The city looked the same from a week ago. The same buildings, the same floaters humming between them, the same glowing pictures playing along the surface of the glass. It all became a blur. Looking out the window of the cruiser as they meandered down the avenue with the afternoon flow of traffic, Jacob thought that even the people passing on the sidewalks looked the same—a teeming mass of different colors and styles blending and flowing into a single stream. In some respects, the scene didn’t seem much different from the monotony of Harmony. More people, of course, more colorful, even more dynamic, but still imbued with a sense of sameness, a feeling that life had always been this way and always would remain so, a world oblivious to its own history.
But there was one difference from Harmony that caught Jacob right away: the feel of other eyes upon him, strangers’ eyes. Xander’s beat-up cruiser stood out against the other groundcars around them and drew frequent stares from passersby. Every now and then one of them would look further, beyond the shell of the craft to Jacob inside. Their eyes would find his and the link would pluck them for a moment from the stream. In that brief glimpse he found a host of looks—distaste from time to time, humor, benevolence, mostly curiosity. Then their eyes would turn away and they would fall back into the flow, whisked back into their own lives.
Xander didn’t pull up roaring this time before Mixel Tower. He parked a couple streets away, down a side alley.
“Best keep a low profile today,” he explained, helping Jacob to the ground.
“You think they know we’re coming?”
“I don’t think they’ve thought about us at all. As far as they’re concerned, they don’t need to. We’re nobody. But who knows.”
They merged with the entering crowd, let it usher them through the revolving doors and into the lobby. Fingering the metal weight in his pocket, Jacob clung close to Xander as they made their way across the marble floor toward the elevators. He knew Delaney had given her sounder away, had said she didn’t want it anymore, but he’d brought it anyway. Maybe she had changed her mind.
In the elevator, Xander leaned down and put his hand on Jacob’s shoulder. His grip was tight but didn’t hurt.
“You need to breathe, Blinder,” he said.
Jacob managed a meager smile. “Somehow I feel more nervous than before.”
“You haven’t done anything wrong.”
“He told us not to come back. I’m just not used to breaking the rules,” Jacob replied. “Not on purpose, anyway.”
Xander shrugged. “That wasn’t a rule. It was a suggestion. Just think about Delaney. What would she do? If things were reversed.”
“She’d be here,” Jacob said, nodding.
“That’s what I thought.”
The door whisked open. They turned into the hallway. LaPerle was waiting, wearing the same wide grin from a week ago. Karl stood behind him, his face blank.
“Delaney’s friends!” LaPerle crooned, stepping forward to block them. “Hello again.”
“Jack,” Xander said. He took a few steps forward toward LaPerle, prompting Karl to follow suit.
“It’s so nice you came by for a visit,” LaPerle said. He raised a hand and Karl froze. “But I’m afraid Delaney isn’t here at the moment.”
“That’s all right,” Xander said. “We don’t mind waiting.”
LaPerle shrugged his shoulders. “She’ll be out for the rest of the day. Her schedule is quite packed.”
“That’s funny,” Xander snapped. “I have a hard time imagining you’d be far away from her. After all, she seems to rely on you so much.”
“I do what I can,” LaPerle said. “You should call ahead next time. Let us know you’re coming. I’m sure we could arrange something.”
“Right,” Xander snorted. He leaned in toward LaPerle and lowered his voice. “Just tell me one thing. How much have you made?”
LaPerle nodded. “Quite a bit,” he said. “And it’s only just the beginning. Of course, we’ve invested a great deal in Delaney. Her eyes are state-of-the-art. Shipped in from Earth, a pretty penny. But quite worth it, I’m sure she’d agree. And this life we’ve given her—it’s only fair we ask a little in return, don’t you think? She’s a part of us, just like you are.”
Xander’s eyes narrowed. “Nobody owns me. I fulfilled the terms of my contract.”
“You did. And quite well, at that. Numerous commendations, a distinguished record, even a tragic past—I read the file. But you’re not clear of us yet. There’s the matter of your pension, after all. Mixel still pays the bills, right?”
