“Sorry, cariño. Are you working on your PhD?”
“Kind of.” Her heart is still leaping as she chuckles in delight. “You cannot imagine what I’ve found!”
Enrique sits on the bench next to Ximena, across the glass panels of their home’s cozy winter-garden. “Tell me. But be quick.”
“It’s the new access to the Lundev archives. It’s… Whoa! I can access all their historical documents, Abuelo. Everything! So easy to do research with this wealth of material. So… It’s almost cheating!” She cannot repress a giggle of joy. “I will complete my PhD in half your time. Mark my words!”
Enrique smiles cynically. “Don’t get your hopes up. I bet the Townsend University staff has no clue that their Global Program students have this sort of unrestricted access. Wait ’til they find out.”
“Why would they care? This is an opportunity for everybody at the university! Wait ’til I show them.”
Enrique scoffs and looks at the visor-glasses. “What were you watching?”
“Atahualpa and Pizarro in Cajamarca. Amazing! I found this sensorial dramatization by Professor Miyagi.”
“Kenji Miyagi?” Enrique raises his eyebrows. “The Miyagi?”
Ximena nods. “Unpublished, purely academic. Spectacular, too. But it looks a bit, uh…”
“Yes?”
“I don’t know.” Ximena wets her lips. It’s hard to find the right word. “Hmm, imaginative?”
“Imaginative, huh? A strange way to describe the work of the greatest historian alive.”
“I know,” she admits with a shrug. “But it looked more like a fantasy than history. It glorified the barbarians. They seemed more civilized than the conquerors. Can you believe it?”
Enrique nods sadly at her. “Reminds me of some old papers an old lady brought to me when we moved to Entre Lagos. We were the first historian family ever in the colony. I had little time to study them before they were taken out of my reach.” His eyes glide along the pines on the garden outside the glass panels. “Fantastic they were.” He nods slowly to himself.
“Here, look.” Ximena passes her visor-glasses to him, but he catches her hand.
“No, Ximena. That’s all very nice, but there’s no time. It’s almost five.”
“What?!” A surge of adrenaline makes her stand. “Oh, Goah. I lost track of time!”
“Go. You can’t be late to enrollment. This is your one moment, cariño. The Global Program and the collaboration with the most prestigious university in the worlds—and Kenji Miyagi, no less!—is the opportunity of a lifetime.” His eyes sparkle with pride. “You are our legacy, mi vida. You’ll make the finest historian our family—no, the whole Andean Imperia!—has ever seen.”
Ximena is about to run, but hesitates. “Abuelo, you are the finest historian—”
“Don’t.” Enrique shakes his head, and gently pushes her into motion. “You are just twenty-seven, Goah’s Mercy. You still don’t know how much you don’t know. I hope you learn that from Miyagi, and then more that you can teach me. Now quick, run before your future shuts.”
Ximena leaps away and into the living room. As she runs across the open space, she doesn’t have time to wonder where everyone is. At this time of the early afternoon, at least one of her parents, or possibly her brother and Ramiro his lover, would be hanging around, lying on the sofa, sensonet visors on their heads, watching the world, listening to music, gaming with strangers—usual life. But there is a tension in the air, subliminal, that melts with her haste and leverages her already considerable anxiety.
Ximena’s eyes flinch over to the digital hour on the glass window as she exits the living room.
16:57.
Oh Goah, oh Goah, oh Goah! Three minutes. Three minutes to make it to the new auditorium recently created for the Global Program. Three minutes to meet the world-famous Professor Kenji Miyagi. That is, if she makes it in time. Oh Goah, she won’t make it!
She reaches the staircase and runs up in leaps of two, a sweat breaking on her forehead. Why did I get distracted like that, Goah’s Mercy? It’s always been her problem, losing herself in her obsessions. She shudders at the thought of missing the chance of a lifetime. If Abuelo had not come for her… The Global Program could really pull her historian career out of the imperial level where her family has always lingered and onto the international stage. She has the unique chance to put the name of the Epullan family on the lips of Academia worldwide. She can’t afford to arrive late!
Ximena trips on the last step and falls flat on the upper hallway.
Goahdammit!
She stands, ignoring the pain, and runs. Her room is at the end of the corridor. Her door, which she painted pink when she was a little girl, is half open. She pushes it and throws herself in.
Her family, bar Abuelo, is there, staring at her with love and hope. Abuela, Mamá, Papá, and her stupid brother Antonio. Well, he is not that stupid, he’s actually okay. They are all standing around her wu-sarc. Expectant.
“What—?!” Ximena cannot finish her question before Mamá embraces her fiercely.
“We are so proud of you,” she says, tears in her eyes. She resembles both Abuelo and Antonio, with her tall, sharp Hansasian features.
“But hurry, cariño,” Papá says. He and Abuela on the other hand are—like Ximena—pure pre-Columbian indigenous beauty in different shades of wrinkling. Papá raises his finger at the clock on the wu-sarc’s side table.
16:58.
No time! “Damn!” Ximena escapes her mother’s arms. “Sorry, Mamá, I really need to—”
“We’re leaving you alone,” Papá says hastily, beginning to push the rest of the family out of the bedroom. “Just tell us one thing.”
“Papá, please.” She feels a surge of impatience turning into rage which she immediately suppresses. It’s just her family being her family. “What is it?”
“Sorry, but we need to… uh, how long will you be asleep?”
“Hmm.” Ximena stares at the clock, eyes wide with stress, so it’s hard to focus. “It’s a long-format seminar, several uninterrupted dream-days long, but for those awake, just ten hours, so, uh, until about three a.m.? You’ll be sleeping.”
“No,” Papá says. “I’ll be awake.” He looks at the others as they leave the
