CHAPTER SEVEN

Metropolis

I dragged my feet like a zombie, following Valex and Len through the corridors of the Cryonics Institute of New England. Dr. Resin’s picture hung on the wall along with a plaque that said, Founding Father 1967-2064. He smiled like a movie star thanking his adoring public. He’d slicked his hair back in a luscious wave of blond, and his tan was the color of my mom’s coffee. Easy for him. He wasn’t the one that had to go on in a world where everything had changed. It would have been much easier to die that day with my family by my bedside. But I owed it to them to keep going.

I wasn’t alone. Valex picked up my bags, along with a few storage containers of items my family had left for me. Len held my hand and gently nudged me along with kind words. Her tiny hand had so much strength in it that I couldn’t refuse her.

Valex caught me mentally smiting Dr. Resin and smiled. “Let’s go, Jennifer. Our ride is just beyond that gate.”

“Don’t we have to take the stairs down?” If I remembered correctly, the New England Cryogenics Institute was on the tenth floor of BMC.

Valex shook his head and winked his dark eye. “We don’t need any stairs.”

Len poked him in the side with her finger. “Don’t tease her. She’s had a hard day.”

“What?” I huffed. “What am I missing?”

Valex tilted his head toward the door. “Come on. It’s much easier to show you than explain.”

Valex was way more easygoing than my dad. Comparing the two of them sent a shot of pain directly to my heart, and I closed down my memories in order to survive and keep walking. No matter how cool Valex was, he could never replace my real dad.

Valex pressed a panel and the door slid open. We walked out onto a dock where strange ships with no wheels stood in rows and the sky opened up above us. Valex dug in his pocket and pulled out a black box. He pressed a button and a beep sounded from the third ship down the line, a small aerodynamic-looking bubble with striped wings.

“You own a spaceship!”

Valex nodded. “Yup. But it’s not a spaceship. It’s a hovercraft.”

“Wow.”

Len rolled her eyes and took my arm. “Everyone has one. Come on. He’s just being a show-off.”

The hatch lifted and we crowded in. Valex put my bags in the back and took up the controls. When the ship turned on, seat restraints came down, belting us in automatically. I jerked away and Valex and Len laughed. “The seat belts won’t hurt you.”

Great. Just my comeuppance. Now I was stuck with two parent comedians to tease me. I wanted to tell them how I used to be smart and witty, but the words stuck on my tongue and I sat in silence as the hovercraft took off.

Bath, Maine, looked more like New York City on a Monday morning. Instead of rural barn houses and fields, high-rise buildings crowded the skyline. There was no ground anywhere, and I realized why everyone flew in hovercrafts. The buildings were so close together that there were no roads.

“Where are all the fields?”

“They grow the crops on top of the high-rises.” Len pointed to bubble-shaped greenhouses capping each skyscraper like the tops of vegan slushies.

“You mean there’s no ground?”

Valex laughed. He turned a fast corner and the ship sped forward. “Of course there’s ground. What do you think the buildings are built on?”

I took a deep breath and re-phrased the question. “I mean no grass, no fields?”

Len turned around and stared at me like that was the oddest question she’d ever heard. I thought it was pretty normal, considering.

“Well?”

Valex leaned over to Len. “Back in Jennifer’s time, the population was only a smidgen of what it is now. We have to remember that.”

Len nodded and fidgeted with her fuchsia wristbands.

I looked at her expectantly, but she turned back to Valex.

His hands tightened on the controls. “I’m sorry. By the time the doctors found us, you were already undergoing treatment. We didn’t have very long to plan. We haven’t done any research from your time. All I know is from an early twenty-first-century course I took in college. I haven’t even given much thought as to how to tell you about…the advancements.”

“Advancements?” It seemed like humanity had gone backward, or spiraled down a hole they couldn’t get out of.

Valex blinked, and his jaw hardened as if he’d made up his mind. “The world’s a lot different now. It’s not all bad. We’ve cured so many diseases, people live much longer than they used to, and our population is thriving. We’ve had to make changes to support our growing needs.”

“What year is it, exactly?” They’d veered around the question in the hospital, but with Doctor Kline out of the picture, I hoped they’d come clean.

“Twenty-three-fourteen.” Valex said it like he’d said the time was 2:30.

The year was so different than what I was used to, it took me a whole minute to calculate.

“You’re kidding me. Three hundred and two years?”