“Are you threatening me?” Xander said. He took another step forward. Jacob reached up and grabbed his arm. LaPerle waved Karl back once more.
“Of course not, Mr. Payne. I’m just trying to point out all the facts. Keep a sense of perspective. Point of view is everything, is it not?”
“Xander, maybe we should go now,” Jacob pleaded. He tugged on the soldier’s sleeve.
LaPerle looked down at Jacob and the grin returned. “I know you’re disappointed, young man. Maybe next time you can see your friend. And then we can all sit down and have a delightful chat. I’d love to hear about how you two know each other.”
Jacob took a step closer to Xander, resisting the urge to back away.
“The boy and I found her,” Xander broke in. “She spent a couple days with us. Ever since I brought her here he’s been bugging me to see her.”
“Well, she certainly is worth seeing. Everyone wants to see her. Speaking of which,” he said, reaching into his suit jacket. He pulled out a pair of thin cards and held them out. Jacob reached out, took them tentatively, and studied them. They were light and stiff, iridescent under the glow of the recessed lights.
“What are these?” Jacob asked.
LaPerle’s eyes narrowed. “Why they’re tickets, of course.”
He took one of them from Jacob and held it out flat on his palm. A light flashed and there was Delaney, a shining figure hovering above his hand, no more than six inches tall. Jacob’s eyes widened at the sight of her rotating form, her hands held forth, a smile on her face, beckoning. LaPerle flipped the card over and the image disappeared. He handed the ticket back to Jacob.
“Tonight. Eight o’clock at the Marlboro.”
“Thanks,” Jacob murmured.
“It’s the least I can do. And like I said, we’ll all get together. Soon, of course. After all, who knows how long she’ll be around?”
“What do you mean?” Jacob asked, startled.
“Delaney’s on the verge of a breakout. She’s already doing well on the Rim. And when the Core worlds pick her up, she’s going straight to Earth. Mixel’s putting some serious money out there to promote her. It’s only a matter of time.” He chuckled and shook his head. “It’s the eyes,” he said. “Everyone loves them. She looks like an Egyptian princess, a goddess.”
“Oh,” Jacob replied. He didn’t know what else to say. He looked down at the floor and tried focusing on the swirled pattern of the carpet.
“Come on, Jacob,” Xander said. He turned Jacob around and led him to the elevator. “Thanks for the tickets,” he called back. LaPerle and Karl remained watching in the hall, waiting until the elevator came. Jacob hardly noticed when the door opened and Xander ushered him inside.
* * *
“That was strange,” Jacob said once they were out on the street. “LaPerle and Karl, it’s like they were waiting for us.”
“They were,” Xander replied. “Building’s sensors must be keyed into us. LaPerle knew we were coming the moment we walked through the front door.”
“I’m just mad we missed her.”
“She was there. That bastard was lying,” Xander said. “But don’t worry. You’ll get to see Delaney again.”
“So what,” Jacob cried. “You heard what that man said. They’re going to take her away for good. Even if I see her tomorrow, what does it matter?”
“Don’t look at it that way,” Xander warned. “If she leaves, she leaves. You can’t control what happens to her. Just think—if you’d never gotten your sight, if you’d never left Harmony, you’d still think she was dead right now. This way, at least you know she’s alive and that she’s going to be fine. Hell, she’ll be better off than ninety-five percent of the people out there, including us. That’s got to be enough.”
It wasn’t. Jacob knew that Xander was right on one level, but he couldn’t accept it any more than he had been able to accept her death back in Harmony.
They crossed the street and headed down the wide boulevard toward the center of Melville, leaving the cruiser parked in the alley. The Marlboro—a large concert hall—wasn’t far away, and they could easily walk back after the show.
“I’m not even sure I feel like going,” Jacob mumbled, giving the tickets to Xander.
“I’m not much for concerts myself,” he replied, putting the tickets in his shirt pocket. “But we should go. Who knows, maybe you’ll be able to see her there. In the meantime, we’ve got a few hours to kill. Let’s walk.”
