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“Leave me here
and go to your mother’s friend. Lucia?”

Chal shook her head.
“I don’t understand. How can I just leave you?”

“You can tell
them that I took you hostage and used you to escape,” Alan
said. “Tell them I killed Dr. Fielding.”

“I – I
don’t–”

“Tell them
that you stayed with me until you got a chance to sneak away,”
Alan said. “You led me to this place because you knew it was
safe, and then you abandoned me in the middle of the night.”

“They’d
never believe me,” Chal said. Her mind was reeling. It was the
right thing to do, the logical thing to do, but she felt her entire
body strain with the effort of accepting the conclusion. Every
particle in her wanted to stay with him. She had been too distracted
by survival to think about how little sense it made to stay together.

“They’d
have to,” Alan shrugged. “What other choice would they
have?”

“And what
about you?” Chal said. “Where will you go?”

“I can’t
tell you that,” Alan said, smiling. “Then you would have
to lie when they asked you where I was.”

“But Lucia
will help us both escape,” Chal said.

“You don’t
need to escape,” Alan said. He took her by the arms and looked
into her eyes. “Your life is here. Your work, your career.”

Chal shook her head.
“Alan, don’t do this. We can leave here. We can leave
together.”

“It’s
not about me,” Alan said. “You don’t have to go.”

“But I can’t
just leave you!” Chal cried out. She couldn’t, she really
couldn’t. After all they had gone through – from the lab
to Alan’s malfunction to their escape – it was ridiculous
to think that she would be able to just turn and walk away from him.

“Why?”
Alan had a curious look in his eyes.

“Why?”
Chal repeated. She opened her mouth to speak, and found nothing to
say.

“You see?”
Alan said gently. “Everything you want or need is here.”

“Not if you
leave,” Chal said. Her head was spinning with the heat and she
was miserable. All this effort, all this work – for what? So
that Alan could take off on his own. She felt her heart breaking in
her chest, and she stifled the sob that was rising in her throat.

“Chal,”
Alan said, and pulled her close to him. She felt the tears run down
the sides of her face. His heartbeat was loud in the quiet of the
desert, and although it was burning hot she could still feel the heat
of him against her.

He kissed her.

She was taken by
surprise, but when she brought her hands up to his chest she realized
that the last thing in the world she wanted to do was push him away.
Instead she reached up and pulled his head down deeper into the
embrace. His lips were warm, his arms curled strong around her body.
Chal let her fingers run through his messy dark hair.

What on earth am
I doing?
she thought. It had been so long since she had been
intimate with any man. Her last stint in dating had been with an
artsy type who had begrudged her every second of her work and spent
more time bragging about his sexual prowess than he did on foreplay.
Before that had been a rash of hard scientific types: an acoustical
engineer, a biologist, another neuroscientist who balked in jealousy
whenever Chal got another award or magazine article.

They had all been
fine, at least for a while. But now that Chal felt as though she was
being held, truly held, for the first time. Alan was always present
with her when she needed it the most. And right now, this was what
she needed. The pressure of their lips sent thrills of longing down
Chal’s body.

It was Alan who
broke the kiss, stepping back and looking at her from under lowered
lids.

“I want to
know more about this,” he said.

Chal shook her head,
unable to breathe, let alone speak her confusion.

“This,”
Alan said, taking her hand and placing his palm to hers. “Just
touching you does something...I know what kissing
is
, but the
way it happens makes me feel completely different from anything I had
imagined.”

Chal swallowed hard.
His hot fingertips rasped against hers as he enclosed her hand neatly
in his.

“What did you
imagine?” she asked.

“I thought the
sensation would all be here,” he said, motioning to his face.
“But it’s not, is it? I feel you through my entire
being.”

“That’s
a wonderful way to describe it.”

“If you want
to stay, you should,” Alan said. “But if you want to come
with me...”

He paused, trying to
find the words. “I would like to learn more.”

“Yes,”
Chal whispered.

She reached out to
take Alan’s hand and they began the last stretch of their walk
toward the town. She felt a bit stronger, a little more sure.

