That worked for a while. We saw pictures of the city after the world's glaciers had melted – it was still full of people. The city had a system of lights that controlled the boat traffic. We found the lights still in place and working when we visited. It was a waste of solar power because the only people using the water-streets were the soldiers in their speedboats. We didn’t see any danger and we never heard any gunfire, so we thought it would be safe to explore.
We found lots and lots of buildings intended for people to live in; but never saw anyone living in one. The people had deserted the city leaving most of their possessions behind. We chose a building close to the very tall buildings and moved in. By the second week, we were tired of exploring the huge ghost city and so I decided that this would be a good place to make some more filaments. Fortunately, the home that we had occupied contained a directory of businesses – something called The Yellow Pages. It also had a map of the city. That made our search much easier. I found some businesses in the directory that would probably have what I needed and we started visiting them. We had some gold coins to use as money but didn’t actually need them. The materials I needed were there, but the owners weren’t. They had left in such a hurry that they hadn't even locked their doors.
Since Izzy had no reason to disguise herself so far away from the IOF, she was back in her whites. While I was exploring a particularly useful store, she waited outside for one of the soldiers to come by in his boat and then she asked him if he knew when the owner was coming back. The man said “Never” and asked Izzy what she was doing in New York. She said she was a tourist, which is what Doc told us to say if anyone was curious about us. The soldier said she was nuts, but it was her life. Izzy asked him what she should do if she wanted something in the store. He looked at her as though she were crazy and said, “Take it.” Then, he putt-putted away. So, we did.
We found a university lab where I could manufacture the filament and I worked there during the day. Each morning, Izzy would use the sky-sling to ferry in enough raw materials to keep me going all day and she would visit the central library. Later, she would pick me up. We’d find a store with dried food and safe water and head home for supper.
By week #3, I had a huge amount of filament and I was impatient to try out my ideas for personalized and much larger sky-slings – one for Izzy and another for me. I used a three-dimensional grid inside each filament; the first dimension produced a gravitational field, the second – a magnetic field. I didn’t know what I’d do with the third dimension yet, but wanted to have a dimension ready just in case. Each sling was big enough to hold three people comfortably but could collapse down to a single user. The two slings hardly put a dent in my stockpile, so I put a layer of active filament around the huge stack, turned it invisible, and flew it back to the roof of our apartment building.
Izzy and I spent weeks four and five together in the library. I buried myself in the bots that contained everything Shakespeare had ever written plus live performances of his plays by different artists and groups. Izzy had discovered the library shelves on dance and spent several days watching the live performances. She liked a particularly beautiful dance – something by a musician who was famous for cracking nuts, I think. She tried to do some of the dance herself, but said that she needed shoes that would give her flat toes. I didn’t understand what she meant until I watched the performance. So, we let our fingers do the walking (a strange slogan printed on the city directory) and found a dance store where we stocked up on everything she would need.
The library was full of music bots from as far back as the early 20th century, so we watched a lot of them. We both enjoyed the live performances – especially the ones by Sonny and Cher. We also saw people dancing to a lot of different kinds of music – not just the ones where they had to use special shoes. That looked like a lot of fun, so we tried to imitate them. Izzy and I did a lot of dancing in the library; laughed a lot and ignored the sign demanding Silence.
I found some bots showing guys swinging themselves around a horizontal steel rod high in the air. They were doing intricate stuff with their legs and arms, twisting around, and flying in the air. I liked doing that kind of thing on tree branches so we found a gymnastics store with everything I’d need – even the steel rod.
We found out why the soldiers were patrolling the water-streets at the end of the fifth week.
# # # # # # # #
The warning signs had been there the whole time – we just didn’t recognize them for what they were. New York was full of signs like: buy this, buy that; going out of business sale; one way traffic; yield for non-motorized traffic; no mooring on even numbered days during business hours; no swimming. Other than signs that named the water-streets, Izzy and I ignored them all. Afterwards, we understood the meaning of some of the special signs.
Stay the course.
Ever vigilant.
52 days without a terrorist attack!
That last sign changed daily. It had been 15-days without a terrorist attack when we arrived. Each day, the number increased by one. We saw the number going up, but didn’t understand why.
We hadn’t understood this sign either. Possession of diving/scuba gear is an offense punishable by death. It was posted all over the city. We hadn’t realized that the hand-held scopes the soldiers were pointing at the water were sonar devices. They were searching for terrorist swimmers.
Apparently, New York was in a big war with these terrorist swimmers who were intent on destroying the city by blowing up all the important buildings. We had seen dozens of rubble piles but had thought those buildings had collapsed from water damage. We were in the library when the building next door to us blew up. I asked the soldiers a few questions and we realized it was too dangerous to stay. New York’s citizens had come to that conclusion a long time ago.
