The coastguard slid his large frame into the single chair across from me. “Firstly, I need to see identification papers. Preferably with your address. Also your weapons’ license.” He nodded at Eva for that one.
What? He was all good with Eva carrying around a big-assed sword, as long as she had a piece of paper saying it was okay? Did that make her less scary? Or the sword less deadly? Earth was whacked out sometimes.
I leaned forward, my hands sliding off the cold metal of the table. “We have no identification. We’re from New York City, and the war there has reached the point where government and councils have been abandoned. We have no birth certificates or licenses. There’s no way to be identified.”
Eyebrows drew together as he examined me. I wasn’t sure how to make him believe us; no doubt if he didn’t, all of the women would be thrown into jail. I wanted them to have a shot at a decent life, not be prisoners again.
The male finally glanced at the blank paper in front of him, before reaching into his pocket and removing a pen. He pressed the ballpoint of the pen into the paper.
“Which country is this New York City in?” He seemed to be working hard to keep his voice even. He totes thought I was crazy-pants. “And how did you make it all the way to Atlantic City?”
Pushing back the fall of red curls which had escaped from my braid, I tried to figure out what to say.
In the silence I wracked my memory for geographical information, I wasn’t surprised when Lucy whispered to me. “New Jersey.”
She’d always been better at school than I was.
Chrissie broke the silence. “New York is in America. We’re north of you.”
He hadn’t scribbled anything on the paper. Instead he continued to watch us. Wariness had descended into his watery blue eyes, and I knew alarm bells would be ringing in his head.
“There’s no state or city by that name in the United States.” Anger tinged his words. “I don’t appreciate being taken for a fool. There are serious consequences for breaching American and international waters without the correct documentation. You’re telling me not only do you not have a single piece of identification on you, but as far as I can tell, the place you’re from doesn’t even exist.”
Eva leaned into him. The desk still separated them, but something in her expression had him jerking back.
“Do you have a map? We can show you where we’re from.”
He didn’t take his eyes from any of us; he was acting like a caged animal. If we weren’t careful he would attack simply because he felt threatened. Without shifting his gaze, he reached down and slid back a large drawer; it took up most of the other side of the desk. From my angle I couldn’t see the contents.
Looks like maps. Brace had a much better view.
The man shifted the papers around, sort of managing to keep one eye on us and one on the drawer. Finally he pulled a large colorful sheet from the middle of a pile and placed it on the table. The four of us girls leaned forward to examine it. The sketched area was the United States, with a small look at Canada and South America.
New York wasn’t on it. There wasn’t a state replacing the area. It was simply blank. The curve of America now traced over New Jersey and around Pennsylvania. All of Canada seemed to be intact, but most of Vermont and Maine were also gone. The shield had extended across multiple states and thousands of miles in area. Unbelievable.
“Well …?” He leaned forward. “Show me where this New York is.”
Chrissie and Eva spent more time than I had examining the map in minute detail. Lucy leaned back in her seat and we exchanged a look. One which said that this was insane. Everything we had known about history and growing up in America was completely different to what the humans on this side of the shield knew. The lalunas or Seventine had actually rewritten history. How the heck had they done that?
To distract the glaring coastguard I leaned into him and fired off a question. “Do you have any wars going on at the moment?”
He looked taken aback. His eyebrows flew up and both hands went to the thinning hair on top of his head. The color was somewhere in the region of light brown or dirty blond.
“Of course not. We haven’t had any recent wars on American soil.”
“What about gang problems?”
The insipid color of his eyes was momentarily distracting as they bored into me. “We have some localized issue with the usual motorcycle and drug-running cartels. But they remain on the fringes of our society. If you’re all tattooed up because you belong to some sort of gang then I’ll let you know that you’re not welcome in my town.” The glare was more pronounced. “We protect our own here, and our children grow up safe.”