Divided Worlds Trilogy 01 - Disconnect Read Free Page A

on. Show me.”
    The Intercom burst up an unscrambled, blue-tinted photograph. Zachary concentrated on the girl between two adults. Six or seven years of age? Rounded cheeks fit her cheerful smile and frilly dress. Was she the Intercom’s owner? Didn’t the voice he’d heard sound older?
    “The file’s signature states the year 2331,” said Patch.
    Nine years ago , thought Zachary.
    The woman to the child’s right showed a dominant pose with hair matching the crinkles of her thin dress. On the left, a tall, formal-suited man glanced downward at the child with a look of admiration. Something perfect that Zachary didn’t have shone between the three of them. Nowhere in his home did a collective image exist of his family. Smashed. Broken. Banished. He sucked back the unwanted wobble of his lower lip.
    “File two,” said Patch. “Signature stamped as 2332.”
    Another image replaced the first with the assumed parents and their child. Less round, the girl continued to smile, this time dressed in a tank top. Stone-faced, the mum’s fingertips half hung over her daughter’s shoulder, and the dad stared to his side away from them. What had changed in the spent year?
    “Should I go on?” asked Patch.
    Zachary nodded. “More images?”
    “No – a motion recording dated five weeks ago.”
    “Motion – like a movie?”
    A large room flickered into view. The recording had been taken from high up, giving the figure in the centre the height of Zachary’s thumb. He couldn’t make out much except that she had long hair and wore a wavy skirt. Her back turned towards him, she walked away, making a soft thudding sound with her bare feet.
    Zachary gasped at the huge curved wall ahead of her. It was transparent, and gave a tremendous view of Jupiter’s bands. She had it all to herself.
    With a sudden turn, letting her skirt spin around her legs, the girl whirled around. Hands tracing down the front of her top, she kept her head down as her body straightened. All of a sudden static-polluted blurs interrupted her face.
    “Hey,” cried Zachary.
    Patch prodded the Intercom. “Stabilising.”
    Two delicate claps from her coincided with a windswept chime playing from left to right. A flute began ahead of a verse of panpipes, then the patter of hands from a hundred unseen collaborators. He recognised the tune. The Harmon bracelet.
    Holding her long skirt up to her knees, matching her strides to the strums, the figure glided across the floor. When a second guitar forced the pitch of the first to increase, she raised her hands and hit out like a thrashing wave. Her hair again fell over her face. Zachary’s breaths quickened with the building drumbeat. Never losing her balance, she span, arms out, then with a smacking wrap of her body, she jumped. At the final crash of a cymbal, she collapsed onto her front with her arms spread forward. Blurry lines blended to a sharp resolution. Zachary didn’t know whether it was Patch’s doing, or the recorder’s, as the screen zoomed to her head. Straight hair covered it. The girl’s hand flicked several strands right before the recording ended.
    “Patch!”
    The Haulage-404’s solitary shoulder shrugged. “Defective file.”
    Zachary restrained from punching the droid. “What about the last file?”
    As Patch’s bulky fingers loosened off the Intercom. Crackles sprinkled from the device. The sound of someone moving or shuffling items back and forth came out.
    “Fourth of August 2340, 15:16 … Ro … pzzzt … Kade’s diary,” a female spoke. “I hate today more than ever. I thought they’d be mature enough to handle it by now.” She chuckled. “Who am I kidding? What do my parents get from banning joy in our home every year on this day? All I can say is, congratulations to me on this anniversary. I wish I could sob with mother, but I can’t grab her sorrow and bring it as my own. Why does she whisper like something inside has to be said? And father, quiet as ever … pzzzt