FutureDyke Read online

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Other Books by Lea Daley

  Acknowledgment

  About the Author

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Epilogue

  Bella Books

  Copyright © 2014 by Lea Daley

  Bella Books, Inc.

  P.O. Box 10543

  Tallahassee, FL 32302

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  First Bella Books Edition 2014

  eBook released 2014

  Editor: Katherine V. Forrest

  Cover Designer: Linda Callaghan

  ISBN: 978-1-59493-394-3

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  Other Bella Books by Lea Daley

  Waiting for Harper Lee*

  *Waiting for Harper Lee received a 2014 Lavender Certificate

  from the Alice B. Awards Committee

  Acknowledgment

  With sincere gratitude to Katherine V. Forrest, both for her inspirational criticism and her unflagging support

  About the Author

  Lea Daley lives in St. Louis with her long-time partner and a very opinionated Poodle-Shih Tzu mix. She has written fiction while raising two children; claiming a lesbian identity; earning a BFA in painting; teaching preschoolers and college students; narrowly surviving the death of her only daughter; and heading a nonprofit agency that serves low-income working families. She now writes full-time.

  A hard-core liberal, Daley follows politics and enjoys animated debates at the dinner table. Because baking is a passion, her freezer almost always contains at least one heavenly homemade dessert and she’s happy to share her recipes with anyone who asks. FutureDyke is Daley’s second novel.

  Dedication

  For Gale, who invited me into her tent—

  a rare and precious privilege.

  Chapter One

  Even before I was fully awake, I knew I was in a hospital. The air had a pungent, artificial quality, and too-bright light assaulted my eyelids. Just beyond view, I sensed a bustle of activity. I was lying flat on my back, chilled to the bone, paralyzingly lethargic—tired beyond telling.

  Then I remembered why I was there. Reaching for my head, I patted tentatively—no bandages, no swelling, no pain. Only my own hair, thick and springy to the touch. Longer than I liked it. I continued that tactile inventory, tracing all the familiar contours of my face. Everything was just as I’d left it.

  But when exactly was that? And why had nothing changed? Fear gripped me—had I staked my life on an impossibility, only to wake to the same mortal sentence? Was I still doomed, but now isolated beyond all conception? Had I stripped myself of everything that could have made my final days matter, only to live them out devoid of meaning? I struggled to sit, but instead sank back into a strange and drifting darkness. Cold. So cold.

  * * *

  A face. Peering at me. Hazy and indistinct. I moaned slightly, and it—she?—jumped back in surprise. When I reached out, a smooth hand caught mine, returning it firmly to my side. My vision slowly cleared, revealing Asian eyes and warm-toned skin. She (definitely a she) spoke in soothing tones. The language was English, no doubt about that, but subtly different. God! How long had I slept?

  I tried to rise, then shrieked with fright—there was nothing to push against! A startled giggle burst from my…nurse? observer? companion? Glancing down, I realized I was suspended three feet above the floor. Absurdly, the thought of that small drop was terrifying. Adrenaline rocketed through me.

  A second voice then, a woman’s, smoky and imperious. “Try a sit-up.”

  I turned till I found the source, headed toward me to take a closer look. She moved with a confidence all too rare in the females of my day. A dyke if I ever saw one. Enormous brown eyes, tawny hair. And that face! Pure sunshine! Could she be part of my cure?

  “Do a sit-up, Leslie.” Under that pleasant huskiness, I heard impatience and a hint of command.

  The little nurse softened the dyke’s directive: “Your hands lack sufficient mass to activate the field.”

  Tightening my abs, I lunged upright and saw only iridescent floor tiles below. I patted the space around me, feeling oddly primitive. The sole support was directly beneath my ass and thighs. Too much! As I rolled backward into a faint, that inexplicable resilience unfurled, catching me just in time.

  * * *

  Alone. And grateful for the privacy. Launching myself into a seated position, I took inventory. The oppressive lethargy had lifted, replaced by a sense of wellbeing. I was healthy. I was whole. I knew it. My plan—so desperate, so dangerous—had worked! I might have awakened in a strange time and place but adaptation wasn’t even an issue. Because, if nothing else, my people were fabled for against-all-odds survival.

  Someone had dressed me in white, a weightless fabric that draped and shimmered around my body. But when I tried to smooth a pleat, I gasped. Though my eyes insisted I was clothed—and modestly—my fingers found only nude flesh. To look and touch at the same time was sheer madness. I raised my hands skyward, watching the nonexistent sleeves of my nonexistent gown slide down, obeying every command of gravity. I couldn’t explain the phenomenon, couldn’t change it. Taking a deep breath, I set the problem aside for later consideration.