They wandered into a section of the city they’d passed earlier. Jacob recognized the shopping center where last week he’d received his new clothes and haircut. He remembered the anticipation he’d felt that morning as they prepared to find Delaney. All that was gone, replaced by a fear that, once again, he’d have to resign himself to losing her.
They passed the entrance to the plaza, passed the flashing neon colors and ratcheting drumbeats raining down from the speakers above the doors, and continued on past a range of other stores. It was late in the afternoon and the earlier crowds had dwindled. Jacob was glad—even from the removed comfort of the cruiser he’d felt claustrophobic watching the mass of people flow along the street.
Gazing at all the signs, Jacob wished he could read. Though he still wasn’t used to this loud alien world of people, color, and glass, he felt even more a stranger, more cut off because of his inability to understand the glowing letters above the stores and in the projected murals along the buildings. He looked across the street at one tower where the glass windows shimmered for a moment, only to be replaced by a black, star-filled sky. Through the ether came a starship, a knobby oval whose burning wake carried a line of words. Jacob was about to ask Xander what they said, when the man took his arm and turned abruptly off the boulevard into a narrow side street.
“Where are we going?” Jacob asked.
“A little place I know. You’ll see.”
There were no flashing displays in this alley, and the tall building rising over them on both sides cast a shadow over everything. The sky was a narrow line of light. The only other illumination came from the main street’s brilliance behind them and a small lamp above the door of a shop about twenty yards away on the right. The rest of the building’s face was featureless, making the storefront seem out of place, as if put there by mistake.
Jacob trailed Xander to the entrance, starting at the tinkle of bells when Xander opened the door. Xander went in and Jacob followed, closing the door behind him.
The first thing Jacob noticed was the smell. It was the tiniest bit musty, just mild enough to be pleasant, a dry smell, like withered herbs that still held the memory of sunlight. The odor was followed by the sight of books, row upon row of them stacked against walls and along the shelves that formed aisles within the confines of the tiny shop amid the dimmed lamps. It was cool inside and quiet, and Jacob took a deep breath and touched his ears for a moment in wonder at the silence.
“Xander!” a voice called out. Jacob turned to see a woman appear around an aisle. His eyes widened as she came toward them. He guessed her to be about as old as his mother but her opposite, a negative image. Instead of his mother’s pale skin and hair, this woman had short jet-black hair and tight-fitting clothes covering skin that, as she strode beneath a hovering lamp, Jacob realized was a deep shade of purple. Most startling of all were her eyes. Her irises were gold, sparkling against the darkness of her face. Looking at them, Jacob couldn’t help but think of Delaney. She came up to them and smiled, her teeth a flash of white.
“Hey, Kala,” Xander said.
“It’s been a while,” Kala replied. “I was afraid I’d lost one of my best customers.”
“Course not. Just didn’t make it by last time I was in town.”
“Who’s the boy?” she asked, looking down at Jacob.
“His name’s Jacob,” he replied. “It’s a long story.”
“My favorite kind,” she said. “Hello, Jacob.”
“Are those real?” Jacob asked.
“He means your eyes,” Xander added.
Kala laughed. “Yeah, they’re real.” She reached up with one hand and popped a gold concave disc from one eye, revealing a hazel iris. “Fake lenses, that’s all. Don’t tell me you’ve never seen these before?”
“He doesn’t get out much,” Xander broke in. “So what do you got, Kala? Anything new?”
“A shipment came in last week,” she said. She turned and headed for the back of the shop. Xander followed. “The usual stuff. I’ve got a few you might like.”
“I’ll be a few minutes,” Xander called back. “Feel free to look around.”
While Xander and the woman lingered over a crate in the back corner of the store, Jacob wandered the silent aisles. From time to time, he pulled a book off its shelf and paged through it. Like the books at Xander’s house, some had hard covers, others had covers not much thicker than the pages themselves. Some looked brand-new, while others looked ancient. He especially liked the ones with pictures on the cover, each revealing strange new worlds, suggesting what wonders might be within. Despite his earlier wish to read the street signs, it suddenly didn’t matter that he couldn’t read these books. Just the thought that each one contained new ideas, people, and places was enough to provide him a sense of peace. It reminded him how isolated he’d been in Harmony, a place where new ideas—or any ideas at all besides those of Truesight—weren’t allowed or even acknowledged.
