Dangerous Designs Read online

  ***

  Eric realized he hadn't considered what the transit must have seemed like for her. Everything in her world was so visual. Billboards, television, trains. And everything took so much time. Look at the long hours he'd been forced to attend her school. What a joke. School on his side of the veil was mornings only. And still they finished in half the time that her school system did. Plus, from what he could see, his schooling system taught the youngsters so much more.

  That's not to say there weren't some good things over there, he admitted.

  "We're here? Just like that?"

  "Yes. That's why the darkness thickened and swirled around us. You felt the cold because you haven't had a chance to adapt. I'm used to traveling that way and no longer feel the temperature change."

  She sniffed the fresh air while he watched. Did it smell the same to her? Cleaner? Fresher? Foreign? Her features shifted and she seemed to take gulping breaths - almost tasting the air. Curious, he watched the expressions flit across her face. What was she thinking?

  "Do you have any pollution here?" She spun around studying the terrain. "Do you have cars? Trains?" She tilted her head back and stared up at the sky. "Airplanes?" With a funny sound that was a cross between a laugh and snort, she added, "Do you even have clouds here? The blue sky looks painted on, it's so perfect."

  Spinning around, she tried to take it all in. Her hair flew out in all directions, her t-shirt twisting snugly around her body. Tall compared to the girls he knew, she had an unconscious beauty she made no attempt to capitalize on. Odd, yet endearing. He grinned. Such inquisitiveness. "We don't need those modes of transportation because everyone has variations of the codex."

  "Everything is so different but so much the same."

  "Exactly. We as a people developed separately, biologically, environmentally, and socially. Our government structure is completely unique. We don't even have bicycles."

  "Don't need them either, do you, everyone has a codex?"

  He watched the unformed queries blaze in her dark chocolate eyes as they darted from one thing to another. "No," he corrected patiently. "They have a different unit that can take them to any of the many transit points we use. Then everyone walks from there."

  "Cool. I like the sound of that."

  He grinned at her, loving the innocence mingled with eagerness. She had something he hadn't recognized before. What he'd taken as aggressiveness, or maybe stubbornness was a better word, was actually spirit. So unlike the girls in his world, who were quiet, graceful, yet contained. They didn't need to be high-spirited. Their lives were easy, peaceful and lacked the spontaneity he'd come to appreciate from Storey.

  Another difference between the girls he knew and Storey, was her mind. Hers raced and bounced off different things, stopping to question anything of interest before zipping forward. He admired her. He also liked her. That she was seemingly unaware of her physical appeal made her even more unusual. His brief stint at her school showed the females of her age wore tight clothing, bright colored paint on their faces and decorations in their ears, nose, even eyebrows. Storey wore nothing like that. Confidence or disdain, he didn't know. It set her apart. She made no attempt to attract males. In fact, she ignored them all equally.

  It wasn't just him.

  "Which way?" Storey waved her arms at the multiple paths stretched out before them.

  Eric studied the bright green and yellow bushes adding a cheerful look to the early morning. Given the number of choices to travel, he quickly picked one of the less traveled. They needed to stay under cover as long as they could.

  He glanced around, realizing they could be pounced on by guards any time. "This way."