My family was gone—that I knew—because Valex and Len wouldn’t have picked me up. But, I couldn’t think about them now. Instead, I thought of everyone else from my century, including Taylor Swift, Johnny Depp, President Obama, even the voice of SpongeBob.

They were long dead, like not even bones in the ground. Valex and Len probably didn’t even know who SpongeBob was, although I bet they’d learned about Obama in the history books.

Len reached behind her and put a hand on my arm, “Let’s not discuss this now. You’ve already had such a hard day. Try to enjoy the trip.”

I nodded and she pointed over the dashboard. “Over there you have the Delta Ray Towers. They were built twenty years ago, when I was a child, to house hundreds more people here in Bath. Over here are the communications headquarters. They supply the needs of the entire city. The power plant is over there, and that building is a recycling center.”

Her voice soothed me. I sat back and listened, pretending I was on a tour for one of our Disney vacations, like if the Jetsons had a theme park ride. I know I was living in denial, but it was the only way I could keep going without a total shutdown.

After twenty minutes, they landed on a loading dock and Len announced, “We’re home.”

I grabbed one of my bags and Valex took it right out of my hands. “No, no, no. You’re the guest today. Let me.”

I shrugged and let them carry everything. Len led me to their part of floor two hundred and thirty-seven.

Geez. How tall would the buildings get? I reminded myself not to look down whenever I looked out the window.

Valex inserted a key card into the door. “I already have a spare one for you.”

Like I was going anywhere? It took me three tries to pass my driver’s ed test, never mind knowing how to fly one of those hovercrafts.

Len shouted over my shoulder. “Pell, we’re home!”

A little girl skittered around the corner and stared open-mouthed. She had pigtails of wispy black hair and dark, almond-shaped eyes. She wore a silver tunic that looked like it was made out of tin foil, with fuzzy pink slippers.

“You brought me home just what I wanted.” She ran over to me and hugged my legs before I could get away. The feeling of her little hands on me reminded me so much of Timmy that I had to lean onto the wall to keep from passing out with grief. “My very own big sister!”

“Hey now, give Jennifer some space. She’s had a long day.” Guilt rolled over me for not reacting with the same excitement she had.

“We apologize for Pell’s forwardness.” Len winked. “She gets it from Valex.”

Valex tickled Len’s arm and laughed. “I’m sure she’ll calm down once she gets to know you.”

I tried to move, but she clung so hard I was afraid I might kick her, so I just stood there like an awkward teenager at a lame dance.

Len gave me a sympathetic smile. “Pell, you have to let go.”

“I don’t want to. I’m afraid she’ll run away and I’ll be stuck with C-7 again.”

I looked around, but all I saw were strange appliances that beeped, a white couch with no cushions, and a computer monitor the size of the wall. “What is C-7?”

“He’s an awful babysitter. He won’t even play Pixie Swap on the wallscreen. He says it’s not in his programming.”

“Pell, you know he’s not programmed to be unpractical.” It was the first time I’d heard Len’s voice turn stern. I wondered if this was an ongoing fight between the two of them.

“He’s a bothead and I hate him.”

Just as she said it, a silver leg appeared from behind the couch. The metal was round and smooth like the side of a pot. Another hand rubbed a cloth over a spot on the floor. The fingers were all perfect capsules that clicked on the linoleum.

“Stain removal complete.” The voice sounded like the man on our GPS. As C-7 stood up, my breath caught in my throat. My eyes must have bugged out of my head, because Pell started to giggle.

Len gestured toward him. “Jennifer, meet C-7, our personal family manager.”

The robot stepped over to me in a swift, gliding motion. His face was a mask of plastic with gold chrome eyes boring right into my head.

Could he see my fear?

He spoke again, and his lips moved like chopsticks clanking together. “Nice to meet you, Jennifer.”

No wonder Pell hated being babysat by C-7. That thing would spook the hell outta me if I were left alone with it.

“Well, tell him hello.” Pell took my hand and placed it in his cold, robotic fingers.

“Hello, C-7.” I took back my hand and kneeled down so my eyes were level with Pell’s. I needed to show her some attention considering how much energy she’d spent on welcoming me. It was the first step to accepting my new family. Even though they’d never replace what I had, I owed it to them to try. “Come on, if he won’t play Pixie Swap with you, then I will.”

She jumped up and down. “Awesomelicious with sappy sauce on top!”

I smiled for the first time all day. “Sappy-what?”

She gave me a look that said, “You’re being silly,” so I let it go.

“Never mind, show me how to play.”