Son of a bitch. I’m still in New York.
“I think there’s been a mistake,” I said. Behind him, people were milling about in confusion and checking their comms. A red light blinked above each teleportation chamber.
“Hold on a sec!” The conductor’s forehead was creased. “Shit. How the hell did you get out?”
“Door was open.”
“Hold on.” He was apparently on the comms with someone. “Yes, sir.”
The conductor made a quick gesture, moving the conversation from his comms to a holographic projector somewhere in the wall. A man in a tidy IT lab coat appeared between us. He had gray hair that had fallen victim to male-pattern baldness, a paunch around his middle, and glittering pale-blue eyes. The only thing to indicate he wasn’t in the room was a video refresh bar that went up and down his body.
“Is this him?” the projected man said to the conductor.
“Yes, sir,” the conductor answered quickly, as if he were being questioned by a cop.
“Mr. Byram.” The man paused, as if to afford the next thing he said some additional heft. “My name is William Taraval. I’m Head of Research and Development at International Transport. It appears we experienced a malfunction during your teleportation. We’re still trying to get to the bottom of it.”
This guy is Sylvia’s boss? Isn’t he a bit of a muckety-muck for this? He sounded formal but sincere. His eyes sported the longest crow’s feet I’d ever seen. “We’re shutting down this TC until we can complete our investigation. In the meantime, I have instructed the conductor here to refund your transport chits.”
The conductor nodded eagerly. “Already done, sir. Like it never happened.”
“Mr. Byram,” Taraval continued, “may we speak privately?”
“Uh, sure.”
“Thank you, James.” He nodded to the conductor, who turned his back on me as if I were getting dressed. I gestured to invite Taraval into my comms. He went from standing a couple of meters away to suddenly being in my face. Too close. I quickly minimized his window to a less-intimate size.
“Thank you. A modicum of intimacy yields a plethora of dividends, wouldn’t you say, Mr. Byram?” Taraval asked.
“A what?”
“Never mind. I know you do not recognize me, Mr. Byram, because we’ve never formally met. But I work with your wife. Sylvia.”
The jerkwad boss who wrecked our anniversary last week. Yeah, I know who you are.
“Right, she’s mentioned you.”
“Always in a positive light, I’m sure.” He winked like a dorky uncle. “Naturally, she’s mentioned you as well, Joel. I know this jaunt you were embarking upon is very important to her. However, we’ve just sustained a rather significant attack on our systems. Telemetry is being gathered. But this will require shutting down all TC operations for some time.”
“Shit! Sylvia already ported down to Costa Rica.”
“Yes, exactly. But we are not out of options.”
“We’re not?”
“Fortunately, there are some TCs that are always operational. One of them is our development TC here at IT. I could send you from here to a hospital in San José. Unfortunately, all comms in Costa Rica are down, but once there, I’m sure you and Sylvia will be able to find each other.”
“I guess membership has its privileges, huh?”
“Indeed. Sylvia’s happiness is paramount to us.”
“Uh-huh. So I just head on over to IT HQ?”
“Yes, I’ve already flagged a car to pick you up outside the Greenwich TC. We’re at Eight Hundred Second Avenue, as you know. Everything will be arranged by the time you get here. See you soon.”
The comms window vanished.
Shit always goes wrong when Sylvia and I go on vacation. We’ve always referred to these mishaps as adventures, because we don’t want to call them vacation fuckups. Besides, who wants to have a textbook holiday anyway? Half the fun is partaking in some ridiculous misadventure that you can later tell your friends over drinks.
Our last vacation in Hawaii came to a premature end when we had to be airlifted by drone from the side of the Kilauea volcano after some work emergency that absolutely could not be solved without Sylvia came up. I was pretty pissed about it at the time, but these days it makes me laugh. I already imagined her cracking up at my retelling of this particular event, especially the part about me slamming my face into the wall.
“Okay, change of plans,” I told the conductor, and turned back toward the Escrow room. “I’ll just get my luggage.”
“Well, uh, that’s the good news, sir,” said the conductor in an earnest, non–New York accent. Maybe he actually was from Michigan. “Your baggage was successfully ported. That’s the last piece of information we got before the comms went dead. We always move inorganic before organic. Little-known fact: your clothes get to where you’re going before you do. Good thing you’re not naked right now, ha-ha.”
I hate it when people who aren’t funny attempt to be funny. “So how do I find my stuff?”
“Yes. Yes,” he answered someone on his comms, then focused on me. “Uh, as soon as things get back online, I’ll personally get in touch with the San José conductor and ensure they deliver your bags to your final destination,” he assured me.
“Okay, thanks.” At least I won’t have to haul my luggage across town.
As I headed out of the TC, I could see more people milling around and murmuring to their comms and one another. At first I thought they were grumbling about having to make alternate travel arrangements, but once I got outside, I saw everyone seemed to be doing it. I could overhear snatches of urgent conversation.
Wait. Did someone say there was an explosion?
9 Steam reforming is a method for producing hydrogen, carbon monoxide, or other useful products from airborne hydrocarbon fuels such as methane and propane, liquids such as hexane and benzene, or polymers such as polyethylene, polypropylene, and polystyrene. This is achieved via a processing mechanism called a reformer, which binds kinetically generated vapor with the fossil fuel to generate hydrogen. The steam methane reformer is widely credited as the most important invention of the twenty-first century, as air quality had deteriorated to toxic levels. Initially, a significant percentage of the energy needed for continuous operation of the reformers came from the hydrogen they generated, so they were relegated to use in only the most affluent civilian zones. Eventually, genetic engineering was brought into the mix, enabling the conversion of airborne insects into organic flying steam reformers—since insect flight muscle is capable of achieving the highest metabolic rate of all animal tissues. The most efficient of these were mosquitoes—swarms of which have become a fixture in our skies, akin to clouds. Since they urinate water, their presence creates a permanent rainbow during sunlight hours. A glorious, lifesaving, mosquito-pee rainbow.