatever it is that Ngawa’s afraid of back there, go do it. This was always my backup plan.” But she was facing Tiffany, not the wall, and there was still time to argue.
“Wait,” Tiffany said, remembering the giant trucks. “What does the system know about us, right now?”
“Nothing much. I doubt the shutdown involved a security program, and nobody unauthorized actually tried to walk through the field. Most likely, some error-correction subroutine simply saw a contradiction and cured it. The only thing the system is likely to remember is that Ngawa called up an exit—which is what I wanted it to remember. But it doesn’t matter.” Dannette’s feistiness was returning, but now it was directed toward Tiffany. “We’re stuck with the fact that you don’t exist. I can’t undo that. Right now, you can’t even get into your dorm room let alone open an exit. What do you want to do, hide down here with the rats, stealing breadcrumbs from the day workers?”
Dannette started to turn back to the wall, but Tiffany stepped in front of her—not that this would actually stop her from opening an exit. But it did slow her down. “Don’t,” she said. “There’s another way. Those supply teams that have been feeding you Twinkies and pizza? They’ve been seeing a lot of old movies, but when I was a kid, I watched the right old movies.”
This time, the plan went off with only minor hitches. Tiffany took the lead, doubling back to the junction where she and Dannette had previously met. They waited a few minutes, ducking into a side corridor when a trio of men drove by on electric tractors, pulling piles of boxes stacked on wheeled, flatbed pallets. “That looks inefficient,” Tiffany said. “Why don’t they just drive the big trucks in here?”
Dannette shrugged. “It must have something to do with the maximum-size timelock you can put in an unsupported temporal field. Not my specialty.”
What Tiffany really wanted was something the size of a delivery truck, but she found something nearly as good a few minutes later, when the next group of inbound flatbed pallets was trailed by a vehicle like a tiny pickup truck. “That’s it,” she said. “Think you can catch him on the way back?”
“For sure. That’s the team of guys who hassled me before. If they stay on schedule, they’ll unload and be back in about ten minutes.”
Tiffany bit her lip. “Time to do your thing then.”
Dannette nodded. “Don’t worry. I was made for this.”
Tiffany stepped into the hallway and sought out another niche, between Dannette and the warehouse. A few minutes later, Dannette stepped into view and summoned a map. From her hidey hole, Tiffany watched as her friend lounged in the empty corridor, leaning against the wall. Then there was a whir of distant motors and Dannette went into action. She turned to the map and leaned forward to study it, the angle of her lean accenting the shape of her buttocks, a hand braced on a knee to relieve the strain on her back. It looked awkward, but then, so did the poses in most men’s magazines.
As the motors drew closer, Dannette added a pout and put a puzzled finger to her lips. Tiffany feared she might be overdoing it, but then the carts were passing by and she pressed herself farther back into her side passage. She’d be seen if anyone looked that way, but the cacophony of catcalls and “hey, baby’s that came as the progression of carts braked to a halt told her that all eyes were elsewhere.
Several of the men dismounted, including the driver of the miniature pickup truck. “I think she really is lost,” one said.
“Not as lost as you,” Dannette replied, and the man, who might actually have been offering help, was the focus of everyone’s attention.
“She got you good with that one, Zeck,” one of his companions said. “But we know you love it.”
“Good for him, ‘cause that’s the only lovin’ he’s gonna get,” Dannette said.
“Ooh, she’s got a real tongue on her.” This time the speaker was the pickup truck driver.
Dannette wheeled on him. “Better that than what you don’t have.”
The chorus of yucks this produced told Tiffany her time had come. Three centuries hadn’t changed much about the hey-baby types—though the ability to call up an emergency V-phone did mean the game could no longer get out of hand. Tiffany slipped out of her side passage and ran to the back of the electric truck.
“Ah, you wouldn’t be sayin’ that if you gave it a try there, girlie,” the driver responded. From the reactions of his companions he must have supplemented this with a crude gesture.
There wasn’t anything to hide beneath, but Tiffany didn’t need to hide for long, so she slithered over the tailgate and dropped out of sight. I’m going to miss you, too, she thought, as Dannette issued a final insult that must have left the driver blushing as his buddies laughed with renewed intensity. There was the sound of footsteps. Ahead, motors whirred, then the truck lurched under the weight of the returning driver. “Snarfin’ fancy bitch,” he muttered. Then they were moving.
Tiffany wished she dared to sneak a final peek out the back of the truck to wave goodbye to her friend. But getting caught now would be the end to everything. She wasn’t sure exactly what Ngawa would do to her, but life imprisonment wasn’t beyond the pale. Or maybe they did execute people who deliberately tried to produce sideslip. It had to be a pretty major crime.
The drive to the vehicle exit took less than five minutes, but seemed to stretch forever. Along the way, they passed other vehicles fanning out from the loading dock, but Tiffany huddled low and nobody saw her. Her confidence grew, and she again began thinking beyond the simple task of getting to the exit. What would happen if she managed to do so without being caught? She was relying on theory to send her home, but maybe she’d end up in the twenty-seventh century, instead. And if she did get home and wound up back in the parking lot, what exactly would she say to Brenda? Hi, sorry I was gone so long? Or would she have been gone at all? For that matter, was the theory correct, or was she simply moving toward her own death? Whatever was in store, it would be nice if the little truck would move faster and get it over with.
Then, something shimmered and Tiffany realized they were in the lock. The truck never slowed. She braced herself, saw a second shimmering wall rising toward the lock’s ten-foot ceiling, and then . . . nothing. No falling into the void, no desire to scream: merely nothing.
She again awoke to darkness, but this time it was warm, gray, and comforting. Even before she opened her eyes, she knew she was lying in—or more precisely, on top of—her own bed. A dog barked, and two blocks away a revved-up engine protested on the four-lane thoroughfare that ensured that no realtor would ever describe her neighborhood as quiet. Beside her, the numerals of her alarm clock flicked from 3:17 A.M. to 3:18 A.M., but the intrusions of the city at night had never been more welcome.
In the street-lamp glow filtering through her curtain, it appeared that she was wearing the slacks, sweater, and shoes she remembered putting on that morning, more than three hundred years in the future. But were they also the same clothes she’d worn to that fateful coffee meeting with Brenda? She’d not had much time for shopping in the twenty-fourth century, and she’d worn this outfit quite a few times. Had any of it been real?
Her stomach murmured and Tiffany realized she’d never finished her hamburger dinner. Real hunger or imagined, she owed herself a glass of milk.
The moment she opened the refrigerator, she knew it hadn’t been a dream. The sour odor was a slap in the face, and when she cautiously hefted the half-full milk carton, she felt not the slosh of liquid, but the jiggle of something the consistency of cottage cheese. Or maybe Jell-o. She chose not to find out which. Near the milk was something that might once have been cheese, plus a sandwich bag holding a rounded lump festooned in fuzzy colors. Even the apples in the fruit drawer were beginning to wrinkle and shrink like old-man faces.
Tiffany swung the refrigerator door shut, but the odor now polluted the entire kitchen. Retreating to the living room, she switched on the TV and searched for an infomercial-free channel that might display the date.
