Chasing Stars

Chapter 7

I stepped outside. The city was monochrome in the pre-dawn light. Tiny raindrops, shimmering in the white streetlights, hit the grey pavement and formed long silver rivers in the gutters. I shivered in my T-shirt and jeans but I didn’t care. I’d woken with resolve. After a long sleep and a hot shower, I felt refreshed and determined. I would find a place to get breakfast, buy myself some clothes and go back to the Space and Time Institute to find out more about Ryan’s trial.

I looked up and down the street, trying to guess which direction would lead me to food. The doorman was different to the one who had seen me arrive. He looked at me strangely. ‘Costume party?’ he asked.

I nodded. ‘Where’s a good place to get breakfast?’

He pointed down the street to my right. ‘Keep walking straight ahead and you’ll come to the lake. Make a right and you’ll come to a diner called the Peacock Feather. Open twenty-four hours. They serve the best potato cakes in the whole of the Federation.’

I walked swiftly down the empty street, my flip-flops slapping against the wet ground. This was clearly the hotel district, a few blocks of wide tree-lined streets with hotels and expensive-looking restaurants. Doormen stood under broad black umbrellas as I hurried by. As I drew closer to the lake, the buildings looked older and I passed a sign that read Old Wolfeboro.

The sharp raindrops stung my bare skin and I picked up my pace. Now there were a few people on the street, wet and bedraggled like me, huddling under umbrellas or in shop doorways. A car whooshed by, sending up a spray of rainwater as it passed. No one paid me the slightest attention.

By the time I reached the end of the road, down by the lake, I realised I had reached the pulsing heart of Lakeborough’s nightlife. On the lake itself, party boats lit up like Christmas ornaments were heading towards the dock. Along the shoreline, bars and clubs were emptying out on to the wet streets. Between the street and the lake was a boardwalk; a bronze statue dominated the space. A man – five times the size of a real man – stood triumphantly, his hands holding up a distorted clock that reminded me of a painting by Salvador Dali we’d studied in art class. It looked almost like it was melting or warped, and the numbers were in the wrong places. I read the plaque: Nathaniel Westland, creator of four-dimensional travel, was born in Lakeborough in 2020. I was in Ryan’s hometown. Just knowing that lightened my mood.

I saw the Peacock Feather easily. It was large and loud, a giant feather pushing through its roof. I headed inside and took a table by the window. It was a diner just like I remembered them from Hollywood films, with bright lighting, shiny vinyl seats and endless coffee. But that was where the similarities ended. Once the waiter – a tall, olive-skinned boy with fleshy arms – had filled my mug with bitter black coffee, I opened the menu and was both startled and disgusted. I’d expected burgers and fries. Or omelettes. Perhaps pancakes. Fried, greasy-spoon, carb-laden stodge. Comfort food. My stomach rumbled and I calculated that it had been about thirty hours since I last ate. No wonder I was hungry. But the first few offerings on the menu did nothing to whet my appetite. Kebabs made from in vitro veal. Cricket salad. Spirulina guacamole. Not exactly what I was expecting. Where were the potato cakes? A flush of nausea threatened, but I pushed it aside. I would find something to eat. I would find suitable clothes. And I would help Ryan. He’d done the same in my time.

‘You want the Saturday night special?’ asked my waitress, a bored-sounding girl dressed in green robes that flowed to her bare feet.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Is it vegetarian?’

She shrugged indifferently. ‘If you want it to be.’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘And more coffee.’

The waitress took my menu and glided away.

The front door swung open and a group of girls came in, dressed in short beaded dresses that looked like they belonged in the 1920s. They grabbed a booth in the middle of the café. I realised I had found the only place where my clothes were not deemed worthy of comment.

My food arrived – grilled portabella mushrooms with a strange, suspiciously fishy tasting pesto, potato cakes, scrambled eggs, grilled tomatoes and thick, dark coffee. I ate slowly, and watched the people around me at the same time. Reassuringly, people didn’t seem so different in the twenty-second century. The girls still giggled too much around the boys; the guys still laughed too loudly. There was the same kind of flirting that went on back home. I smiled to myself. Perhaps it wouldn’t be so hard to fit in.

I finished my food and drank cup after cup of coffee, until the world outside my window transformed. The grey light of daybreak became the saturated colour of daytime. The fresh morning breeze blew the rainclouds away, leaving nothing but a drip, drip, drip from the rooftops and the tepid promise of sunshine. And the weary partygoers of yesterday were joined by the bleary early morning workers of today.

I went to the till to pay. I handed over my flexi-card and watched the waitress scan it across the large thin membrane I took to be the till.

‘Would you like to add a tip?’ she asked me.

‘Fifteen per cent?’ I said.

She shrugged in a manner that suggested it was neither too little nor particularly generous. ‘You’re kind of young to be working for the Institute, aren’t you?’ she said.

‘I don’t work for them.’

‘So how come you have a standard-issue Institute flexi-card?’

I shrugged. ‘It’s part of a resettlement package they gave me.’

Her eyes brightened. ‘You’re a time traveller? Cool. When are you from?’

I wished I hadn’t said anything. ‘I’m not supposed to say.’

She narrowed her eyes at me. ‘You’re that girl, aren’t you? The one Orion Westland went to save. I heard it on the late night news. He’s been caught or something. Something about saving a girl.’

I shook my head. ‘That’s not me.’

