Lisa's Way

by Robert Collins

  “Why?”

  “Can we talk about that later?”

  “I suppose so.”

  Lisa’s looked around. “Where’s Leslie?”

  “I sent her and her friends back while you were in there.”

  “Oh.” Lisa suddenly noticed that there were only four mounted men left.

  “Where’s your horse?”

  “Oh, a little ways away.” She smiled. “I’m not dumb enough to ride into the middle of a fight.”

  “That’s a relief.” He turned to a rider. “Sam, come with me. You others, wait for us to get back, and we’ll all leave together. Keep your eyes open. Those boys might not be the only ones hiding in these ruins.”

  Lisa led her father and the other man to where she’d left her horse. He was where she’d left him, calmly chewing on grass from a now-wild lawn. She mounted the horse, got between her father and the other man, and they rode back to the battle scene. The six then began the journey home.

  She saw the building the outlaw described, just where he said it was. It was a white-gray block about one story high. It appeared wide enough to store five or six wagons. There were no doors or windows on the street side. Glances at the sides didn’t reveal any openings, either. It reminded Lisa of one of the old storage boxes in the attic of the community building, only much bigger.

  I’m going to open that box soon, and see if it has anything for me.

  CHAPTER 3

  The rest of the day and the following night had to pass before Lisa could get a few moments to talk to her father. She wanted to discuss her desire to investigate the portal in Centropolis. First, though, was the punishment of the outlaws; a vote among the townspeople had to be taken. There was Leslie’s punishment, stiff grounding, and Lisa didn’t want to talk with her sister close by. By then it was too late to discuss anything. Fortunately, the morning had little work for her father, and he ordered Leslie to do Lisa’s chores as well her own.

  Part-way through breakfast her father said, “I don’t think you should go riding off into danger on your own, Lisa.”

  “You’re mad at me?”

  “No, but you could have talked to me before riding off.”

  “I didn’t think there was time.”

  “You were that concerned about Leslie?”

  Lisa paused for a second. “Yeah, I was.” She nodded. “She is my sister.”

  He nodded. “I’m glad to hear you say that. I can’t quite say that I approve of what you did yesterday, but as long as you were concerned, and you don’t have any regrets about how you handled yourself, then I’m satisfied.”

  Satisfied, she thought, not proud. Still, I’m not the one being punished.

  “You also spent lots of time in the library yesterday. Any particular reason?”

  Lisa had wanted to wait until after breakfast to talk to her father about the portal and her future. She decided that, since he wasn’t angry with her, she might as well broach the subject.

  “Leslie said something to me. It got me thinking.”

  “Really?” He mocked surprise. “Must have been quite the revelation.”

  She let out a brief laugh. “Actually, it wasn’t, but it did stick.”

  She put down her fork and stopped eating. “She was trying to get me to go with her. I said that I thought life was more than just... boys. I told her I wanted something more, something better.”

  Her father stopped eating. “Like what, Lisa?”

  “Father, you know that before the Rain, women had the same sorts of jobs that men had.”

  “I suppose. They say life was easier back then. But those days, and those jobs, are long since gone.”

  “I know. I was wondering, are those days gone forever?”

  He sighed. “I know that life is hard, and I know how restless you get when you turn seventeen. School’s out, and boys and girls look at each other differently...”

  “It’s not just that. I mean, what am I supposed to do with my life? You didn’t raise us on a farm. I could teach, but when? Mrs. Ross still has kids in school, she isn’t that old. The only trade is in crops, vegetables, stuff like that. It’s not like we’re hip deep in raiders and need every armed warm body.

  “You taught me to read, to think for myself. Well, I’ve thought about it. I can’t see any path that lets me use what I know, what I’ve read, what you’ve taught me.”

  “Very well, Lisa. What do you want to do with your life?”

  She sucked in a breath. “I want to see if the portal will work. I want to go to another world, and see if I can make a life, make a difference, somewhere else.”

  Surprisingly, he let out a small laugh. “Folks would be really upset if you got that portal working.”

  She nodded. “I know. It’s a huge risk. But what else can I do?”

  He let out a long sigh. His gaze grew distant. “You sound so much like your mother when she was seventeen. You know, just before she passed, she made me swear to make you the smartest girl around.” He looked into Lisa’s eyes. “I wonder, if she and Laura had lived, what she would say, right now.”

  “So would I.” Wherever she is, I hope she’s proud of me. I hope she stays proud of me. I wish I could have known her.

  “Do you know where the portal is?”

  “I think so. That one outlaw, the last one? I told him that if he’d tell me, I’d speak up for him.”

  “Do you believe him?”

  “Yeah. Did you see that one building we passed heading out of Centropolis? The one with no doors or windows?”

  “I think so.” He sat up a bit straighter. “Oh, yes. That would make sense.” He frowned. “What if there’s a trap, like the old stories say?”

  “I don’t know.” She took a moment to think. An idea came to her. “All shut up like that, it’s gonna take a strong man with a pick to hack through it. Suppose we make a deal with that outlaw. He makes an opening for me, he gets to go free. If there is a trap, it gets him first.”

