Inescapable Escapism

Obviously, I couldn’t openly agree with Dina, but I snorted nonetheless. There was no point in being in school, not at the moment, anyway. We were graduating so soon, and there was basically nothing left for the instructors to actually teach us. Most people had their assignments already, so they’d mentally checked out of the majority of classes, and I understood why. There was no need to learn something unnecessary when we could be focusing on things that would actually be useful for us in the future.

Most of the instructors felt the same way. They’d given up on reprimanding people for not paying attention and instead alternated between reminding us that not everyone had their assignments yet and telling us to just read quietly and not disrupt the rest of the class. They didn’t even try and stop us when Dina and I walked out after lunch.

It was clear there was something on her mind. She’d barely said a word all day, and when someone mentioned that they’d received their housing allocation for next year, I thought she was going to run out of the classroom. I’d assumed she hadn’t heard back and was getting anxious about it, not that she hadn’t been successful. That hadn’t even crossed my mind.

None of the classes we had that afternoon mattered, anyway. It was just physics and community engagement. I didn’t need to sit through another talk about how important it was to look after your fellow citizens or how damaging the terrorist attacks were for the safety and survival of the city. That was all the instructors talked about in the class, and I was so bored of it.

My parents had both given me the exact same lectures a million times before, I recalled. The memory was a bit foggy, and yet I could tell it was almost identical, which was kind of impressive. Maybe there was a script they learnt. My parents in that world were politicians, I was pretty sure. They were something in government or leadership, so they cared passionately about the community.

I did too, obviously, but it was impossible to care as much as Mom and Dad did. The way their eyes lit up when they talked about it was… strangely chilling. It felt almost threatening in a way, and I knew there was no way I could do anything but live up to their standards. I wasn’t doing that, though. Not really. I’d chosen to try to become a doctor and spend my days trying to help the people who lived on the floating island, rather than overseeing everything that happened on it and make changes that helped everyone, not just my patients.

They weren’t mad at me, I recalled, the memory making my stomach feel strange. I think they were disappointed, and I hated that. They wanted me to follow in their footsteps. They’d been so hopeful that I’d apply and be fast-tracked, but instead, I chose something different. It wasn’t that they didn’t think being a doctor was a good job or that I’d be good at it; they’d made sure to tell me that multiple times. They just wanted to know that the future of the island was in good hands. My hands, apparently.

Confusion washed over me as we came to a stop at the flawless maglev station, and Dina hit the call button. My parents trusted me in that world. They both liked me and wanted me to do well. My mom, as far as I could remember, was nice to me. That realisation made me uncomfortable, and I searched my memories for any hint that it was just an act or that she was cruel sometimes, but I found nothing.

She got annoyed at me occasionally, of course, but it was nothing compared to the way she treated me in reality and all the other worlds. I couldn’t remember her ever screaming at me or hurling insults, and that felt… wrong.

“Oh, phew,” Dina sighed loudly as a sleek white train appeared in the distance. “I thought we were going to be waiting forever!”

I smiled, but I couldn’t reply. I was too busy staring at the train as it pulled close. There was something weird about it. It didn’t look like a regular train. The front was sloped at a steep angle, and there were no wheels. Instead, the body of the train continued down to the tracks and seemed to wrap around them. The sides were made up of huge windows, too. They extended almost all the way from the floor to the ceiling, letting us see right through the almost empty carriage.

“Where do you want to sit?” I asked as the train stopped and the doors slid open.

Dina cocked her head before shrugging.

“Anywhere’s fine. There’s basically no one on it, so it doesn’t matter too much,” she said, starting to walk towards the nearest doors.

A gentle ding sounded in my head as I entered the carriage, the noise so sudden and startling that I was almost ripped out of the world. Glancing at Dina, I realised she hadn’t reacted at all. She hadn’t heard the noise. Either that, or she was so used to it that it didn’t bother her.

Part of me was too, I realised, trying to steady my rapid breathing. I’d heard that noise many times before, even if I didn’t really remember it. It was normal, completely normal, I told myself as the realisation slowly washed over me. It was my chip. It had just made a noise to let me know the train had scanned it. It always did that. Every maglev and public building in the city did.

Relief crashed into me as I sunk into one of the seats. I wasn’t hearing things. I’d just forgotten how things worked in that world. That made me feel better, and finally, I looked around the train. It was pristine. Not just kind of clean, but it was actually spotless. I couldn’t see a single mark on the grey floor, and there weren’t even any smudges on the giant windows. It looked as if no one had ever used the train before, but I knew that wasn’t true.

The train began to move forward with a soft hum, and I stared out the window, eager to see more of the city.

“No, thank you,” a snide voice said, yanking me back towards reality.

I had to bite the inside of my lip to stop myself from vomiting. Nausea swelled within me, and the cafe swam around me. I couldn’t breathe. I knew that if I did anything, if I moved in any way, I’d be sick.

She was looking at me. My mom was looking at me, a sneer on her face as the woman standing next to us said something. My mind was sluggish, though. I was focusing too hard on keeping my pie and chips in my stomach and not spewing it all over the table, and I didn’t hear what the waitress said.

