Chapter 4

On Sunday morning Danielle woke up and couldn't get back to sleep. After tossing and turning, she finally got her robe and slippers and padded down to the study. She clicked through a few programs on TV that didn't seem to make any sense, but soon found a movie that looked interesting. From a few bits of dialogue she decided it was a romance set in the early days of The Project.

The kissing didn't look faked and about halfway through the movie she caught a glimpse of an absolutely gorgeous guy wading out of a river. The water glistened off of his bare skin, and his pants clung to his frame as if they'd been painted on. The camera followed him, and she couldn't help but notice how his pants were molded to his behind.

He met a woman, and as shadows lengthened around them, they lay on a blanket kissing and caressing each other. As the camera panned back Danielle caught a distinct view of the woman's breast just before the man's lips descended on it. Then the picture slowly faded out, to be replaced by the credits.

She felt hot and her throat was parched. After her racing pulse slowed, she got up to get a drink of water. That was something that back home might have appeared on Showtime late at night. She stopped that train of thought. She should think of here as home, now, not back in Tiburon.

She wasn't sure why, but she felt safer here in—she had to think to remember the name of the town—Valley's End, that was it, than she ever had in Tiburon. She knew, back home, that there was crime, and people got hurt. One of the boys in school had been beaten up by a gang of punks who'd come into town looking for trouble. They'd tried to rape a girl, too, but that got stopped by the police. For some reason the boys got off, and she couldn't remember why.

Here ... she couldn't remember seeing any police, but when they'd been walking to the concert Jenny had casually let slip something about the neighbors. Danielle had looked around, and finally began to see just how many people were always out in their yards, or doing something, constantly watching what was going on.

It reminded her of the stories her grandmother had told about growing up in the 50s. Kids would play outside all day, and though their parents were watching, they didn't try to supervise, or organize what the kids were doing. Kids could run around and be kids. It looked like the same thing was going on here in Valley's End.

The day before she'd seen a bunch of kids playing around some box in a yard. It seemed to involve pirates, and they even had toy guns, something she couldn't remember seeing in stores back in Tiburon. That would have gotten the anti-gun people up in arms in a hurry, and there would have been lawsuits, court cases, and endless articles in the paper. Here there'd been a lot of yelling and running around as everyone had fun.

"Dr. Wayland said I'll have to take more responsibility for things," she said to herself as she carried a glass of water back to the study. "I'll have to make my own decisions. Looks like I'm going to have to."

When she clicked around the channels again—there didn't seem to be any church programs—she found one of those history programs she liked. This was set in some place in the Middle East, Babylon, or some place like that. Having heard Roger and George, she looked for the little things. She saw dirt and the way people were dressed: there was casual nudity here and there, a young woman was nursing a baby—you wouldn't see that on Showtime or HBO because the prudes thought breasts were for sex, not feeding—and some of the smallest kids were totally naked. That all made sense, when you thought about it. If the people here could go back 18,000 years in time, or across time, or whatever it was they did, then they could probably stop at some of the times in between.

"Doing that could be interesting," she said. She thought about studying some of those other cultures. She'd liked doing that when she was in school in Tiburon. The teachers had let her, saying that she would learn to appreciate how their values were just as good as hers. When she'd read about a girl being whipped in public because she'd gone out with a boy her parents didn't like, and she'd held his hand, she had some doubts. How could that be the equal of what happened in America? She wondered if the teacher deliberately ignored those facts that were inconvenient. She suspected the latter. As far as she was concerned, too much of that went on in the schools in Tiburon, but you got in trouble if you said anything about it.

Another program followed; this one was set in Greece, and seemed to be one of the Greek plays filmed on a set that looked like the pictures of Greek theaters she'd seen. She did know the difference between a toga—that was Roman—and a peplos—that was Greek—and was gratified to see that the producers got it right. Most of the audience seemed to be men, though, which made her wonder where the women were. Some of the men were casually nude—not all of them were gorgeous hunks—and that told her this wasn't a staged play of some kind. The camera didn't linger on the nudity, but didn't pass it up, either.

