Tomorrow

by C. K. Kelly Martin

  I duck down beside the doorway so the man won’t see me and hunch, poised to jump him if he comes through the door. Seconds later I hear shouting from the stairs.

  “We have to find him,” a choked voice barks, allowing me to hear the damage I’ve inflicted on his windpipe. “I almost had him. He can’t have gotten far.”

  “He didn’t pass me,” the second voice responds.

  Damn, there are at least two of them after all. Maybe more.

  With no way out, there’s only one thing left for me to take a chance on. The elevator. I scuttle along the hallway towards it and jab at the ‘down’ button. The ordinarily sloth-paced elevator opens for me within three seconds. Like fate, the bald man who grabbed me upstairs hurtles breathlessly into the corridor behind me.

  Leaping onto the elevator, I poke repeatedly at the ‘close’ button. “You only need to push it once you know,” the girl next to me quips. Dawn, in skin-tight white jeans and a red turtleneck. Shit. She must have missed them upstairs by seconds.

  Finally the door responds, sliding shut and leaving the man panting in the hallway. “Listen, Dawn, I’m in trouble here,” I spit out. We’ve both been lucky so far but I can’t put a thirteen-year-old kid at risk, even if it might help me. “You don’t want to be next to me when we reach the ground floor.” I hit ‘two’ for her. “Get off there and stay as long as you can. See if Mr. Deering’s home to let you into his apartment for a while.” Stew Deering, a World War II hero who’s hard of hearing but loves to talk all the same, is like the building’s mascot, the kind of person who would do anyone a favour.

  “What’s going on?” Dawn asks, her face sharpening to an unhappy point. “What do you mean you’re in trouble?”

  “People are after me.” I bite down hard on my lip. “They’re in the building. I need to get out of here, if I can. But right now you need to stay away from me.” The bell chimes as the door opens on the second floor. Dawn stares at the doorway gap as if internally debating what I’ve told her.

  “Do it,” I urge, grabbing her arm and pulling her towards the door.

  “Ouch!” Dawn jumps out, her eyes shooting daggers at me. Her annoyance barely registers. The look’s already fading, morphing into something I don’t expect. Dawn reaches into her pocket, her fingers emerging with a long key hanging from a pink rabbit’s foot chain. “My mom’s Sunbird is parked out front,” she says, tossing the keychain into the elevator with me. “It’s the red one. She’s out cold. She won’t notice it’s missing for a while.”

  I’m speechless. Only when the door begins to close do I reach down for the keys and shout after her, “Thanks!”

  Tonight, the elevator’s usual snail pace feels like the speed of light. I hit the ground floor in no time, dart out of the elevator with my duffle bag still slung over my shoulder, and run full out for the street. Scanning left and right, for the Sunbird and the men who are after me, I careen onto the lawn and then the pavement. Got it. Dawn’s mom is parked behind a Toyota about forty feet to my left.

  I thrust the key roughly into the lock and turn, venturing a glance over my shoulder as I drop into the driver’s seat and start the engine. A thin man in acid wash jeans is spurting after me. He must be the other one from the stairwell and I peel away from the curb so fast that the right side of the car scrapes the Toyota’s bumper. I don’t hazard another look back; I keep my eyes on the road ahead of me, flooring it onto Main Street, where I weave in and out of traffic like a maniac.

  If they catch me, I won’t be able to help Freya. We’ll both have our brains turned inside-out. On the other hand, if I lose the director’s men, how will I find her?

  I don’t know what to do. I need help.

  I hang a right onto Broadway, zigzagging northwest on some kind of autopilot as I try to chase the director’s logic in my head. Would he risk dragging Freya all the way back across the country, to where Canadian operations are based, before performing the procedure? Or could he have it done somewhere closer? And why now? Does it have something to do with the Reagan shooting? The director told Freya that news of future environmental instability and the Toxo plague could destabilize current society. But we were never going to tell anyone about the U.N.A. and its plans. We would have kept quiet forever.

