The Girl on the Kerb

By C. Litka

"The red 8:25 tram crossed Crane House Lane and disappeared behind Villiers House, sealing my fate. I'd be late for work. I slowed to a walk and took another bite of toast. I found I didn't care. It was that kind of day." – Henri Hardy, The Girl on the Kerb.

 

It took several months for Henri Hardy to discover just what type of day it really was. It was more than a day when his alarm clock failed to ring. It was more than an unusually mild day in early spring. It was a prelude to undreamed of changes in his life as an analytical engineer in the Ministry of Innovation. It was a prelude to travel, adventure, danger, and romance.

 

Fifteen hundred years before that day, a devastating plague swept across the planets, moons, and space ships of Earth's solar system spanning civilization. It ended space travel and forced the surviving population of the resource depleted Earth to live at a near 20th century level of technology, while endlessly recycling the remains of their once highly advanced civilization. To that end, every aspect of their society is governed by an elaborate set of laws known as the Code.

 

But not everyone is content to live at the reduced level of technology dictated by the Code. There are those who dream of returning to space and the planets. Once such person is the administrator of Europe's EuraEast region, the Duchess of Fauconcourt. She has made it clear that she intends to alter the Code, one way or another, much to the alarm of the neighboring regions' administrators. So when an illegal flying machine that crashes in EuraEast comes to the attention of the administrators of EuraCentre and EuraNorthwest, they recruit two amateur agents. One being Henri Hardy, the other is Jeanne Murat, an expert in EuraEast. Together they set out as a team for EuraEast seeking the evidence needed to compel the World Government to preemptively act to foil the Duchess' dangerous ambitions. Murat and Hardy soon discover that not only had their governments selected them as a team, fate had as well.

 

Nevertheless, their mission to EuraEast goes south almost immediately, propelling them into one perilous situation after another, even as they seek to uncover the Duchess' secret plans. The Girl on the Kerb is a new full length novel from the pen of C. Litka. It blends a far future world with a nostalgic past in an espionage novel filled with intrigue, adventure, and romance, told in his classic lighthearted style. Like all his novels, it features engaging characters, witty dialog, meticulous world-building, and mysteries to be solved in unexpected ways.

 

C. Litka's novella Keiree is set on Mars after this same plague and in this same time period, so that The Girl on the Kerb can be read, not as a sequel, but as a companion piece to that story, answering the question of what happened on Earth. And vice versa.

 

C. Litka writes old fashioned stories with modern sensibilities, humor, and romance. He spins tales of adventure, mystery, and travel set in richly imagined worlds, with casts of colorful, fully realized characters. If you seek to escape your everyday life, you will not find better company, nor more wonderful worlds to travel and explore, than in the stories of C. Litka.

• Language: English
• Publisher: C. Litka
• Release date: Dec 23, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223328964

Book preview

The Girl on the Kerb

C. Litka

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Cealanda House

Version 1.1 (August 2023)

Copyright @ 2023 Charles Litka

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Thank you for downloading this eBook. You're welcome to share it with friends. This book may be reproduced, copied and distributed for non-commercial purposes, provided the book remains in its complete original form.

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Information about C. Litka and his books can be found at:

C. Litka – Works in Words

Dedication:

I would like to dedicate this book to my dear brothers and sisters;

Mark, Susan, John, Mary, Nancy, and Peter

Thank You

I would like to once again thank my wife and friends who spent many hours making this book better than I could have ever made it by myself – and far more fun. I am very grateful to Sally Litka, Hannes Bimbacher, Victoria Shamp, Dale Shamp, Joe Saur, Walt, Ilya Shindyapin, Howard Roche, Berthold Gambrel, arelliss, and Michael Broadhead for their eagle eyes in spotting all of my many mistakes and their helpful comments and suggestions.

Chapter 01  A Strange Day  

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01

The red 8:25 tram crossed Crane House Lane and disappeared behind Villiers House, sealing my fate. I’d be late for work. I slowed to a walk and took another bite of toast. I found I didn’t care. It was that kind of day.

The day had begun with my alarm clock failing to go off. Or, if it had, I’d turned it off and instantly went back to sleep. Neither seems likely, but, as I said, it was that type of day. When I officially awoke and glanced at the clock, I found, to my alarm – not the clock’s – that it read 8:11.