She must have fallen asleep or something about then. She had a weird dream where she was dressed in something white and ankle-length, and was running a camera while people, clothed in a mélange of costumes that she'd seen on TV, including that man wading out of the water, did something she wasn't supposed to see. Just about the time she thought it would make sense, Aunt Jessica shook her awake.

"You need to go upstairs and get dressed," Aunt Jessica said.

Danielle rubbed the sleep out of her eyes. "Where are we going?"

"Church," Aunt Jessica said. "Hurry up, we need to leave in a few minutes if we want to get good seats. And let me see what you're going to wear."

Danielle went back to her room and changed. Nobody went to church back in Tiburon. Oh, sure the poor people did, and some of the middle class who'd moved there from the Bible Belt, but people she knew didn't really go to church. Sundays were for lounging around, shopping, and watching football.

She finished dressing, pinned her hair up—she'd noticed that a lot of the women had long hair—and presented herself for inspection.

"Not bad," Aunt Jessica said. "All right, come along."

"Where's Jenny?"

"She's going to church with Brad's family," her aunt said. She grinned. "Jenny's never done that before, which is why I think she's serious about this boy."

Danielle felt like a raft being towed along behind a larger boat. Church was vaguely familiar. They sang a few hymns, the minister read from the Bible and gave a sermon, and everyone prayed a couple of times.

When they got home Aunt Jessica dragged her into the kitchen. "We need to get lunch on the table," she said. "This won't be like what you're used to in Tiburon. Sunday lunch is a big meal here, not sandwiches hurriedly made while people rush off somewhere."

Danielle did as she was told. After a lunch of fried chicken, salad, and iced tea, they watched TV for a bit—no football—before Aunt Jessica finally let her go.

Danielle went upstairs to change, and then went for a walk. She wanted to get out and about, with no parents and nobody checking on her. For some reason she mentioned where she was going to Aunt Jessica first, who nodded her approval.

She headed back downtown. She didn't have any money—she'd have to get a job so she could earn some—so she couldn't buy anything, but she could window shop and go to the park. There were others walking along the pathways, and here and there a few kids played. This all looked familiar, and then it hit her: in that movie with the trombones, people had gone to the park to just walk, socialize, and enjoy the fresh air.

This seems old-fashioned, she thought, but kind of fun. She kept a cautious eye out. She knew that drug-users lurked in parks, along with perverts trying to lure young boys or girls into the bushes. She didn't see any of that here, but she probably didn't know what to look for. There were plenty of people around, though, which probably helped keep the perverts and druggies away, at least during the day. She did see what she thought was a policeman—he was a rugged looking man in a khaki uniform—but he didn't seem menacing, and he didn't even have a gun. She was alone, though, and she didn't know if that was against the law, or attracted the wrong kind of attention, or what. She decided it was best to stay away from him. He was a man, and she'd read of men posing as police officers in San Francisco to lure young kids away.

After a couple of hours her feet began to hurt, so she returned home. Her aunt and uncle were both in the den, reading, but only nodded when she came in. She went up to her room, and surprised herself by falling asleep.

On Monday she and Aunt Jessica went to Midtown to meet with the people who had graded her tests. She took a window seat on the tram, staring at the scenery. The sides of the valley were covered with houses, each group set off from the others with trees. She couldn't see any roads, but there were plenty of paths, and not a few bicycles.

She'd expected the tram to run straight, but they hugged the edge of the valley, occasionally climbing over some obstruction rather than cutting onto the flat ground to go around it. She finally asked Aunt Jessica about that.

"All of the land in the middle is for growing crops," Aunt Jessica replied. "The only development allowed there are dikes to channel the water, and access lanes to get the harvesters to the crops."

"The towns were built where it's flat."

