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“How’s your shoulder?” Dani asked.
“Healing. And since I’ve been home, the pain has been minimal.”
That was one feature of the iJinn Dani could live with, she decided. “What happened with Swenson and her boys?”
Darius waved a hand dismissively. “Taken care of. So, Dani, do you still want to return to your own time?”
“Yes, absolutely.”
“Good. I’m anxious to see if it works.” He rubbed his hands together. “As soon as you arrived this afternoon, I started working on the calculations. There’ll be an extra step this time, removing the temporal signature imprinted on you. I believe it’s possible because it was artificially applied and not an innate part of you. I think we’ve got a good chance. But remember, if I don’t get the timing right, you’ll be right back where you were. Out of phase.”
“And nobody will know me. I’ll have no past.”
“That’s right. And you’ll be stuck. This time, you’ll go back without a beacon. I can’t give you one for a number of reasons. One, I can’t let that technology exist in your time. And, two, if we are successful, you won’t remember any of this and you’ll have this odd-looking device in hand. You’ll probably activate it out of curiosity, starting the whole thing over again. It’s a one-shot deal. If you don’t resync with your own time after I send you back, considering your already deteriorated condition, you’ll only have a few days before…”
“I die.”
He nodded grimly.
“It’s worth the risk,” Dani said with certainty. “I belong back there. I want to go back to my own life and have Sunday dinner at my parents’ house with my wife and my sister and her new husband.”
“I understand. I’d probably make the same choice. To tell you the truth, Dani, my time and your time are not so very different. We work, play, love, get old and die. Human experience doesn’t change much. Only the trappings change. What really matters are the relationships we forge with other people. And you clearly have some meaningful ones.”
“Were you able to pinpoint my arrival here?”
“Yes, no problem. Everything was recorded.” He turned to a digital console. “It was October 3 at one thirty-seven forty-one in the afternoon. All we have to do is feed that time into the time machine’s destination chronometer.” He tapped a screen to his left.
Dani leaned in to see that the information on the screen currently read “0500, April 18, 1906.” She looked up questioningly to meet his eyes. “Isn’t that the day the great San Francisco earthquake took place?”
He appeared momentarily startled, then chuckled lightheartedly. “Yes, it is.”
“You aren’t planning on going there, are you?”
“No, no. Just spinning the dial, thinking about significant dates in history. And like I said before, we do experiment with inanimate objects. I was toying with the idea of sending them a bucket of water.” He laughed unreservedly, then said, “Just kidding.”
Darius seemed much more jolly than Dani remembered him. Of course, he had been sick and worried, then hunted and shot, so why wouldn’t he be more jolly now that he was home and safe?
“If you’re up to it,” he said, “I’d like to send you back tomorrow morning.”
“I’m up to it right now.”
He smiled appreciatively. “You aren’t, actually. I’m anxious to try it too, but you’ll be stronger by morning. The medicine Lara’s giving you will not only speed up your recovery, but it will help reduce the negative impact of your trip back. You can try some solid food this evening, and make sure you drink a lot of water.”
“Do you think I could see outside?” she asked. “Just get a glimpse of what it’s like here so I know what I’m turning down.”
He smiled benignly. “Sure, why not?” He walked to the long wall opposite the door and waved his hand in front of it. Two of the curved panels slid apart, revealing a huge window like a viewing deck on a cruise ship. Dani walked over and looked out. She was up above the city in a high-rise building. She could see a piece of the San Francisco Bay glittering in the slant sunlight of early evening. On the far left was a beautifully familiar sight, the Golden Gate Bridge, looking the same as ever except that there were other structures near it, transparent, tube-like structures spanning the Bay. She looked in the other direction and saw the same type of enclosed bridges. No sign of the Bay Bridge. The city itself was a mixture of many different styles of architecture, some familiar and some not familiar. There were large domes here and there and some of the newer-looking buildings were curving structures instead of rectangular. She thought about the building she was in, how the hallways curved. She looked for Coit Tower, another cylindrical building, and found it, dwarfed by other buildings, barely visible on Telegraph Hill. She found the Transamerica Pyramid, standing like an old friend amid other unfamiliar buildings. Many of the new buildings were made of a dark, shiny material that glinted like glass but did not look transparent. She looked down to the street below. It was busy with people walking and hundreds of moving vehicles that looked like giant eggs, all identical. People got in and out of them at corners, but they didn’t park. While she watched, one of the eggs sprouted wings and shot straight up into the air, then zipped by the building, a red light flashing on top. Looking out at the horizon, she saw a few other of these flying eggs.
“What do you think?” Darius asked, drawing her attention from the view.
“It’s incredible. Are those flying cars?”
“Yes. But not all of them fly. The airways wouldn’t be able to cope with all the traffic, but emergency vehicles drive or fly, depending on the need. The ones you see in the air, most of those are ambulances. The earthbound vehicles aren’t what you’re used to either. They drive themselves and are solar powered. And they aren’t privately owned. They’re more like pods, part of a large public transportation system. You might travel to work in one of them and back home at the end of the day in another.”