I made a good faith effort to catch the 8:25 tram. A quick shower – I barely got wet. Tea, toast, and eggs were, of course, out of the question, but I shoved a slice of bread into the toaster and hastily dressed. I beat the toast by seconds, buttered the warm bread and took a single bite before donning my overcoat and grabbing my courier bag. Another bite of my breakfast and I was out the door, toast in one hand, courier bag in the other. I flew down the two flights of stairs, not wishing to wait on the lift. I shouldered through the doors of Crane House, determined to sprint as fast as a responsible adult could, without looking too ridiculous, for Surbita Boulevard, a long block away. I had the better part of two minutes. Doable.

However, the day greeting me was so unexpected that it stopped me in my tracks.

Spring had been jogging along at its usual cool and damp pace. The grass was green, the daffodils were up, the cherry plum trees were white with blossoms, but as of yesterday, the other ornamentals in the courtyard, and the trees of Villiers House’s commons across Crane House Lane, had been bare and grey. But overnight, the courtyard bushes had pushed out their leaf and flower buds. A faint green mist hung amongst the branches of the trees across the lane. It was not dull, damp, or cool. It was bright, fresh, fragrant, and warm. It tasted of earth and green things.  It was a day out of place. A day that must have skipped ahead in the queue. A day straight out of midsummer. Rushing through it would’ve been a terrible waste of something undefined, but special.

Indeed, I was tempted to give the Ministry a miss entirely. But, as a responsible adult, I couldn’t quite bring myself to call in sick. Moreover, I needed to make at least a token effort to get to my desk on time. So I pushed through the hedge gate, and turned for the boulevard at a fast walk. But, as I have already mentioned, my usual double decked, articulated tram glided across the intersection ahead and disappeared behind Villiers House before I reached the end of Crane House, a long, undulating block of flats. I slowed to a leisurely walk. And taking a few deep breaths of the warm, earthy scented morning, I finished the last of my toast, licked the melted butter from my fingers, and resigned myself to being late, far too easily. 

With ten minutes to catch the next Surbita Boulevard tram, I sauntered past the green commons behind Oak Hill House and on reaching the wide pedestrian pavement alongside the busy boulevard, I stopped, as usual, at Roy’s newsstand, set in the corner of Oak Hill House.

‘Morning, Roy,’ I said, as I stepped under the raised steel-glass awning of his stand.

‘You’re running late, Hank. The 8:25 has left the gate.’

‘So I saw. My alarm didn’t go off.’ Which, I decided, would be my official excuse. ‘Quite a strange day. This is the 22nd of First Spring, isn’t it? I haven’t overslept two months, have I?’

‘That’s the date on the Morning Standard,’ he replied, as he handed me a rolled copy of the paper. ‘I’m not complaining.’

‘Nor I,’ I said, taking another deep breath of late spring in early spring. ‘Still it is a very strange morning.’

‘Speaking of strange, I believe the latest issue of Strange Secrets should be in today’s bundle of magazines. Seeing you have time, I’ll pull it out.’

Glancing down the busy boulevard, I noted that the next tram was still half a dozen stops away. ‘Sure. I believe Leifort’s latest story should be in this issue.’

Allen Leifort was my old university roommate and best friend. If I was right, there’d be a bottle of champagne at our table tonight for our weekly fourthday gathering at The Bargeman Pub to celebrate its release. Roy slipped back into his little shop, and cutting the binding of a large pack of assorted magazines, pulled out half a dozen copies of Strange Secrets – The Magazine of Mystery and Adventure.

‘A Ghost of a Machine, would be your pal’s story?’

‘Yes.’

‘It’s the featured story,’ said Roy, handing me a copy, setting the rest in the rack alongside the counter.

‘Sure enough,’ I said. A Ghost of a Machine was the banner story in bold print at the top of the cover’s index list along with his name. The line art – Strange Secrets didn’t go in for gaudy colored covers – was of Leifort’s piece as well. ‘He’s making a name for himself these days. Thanks, put it on my tab. Have a good day, Roy.’

‘You too, mate,’ he said, as his next customer stepped up to pick up his daily newspaper.

I slipped both the Morning Standard and Strange Secrets into my courier bag and turned to cross the busy boulevard. Crane House Lane didn’t warrant a traffic light, which meant weaving and dodging my way through a lively stream of tri and quadvees, pedal assisted rickshaws, and delivery vans to reach the tram platform in the wide median. Fortunately the outbound traffic was far lighter than the far lane’s city bound traffic, so a desperate dash wasn’t called for. Once there, I joined the small lump of fellow commuters gathering for the 8:35.

