CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Window to the Past

The weekend came sooner than I wanted. I hadn’t had another chance to talk with Maxim alone, and now I had two whole days off with my substitute family and a robot that still freaked me out. I thought about calling Maxim’s miniscreen, but I actually understood General Relativity, so the whole conversation would be a lie. Besides, he was with Exara, and stealing someone’s boyfriend wasn’t on my moral compass. Even if she was mean. Not that I could, anyway.

Instead of pining away for someone I couldn’t have, which was the story of my life, I had other things on my mind. After another family breakfast of soycakes, I waited until C-7 was alone, loading the dishwasher. I walked into the kitchen just as he dropped a spork into a utensil holder resting on a tray that came out of the wall. He set each plate a perfect half-inch apart.

“Greetings, Jennifer. Did you enjoy your breakfast?”

“Sure. I’m getting used to those soycakes. You just have to load on a whole lot of sappy sauce.”

“Although not nutritionally balanced, the sappy sauce provides an incentive to consume more.”

“Um, yeah. Anyway, I was wondering about the conversation we had the other day. About Martha Maynard.”

C-7’s silver eyes scanned the area behind my head. I leaned in and whispered, “Don’t worry, they’re all busy in the other room”

“What would you like to know about Martha Maynard?”

I fidgeted with a sticky spork before popping it into the tray. C-7 moved the utensil slightly to the right in perfect formation with the others. I’d watched too many of those cheap sci-fi movies growing up, because crazy robots from the future stuck in my mind. Again. If he wanted to, he had enough power to jam that spork right down my throat.

I blinked and swallowed hard. “I’d like to know where she lives. I want to meet her.”

The gears in his neck spun, and I wondered if I’d sent him into hyperdrive.

“If it’s too much trouble—”

“Apartment thirty-two AA, high-rise five hundred eighty-four, level seventy-eight.”

I stared. Wake up, Jennifer, and write it down. I needed a piece of paper. Wait. They don’t have paper any more. Panicking, I searched for my miniscreen. I was always losing it, and I bet it cost more than a laptop.

“I have downloaded the coordinates, along with directions to her high-rise, to your miniscreen’s central processor. Code name: Martha.”

“C-7, I don’t know what to say.”

“Valex and Len plan to take Pell to the recycling factory today for a school assignment. That would be the most opportune time to leave.”

Suspicion clouded my thoughts. It all seemed too easy. Maybe Valex and Len were testing me, trying to see what kind of teen I really was. Or what if C-7 wanted me out of the apartment so he could take over the world? “Why are you helping me?”

“I am here to help, Jennifer. It is what I do.” His voice sounded so genuine that it almost broke my heart, like a lost puppy. He had to be telling the truth. Suddenly, I worried about him.

“What would Valex and Len do if they knew you helped me?”

“They would erase my memory and have me reprogrammed.” He said it so matter-of-factly, almost like he didn’t care. “That is why I advise you to remain silent.”

I ran my fingers across my lips like a zipper. “My mouth is sealed.”

Robots were way cooler than I thought. At least this one was.

I pretended to do homework on my miniscreen until Valex rushed into the living room, packing a travel bag with soybean wafers. He looked at me as if I was that lost puppy. For a second, Timmy’s eyes stared through time. “Are you sure you don’t want to come with us?”

I blinked and Timmy turned back into Valex. “Nah. I have a lot of work to do. These classes are harder than I’m used to.”

“Of course. You’ll catch up. I know you will.” Valex put a hand on my shoulder and squeezed gently. “Let me know if you need any help.”

Oh, I already have a stellar tutor. I almost blurted out Maxim’s name and decided against it. “I have someone to call.”

His eyebrow rose.

“A study partner.”

“Wonderful. I’m glad you’re making friends.” He zipped up the backpack, and Exara came to mind. And enemies, too.

Valex threw me a soybean wafer. “You have our miniscreen numbers if you need to reach us.”

I pocketed the wafer, thankful for Valex’s laid-back attitude in this case. Maybe he didn’t care about animals as much as I wanted him to, but he did give me the freedom I needed to accept this world. My dad would have ordered me to come with the family and put in some “family time.” Now I wished I’d enjoyed his forced trips more often.

“Jenny, are you okay?” Valex had stopped packing and stared at me. My anguish must have shone on my face.