“Not so much fun to drive now, then, is it?”
“Fun?” He laughed. “No, not so much fun, but a lot safer. To us, your method where everybody drives around however they please, at whatever speed they please, crashing into each other, seems completely ludicrous. I can tell you now that I was terrified riding on your streets. That’s not a reflection on your driving, by the way. I understand driving cars is very popular in virtual reality games, and we do have actual vehicles like yours for sport. You can rent one and go out on the open road, and some serious hobbyists own them, but they aren’t used for everyday transportation anymore.”
While they stood watching out the window, a blue and white machine flew up and hovered outside. It was about the size of a beach ball, had blinking red and blue lights, two spinning rotors, one on top and one behind, and two lenses that looked remarkably eye-like. On the side of the vehicle were the letters “SFPD.”
Darius gave a friendly wave at the thing, then it turned and zipped away.
“What was that?” asked Dani.
“Police patrol drone.”
“Robocop,” Dani said.
“We’re lucky it didn’t scan you.”
“Why?”
“It wouldn’t be able to identify you. You’re in no database. You also have no implant. It would tag you as a rogue and somebody would be here in no time to ask questions. We definitely want to avoid that sort of complication. If you see another one, duck.”
Dani studied his face, a mixture of amusement and concern. She decided he was serious about ducking. “If I stayed here, would I have to get one of those brain implants?”
“Oh, yes, unless you wanted to live off the grid.”
“Off the grid?”
“In the wilderness. Isolated. People do. It’s a much harder life.”
“Like survivalists.”
“Yes. Not many people choose it.”
Dani turned her attention back to the scene through the window. Dusk was beginning to cast a pink-tinted glow over the city. “Where are you with space travel? Have we walked on Mars?”
He put his hand on her shoulder. “Mars, yes, humans have set foot on Mars. Dani, we could talk for hours about what’s happened in the last two hundred years in that field and many others, and how the Giants are doing these days and what passes for modern music. But I do have important work to do if we’re going to be ready for your trip in the morning.”
“Sorry. This is all so fascinating. I could ask you a million questions. Like about the vegetarian situation. Have you ever had a steak?”
He shook his head, looking slightly amused. “You’re very fond of beef, aren’t you?”
“Yeah. But I like fish too. Well, you know, San Francisco! How could I not? Living here, you must have had shellfish. Cioppino? What about abalone? God, that stuff’s fabulous, but I’ve only had it a couple times. It’s so damned expensive.”
“Sadly, abalone has been extinct for a long time. Quite a few fish have gone extinct since your time. And land animals too, like the black rhino. Hunted to extinction by humans. So many other plants and animals have gone extinct from the destruction of their habitats.”
“That’s too bad. I was hoping we could have turned that around.”
Darius frowned. “Too little too late. For every one shopper who brings her own bags to the store, a thousand others take home plastic bags.”
“You don’t still…”
He shook his head. “Oh, no, no, we don’t use plastic bags, but you did. That’s the problem. And your children did. No matter how much humans said they wanted to save the planet, with ten billion of them living on it, all selfishly choosing opulence and convenience, that was impossible.”
“Ten billion?”
“Ten billion. All of them polluting the land, air and water and eating up all the plants and animals like a scourge of locusts across the face of the earth.”
Darius’s jolly demeanor had disappeared, replaced by downright anger that turned his face red. Dani instinctively took a step back from him.
“Once humans evolved on this planet,” he continued, “it was doomed. No other species has ravaged its environment so completely as humans. It’s indefensible, especially from a species that has declared itself intelligent.” He spat out the final word.
“But you said six billion.”
He looked confused. “What?”
“When you left me last week. You said there were six billion people.”
“Ah, yes. There are six billion now. The population reached ten billion in 2071. It isn’t unlikely that you will live to see that obscene milestone.”
She did a rapid calculation in her head and realized he was right.
“If population growth was so out of control in the twenty-first century, what happened between then and now? Why the huge and rapid decline?”
“I would like to say that we wised up. But that isn’t it. It’s the plague. Remember what I told you. A deadly virus.” He waved his hand to shut the window, then walked to the tiny greenhouse that contained the precious sprouting black beetle beans. “And these are the only known cure. Without them, it is possible that in time the plague could wipe out the entire human race.” He spoke without emotion, staring at the glass box, and for a moment seemed to have forgotten Dani. At last he turned toward her, his demeanor cheerful again. “Have a restful evening, Dani. If you need anything, Lara will be available to you. I’ll see you in the morning and then we’ll send you back where you belong.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Dani couldn’t sleep. She could see how the automatically adjusting temperature and firmness of the bed could provide a remarkably comfortable sleeping experience, but the strangeness of her surroundings and the anxiety over tomorrow weighed heavily on her thoughts, preventing her from relaxing. Also, she was hungry. The dinner she’d been given had been inadequate. She must be healing quickly, she realized, because she could think of nothing but cutting into a juicy rib eye steak. Not that she’d have that chance here. They were all vegetarians. Maybe that’s why some people decided to live off the grid, so they could eat meat.
