AFTER CLEANING UP THE mess they left on the table where they first rested, the two started back down the same path they had traversed hours before from the town center. Sord wrapped his father’s boot in one arm and held Daisy’s hand with the other.

He remained singularly focused: “Find a suitable alcove,” he kept repeating to himself while trying to engage in a sensible conversation with Daisy. “Don’t give her an indication that I can’t get my mind off this. She doesn’t want to be seen as a sex object, and I don’t want her to think she is. I simply want to feel her warmth, flesh to flesh. Such comfort and pleasure I’ve had only in dreams.”

Daisy was far less encumbered in these thoughts and could hardly stop talking. “Sord, this has been one of the greatest scientific adventures of my life. Don’t you agree? Think about what we intended to do here. Could you ever imagine we’d find a clue? And isn’t it so odd that a little hand flip behind that bench, my ring covered in dirt and rocks, would lead us directly to this clue? It’s as if magic happened here, given the odds. There may have been dozens of people scouring this place, investigating the underlying mystery, and then we arrive here so innocently. With the help of my mother’s ring, we locate your father’s boot. Sometimes you see things others don’t because you aren’t looking for them. At least, you aren’t expecting to find them. Your mind is open to all possibilities.”

Sord inserted an occasional ‘uh-huh’ whenever given the chance.

Daisy continued. “This reminds me of quantum field potential. You understand? The theory, much of it proven now, that all we know of this universe, from visible matter to dark matter and energy, emanates from the same field. It just coalesces into various forms for a period. Call it God, if you like, or the emanation of God. I love that theory, but do you see the parallels? Does that make sense?”

“Yeah,” he replied distractedly. “Just looking for an alcove.”

“The parallels. Why is it when you hunt for a thing, it’s so easy to overlook it? Why do we create complexity when simplicity will do? I see everything as field potential. All that happens, all we see and do and think, is a momentary collapse of that potential into a point in time and matter. So when I look at today, I consider our innocence, our openness to any possibility. Indeed, the fact we were not thinking of a possibility is what may have created this outcome today, this scientific finding. A boot so oddly infused in bioplas. Not melted into the boot, but somehow merged, as if the two components became one. In fact, the boot could never have taken the heat that would cause bioplas to melt.”

“Two became one,” he repeated, trying to convince her he was still listening.

“It would have fried to a crisp. And then consider my ring, my mother’s ring. You can’t go magnetizing titanium-gold alloy any old way. Not in a normal physics world. The ring is at my hand’s temperature, and it’s still magnetized, even now. Just look at that.”

She placed her hand in the air, and Sord stared at it briefly. Then something else caught his eye.

“Alcove!” he yelled gleefully. “I think we have our alcove over there.”

They halted to survey the darkened corner of the tunnel.

“You might be right, Dearie. Looks like it goes back a ways and is unlit. Hmm. This might be a good place to rest, if you know what I mean.”

“Oh, I know what you mean,” he replied emphatically as the two approached the opening.

The tunnel ceiling dropped to just above their headlines. A few steps later, they rounded a corner to the left then another to the right where the tunnel abruptly ended.

“You thinking what I’m thinking?” she inquired.

“Maybe. At first, I thought this might be a maintenance entrance, but it ends right here.”

“Yeah. This area looks utterly undisturbed, which is fortunate.”

She bent over and flicked her finger across the floor. “It’s clean, so the vacuum bots are getting here regularly. I believe it’s far enough away from the main tunnel that nobody would hear a noise unless it was really loud.” She smiled at him. “Are you planning on getting really loud, Sord? If so, we can avoid doing this.”

He knew she was teasing. “No!” he whispered, gently placing the bioplas-boot down on the ground. “Quiet as a mouse.”

He grabbed her waist and pulled her forward, kissing her softly.

“Hands,” he thought, “hands to flesh.”

Sord began to untuck her blouse from the back, and she released her arms from the hug to assist him.

“How far?” she asked, using a freed hand to brush his hair back.

“Whatever you’re comfortable with.”

The two slowly sank to the floor, as Sord fumbled at her brassiere.

“Let me get that,” she stated, reaching behind her back to unclasp it.

Their lips pressed together, and Sord did something he’d never done before. In fact, he’d never gotten this far with previous girlfriends. He laid atop her, gently moving his legs between hers. The minutes passed.

“God, I love this woman,” he said to himself. “This neck, this lovely neck. Fine auburn hairs. Now goose bumps. This ear, this perfect ear.”

He kissed her forehead, nose, then neck, and moved his head downward to her chest, resting it there for a moment to hear her heart beating. Sord took a deep breath and stared at her exposed breast. “What wonderful scent is this?”

They kissed again as the minutes passed.

“Excuse me,” a shrill voice demanded. “I didn’t mean to interrupt your lovemaking, but you kids are not supposed to be here. Not on my watch.”