  The room seemed warmer now. No—I was in a different space. On one wall, a huge plane of glass. Not transparent enough to be a window. Not reflective enough to serve as a mirror. It gave back a murky image—my face, disturbingly ghostly. And in the dim sheen of the glass, a beckoning quality that drew me, hinting at depths to be plumbed.

  After a moment of hesitation, I lifted both legs and felt the subtle pressure supporting them dissipate. Flexing my knees, I dropped to the floor, profoundly grateful for a smooth, organic solidity un
derfoot. But apparently I’d exhausted my very limited resources. Because I was staggering by the time I arrived at the glass. My palms, my forehead, met the slick surface. Slid jerkily downward. That stutter and drag of skin against glass the last thing I felt before oblivion.

  * * *

  Waking became predictable. Each time, I wrestled with the eerie feeling that I’d been home only moments before—and that eons had passed since then. More alert now, I scanned my environment. The proportions, textures and colors were innately soothing, owing much, I thought, to the elegant esthetic of Japanese tatami rooms. Every element composed of natural materials, appealing precisely because of irregularities and variations. The ugly perfection of plastic nowhere to be seen. And I knew only obsessive attention to detail could produce such seemingly artless beauty.

  Still nothing could compete with the person lounging against the “windowsill,” looking bored as hell. That woman with the superior attitude who’d been present shortly after I first came to. The one I’d instinctively recognized as a dyke.

  She jerked to attention when she heard my feet hit the floor. Stepping forward, she extended a steadying hand. The shock of her touch ran through me like sun-warmed honey. Noting my smile, she pulled away and snapped her fingers, arrogant as any queen.

  My little nurse stepped into view, bowing deeply. “I will inform the High Council this one has awakened.” Something glinted at her wrist as she raised a hand. Then she walked through the wall and out of sight, her abrupt disappearance like a special effect in a cheap holoflik. The dyke followed, traces of some spicy perfume lingering behind.

  For an instant, I could only gape. Then the deeper meaning hit me, and I spun around. Not a single door to this room—I was trapped! The surface where my visitors had vanished was smooth and unyielding. Still I searched frantically for a hidden catch or spring. Nada. Crazed, driven, on the verge of hysteria, I thudded both fists over every inch of the wall. Then I heard myself whimper.

  Shouting, “I will not lose control! This will not happen to me!” I slapped a palm on the faux window. Which cleared instantly. To reveal a vast, rolling sandscape that was no part of Planet Earth. I flung up one arm against the brilliance of sister suns, recoiling from their glare.

  Maybe fainting can be overdone, but I really had no choice.

  * * *

  You can adjust to almost anything, given enough time. I learned to stretch out wherever I chose, knowing that support would materialize beneath me. I became blasé about people walking through walls. I even got used to the idea that the “clothing” I wore was an illusion—one I controlled through mysterious mental gymnastics. What I couldn’t accept was my ignorance, my imprisonment.

  I cornered Tahm’Hzu, that timid little nurse, and demanded a hearing with her superiors. As if I had a right. And maybe I did, because shortly thereafter, a trio of strangers appeared in my room. Unannounced. Sublimely self-contained. Important personages, Tahm’Hzu transmitted through reverent body language. Part of the “High Council,” which I understood to be a governing body. And they were known as “the Elders,” though their ages appeared to vary significantly. The three faced me, executing a perfectly synchronized nod. Almost, but not quite, a bow. “Mi’lana va’tir.”

  “Good day,” I said, assuming that was a local salutation. Then I nodded back. Just as deeply, but no more. “Thank you for meeting with me.”

  Not caring whether they found my direct gaze disconcerting, I studied my guests. They were strikingly similar in appearance, slender, with warm-toned skin and angled eyes. The youngest conveyed a powerful impression of deference toward the others. One of whom was called N’yal Di’loth—somehow both his name and title. Since there was no word in English to describe their actual function, I was encouraged to think of them as healers. They were at my disposal. N’yal Di’loth promised they’d answer every question.

  I had my list ready. It had been circulating through my mind since day one, and I’d memorized it in order of priority. Because if this place had methods and materials for jotting notes, none had been offered to me. When I finally spoke, my heart was pounding, my mouth dry. “Where am I?”

  “In what you might call a transitional home.”

  “No—what’s the name of this place?”

  “The name will have no meaning for you. We call it Jashari.”

  I swallowed hard. “What year is it?”

  They looked puzzled, then bemused. “Time is not marked here in the way you are accustomed to.”

  Was that an evasion? Or were they patronizing me? “Surely you can do the math!”

  They put their heads together—three wise ones in search of an idiom. “But what is the point?”

  “What’s the point? I need to know!”

