ALLISON WUNDERLAN

Chapter 8. Hidden Sisters

Light Between the Trees / 2021 / Photo by RCS

From the moment I stood next to Rayne, gazing at her wall of maps, showing the transformed world and waterlogged cities, one of the most difficult things to accept was the impending revolution. Sure, back home in Berkeley and my own version of San Francisco there were Vietnam War protests, collage campus sit-ins, and Hell’s Angels and Hippies yelling at each other, and lots of talk on the street about Us vs. Them. But it all played out like it was a big game back in 1970. The revolution the kids of 2162 were planning would definitely be played for keeps.

I felt as if I’d become an accepted part of the group. And day by day I’d adjusted to the idea that I wasn’t ever returning to my timeline. Even with a maybe-working time machine in the back of my mind. It’s funny how you get to know some people so well and other ones you can only know little pieces and parts of. If I would’ve known Rayne better I might’ve been able to sense something was wrong with her—but she was as new to me as Zak and San Fran Island and bubble cars and cloned presidents. I wish I could’ve seen who she was before and how much she gave, and how she’d already given too much.

The trip up to the Northwest was only a few days ahead of us, and Rayne sent me out on nightly exploration missions with Zak. We hit neighborhoods all over the city—to scavenge for food, find weapons, and gather bits of abandoned or discarded pieces of technology. Some of the technology of 2162 was sort of recognizable, and other parts of it were UltraCreepy, as they say here. Miles taught me future slang words, and I kept trying to teach him how to swear in Twentieth Century speak, but he usually got them all mixed-up.

Deep down, I missed my friends, my books, my rabbit, and of course Uncle Alex. My mom and dad died in a hiking accident in the Sierra Nevada Mountains when I was four. He took over where my parents left off. Uncle Alex encouraged me to follow my dreams and always told me my parents would’ve been proud of who I’d become. But like everyone everywhere, the thing I missed the most was having someone around who understood me. I missed Carley-Barley. We told each other what we most wanted to be, and we ran away from creeps and ran toward fun. No matter what else best friends are for, they’re supposed to push us closer to our dreams. She did that for me.

Carly Barley’s dream was to design clothing for everyone – from movie stars to everyday people. My dreams carried me to faraway places, and I made up wild stories about the adventures my friends and I would have in distant lands, fighting evil and making the world a better place. Carley-Barley would lean on her left hand and listen to me wide-eyed with a loopy grin on her face. Then she’d say, “I believe you, Allison. You will travel to faraway places and do great things.”

One night I was out on a mission to Pacific Heights with Zak. After leaving Revolution Evolution Underground at midnight Zak and I went up from Chinatown to Nob Hill and then headed south—through alleys, abandoned apartment buildings, and small city parks. We’d gone through Japantown, and walked across Van Ness Avenue to Pacific Heights. From Pacific Heights I could see the Golden Gate Bridge. It was only partly lit up from underneath by dozens of spotlights on a floating barge aimed up at it. Moonlight lit up scattered clouds overhead. The whole scene looked like something drawn by the eerie cousin who no one talks to, the one who stays in their room and reads comic books and scribbles away in notebooks. And they’re brilliant in a scary way.

We kept walking and we finally took a break and rested in the backyard of an abandoned two-story mansion.

“So what was your life like, back in 1970?” Zak asked.

“You mean what did I do besides eat tuna fish sandwiches, go to the Earth Day Celebration, and screw around with my Uncle’s Time Machine?”

Zak rolled his eyes. “Yeah, exactly. Unless your life was just a continuous loop of those activities, as if you were a malfunctioning RoboServer…”

“Let’s see,” I said. “There was school. Some days it was hellish, and other times it was really cool to be there. I loved finding out about Whitman, Thoreau, and especially Emily Dickinson. All certified weirdos. Knowing they came from the United States made it better. After school I hung out with my friend in her room or the park, and listen to records and make up stuff. She was a big goofball, and had a great laugh. Two of the most important things one should look for in a best friend.”

Zak shook his head. “You had it so good.”

“Yeah, right now it seems like two lifetimes ago.”