  So many questions. And none of them are bringing me any closer to Freya. Should I head for the airport and hop on a plane to Toronto? Should I stop the car now and let them take me, just for the chance to get close to her?

  I can’t think. Can’t work this out on my own. There’s a guy at work I trust as much as I can trust anyone, aside from Freya. He ran away from his asshole parents in Lethbridge, Alberta when he was sixteen and has been working at Greasy Ryan’s for the last couple of years. But Sheldon Ostil’s only a year and a half older than I am. He wouldn’t know how to deal with this. And he and his girlfriend had a baby girl just a couple of months ago. The last thing I want to do is bring trouble down on him and his family.

  Wait. Suddenly I know who Freya would want me to go to. Dennis and Scott. I’ve only met them a handful of times, but I know where they live. They gave us their old couch when we moved in. Dennis has a bad back and can’t lift anything heavier than a case of soda, so Scott and I hauled the couch out to his van, drove it over here, and then crammed it into the elevator.

  I feel better having a plan of action and I continue in roughly the same direction, heading for Kitsilano while intermittently checking the rear-view mirror for any sign of a tail. Considering I don’t know what kind of car the director’s men are driving, it’s not surprising that I don’t notice anything strange. And then I lose the chance to notice much of anything because the car’s crawling to a halt, the steering wheel turning heavy and unresponsive in my hands, and multiple dashboard warning lights flashing. I fight with the wheel, guiding the car sluggishly towards the curb.

  It won’t move another inch. The Sunbird’s as dead as anything you’d find rusting in a junkyard. Stalled next to a white Honda, I jump out of the Sunbird with my duffle bag and begin jogging towards Dennis and Scott’s place, cursing out loud in frustration. I’m easier to spot on foot, but it’s only about four blocks now and I don’t have a choice.

  I imagine what Freya would say, seeing me pant. Something about lung capacity and cigarettes. It’s not the cigarettes making me breathless, though. It’s the thought of never seeing her again.

  When we arrived in Vancouver last March we were in the weirdest mental state imaginable, wanting to celebrate our survival but still in shock over the things we’d remembered. We rented the first apartment we stumbled on that didn’t require references. It was a hellhole but the price was right and we knew it was just a stepping stone.

  We found Christmas lights on sale at a bargain store and taped them up on the ceiling so the place wouldn’t look as creepy in the dark. We didn’t have a TV then. Just a portable radio with a built-in tape player. At night we’d turn off the lamps and ceiling lights, plug in the Christmas bulbs, and dance in the dark to the radio. Fast or slow songs, it didn’t matter. Art of Noise, Elvis Costello, Madonna, the Ramones, Thin Lizzy, Alison Moyet, Billy Joel, Billy Idol, Billy Ocean, whatever. We danced to anything, including music it was nearly impossible to dance to. And when we were too tired to move but still couldn’t sleep because our minds were running wild, we’d read to each other from a stack of books we’d bought at a second-hand store. It was always the scary stuff we wanted in those early days. Things like Carrie, The Picture of Dorian Gray, and Dracula made us feel more normal, like we weren’t the only two people in the world who’d gone through something crazy.

  Sometimes we read each other to sleep, one of us pushing the paperback at the other to take over when we couldn’t force our own mouths to form words anymore. One time Freya even sang me to sleep with a medley of new wave tunes. The last thing I remembered hearing that night was her voice in my ear crooning, “So many adventures couldn’t happen today. So many songs we forgot to play…”

 
I’d know that voice anywhere. Soft and strong and one-hundred-percent herself. In my head I hear Freya sliding over Alphaville’s imagined synthesizer notes like it did that night and…

  No, I can’t. I need to concentrate on running. If I don’t stop thinking about her I’ll lose power in my legs, just like what happened with the car, and come crashing to the ground.

  I push myself to go faster, my head swivelling on my neck, watching out for anyone taking extra notice of me. The daylight’s fast disappearing and with it I feel Freya drift farther away. Rounding the corner onto Dennis and Scott’s street undetected is a minor victory but I don’t slow down. I hurl myself up their front steps and lean on the doorbell until Scott, sweaty and out of breath in shorts and a sleeveless T-shirt, opens the door for me.