  “Slightly cruel, Lisa. But better him than you.” He paused for a moment, then nodded. “I’ll see to the arrangement.”

  “Thank you.” She glanced down, then looked into his eyes. “Father, I didn’t think you’d go along with me. I was sure you’d fight me. I had this whole argument lined up.”

  “And you’re disappointed?”

  “Curious.”

  “I see.” He edged his chair closer to hers. He took his hands into hers, and held them tight. “Lisa, there’s something about your mother and me that I never told you. I never thought I’d have to. I suppose now I do. You know that I’ve never talked about her family? That you’ve never met her parents and siblings?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, there’s a reason why you’ve never met them. You see, when we were your age, we fell rather deeply in love.”

  “I know.”

  “What I never told you was, your mother’s parents wanted her to marry a local boy and stay in Grainfield. They all but demanded she marry him. She loved me. More than that, she hated him. He was some farm kid who could barely read. She thought that he spied on her a few times. She said that he once said that no wife of his was going to waste time reading books. I don’t know if that was true, but I wouldn’t doubt it.

  “So when I asked her to marry me, she said yes. Her parents said no. They argued fiercely. Even after I left, they were still yelling. The next day, while my father and I were heading back here, she met up with us on the road. She was carrying this little sack with a few of her things. She told my father that she did want to marry me, that she wouldn’t go home, and that was that. My father wasn’t terribly pleased, but he cared about both of us too much.

  “From then on, she never saw or sent word to her family. She even forced us to stop taking trade trips up to Grainfield. Not that the folks there would probably deal with the Herberts, but still. She didn’t tell them about Leslie, or about you. And they weren’t there when the end came.” He sighed.

  “Lisa, that
fight hurt your mother. Her folks weren’t bad, but they just didn’t think about what she wanted. She knew they weren’t bad, but she could never come out and say it.

  “So, if you really believe that you have to restart that portal and go to another world to make your life, then I’ll stand behind you. I don’t quite agree with you, but I don’t want what happened to your mother to happen to you.” He clasped her hands tightly. “I don’t want you to ever doubt that I love you. We have to be a family, no matter what.”

  Lisa got up, pulled herself close to him, and kissed his cheek. “Thank you, Father.”

  “Sure.” He let go of her hands. He took a moment to calm himself. “Now, finish eating. There are a few things you’re going to need before you leave, and I have to let you have them.”

  “You?”

  “Yes. They’re things only the Mayor has.”

  ***

  The first thing Lisa’s father handed over was one of the precious notebooks and a pencil. They were kept locked up in the library. It was something that the leaders of the town at the time of the Rain had done. Those men and women knew that it would be impossible to obtain paper and pencils once the portal closed. There might still be a use for the items; their hope had been that the use would be to record history. So far, only one of each had been let go, for that very purpose.

  Lisa had thought that she’d want them to travel Fairfield and record history outside of Mountain View. As she changed her plans for her future, her need remained. Now, though, she wanted to write down information to take with her, such as solutions to problems and ways to build things. By writing down what she knew and could find out, she wouldn’t have to take one or more of the precious books out of the library.

  The other gift from her father was locked up in the community building. Telling her not to show it to anyone else, he gave her the town’s copy of the Fairfield portal manual. He knew that three other copies still existed, so giving their copy to Lisa wasn’t dangerous. More than that, he wanted Lisa to figure out how the portal worked. He told her that if she had that knowledge, and no one else did, perhaps people would rest easy.

  “Maybe the problem way back when was that too many people could use the portal,” he said. “Or maybe too many people controlled them.”

  “Yeah, maybe.” Lisa didn’t want to admit that neither idea had occurred to her. “Thank you for trusting me with this,” she said. She covered the manual with her new notebook. “I’ll do my best to protect you. To protect everyone.”

  He smiled. “I know you will. I wouldn’t give it to you if I didn’t trust you completely.”

  Lisa felt her eyes tearing. She struggled not to speak. She didn’t want to cry. At least, not at that moment.

  ***

  Lisa spent the rest of that day and all of the next taking notes. She wrote down theories on farm irrigation and theories on resolving disputes. She copied plans for windmills and plans for latrines. She also made sure to have as much history in her notebook as she could write in two days. When she was done, the notebook was two-fifths full.

  The morning of the third day would be her last on Fairfield, if everything went well. Her father prepared and packed some road food. She ate a large breakfast. She said goodbye to Leslie quietly but firmly, so as not to let her sister know the truth; she feared Leslie’s chatty nature. She bid her father a more emotional farewell. She picked up the outlaw who had told her of the portal’s location, and led him back to Centropolis.

  She took a pick from her pack horse and gave it to him. She pointed to the building without openings with her loaded crossbow. “Make a hole that I can take my horse through, and you’ll be free to go.”

  The man looked at the building. “That’s gonna take a lotta work.”

  “Then you better get to it, or maybe one of your friends might want this opportunity for freedom.”

  The man didn’t need any more time to consider his options. He put his back and arms into the effort. Slowly but surely, as the sun rose in the sky, an opening was cut into street side. The more time passed, the more the opening grew. Lisa decided that watching the man work would be like watching wheat come up to make it ripen. She sat down several strides away, and began reading the portal manual.