“I accessed a lot of 1960s cultural HistoryChips when I first arrived at San Fran Island. Just inserting one chip after another into my PlugIn, soaking up all that had been kept from me. Allison, you lived in socially wild times. The info about 1960s and 70s cultural files are forbidden in Teenage Wasteland.”

“My everyday history is forbidden in…Teenage Wasteland?”

Zak said, “Yeah, The Wasteland prefers keeping kids in the dark to letting them find out about rebellious and living history.”

“How weird. Do you still have family down there?”

He shrugged. “We should continue tonight’s mission.”

“Way to not answer the question,” I said.

Zak laughed. “I’ll tell you some other time. It’s not like you’re going anywhere…”

“True enough. So how many people live in San Fran Island now?” I asked, looking at the lights of the city in the distance.

Zak pointed north with his thumb. “More than half the population moved off San Fran Island after the big quake of 2031. In pockets of the city there’s not much more than devastated high-rises and crumbled towers, neighborhoods full of deserted apartment buildings, full of dusty furniture, and feral cats. Sometimes squatters. How much trouble they give us depends upon how hungry they are, or how old or crazy they are.”

A cold shiver crawled up my neck, and I stared up at the abandoned house we sat behind.

“Most of the mansions have been picked to the bone already,” Zak said. “Sometimes we luck out and find a big stash of food that’s been overlooked. We carry as much as we can back to command center, and hide the rest for another trip.”

He pulled a crumpled map of San Fran Island out of his back pocket.

“See, Allison.” Zak jabbed his finger at circles he’d drawn all over the map. “On other trips I’ve found stashes of cans of soup, beans, and tomato sauce. Can’t overtake a country on an empty stomach…”

I gazed up at the night sky, and four or five stars winked through the blackness. The rest were hiding or on vacation, or VacaDaze, as Miles had taught me. Then, from the corner of my eye I spotted a face in the second-floor window and whispered, “Someone’s up there.

He reached behind his back and pulled a slender silver gun with a long barrel out from his jeans. Zak held it next to his head, pointing it skywards.

“You have a gun? When were you going to tell me?” I’d seen weapons on other kids, but this was the first time I’d seen Zak carry one.

“GovIssued, modified pulsar pistol StunGun,” Zak whispered. “Just got several crates delivered from Revolution Evolution Underground’s Los Angeles cell. StunGuns shoot hot electrical pulses into people’s bodies. It’ll do everything from knock someone out to kill them instantly, depending on how the gun’s settings are adjusted.”

“If they can kill people, why are they called StunGuns?”

“Sounds better, and stunning is the first option. Next settings are immobilize and kill.”

“Yay for future technology,” I whispered back, glancing up at the second story window. The girl’s face still stared down at us. She seemed inquisitive, but not at all threatened by our presence, even though one of us held a weapon.

“Follow me,” Zak said.

We crouched low and ran to the back door. Zak jiggled the doorknob, shook his head, then motioned for me to step back. He changed the setting on his StunGun aimed, and the doorknob glowed bright orange for a few seconds and clicked open. Zak pushed it with the barrel of his gun while grabbing my hand.

We’d entered the kitchen and I was overwhelmed by the smell of corroding metal, dust and rotting dampness. Next to the sink it smelled of canned fish, and a whiff of oranges.

“Do you smell food?” I asked.

Zak spun around. “Yeah. Even sort of fresh food? Someone might be here. Got to be quiet…”

“Not a peep,” I whispered.

The living room had been decorated with Oriental rugs and antique glass lamps. A tall and ornate mirror with a gold-plated frame filled the middle of one wall.

Zak nodded toward the stairs with his chin, and I followed him. At the top landing Zak motioned for me to keep watch while he entered the room where we’d seen the face. He tested the door—found it wasn’t locked. Rushed inside, shouting as he approached the girl near the window.

Slinking close to the wall, I moved around the corner into the room. The girl calmly stared at Zak with an impish grin. Or rather, she looked through Zak. She had strong features, intense dark eyes, and looked around sixteen years old.

She said, “Please don’t disturb our home. Take what you need and kindly leave.”

