A blustery wind greeted Sarah—on New Year's Eve—fourteen minutes till midnight. She flinched as a plow truck grumbled down Broadway, clearing a fresh layer of snow from the street, leaving a gritty mix near the curb at her feet. When the flashback struck her without warning, she had been waiting for the pedestrian traffic light to give her the okay to proceed. Sweat beaded on her forehead, even in this weather as she stood on a sidewalk in a crowd of people, her equilibrium off balance from the abrupt change in scenery—because for all intents and purposes—she had teleported from the past to the present in a matter of seconds. At least that's what it felt like.
Gathering her wits, she tucked her chin into a woolen scarf, shivering, as her toe tapped a staccato rhythm on the icy sidewalk. She wondered why she had left her apartment and braved the elements and the constant chatter of people around her.
Her first instinct was to look for Jake, but he was nowhere to be found; it had been twenty-five years since she last saw him. When NASA officials aboard a coastguard ship fished her escape pod out of the Pacific, they had never found Jake's pod. They told her he must have burned up on re-entry or sank to the ocean floor. Sarah suspected there was something they weren't telling her, possibly that there had been a malfunction with his pod. One of their own designs. Maybe that's what happened, but she had no proof. If so, they'd be to blame for Jake's demise. But for her own sanity, she convinced herself of the latter of the two scenarios. Death at sea would be a fitting end to a man who loved the ocean and everything in it.
But there was a third possibility. One that seemed a far worse fate. Jake could still be out there somewhere, lost among the stars, his pod knocked off course by some unknown force. Alive until the sun could no longer charge the batteries powering his life support system. He could have simply frozen to death or suffocated with no oxygen. Or his trajectory could have taken him past the edge of the solar system, forever drifting farther and farther away beyond the orbit of Pluto. Or a more likely scenario, sucked into the gravitational pull of Jupiter, obliterated by the super hurricane that is the gas giant's great red spot.
A chill swept through Sarah's body. Not a physical chill, but a chill that came from within, emanating from somewhere deep in her soul. What if Jake woke up before he died, alone, thinking of her? Banging his fists against the glass separating him from the murdering void of space. The thought made her woozy. She couldn't contemplate such a horrible fate.
Shadows clawed at her vision, but the bitter cold flushed her cheeks red, keeping her awake, breathing, living, existing.
In a blur of squashed hope and empty faith, like a desert sky with no rain—Sarah wavered in place, waiting for the crosswalk sign to change, invisible needles prickling the back of her neck, her gaze cast down on the black asphalt under the glow of the city.
She still felt the dryness of Jake's kiss. The adrenaline of the moment wicking his body of all its available resources in order to survive. But there was one thing no one could ever steal from Jake... his will to live, a trait Sarah admired, even now. He would fight until there was no life in him. He was a fighter. He never gave up. But for all the warmth that thought gave her, she knew there was no way he could still be alive. No, Jake's fight ended a long time ago, but it felt like mere moments.
Across the street, the amber tinted glass of the Next Gen building tapered upward to a velvety mix of dark clouds, ending in a horizontal rotating wheel with spokes—an observation deck with the offices of board members peering into the heavens. The corporation led the world in robotic technology with military contracts galore. Some of their units appeared so humanlike the average person couldn't tell the difference, no doubt loitering among the spectators tonight. One of them could be the man standing next to her, his perfect skin smooth and bronze. In this weather? Seriously, he couldn't have a tan this late in the year, unless he'd just returned from a tropical vacation. No one but a humanoid could have such radiant skin; that's what they called them, but they were no more human than a microwave oven. They didn't have a heart. Not the blood pumping kind, the kind that made a person a person. They were nothing more than a glorified computer program. A program that analyzed the incoming data it received from the world around it and reacted instantly, faster than any actual human.
The guy winked at Sarah, a tuft of his blond hair lifting with another breeze.
A humanoid had tracked her once. Nearly trapped her, but Sarah wasn't a normal human either. She snapped the cyborg's head off, climbing the brick wall with her feet, wrapping her arms around its neck, then falling to the ground with a nice twist. That was a humanoid's sole weakness, its neck.
Next to her, the guy coughed. A deep barking hack that sounded bad.
Sarah sighed. He was human, after all. Robots couldn't catch a cold, and they didn't have a respiratory system, which meant a humanoid version of Thor wouldn't be chasing her tonight.
Or at least, she hoped. She was in no mood for danger tonight.
