CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Hope

“You sure you’ll be okay, Jennifer?” Len touched the back of my hand as I lay curled in a ball on the couch. She slung her miniscreen bag across her pressed navy tunic, looking like the perfect futuristic businesswoman.

Wrapped up in a formless robe, I felt like such a slouch. “Yeah, I just need some time to myself. To sort things out.”

“Take all the time you need. I’ve let Principal Hall know you’ll be out for a while.”

“Thanks, Len.” She and Valex had been very understanding when I told them about the final video. I made sure not to mention anything about the album, so they thought I had just turned it on to be close to my family for my birthday.

Len touched her bag. “Buzz my miniscreen if you need me.”

I nodded.

Len hugged Pell and slipped out the front door. Valex had already left, and C-7 buzzed in the kitchen, cleaning.

Pell ran over and kissed my cheek, “Feel better soon.”

“Thanks, kiddo. Sorry you have to ride the bus alone.”

“It’s okay. I’m a big girl now.” Ever since her birthday party, Len and Valex had been feeding her that phrase to get her to do “big girl” things. I was surprised it worked.

“You are.” I tousled her hair. “Kick some cyber butt in school today.”

“I always get straight A’s.” Pell grabbed her lunch container and scampered out of the apartment, leaving me with C-7. A while back, I would have been afraid to be alone with him, but now I was glad for his company, even if he was a robot.

Minutes after everyone left, C-7’s metal feet clicked on the linoleum. The steps grew silent as he reached the carpeted living room. I glanced up. He still wore his apron from cleaning the dishes, and a towel dangled from his silver fingers.

I straightened up, thinking he needed me to get up to wipe down the couch, but he didn’t move. “Something wrong?”

“Jennifer, your miniscreen is beeping with a message.”

I blinked, wondering how he had access to my incoming mail. Was he all-knowing like HAL from 2001? Maybe he’d just cleaned my room and saw it blinking.

“I’ll check it later. I don’t want to get up.” It was probably Maxim worrying about me, or Principal Hall sending his condolences. Right now I didn’t want to deal with either of them.

He titled his oblong head and his eye seemed to wink in the glint of fluorescent light. “This message might cheer you up.”

“Oh, all right.” I pulled myself up, my muscles creaking. Collecting the tail of my robe in my arms, I dragged my feet to my room.

I squashed down hope as I flipped open the lid. Who could it possibly be to cheer me up? My parents and Timmy were gone, and Maxim was still with Exara. Nothing could change the absolutes in my life.

Jax’s face flashed on, eagerness etched in his boyishly round features. I started to shake all over. This could only mean one thing.

“Congratulations, Jennifer. You’ve made the team.” A smile worked its way onto his lips before he put on a serious face. “It will be you, me, Yara, and two others whom you haven’t met. We leave this Friday, November twenty-sixth, at precisely eight-thirty-five PM. A hovercraft will pick you up at eleven-twenty-one AM so you can start the initiation process. Pack only what you can carry on your back. A lawyer will be available to carry out any last wishes on your behalf. Of course, secrecy is needed for this mission to take off as planned. No one can know about your impending departure.

Buzz this number if you have any questions or if you change your mind.”

The message flickered out, leaving me stunned.

Me? Chosen for an intergalactic space mission to Paradise 15? Deep down I’d known this could happen, but the reality of it struck me like a lightning bolt and I couldn’t move.

Did I want to go? I had felt complete wholeness when I touched that horse. The yearning to ride surged up inside me. This futuristic high-rise world suffocated me. If I stayed, I’d end up like Martha. In my heart of hearts I knew the answer. Yes.

Was it the best path? Valex and Len had their own lives, and soon Pell would grow up and find a job and spouse. If I stayed, I could visit with them from time to time, but I couldn’t build my life around theirs. I couldn’t live my life for them.

What about Maxim? My heart shuddered as I thought of leaving him behind. Living a life of stolen kisses and secret conversations wasn’t enough for me. If I bought his family’s high-rise, I’d feel I was buying his love. The last thing I wanted was for Maxim to feel chained to me like he did Exara. Knowing him, he wouldn’t take my money anyway.

I brought up the calendar on my miniscreen and double-checked the date—Monday, November 22. The mission left on Friday. Four days to prepare. Four days to change my mind.

I slipped on a long-sleeved tunic sweater and velcroed up my thigh-high boots. The air had winter’s chilly edge to it, but I wouldn’t be around for Christmas.

“Where are you going, Jennifer?” C-7 met me as I tried to slip out the door. I had a few hours at most before Pell got home.

I clutched my backpack with shaking hands and stared him down, daring him to stop me. “I have to visit someone.”

C-7 moved toward me and my heart sped up. Would he physically hold me back? He raised his arm and I shrank back against the wall. This was it. My life would end with a murderous robot crushing my skull.

He placed a gentle hand on my shoulder, and shame for my prejudices tingled in my face. “Make sure you’re back before two forty-five.”

I stared into his unchanging, twilight eyes. “Why are you helping me?”