Zak stepped up to the girl and waved his arm…through her. The girl’s body flickered apart and snapped back in place. I moved closer. Up close, she looked less like a real person and more like an actor snipped out of a movie screen with a giant pair of scissors and somehow brought to life.

“It’s a hologram, Allison.”

I put my hand through its stomach. “I read about holograms in one of my uncle’s science books. Kind of cool to see one in person.”

“Let’s scope out the rest of the house,” Zak said. “As far as I know, holograms can’t eat.”

We explored each room—inside closets, behind curtains, couches, and under beds. After checking everywhere else in the house, we found a door in the kitchen halfway open. Zak reached inside and felt for the light switch. A bare bulb lit up a rickety wooden stairway. Down we went.

At the far end of the basement, we came to a concrete wall with a cobwebby shelf and decomposing cardboard boxes. Loaded up with rusted pipes and old dishes and silverware. Big spiders crept into paper-thin cracks in the wall. I squatted near the damp floor and scanned every crack in the wall, floor, and ceiling until I noticed a long thin sliver of light in the shadows behind a stack of shelves.

“There’s a light. I think it’s a doorway.”

He grinned at me. “Good find.”

Zak reached along the wall and brushed up and down, feeling for a knob or a catch. Something clicked and the door opened.

“If you must come in I suppose you must,” a girl’s voice said from the other side of the skinny door.

We turned sideways and slinked into the room. Once more, I felt as if I’d wound up in a whole new slice of the weird new world I’d been transported to, and had either moved backwards or forwards in time. Unsure which one it was.

We’d stepped into a room completely frozen in time. And not just any time. In my time. It was an exact replication of a room in the same San Francisco I’d just left weeks ago. Walls decorated with posters from rock shows at The Fillmore and The Avalon Ballroom, and a bright paisley bedspread covered the large bed. Next to the bed was a record player with several albums propped nearby—in front was Magical Mystery Tour, one of Uncle Alex’s favorites. I Am the Walrus played in the background from a wooden speaker from the era I grew up in. And, as if the room wasn’t out of time and place enough, the twin girls who sat on the crushed velvet lavender-and-peach striped couch spoke up again.

“You found us,” one of the twins said. “Of course we’d rather not have visitors at all. But if you must be here, I’ll kindly ask you not to harm us.”

The other girl spoke up. “On the other hand, if you need to hurt us, please do so with speed and precision—then leave here and forever forget our whereabouts.”

Zak turned to me and stuffed the StunGun into the back of his jeans.

I stepped closer to the two girls. “You’ve got the wrong idea. I’m Allison, and this is Zak. We don’t want to harm you at all.”

The first twin smiled and said, “I’m Teresa, and this is my sister Denise. She goes by Dee-Dee. Born exactly seven minutes later than me.”

Dee-Dee frowned at her twin. “Must you always bring up my age? And why do you always speak first?”

Teresa beamed at her sister then at me. “Sorry, no. It just wouldn’t do. You know I arrived in this world almost a full five minutes before you. It only makes sense I should speak first.”

“Is it all right if we stay here for a few minutes?’ I asked.

Teresa smiled and said, “Yes, you and your friend may sit for a time. I hope your good manners are proof of equally good intentions.”

Zak and I plopped into two comfy chairs covered with purple crushed velvet and smiled at the twins for several uncomfortable minutes. Finally, Zak opened his mouth to speak. But I cleared my throat and shook my head. I leaned forward and smiled at Teresa, then said, “Why does this room look exactly like a room from the late 1960s?”

“It’s the last part of our house my parents completed. When they left, it was made clear to us not to venture outside of the house. They told us to stay here and wait for their return.”

I felt as if my question hadn’t been answered at all. Zak grinned at me.

Trying again, I asked, “What do you mean this room was the last part of the house your parents completed? Did they build this house?”

Teresa waved her hands up at the ceiling. “Builders, no! Our parents are United States Cultural Historians, branded RadSubversives by the USS Gov. Their specialty is the San Francisco Cultural Renaissance during the 1950s and 1960s. They’ve been collecting rare artifacts for decades now, and pride themselves on absolute accuracy. For instance, take a whiff…”

I’d still been holding my breath due to the thick layers of dust upstairs, and I hadn’t even noticed how the recreated room was filled with the underlying scent of sandalwood incense.

