She noticed a glow there. It had been dim at first, but now as they moved ever westward, it had grown brighter. It formed a dome of orange light to the south, no stars visible in that part of the sky. “What is that?” she asked.
“Delta City. We’re passing to the north of it.”
She thought about how far away they were from it, staggered the light was reaching them this far out.
“The light pollution there is terrible.” He regarded her thoughtfully. “You must not have seen any stars growing up in New Atlantic.”
Her mouth tightened. “Not a one. I can still remember the first time I saw them. I was so astounded I jumped out of my car and just had to stare up.”
He smiled, shifting his weight toward her. “Did you know that birds migrate using the stars?”
She lifted her eyebrows. “They do?”
“Yep. They use the north star as a reference. The megacities are bad, truly, but in the past when people lived in conditions of urban sprawl, lights blanketed the entire continent from ocean to ocean. Migratory birds got lost, crashing into buildings and dying in urban centers. It decimated their populations.” He sighed, craning his neck back to take in the expanse of the Milky Way. “If we’re ever able to bring back enough birds, I’d sure like to see them on their migrations.” He grinned, turning back to her. “One of them was this tiny little bird called a hummingbird. You can’t imagine how tiny. Like this big!” He held up his thumb for reference. “Its wings beat seventy times a second. Can you imagine? It lived primarily on nectar from flowers. And this tiny bird would migrate hundreds of miles every year. I’ve seen photos of their brilliant feathers—sapphire, emerald, scarlet. They were like little flying jewels. They’d do incredible aerobatics, rising up and then diving more than a hundred feet straight down through the air. My ancestors said they did this to see what was above the blue of the sky.”
“Have you brought any hummingbirds back?”
He pressed his hands together, pursing his lips. “No. So far we haven’t located any of their DNA. But I have hope.”
She smiled. “I know you do.” Raven had enough hope for all of them. It was infectious. She breathed in the night air, her gaze moving from the amber light dome of Delta City up to the glorious dark to the north.
Her thoughts turned to James Willoughby.
Willoughby was a powerful figure in the Public Programming Corporation, but he believed in H124’s cause and had considerable influence. He’d been helping them since her initial escape from New Atlantic, and he’d been close to getting caught.
And for H124 personally, the most surprising thing about Willoughby was that she’d just learned he was her father. She’d thought she’d never know her parents or even who they had been, so it was a welcome balm in a sea of loneliness to know that such a courageous, kind person was related to her.
But her family story had been an unhappy one. Willoughby had fallen in love with the daughter of a highly placed PPC exec, Olivia. Her daughter, Juliet, was an investigative reporter who had covered stories for one of the now-defunct PPC media streams. Juliet had stumbled upon a terrible story—that Olivia was dealing with Delta City’s overpopulation problem by harvesting people who were living out on the streets for food. Before Juliet could have broken the story, Olivia had arranged for her to die in a transport explosion. Olivia had planned to raise infant H124 herself after Willoughby transferred to New Atlantic, a move that had been in the works. She’d wanted to raise H124 to take over her empire, to be a powerful player for the PPC, an existence that would have made H124’s soul wither and die.
But Willoughby had learned of the plot and rushed to save Juliet. They’d staged an accident, faking the death of both H124 and her mother. Juliet had fled, agreeing to meet with Willoughby later at a designated place outside Delta City. But when he’d shown up there, smuggling H124 in secret, their contact had been murdered, the place burned down, and no sign of Juliet remained.
He’d never found her.
So the most anonymous way he had thought of to protect H124’s real identity was by hiding her in the New Atlantic workforce and keeping an eye on her from a distance, playing the grieving father. That way she hadn’t been fitted with a head jack and made part of the apathetic, opiated masses. And she hadn’t been a target for Olivia, either.
Before New Atlantic was destroyed by the first asteroid fragment, Willoughby had escaped to Delta City, once again resuming an executive position there. Olivia had learned that H124 was still alive, and tried to have Willoughby fired on the grounds that he was a traitor to the PPC. But it had backfired. Because Willoughby had been so careful in covering his tracks, they hadn’t found anything suspicious. It was close—he’d even packed up to flee Delta City before learning he’d been cleared. After that, the opinion of Olivia had lowered among the PPC execs, who felt that she had only put suspicion on Willoughby in order to get rid of him and gain more power.
Now H124 wondered how he was doing down there in Delta City. That glow there on the horizon marked his presence, and she felt a strange connection to him through the darkness.
“Raven?” she asked, unsure how to bring up the question she wanted to ask him. He’d been so close to his parents. Byron had, too. And they’d both lost them. She was having the opposite experience, thinking she’d never know her parents and finding out that one of them was still alive.
He turned to her, tucking his hair behind his ear. “Yes?”
“Can I ask you about your parents?”
He smiled. “Sure.”
“What was it like? Having them, I mean?”
He shifted his arms on his knees and stared off into the distance. “Having parents is like…having a home wherever you are. The best ones, like mine, love you unconditionally. You feel like you always have somewhere to go. No matter how bad things get, you have people who love you no matter what.” He looked down, shifting his feet on the metal of the train. “But when you lose them…it’s the opposite feeling, like you’ll never have a home again. There’s no one left in the world who loves you unconditionally, or who’s known you your whole life. No one to accept you in spite of mistakes or be there for you no matter what. It’s the most desolate feeling I’ve ever felt.” He hung his head, his hair falling forward.
She brought a hand up and placed it on his shoulder. “You’ve got us now,” she said.
He lifted his head and smiled. “And you have us,” he told her, “even if you do have a new dad and all.”
She laughed. “I do, don’t I?”
“And he doesn’t seem half bad for a PPC guy.”
She stared at the far-off glow. “Nope. Not half bad at all.”
Raven shifted his weight and stood. “Well, I’m dead on my feet. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
He kept his balance, navigating the top of the train, and disappeared over the ladder.
H124 continued to sit outside in the night, the feeling of the train rushing across the darkened landscape, giving her such a thrilling taste of freedom she couldn’t bear to leave. It was only when she started nodding off that she at last gave in to her exhaustion and stood, meandering down to her sleeping car and drifting off to thoughts of what lay ahead.
* * * *
On the third afternoon, she finished her driving shift and walked to the observation car, finding Byron alone there, playing the piano. She slipped quietly onto a sofa, delighting in the soft, musical tones, watching his hands move over the keys effortlessly, coaxing delicate melodies that enchanted her.
The light inside the car suddenly dimmed. She peered toward the vis-screens. “Why is it so dark? Did I lose track of time?”
She stood, staring outside.