Aliza and Daniel

Aliza looked at Daniel with opposition, why would he do such a stupid thing? Of course, she wouldn’t tell anyone out of respect for him, and some mild adoration of his bravery, but it scared her.

          She had once dropped her cellphone when crossing the hyper loop one evening after school and was unable to retrieve it quickly enough due to her extraneous time with Daniel. Their banter often slowed their walking pace to a crawl when going home, causing her to be late. She was forced to retrieve it the next day but as expected the phone was not functional; her parents always warned her not to put electronics into a magnetic suspension field; they were going to be angry with her. But that incident, for some unknown reason, made her wonder if a whole person could fit into the contouring of the track while the trains passed by, of course they wouldn’t spin around wildly, but it would be dangerous try. She playfully mentioned it to Daniel when they arrived at school, but he didn’t seem too interested. She was annoyed.

          When school began, the teacher instructed the class in a lesson in mathematics in which the students’ personal devices would aid in the presentation. Aliza was then forced to make a call home to notify her parents and then was given an auxiliary tablet for the time being. It seemed pointless really, why couldn’t she just have shared a device, or maybe not have even used one. But, of course, she knew it was important. The conversation with her parents was awkward, they asked why she didn’t take the main pass over the hyper loop rail, but she said all the things she needed to say anyway.

          Beginning her way home that afternoon, she felt angst in the direction of her parents and escape in the direction of Daniel, so, she convinced him to walk with her, at least along the hyper loop. The tugging she felt away from her home slowed their journey even more, but she was sure the time she saved in skipping her end of school ritual would make up for that, or at least she hoped.

The other children scurried around to get home but dispersed and disappeared soon after leaving school. Aliza and Daniel walked east. It was in the open air, which was mandatory for public buildings and high traffic common businesses like retail and eateries, but the majority of her one-and-a-half-mile journey was enveloped by the walls of the foundations beneath the city. They traveled mostly through depressed walkways for the maintenance of those sites, deviating adventurously off the public path. Entrances and drains to the lower levels were blocked off, though strangely one could still see the colorful esoteric scribbles of the city on the inside.

Along the wall of a certain large building a material transport appeared around the corner zooming toward wherever it was going, Daniel jumped in front of it with a smile directed towards Aliza. Her stomach tightened as he showed only slight apprehension to put himself into danger, but of course the robot stopped before him and metallically requested that he moved out of the way. Its voice came from his cellphone which was disconcerting in a way.

“C’mon Daniel, move over.” Said Aliza

“Fine” he said with a smile. He moved to the side to let it pass.

          He looked back to watch it go by and disappear into the cities sometimes pitch-black alleys. A shiver washed over him and the world suddenly became very small, to the left and right and behind them and above them was metallic sheeting and ventilation, rivets large enough to stand on, and sometimes the wind would cause the steel framework of the older buildings to rack. It played them like basses in a somber orchestra and echoes from distant construction made it ever more ominous. He suddenly felt like an ant buried under gravel with no sense of direction.

          “Are you okay?” Aliza noticed Daniel as he started to walk backwards. He stopped, and then something happened in his face.

          “I’m great.” He looked at her with a smile, “let’s go.”

          Aliza set the path with her eyes and they continued.

          “This place is pretty scary isn’t it?” He asked her.

          “Maybe, though, it’s not as scary as some places in this world.”

          Daniel couldn’t think of any such place.

They walked silently for a while, then began to play a game with their feet, an annoying game, trying to trip each other up and laughing while doing it, it lasted for several minutes but it ended. It ended in one moment, a strange blissful but embarrassing moment, they simultaneously glanced up at each other, once their eyes caught it seemed difficult to look away from his face, from her face and difficult to remember what they were just doing. The universe was special in that moment; they filled each other’s vision despite being more distant than that. It surprised Aliza and intrigued Daniel, she very quickly distanced herself from him and he searched for her existence, the fullness of her existence which he just experienced. She kept walking, he kept walking.

          The awkwardness faded after a few minutes as their minds drifted to other things; societal and parental things. Daniel searched for what she would be interested in and he found what she wanted in her current life to change and Aliza inquired about his family and found what he liked about his life.

          “How did you manage the day without your phone?”

          “it wasn’t that hard.”

          “I got a 97% on argumentative logic and a 95% on the Euclidean geometry midterm.” He smiled with hopefulness and a hint of one-upedness.

          “I got 100%” 

“On what?”

“Both… What did you get on societal function?”

“Probably less than you… an 84%”

“What? Why so low?”

“Because–” He looked at her and paused. “I just didn’t do that well…” His eyes drifted down in a pondering gaze and then to the left. He starred in amazement at the ground and the right side of his mouth raised.

“Daniel?...”

“I– I like you!” He said quickly.

“I don’t know what to say.” She looked concerned but then laughed gently.

          They came to the hyperloop, the track was clear. it was used to transport both people and goods to and from the city to anywhere in the world in less than half a day. Aliza and her family once went to Asia, sector seven, the sun sat in the sky, unmoving, for 11 hours. There was plenty of things to do on board like games and a place to do homework or read with other businesspeople. The track was 10 meters across, 7.2 without the boarding car which would accelerate and decelerate for passengers and goods. Smaller loops circled cities at much slower speeds and then smaller stations only a mile in diameter would catch packages and throw them down a decelerating track from at least 50 mph to zero. The train was in two sections which would allow transport across the tracks twice a day at 7 and 4 for half an hour. One was shorter than the other. In school they said that the train moves so fast that the centrifugal force had to be taken into consideration when powering the suspension field. In other words, the ground would slightly fall out from underneath it when it traveled.

          The light strips on the sides of the track had turned yellow. When the tracks cleared it would be white for 20 minutes, green for 6, yellow for 3 then red for one then off when the train came.

          “Should I do it?”

          “No.”

          “You want me to.”

          “C’mon Daniel it’s really dangerous, if you lived, you’d be under there for 14 and a half hours.”

Daniel counted quickly with his fingers. “Dare me to do it.” Daniel jumped onto the track and looked in the direction it would come from.

“I’m not going to dare you, now let’s go.”

“C’mon look it’s not even scary.” He laid down on the track and it turned red as he grinned up at her.

“Seriously Daniel C’mon, get up!” Aliza jumped down onto the tracks and grabbed Daniel’s hand to try to pull him up. Then Daniels phone became apparent in his pocket and tried to slip out. He grabbed at it but it scurried down the track. 

“You like me, too don’t you? Say it, you know you do.”

“Daniel this isn’t funny get up right now.”

“Say it.”

“I’ll say it if you get up.” She squealed.

Daniel noticed that Aliza started crying. “Ok…” He stopped joking around and stood up.

“Thank you, now hurry!” Daniel helped Aliza up the ledge. She turned around to grab his hand to pull him up.

Aliza nor Daniel had ever actually been at the tracks when the train was arriving, but it was not known to be incredibly loud. Before Daniel’s ears could pick up it’s approach amongst the humming and windy vibrato of the city, the light strip turned off, and he was gone. A single red droplet sat on Aliza’s cheek and slowly dripped down into her mouth, without a sound.