Evolution by Greg Chase Page B

impression of a storm-free day when I know one must be raging all around me?
    A three-dimensional rendering of New York presented itself to his brain. His eyesight remained clear, but the map in his mind provided details down to where he stood. Like a superhero, the small representation of his body lifted off the ground for a better perspective—though physically, he remained right where he was beside Jess.
    The street canals ran through most of Manhattan, but huge, transparent walls closed off the water for one rectangle of the city. Along Eighth Avenue, the barrier connected building to building, and a parallel wall ran along Park Avenue. Two smaller dams connected the main avenues along Fourteenth Street and 110th Street. Though the structures were now transparent, the basic concept had been the same as he’d seen on his last visit. The mystery lay in what happened above those levees.
    It looked as though someone had taken a gargantuan meteorological knife and cut a perfect rectangle out of the clouds. He noticed the ninety-degree corners in the black water vapor. His perspective of the situation went from cloud level to above the atmosphere. One lone satellite kept its geosynchronous orbit above the city. From that beacon, an electromagnetic barrier connected to the continuous transparent dam on Earth. Maintenance required modulating the barrier’s charge to combat the natural power from the storms, which seemed simple to the Tobes, maybe, but Sam found the whole explanation disquieting.
    We couldn’t just have descended along that nice, clear patch of atmosphere? he asked.
    Only if you don’t mind the random electronic correction zapping out the power in your shuttle and you falling to Earth. That section of sky is tightly regulated. At least the Tobes had found ways to explain things to him without giving him a splitting headache.
    “Did you see that, Emi?” The girls had been pointing out practically every pebble and crack to one another, but something about Sara’s tone caught Sam’s attention.
    “What did you see, Ra?”
    “Hold your hand out, not too far, and watch as that guy in the brown suit passes. Watch your hand.”
    Sam followed his daughters’ experiment.
    Ed, the family’s Tobe bodyguard, stole nonchalantly behind the family. Nonetheless, Sam had a momentary protective urge as the man in the brown suit adjusted his course to narrowly pass Emily. As he did, he extended one finger, which passed through the girl’s palm and silently exploded into a shower of dark purple glitter before reforming into the young executive’s finger. He clinched his fist to adjust the digit back in place.
    Emily giggled. “That’s so cool.”
    Sara grasped her sister’s hand. “Hush, don’t make too big a deal about it, and they’ll keep doing it.”
    Sure enough, approximately every fifth person on the street made casual eye contact with one of the girls before performing the same trick. Each time, both girls suppressed their glee at the magic their secret friends did for their amusement.
    Jess also had caught the glitter show. “How do they know which ones are Tobes? I can’t tell the difference from people.”
    A mature, motherly looking woman practically exploded the upper half of her body into yellow glitter. “Can you tell the difference?” Jess asked.
    Sam thought he should be able to. His first impression was that the Tobes caught the girls’ eyes to announce the trick. But as he watched, it was clearly the girls who were first making eye contact to initiate the handshake.
    Sam squinted. “If I focus hard, I can see a slight shimmer, but I suspect most people would just discount it as reflection off the windows.”
    “Girls, how do you know which people are Tobes?” Jess asked.
    Emily looked at her mother in wonder. “It’s easy. Can’t you do it? They’re all filled with glitter. You have to look at their eyes. Really look into them, not just at them. It’s like their whole scrapbook of