  “Jesus H. Christ, Robbie,” he says, pushing his mop of blond hair off his face. “Where’s the fire?”

  I barge into the house with Scott, throwing my bag on their terracotta tile floor. “They took her,” I croak, my hands on my knees as I lean over to fill my lungs. “Freya’s gone.”

  Seven: 2063

  When Kinnari told me Latham had scored tickets to the freshly announced Hendris concert in Chicago, my mind jumped to Freya. She’d be bouncing off the walls at the thought of seeing her idol. “She’s leaving the music business and becoming a painter,” Kinnari explained “She’s been talking about it for the last two years and now she’s finally doing it. This is going to be her farewell show—one-hundred-percent grounded—and we’re going to be there live in the flesh, can you believe it!”

  I don’t think I’d seen Kinnari that excited since she was six, when Bening and Rosine got permission to buy our beagle, June. You could only qualify for a pet license if you were well-off. There’d been so many animals set loose in the thirties and forties, when people couldn’t afford them any longer, that a massive culling had taken place across the U.N.A. and a stringent new law been passed. We’d had June— who was always wagging her tail and ready to play—for five years before she slipped out of the house one evening while Rosine was walking through the front door with her hands full.

  With her implanted microchip, June should’ve been simple to locate. The SecRos took off behind her only minutes after she’d gone missing. They found the chip on a scrap of lawn near the main road. Someone must’ve carved it out from the skin between June’s shoulder blades and nabbed her to sell on the black market. Kinnari cried every night for a week. I almost cried the night the SecRos told us myself.

  “There’s a ticket for you too,” Kinnari said, grinning at me like her six-year-old self. “Latham has the transit documents and everything.”

  “When’s the show?” I was all set to go. I’d feel better about Kinnari heading out to Chicago if I were with her. It wasn’t like I could protect her from a bomb or virus, but that’s one of those crazy things you think to yourself—that your presence has the power to keep someone safe.

  “Tuesday. Completely last minute. But so many people want to go, the concert’s already sold out.”

  Tuesday the twenty-eighth. The same night I’d promised Seneval I’d meet Minnow at Wyldewood. “This coming Tuesday. Are you sure?”

  “This Tuesday,” Kinnari repeated.

  I leaned one of my shoulders against the wall. “You know Bening and Rosine will never say yes.” If I couldn’t go I didn’t really want Kinnari there, either. She’d be on the Zeph for ages. What if terrorists targeted it again?

  Kinnari rolled her eyes. “I know they won’t. But they don’t need to know about it. And you know as well as I do this concert is exactly the kind of thing they would’ve been into when they were our age.” She pressed her palms together and gave me a pleading look, not unlike the way June used to stare at me when I was eating. “Don’t guilt me, okay? It’s not going to change my mind.”

  “It’s a bad idea. Things are so scary out there lately.”

  “You didn’t think it was a bad idea a minute ago. And things are always scary.”

  Where was the ninety-one-year-old side of my sister when I needed it?

  “Come on, Garren,” she prodded. “I can’t believe you’re not jumping at the chance to do this. It’s Hendris. She’s a legend in her own time. In the future people will feel about her how you feel about Springsteen and David Bowie.”

  I laughed. “She’s not that good.”

  “Yes, she is. You just won’t let yourself see it because you think all the best stuff is in the past.” I only thought that because most of the best stuff was in the past. Besides, Kinnari was nearly as big a fan of old music and movies as I was. My sister charged ahead, not allowing me a chance to object. “And we’re asking Freya too. You’re starting to like her, right? We’ll have a great time, the four of us.”

  “I never disliked Freya.”

  “I know. I only meant that it seemed like you two were starting to connect on my birthday. She’s not how we thought.” We’d never really talked about Freya before but I understood what Kinnari was saying. Our grounded friends and the ideas we were raised with aligned us with a certain point of view, one that didn’t usually think highly of politicians or the corporations that had created the SecRos and DefRos. I’d despised the idea of Luca Kallas without ever having met him.