“What do you think, Grace? Are you sure you don’t want to see the dessert menu?” Mom asked, raising her eyebrows at me expectantly.

There was a correct answer. Her expression made that very clear, but I couldn’t quite work out what she wanted me to say. She probably wanted me to refuse, though. That was what she usually expected me to do. She usually got annoyed if I said yes.

But could I speak? I truly wasn’t sure if it was possible for me to at that moment, but the waitress and my mom were looking at me. I had to do something.

“No, thank you,” I managed to say before pressing my lips back together.

“I think Grace is a little full from that delicious pie,” Mom said, her tone far too polite and positive. “I can’t believe you managed to eat almost the entire thing.”

I glanced down at the plate the waitress was holding, spotting half the pie on it. Just the sight of food made my stomach turn, and I had to look away again. I really didn’t eat that much. I’d had most of the chips but left a lot of the pie. I thought it would be enough to avoid the comments from her, but clearly, I had been wrong.

“Okay, great,” the waitress said, ignoring Mom. “I’ll go grab the bill. Unless you’d like another coffee?”

“No, thank you. Just the bill.”

The waitress smiled at me before turning and walking away from the table. I met Mom’s gaze, feeling the weight of all the rude things she wanted to say to me on the tip of her tongue, and plunged blindly towards the dizziness I’d been wrapped in just moments before.

It was easier that time, but I still sagged back against the seat as my vision slowly became sharper. The colours were more vibrant in that world, I realised as I looked around again. Everything was just a bit brighter and more colourful, and I loved it. It was beautiful. The entire city was.

The train tilted upwards, following the track up and over a row of houses, and I had to fight not to let my mouth drop open as the city stretched out before us. It wasn’t a particularly big city, not compared to somewhere like London. I could see the far side of it where the building petered out before giving way to parkland and, eventually, sky.

My head whipped around, and I stared out the other window, looking towards the park we’d just been in. We were so close to the edge of the city. I knew that before, but seeing it from up high was different, even though it was a view one version of me had experienced many times. I could actually see over the lip to the clouds below.

There was a glint of metal somewhere in the nearest cloud, probably a part of the elevation system that kept our city floating high above the frigid and currently inhospitable land below. I had no clue how it worked, but it fascinated me. We’d been taught a little about it in school, of course, but the instructors only told us about the primitive system. The first one that had been created to keep us alive once the government on Earth realised the ice age was coming.

They didn’t teach us anything about the system that the city currently used. Most people assumed it was accidental or it was because the machinery had become so complex that hardly anyone would understand it without advanced engineering training, but I knew that wasn’t the case. I’d pieced the truth together from what Dina had been told by her parents, who both worked on the system, and from what I’d overheard my parents saying.

We weren’t meant to know, but a few generations ago, before my grandparents’ time, they used to teach everyone about it. Some schools even had field trips down through the tunnels to the underside of the city so the kids could get a better understanding of how it worked, but terrorists ruined it for everyone and almost killed every single person living in the city.

Anger sparked in my heart as I recalled what I’d heard. They targeted kids, convinced them that their ridiculous beliefs were true, and even hacked into their chip data to track them through the tunnels. Then, they’d attacked one of the engines that kept us in the air and tried to explode it. If they had managed, the city wouldn’t exist anymore. None of us would.

The lead engineer at the time managed to stop them. She lost her life in the fight, but somehow, there was only minimal damage. The city barely lost any altitude, and the rebuild was swift. From what I’d gathered, they put more security measures in place after that. They stopped anyone from being able to go into the tunnels, and they built more engines or something.

I’d tried my best to keep up with Dina’s explanation of what they’d done, but it had gotten too technical, and I was lost. She’d tried to explain it to me again, but that wasn’t much better. It didn’t matter, though. They’d made it harder for us to go plummeting towards the surface, and that was all I needed to know, really.

The train tilted forward slightly, dipping downwards. My eyes opened wide, and I craned my neck to peer at the platform below. Immediately, I spotted the purple uniform. Dina must have spotted them at the same time I did because her eyes met mine.

“Officials,” she hissed.

As one, we stood and raced towards the back of the carriage, reaching the door just as the train came to a stop. I glanced at the officials through the window, feeling relief wash through me as I spotted the bright blue glow of their contacts. They hadn’t spotted us. They must have been reading or watching something rather than paying attention to the world around them, and I was glad.

We waited, timing our movements perfectly so that we left the train at the exact moment the official stepped onto it and began walking down the platform in the opposite direction. As soon as the doors shut and the train whirred into motion, a giggle slipped out of Dina’s mouth. I joined in. That was a near miss. The instructors might not care too much about us skipping school that late in the term, and the officials wouldn’t either, but there was a chance they’d see my parents.

They would definitely care, and I really didn’t want to sit through yet another talk about how I was meant to be a role model for my fellow young adults and uphold the values the city was founded on. What kind of role model skipped school just to go to an arcade? That’s what they’d ask me.