  The manual wasn’t written in the clear, concise style she’d grown accustomed to. The language wasn’t always precise, the style was stiff, and there were plenty of words that didn’t make sense or seem appropriate. She had to read some passages two or three times to understand what the book stated. In time, she became able decipher the manual’s code of obscurity.

  When she’d first thought about going through the portal, Lisa had wondered if it still worked. The manual said that it would. The portal could be shut down for an indefinite period of time and turned back on. As long as its underground power source lasted, the portal would work. Barring explosion, earthquake, or some similar violent event, the portal’s power would continue powering for at least two centuries. It did warn that any such occurrence would devastate the area for miles around. That, she understood, was why the portal was still there.

  Lisa had also wondered if, when she turned on the portal, someone might come through. The manual wasn’t clear on that point. On the one hand, turning on a portal gave a traveler access to the other portals the first was connected to. Furthermore, only the first portal needed to be powered up. Once the connection was made between it and a second portal, travel could begin. On the other hand, you couldn’t return unless the second portal was also powered up. So, unless the portal on Fairfield connected to a portal that was already powered, no one would come through.

  And if that’s so, then why aren’t they here?

  Lisa also learned that the Fairfield portal would only be connected to a few others on something called a “portal track.” This track kept a portal from being connected to all the portals in existence. Something about that bothered Lisa. She wondered why portals should be connected to only certain ones, why a person couldn’t go where they wanted.

  She set those questions aside, and hacked through the last pages of the manual. It was on those final pages that she came across the most astounding piece of information. It was contained in two paragraphs under the heading “Optional Security Features.”

  There is a security application program built into the portal’s hard drive, the text said. Upon primary activation, or any activation after a period of down-time greater than ten days, the operating system will ask if the security application should be authorized. Once authorized, the application will not allow the portal’s main operations systems to be initiated without entering a password. The application will ask for such a password to be entered into application memory when first initiated. Afterward, only a dialog box with ’Enter Password’ will appear during any portal operation or procedure.

  Hyper-Transportation Industries (the group that apparently built all the portals) cautions against use of this application. It may prove cumbersome to the smooth operation of the portal in question, and to the overall portal transit system. Furthermore, if the security password is not shared, free access to the portal will be jeopardized. It is the recommendation of HTI that this application not be activated unless a planetary emergency requiring some form of quarantine arises. Since such contingencies are possible, HTI does not advise deletion of this application, and will void any agreements with the purchasing organization or entity if the application is found to have been deleted.

  “My God.”

  “What?”

  Lisa glanced up. The man had stopped. “What are you doing?”

  “Didn’t you say something?”

  She had to think for a second. “Uh, no.” She looked at the hole. She could walk though it, but her horse would have trouble. “Get back to work. Make it wider, and a little taller.”

  She was still amazed. There it is, a way to have shut down the Rain before it got out of control. Buried in the back of this barely readable text. I’ll just bet that no one
bothered to remember this was sitting there.

  The Rain started, what, almost a generation after most of the worlds were settled? I’ll bet most of the leaders forgot they had this manual. No wonder they didn’t think of this security thing; they wouldn’t have even known to look for it.

  That might mean that there aren’t too many of these manuals left. I might have the power to keep all that from happening again, right here in my hands.

  Well, first I gotta figure out how to work this one. Then I can start assuming great powers.

  With her visions safely reigned in, Lisa finished the manual. She returned to points that had confused her, and worked to understand them as best as she could. She began to wonder if it might be time for lunch. Then her prisoner asked, “Good enough? Can I go?”

  Lisa surveyed the hole from where she stood. It was indeed wide enough. She considered asking him to smooth out the opening, then thought better of it. Best to let the man disappear, she reasoned, instead of having him see something that he could tell others about.

  “That’ll do. Put down the pick.” He did so, and she approached him. She removed the ankle chains that had kept him from running. “You’re free to go. But, if anyone in Mountain View catches you stealing, robbing, or attacking anyone, you’ll hang.”

  The man nodded once, then disappeared into the wilderness. Lisa was alone in the ruins of Centropolis. She led her horse up to the opening, then entered the building. It was vacant except for the portal, which consisted of the top part of a metal oval, a raised platform, and a ramp leading onto the platform and through the open oval.

  Doesn’t look like much.

  According to the manual the portal controls were on her right. She walked over, bent down and there they were. As the stories had said, the portal was indeed off. Contrary to them, nothing was visible to prevent her from turning the machine on. She concluded that not all the stories were true.

  She touched what the manual said was the “On” keypad. A small screen right of the keypad lit up. Sure enough, there was the security question. She tapped the “Yes” part of the screen. She paused a moment to think up a password, then chose “Laura.”

  From there the machine took Lisa to the destination query. The screen displayed a small map. Two destinations, “Cimarron” and “Meade,” led to a third, “Wright,” which in turn led to unnamed others beyond Wright. A third destination, “Big Springs,” also led to a fourth, “White Rocks.” But only the fourth led to a destination beyond, “Lone Star.”