Chapter 2: 02 The Beginning, part one

Twelve years later

To Angharad the air smelled vibrant and warm until James slammed her door closed and trapped her in the car. Already he was complaining about the hours of driving ahead of him, even before he slammed his own door closed. Still, Angharad looked out the window at the world as it began to pass their vehicle, and tilted her head up to the sun. For the first time in days the skies were bright and clear. She wanted to finally enjoy a moment of their tropical holiday without drizzle dampening her fun.

He'd given her a bouquet of plastic plumeria and hibiscus blooms earlier as a surprise gift, and though they didn't have the soft texture or heady smell of the real thing, there was some small charm to the gift that made the edges of his smile seem soft. That smile was something James only offered her in the few moments he looked at her without her father around to watch them. But as his voice grew more sharp with every argument with the radio and complaint about the roads, that soft feeling slowly disappeared. Still, she'd be at camp and away from him soon.

"Are you listening, Katherine?"

"That's not my name," she bit out, and settled into a slump against the chair.

Already she regretted the things she'd let him say to her. What would her friends say if they knew? They'd say supportive things and be jealous, she reminded herself. It didn't matter. The important thing was that she would be away from him soon. Remembering that brought a smile back to her face.

The flower of her future bloomed in front of her, unfolding its petals in search of her sun. There was possibility in the air. For the first time in a long time she felt like there was a way out of her small life.

"I want to stop for food," she said.

"We won't be able to make it in time," he said.

They had hours and the gateport wasn't that far. Why was he rushing her? She looked at him, his hands gripped tight around the steering wheel and his jaw-line sharp with tension, and wondered if he wasn't starting to regret things, too.

"I think we can make it," she said, in the same tone of voice her father used to reprimand wayward employees.

Even with the radio dipping in and out the silence between them in the car became too thick to bear. Angharad opened her window to let the sound of the breeze in.

When James finally stopped to get something to eat and let her out of the car, the air was warm and sticky. The darkening skies threatened more drizzle.

But getting up and stretching her legs felt good.

The row of fast food joints James had driven them to were almost empty as she walked past them. The first in a row, a plastic-y ode to Neo-classicism, looked like a fading, grimy monument, with trays of soggy sandwiches in place of worshippers. The robotic arms and conveyor belt bringing its product to its few customers moved in jerky motions and rough screeches. The second at least looked clean, though its interior decor – blue and black blocks printed on everything but the chairs, which were rendered in a lurid yellow – looked like something out of her father's favourite retro video games, and all its inhabitants were machines. The third, though it had no human staff, at least had clean chairs and enough customers in it that she didn't worry there was something wrong with the food.

There wasn't much on the menu she could eat but she ordered something small, anyway, and sat at a bench, waiting for coffee to appear in front of her.

James continued to stand, even as he ordered. He never seemed to understand fitting in to a crowd, and his looming presence was annoying but increasingly easy to ignore.

A monitor on the wall played a news channel, headlines scrolling across the bottom of the screen: a declaration of peace in the Constructed Territories, arrests at a Melbourne protest against gate travel, a large technology company declaring bankruptcy in South Korea. She watched them scroll past without any hint of context, a strange contrast to the images on the screen about a local human interest story.

The burner phone in her pocket buzzed with a message, and then another. 'I can't wait to meet you' from one unknown number and 'I can see you' from another.

She put that phone on her tray with her half-finished zucchini chips, and pushed it into the garbage chute.

No need to panic. She still had her other phone sitting comfortably silent in her pocket.

The silence grew larger between them when they got back into the car.

Angharad felt like she needed to offer a conversation topic just so she could breathe through it. "It's nice that they declared peace in the Constructed Territories. That's, like, good, right?"

"It won't last," James said.

"But don't you think..."

"No," he said, his voice flat and final.

She looked out the window again, at the summer world around her. The signal for the radio station James listened to kept wavering and she didn't know why.

"I wish daddy was here instead of you," she mumbled.

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"He had a business meeting. You know that," James said in response, as if any of that was the point.