Even if I didn’t run into any officials, I was taking a chance. If Mom or Dad decided to check my chip data, they’d know exactly where I was and when I’d left school. I really hoped they wouldn’t do that. If they did, they’d know we also skipped class last month, and they might even find out about my nighttime walks. I slipped up a few weeks ago and went too close to a scanner. I realised it was a mistake before the noise even sounded, but it was too late.

I’d spent the next week panicked and paranoid that my parents would get home from work and be furious at me, but they said nothing, and eventually, I worked up the courage to go out again.

“What do you think?” Dina asked, gesturing towards the train call button with her head.

“Mmmm,” I started, checking to see if I could see another approaching. “I don’t know. It’s not too far from here. We could just walk. What do you think?”

Dina considered it for a moment before reaching out and hitting the button.

“I can’t be bothered to walk twenty minutes,” she said with a grin. “But if there’s another official on this one, we’ll do it.”

“That sounds good,” I agree, subconsciously rubbing the slight bump on my thumb where my chip was embedded.

I didn’t really want to walk either, but I knew it was likely. We were too central, and the entertainment area was too close to the government buildings. There would be officials everywhere, and the chances of running into my parents or someone they knew were growing higher by the second. It was worth the risk, though. The arcade we were headed to was the best in the city. There were only two, but it was definitely better.

“I don’t think I see any,” Dina said, stretching up onto her tiptoes to get a better look at the approaching train. “Oh no.”

I let out a soft groan as I spotted the brightly coloured uniforms.

“Wait,” I said, touching her arm to stop her from turning towards the exit. “The last carriage. I don’t think I see any in there.”

“Let’s go!”

We started to move along the platform, keeping our heads down and trying to look as inconspicuous as possible until we reached the space where the final carriage always stopped. I waited, nerves fluttering in my stomach, even though I knew there was no real reason for me to be worried. The worst thing that would happen was a talk from my parents, and I could deal with that. If I told them Dina was sad about her placement, maybe they’d even understand.

They wouldn’t, I realised quickly. They’d praise me for being a good friend and trying to make my fellow citizen feel better, but then they’d remind me that rules exist for a reason, even the implicit ones, like ‘kids should go to school every day’. I did go to school. I just left early.

“Oh no,” I muttered as the carriage drew close. “There’s one there too.”

“What do we do?” Dina asked.

I stared at the official as the train came to a stop. They were slumped in their seat, their head leaning against the window, and the hat pulled low over their face. They didn’t even move as the doors opened.

“I think they’re asleep,” I whispered, wishing I could access their data to make sure.

If I were successful and became a doctor, I’d be able to do it. I’d be given new contacts, ones that let me see so much about a person with just a look.

Dina stared intently at the official before nodding.

“Okay, want to risk it?” she asked.

We were running out of time. In a few seconds, the doors would close. We needed to decide before then.

“Yeah,” I said.

We rushed forward, squeezing into the carriage just in time. I had to fight the urge not to giggle as we moved past the lightly snoring official. They’d clearly just come off a night shift or something and were exhausted. They’d probably fallen asleep on their way home and had been on the maglev for hours.

Should I wake them? The question came to mind as Dina and I fell into seats further along the carriage. If they had been on the train for ages, they might have missed their stop. It would be the kind thing to do, and I knew that, but I didn’t want to risk them asking who I was or recognising me. That was selfish, though. I wasn’t a selfish person, and it went against everything I’d ever learnt. My parents had raised me to be a better person than that, and I knew it.

Too soon, we reached our stop. I still hadn’t worked out what to do, though. I was torn between wanting to wake them and not wanting my parents to find out I was skipping school. An idea started to form in my head. I could do both, I realised as I stood.

“Wait,” I whispered to Dina as she started to make her way towards the doors at the front of the carriage, “Let’s go this way.”

Dina glanced towards the back doors, her expression confused, but she did what I asked without questioning.

I waited until we were at the exit before coughing as loudly as I could and stepping off the train. Dina started to move quicker, and I followed her, not allowing myself to look back at the official to see if my plan had worked until I heard the doors closing again.

The man had lifted his head. He was glancing around, a confused expression on his face. It worked. I’d managed to wake him. I’d done the right thing without getting in trouble. A grin grew on my lips as I laced my arm through Dina’s and started to walk towards the entertainment area.

“Damn, Clea,” she laughed. “It’s like you want your parents to know you’re disobeying them.”

“I’m not,” I shot back. “They didn’t tell me I had to stay in school all day.”

“Really? Mine did,” she said. “They said I’m not allowed to have any more days off or to skip lessons just because I don’t like the instructor.”

“Which lesson are you skipping?” I asked with a giggle.

We were in different classes for some subjects, and I had no clue she’d missed any. She must have stayed in the school building the whole time because she was always there for lunch and break time.

“Biology,” she said, sticking her tongue out and looking disgusted. “I just can’t listen to Mr Blyght’s voice first thing in the morning. It puts me to sleep every time.”

“Oh, that is so fair,” I snorted as we neared the main entertainment street. “I had him last year, and I genuinely think I fell asleep in half of his classes. It’s incredible, really. He has a gift.”

“Doesn’t he just.”