We figured it would be all right to take some of the library’s bots with us when we left. Other people must have borrowed bots too. There were large gaps in the collection, but no one had touched the literature bots, the science bots, or any of the other non-fiction sections. I hadn’t even begun to look through the physics shelves and Izzy had been leaving the poetry bots to the end. We didn’t want to leave those behind, but we didn’t know how to choose the ones to take. We wanted too many.
So, Izzy read the library’s rules. The rules said that library patrons were allowed to borrow bots but they would have to be returned by their due date or a fee would be charged. She filled out the application forms for two library cards and placed them on the circulation desk, in case anyone from the library came by. There were no rules about how many bots could be borrowed at one time, nor was there any indication when the due date was – so we decided to borrow quite a lot of the collection. Izzy left a note saying that we’d check back from time to time and return the bots we had taken if the library wanted us to. We weren’t intending to keep them. If anything, we thought we were helping the library by keeping their bots safe from being blown into the water.
It was obvious that even our new slings weren’t big enough to store all the bots we wanted. I knew that I could make a huge container – sort of like what I had used to store the extra filament, but I had already experienced how difficult it was to fly what was essentially big square invisible box. Great for storage, but hard to fly. There was no point in taking the bots if we didn't have a place to store them safely, so we left them where they were for the time being.
We decided to visit New York’s museums – hoping to get some ideas. They were open but mostly empty. The signs said the collections had been transferred to Washington’s Smithsonian Museum. So, we consulted a map, found Washington nearby, and decided to take a side trip.
Washington was quite small – at least the part protected behind the huge dykes. We had a good look at the dry part of the city – big impressive buildings, statues, couple of domes, and something called the White House that wasn’t white and appeared to be empty. It was under heavy guard thoug
h. In fact, everything inside Washington's dikes was guarded. Lots of solar-powered copters were in the air and I could see weapons suspended from their undercarriage. I wasn’t sure what they were protecting or why.
The Smithsonian was a big museum but it was mostly empty – just like the city. Signs said that the collection had been relocated to Denver – the new capital of the country. But, there were still bits and pieces that had been too big to be easily moved. Like the space collection. Izzy gave me an hour to explore that section and still had to physically pull me out of the rooms containing the rockets and space capsules.
They had a whole section on Transportation through the Ages that we both enjoyed. Some signs and pictures were still there, so we read about the history of planes, of trains, and of automobiles and clambered into each of the full-sized replicas that had been left behind.
The next room had a big surprise! A full sized replica of a sailing vessel. It reminded me of the toy sailing ship that I had when I was little. Izzy had seen me with it once and I had tried to get her to play with me but she was trying to poison me at the time, so she didn't. “This is what we should live in,” I said.
Izzy thought it was very beautiful, but had some reservations. “The DPS has cameras on all the lakes,” she said. “Even if the ship were invisible, they might find us with thermal imagery.”
“I wasn’t thinking of putting the ship in water,” I said. “I was going to sail it through the air instead. Like the make-believe picture in the book that you wanted to show me when we were both four-years old."
That’s when Izzy got excited too. We talked about it and agreed that we both would like to live in a ship sailing invisibly in the air. It was way better than being cooped up in a tiny sky-sling, or hiding in the woods afraid of being seen by a camera. Plus, we could use the ship's hold to store the bots and extra filament.
Izzy asked if I was thinking of making a ship out of filament. I said it would be impossible to do because the filament flops when it’s in long lines. I was thinking of getting a real ship and attaching enough filaments around it to make it invisible and to make it fly. We had more than enough filament to do that and I could always make more in the New York lab before we left.
So, Izzy and I went looking for a sailing ship. We cruised leisurely in our sky-slings down the mud flats, swamps and island-filled ocean that formed much of the eastern coastline extending eastwards from what we learned were the Appalachian mountains. Saw lots of places that had been cities but were now just islands of building tops sticking out of the water. Even saw a big government dome – looked like it was floating in the water. We saw lots of sailboats in the ocean too and we hovered over them to watch what the crew was doing. They weren’t doing anything that Izzy and I couldn’t.
We found a perfect ship with a big For Sale sign in a port city called Charlotte. I asked the owner to take us out on the water so that we could see how it worked. He showed us how to set sail – everything was operated by winches. “This is now the top speed,” he told us as we slid through the waves. “Everything you’ll ever meet on the water is faster than you! Coasties have sniffers that will tell them exactly what cargo you’re carrying” the man said. “Don’t blame me if you get caught.” I said that we weren’t going to get caught and the guy snorted. I never did find out what coasties were, but figured they couldn't bother us if we weren’t near a coast.
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Chapter 8
From Izzy's journals: January 1, 2082.
Will and I headed north in our new sailing ship and anchored well off New York City. Will’s self-seeking find yourself devices on the ends of each filament line meant that the ship was enclosed within a filament grid within an hour. Will’s biggest concern about the ship was sailing power and we had talked about that a lot on our trip north. He was right about our two rings not having enough juice; together they could easily make the ship invisible, but they couldn’t lift it out of the water.