I watched as my image and details came up on her screen. She charged the bill to my account and handed me back my card. ‘Just tell me one thing. Is this your first meal in 2123?’

I nodded.

‘Incredible! Eden Anfield’s first twenty-second century meal is the vegetarian Saturday night special at the Peacock Feather!’ She picked up her port-com and aimed it in my direction. ‘Just say what you thought of your breakfast.’

‘Err . . . just what I needed,’ I said, slightly bewildered.

‘Perfect,’ said the waitress, putting the port-com back on the counter.

Outside, the first thing I noticed was my face on a giant billboard on one of the main buildings on the seafront. Then I heard my voice. Just what I needed.

I pushed past the tired, wasted partygoers who were – thankfully – too far gone to realise that the larger-than-life girl on the billboard was me and headed back up the avenue towards the Lakeview Hotel.

Two blocks later, I slowed down. The streets were beginning to get busy, and shops were opening. I turned left off the main street on to a road lined with bookstores, boutiques and estate agents. I carried on until I reached a department store called Whites. The holographic models in the shop window were wearing what looked to me like everyday clothing for this century.

I needed clean clothes. I went inside.

Thirty minutes later I left the store with three bags of clothes, underwear, make-up and shoes. Out on the street something was going on. Reporters, photograph­ers and camera operators crowded round the entrance to Whites, pushing and shoving one another. I blinked in the bright morning sunshine and tried to get my bearings. Was it left or right to get back to the main street and the Lakeview Hotel?

‘Eden!’ someone shouted.

I turned towards the voice, wondering who on earth it could be. A light flashed in my face.

‘Miss Anfield.’

I turned towards the other voice.

‘What do you call those clothes? Are you from the wild west?’

‘Eden!’

All around me, cameras flashed and questions bombarded me. I pushed through the crowd on to the street and turned right. The crowd swarmed around me.

‘Where’s Orion?’

‘People are saying you are the twenty-second century Romeo and Juliet. Are you?’

‘How do you like the future?’

I tried to block out their questions and the running commentary they were making as they followed me. Apparently my clothes were quirky, cool, radical, rare. The personal shopper at Whites had reported that I seemed to like blue. I had eaten breakfast at the Peacock Feather on my own. I was eighteen. I was seventeen. I had copper-coloured hair.

‘Have you met the president?’

‘Will you be testifying at the trial?’

‘Is it true you’re only sixteen?’

At the end of the T-junction I stopped and looked up and down the intersecting road.

‘Do you know where you are?’

‘Are you lost?’

‘How would you like to be on the big screen?’

‘Do you miss him?’

‘Are you expecting his child?’

I said nothing, although I longed to shout at them to leave me alone. I did not want to hear my own voice broadcasting from one of those huge billboards. And then I recognised the Lakeview Hotel, up the hill, just a block away. I turned towards it, but the crowd had moved in front of me now, barring my way. I stepped to the side but I was still blocked. I turned around; the crowd had penned me in from all sides. Panic spiked. They had me trapped.

‘Come now, don’t be shy. How about a smile?’

The top of the Lakeview Hotel towered above the other buildings on the street, so close and yet so out of reach. I felt a flush of time lag weariness. I couldn’t pass out here in the middle of the road. Just as I thought I was going to have to kick and punch my way out, the crowd melted away from me towards a black limousine that had pulled up to the kerb. I was about to make a dash for it when two burly men in charcoal uniforms appeared at my side.

‘Miss Anfield,’ said the older of the two. ‘The admiral would like to escort you to your hotel.’

I clambered into the back of the limo. Admiral Westland was sitting on the back seat, his briefcase on his lap.

‘I’m on my way to the office,’ he said. ‘But I noticed you were having a bit of trouble.’

The two uniformed men climbed back in and took their seats, one in the front of the car, one in the rear.

Westland grimaced. ‘The Lakeview is usually very discreet; I don’t understand how your identity has been revealed. Once the trial is over, I’m sure they’ll leave you alone.’

The limo rolled smoothly into the stream of traffic.

‘When can I see Ryan?’

‘Most of his time is taken up with his lawyer. I’ll let you know when you can see him.’

‘How is he?’

Westland sighed heavily. ‘He’s OK. I’ve found an excellent lawyer. Very experienced. He’ll want to interview you before the trial.’

‘When will that be?’

‘These cases are turned around pretty quickly. There are very few witnesses at a time trial, for obvious reasons. I imagine the trial will be in a week or ten days at most. In the meantime, you should start thinking about what you want to do, Eden. I know you’ve been given a resettlement package, but it won’t last for ever. You’ll need to find a job and a place to live. Get on with your life.’

‘I can’t get on with my life until I know what’s happening with Ryan.’

‘Listen to me. You need to prepare yourself for the possibility that the court will find him guilty.’

‘They can’t do that!’

He shook his head with an unhappy smile. ‘Yes they can. He may have travelled through time for the right reasons, but the fact remains that his mission was not authorised. If the court finds my son guilty, he’ll be facing a prison sentence.’

The limo drew to a stop by the Lakeview and one of the uniformed men got out and held the door for me.

‘As soon as there’s any news, I’ll call you,’ said Admiral Westland. ‘In the meantime, you need to start building a life of your own.’

I couldn’t build a life of my own; in the twenty-second century, Ryan was my life. My heart felt leaden. I was out of place and out of time.