  “Yeah, I know.” That wistful expression of Freya’s I’d spied during “Heart of Gold” flashed behind my eyes. “And maybe the four of us can hang out some other time, but I can’t go on Tuesday. There’s this thing I have to do.”

  “What thing?” Kinnari demanded.

  “It’s private. I can’t say.”

  “Private.” My sister’s face turned impish. “Anyone I know?”

  I shook my head and glanced at the floor. It was easier just to let her think this was about a girl. “I’m not giving you a name so you can forget it.”

  “I must know her if you’re being so secretive.”

  “Still not telling.” I smirked as I looked Kinnari in the eye. “The important thing is that it’s better if you don’t go to the show. It’s so far away. And a lie like that will come out sometime. You know how you are about telling Bening and Rosine the truth.” Kinnari’s dedication to it was almost compulsive. She’d spilled the news about her and Latham seeing each other within twenty-four hours of the onset of their relationship, despite suspecting our mothers might disapprove because of his reputation. “You’ll crack and tell them.”

  “I won’t crack, Garren. And it’s only five hours on the Zephyr. It’s not like I’m going up to Hudson Bay or something.” In reality a trip to Hudson Bay would probably be safer. Millions of people had moved up over the former Canadian border since the evacuation, but the U.N.A.’s far north was still sparsely populated and therefore attracted less terrorist attacks. “So you just go do your private thing on Tuesday and I’ll do mine, okay?”

  My foot scuffed against the floor. “Fine.” I sighed noisily.

  After that I didn’t waste my breath trying to talk Kinnari out of the Hendris concert. She was going and that was it.

  The next day I found out Freya couldn’t make it out to Chicago for the show, either. She was being punished for fighting with her mother and was only permitted to leave for school, so it would just be Kinnari and Latham heading out East for the concert. Now I wish I’d done things differently—done anything to stop Kinnari from going with him. But at the time I left things alone. Ultimately I thought she had the right to do what she wanted.

  On the morning of August twenty-eighth, Kinnari left early. In 2063 the U.N.A. had school throughout the year, but the summer months were full of optional days students could use to complete their required volunteer hours. With Latham’s connections he’d arranged to make it look like he and Kinnari were doing a twelve-hour stint at the Fairfield social welfare camp that day. I told my sister to be careful and stick close to Latham, and in return she told me she hoped whoever I was spending the evening with was worth missing the concert for.

  When Kinnari sa
id that I pictured Seneval’s dark eyes. So close I could see my own reflection in them. I felt a dull ache under my ribs.

  “She’s worth it,” I said.

  At school later I was distracted, and my friend Mara kept poking me to get my attention. Mara was always physical when we were near each other in public but the few times we’d gotten close in private had seemed strained. It’d been simpler to put the other side of our relationship aside and just stay friends. “What is with you today?” she asked, leaning into me in the school hallway between classes. “You’re like someone in gushi withdrawal.”

  The generation before us was full of gushi burnouts. It was the reason the government had caved to the grounded movement and reintroduced the old school system. So many of the kids educated solely on gushi had breakdowns, even the politicians had to admit gushi use needed to be restricted. It was part of the reason they made the Cursed work.

  “I’m just bored,” I lied. “It seems pointless to be here when we’re so close to starting at college.” I was due in New York in only a week.

  “I’m going to miss you,” she said. “It’ll be strange to be in Billings without you.” Mara was going to Montana State University to become a teacher. She wasn’t excited about it but it was the best of her three career options.

  “We’ll still talk,” I assured her. On gushi. No one could avoid it completely and expect to function in 2063. The trick was not to let it swallow you. But my thoughts had already started to drift back to Seneval and my meeting with Isaac.

  I was so wound up about what he’d tell me that I had my trans take me to Wyldewood straight from school and was hours early for my meeting with Isaac. I let a guy twice my age show me patio furniture and twenty different pairs of shoes. Then I went and sat on the beach in the swimsuit I’d just bought, one the personal shopper had assured me utilized the latest technology.