Tundra 37 (20 page)

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Old Earth, 2446

“What does the mocha crème taste like?”

Mestasis fidgeted with her ID keytag as she waited in line at the Techno Expresso behind an older woman who couldn’t decide with flavor of synthetic latte to choose. It was manufactured from some soybean substitute. No one had actually tasted real roasted coffee in her lifetime.

Honestly, don’t they all taste the same?

Her fingernail ran along the edge, the plastic digging into the pink skin underneath. The ID strip swirled like oil underneath the fluorescent lights. As she smoothed her finger over the patterns, the golden swirls disappeared.
Interesting. It’s never done that before.
The damn thing better work, because she wasn’t standing in line all over again. She had a mental exercise work study to complete by the end of the weekend for both her and Abysme, and Dr. Fields expected each answer to be no less than excellent.

Had she made a mistake in coming? She scanned the rows of tables large enough to fit two cups and a soybean wafer if you didn’t mind dripping coffee on your lunch. Strangers’ faces yapped in conversation while others stared out the sight panel as if waiting for the end of the world. A girl wearing a TINE uniform, like herself, caught her wandering gaze and Mestasis flicked her eyes back to the older woman’s latte choice, afraid to be recognized.

Would he come?

The server shot her a baleful look with hooded, indigo-painted eyelids, demanding her order. She ran her ID tag through a crack in the countertop. “I’ll have a small regular.”

A plastic cup dropped from a console and the server squirted dark liquid into it from a tube. She pushed the steaming beverage to Mestasis and stared at the next customer without saying a word.

“Such a plain choice for someone so special.”

Mestasis whirled around, the liquid in her cup splashing onto the back of her hand.

James stood behind her holding his own dark beverage. Had he been waiting for her? Where he’d come from, she had no idea. She’d scanned the place from top to bottom before walking in.

“Being someone so special, I try not to stick out.” Rubbing the place where the liquid scalded her skin, Mestasis took him in. Without the tips of neon sparking around his chin, his dark hair looked glossy. She reminded herself the phosphorescence glowed in the dark, and the fluorescent lights of Techno Expresso hid any association he had with the Radioactive Hand of Justice. In the café, he looked like any handsome twenty-something trying to make his way in the world.

He gestured over his shoulder. “I found us a table in the back.”

What was she doing here? It was absurd for her to sacrifice time from her studies to meet a young man she hardly knew, a renegade at that. But at the same time, her fingers shook with excitement. She felt more alive than when she connected to the electromagnetic pulses within TINE.

Following him through the masses, she couldn’t believe she had a date. She’d watched couples sitting together at the Techno Express for years, wondering how it felt to have someone to share conversation. Abysme didn’t like to go out in public together because people stared at their mirror-like faces, so Mestasis always came by herself. She never thought she’d have someone to take a moment away from the world with. Not that she had a moment to spare.

She sat across from him, balancing her drink on the small table by wrapping her fingers around the curve of the cup.

He sipped his synthetic latte and tilted his angular face toward her. “I trust you made it back safely.”

Mestasis’s neck and cheeks grew hot, but her dark skin hid her blushes well. “I did, thanks to you.”

“You saved my life too. Remember?”

She looked away, studying a hovercraft as it glided beyond the buildings and became a silver speck in the slate sky. “I didn’t come here to talk about my abilities. I came to get away from them.”

“I understand. We all need to escape sometimes.”

She locked his gaze, searching for the real answer why they sat here together, two people from totally different worlds. The kindness in his eyes made her vulnerable, and she dropped her gaze down to her steaming beverage.

“How’s your furry friend?”

Mestasis smiled. “She’s doing fine. Our plastic couch, on the other hand, has seen better days.”

James laughed. “I’m glad to hear it.”

“You’re fond of kittens?”

“You could say that. I value all life.”

He looked past her to the doors of the coffee shop. “While scavenging as boy, I found a dandelion growing out of the crack of the sidewalk, way down on the street level among the piles of garbage. It was a miracle the plant germinated underneath the concrete with almost no sunlight, fed by the acid rain. I reached down to pick it and bring it back with me, my fingers running over the hairy stem. But I knew it would only wilt and die in my cramped hiding space between the second and third floor. Instead, I cut the bottom out a plastic water bottle to shield it from the feet of the gangmen. The next day I took the few boys I knew to show them.”

