“Tomorrow, we will be strangers.”
Chapter Two
The light is unnaturally bright, glaring and white on her eyelids. Water laps against sand from outside the window, lulling her. A lazy wind eases in as if it has a lifetime to flow east. She feels sweat seep from her pores, dripping down her back.
A finger, warmer than her skin, runs along her spine, painting images of rivers and hills with her sweat, chasing goosebumps down the landscape of her body.
Aris bolts upright.
“Lucy, turn off alarm,” she says, wiping sleep from her eyes.
The cry of her wake-up call ceases. Jazz music replaces it.
“Thanks, Lucy. That’s a better way to wake up.”
“You are welcome. I am glad. Based on your proclivity tests, there was a fifteen point six percent chance you would not like this music,” Lucy speaks, her bodiless voice emanating from concealed speakers in the apartment.
“Well, I’m eighty-four point four percent liking it this morning.”
“It is 7:02 a.m. on Monday, September twenty-second. You have a meeting at nine o’clock with Thane. After that, you have docent duty at eleven.”
Aris sighs. She despises that part of her job. Not that it matters. It is impermanent, like everything else.
“Coffee?” she asks in a small voice.
“It will be ready for you by the time you get out of the shower. Your bagel is toasting.”
“Lucy, you’re so good to me,” she says and gets up.
“It is my job.”
With “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” on her lips, Aris steps into the shower. She pushes a button, and a stream of water rains down her body, washing the night’s stale air off her skin. The timer ticks. Five minutes. 1,825 minutes per year. 7,300 per cycle. She will have spent five full days showering this cycle. So much time, yet never enough.
The dream lingers. The only thing she remembers is the feeling. Warm skin. A breath at her ear. The echo of a whisper. What did it say? She feels her core heating. The water stops.
She steps out and dries herself off. A glimpse of her reflection in the foggy mirror catches her attention. She wipes her hand across it. She stares at her face and tugs at the skin on her cheeks. She wonders how old she is. Twenty-eight? Thirty? She does not know. No one knows.
“Your coffee is ready,” Lucy says.
“Thank you.”
She follows its rich, nutty aroma. The curtains lift as she passes. Sunlight streams in, brightening the white apartment. In the kitchen, in the same spot it’s always been in, a cup of coffee awaits. Next to it is a plate with a toasted bagel, just as Lucy said it would be. She picks them up and walks to the wall-to-wall window. She places the bagel on the side table she put there for this specific purpose. With both hands on the cup, she takes her first sip of the day. The hot liquid travels down her throat and warms her stomach.
Outside, skyscrapers carpet the terrain as far as the eye can see—an image of silver and glass glinting in the sun. Below, kaleidoscopes of walkways with emerald trees and plants weave all the buildings together, making them look like silver flies caught in a lush spider web. Dots of people cross the pathways like insects from one tree branch to another. Up here, she is an eagle in its aerie, surveying the world. The apartment has been her home this cycle. Then it will be erased from her memory.
Beyond the spikes of skyscrapers, she sees the sky—pale blue with a wispy layer of clouds. Above the tallest building, streams of drones travel in organized lines before breaking off into their respective directions, delivering the weekly supplies to all homes.
She wonders what would be in her shipment. Probably more corn and summer squash. Maybe some lettuces. Whatever is in season. The system gives everyone the same things. It’s the most efficient way. No excess, no waste.
“Lucy, when will it rain today?”
“It is scheduled for two o’clock.”
If Aris wants to be alone in the city, all she has to do is go outside when it rains. Or snows. The usually bustling streets are abandoned like a ghost town. After the sky clears, people slink back from wherever they hid, painting the street with shades of rainbow. The weather is planned with precision. It must be. Water is precious. Regardless of what this place may have been disguised to look like, it cannot escape what it truly is. A desert.
The music changes. The sweet melody of a tinkling piano catches her attention.
“What’s this song?” Aris asks.
“Luce, by Metis.”
Her eyes follow a group of the delivery drones as they fly toward the horizon. They could be heading to Lysithea. Or Europa. Or maybe Elara. All of them miles away, beyond the expanse of the arid, rain-shadow desert. Together with Callisto, where she lives, they are the only populated cities left after the Last War. The drones appear smaller and smaller, until they are only dots.
Sadness trickles down like spring rain, inexplicable and sudden. It happens periodically. She has come to know it like her own shadow. She even has a name for it—“the emptiness.” It lives in the middle of her chest. There’s a shape to it. She feels along its edges, trying to understand what it is she had lost. But it’s a word forgotten before it leaves her lips.
Luce ends.
“Is Metis a living musician?” Aris asks.
Most of her favorites died before the Last War, the rest during. She only learned of them through the Metabank.
“Yes.”
“Tell me about him.” She places the coffee cup on the table, picks up the bagel, and bites.
An image of a man cloaked in partial shadow appears in front of her. Sharp and vivid, as if he were there in person.
“Metis was discovered by the acclaimed AI music aficionado, Salvadore Patronico, at the auditorium of the music school where he worked as a teacher at the beginning of this cycle,” Lucy says. “Metis said he had been
