Chapter 3

Teleport rooms had become a standard fixture in any large office complex. Once the teleport knew the 'feel' of the room they could hit it with amazing accuracy and minimum energy. That was true for any teleport room on Earth within the range of the teleporter. Unfortunately, Tenkei wasn't on Earth and was well outside the range of any known teleport. There had been talk about using the teleport rooms on one of the orbital hotels as a transfer station for Tenkei, but nothing had been negotiated yet. The rumor was that each of the hotel chains had insisted on such incredibly high fees for this service that no one wanted to pay for it. As a result, there were only two ways in or out of the city. A shuttle was the first option and had the advantage of being able to launch at anytime from almost anywhere. But this was slow, due to flight schedules and the distance involved. The most common option was for the people and cargo scheduled for transfer to gather at one of the many predefined transfer points and wait for the next portal to be opened. Each country that wanted to trade with Tenkei needed to negotiate a contract and designate a transfer point. The contract would also indicate how long and how often the portal would be opened. The United States had the highest amount of trade with Tenkei and had several transfer points. New York was the closest point for Sarah and its portal schedule would be the easiest to meet.

After getting through the large doors, Sarah pushed her cart to the side out of the way and waited for Todd to come to her. She figured it would be easier for him to find her, than to search for him. The crowd was quite thick, but cleared out fast. She didn't have to wait for long before Todd spotted her. He had been waiting outside the arrivals area of the city's transfer point for Sarah to come out. With her white hair and the horns growing from her head she was easy to spot standing near the large arrivals door.

As Todd walked up to Sarah she smiled, "Nice shirt!"

Todd looked at the flowery shirt and shorts he was still wearing and shrugged. "Well, I was in Maui until about six hours ago," he explained.

They walked out of the building and across the park to the residential area nearby. Since the city was in night mode, the stars could be seen though the small dome over this portion of the city. They were particularly bright and didn't twinkle at all. Todd had deliberately used this arrivals area because it didn't face Earth side. He didn't want to have to deal with her if she actually saw how high above the Earth she was. He also had rejected the idea of walking her though the underground tunnels that connected the entire city. The tunnels were the same as could be found in many large downtown city areas, just bigger and extended several levels deep. They just weren't a good place for someone who was claustrophobic, like Sarah. She'd always had a fear of heights, but the fear of closed in spaces had come when she had gone through MORFS around twenty years ago. Short periods of time were fine, but unless she was distracted, she would start to have severe anxiety attacks. Needless to say, Tenkei was the worst place for both of these.

They entered the lobby of the residential building that they had been assigned and headed for the elevator. Todd punched the button for their floor and noticed Sarah cringe slightly as the doors closed. Fortunately the elevator ride down to their assigned floor was very quick and the doors opened again. Todd waited as Sarah thumbed the access panel on the door and then stepped through. She gasped the moment that she entered the room.

"Do you like it?" he asked as he entered behind her. The room wasn't large, but it had holographic projectors on three walls and the ceiling. The door they had entered through and the washroom to the right looked as if they were sitting in the middle of an open field of short grass and purple heather. The carpeting was also the color of grass and showed the edge of the room. A short mountain range could be seen off in the distance and disappeared over the horizon to the left. A small creek with babbling water could be seen, and heard a short distance in front of them and disappeared to the right. Todd hit a button on the wall, beside the washroom door. Two large rocks turned into a queen size bed and desk, apparently hidden by the projection somehow.

"Don't try to walk too far, you'll bang your head on the walls," he said with a chuckle as he dropped her bags on the bed.

"Aw, this is brilliant," she said as she turned around to see the whole place.

"You can set what time it is and the image will change to match. Since you were in Jamaica, it's currently set to Eastern Standard Time." He pointed to the wall mounted controls. "You might want to alter it to GMT, to match the city."

Tetsuo sat in the darkened observation room without any expression on his face. He sat and watched Alice as she slept and hoped that she would be alright, that she would wake up and remember everything. The tiny girl had limited alternatives and none of them were pleasant. He refused to consider what those were, at least not yet.