“Nice shot,” I gasped.
Her eyes were wide. “Was that bad?” she asked with a shaky voice. “Should I have left these stun guns back on Second Earth?”
“Bad?” I exclaimed, gulping air. “If you had, I wouldn’t have a neck right now.”
“Right,” she gasped. “Did I kill it?”
“I wish,” I said, nudging it with my toe. The monster didn’t budge. “This is good news.”
“How’s that?” she asked, incredulous.
“If there are quigs here, it means Saint Dane is here. We’re in the right place. This territory is hot.” “Should I be happy or scared?” “Both,” I answered.
Courtney looked at my arm and winced. She gently took my hand to get a closer look at the wound. There was a four-inch gash that ran across the top of my forearm. It wasn’t deep, but it was bleeding. It hurt, too.
“I’ll tie my T-shirt around it until Patrick can get me to a doctor,” I said.
Courtney helped me pull off my T-shirt, which wasn’t easy since I couldn’t use my left arm. She ripped off a strip and tied it around my wound. Satisfied that the bleeding was stopped, she looked at me with a sly smile. “Dude, working out much?”
I was suddenly embarrassed that I didn’t have a shirt on.
“Hey,” I said, trying to sound flip. “You go through training like Loor put me through and you’d look like this too.”
“Uhh, not exactly,” Courtney said with a playful wink.
I was feeling all sorts of awkward so I ducked the subject. “Let’s get changed.”
The first task when arriving on a territory was to change into the proper clothing. There was a pile of clothes at the side of the flume, waiting for us. One of the great things about Third Earth was that the clothes weren’t much different from Second Earth. Except for the shoes. I picked out a pair of straight, dark green pants and a white, long-sleeved
T-shirt that could have come right from Old Navy. Courtney chose a white pair of pants and a navy blue shirt. We turned our backs for modesty and got changed.
I kept on my boxers, as usual.
My clothes fit perfectly. Courtney’s didn’t. The shirt was a size too big and the pants were too short. I have no idea why the clothes at the flumes always fit me. Maybe because I am a Traveler. I’m not sure what difference that should make, but I can’t think of any other explanation.
“I look like a dweeb,” Courtney announced with a frown.
She did, but I wasn’t going to agree with her. No way. “You look great!” I meant it too. It didn’t matter that her clothes looked like they belonged to somebody else, Courtney was stunning. A stunning dweeb.
The shoes looked like big doughnuts. I picked out a black pair and stuck them on my feet. Instantly they formed themselves around each foot into a perfect, comfortable, sneakerlike fit. Courtney did the same with a white pair.
“Okay, freaky,” she said, though she wasn’t complaining, because unlike her clothes, her shoes fit.
I went back to the pile of clothes, dug through and quickly found what I was looking for. It was a small, silver panel about the size of a baseball card.
“It’s a communicator,” I explained to Courtney “It’s how Gunny alerted Patrick the first time I came here.”
The one Gunny used had a button on it. This didn’t. It looked much sleeker, with a silver touch pad. I wondered if it was another example of how things had changed on the Earth territories. Either way, I hoped it did what it was supposed to. I touched the button. It gave off a quick hum.
“Is that it?” Courtney asked.
“I don’t know,” I answered truthfully. “I hope so. Let’s get out of here.”
The route was familiar to me. I led Courtney to the far wall and a wooden door that might have been three thousand years old. I knew this ancient piece of woodwork gave no hint to the modern wonders that lay beyond. I pulled the door open and bright light filled the cavern. With a quick “after you” gesture to Courtney, we stepped outside into the gleaming white subway tunnel of Third Earth. The door closed behind us with a soft click. The only sign that it was there was the star symbol that marked it as a gate to the flume. The subway tunnel was exactly as I remembered it. It was incredibly clean, with shiny white tile walls and two silver monorail tracks about ten feet apart. So far, nothing was different about Third Earth except for the slight change in the communicator. And the quig that nearly ate my Adam’s apple.
“This way before a train comes,” I said, and jogged toward the subway station. “This is the exact same station that was abandoned on Second Earth. But with a few changes.”
“I remember what you wrote,” Courtney assured me.
We quickly found ourselves at the modern subway station of Third Earth. Courtney climbed up to the platform first and then helped me because of my injured arm. It was all pretty much the same as I remembered it. The station was busy with people, but not crowded. We were able to sneak onto the platform without drawing attention. Courtney immediately ran across the platform. I knew exactly what she wanted to see.
On the far side, opposite the tracks, was a railing. Below that railing was a vast, multitiered underground mall that stretched fifty stories beneath us. Some levels were full of shops and offices. Other levels had apartments. All were busy with people, either hurrying about or riding two-wheeled vehicles that sped them silently on their way. Far down below was an indoor lake where people paddled boats and swam. It was a city built entirely underground. This is what Earth had become. Overcrowding and overpopulation had forced cities to expand underground. It was actually a good thing. The surface of the planet was allowed to heal. Pollution was a thing of the past. People learned to respect our natural resources, while utilizing the planet as best they could.
Courtney looked down at this impossible city of the future. I watched her silently as she saw the words in my journal come to life.
“It’s just awesome,” she gasped.
I scanned the station, trying to collect my thoughts. It looked as if everything had progressed the way it was supposed to. Things didn’t look any different from when I had been there before. It was a total relief…
Until something odd caught my eye. It wasn’t obvious at first, but after taking it all in for a few minutes, I noticed something that at first seemed impossible. I looked more closely, thinking I had to be wrong. What I saw made no sense. Besides the various passengers in the station, there were dozens of people who worked there. A guy sold newspapers. Another guy sold snacks. There was a subway conductor waiting for the next train and a transit cop walking his beat. A quick look down to the first few levels of the mall below showed me people working in stores, cleaning floors, and polishing shiny railings. There were mail carriers, ticket takers, window cleaners, and a hundred other people doing the various jobs it took to run a subway station and all the retail stores of the elaborate complex.
“What’s the matter?” Courtney asked, sensing my tension.
“Look at the workers.”
Courtney scanned the subway platform. At first it didn’t click for her. Then I saw her react. She gave me a quick, nervous glance, and frowned.
“Am I crazy?” I asked.
“If you are, I am too,” she answered. “Everybody looks exactly alike. I mean exactly! Was it like that when you were here before?”
“No, which means I know how it can be. You do too.” Courtney nodded and said the word I didn’t want to say myself. “Dados.”
“Yeah,” I replied. “Third Earth has dados now. Lots of
‘em.”.
“Which means the future isn’t what it used to be,” Courtney said softly.
“Let’s find Patrick.” I gently took Courtney’s arm and led her to the up escalator. We needed to see the rest of Third Earth.
The new Third Earth.
(CONTINUED)