As soon as her feet touched the floor, light flooded into the room. She put on her clothes and slipped into her shoes. She stepped over to the door and it automatically opened for her. Her first step into the hallway brought Lara immediately to her side.
“Can I help you?” she asked with her odd smile.
Now that Dani knew she was a machine, she made no attempt to soften her opinion that Lara was really creepy.
“I’m hungry,” Dani replied. “Can you bring me something to eat? That white stuff from dinner was edible, but none of that crunchy stuff, okay?”
“It is not time for eating now. It is time for sleeping.”
“Maybe so, but I want something to eat. And I’d like to look outside while I’m eating. Is there a room with a view around here that I can use?”
“The lounge has a viewing window.”
“Can I go there?”
“I have not been told otherwise. I will show you the way and bring you a meal.”
“Thank you.”
After walking a couple of minutes down a curving hallway, Lara left her in a room with tables and chairs and a huge window open to the city at night. Vehicles flew past, lit with red and white lights, and the entire city shone with the light from thousands of buildings. All the bridges were lit, looking like massive glow tubes. The scene was beautiful, and Dani had a hard time turning away from it when Lara reentered the room carrying a tray. After putting it on one of the tables, she left the room. Dani guessed that she hadn’t gone far. She had the feeling she was being kept under close scrutiny. She could understand Darius being nervous about her. The best thing for him and for his top-secret facility was to get her out of here and back where she belonged as fast as possible.
She arranged her chair so she could look out the window while she ate. Lara had brought some of the white stuff as she had requested and something new, an orange, spongy square. Cube-shaped food seemed to be popular here. Dani tasted it cautiously. It was a little sweet, actually pretty good and reminded her of roasted carrots, something Gemma made a lot in the winter months. The white stuff needed salt, but she hadn’t seen anything yet in the way of condiments or spices. A bottle of Tabasco would go really far here, she thought.
The scene out the window was mesmerizing, such a disquieting mixture of old and new. She finished the orange square and took a drink of water. A blue and white beach ball zipped past the window but didn’t pause to look in. What did they do with rogues? she wondered before deciding she didn’t want to find out firsthand.
She got up from the table and approached the window, scanning the horizon, locating familiar places illuminated by innumerable white lights. There was so much light that no stars were visible. Her gaze traveled in the direction of the Marina District and Cow Hollow. She tried to pick out Greenwich Street but wasn’t sure she could see any of it. There were a lot of buildings in the way. She felt a hollow ache in her chest, knowing that Gemma Mettler no longer lived there, hadn’t been living there for over a hundred years. If she had to stay here, how would she cope with that reality? Her parents, her brother, her sister were all long gone. Were there some descendants of theirs, her own great-nephews and nieces, still living here in San Francisco? If so, would she want to know about them?
She was startled from her thoughts by muffled noises from the other side of the left-hand wall. Possibly the sound of furniture moving. She got up and stood close to the wall to listen. Someone was in the room next to her. She could hear his voice, faintly and indistinctly, but well enough to know it wasn’t Darius. She pressed her ear to the wall, then heard a woman’s voice. It was familiar. It had to be Pamela Swenson, she decided.
Were they still here, then? Darius had said they had been taken care of. She had assumed they had been removed, arrested for trying to kill him. But she knew nothing about the penal system of the future. Maybe they didn’t even have jails anymore. Maybe criminals could get instantly rehabilitated, like reprogramming a computer. They zapped your brain and you were all sweet and harmless again.
She listened more intently, but couldn’t make out any actual words.
I’d like to give them a piece of my mind, she thought. Maybe even a piece of my fist. She turned from the wall and strode to the door, which immediately opened for her. Lara was in the hallway as if standing guard.
“Who’s in the room next to this one?” she asked.
“You will have to ask Dr. Darius that question. He is asleep.”
“Maybe I’ll just take a look.”
Dani swept past creepy Lara, but before she reached the door to the next room, Lara had run ahead of her and inserted herself between Dani and the doorway.
“You are not authorized for this area,” Lara pronounced.
“Why not?”
“You will have to ask Dr. Darius that question. He is asleep.”
“Why don’t you go ask him for me?”
“I must stay with you.”
“I’m beginning to get that.” Dani approached the door, pushing Lara gently aside. The door did not open. It must be locked. There was a control panel beside it like the one at the entrance to the laboratory and the one at the exit door that had trapped her earlier. She vividly remembered the feeling of total helplessness. She didn’t want that to happen again.
“Please go back to your room,” Lara said.
Dani pounded on the door with her fist. “Who’s in there?” she hollered.
Scuffling sounds from within suggested people moving around. Then she heard Swenson’s voice on the other side of the door. “Hello?”
“Hello,” Dani replied. “Is that Dr. Swenson?”
“Yes! Who are you?” There was a tinge of desperation in her voice.
Lara stood directly beside Dani and repeated her request. “Please go back to your room.”
Ignoring Lara, Dani spoke to Swenson through the door. “It’s Dani Barsetti. Open this door.”
“We can’t open it. We’re locked in.”