The strange thing was, he didn’t completely disagree with his people’s perception of the Seers. He’d seen enough of Melville to realize it was a world in which appearances dominated, and he’d certainly seen enough shallowness these last few weeks—from the teenagers at the lake to the abrasive veneer of LaPerle’s grin—to more than justify the Blinders’ scorn. But that was why he loved the quiet of this store, of being here right now. These books showed him that there was more to the Seers than what he’d encountered so far. There were elements of a full life ready for the taking if one wanted to find them. At least the Seers had a chance to do whatever they wanted with their lives.
“Ready?” Xander asked.
Jacob turned to see Xander and Kala watching him.
“Sorry. I was thinking about something,” Jacob said.
“That tends to happen when people come in here,” Kala said. “Here,” she said, handing him a book.
Jacob took it. “For me? I don’t have any money.”
“It’s a gift,” she said.
“I don’t know how to read,” Jacob admitted.
She nodded. “That’s okay—you can use it to learn. Besides, it’s got pictures as well.”
He opened the cover and flipped through the pages. Each one contained a single image that was a blend of color, words, and pictures. The letters were thin and arched, scrawling across the page in a single stream. The pictures themselves were haunting. Like the words, they too flowed, tinged with colors of the moons and grass, the brilliant hues of flowers. In some ways, the busy pages reminded him of Melville, but at the same time they lacked the polish and angular edges of the city. They had an organic feel that went against the urban grain.
“What is this book?” he asked.
“It’s by William Blake,” Kala said. “He’s a writer from Earth. From a long time ago. The book is called Songs of Innocence and Experience. Each page is a poem. You know, like a song made up of words? He wrote the poems and drew all those pictures.”
Coming across one page, he was met by a familiar scene.
“Sheep,” he said. “We have those where I come from.”
“That one’s called ‘The Lamb,’” she said, glancing down at the page. “I’m sure Xander can read it to you later.”
Xander frowned. “I’m not a big one for nursery rhymes,” he said. “But thanks for the book, Kala. And these, too.” He held up the package in his hands.
“Any time,” Kala replied.
Xander nodded to Jacob and headed for the door. Jacob waved good-bye to Kala and followed.
“See you in a few weeks,” Kala called after them.
“Right,” said Xander.
“I liked her,” Jacob said as they left the store and headed down the alley back to the main avenue.
Xander nodded. “I’ve bought most of my books from her,” he said. “Decent woman.”
“Why was her skin that color? That strange purple?”
“Some people have different skin color. Just like they do hair. Though in Kala’s case, it’s intentional. There’s a dye you can take—changes your skin to whatever color you want. For a while, anyway.”
“What for?” Jacob asked.
“Something different, I guess,” Xander said, shrugging. “Because she can. I don’t know, I never asked. People do all kinds of things to make themselves look different.”
They reached the avenue and continued on their way. Jacob was still thinking about the bookstore when the sight of Delaney froze him in his tracks.
She rose above him, above all of them on the street, appearing from nowhere against the side of a nearby tower. She had gone from the six-inch figurine in the palm of LaPerle’s hand to a sixty-foot-tall giant looking down with her gold-rimmed eyes. Letters flashed around her, words scrolling by as she smiled and an invisible wind lifted her hair. There was blue sky behind her with clouds racing by as if time had speeded up. But Delaney wasn’t speeding—she moved slowly, her body swaying to a nonexistent song as time took her in the opposite direction. Jacob blinked at the image. He had seen Delaney once, enough to recognize her along the building’s surface, but the weaving figure seemed like a stranger.
“You see her?” he asked, wondering if she was just a dream.
“Yeah, I see her,” Xander replied.
“What do those words say?” Jacob asked.