They sat up straight, with Daisy fumbling to quickly clasp her bra and button her blouse.

Sord took the lead. “We only have been here a few minutes.”

“I’m Officer Dinesh,” the woman replied, pulling back on the jacket sleeve to check her watch. “Um-hum. At least eleven minutes, by my count, given the rhythmic noise you two were making, or should I say ‘that you were making,’ young man?”

He was dumbfounded. “Rhythm I was making?”

Clothed in the standard Prosperity security uniform, Officer Dinesh was a modest five feet tall, assisted by the high heels of her boots. Neither Sord nor Daisy could immediately determine her ethnic extraction; not that it mattered. By 2132, nearly every citizen in Prosperity was from a multi-ethnic background. Given the death and diasporas of the two Great Debacles, ethnic divisions that had at one time incited human atrocities for centuries were largely irrelevant. For many years after the last Debacle, the only relevance was survival, irrespective of color, race, ethnicity, religion or augmentation.

“My hearing picked up an unusual rhythm in the floor. I was a kilometer away at the time. Augments.” She pointed at her ears.

Not every augmented human had the full array of metal-to-flesh augmentations that Eli sported. Many had only integrated certain components. In Officer Dinesh’s case, hers were only auditory enhancements, at least that they could tell.

“Not sure what sound that might have been,” Daisy replied sheepishly, understanding fully that it was Sord’s consistent pressure against her pelvis.

“I think we all know,” Officer Dinesh affirmed, “but that’s not what’s relevant. It’s only what brought me here. This is not the proper area for such activities. Why, I hope you’re aware that folks from various activities in town will soon be walking nearby. Do you understand you two are only twenty meters from the main tunnel? It’s just around the corner from here.”

“No,” Daisy nodded. “We thought it was farther away, and we honestly didn’t go that far to look.”

Dinesh grinned. “Honey, I’m not faulting you for engaging in this activity, only that this is not the appropriate place. Teens will be teens. I have a few myself, and I’ve been there not long ago myself. In fact, my chrono age is fifty-nine, but I’m heading back physically into my early twenties now, with a little help of course. Loved being that age and may stay there for a while this time. But my wants are neither here nor there. I suggest you two dust yourselves off and get moving along.”

She stopped talking and stared quizzically at the bioplas-boot. “What in tarnation is that?”

Daisy was worried Sord might spill the beans and Officer Dinesh would force them to take the boot back to the site. “Oh, just his father’s boot in some bioplas.”

“In bioplas?” she countered, scratching her head. “Now, why would anyone want to enshrine the bottom half of a nice pair of boots in bioplas?” Then she began laughing.

“Come on up, you two,” she insisted, offering Daisy her hand. “Miss, you might care to fully tuck your blouse into your jeans there, as half is sticking out, and it looks suspicious. And please, don’t use this little place for your sorties de amor, okay? I can tell you this,” she continued, chuckling loudly, “I’ve heard a lot of things with these ears, but I’ve never heard a thumping like that from such a distance. My, my.”

By this time, Sord was standing and had lifted the bioplas-boot into his arms. At her last comment, he turned beet red, lifting it higher in an attempt to obscure his color. As they quickly exited, Daisy subtly waved goodbye.

They soon arrived at Bayfield City Center and boarded an empty shuttle car for home. Both were a bit unsettled from their encounter, and Daisy knew it was best to make light of it.

“You know, Sord, I assume Officer Dinesh will go back and write up a report on us. I’m only hoping if she does so, word of it doesn’t get back to my father. Whoa! Can you imagine? Teenage boy takes advantage of daughter? Caught with her blouse open and breasts exposed? Officer on duty was alerted by rhythmic thumping on floor. My dad would go nuts that you did this to his little girl!”

He turned to her with mouth and eyes wide open, wondering how much was truth versus tease. “Daisy! He won’t find out, will he?”

“Don’t know,” she continued, trying not to laugh. “Hate to consider the consequences. He’s a big, tough guy who’s very protective of me.”

Sord now understood she was joking. “You’re truly killing me,” he chuckled.

Leaning his head back onto the glass window, he shut his eyes for a moment. So much had happened this day. Searching the abandoned facility. Finding his dad’s boot. Admiring Daisy and everything about her. The heaven that was her body. His loins were screaming at him for more, but he knew they would enjoy no immediate release. He took risks and got in a little trouble, something he’d rarely done in his life.

It reminded him of what he had read the previous week regarding Greg’s eventful teen years. “What would that have been like, to be so unencumbered from this post-GDII life and limitations? To have such freedom of mobility and nominal supervision? A pool or car or desert where Daisy and I could open up our hearts and more? No Prosperity police. No drones, racnines, or other vicious hybrids. Regular clothes and no envirosuits. Free oxygen without oxymasks. Trees. Open spaces. A blanket picnic by a river. God, forgotten luxuries of earlier days. Something I read about Greg . . ?” he wondered.