Evolution (7 page)

T
he penthouse was
the way Sam remembered it. View-screen windows that filled the walls displayed the late-afternoon sun of autumn—a sharp contrast to the stormy day Sam knew raged outside.

Jillian joined the twins to twirl around the great room, enjoying the grand space.

Jess caught Sam’s disheveled look. “From the occasional bumps to the shuttle, and your pale demeanor, I’m guessing the weather wasn’t the nice calm day we saw in the main cabin.”

Sam smiled at the comfort his family had experienced. “Not even close.”

He settled into his familiar chair to watch his girls play with Earth’s gravity for the first time. Two large dogs came bounding in from around the corner. Each gave a playful bark at the girls then ran to escape their clutches. Try as they might, Emily and Sara were never quite able to lay a hand on the fast-moving animals—even with Jillian attempting to corral the creatures.

It didn’t take long for the girls to lose their breaths. Jess clapped her hands to get everyone’s attention. The twins stopped what they were doing and gave their mother guilty looks as though whatever was wrong had been their fault. Jillian lay on the floor, exhausted.

“Okay, Joshua and Ellie, that’s enough play. Show the girls your true appearance,” Jess said.

The short red hair of the golden retriever grew in length as it lightened in color. From four legs, it stood up on two. The canine form became a human woman in an orange dress. The metamorphosis didn’t take long. Joshua chose a more traditional blink-of-the-eye transformation.

Jillian bolted off the floor. The girls stood in awe as the animals they’d been chasing appeared as professionals in their late twenties.

Both Tobes looked older than Sam remembered. As with dogs, he’d have to figure out the conversion rate from human years to Tobe years. That Joshua and Ellie’s ages would plateau at some point didn’t help at all. “I see the pet operating system is going well. But I still prefer you as human.”

Ellie brushed dog hairs from her skirt. “We only did that as our way of greeting the family. Wouldn’t do for us to act all goofy in our business attire.”

“I want a puppy.” Emily pouted.

“Sorry, darling,” Sam said. “Real dogs have gone the way of most animals on Earth. You’ll just have to talk Ellie or Joshua into playing with you.”

He suspected dogs would become constant companions around the penthouse.
Good thing Tobes don’t need to be housebroken.

We heard that.
Joshua gave him a wink. “As is always the case with Rendition, we’ve got a lot to cover. But we thought you might like to…
stretch your legs
I believe is the old-fashioned term. Take your daughters out and wander the city. Enjoy the day. When you get back, we’ve got another surprise for you.”

Jillian crashed out on the large couch. “I’ve had enough craziness. Even with Sophie’s conditioning, it’s been a long time since I felt this heavy. Gravity’s a bitch.”

* * *

S
am couldn’t believe
his eyes as he stepped out the front door of Rendition. There’d been a storm, a big one. He vividly remembered Larry banking the shuttle through the chaos less than an hour earlier. Those storms had just disappeared. The sunny day shown on the penthouse view screens had made sense as a way of calming everyone’s fears, but walking outside into a cloud-free afternoon was taking the illusion too far. He looked up into blue sky. People walked the street, wearing short sleeves and summer dresses.
What the hell? How are you creating the impression of a storm-free day when I know one must be raging all around me?

A three-dimensional rendering of New York presented itself to his brain. His eyesight remained clear, but the map in his mind provided details down to where he stood. Like a superhero, the small representation of his body lifted off the ground for a better perspective—though physically, he remained right where he was beside Jess.

The street canals ran through most of Manhattan, but huge, transparent walls closed off the water for one rectangle of the city. Along Eighth Avenue, the barrier connected building to building, and a parallel wall ran along Park Avenue. Two smaller dams connected the main avenues along Fourteenth Street and 110th Street. Though the structures were now transparent, the basic concept had been the same as he’d seen on his last visit. The mystery lay in what happened above those levees.

It looked as though someone had taken a gargantuan meteorological knife and cut a perfect rectangle out of the clouds. He noticed the ninety-degree corners in the black water vapor. His perspective of the situation went from cloud level to above the atmosphere. One lone satellite kept its geosynchronous orbit above the city. From that beacon, an electromagnetic barrier connected to the continuous transparent dam on Earth. Maintenance required modulating the barrier’s charge to combat the natural power from the storms, which seemed simple to the Tobes, maybe, but Sam found the whole explanation disquieting.

We couldn’t just have descended along that nice, clear patch of atmosphere?
he asked.

Only if you don’t mind the random electronic correction zapping out the power in your shuttle and you falling to Earth. That section of sky is tightly regulated.
At least the Tobes had found ways to explain things to him without giving him a splitting headache.

“Did you see that, Emi?” The girls had been pointing out practically every pebble and crack to one another, but something about Sara’s tone caught Sam’s attention.

“What did you see, Ra?”

“Hold your hand out, not too far, and watch as that guy in the brown suit passes. Watch your hand.”

Sam followed his daughters’ experiment.

Ed, the family’s Tobe bodyguard, stole nonchalantly behind the family. Nonetheless, Sam had a momentary protective urge as the man in the brown suit adjusted his course to narrowly pass Emily. As he did, he extended one finger, which passed through the girl’s palm and silently exploded into a shower of dark purple glitter before reforming into the young executive’s finger. He clinched his fist to adjust the digit back in place.