He looked back to her, his fingertip running along the rim of his mug. “They laughed at me and kicked the plastic shelter away.” His eyes turned cold. “They trampled it. I can still remember the yellow pollen streaking the gray concrete.”

“I’m sorry.” Mestasis placed her hand over his. His skin was rough, his fingers calloused compared to her smooth fingertips.

James shook his head. “I’m not looking for sympathy. It was a long time ago. I’m over it.” He smiled, the warmth coming back to his face. “It’s nice to meet someone who values other life on this planet besides humans.”

The barrier inside her crumbled. “I’ve always been drawn to how life used to be in the past. As a kid, my sister and I had a blade of grass in a pot of soil. We’d give it some of our water rations every day and bring it to the corridor outside out apartment where a square of sunlight would shine in the later part of the afternoon.”

“What happened to it?”

“We kept it alive for a very long time, even brought it with us to TINE. I still have the pot in the apartment I share with my sister.”

“What is your sister like? You had mentioned wanting a safe place for her and your mother.”

Besides Dr. Fields, no one had asked her that question before. She ran her finger along the rim of her cup, thinking about how much to tell him.

“My family is loyal to a fault. Willing to risk anything for each other.” Her hand burned where it touched his skin and she worried he’d sense the rising temperature, so she took it back, using it to place a braid behind her ear.

“Wow, that sounds like some family.”

Mestasis smiled and sipped her coffee. He made her feel special, made her realize just how much she did have. “I’m lucky. I really am. I could have been abandoned, an orphan stuck in the system.”

James nodded and slipped off his black cloak. He hung it on the back of his chair as if he thought they’d stay a long time. “I grew up in The Ministry of Mercy, and from there went straight into the gangs.”

“That’s probably what would’ve happened to me if it weren’t for my mom.”

James’s interest in her family, the one thing she prized above all else, made her want to share more with him and her words spilled out. “She didn’t mean to become pregnant. My mom’s a shrewd woman. She knew how tough it was to raise a child in this world, and she had no fortune, no way to keep such an endeavor thriving. I don’t know exactly what happened, but my father left when they found out she had not one but two new mouths to feed. After my sister and I were born, my mom took up two jobs, working all hours to support us. They’re all I have.”

“I can see why you work so hard for them.”

“My mom’s worked so hard for us; the recycling facility where she works has so many contaminants and hazards. It’s not good for her. Every day she spends there poisons her body more. I need to get her out.”

“And TINE is the only way?”

“The only way I can see, yes.”

She thought he might try to ask her to join him again in the underground, but he remained silent, taking another sip of his beverage. She wondered if he’d asked her here for her powers, but he seemed more interested in who she was than what she could do. He made her feel normal.

“What about you? Do you think you’ve found the safest place to live? To weather the storm we all know is coming?” She noticed how the tips of his hair curved around his chin. She noticed his smooth skin trailing from his neck, down into the V-shaped neck of his shirt.

“Who knows?” He settled back in his chair, propping his boot on the ventilator by the window. “The news on the streets now is the higher-ups are building transport ships, gigantic vessels the size of small cities, able to house entire populations. They’ll have self-sustaining biodomes, air filtration systems, energy cells with supplies to last generations, workout decks, schools, everything you could ever need.”

Mestasis leaned forward. “You mean they’re going to circle the Earth in space stations?”

He shook his head, hair falling in front of his eyes. He brushed it back carelessly. “No, they’re talking about colonizing other worlds.”

“How? It would take centuries to get anywhere and no one’s perfected cryosleep techniques, especially for such a vast majority.”

“They’re going to live their lives on the ships. Imagine entire generations of astronauts passing on the genetic code to their children and their children after them, until they reach paradise planets.”

“Wow.” It was the best idea Mestasis had ever heard. A jolt of anger at Dr. Fields shot through her. Surely he’d had heard of such ships? Was he keeping information from her and Abysme?

