to her lap, where they trembled with the memory of the touch.
“Thanks,” she murmured.
Sally found herself staring at the other girl’s hands. So much like her own, yet they were so different. While Sally grew up in a metro with skyscrapers and solar bunkers, Amy’s life was spent in an agro. Was it the fertilizer that had given her cancer, Sally wondered, or was it the solar radiation? The nails on the girl’s hands were ragged and broken, as if she chewed them, or raked them against something hard. Sally had never broken a nail. Her hands were as soft as the skin of her thigh.
“You girls going to do the park together?” Sally’s mom asked. She approached from the head of the train car. She wore a red pantsuit like Sally’s.
The girls exchanged glances. Sally opened her mouth to answer, but noticed a bald woman staring at them. Instead, she changed the conversation.
“Didn’t your aunt come here once and ride Magic Dragon?”
“It was my cousin,” Sally’s mom said. Then she laughed. She placed a hand on the back of the seat.
Sally noticed that her mother’s nails were like her own: perfect and unblemished.
“She thought it was going to be like the old movie, but it was nothing like the purple cartoon dragon. Rather it was a furious contraption made from steel girders and red elastic facing.”
“Purple cartoon dragon?” Amy asked.
“Popular 20 Century 2-dimensional cinematic icon that promoted drug use,” Sally replied. She’d accessed the learn-verse earlier and had a tag waiting for just this sort of question.
“Oh,” Amy said, blank-faced. “And it’s a ride?”
“Not just a ride,” Sally’s mother said. “It’s a roller coaster.”
“We aren’t going to have to ride it are we?” Sally asked.
“So dramatic.” Her mother sighed. Then she looked forlornly at Amy who refused to meet the older woman’s eyes and shook her head. “We can’t ride that one, honey. Magic Dragon is a special ride for special people.”
Amy looked and held Sally’s gaze for a long moment, making it clear that she was one of the special people for which the ride was made. Sally turned away, changing the subject.
“Why joy, mom? Why do they call it The City of Joy? I mean, it’s an amusement park surrounded by a radioactive wasteland. Where’s the joy?”
“Joy comes in all forms. Your joy might not be the same as someone else’s. It all depends on what you are trying to possess, what you have to gain. I suppose joy is the feeling you get when you attain that which you most desire.”
“I want to possess my hair.” Sally’s pursed her lips.
“Sally. Look around you. Don’t you think they do, too? Where’s your decorum?”
Sally didn’t have to look to be reminded of all the bald people. Her mother would disabuse her of her desire to keep her hair, but it was a hard thing for Sally to ignore. Her hair was, after all, an integral part of who she was.
“Sorry, mom.” She almost meant it.
She and Amy sat side-by-side for the rest of the ride. Sally found herself increasingly thinking about her “new friend.” Sally had sim-friends and learn-verse mates. She was very popular in some circles, especially Geography Clique 214 and the Red Zone’s 18 Century Trivia Room. Her avatar had won several awards and was viewed by first-learners as if she were some angelic figure. She never really considered having someone real to talk to, but the proximity of the girl stirred something within her.
“You’re not perfect.” As soon as the words left her mouth, Sally was horrified she’d said them.
Amy examined Sally and replied, “Neither are you.”
“I didn’t mean—”
“That’s okay. You’re a metro. Dad says that you guys are barely human anymore. He says you’ve been computerized.”
Sally glared at Amy, then burst into laughter.
“Computerized?”
“Yep.”
“Where are your parents?”
“They couldn’t leave the agro. Blue algae season started last week.”
“And they let you come here alone?”
“Why not? Is it dangerous?” Amy laughed.
Before Sally could respond, a hum sounded.
The train slowed.
They’d arrived.
***
They left the train single file. For the first time Sally breathed the air of Florida and as she did so, she knew that it was getting inside her, changing her, killing parts of her. The very air was deadly, laced with invisible radiation. Soon she’d lose her hair. She’d have to be bald for awhile, like Amy and the others. It would take a long time to grow back. Sometimes she heard it didn’t grow back at all. Whatever happened, her avatar would be her eyes and