High above Sarah, lights streaked off the third-story windows of the Next Gen tower. Seconds later, a hover car whizzed by overhead, operating in the designated lane between thirty and sixty feet above road level. The silvery wedge made a tight turn around a neighboring skyscraper and vanished. Since the early millennium, technology had multiplied, and Sarah still couldn't get used to the hover lanes created a decade ago to accommodate the flying vehicles. Behind the first hover car came a buzz of more aerial traffic. Some of the hover cars took the same turn, zipping around the skyscraper and disappearing, but several kept going straight, their taillights glowing red in the distance. The flying cars were a major distraction to drivers on the surface roads. That's why she chose not to drive in New York. She'd rather walk or take the subway.
Finally, the green stick figure appeared on the pedestrian crosswalk sign.
She hurried across the street and stepped up to another sidewalk, along with the bustling group of people, who were all excited about the new year.
"Can we see the ball drop?" a teenage girl said, wearing a knitted hat and a pair of matching gloves. She clutched her hair, woven in a pale braid as she walked.
"Maybe," a woman replied with a warm smile. A mother, no doubt. "We'll have to see."
"Come on," a man said, shuffling past Sarah, guiding the woman and girl through the crowd. "We have to hurry."
Good luck weaving through the throngs, Sarah thought, shaking her head and stuffing her hands deeper into the pockets of her wool jacket. The fuzzy cream-colored material warmed her skin and shielded her body from the cold, the temperature plunging well below freezing since the sun went down.
If she had her choice, Sarah preferred a tropical beach somewhere. She remembered a time in the Bahamas with Jake, a memory that seemed so long ago. With the sun gleaming over Atlantis Paradise Island, they stood in the middle of the giant water park next to a pool in the heat of an intense moment, staring into each other's eyes, lips drawing so close she could smell his minty breath.
She almost slipped into another trance mid-stride.
Maybe that's where she should be, basking in the sun instead of shivering in the snow? But she was here for a reason. The sheer number of people in New York provided a better cloak for obscurity. Here in the city, she could blend in with the masses. She had no desire to be found by the government. She would rather die than work for them again.
A hopeless chuckle erupted from within her. It faded fast and made her grind her teeth.
As for the crowds tonight, Sarah was not as foolhardy to think she could wait till the last minute and stand in the front row at the biggest celebration of the year. Truth? Her life bored her. That's why she took a taxi from her apartment and stopped by a relic of a bookstore with no internet connection or coffee to sip—but it had real hardcovers and paperbacks you could hold in your hands. It was a place Sarah could browse for hours. It reminded her of her childhood, when life was simple.
It surprised her print versions still existed. A person could download a book on an eBoard tablet and transfer it to any device on the go. Some devices featured 3D holograms, but eBook technology had been around for years.
The next step was beyond her.
She sighed, fingering a burnt orange strand of hair from her cheek. She remembered reading an online article about a future tech. Scientists thought they'd be able to zap a novel into the brain in the next thirty years.
I doubt it; she thought.
The Starbucks sign on the corner of the street caught her attention. Thank goodness they still make a good cup of coffee. Luckily, the stores on Broadway were open till midnight to make money off all the consumers jamming the downtown area.
The smell of pumpkin spice drifted to her nose.
Sarah's breath fogged in the air, fingertips straining to discover a warmer crevice in her pockets. Then she caught sight of a man outside the storefront. Not just any man. She stiffened, halting her advance, boots raking over a dirty combination of grime and ice.
The man stood in front of the coffee shop, his back to her, eyes glaring at her in the window's reflection. He was not a humanoid. He was a man in the flesh.
Sarah didn't know his real name, but she never forgot a face. His jawline angled to a narrow chin with a dimple in the center. Shadowy whiskers bristled, on the verge of a beard. Likely, his rugged looks appealed to most, but Sarah knew who he was on the inside. Entranced, she paused, unable to move or glance away. It had been decades since their last encounter.
Casually, he turned and said, "Gotcha."
The man's one liner slid across his lips with a mocking smile.
Sarah's reply caught in her throat. She wanted to swallow, but she couldn't.
Sixty years ago, they had a similar encounter. Then, the man who Sarah only knew as Wolf, looked to be in his late twenties, the same age as her. But tonight, he appeared to have aged a decade, no more.
So, they had developed a way to slow the aging process but not stop it.
After their first encounter, Sarah got to know Wolf more in the years that followed, working on the space station. He was part of the small military contingent from the Navy. He was the admiral's watchdog. Then came her escape back to Earth and her life on the run.
Without Jake, she no longer desired to be a pawn of the government.
Wolf's expression hardened to a steely gaze.
His jaw twitched.
Sarah reacted out of pure instinct. She burst toward the street corner, twisting her body away to avoid his grasp. And in her peripheral vision, Wolf lunged for her, stretching out to snag her arm.
And just like that, the chase was on.