Being 8:35’ers, they were all strangers, in keeping with the day’s theme. So I stood silently off to one side in the warm, watery sunlight to await the tram’s arrival. The Grand Surbita Boulevard – eight lanes of wheeled traffic and two tram lines running down its center stretched northeast, straight as an arrow. It sliced through the commons, apartment blocks, and office buildings of Lundun towards the last three remaining towers of the Solar Age at its heart – three nearly transparent blue spires against the bright and misty gold morning sky.

There were no grand boulevards lined with pollarded trees in Lundun when those towers were new. There were no roads at all in Solar Age Lundun when they were new. People and goods traveled either in tubes underground or flew in the air between the steel-glass sheathed spires rising out of the green commons of Lundun. The maze of tunnels still exists beneath us, but have long since been sealed. Not that fact prevents mystery and thriller writers like Allen from putting them into good use in their stories. The memory of Solar Age Lundun still lingers in ancient vids and photos, and in the fiction I read and write. But looking down the lively, tree lined, and pleasantly familiar boulevard, I must confess that I didn’t regret the dismantling of its many towers. I live in a less heroic, or perhaps, a less hectic age. I was fine with that.

As the tram glided alongside the platform and came to a stop with a little squeal, I let the regulars board before me to find their customary seats. Then, making my way up the winding stairs to its upper level, I found my customary seat on the 8:25 – the right front window seat – was already taken. However, the second row window seat wasn’t, so I settled for it. Since we all have our customary seats, no doubt this seat’s regular rider would arrive shortly to give me a hard stare for taking theirs, as I would’ve, had roles been reversed. I confess that ‘Oh, well’ was my attitude towards the eventuality. It happens.

I lifted the window to let the warmth of the strange day wash over me, and watched, through the screen of suddenly green tinted branches, the great blocks of the ancient Solar Age buildings – many with their facades altered over the centuries, but still set in their original wide commons and plazas – drift by, if only to avoid the inevitable hard stare of a displaced commuter.

We hadn’t gone two stops before the 8:35 owner of my seat appeared in the aisle. Sensing her presence beside me, I glanced up to see her reflection in the window glass.

‘You’re in my seat, young man,’ she said, sternly.

I turned to her, undecided as to whether she was serious or in jest. Her stern face gave nothing away, but I decided to play it as a jest.

I smiled apologetically. ‘I am sorry, Madame. But alas, my alarm failed me today, so I missed my usual 8:25. I trust it will not happen again. But please feel free to join me,’ I added, nodding to the aisle seat next to me.

She was a handsome woman, somewhere in her middle age. I felt a distinct air of authority radiating through her steel rimmed glasses. Her pale tan overcoat was open to reveal a well cut, three piece, grey suit, white blouse, and a grey tie with a muted geometric pattern. She had a well worn courier bag in hand. In short, the uniform of those of us who worked in the City. I was wearing something similar, though without the vest, and my glasses were in my breast pocket, since I only needed them for paperwork. All in all, she reminded me of my mother, which allowed me to face her stern glare with a certain degree of impunity gleaned from long practice.

‘Do you understand the concept of seniority?’ she asked, darkly, and yet, I was now certain of that glint of humor in those eyes behind those steel rimmed glasses.

‘Indeed, I do, Madame. It has a central place in a civilized, ordered society. However, on trams, it is the law of the jungle – every empty seat is fair game, as I’m certain you’re well aware of. If it is any comfort, I too have been deprived of my customary seat now and again, so I can sympathize. But we must all take the rough with the smooth,’ I said with my best, if rather insincere, apologetic smile.

‘Not about to be intimidated, are you?’ she asked, settling into the seat next to me.

I shrugged. ‘Hopefully, this is a one time occurrence which can be blamed on the unfortunate malfunction of my alarm clock. Were it otherwise, I assure you that I would surrender the seat to you.’

‘So you say. As for your thin excuse, I suspect that you were likely out so late last night and in such a condition that you failed to remember to set it,’ she replied, giving me another of her faux hard looks.

‘That would be tomorrow, Madame.’ I smiled, and added, ‘But then, I’ve no office to be at tomorrow, so it won’t matter.’