For a moment, I almost changed my mind. I could use some family time right now. But, I needed answers and this was the only way to get them. I forced a smile. “Yes, I’ll be fine. C-7 will keep me company.”

Pell ran in and collapsed at my feet. “Jenny, you don’t want to stay with bothead, do you?”

I patted the top of her head where her perfect black hair parted. It was getting easier to separate her from Timmy. When I thought about it, she looked nothing like him. That was all from me projecting my loss. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine. Take good notes on your field trip.”

“I will.” Pell jumped up. “I’d like to be a plant manager when I grow up.”

Most kids I knew wanted to be vets or ballerinas. I had to remind myself animals were extinct. I wondered if they still performed the Nutcracker. It would look pretty silly in those triangular tunics. “That’s very practical of you.”

Len slipped into the living room and gave me another one of her million-dollar smiles. “Let’s go, everyone.”

It was almost as if she was trying to broadcast “happy” across the room, but life didn’t work that way, no matter how sneaky you were. She’d never be a substitute for my real mom. They said their goodbyes and rushed to catch the next hoverbus.

I waited another thirty minutes before I typed MARTHA into my miniscreen and came up with the coordinates. After saying good-bye to C-7, I slipped out the door, followed the GPS on my miniscreen, and found the right landing for the hoverbus. Martha Maynard’s high-rise was ten stops away, so I sat in the front, paying attention and counting as each stop passed.

Most of the people using the hoverbus system were decked out with tech gadgets, silky tunics and beauty enhancements, but every now and then I saw a normal-looking person slip through and I wondered how they got along in this harsh, plastic world. No one talked to me, so I kept my mouth shut and observed from the safety of my bus seat.

My heart sped with every passing stop. I was so excited to finally meet someone who’d understand what I was going through. Maybe we could talk about Dunkin’ Donuts, grassy meadows, and penguins. Yes, I wanted to talk about penguins and polar bears until my tongue fell out of my mouth.

The hoverbus beeped and I watched the screen, making sure the coordinates matched the ones on my miniscreen. My GPS said to go for it, so I de-boarded onto a platform much like the one at Valex and Len’s high-rise.

I stepped over and shivered, pulling my tunic tighter against my body. This building exuded creepiness. The lights weren’t as bright, and scuffs, scratches, and dents marked the chrome floor. A few shady teens with neon hair and wearing hooded tunics lurked near the platform, and I passed them without making eye contact. I walked swiftly and kept my eyes on the corridor. Yeah, I know where I’m going. Don’t waste my time.

The air smelled like oil and burnt circuits, and the walls were bare. No fancy holopaintings with oscillating pictures. Not that I liked them anyway. None of the pictures looked natural, even though they supposedly showed scenes like meadows and oceans. If you’d walked on the real beach with sand between your toes, you’d see how fake the bright pixels of ocean looked.

Discolored water stains left haloes on the carpet. Further in, I passed swirly marks that looked a lot like gang symbols. Did they even have gangs in 2314? Fear prickled the hairs on my arms as I took the elevator down to Martha’s floor. I wasn’t going to let this place scare me. C-7 had piqued my curiosity, and I knew I couldn’t go home empty-handed. I’d always wonder what Martha was like.

I buzzed her door and no one answered. Maybe she wasn’t home. Where did old ladies go in the future? I pictured her playing bridge at a YMCA, but they wouldn’t have real playing decks, would they? The game would probably be on a wallscreen. The thought of old people and technology didn’t work in my head. That was so my generation. These old people were probably better at technology than I am. The irony was that, besides Martha, I was the oldest of them all.

I glanced down the empty corridor, not wanting to have to go all the way back through the stinky halls and wait on the platform for the next hoverbus near the futuristic gang. I buzzed again, and the screen by the door flashed on. A wrinkled face surrounded by bluish-gray hair stared back at me. She growled. “Go away.”

“I’m here to see Martha Maynard.” My words squeaked out.

Her face turned from a sour pout to a tight-lipped frown. “I’m not expecting any visitors. Get the hell off my doorstep or I’ll call the police.”

Geez. Now I knew how Dorothy felt when she met the Wicked Witch of the West. I almost melted into a puddle of sludge on the spot. I’d come too far and risked too much to retreat in defeat. Hardening my nerve, I stood on tiptoe so she could get a good look at my face. “My name is Jennifer Streetwater. I was born in nineteen-ninety-five and I’ve just been awoken from cryosleep. I need to talk to you.”

