Kurt spent an hour packing, adjusting, and repacking his backpack, plus a small duffel bag attached to its side.
The hiking gear he had used many times over the past few years would be fully tested over the next days. He stretched his lean body and realized that the last few days had caught up with him, he was tired. He looked at his watch and decided to try and get a little rest before heading out. Kurt lay back on his bed realizing that sleep wouldn’t come. All he could think about was his situation as a leftover Anglo, living in Atlantica. He was a duck out of water even at the communal parties arranged by the Administration for the working Anglos. For the most part, this odd group was made up of extreme liberal and Anglo policy thinkers with special backgrounds needed by the Administration. They were complete snobs as they reveled in their new found prestige. When Kurt talked to them, they could have cared less about the history of the U.S.A. where they were born and raised.
They were pleased with its destruction and apparently their new found power. After attending a few parties at the request of Dr. Alexander, Kurt stopped going. These elites had all their basic needs supplied, while the other whites, like the Publican on the bridge, worked at lower level service and security jobs.
Finally he began to relax. From a slight fog of pending sleep, he heard a loud noise that sounded like it came from the front door. ‘Damn it, McDonald’s back,’ he thought as he got up, turned off the tiny light next to his bed and crept across to his window. The moon shone brightly on the front yard. Two large men in uniform were backing away from the house and looking up at his window with blue beam lights pointing at the front door and then up to his window. He ducked back behind the aluminum closet door, hoping the metal would stop the penetrating beam of video light. He slid over to the window. Their lights were out and he saw them turn, walk down to a hovering Skimmer that was in front of the house. They looked again and one of them sprayed a beam across the windows, then climbed into the hover craft. They pulled away, stopping once to check the street sign on the street. As they revved up their air-sucking engine, leaves blew up into a swirl. In a few seconds, all that was left of their visit was a vapor trail following down the hill towards the bridge. Kurt watched the now quiet spot.
He returned to his backpack rearranging it for balance. As he packed he thought ahead to his destination, Columbia. It was highly secured and from what he understood, its border was extremely difficult to penetrate.
He hoped that the hiking trail would be simpler. Columbia’s Dulles was the closest airport to Pittsburgh with landing rights into England, so it was the logical destination in order to get a flight to London. England had retreated from the mainland of Europe, becoming once again an island nation by closing the Chunnel to France twenty years ago. It even restricted immigration of documented Anglo’s to only the less populated areas of the island. Since his sister and her family had moved to Scotland before the new restrictions and his parents had been buried there, Kurt had familial rights. He also had his parent’s genealogical papers to substantiate their ancestry. All he had needed was something to convince the authorities in Columbia to gain passage. The tiny chip in the cylinder should accomplish his escape.
Kurt did a final check of his backpack, tightened the straps, and set it on the floor. He picked up his leather-bound journal and leafed through some of the pages, then neatly placed it into his backpack next to the zipper backside so he could get to it during the trip. Traveling items, food, maps, and discs were stored in the outside pockets. Inside a tiny, hidden pocket, Kurt put the personal chips that contained his required ID and family history data. When he was done, he sat down on his bed and looked in the mirror. His face was barely visible in the dull light from the solar lamp.
Kurt looked around the room. He had all that he would need. The room was empty. He turned off the lamp and left. He wanted to get to Dr. Alexander’s before the ten o’clock curfew.
Kurt knew the old walking trails that wound throughout Schenley Park. Now that he’d made the decision to leave, he thought how absolutely easy it was to actually close the door of his room and walk away. He’d procrastinated for months; been basically packed for a week; became mentally prepared each day up to this moment; but without a definite plan that would work, he couldn’t make the final decision to leave. In two weeks, the Aquifer data and the Allegheny Passage solved this problem while his run-in’s with Martin
McDonald gave him an added incentive to immediately leave.
He had no accounts to settle; no farewell parties; no valuable merchandise; no family, wife, or children. All he had materially was his family’s home in the South of Pittsburgh along the river. A family of the revolution were living in the home and taking excellent care of it based on the visits he had made. The new owners were happy as they began their new lives. It had pleased him that it was so well kept, but just looking at the home of his youth brought both smiles and a bit of sadness to him. Everything he knew as a child was within those walls, from his first spacemen to his first books, he had gathered in his room on second floor. Now he thought of his possessions inside the backpack and around his waist as he prepared to leave. When he decided to leave he realized that his most valuable possessions were his memories, experiences, and emotions that he carried in his mind. One day he might come back to see the haunts of his youth, as an old man visiting from Scotland, but now it was time to leave.
He closed the door of the Bolena house and walked quickly up the sidewalk into the darkness of the street. He picked up his pace and noticed a few lights breaking through the dark leafless branches of the trees that covered the hills of Squirrel Hill. Before he headed south on the first leg of his trip he had to see Raoul and Dr.
Alexander. His first stop would be Raoul’s. He was an unlikely friend, but over the past three years they’d become very close, arguing vociferously over the social issues of the day while sharing their joint interest in history. The other part of his relationship with Raoul was Maria, his sister. That had been a bit more complicated, but certainly a highlight of the past two years. Kurt had fallen in love with her two summers ago.