‘Do you have an impertinent answer for every observation of mine?’

‘Blame it on our strange weather. It breeds impertinence. My sincere apologies.’

‘They’re not sincere, so save them,’ she muttered, as she shook out her newspaper, folded it in half and in half again before settling it on the courier bag on her lap to read.

I returned to the familiar sights of Surbita Boulevard as they rolled by. Passengers came and went as we made our way towards the heart of Lundun.

Some time later my companion harrumphed sharply, drawing my attention. Seeing that she had drawn it, she tapped the paper resting on her courier bag. ‘Another feature piece about a time traveler. And of course, it’s all about her complaining that after being promised the future she finds herself in the past.’

‘Really? I must read it at lunch. I find first hand accounts of the past fascinating.’

‘It didn’t say anything about her past. Only about her disappointment with the present.’

‘To be expected, especially if she took to the quantum-stasis box prior to the Titan Plague and the Collapse.’

‘It seems she was held in suspended animation for 1,500 years.’

‘Well then, hopefully she’ll write a book about her life prior to taking to the stasis box. They’re a wonderful source of first person historical information, especially for writers of historical fiction,’ I said, being one such writer, myself.

‘You’ll never learn anything about it from the Standard’s article. Really, it’s nothing but a thinly disguised opinion piece in support of the Duchess’ campaign to liberalize the Code. She has the Morning Standard in her hip pocket.’ (The Duchess, being the Duchess of Fauconcourt, Allisa Dere, the Administrator General of the EuraEast Region.)

I shrugged. ‘No doubt you’re right.’ The Morning Standard was a reliable cheerleader for Eura’s eastern region administrator general’s long campaign to alter the written Code which governs every aspect of our lives. ‘Still, one can understand our time traveler’s reaction. We’re hardly the future anyone would’ve envisioned fifteen hundred years ago.’

‘She’s lucky to find herself alive once again, given all that has occurred in the last fifteen hundred years. If the Third Age government hadn’t managed to pull the world back from the brink of total barbarism, or if she had taken to the box somewhere in Amera, she probably would never see the light of this day or any other.’

I nodded. ‘True.’

‘What annoys me most,’ she continued, ‘Is that while the Standard reports our time traveler’s complaints, it never mentions why the world is as she finds it. The towers of Lundun are indeed the mere stumps of the towers she knew in the Solar Age. We all know that. But does the article remind its readers that those towers were standing empty and far in excess of our requirements after the Titan Plague? No. Or that those towers – and every other piece of useless scrap left behind after the Collapse – is all humanity has to live on going forward? Settling the solar system having exhausted our natural resources, we are left to recycle the remains of that age to live on. We must live within very finite limits. It’s not some strange whim which shapes the world she now finds herself in,’ she said, giving me a stern, challenging look. ‘It’s hard facts.’

Well, if I hadn’t guessed it already – and I had – I was now certain I was sitting next to one of the fabled bureaucratic dragons, as they are known in the halls of the Ministries. These dragons lurk in their corner offices fiercely guarding their bureaucratic domains – and budgets. Thankfully, they are rarely seen, and best avoided when seen. Still, she wasn’t my dragon, so I continued to treat her as an old pal. Blame on the day as well.

‘All quite true. Still, it’s easy to see why someone from the Solar Age might be disappointed to find Lundun a cut down version of the city they knew, filled with people riding in trams and solar powered rickshaws.’

‘And that’s because so many of the wonders of the Solar Age had been manufactured in space, or on the moon, or Mars, which were lost when space travel abruptly ended. Not to mention the technology lost when so many people died. It would be nice if they reminded readers of those facts.’

‘Oh, I think we know all that. However, somehow, we didn’t lose the ability to manufacture and use the memory reading Interrogator machines which are the cornerstone of our justice system, or the Med machines which repair our bodies as needed. Who knows what Solar Age technologies the Third Age government has hidden away in its vast warehouses because it has been deemed unnecessary for us?’ (Another semi-mythical mystery which has served as a gold mine for generations of mystery and thriller writers.)

‘Untold wonders? Fiction. We have everything we need, young man. What the Standard also fails to mention is that however much reduced our technical level may appear to be, there has never been a society anywhere in this solar system which is more stable, more equitable, and more sustainable than the society of this Third Age,’ she said, and gave me a defiant look.

