Jesse guessed the people in the bleachers believed they had got their money’s worth. Some of the women covered their eyes or clutched their husbands’ arms, pleased and terrified in equal parts; some of the men cringed into their seats. For an interminable moment, tons of screaming steel hung suspended above their heads. Then the airship veered away.
Elizabeth was still talking into Jesse’s ear, shouting to make herself heard: “We call it PTSD. Post-traumatic stress disorder. I mean, I’m not diagnosing you, and you can tell me it’s none of my business. But it’s nothing I haven’t seen before, and it’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
“You think I have some kind of disease?”
“I’m a veteran—I know lots of people who are dealing with PTSD.”
“Is your husband one of them?”
It was an ugly remark and he regretted it immediately. But she only blinked and said, “Actually, yeah.”
The helicopter flew to the south. Before a minute had passed it was almost invisible, a dark comet carving the blue meridian.
“I’m sorry,” Jesse said. “I shouldn’t have asked.”
“Let’s go see Onslow,” Elizabeth said.
He had almost let himself forget that Elizabeth was a married woman—whatever that meant to women of her time.
It wasn’t that Jesse cherished any illusions about the sanctity of marriage. He had learned about the hypocrisy of married men at an early age. And it wasn’t that he was attracted to Elizabeth, in the romantic sense. Of course he’d noticed that she was attractive, for a woman of her unusual height and strength. But she was out of bounds. She was Tower One. Her marriage was none of his business … any more than his night terrors were any business of hers.
Still, now that she had reminded him of it, he couldn’t help wondering about her life in the twenty-first century. As hard as it was to picture her as a soldier, it was harder still to picture her as a soldier’s wife, the wife of a soldier who woke at dawn with the echo of a scream in his ears. The way she had clasped Jesse’s hands, he realized, had been a sort of medical intervention, kindly but impersonal, like a nurse binding a wound.
There was much he didn’t know about her.
They walked into Onslow’s Unusual Items like a pair of tourists, giddy from the helicopter show. Jesse looked around as the shopkeeper—presumably Onslow—waited on another customer. The large front room of the shop was walled with shelves and stocked with the same kind of merchandise every other such store in Futurity Station sold. If Onslow had something better to offer, he didn’t keep it in plain view. All that distinguished Onslow from any other vendor on Lookout Street was his girth (generous) and the plain straw boater he tipped to his female customers. His chin was clean shaven, but his sideburns were making a determined march on it. His eyes were narrow and calculating.
The bell over the door tinkled as Onslow’s previous customer left. Onslow turned to Jesse and said, “How can I help you?”
Elizabeth, as they had arranged, remained at the far end of the store so Jesse could speak freely. He mentioned the name of the store they had visited on Depot.
“I know the place,” Onslow said. “Did you buy the book in the window?”
“A copy of it,” Jesse said. “But don’t tell my wife.”
Onslow grinned and touched a finger to the side of his nose. “If that’s the sort of thing you want, you’ve come to the right place. Genuine editions or copies as you prefer and can afford. Harry Potter. Fifty Shades of Grey. The works of Lee Child—”
“Thank you, but I already have a book. I’m interested in something more substantial.”
“A display piece? A watch, say? Something electrical? Such things don’t come cheap, as I’m sure you know.”
“Well, I haven’t thought it through. What can you offer me?”
“Do you have a price in mind?”
Jesse gave a number that seemed excessive even for the successful businessman he was pretending to be. He hoped it wouldn’t make Onslow suspicious. In fact it had the opposite effect. Onslow said, “That rules out the more spectacular items.”
“I might be convinced to go slightly higher—what do you call spectacular?”
Onslow unlocked a drawer, took out a rectangular object of glass and plastic and placed it on the counter. Jesse recognized it as what Elizabeth would call a smartphone. Tower One guests carried them. He feigned ignorance. “It’s not very large. What does it do?”
“It does more than you can imagine.” Onslow touched a button. Instantly, images welled up on the screen of the device. “It makes pictures that move and speak. It plays music. It can even add and subtract.”
Elizabeth stopped pretending not to overhear and joined them. Onslow repeated his description of the device. She turned to Jesse and said, “Why, that’s marvelous! Can it possibly do what the man says?”
Here was another interesting fact about Elizabeth, her ability to lie without blushing. “I don’t know. I suppose it can.”
“It almost seems alive. Is it alive? I mean to say, will it work this way forever? Or does it need some kind of fuel?”
“That’s a fine question, Mrs.—”
“Cullum,” Elizabeth said promptly.
“A fine question, Mrs. Cullum. On its own, no, it would not work indefinitely. But its functions can be restored with this.” He took another device from a different drawer, a glassy wafer with a wire dangling from it. “You attach the wire like so, and put this under sunlight for an hour or two.”
“Sunlight?”
“Nothing more, nothing less.”
“It fuels itself with sunlight? How is that possible?”
“I don’t pretend to understand it, Mrs. Cullum. I can tell you what it does, and I can tell you how to make it do what it does, but I’m as ignorant as an infant regarding its works.”
“Have you sold many of these?”
“Just a few. They’re scarce, as you can imagine.”
Jesse said, “It’s a costly item.”
“I’m sure it must be! Has Mr. Onslow mentioned a price?”
“Yes, but—”
“In that case, Mr. Onslow, would you excuse us while I talk this over with my husband?”
“Of course.”
Out of earshot, Elizabeth said, “This pretty much nails him.”
“Does it? How so? The device is something a tourist might have lost, isn’t it? There’s nothing to say he got it directly from the City.”
“The device, sure, but not the charger. The City makes sure its guests have access to electrical power everywhere they go. The City hotels in New York and San Francisco run generators around the clock—even the City’s Pullman cars are electrified. Nobody needs to bring a solar charger through the Mirror, and nobody does.”
“So we shouldn’t buy it?”
“Waste of money.”
“We ought to buy something,” Jesse said, “if only to keep up the charade.”
He went back to the counter and looked wistfully at the phone. Onslow said, “Have you come to a decision?”
“Is the price negotiable?”
“I’m sorry, no.”
“In that case, can we see something a little less costly?”
Onslow was visibly disappointed. “There’s an assortment of simple goods in the drawers at the side. All individually priced. You’re welcome to look.”
It was a chilly invitation, but Jesse dutifully open one of the drawers Onslow had pointed out.
His eyes widened.
The drawer was full of Oakley sunglasses in plastic wrappers.