"They had to be built somewhere, but after the first couple of years it was decided that everything new had to be built on the side of the valley." Aunt Jessica pointed at a draw they were passing. "You can see some of that here."

It was a small valley in its own right, but the floor wasn't flat. Houses were built up the slope, but there was a small cluster of shops along the floor. There were trees everywhere, but no power or phone lines. It reminded her of some of the places people lived in Southern California, only without the roads.

They pulled in to Midtown, and the platform quickly filled as people hurried off. Aunt Jessica must have flown on an airliner or something because she waited until most of the people were off before getting up. When they did step out onto the platform, her aunt set off in a different direction than before.

Their destination was a building that had an air of having been there a while. It was a two-story building made of dark concrete. There were steps leading up the front, and a flag she couldn't quite make out waving from a pole on the roof. There were trees around the building, and no parking lot.

Her aunt asked directions from a woman in the lobby, and in a couple of minutes they were seated in an office. A woman in a peach dress that did nothing for her complexion, a Mrs. Holcomb, leafed through the test results. When she looked up her fleshy face was split by a smile.

"Good news. Because she has immigrant status, Danielle won't be remanded to middle-school level."

"That might not have been appropriate, given the situation by which she came to us," Aunt Jessica said.

Mrs. Holcomb nodded. "I see that, and factored that into what we decided."

"And that is?"

Danielle kept silent, her hands clasped together, twisting slightly from the tension. She'd worn one of her school uniforms, the white blouse with the black pleated skirt. It was the same combination she'd seen Jenny wearing earlier that morning.

"We have a class starting today here in Midtown. These are the children of people from outside Three Valleys, so don't share our ... perspective ... on certain things."

"What are their age groups?"

"Here's where we're lucky," Mrs. Holcomb said. She closed the folder with the test results and added it to the pile on the end of her desk. "There are 20 kids, and they're all 15 and 16. Your niece will fit right in with them."

"Where are they from?"

"Mostly Center, though one boy comes from a town about 200 miles from Center. Their parents are here to work on various technical projects, something to do with the relay stations or satellite tracking. I'm not really clear on that. But they all have different educational needs, so your niece should have no trouble with the curriculum.

"Anyway," she said as she stood, "we could get her over there right now, get the last of the paperwork done, and get her started in class before lunch." She looked at the clock on the wall. "Well, her classes would start after lunch. I'm afraid that's the best we can do."

"I think that'll work out just fine," Aunt Jessica said. "What about getting home? She doesn't know her way around, and she doesn't have any money."

"We'll arrange a school pass for the trolley," Mrs. Holcomb replied. "We'll have it waiting for her in the school offices. You'll have to meet her when she returns to Valley's End. Shall we go?"

The school was next to the tram station, but a creek separated it from the rest of the town. It was a single story U-shaped building, with a lawn in the middle. Mrs. Holcomb introduced Danielle to the staff, and left her in their hands. They gave her still more paperwork to fill out, but finally they showed her to her locker.

Aunt Jessica gave her a hug after they'd bought Danielle's books. "I'll see you at the station later this afternoon," she said.

"I'll be there," Danielle replied. Her stomach was turning flip-flops. Things had been changing so fast in the last week that she felt totally lost. She tried to put a positive spin on things. She had a chance to make new friends, learn new things, and everything connected with a school.

The Girls Counselor checked her watch, and then led Danielle down the hall to the left. They paused outside a classroom as a bell rang. A handful of students filed past, everyone talking and ignoring the pair.

After the other students were settled, the Counselor led her to a seat in the back of the class. "Class," she said, and everyone turned to look at her. "We have a new student today. This is Danielle." She nodded, and Danielle gave a small wave.

"Where are you from?" the teacher asked.

"Tiburon," Danielle replied.

"That's in Zero Phase," the Counselor added. Several of the kids 'oohed' at that. "Danielle is staying with family members. Be sure to give her a big welcome." The Counselor smiled at the teacher and left.