It didn’t matter now. She’d found out, and Dr. Fields couldn’t steal the idea back from her head. The thought of the colonization ships gave her hope. If she could get herself, her mom, and Abysme on one of those transport ships, then they’d all be safe. No food shortages, no pollution, no radiation, no chemical weapons, no nukes.

He raised his eyebrows as if he read her mind. “The trick is how to get yourself on one of them. Only the super-elite with connections will have a chance.”

“What do you mean? How many are they making?”

James’s eyes darkened. “Not nearly enough. The majority of the population will be left behind on this dying planet, fighting for the last resources until we end up killing each other.”

“No.” Mestasis removed her hands from her coffee, wringing them together in thought. She didn’t care if a passerby knocked her cup over. Acid was already filling her stomach and it would just add to the burn. “The world will never get that bad. Governments will always step in.”

A teenage boy darted between their tables, and James held both cups as the boy slipped by. “You wanna bet? Who’s going to govern when all the important politicians leave?”

“New ones will step up. The world isn’t going to go to hell all in one day.”

“Yeah, I bet it’ll take more like a month.”

“Honestly, are you that cynical?” Looking into James’s face, she knew he was. And she wasn’t that far behind. Even though she talked of life going on, a splinter of doubt had wedged itself in her gut long ago, and nothing she could accomplish at TINE would ever pick it out.

“You’re planning on going on one, aren’t you?” He leaned forward, so close his breath fell on her lips.

She quirked an eyebrow. “Maybe.” Digging in her uniform, she brought out a shiny nanodisc and held it toward him. A ray of sunlight trickled down from the window, playing upon the surface in glistening radiance. He took it from her, their fingers brushing.

“What is it?”

“A code. You can send it through anything with an electromagnetic pulse.” She waved her hand over to the servers in the front, “Even a coffee machine.”

“What’s it for?”

She smiled. “It’s my number. Punch it in anywhere, and I’ll know where you are.”

His eyes widened. “You serious?”

She tilted her head, tiny braids falling across her shoulders. “What do you think?”

“After seeing what you did last night, anything is possible.”

Mestasis shrugged as if it didn’t matter. But he’d taught her anything was possible as well. Entire cities on transport ships, herself walking into a coffee shop to meet a date. The possibilities made her head reel.

She leaned back before his proximity had too much of an effect on her, before she wouldn’t be able to tear herself away. “If you learn anything else about these ships, will you contact me?”

“Of course.”

Mestasis dumped the remains of her beverage into a hole in the table leading to a food recycling depository. She threw her plastic cup in a bin near the wall. “Thank you. You’ve been a big help. You’ve given me hope.”

“My pleasure. It’s what I do for a job, remember?”

“Give people hope?”

“Or at least apples.” He winked and downed the last few sips of his drink.

One question nagged at her the entire conversation, and if she didn’t ask it now, she knew she’d never bring it up again. Hesitating, then forcing herself to act, Mestasis curled her finger, beckoning him closer.

At peak lunch hour, the room had grown so crowded she had to lean across the table for him to hear her whisper. His eyebrows rose in a question and he met her halfway, his face centimeters from hers. At this distance she could see the hazel flecks in his eyes and she wondered again how someone so gorgeous could be involved with such dangerous gangs. Surely some modeling company for the sight panels on the sides of the state building would have noticed him. But then he wouldn’t be changing the world. “When you saw me last night, why didn’t you turn me in?”

He brought his lips to her ear and her heart flitted. “Because the first time I saw you, you reminded me of what I’m fighting for day in and day out.”

She pulled back to meet his gaze, fingers trembling as she held onto the sides of the coffee table. “What are you fighting for?”

“Love.” James brushed his lips against hers. Everyone in the coffee shop around her vanished. The espresso machines ceased to buzz, the incessant traffic of customers halted. Nothing existed except her first kiss. She pressed her head forward, feeling the warmth from his lips travel into her mouth and down to the pit of her stomach. For a moment she forgot about TINE, about studies, about her powers, about the crumbling world. For a moment she was just a normal young woman enticed by an attractive young man.