Off we went into New York – each with different shopping lists. I discovered a large supply of brand new pinky rings; also, discovered a warehouse full of pinky-ring computer batteries. Getting them back to the ship was easy. I enveloped whatever crate I wanted inside a filament net and flew it back to the ship. I had everything on my list stored in the hold before Will returned.
Will brought his own collection of filament-covered crates. We had decided that we didn’t want to use canvas sails; too much danger from them splitting in a gale-force wind. Also, with just the two of us, it took time to reel them in quickly, even with winches.
We explored a number of options before agreeing on one. Will and I had become much better at discussing things now. He wasn’t spending hours alone in internal deliberations and I wasn’t being argumentative any more. Since Will was better than I was at analysis, he was the one who’d make a list of all the possible options. He would briefly describe each one to me and I would put them in priority order – the ones that were most likely to work coming first. Will considered every option a possibility but I was better at confining our thinking to the real world, not the theoretical one.
Then, we would consider the first option in some depth, then the second, the third, etc. Again, Will took the lead. I listened to his analysis and offered feedback, but most of the time, Will had the advantages and disadvantages nailed. Occasionally, I’d contribute some What if questions. These were usually thoughts that struck me unexpectedly. Will would get those kinds of inspirations too, but usually he thought in a very logical, lock-step manner. I would just let my brain float until something struck me. It was my question – What if we had rollable solar panel sails? – that had led to Will’s excursion. We had been talking about batteries at the time – I don’t know what made me think of making sails out of solar panels. I blurted out the question and we both knew immediately that this was worth pursuing. Solar panels that looked like sails, but weren't. We wouldn't use wind power to fly through the air; our movements would be controlled by the filaments enclosing the ship and these would be powered by the solar panels.
Will had tracked down some flexible solar panels that we could roll out, tilt, rotate, and roll in – all on electronic command and all operations completed within seconds. Back at the ship, it took only minutes to put filaments around each panel so that all the sail-panels would be invisible and easily adjustable to catch the most solar energy possible.
When we were finished, our still unnamed invisible ship could be entirely powered by its solar sails. Since we would likely spend most of our time above the clouds, we would have more than enough sunlight to keep all batteries charged. The solar sails themselves had enough stored charges to operate for forty-eight hours without sun. In case of bad weather, we could furl the sails and operate the filaments entirely on battery power. We had crates of rechargeable batteries – years and years of sailing power. On top of that, we had a crate of rechargeable pinky-ring computers – only one of which was necessary to run the ship automatically now that we had solar power to do all the heavy work.
It took us a couple of days to transfer the bots we wanted out of the library and store them in the cargo hold, provision the ship with ample food and water, and replenish Will’s supply of filament. The Wilizy (emphasis on the first syllable) rose into the sky on January 1, 2082 and set sail from New York with its destination – the Pacific Ocean.
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Chapter 9
From Izzy's journals: January 31, 2082.
By the end of January, we were approaching Detroit. This city wasn’t all that far from New York, but we didn’t travel there in a straight line. We were flying westward in giant north-south zigzags instead.
Our typical day would go like this: After breakfast, each of us would practice – me with my dancing and Will with his gymnastics. I’d be on one side of the ship trying to learn ballet movements; on the other side, Will would be whirling himself around his iron bar which w
as encased in filament so that it could hover in the middle of the air. Every now and then, I’d look up and he’d be resting on the bar, looking at me. I’d sneak peaks at him too – especially when he was doing his chin-ups. Occasionally, for something different, Will would swing from two rings. These dangled from two long straps that he attached to a metal bar that he hung anywhere in the sky that he felt like.
After a rest break, we’d practice together. We might do something like see who could fly through the air the furthest by swinging on the rings and letting go. Will was heavier so he could get the rings going faster, but I was more aerodynamic plus I gave myself an extra nudge with my sky-sling if he beat me too often. He knew I was doing that, but let me cheat a little without saying anything.
Both of us always practiced with a sky-sling over our clothes. If we fell off the ship, the sling could be fully deployed with a quick thought. Sometimes, Will would hang two sets of rings way above the ship and a little distance apart from each other. We would each hang from a set of rings, get ourselves flying in giant circles, and let go at the same time and try and catch each other without using the sky-slings. Sometimes it worked.
Or, Will might dance with me. I’d do some fancy dance step, then run and jump at him. He’d have to catch me and twirl me into the air. I found it hard to rotate the right number of times and land so that I was balanced and ready to continue dancing. I hardly ever did it right, but we kept trying. Sometimes, we put on some 50s music and jived. After a couple of hours of this, we’d find a cloud and have the ship hover inside of it so we could use the mist to rinse off our sweat.
We were meandering around the countryside because we wanted to see how each population center was governed: What laws did they have? How were they enforced? So, after lunch, we’d pick out some communities below us and go visiting.