His head tilted and gears buzzed underneath a panel in his neck. “Because you need it.”

“But, I mean, you could get into a lot of trouble. You told me before you could have your memory erased. Why risk so much?”

There was a dent in his arm, a chink in his robotic armor. What had caused it? Was it like a scar? All of a sudden he looked more vulnerable.

C-7’s voice spoke softly, with a slight change in intonation. “I know what it is like to be misunderstood.”

All those times Pell yelled at him and called him bothead came to mind. All C-7 did was help, and Valex and Len took him for granted while their daughter hated him. I was the only one who ever noticed him, who ever talked to him like a person. In a way, I was his only friend.

“Thanks. You’re a big help.” Without him, I wouldn’t have found Martha in the first place, or been introduced to the Timesurfers.

C-7 turned away, dusting a cranny in the wall. “You should go.”

I checked the time on the wallscreen. “You’re right. I have a few hours at most.”

As I turned to leave, C-7’s voice held me still. “Life is a gamble, but nothing worth having is not without some form of risk.”

Only when I got on the hoverbus did I realize he wasn’t talking about going out today. He was talking about going on the mission.

C-7 knew.

“Come back for more, tea, eh?” Martha winked as I stepped into her apartment.

“Um…sure.” I couldn’t tell her why I was there. Jax had clearly instructed me not to tell anyone about the mission. Still, I couldn’t leave without saying good-bye in some way.

Jumbo pounced on the floor in front of me and hissed.

“Yeah, it’s good to see you, too.”

“Don’t mind him.” Martha puttered around in the kitchen. Porcelain cups rattled. “The old geezer has indigestion problems that are making him snippy.”

I swallowed hard. “Is he going to be okay?” There was a bald spot on his back I hadn’t noticed before.

“He’s sixteen years old. That’s eighty in people years.”

The thought of Martha’s cat dying and leaving her alone made me sick. I wished I could take her with me. “I joined the Timesurfers,

Martha.”

Her eyes gleamed as she brought in two cups of steaming tea. “I knew you would. Did they show you their underground base?”

“Oh, yeah.” I thought back to the animals as I took my cup and balanced it on my legs. “I got to touch a real horse.”

“Miraculous, isn’t it?” Martha settled beside me on the couch.

I swirled the tea around with a tiny spoon. “And their plans for the future…”

She nodded, her wispy purple-gray hair like a cloud on her head. “Scouting for planets to start over. Just the thought fills an old lady like me with hope.”

“I’m sure they’d enjoy your visit.”

“Nah… I’m too old to help with anything, I’d just be a burden. Besides, I couldn’t leave Jumbo alone. He’d tear up my antique couch with separation anxiety.”

I ran my fingers over an elaborate snowflake-patterned doily on the armrest. “Can’t have that.”

“No. You go. Find out all you can. Help them bring back animals so Jumbo can have a friend.”

It was an empty hope, like talking to someone with a life sentence about the vacation they’d take to Hawaii if they could. The time it would take to travel to Paradise 15, inhabit it, set up laboratories, and birth new species was way beyond Jumbo’s almost-spent lifetime. Still, I played along. “He’d probably claw their eyes out.”

Martha laughed and her tea rippled in the cup. “Only until he got to know them.”

We sat in silence for a few minutes, Jumbo rubbing against the wall. I ran my finger over the golden rim of my teacup, feeling a chip in the porcelain under my skin. “Thank you for telling me about the Timesurfers. I know it could have put you in danger…”

“Nonsense. You’re a special girl, Jennifer. I knew from the moment you walked in here you were destined for greatness.”

“I don’t know about that. More like destined for clumsiness.”

We laughed together, her sipping her tea and me lifting the cup up to my lips and pretending. She’d changed from a miserly skeptic to a sweet old lady in the short time I had known her, and I wondered how much of that change was because of me. I might have been over-crediting myself, but still I didn’t want her thinking I abandoned her. “I’m not going to be able to visit you anymore. I can’t say why, but I want you to know it’s not because I don’t want to.”

Martha sighed and her frail shoulders slumped forward. “I had an inkling. There’s an eagerness in your eyes, like a child at Christmastime.”

If only I could tell her about my upcoming adventure. I didn’t want to endanger her with information people would kill for. It wasn’t like Martha would tell anyone except for Jumbo, but who knew what devices they had these days for listening in on conversations?

I checked the time on my miniscreen. Pell would be home in less than an hour. I took a long gulp of bitter tea and stood up. “I’m sorry. I have to go.”

Martha placed her cup on the armrest and struggled to get up. “Oh, these old bones…” She walked over and gave me a hug. I held onto her, missing my grandmother.

She pulled away and wiped at a stain on the couch that must have been there for the last forty years. “Maybe my second chance wasn’t for nothing. Maybe I was supposed to be here to tell you about the Timesurfers so you could go on and do the work I wanted to do.”

The urge to tell her welled up inside me, and I tightened my lips and wiped my eyes. “I’ll certainly try.”

I looked back one more time.

Martha winked, a sparkle in her eyes. “Have a safe trip.”