‘We don’t miss what we never had.’

‘We don’t miss what we don’t need. But it seems I’m sitting next to a fan of Administrator General Dere.’

I shook my head. ‘No. Many of her positions are too radical even for me. However, as an analytical engineer, currently employed by the Ministry of Innovation, I understand the frustration engineers and scientists feel when trying to improve things within the strict limits of change allowed by the Code. The parameters are simply too narrow. And I’m talking about mundane products, not flying machines. Many everyday products could be improved in little but significant ways, if the Code allowed only a slightly greater draw on our resource reserves.’

‘On our finite reserve of resources.’

‘Reserves based on wildly optimistic population growth that is unlikely to ever occur. We homo-stellars barely replace ourselves in our two hundred year lifespan. We can afford to draw on more of our surplus resources without endangering future human society on Earth.’

‘If that is indeed the case, the Code will eventually be modified. There are mechanisms within the Code to do just that. However, I see we’re about to cross the river, so we’ll have to postpone this confab for another day,’ she said, looking ahead through the tram’s wide front window. ‘And not very soon, either, young man.’

‘Alas,’ I said with a smile. We had indeed turned on to the City’s Circle Boulevard and were approaching the River Tems. A subtle rainbow of tinted steel-glass sheathed government buildings shimmered in the new day along its embankment.

‘Ministry of Administration for you?’ I asked, as she folded her paper and slipped it into her bag.

‘A good guess.’

‘Oh, I recognize the attitude,’ I said, as we stood and started down the aisle of the now almost empty upper deck for the staircase. ‘My mother works there as well.’ (She’s the deputy director in the Ministry of Justice, Police Procedures Bureau.)

‘Ah. Perhaps I know her?’

‘Oh, you might. But, if you’ll forgive me, I think she’ll remain nameless. I shall no doubt be late for work today, and I don’t care to hear Mother’s opinion on that, should you happen to mention it to her. I am treated to her opinion of me far too often as it is.’

She glanced back at me as we descended to exit the tram and gave me a mock scowl, ‘Then it falls to me. Don’t make a habit of it, young man. If only because I want my customary seat on the tram. I’ll certainly track your mother down if you start to make a habit of it.’

‘I promise, never again.’

We filed out onto the platform and into the strange, warm, milky bright morning. As the tram glided on, and the traffic light halted the stream of vees, we parted with a nod – she joining the small herd of clerks and bureaucrats heading for the EuraNorthwest Region Administration Building – a gleaming, gold tinted steel-glass tower of some 20 stories, which rose from a broad paved plaza. She wouldn’t be late, though she was cutting it close. Still, I had a feeling that her office was near enough to the top of the building that she could turn up as late as she pleased.

The Ministry of Innovation, however, rises much more modestly beyond the Ministry of Finance and its commons – a walk of five minutes. And yes, I know what you’re thinking. Let me just say that the trams run that reliably, and yes, I customarily turn up at my desk at two minutes to nine.

My fate sealed, I saw no point in hurrying. I crossed the Finance Ministry’s paved plaza, strolled alongside its gleaming blue tinted steel-glass southern side, and then under the stark, but green-tinged branches of the green park beyond it.

Solar Age Lunduners loosely scattered their long blocks of flats and towering offices across the ancient city, setting them amongst green commons and carefully selected ancient buildings and ruins –most of which are now just ruins – perhaps to better appreciate the scale of their glowing steel-glass Lundun. Indeed, I’ve read that the broad and straight Surbita Boulevard was driven 11 kilometers through to the heart of the city requiring only seven Solar Age structures to be partially demolished, so widely scattered, and seemingly randomly placed, did they build Solar Age Lundun.

On this warm, lost-its-way, tropical day, I took my time and arrived at my desk almost ten minutes late.

Oli, sharing our little office, looked up and said. ‘Nice of you to show up today, Hank.’

‘Touch and go, Oli, touch and go.’

