It would have been easy just to call, a warbling dial then click and you're talking to not only a voice but a picture, so real that it seems like you could almost reach into the room, maybe a million miles away. But such false clarity made her uncomfortable - and besides, she told herself, it was doubtful that Aislien had even remembered to leave her viewscreen on.

So she'd turned her head up to Sano to be kissed and I'll be back and turned quickly through the door before she could convince herself she didn't really need to go. But she had to be able to do things on her own - she couldn't cling to Sano forever, because what if...

That train of thought was dangerous; she steered her mind sharply away and stared out the window, into smog and dull light streaked by speed. Impossible to see anything the jet-trans passed... but then, you didn't have to see it, because it was always the same: stony grey skyscrapers and a million weaving neverending roads created a stark landscape that would not have looked dissimilar to some barren asteroid.

Maybe her ancestors had realized what their world was becoming and turned sadly away, turning to technology and speed and faster, always faster, until they couldn't see any longer and didn't have to suffer that constant reminder...

But hadn't there been a time when people drove slowly and went for the trip rather than for the destination?

Not now. Not now.

The brilliant lights of the jet carriage cast reflections on the glass, easier to see almost than the real world outside. She had to concentrate to look past the half-transparent images; now, she rested her cheek against the cool glass and studied the reflection.

Her own image in the corner of her vision; wide grey eyes looking inward in a face framed by long dark hair. Not pretty, she decided critically; too childlike, and those big eyes too dark against fair, creamy skin. Unreal.

Unreal because she didn't wear the vivid colors and bright patterns currently in style? Plenty of color in the carriage around her - rainbows glared at her from all corners, their colors softened only slightly in reflection, a stark contrast against the world outside. Was that intentional?

Looking closer, she realized that perhaps they couldn't see it... Nearly all the other passengers, in fact, wore the mirrored visors with view-screens behind them - they could like, if they wished, in a colorful, intriguing, but virtual world.

They didn't have to see anything - or anyone - else, she realized, suddenly sad. And surely that was the point. Don't talk to your neighbor - don't even look, because you might see something that fascinated and made you look again...

Don't care - the watchword of the world.

So where were they going, the others who would never have thought to visit someone else?

Would they keep going and going missing stops and never there but where to go anyhow, no difference between one city and the next...

But even this escape wasn't forever...

Doubt stirred in her mind. If she'd been here any other day, would the unseeing faces and mindless colors and the people who were not have been any different?

Maybe they had always been here, maybe they would continue until the bright colors couldn't hide too-white lifeless skin stretching over bone, mockery of life but frightening because was there a difference? and she didn't know, she couldn't be sure...

She glanced doubtfully at the nearest passenger and met death's snarling laughter lurking behind the brilliancy, colors that had ceased to believe even their own denial.

Horror tightened her throat; she couldn't breathe, didn't want to, sure the air would poison her, slow death reaching out to brush her with cold fingers, leeching away her warmth and her energy and her life. The demons didn't exist only in the night, oh no... but their methods must be more subtle when wavering nervous light still filled the far sky. And the danger was greater if no one suspected...

But she knew now, they couldn't take her, don't panic no no no -

She rose unsteadily; a struggle to reach the door when the very air resisted, thick and oppressive with threat and unwilling to let her leave. Only ten feet to go but she collapsed against the cool metal door when she reached it, heart racing, waited for the jet-trans to slow all too aware of the darkness pushing in.

She stepped out into frosty air and shadows before the jet-trans reached a halt and stood watching, hair ruffled by its passing, as it sped away into darkness and forever. Vaguely dark here too, though it couldn't be noon yet; buildings casting overlapping shadows and the whole world must be grey but she could deal with this, and her fear seemed a thing of the past now that the bright and gaudy colors had been born away.

No one in the street, she realized, taking odd comfort from it. There were the everpresent speeders and the roar of copters overhead, of course, but pedestrians were a breed that had gone to their extinction long ago.

She took a deep breath of cold calming air, wrapped her coat more tightly around her body, and began to walk.

She didn't have to look through the listing - she knew the apartment number by heart, and entered it accordingly. The call-screen seemed to take far too long to connect - waiting, she stared into the static and hoped Aislien would hear and accept the connection and let her in soon... She hadn't realized how cold it really was, walking, but now that she stood in the building's open lobby with the wind whipping down the narrow road, the chill was harder to disregard.