Raoul’s family was of mixed blood. In the early part of the century there was a large migration of Puerto Ricans to Pittsburgh because as citizens they had no problem and well playing jobs were available. Puerto Ricans were fortunate to catch the early wave of jobs because the early part of the century, immigration, both legal and illegal, went back and forth, depending on which political party controlled Washington, D.C. All state immigration barriers, imposed and approved by the Supreme Court in the early part of the century, were lifted after the election of 2012. Immigration control was given to the States and most Border States reacted with strict immigration barriers. Then after the Social Revolt of 2016 it was reversed and returned to being governed out of Washington. Political and social emphasis changed rapidly after the Conservative trends at the beginning of the century. One result was mass intra-immigration between poor and wealthy locales of the United States.
This movement brought Raoul’s parents to Pittsburgh, where as a teen-ager he found work building the
underground Aquifer System. Later he graduated from the University of Pittsburgh and began working for the City, which is how Kurt met Maria.
Maria was a delight and she spread instant joy with a captivating, seductive smile. When Raoul introduced them, she smiled slyly at him and lightly kissed his cheek. Thinking back on that moment, Kurt thought that he had fallen for her at the touch of her soft lips that day. Usually shy, Kurt asked if they could have lunch and she agreed. Within a month they were taking walks in Schenley Park, reading quietly together, and riding horses in the country. They became inseparable. It was after an afternoon ride in the country near a farm that was unoccupied, that they first made love. It was a time that Kurt still remembered. The relationship filled a major void in his otherwise quiet existence. He walked about a foot off the ground for months, but reality finally checked in to their relationship. Her teaching dream was paramount in her life. Ahead of her were the Masters Program and her Doctorate, which she had qualified for in Paris. When they walked or sat in a café, sipping coffee or drinks, her future life in Europe was all she talked about.
When she actually left, it left him vacant. She and Raoul, children of Puerto Rican immigrants, were the future of this new country, not an Anglo in his thirties. Kurt was too old for her future and too attached to the past of this land. Raoul and Maria were firm believers in the Atlantica Republic and although they differed over the past, present, and especially the future of the area, they’d become true friends of Kurt. When Maria left for France last year, it was Raoul that had been his support in getting him through that difficult time.
Raoul knew his sister was a driven and modern woman of the time. She had no limit as to where she could go with her life and above all, he wanted her to have that chance. He felt for Kurt, but he knew it was only a matter of time when she would go to Europe and that Maria would probably disappoint him.
It had been more than a year since she left and he was basically healed, although he thought of her often, especially in moments of loneliness. Throughout this ordeal he and Raoul deepened their friendship. Kurt knew he could trust Raoul with his plan to leave Pittsburgh and Raoul had already said he understood why he felt compelled to leave, if he decided to do so.
Kurt crossed the Greenfield Bridge. A vehicle was winding down a path through the trees of the Park as he reached the Squirrel Hill side. “Security?” he said out loud as he quickly ran to the end of the dark bridge and hurried off to Pocusset Street. He scrambled behind a group of thick, tangled bushes that ran down over the ravine above the access onto the Eastern Expressway. Leaning over, he looked down onto the flashing
commuter trains going back and forth on the honing tracks next to the Express Lanes of the carrier tracks. The train rode on a cushion of air and was like a wind blowing up the valley. From Kurt’s viewpoint, the passengers were black dots in the framed light as they whisked by in a golden blur.
As Kurt’s thoughts returned to the Security vehicle, he realized as a dissident, he could never belong to any of the small groups of patriots still fostering hopes to a return of the old days of the U.S. These groups maintained secret contacts with the Anglo new countries that bordered Atlantica, Columbia and America. He’d thought about getting involved, but had decided conspiracy wasn’t his game. He looked at the slowly moving Security vehicle that could, with its laser loop, immediately freeze locks on both rivers and main bridges in case of flooding or sudden landfalls. Atlantica had developed monitoring and mobiles systems to protect its natural and man-made resources. Much of the mobile equipment was developed in Russia. These creeping control
mechanisms such as the one crossing the bridge in front of Kurt, were monitored from space by satellites developed in the U.S. Kurt listened and watched as the monster van rolled across the bridge. He had no electrical equipment on him, only the solar-com unit in his backpack and his watch, which had power defaults, meaning only when activated would signals be sent. The world had become totally connected on land by fiber optic systems and wireless communications by the light-link grids. Today, people could send information almost anywhere on earth or even to the revolving stations in space. Everything could be archived and was, automatically, but he relied on his leather bound journal, wrapped tightly in the backpack, to record the history of this age. The downside of this time was that virtually all communication could be easily monitored even with personal scrambling.
He watched the van head up Pocusset Street. As it disappeared in the darkness, Kurt got up, adjusted his backpack and went in the opposite direction up over another hill and into Schenley Park. This would take him over one of the old trails past what used to be a golf course right into the backyard of Raoul’s apartment complex. Kurt came down the little embankment behind Raoul’s place. He felt energized by the journey ahead of him.