Her watery eyes widened like I was the Ghost of Christmas Past. She turned her head and something beeped. The screen flashed off.

That’s it. End of the road. I scared her away.

I kicked the wall behind me and turned to leave. The doors to her apartment buzzed and parted, and she stood, wearing a frilly apron, with a china teacup in her hand and a real silver spoon in the other. “Don’t just stand there looking like a lost kitten. Come in.”

All of a sudden I questioned her motives. Would she ransom me to poor Valex and Len or sell me to those neon-haired dudes hanging outside? She’s just a little old lady. Honestly, Jennifer, you’ve come all the way down here and you can’t step two feet in the door?

I wanted to know so much about her—what happened in her life here, who she’d been before, how she got that silver spoon. Curiosity drove me forward and I stepped inside. The doors automatically closed behind me.

“Earl Grey, black, or mint?”

“What?” A black cat pranced around the corner, rubbing up against the wall. It seemed so normal to me, but an alarm went off inside my head. Animals were supposed to be extinct.

“What kind of tea do you want?”

“Ummmm. Whatever you’re having.” I stared at the cat as the fuzzball pranced toward me and hissed. Its eyes glowed yellow in the dim light. No way it’s mechanical.

“Leave her alone, Jumbo. She’s all right.” Martha poured me a steaming cup of tea. In my opinion, tea was discolored, dirty water. I needed answers, though, so I accepted the steaming cup and took a seat on her real cotton couch. After all the plastic cups I’d drunk out of since I woke up, the china felt natural under my fingers.

I stared at Jumbo. “How did—how is it possible?”

“DNA cloning.” Martha spoke as if about what kind of tea she’d given me.

“I thought animals were extinct.”

“If you have enough money, they can do anything.” She sat beside me on the couch and Jumbo rubbed up against her legs. “You can see where I’ve spent my savings.”

My hand itched to touch him, but I knew from Angela’s cat that not all of the furry friends let strangers come close. I still had a scar on the back of my hand after all these years. “Money well spent.”

She assessed me up and down, almost as if still trying to decide if I was the real deal, or if I’d lied to get free tea. “Only a true cryos-leeper from my time would say that.”

“Well, that’s what I am, whether I like it or not.”

She sipped her tea with a slurp. “Most people would argue animals take resources that should be allotted to a human. How can you feed a cat when so many humans are starving below?”

“Below where?”

“In the lower levels, of course.”

The lower levels had been alluded to but never directly mentioned until now. It was like everyone lived in denial of some underlying disease. To think that everyone lived high up in skyscrapers and attended Ridgewood Prep was like wearing rainbow glasses all the time. How could I have been so naïve?

“Don’t worry. You’ll learn in time.” She glanced at my full teacup and I pretended to sip.

I didn’t know how much time I had, so I got right to the point. “Martha, I miss my family and friends. I miss grass and milkshakes, pens and paper, bells that ring before my next class. Is it ever going to get better?”

She sighed, slumping back into the couch. “The pain only dulls over time. It doesn’t go away.”

“What am I supposed to do?”

“Stop looking back. There’s no time-travel machine that can take you where you want to go. Believe me, I’ve looked into it.” Martha stared at me with intensity in her eyes. “All you can do is work to build a better future for yourself. I didn’t realize that until it was too late. Now I’m stuck in a cheap apartment with a sixteen-year-old overweight cat.”

She grabbed my arm, and I cringed. Her grip was surprisingly strong. “Don’t wait until it’s too late.”

“It’s already too late.” I pulled away and downed my tea in one gulp. “I wanted to work for National Geographic saving polar bears and African elephants. Now all the animals, besides Jumbo, are extinct, so my dreams are gone.”

I picked at the frayed cotton couch. Why was I telling this stranger my deepest thoughts? I shot up, and Jumbo looked at me with curiosity. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to bother you with my problems.”

Martha shook her head as if I didn’t bother her at all. “There is another way.”

I dropped back down to the couch, enjoying the familiar smell of mothballs. “What do you mean?”

“Look at Jumbo. There’s an environmental group that has stockpiles of the DNA of every single animal that ever existed on Earth, even the dinosaurs. A micro Noah’s Ark, all in test tubes instead of livestock stalls.”