***

They were at the
edge of the playa when she recognized the dirt road that she had
played on when she was a child. The mailbox had beads glued all over
it in a red and green pattern that had always reminded Chal of
Christmas. She let her fingers drift over the mailbox and looked up
to the small adobe house at the end of the dirt road.

“Lucia,”
Chal said.

“How do you
know this person?” Alan asked.

“My mother,”
Chal replied. “They were both immigrants from Catalonia. Lucia
stayed here, but my mother didn’t want to stay in America.”

“Why did she
come, then?”

“She knew that
life for me would be better here. Out of the war. That’s why
most of her friends came.” Chal kicked a pebble, sending it
skittering across the sand.

“War.”
Alan’s face set in a deep frown.

“Just let me
talk,” Chal said. “I hope she still remembers me. It was
a long time ago.”

They approached the
wood framed door and Chal knocked with the iron rapper. She darted a
quick glance up at Alan, who smiled at her. She smiled back shyly.

As she knocked on
the door, she became suddenly acutely aware of how she looked. Her
hair was streaked with blood, her clothes covered in it, and she was
dustier than the desert swallows that rolled themselves on the dry
playa floor. She hoped Lucia would remember her.

The door opened.

“Who’s
there?” the old woman asked, peering over her glasses. “Tsch,
if you come about the bank you’ll have to wait for tomorrow. I
don’t get my check until another day.”

“We’re
not with the bank,” Alan said. Chal saw Lucia’s gaze turn
to him, then back to her, taking them both in.

“It’s
me, Chal,” Chal said. “Chal Davidson. You knew my mother
Sara?”

The lady cocked her
head and then her face brightened into a sunny grin of recognition.

“CHAL!”
she cried, sweeping Chal into her arms and kissing her on both
cheeks. “Pare nostro! What in the devil are you doing here?
Come in, come in! I just finished to make supper. My goodness, what
happened to you?”

“It’s
okay, Lucia,” Chal said.

“But you have
bleeding all over you!” Her hands moved over Chal’s
wounds, and Chal winced.

“Really, I’m
fine,” Chal said, knowing the woman would have none of it.

“Come in,
girl,” Lucia said sternly. Chal felt like a little girl again,
a little girl who had scraped her knees while playing. “We will
fix you up to be all better.” She brushed them into the middle
of the room. “And who is this young man?”

“This is
Alan,” Chal said. Alan held his hand out to Lucia, who took it
primly.

“I am very
please to meet you,” she said. Alan smiled and returned the
compliment. There was some fuss while Lucia insisted on having Chal
wash up and dress her wounds; she bandaged Alan’s cut and made
him wash up as well. It all seemed so familiar and strange at the
same time, but Chal was grateful to be free from dust and blood.

Washed up and
presentable, they sat down on the couch while Lucia brought out some
drinks, an iced tea made from hibiscus flowers.

“Chal, dear
Chal,” Lucia said. “It has been too long. How long is
it?”

“Much too
long,” Chal agreed. “I was five when I came here for
school.” She drank a sip of the tea, and another. It was all
she could do to keep from gulping. The sweet, cold tea was perfect
after their long walk.

“Oh yes,”
Lucia said. “I remember that. And I remember before, when we
were all living near to San Sebastian. Your poor sister...”

Chal nodded. “I
need your help, Lucia.”

“Anything, my
child, anything,” Lucia said. “Anything I can do for you,
for your mother...”

“We need
passports,” Chal said.

Lucia’s eyes
narrowed. She went to the windows and looked out, then came back to
her chair and sat, drinking her tea as though nothing had happened.

“Where are you
going?” Lucia asked.

“Catalonia,”
Chal said. She hadn’t been sure where they would go, but now
that she had to decide she knew that it was the right choice. A
non-digital nation where they could disappear if they needed to.

“Why are you
asking me for this?”

“You know–”
Chal said. “My mother always said that you were the one who
could do it. Sneak people across.”

“To America,
yes,” Lucia said. “What make you think I can get you back
into Catalonia?”