The sky brightened again as they neared the gateport, clouds finally clearing. The gateport was slick and fancy, so flush with cash that it even hired human workers to guide people through depositing baggage and buying food. Bright digital advertisements greeted her with responsive videos, full of attractive CGI people whose hands waved at people as they passed.

With the overlapping sounds of videos and small groups of people rushing past her, her excitement came back full force. There was something about the energy of in-between spaces like the gateport that gave Angharad life. It was that energy of optimism, of people imagining what adventures lay beyond the looking glass, and tired travellers hoping for the peace and quiet of arriving home. In line she could see a loud elementary school group with guardians that looked particularly harassed, and hear part of a hockey team planning all the bars they were going to after their game.

The sky was a bright aching blue by the time they got through security. Angharad watched through the viewing window as she waited for her boarding call, hand luggage at her feet.

Through the windows, birds lazily soared through the sky like paper air planes. The techs were on the ground making last minute adjustments to the inter-gate vessel, checking windows and outside panels and the correctness of calculations, with the tarmac gleaming harsh beneath their uniform shoes.

James talked to her but she didn't listen. How could she when everything around her was so exciting? She still found air travel exciting, and she did that all the time! It was too hard to calm her body down about travelling by portal for the first time.

He moved, just as she noticed a strange movement on the ground. Maybe he'd been trying to kiss her mouth, but he hit the side of her jaw instead. Awkward.

“Katherine,” he said.

She rolled her eyes. “Okay, we've had this talk. You can use my actual name when we're alone. And, like, there's pretty much nobody in this corridor but us.”

“When we're married...”

“We've had that talk, too. I'm sixteen and you need to chill out.”

"For once your father isn't watching us and..."

He turned her face to look at him, but his words were just noise. She was sure it would be the best camp ever! She couldn't wait to meet all the leaders of the future and learn cool stuff. She smiled and nodded until James finally let her go. Oh, the boarding call!

She picked up her bag, and walked to the line of people waiting in front of the doors. She wondered how many of the people in the queue were going to be at the camp with her, and how many people were going on very important, probably ultra-secret business travel. The tall guy in front of her in sloppy jeans and a T-shirt? Definitely a business guy. But the person in front of him with short hair and the ugliest cargo shorts she'd seen all week? Maybe they would go where Angharad was going. Whoever they were, they seemed to be around Angharad's height, not that that meant anything. Maybe they'd end up friends.

The person in the cargo shorts turned to the side to talk to someone and time slowed down. Maybe she wore those ugly shorts to distract from those sharp cheekbones and the prettiest dark brown eyes Angharad had ever seen. Angharad gasped in her breath and nearly dropped her bag. Her face felt hot. Look at me, she thought in the general direction of the girl. Turn all the way and look at me.

After that the whole boarding process was a bit of a blur. By the time the cabin crew had finished securing Angharad into her seat, the vessel was full. She looked up to see the girl in the cargo shorts staring back at her. Had she somehow become even better looking in the few minutes since Angharad had seen her side on?

Angharad swallowed a breath and looked away.

A wave of fear crashed over her and she didn't know why. The whole trip through the gate was supposed to take less than ten minutes – what could there be to worry about? There wasn't even time for anything to go wrong.

And yet, there was a buzzing noise at the edge of her hearing that she was sure she was imagining in some kind of nervous delusion.

There was a jolt as they started to move, and everything sloshed about inside her. Nobody else looked worried. The announcement kept detailing standard safety procedures. Was that high pitched whine normal for the portal as it was firing up?

Her ears popped. The noise gained in intensity.

“We are now entering the—“

The overhead light exploded at the same moment the speaker cut off. Somebody screamed, short and sharp.

Angharad knew this would be a really bad moment to throw up, and yet her body threatened to do it, more and more with every rough movement of the craft.

They hit something, she didn't know what. She only knew the feeling of the impact shuddering through her bones, harsh noises and flickering lights from the corridor, and the sound of something else breaking. The business guy in the opposite row was bleeding from the mouth and the— oh, the bottom of his shirt, his eyes going glassy in his head even as the impact jerked them all around, spraying blood everywhere.

Just after one of the doors tore off, she passed out.

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