I thought of rooms full of test tubes marked with labels like “red squirrel,” “elk,” and “buffalo.” It was a door that couldn’t be unlocked. Not with the world the way it was. “What good will it do if there’s no habitat for them, no food to feed them?” I was rich, but I didn’t want to open some rinky-dink zoo where little kids poked penguins with sticks and tigers paced back and forth in front of metal bars.

Martha’s eyes traveled across the room. She swished her tea around in her mouth as if deciding what to say next. “This group of people…Well, let’s just say they’ve found a way.”

“Found a way how?”

“They look for habitats to bring back extinct species.”

“Who are ‘they?’” She talked about them as if they were the mafia or FBI. My interest was sparked. Maybe they were. “How do I learn more about them?”

“You can’t find them on the cybernet. They’re too controversial.”

I sighed, frustrated. Was this old lady pulling my leg? Did she have nothing else to do? Looking at Jumbo, I thought not. “So, how do you know about them?”

She placed her teacup down gently on a white doily on the armrest of the couch. Her eyes held a spark of a secret. “I wanted to join them.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“I was too old. They need young people like you.”

“Why?”

She twitched her nose. “You’re a curious little girl, aren’t you?”

I shrugged, hating being called a girl. I’d had to accept that I was over three hundred years old.

“What I’m about to tell you is a secret. You hear?”

I nodded, wondering if I really wanted to hear what she had to say. Wasn’t ignorance bliss?

“The Timesurfers, that’s what they’re called. They scour the galaxy for planets like Earth, planets where humanity can start anew, where they can bring back all of the extinct species and live in harmony with nature.”

“Why do they need young people?”

“Because they don’t send out droids. They send real people on their scout ships. It’s the only way to be sure, to claim a planet in their name.”

“That’s impossible. It would take thousands of years to reach the nearest star.” I hadn’t been paying attention in my General Relativity class for nothing.

“That’s why you have to be young, dear. They put you in cryos-leep. The computer wakes you once you reach the planet.”

The thought of entering cryosleep voluntarily sent shivers throughout my body.

Martha must have noticed my repulsion because she gave me a knowing look. “It’s not easy. That’s why I waited so long to decide. Too long. I didn’t want to be frozen again. It was just too scary after what I’d been through. You know how it is—not knowing when you’ll wake up. If you’ll wake up.”

Martha shivered as if she was cold, then shrugged it off. “I thought I could adapt to this lifestyle and I gave it a good try. But, with my rudimentary education—by their standards, mind you—because I have a degree in Art History, all I could get was a job in a recycling plant, sorting garbage. I tried to move up, but someone younger and faster always beat me to it.

“When I finally approached the Timesurfers, they said I was too old. So, I saved up for Jumbo for years—he was my dream. Finally, I had enough to make that dream a reality. Now I sit here and watch the wallscreen, pet my kitty, and wait for my life to end.”

The desolation of her situation weighed me down, as if I had boulders rubbing against each other in my heart. “Martha, I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t feel bad for me.” Martha took my teacup and brought hers and mine into the kitchen. She pressed a panel and the dishwasher came out of the wall. “I lived my life. I made my choices. Learn from my mistakes. If there’s one thing you’ll find out, it’s that none of us have much time.”

My miniscreen beeped. I clicked the lid open and a message flashed on. Valex and Len will be home in one hour.

C-7 was on the ball. I flipped the lid down before Martha reentered the room. “Thank you for your time.”

“You’re not going to stay? I have another pot of tea brewing.”

My stomach clenched. The first cup was enough. “I have to go, but I’ll come back and visit, if you don’t mind.”

Her eyes sparkled with hope before she blinked it away. “Why visit an old crone like me?”

“Because we have something in common, something no one else on Earth has.” I walked up and gave her a hug before turning toward the door. She smelled like mothballs and lilac perfume, just like a normal grandma from 2012. I soaked it in. “See you next time.”

I turned to leave so she couldn’t see the tears welling in my eyes. The door sensed my presence and opened automatically. I walked into the hallway, smelling oil and burnt circuits again. It was like I’d taken a time machine back to my world and stepped into the future once again. It crushed me to leave.

“Bye, Jennifer.” The sides of her door closed behind me before I realized she had remembered my name.