“You can’t?”
Chal blinked, tears springing to her eyes. She hadn’t
considered what would happen if Lucia couldn’t help them. She
had no plan. This
was
the plan.

“The
Catalonian government is become very strict about guest visas,
especially now from the digital nations,” Lucia said. “It
is hard to go back, even for me, with the dual citizenship.”
She put her hand to her chest and made a face of affront, as if she
couldn’t believe any country would be so impolite as to not let
her come inside.

Chal was distraught.
She bit her lip, trying not to let the tears in her eyes fall over
her cheeks. They had come so far.

“Is there
anywhere else you could help us escape to?” Alan asked. It was
the first time he had spoken, and his voice sounded deeper in the
small room.

Lucia leaned back in
her chair and sipped her tea.

“Yes,”
she said after a moment’s pause. “It is possible. I know
someone in the Portuguese embassy and I have the visas. You would
have to go to Portugal first, then make your way to Catalonia. It is
easier to get visas there than to Catalonia. I also have Spanish
visas. That would be closer yet.”

“Not Spain,”
Chal said. “They have digital intelligence there, and I can’t
have my face scanned. They’ll be looking for us.”

“
Tcha
,
Portugal, then,” Lucia said. “You will have to cross
Spain somehow, but it will be easier if you are not flying in.”

“That border
crossing is hard,” Chal said. She remembered the long wait at
the border, guards with their guns on either side, military dogs
sniffing under the tires of every car.

“You should
not be crossing normally,” Lucia said. “Not if you are in
danger. They have the scanners now too at the land borders.”

“Then how–”
Chal began to ask, then stopped. She knew what Lucia was going to say
already. In her mind she saw the ocean whipping across the shores of
Catalonia.

“Yes,”
Lucia said. “That is the best way. Travel by water; it is
easiest to hide that way. We will talk more later.”

The old woman stood
up, dust shaking from her skirts and twirling up into the air. The
candlelight caught the motes and made them twinkle in the light.

“But now,”
Lucia said, “does anyone want some supper?”

CHAPTER TWENTY

The digital Divide
itself had given rise in the higher circles of government to a
thriving black market of favors, bribes, assassination bids and
conspiracies made real. In the commotion of the Divide’s
changes and upheavals, many dictators and governments were
overthrown, supplanted, or infiltrated by spies. The United States
was, as ever, no exception, and there were leaks in even the highest
levels of military and intelligence.

Lucia worked as an
assistant to the consulate at the U.S. embassy just on the Mexican
border. That she was able to get a position in government work as an
immigrant herself spoke to her persistence. Lucia had wheedled her
way into the higher reaches of the embassy through sheer
determination.

Once she had gotten
herself hired in the embassy, though, Lucia was ruthless. She used
all manner of bribes and blackmail to pull the strings that needed
pulling. At one point during the European blockade of 2111, she was
the sole provider of U.S. guest visas to those who wished to come to
America. The National Advisor for Immigration had personally given
her embassy the right to continue issuing visas during the blockade.
Anyone who asked was given the explanation that their embassy was
authorized solely to provide intellectual capital to the military
stationed in San Diego.

In reality, Lucia
had caught the National Advisor with his pants down. Literally. The
underaged immigrant applicant who had complained to Lucia agreed
without question to wear a wire to one of her “interviews.”
The subsequent partial transcript has been marked confidential in the
records of the National Immigration Administration.

TRANSCRIPTION OF
IMMIGRATION INTERVIEW 08/10/2111

[knocking]

D––:
Come in.

Informant:
[inaudible]

D––:
Come over here.

D––: Let
me see what you have under that dress. What do you have under there?

Informant: Just
panties.

D––:
Take them off.

Informant: Okay.

D––:
[inaudible] ...have your gorgeous ass.

Informant:
[inaudible]

D––: I
want you to get me wet. [sound of zipper]

Informant:
[inaudible]

There was more, but
it only took a few seconds of playing the audio for the National
Advisor before he agreed, white-faced, to let Lucia’s embassy
issue as many visas as they cared to.