The pixels dancing across the screen resolved into a woman's face - grey-haired, but not robbed of its fine features by age, expression quizzical and not quite at recognition. Caelis breathed a sigh of relief and spoke quickly, identifying herself. "It's me, mother - Caelis."

"Caelis," the woman's voice murmured across the speakers, quiet and unhurried. "I didn't know you were coming."

No - there'd been no point in mentioning it when things sieved through Aislien's mind so quickly. "Let me in?" she entreated, and her mother nodded slowly and must have pressed the remote that opened the locked door. Caelis was inside before the buzzer had finished sounding.

She turned automatically to the elevator that carried her with efficient whirring speed to Aislien's floor - she didn't even know which it was, she realized, but probably it had caught the number she'd dialed and been waiting for her. A bit unnerving, that, she thought, then realized that the doors had opened for her, humming pleasantly. She stepped out.

Aislien's door was a clean off-white, rare in that it was completely unornamented; almost before she could knock, it swung open, and she met Aislien's warmly smiling eyes. "Hello, Caelis..."

Her mother felt fragile in her embrace, for all that she was as tall as Caelis; though she'd kept that lovely, dignified face, Aislien couldn't hide that she was growing old. Caelis released her quickly, discomforted at her frailty. It didn't seem right -

Aislien hadn't noticed; she held her daughter at arm's-length, examining her critically. "You're frozen, dear - was it raining? You shouldn't have come, you know, it's awfully far..." She didn't give Caelis a chance to defend herself but swept into the next room over. Her words floated back: "I'll make you some tea..."

"It might have been," Caelis answered, more to herself than to Aislien, who surely couldn't hear her. It must have been, though she hadn't noticed; she brushed the sheen of ice from her clothes - it shattered on the floor to melt into the carpet. She rubbed the dark spot the water formed with the toe of her boot and only succeeded in grinding the ice further into the matting. Slightly guilty, she turned away and followed Aislien into the kitchen, smiling slightly at her own nervousness. She wasn't any better than a child who feared a scolding.

Aislien's kitchen was decorated with old-fashioned simplicity, but welcoming and blessedly warm. She rubbed red fingers tingling as the cold numbness receded, and accepted the mug of tea Aislien offered her. It was also warm with a sweetness that brought back memories of - when? Surely no one else still drank tea - it was, after all, neither carbonated nor intoxicating.

No one but Aislien.

She'd also forgotten, Caelis mused, looking surruptitiously up at her mother through her lashed, that Caelis needn't have walked - there was, after all, that lovely new oh-so-wonderful oh-so-fast jet-trans and myriad other vehicles of every sort... Likely, though, that Aislien was not aware that such things existed - her memories of her own childhood, decades ago, were perfect, but now...

Ironic that honest, true Aislien was one of the few who couldn't be blamed for failing to live in the real world.

She finished her tea and didn't allow herself to be resentful that she couldn't turn to her parent for help. What sort of world did she think she was living in, anyway?

"I knew that would help. You don't look so white now." Aislien smiled at her as if she was five, still naive enough that something sweet and warm inside her would make the world right. "What did you say you came over for?"

"I didn't," Caelis corrected her quietly. "I just wanted to see how you were doing." She glanced up at Aislien, suspicion roused. "Have you been taking your medicine, mother?"

Aislien's blue eyes clouded; she shook her head, obviously upset. "I don't know - I can't recall..." She must have noticed her daughter's concern; she donned a bright smile. "But Caelis, don't worry."

But I do.

"An angel watching over me."

That startled her; she looked up quickly, but her mother's smile held nothing. Just an old woman invoking a good-luck charm.

God, if there was such a thing, wouldn't she pay the world for it?

"Do you believe in angels?" she asked, words never intended to leave her lips.

Aislien smiled. "I never told you of them? They're beautiful creatures, Caelis - white robed and white winged and watching over the world. Their city's in the mountains, farthest from our world - and they could stay there, but they love our people... and there's a guardian angel watching for you, too."

A fairy-tale dream, but...

An angel watching over you.

"There was one other thing," she added, voiced raised for her own benefit as much as Aislien's - it had to be too late to think better of it now.

Insane, but...

"I'm going away for a while" - on vacation, inspiration nudged, but she couldn't bring herself to lie to Aislien. "Don't worry. But if Sannoen calls - you've met Sano, you know him... tell him you've seen me. Tell him I'm safe."

Goodbye, mother.

She was still warmed by the tea when the wind whispered through her - a weak but welcome buffer against the cold.

She had to leave, after all, before she could think about this.