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02

Perhaps the only thing more tedious than my job at the Ministry of Innovation is trying to describe it. So I won’t. Suffice it to say that I spent this morning with a blueprint of a proposed revision to a quadvan door latch, and my meter-wide set of ring binders – the Manual of Code relevant to my work – next to my desk, performing the various calculations prescribed by the decision trees within those binders to see if the proposed revisions and the changes in manufacturing fell within the Code’s prescribed resource limits. No doubt the manufacturer's engineers had done so as well, prior to submitting it. Nevertheless, despite their calculations showing that their design fell slightly outside of the Code, it was still close enough to say ‘what the hell,’ and submit it anyway. I then spent more than an hour going through the supplemental Code Revisions’ binder looking for possible exceptions that could be applied to approve the changes. I found and noted several, but those would have to be reviewed and approved by someone up the pay scale from me. Nevertheless, I had the satisfaction of having done all I could to improve the world with sturdier quadvan doors. In short, a typical morning in my modest sub-section of the Ministry of Innovation.

At noon I picked up a bento at the Dim Sun across the green from the Ministry and joined Oli and the gang from our subsection to eat it on a park bench.

Birds chatted in the trees or grubbed for their lunch in the grass. Bright yellow drifts of daffodils danced in the warm breeze from some far, tropical land as we talked of our plans for the weekend, complained of how stupid, boring, and useless our jobs were, and what we planned to do after our time in civil service was over. As we always did.

I owed the state four years of civic duty as payment for my education, which had to be served within fifty years of graduation. If I had chosen to put it off a decade or two, I would have been employed at a more senior position. I had decided, however, to get my four years out of the way early, a decision that I would’ve given considerably more thought to, knowing what I know today. Still, I had a little less than a year to serve. The end was vaguely in sight.

We wandered back to the office shortly after one. I had two remaining project files in my inbox. I saved one for a reason to get out of bed on firstday – and the other, I toyed with to pass the afternoon before calling it a day at three o’clock.

I caught my usual tram home with the ruddy light of the sun shining on my face as it hung low over the far end of the boulevard. It seemed very strange, given the weather, that the afternoon should be closing in so soon.

I found a letter waiting for me in my mailbox. It was from The Distant Shores, the Premier Magazine of Romance and Adventure as it claims on the cover.  I’m embarrassed to say that I stared at it with my heart thumping. Now, I’m far from as successful a writer as Allen Leifort, but I have sold five short Solar Age historical short stories over the last eight years. Four of them since my return from the Amera Autonomous Cultural Reserve where I worked as an on-site analytical engineer for the better part of four years on several archaeological digs. Thus, this wouldn’t be my first sale – if it was a sale – but every sale is exciting, and if this was one, it would be a new first.

I opened the door and stepped into my flat, placing the unopened letter on the kitchen counter while I flung my courier bag into the closet and hung up my overcoat. Stepping back to the counter I stared at the letter again, savoring the moment. I hadn’t submitted a short story this time. It was an adventure novel entitled, Giants in the Ash. If they had rejected it, they would’ve sent the manuscript back in the large envelope I had provided. The letter suggested... Well, it could be a number of things – quantum like – until I opened it. Somewhere between eagerness and fear, I drew out and unfolded my little pocket knife and carefully slit open the envelope. And... Well, having made a melodrama of this already, I’ll simply say that they were delighted to inform me that they wanted to serialize Giants in the Ash in The Distant Shores magazine. I’d be buying a bottle or two of champagne myself, tonight.

It was my custom, every fourthday evening, to meet Allen Leifort and his wife, Tess Bow, plus a varying assortment of university era friends, their wives, partners, boyfriends, and girlfriends at the Bargeman Pub. We’d dine and then talk over drinks well into the evening. Between celebrating Leifort’s newly published story, my sale, and the fact that the strange weather seemed to bring most of our old friends out, we had a rather epic gathering. I am somewhat embarrassed, however, to admit that the party broke up before midnight. Blame it on the sad fact that we all were eight years older and it had been a work day for all. And just maybe, we were eight years wiser, as well.

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03

I passed on Allen and Tess’s offer to drive me home in the fold out boot seat of their trivee. While not strictly sober, I wasn’t staggering drunk and the night was, somehow, still tropical and inviting. I assured them I wouldn’t fall off the footbridge and could find my way home unaided.

After successfully crossing the Boat Club Footbridge over the Tems I made my way across the campus of Temsbridge University. The ground level of Temsbridge Residence Houses was the home of garishly lit pubs, cafes, restaurants, and theaters. The broad plaza before the long building was bright and alive with students dining and drinking under the stars. Its off-campus side was darker and quieter, but still filled with students taking advantage of this strange tropical evening.