“The incense is very accurate,” I said, feeling more homesick than I’d felt since arriving in the future.

“Where are your parents?” Zak asked.

“They went east to a conference on cultural artifacts, eight months ago,” Dee-Dee said.

Teresa shot her sister a stern look.

“Has it really been so long a time?” Teresa asked, in a sing-song tone.

“I’m better at counting,” Dee-Dee answered.

“In the kitchen, upstairs, we smelled fish and oranges,” I said.

“The rest of the house doesn’t seem habitable,” Zak pointed out. “And except for the hologram keeping watch out the back window, it would be hard to know anyone was here. You’ve done a great job of making it seem…”

I turned to Zak. “Seem like what?”

“Like you two girls are alive, but you’re not the real sisters…you’re bots, aren’t you?”

Dee-Dee glanced at Teresa and said, “What shall we do now, sister?”

“We’ll do what we were programmed to do in this situation,” Teresa said. “Tell the truth.”

As Teresa uttered the word ‘truth’ a hidden speaker somewhere over our heads crackled to life. “That’ll be all sisters, you can power down now,” a girl’s voice said.

Seconds later, the twin bots slumped over on the couch, and one of the walls slid open (like in a 007 spy movie), and another girl walked into the room. Wearing blue jeans and a paisley blouse. I hoped this one was going to be a flesh and blood living girl.

“Hello Allison and Zak, welcome,” she said. “My name’s Teresa. This is my home.”

Zak whistled. “Multi-layered security system you’ve got here. Prob keeps out most scavengers.”

Teresa settled into the chair nearest to the couch. “I’m still alive, so the security protocols installed in our house definitely serve their purpose.”

Teresa was obviously one of the models for Teresa and Dee-Dee, the twin robots, but her face had more angles and the shadows around her brown eyes went deeper. Her hair was cut to shoulder length, looking like she’d done it herself.

“What’s the real deal?” I asked. “How long have you been here alone?”

Teresa said, “My parents are indeed United States Cultural Historians. And this room is one of their creations. They’ve been gone close to a year. Went away on a biz trip to the Capitol in Pittsburgh for more funding to keep up their Mid-Twentieth artifact searches. The last word Dee-Dee and I received from them was a CyberMessage from the GlobalWeb. They’d taken the bullet train from San Fran Island to Denver, to change trains. It was the last we heard from them…”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “Sounds rough.”

“Sorry to say this, but wherever they are they’re no longer safe,” Zak said. “While you’ve been hiding in your underground bunker, we’ve been starting the revolution.”

“I’m not a dim light source,” Teresa said. “I’ve been monitoring the coded messages on the GlobalWeb. I knew this day was coming.”

“It’s no longer coming,” Zak said. “It’s here.”

Teresa jumped up. “The moment had to arrive. Anyway, I haven’t any visitors in a long time. Come on. I’ll show you my real living space.”

She led us through the sliding door she’d just come through. The room was lined with silver counters and shiny black walls and surfaces. A large silver and black polkadot, horseshoe-shaped couch filled a corner, and a large VidScreen took up half a wall. Beyond it—was a combination cooking and dining area—with more black and silver fixtures. The next room was enough to make my jaw drop, and Zak sounded as if he’d been punched in the chest. We entered a large storeroom stockpiled with boxes, and cans and cans of food, and metal rack after metal rack loaded with every sort of bulk food item imaginable. Seven industrial-sized freezers were lined up against one wall, giving off a steady hum.

Zak stepped back. “You’ve got enough food…”

“To never have to leave,” Teresa finished. “My parents made sure we could stay alive until their return. They gave us the means to protect ourselves and to live here, underneath the house.”

“You keep saying we, but you’re the only one we’ve seen,” I said. “Is Dee-Dee still here?”

Teresa shook her head. “I couldn’t prevent her from leaving, trying to find our parents. She left one night while I was asleep, and I haven’t heard from her in more than a year…”