  The trio gazed at me with infinite compassion. “Everyone from your era is long dead. Every place you visited, dust. Does it matter whether it’s 2310 Terratime, or 4258?”

  How casually N’yal Di’loth tossed out those numbers, so impossible to conceptualize! Perhaps he meant that as a metaphor. Or a joke. And yet I felt it again—the sense I’d slept through endless passages of time. Goddamn! I’d waited so long for these answers, but each one left me more bewildered.

  Maybe I needed another approach. My voice was shaky when I said, “Okay. Let me tell you what I remember, then you fill in the gaps. My name is Leslie Burke.”

  They nodded confirmation.

  “Back in my time, I was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor.”

  That was acknowledged by a group bow.

  “We—my culture—had just begun to use cryogenics to preserve the terminally ill, hoping they could be cured in the future. Since I was going to die, and pretty unpleasantly, it was worth trying.” Remembering, I shuddered. My oncologist hadn’t believed in shielding her patients from ugly realities.

  “I wasn’t rich. Holographers rarely are—were. But the Supreme Court had ruled that life insurance benefits could be applied to cryosleep. Because once frozen, patients satisfied every definition of death. That decision made the procedure accessible to ordinary people.”

  My audience appeared to concur. So far, so good. “I traveled extensively for work, so I already had a monster insurance policy—”

  The Elders gasped.

  “—that’s just slang for an unusually large policy. After I named Cryocorp my beneficiary, the company took care of all the details.”

  Because I was going to leave everything behind anyway—and if the contract was a fraud, I’d never know it. Still, the terror that grips you when you select the date you’ll die! It felt surreal, outrageous. Almost as unimaginable as that terminal diagnosis. Every other type of cancer had been defeated, why not mine?

  The appointed day dawned clear and warm, a heartbreak of a morning to say farewell to my life. I wanted to be absolutely lucid in my last moments with Meredith so I tossed the regulation trankpak aside. In the end, Mer took the meds—the only way she could endure our parting. Was that separation any less painful than death by cancer? Either way you looked at it though, we’d have lost one another.

  And I was young! Not ready to die! If I had to become a memory for Meredith, I wanted it to be a powerful one. I kissed her deeply, made a stupid crack about frigidity, then held my head high as technicians led me away. Her period of mourning might be long over, but mine was just beginning…

  When I shook off my reverie, the Elders were still there, patiently waiting. “So I suppose that’s how I came to…Jashari? And since I feel so good, I assume you were able to cure me?”

  My youngest visitor couldn’t restrain herself. “That was simple! Your freckles were the real problem.”

  Remembering that sense of something subtly different in my reflection, I shoved one sleeve to my elbow. How had I not registered the change? My skin was pale as paper. And flawless. I burst into tears. “Please don’t say you kept me on ice because I had freckles!”

  All three patted me ineffectually and the young one spoke
again. “There were other factors too…”

  N’yal Di’loth silenced her with a glance. “Leslie-ahn, this is sufficient for today. We will meet again when you are stronger.” The Elders raised their arms, bracelets gleaming, then walked through my wall.

  I was alone again—and as never before.

  Chapter Two

  Shortly after my meeting with the Elders, my living space was enlarged. That day Tahm’Hzu simply fastened one of those ubiquitous bracelets around my wrist, then gestured for me to rise. If I thought I’d mastered invisible furniture, a smile behind cupped fingers said otherwise.

  Leading me to a wall, the nurse raised my arm and gave me a firm shove. Almost before I sensed millions of molecules sliding past billions of atoms, I was in a different room. Tahm’Hzu hadn’t joined me and it was just as well. Because after one glance, I fell to my knees, sobbing. I was surrounded by stacks of permaplastic crates. Like every “cryo baby,” I’d been provided with two dozen of those containers. We could cram whatever we liked into them—except flora, fauna, food, chemicals or weaponry. Our contracts guaranteed the cartons would be held for us, no matter how long we slept. “Plastic is forever,” the cryocounselor had assured me.

  I’d completely forgotten these boxes. Perhaps because looting seemed inevitable. Or possibly because I doubted the commitment would be honored through time. Or maybe I’d never actually expected to be revived. Yet here they were, still labeled with my name and computer code, an inventory attached to each lid.

  My final days at home were so fraught I scarcely remembered what was in the damned things. I’d tried to take the task seriously. But how can you know what you’ll need upon waking in the future? Finally, I’d chosen only items with true significance—belongings that would keep me connected to a life I’d leave with such reluctance.

  Of course, Meredith was involved too. She made a brave game of winnowing my worldly goods. Culling every closet and drawer. Calling me “FutureDyke” all the while the cartons jammed our sunporch, slowly filling. Now I didn’t care about inventories. I wanted real objects in my hands.