The Portal

     The opening screen on the app was a multicolored, fantastic portal, like a cross between a Tardis and a fortune-teller's booth from an old penny arcade. Words appeared in an old-timey font:
     "Where will you go?"
     The words melted away and new words appeared:
     "What is your heart's desire?"
     After a brief pause, the original words appeared again, looping.
     "Wow," Marisa said. "It worked right away for me."
     "Guess the server's busy. Huh." I flipped over to my email, forgot. Vacation planning would have to wait. I had a meeting to go to. Four o'clock came. The meeting ended early, considering that this was Marcus running it, after all. The text came just in time for me to catch the 4:21 pm train to the airport. Luckily I'd brought my passport, just in case. Earlier I'd tried a different AI app whose suggestion fell flat, though I couldn't put my finger on why... Usually I love the Escape Room Superpark at Pittsburgh.
     I pressed on the text announcement, and the penny arcade portal reappeared.
     "Are you ready?" the AI asked.
     As the doors of the portal opened, my heart began to race.
     "Your trip will begin on the Guinea-Bissau Bridge of No Return." A close-up of chains appeared, a strange start for a tourist holiday. The rest of the itinerary scrolled down the screen: A museum of slavery in Guinea-Bissau; a bus tour to several nearby villages; a flight to Atlanta to stay with my Aunt Minnie; an Underground Railroad Museum in Ohio; a visit to a first grade teacher close to my heart who lives near Cleveland; and my final stop: The Escape Room Superpark in Pittsburgh. Thanks to a combination of special deals and stays with friends and family, this international trip with a few nights in Marriott-affiliated hotels was still within my budget.
     All these years, I'd wondered who that one African-American ancestor was. After all the research I'd done, an AI vacation app was about the last place I'd expected to find out where she came from and at least some of what her story was.  I figured that, sometime way back in the 1680's, some dirt-bag had mistreated a lady – or had a secret love – I'd never know which. The resulting descendants passed for white, until me, with my one drop of African blood. By the time I came along, anyone with common sense knew that one drop of blood didn't make you black by any stretch – even if, at some point in time, that was considered enough to make a person a second-class citizen. I'd always accepted that one drop with pride and shame. All I could do for her was to pass her one drop to my children if I could. I'd never dreamed I could carry her back to her origins, or trace her influence on who I came to be.
     From a haze of virtual smoke, a button resolved: "Do you accept this itinerary?" and then "Book it?"
I pressed the button and raised the handle of my rolling bag.