The Old Folks in the House - an excerpt
Claire waited nervously for the TransPod. A shiver of anticipation ran through her; bad enough to have been awake so early, worse to be seen here by one of her friends - or worse, Joe - clearly dressed for Outside. Claire considered herself modest compared to some of the current fashions - little more than strategically applied bodypaint, in some cases - but this was ridiculous; outer garments, under garments, and, over her arm, a coat of her grandmother's. Her HID glowed discreetly to indicate the imminent arrival of her Pod, and she breathed a sigh of relief.
Claire had been to the Outside before, of course, and specifically had once been on a School trip to today's destination, Heritage City. She knew that it was sealed from the real Outside, and that it was broadly temperature controlled, but her memory of it was that it had been much colder than she was used to, and in spite of its Heritage status, full of unusual dangers. She let the Pod's seat wrap itself around her, wary of the fact that she would have to travel in a Livingstone carriage to reach her great-grandfather's house.
The entrance to Heritage City was, of course, still underground, but made in such a way to fool the visitor that they were in the open air of one of the parks - Claire had known which park once upon a time, but in truth the past held little appeal for her, and she didn't try very hard to remember it. She allowed herself to be amazed by the blueness of the sky, however, and vowed to do this again, perhaps with Joe - it was really a children's thing, she supposed, but there's no harm in looking, is there? Her implant scan proved a further surprise, as she saw the readout show Prepaid - Guest status: open. She supposed that Gramps had somehow arranged for this, and she was glad, for her credit status was a little shaky, and this trip would have been a solid shove towards the red.
The Livingstone carriage assaulted all her senses - a great deal of money had been spent on recreating a genuine turn of the century feel to them, and Claire quickly inserted her nose chip to try to deaden the worst of the smell. In a strange way, she was happy to be deafened by the noise of the wheels and brakes - she realised that she would have to de-sensitise a little before reaching the streets, and she wanted to be less fearful than on her previous visit, when every small sound caused her to flinch for the first two days of their visit. The carriage was more than half-full - Claire noticed with a start several Outsiders and what must be HC residents in the seats around her, and she tried not to stare, conscious that she lacked the healthcare imlpants at her neck and wrists. The carriage rattled and lurched over the ancient tracks, passing through unlit stations, until it passed the edge of the Heritage area, and stopped at the next set of platforms. A few of the residents got on and off here, and Claire supposed that they must use this as it had been used for so long, as transport - the idea made her feel cold and tired; to travel like this, shaken and pressed against your fellow travellers seemed little short of barbaric.
As her destination grew closer, she grew agitated, and in her nervousness, she alighted one stop too early. Rather than wait for another of the boneshakers to come along, she resolved to walk above ground. She emerged from the station into the open air for only the second time in her life - of course, the hermetic seal above the city meant that this wasn't, technically, open air, but the idea of it nevertheless made her feel a little faint, and she stopped for a moment, and concentrated on looking down until her head stopped spinning. Her great-grandfather had sent her images of the house and its environs, and she recalled one onto her HID now, and tried to orient it with the street she was looking at. The HID did the work for her, and showed her the direction and distance along with the estimate that it would take a little over ten minutes to walk there. In the event, it took less; Claire was walking much more quickly than normal - it was said that this was a noticeable effect of being in the City - it made you want to do everything faster. She looked up at the deep red glazing on the outside of the building, and tried to peer in one of the windows, but they appeared to be blank. The door she was seeking was nondescript, and would easily have been overlooked by a casual passer-by. To her alarm, there was an ancient door-knocker and a handwritten (handwritten! ) note which read "Knock once and enter". After a contemplative pause, she did as she was bid.