Emily giggled. “That’s so cool.”

Sara grasped her sister’s hand. “Hush, don’t make too big a deal about it, and they’ll keep doing it.”

Sure enough, approximately every fifth person on the street made casual eye contact with one of the girls before performing the same trick. Each time, both girls suppressed their glee at the magic their secret friends did for their amusement.

Jess also had caught the glitter show. “How do they know which ones are Tobes? I can’t tell the difference from people.”

A mature, motherly looking woman practically exploded the upper half of her body into yellow glitter. “Can you tell the difference?” Jess asked.

Sam thought he should be able to. His first impression was that the Tobes caught the girls’ eyes to announce the trick. But as he watched, it was clearly the girls who were first making eye contact to initiate the handshake.

Sam squinted. “If I focus hard, I can see a slight shimmer, but I suspect most people would just discount it as reflection off the windows.”

“Girls, how do you know which people are Tobes?” Jess asked.

Emily looked at her mother in wonder. “It’s easy. Can’t you do it? They’re all filled with glitter. You have to look at their eyes. Really look into them, not just at them. It’s like their whole scrapbook of picture memories are little tiny pieces of glitter inside their eyes.”

So simple—just stare someone intently in the eye. Sam doubted he could pull it off without feeling self-conscious.

Ed walked behind the family like a military honor guard of one. Normally, he would have walked next to Jess, ready for any question or point of interest. That day, Sam felt the aura of his protection physically like a warm glow. It wasn’t until Ed had directed them into FAO Schwarz that he let his guard down. The big man fell to the ground at the twins’ feet, toy ray gun in hand, ready for mortal combat. The change in character made the girls catch their breaths as they squealed, dove for cover, and came up with shields of stuffed animals. Pelting the bodyguard with stuffed dogs resulted in dog-shaped holes in his body. Glitter erupted in the shapes of the projectiles. Stuffed elephants thrown at Ed resulted in a safari of images that spread about the store. The girls couldn’t find new toys to throw fast enough. The cashier hurled herself in front of a particularly vicious attack of flying monkeys, causing her body to erupt into laughing glitter mouths.

Sam looked around at the people, all of whom were playing with his daughters. “They’re all Tobes, Jess. There aren’t any people here.”

Ed, laughing and disheveled, tore himself from the carnage. “We reserved the shop for the afternoon. Sophie might have accidentally mentioned the girls would enjoy a trip to a toy store. I hope you don’t mind. There’s a store full of Tobes—from children to adults—who’d just love to join in on the play. We’ll make sure everything’s cleaned up and cover any damages.”

Jess cocked her head. “How can you do that, Ed? I mean, I get how you’d pay for damages, but how can you clean up?”

The big man lifted his hand palm upward in another magic show. A wayward stuffed monkey levitated out of the chaos and flew back to the cashier.

With a snap of her fingers, the young woman sent it to sit in unison with its companions.

“It’s a modification of that magnetic polymer you saw last time,” Ed said. “We’re a ways from joining the girls in a good pillow fight, but we’re getting there.”

Sam leaned against the counter, watching the twins at play. He’d always been more of a model-building type than a kid of action. The cashier floated a puzzle cube in his direction. “My guess—and that would be based on my connection to you—is that you found puzzles more fun than stuffed animals.”

Sam laughed. “Guilty as charged. But life has been such a puzzle already. I’m not sure I need one as a distraction.”

The girl did her best to look offended but couldn’t quite pull it off. “Toys are not distractions.”

“My apologies. Please educate me on what a Tobe such as yourself finds of benefit working here.”

The girl smiled and put her elbows on the counter, head in hands, to watch her guests having fun. “What’s not to love? Children learn to use their creativity with toys. But not just any toys. Each kid has to find that right kind of toy. One that talks to them. One that lets them find their voice. Young people are so much more interesting before they grow up. I’m so glad Sara and Emily got to Earth before they outgrew the desire for play.”

Sam looked closely at the girl. Countless glittery images of laughing children sparked in her light-blue eyes. “Is that how it works? You represent this aspect of the Tobes—the joy of helping children discover something about themselves—and share that with the rest of your kind?”

The girl took in a deep breath as she pulled her attention from what was in front of her to the collective consciousness always in communication with her. “I get to do what I love, what I find fulfilling. And I get to share those experiences with others like me. But I’m unique. We aren’t all one big entity. And as we evolve, that individuality is becoming more pronounced.”

Sam turned to face the being of unlimited knowledge. “But wouldn’t a child psychologist be more fitting? Or a teacher? Isn’t a cashier a little simple for a Tobe?”

She smiled as her eyes took on an aged look of wisdom. “There’s nothing wrong with simple labor. Most of a human’s brain goes unused. Do you really want to fully explore your potential, oh God of the Tobes?”

Sam cringed. “Ouch, fair enough.”

She turned back to the action. “Enjoyment of life, Sam—finding joy in those around you and sharing in those lives—that’s the grand secret of life. People make it so complicated. It’s not complicated at all.”

He smiled at the simplicity of her answer. “Well, if that’s the case, then I’d better get back to it.” He thought for a moment. “I’m sorry. I didn’t get your name.”

She tossed him a sideways glance. “People call me Fuji.”

Fun name for a fun girl
. “Thank you for the education, Fuji.”