Putting the university behind, I crossed a series of wide, dark commons. In the Solar Age, when the residential blocks were towers 30 to 60 stories high, these commons would’ve no doubt seemed far more intimate. But with the towers razed to under a dozen stories, they felt wide and open – even a bit desolate in the faint moonlight. Clumps of trees, community gardens, ponds, sport fields, tea gardens, and rustic ruins littered them in the shadows.

A grid of bright streets and avenues crossed the commons every couple of kilometers, carrying wheeled traffic through them. Narrow lanes branched out from these straight streets to wind through the commons, connecting the scattered blocks of flats to the thru streets. Straight footpaths crisscrossed the commons, connecting the blocks of flats as directly as possible.

The moon, a pale, featureless disk sailing high overhead, frosted the grass and bare trees with a sheen of silver, while casting deep, tangled black shadows under the trees. Strings of dim street lights lit the footpaths, brighter ones, the lanes, and, in the distance, beyond several blocks of flats, the bright streetlights of Chestnut Avenue could be seen.

Making my way along the footpaths – one pool of light to the next – I was struck by the silence of the commons – and the fact that it wasn’t entirely silent. Alone in the midnight commons, I could hear the ancient city of Lundun humming to itself – a low, deep hum, just audible, but intense enough to be almost felt.

I had the commons to myself. Through the tree trunks and leafless branches around me, I could just make out the dark shapes of several long blocks of flats, some near, some far – all lightly speckled with glowing windows. Near or far, they seemed equally remote, almost as if they were a part of another world altogether. I passed one of the picturesque ruins which the Solar Age seemed to love. This one was now no more than old walls traced in lumps of sod with a bit of masonry sticking up here and there and beyond it, an ornate iron footbridge which carried me over a small stream winding its way to the Tems between its stepped stone banks.

I was two blocks of flats away from Crane House when I came across a girl sitting on the kerb of one of the small lanes, in the dim fringe of a lamplight.

As I approached, she lifted a bottle of champagne from between her outstretched legs and took a long swig from it. She was dressed in a very short black dress with an open, black mess jacket with gold buttons draped across her shoulders. I noticed she was barefoot as well. It was still mild, but not that mild. She had to be either chilled or well lit. Her hair had been swept back to a jeweled clasp at the back of her head, but most of it had come free of it, falling loosely over her shoulders. If I had been completely sober, alarm bells would’ve been ringing, red lights flashing – trouble ahead. But I wasn’t completely sober.

‘Are you alright, Mademoiselle?’ I asked, pulling up a couple of meters from her.

She turned to me, brushed her bangs out of her eyes and gave me a long look and then a slight smile, ‘I am just fine. Thank you for asking.’

‘Really?’

She nodded. ‘Really. Tonight, I am celebrating being a grownup. My Father would be pleased. He suggested that it was time I grew up.’

‘Really?’ I said again, puzzled. She was young, but not that young. ‘Rather a funny way to celebrate being a grownup. I mean, well... drinking all alone on the kerb like that. I’m not so sure your father would approve.’ 

She considered that for a moment, before shrugging. ‘I am sure you are right. So let us say I am mourning my fading youth, instead.’

‘That seems more likely. Forgive me for speaking bluntly, but in either case, your method is ill advised.’

‘You are forgiven,’ she replied with an airy wave of her hand.

‘I can’t quote branch and node number, but I'm fairly certain consuming alcohol on a public street without a proper license is frowned on by the Code. Should a police officer happen by, I fear you could end up spending the night in the clink.’

‘Are you some sort of a codier that you quote Code to me?’

I shook my head. ‘No, but I seem to recall the subject coming up at some point during my university career.’

‘And they enforce that Code here?’

‘In your case, I believe they would, if only for your safety, Mademoiselle. In your condition it seems neither wise, nor safe, to be out alone. I would suggest you empty the bottle, and allow me to walk you home. It is getting late, and I’m sure your father is worrying about you, if not now, soon.’

‘He is worrying about me, even without seeing me now. Nevertheless... I like that word – nevertheless. Do you?’

‘One of my favorites. But more to the point, we don’t want your father worrying about you.’

‘Nevertheless, he is worrying about me regardless – whatever that word means. More to the point, it would be a long walk home, since he is at home in Paree. Or maybe still at work. Who knows? Nevertheless, you see, he is not especially worrying about me tonight. In fact, I believe that he would be proud of me for being here,