"We'll get to introductions later," the teacher said. "In the meantime, we have a few things to do. Do you have your textbook?" When Danielle nodded, the teacher smiled. "Good. This is English Composition, probably one of the easier things you'll discover here at school."

The room burst into laughter. The teacher waited for it to die down, and then continued. "To pass the course, you have to write an essay. That's the final. In the meantime we have other things to write. We're going to start by learning how to critique essays by looking at examples in the textbook."

The next few minutes seemed to drag. Danielle thought learning to critique an essay would be boring, but somehow the teacher kept it lively, even making fun of some of the sentences and the images they invoked. The bell rang, cutting off one of the teacher's comments.

"There's a one-page essay on my desk," the teacher said as the students began gathering their things. "Please write a critique for our next class. And yes, you can mark up the copy."

One of the girls planted herself next to Danielle's desk. "I'm Robin," she said. "Are you really from Zero Phase?" The girl had a round face, a round body, and frizzy brown hair that seemed to emphasize her round face.

"Apparently," Devlin said. "My parents live there, but I'm staying with my aunt and uncle. How did it get the name Zero Phase?"

"It's an old computer joke," Robin said. "You don't start counting at one, you start at zero. At least that's what my Dad says. I had a teacher back in Center say that in any hierarchy you have a starting point, and because each variation is given a number, zero is the only proper starting point."

"That sounds like your father's version, only dressed up in fancier words."

"It does, doesn't it. What's your next class?"

"Math," Danielle said after she pulled out her schedule. "Algebra. Then I have History."

"I've got geometry next," Robin said, "and History after that. I'll see you in History."

They had a break after History, and spent it on the terrace outside. The sky was blue, the breeze coming from the mountains to the east was warm, and there was the definite smell of Spring in the air.

"I love days like this," Robin said. "It's April in Center right now, and everyone's still wearing coats. That's only natural because we're so close to the ice sheet."

"Ice sheet? My aunt said something about it."

"Have you ever seen it?"

"Only on TV." She knew what Aunt Jessica had said, but she wanted to hear it from somebody else. "I thought it was too far away to affect the temperature."

Robin waved her hand vaguely toward the north. "You know we're in the middle of an ice age, right? I think it's the Permian or something, I was never quite clear on that, and it doesn't really matter. Anyway, the main ice sheet over North America is only about 80 or a hundred miles from Center. That makes the winters there longer, of course, and the summers cooler. That's why I was so glad when my Dad got transferred to Three Valleys. I knew it was going to be warm, but it wasn't going to be a really bad heat like you'd get in the desert. Of course it's warmer in Seaside, but it has to be because they walk around all the time without any clothes on, but this is nice enough."

"They're naked?"

"Apparently all of the nudists the Project recruited settled in Seaside," Robin said. "They'd have to live some place warm, and there was some religious group that settled in the Caribbean islands that goes around partially naked. They were here first, so they got their choice of where to live."

"A religious group that's partly naked?" Danielle shook her head. "That seems weird."

"Oh, they aren't completely naked," Robin said. "I understand the girls wear these little skirts, and guys wear tight shorts or something. Everyone's topless, though, men and women."

"Easier for the guys."

"Well, true. I might be willing to go there. They have several resorts in the islands, and people vacation there all of the time, especially now that they have airline service to some of the faraway places.

"Anyway, that meant the nudists had to live somewhere else, and so they moved to Seaside." She gave Danielle an impish smile. "I wouldn't mind visiting the place some time, just to see what it was like."

"If we did, they'd probably make us take off our clothes, too," Danielle said.

"Which is why I'd never really do it. But all of those guys? Yum. Talk about getting an eyeful. I'd love that."

"They're probably not all gorgeous hunks," Danielle said, remembering the pictures of those nude men watching that Greek play. "There are probably a lot who are overweight and balding."