“They’re selling her,” Xander said. “Or a version of her, anyway. Come on, let’s get out of here.”
He pulled Jacob over to a kiosk on the corner and pressed a circle displayed on its blue screen. A moment later, a floater pulled over to the curb beside them. They climbed into the backseat and the craft began rising.
“Where to?” asked the driver over his shoulder.
“Anywhere,” Xander replied. “We just want out of Melville for a while.”
“How about the sea?” Jacob asked, remembering what Delaney had told him.
“Sure,” the driver said. They were now a couple hundred feet off the ground. All the way up, Jacob’s stomach fluttered as the craft buoyed lightly up and down on its gravity pad. Now he had the sensation that he’d left his stomach behind as the floater leaped forward, zipping toward a tower face before cutting sharply between another set of buildings.
Jacob closed his eyes and leaned into Xander. The cruiser, speeding and bouncing along the plains, had been bad enough, but at least it was connected to the earth. This was far worse. He was sure that any minute the slim floater would overturn or tip too far on a corner and send them hurling toward the surface.
“Don’t like flying?” Xander shouted in his ear above the wind roaring through the open cockpit.
“No!” Jacob screamed back. In fact, he hated everything about the sensation, especially the howling in his ears that made thinking impossible. Xander shouted something to the driver that he couldn’t make out. A moment later, the roaring stopped as the compartment went silent.
“Go ahead, open your eyes,” Xander told him.
Jacob opened his eyes and looked around. The city was gone. He glanced over his shoulder and saw the towers shrinking behind him. He looked up. The sky was still there, the sun still sinking toward afternoon. Where had the wind gone? He reached up and his hand met a solid but invisible plane.
“Force field,” Xander explained. “There’s your ocean.”
He pointed over the side and Jacob gazed down and drew a sharp breath. Delaney had been right. The waters reaching toward the western horizon were beautiful, an azure tone that made the green of the land more brilliant, particularly the archipelagoes of shining emeralds spreading out from the coast as if they’d been tossed or spilled across the surface of the sea by some giant hand.
“Do people live there?” Jacob asked, pointing to the islands.
“Some do, I suppose. Not many people live outside Melville.”
“I’d like to live on an island someday,” Jacob said.
“Suppose that makes sense. After all, you grew up on one.”
Jacob blushed. It was true. Harmony was an island, cut off from the world in so many ways. But that wasn’t the kind of island where he wanted to live. He wanted a place that was away from the world but not disconnected from it, where people could leave if they pleased, but chose to stay, a place where he belonged.
The driver reached up and touched part of the dash panel. Music filled the cabin. His fear subsiding, Jacob relaxed back into his seat and watched the sea. The song ended and another began. The sound of the piano now playing soothed him. For a moment, he felt like he was back in Harmony. Between his mother’s, Delaney’s, and his own playing he had listened to music every day; it had simply been a part of life’s background. Hearing it now made him miss that. Maybe tonight’s concert wouldn’t be so bad after all.
A girl’s voice came in over the piano, accompanied by drums and a host of other instruments. He sat up and leaned forward. It was Delaney. He recognized her voice immediately, in spite of the synthesized filter that altered it, giving it an otherworldly edge. His initial excitement faded as the song progressed. Musicians in Harmony as a whole frowned on synthesized music. When it was used, it was used sparingly and never on voices. Listening to the song, Jacob couldn’t help but feel that the effects and accompanying drumbeats cheapened the purity of her voice. It was just like the image he’d seen displayed on the side of the building—a stranger packaged for public amusement, as artificial as her eyes.
“Can you turn it off?” Jacob asked the driver.
“Don’t like this song?” the man asked, killing the sound. “My daughter loves it. Won’t stop listening to the damn thing. Keeps going on about this new girl. I’m no expert, but far as I can tell, she’s not much different from the rest of them. Another six months, nobody’ll even remember her. Pretty girl, though. They say she used to be a Blinder. Hard to believe, isn’t it?”
Jacob sank back into the seat and closed his eyes.
“I suppose it is,” he whispered.