THE SHUTTLE SKIMMED QUIETLY across its track and neared Durango City Center.

“Why are your eyes closed,” Daisy whispered in Sord’s ear, sending chills down his spine, “and what are you thinking about?”

“Sorry. I was recalling my ancestor’s writings and how amazed he was at being alive and conscious, which, I suppose, are two different things.”

“And . . . ?”

“And how quickly life experiences can change. I nearly died a few weeks ago. One bite at my neck from the racnine above my head. One strong tug at my arm.”

“Oh, don’t talk about it!” she begged.

“And the dichotomy of that possible outcome versus the wonder of today. Here I am, with you; the happiest I’ve ever been. It’s this experience, something you can’t build expectations about, and suddenly it’s here upon you and making you aware of how great it is to be a conscious being.”

Sord knew the day with his new love was about to end, but he longed to stay with her. “Shuttle’s getting close. Once we arrive, can we sit together in the lobby for a few minutes and you can take a later one to Hesperus?”

“I can’t, Dearie,” Daisy explained. “My dad’s going to be worried if I’m not home soon. Do you realize we’ve been out on this adventure much of the day? He’s not accustomed to his girl being away like this.”

Just then, it hit him. He should have seen it all along but so much of his time had been spent admiring her, not listening necessarily to what she was not saying.

“What about your mom?” he asked, holding the bioplas-boot prize in one arm while the other arm was wrapped tightly around her waist. “Doesn’t she worry, too?”

Daisy recoiled, causing Sord to drop his prize to the ground.

“I’m sorry!” she exclaimed, crouching down to help him pick it up. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

He knew something was wrong. This was the first time Daisy seemed to be distant from him.

“Don’t worry. It’s bioplas mostly. Didn’t hurt anything,” he assured her.

“Oh, my God, Sord!”

“What?”

“Do you know what we forgot?”

He was dumbfounded at this quick exchange; lost in words. “Forgot? What?”

“My rose,” she cried, “the rose you gave me. At that little restaurant.” Her shoulders slumped down, and she bent forward as if in pain.

He was surprised to see her so forlorn at such a small thing and slapped his forehead. “Oh, my God. I’m sorry. I’ll get you another. Right here, if a store is open.”

“Dearie, Dearie,” she uttered, shaking her head. “I mean that rose. That special rose. I may keep it forever. It is a rose for which there is no replacement.”

He puckered his lips. Here was his beautiful Daisy, saying without speaking. He knew exactly what she wanted, and what he had to do.

“I’ll go back and get it.”

She grabbed his waist and squeezed hard.

“Okay, okay!” he laughed, nearly dropping the bioplas-boot again. “Assuming a molecule of oxygen remains in my lungs.”

He set it down and they kissed until the shuttle came to its stop, where they exited.

“Next time we meet, please bring the rose, okay? Oh, and store it upside down to preserve it.”

Sord smiled and watched as she slowly walked away toward the elevated bridge and the shuttle to Hesperus.

“Love you!” she yelled from the top, waving frantically. “Got to go.”

Daisy was now out of sight, but he knew something was different about this day. Every nerve in his body was buzzing. The only thing he could compare it to was the relaxed sense of well-being after waking from a long sleep. He boarded the shuttle back to Bayfield, bioplas-boot in hand, and peered at the map showing the shuttle’s location in the tunnels.

“A little after three,” he observed. Nobody else was in the shuttle, so what he said aloud didn’t matter. “Mom probably expected me to be gone until dinner. God, I hope Ms. Lam is still at her restaurant. Daisy really wants that rose; some oddly profound meaning to her. To me, a rose is a rose, but she’s probably memorized every petal and imperfection in the stem. Apparently, men have little choice when it comes to a woman’s requests.”

He felt different with Daisy. Sixteen, sure, but adulthood was so close. This was his first meaningful adolescent love and maybe the first of many loves like this through the ages he might live. He could pass from adolescence to adulthood and back again, as many times as he pleased in the world of technology that allowed selective progression and regression of biological age.

“Amazing tech,” he considered. “I am among the first humans of the many billions who have lived before even able to make that choice. A thousand years from now, maybe after I’ve experienced many dozens of long-term relationships with other people, will I still recall this elation and euphoria that I feel with Daisy? Is the novelty what’s so special now? Will my tenth love be more or less meaningful than this centuries in the future? God, I hope this experiment, this Prosperity plan and ethic, allows me to find out.”

The shuttle sped along its path and finally arrived at the Bayfield destination. As the car came to a stop, the bioplas-boot slid off the seat where he had placed it and sailed across the shuttle floor. He jumped for it but banged his head on an overhead rack.

“Damn,” he complained, grasping the boot with one hand as he rubbed his head with the other.

A searing, obnoxious voice echoed inside the shuttle as the door opened.

“Hey, boy!”

“What?” he replied, spinning around to face the open door.

“Did I just hear you swear, young man?”

“Shit,” he mumbled. “Matt? What are you doing here?”

Grabbing Sord by the collar, Matt yanked him from the shuttle and locked his massive left arm around his shoulder.

“Did it again, right in my face. You shut up, kid. Don’t you know you’re not supposed to swear around this place, even a spoiled baby boy like yourself? Don’t you understand this Prosperity utopia has ethics and norms and other stupid rules about how you must behave? And I caught you in the act, you little shit, spitting out some very nasty words to an adult in a public shuttle.”

Dread overcame him as he sensed the man’s rage. Sord was elevated off the floor due to Matt’s tight grip, and his toes dragged against the tile as they ambled away from the tracks.

His eyes shifted to Matt’s infuriated face, then down to the bioplas-boot. “Hey, you’re fucking hurting me!” Sord cried.

“Enough swearing, you useless turd. What the hell is that thing?” he grunted. “You won’t need it where we’re going, so drop it. Now!”

“No!”

At that aggrieved reply, Sord heard his shoulder pop loudly. Matt’s grip was getting tighter, and he felt like his ribs were on the verge of breaking.

Matt peered down at him, veins bulging. “Boy, you scream once more and it will be your last because I will snap your neck like a chicken bone. You’ll have wished those racnines tore you to pieces that day.”

With his head and neck crushed uncomfortably against Matt’s shoulder, Sord glanced desperately to see if anyone was in sight. He knew most people wouldn’t be around the tunnels until five o’clock.

“I can feel you fucking going limp on me, little shit. If you think someone will notice you as I drag your body away, they won’t, because we’re going somewhere your Prosperity comrades will never go. So stiffen-up, or I’ll squeeze your puny corpse even harder.”

“Too tight!” Sord whispered, barely able to breathe.

“I’d love to watch you turn blue, both you and your mom and your fucking friend who put me in this situation. But I’m not worried,” he claimed, dragging Sord to the right toward a dimly lit tunnel. “I’ve lived out there all my life. In fact,” he laughed as he cinched-up Sord’s sagging shoulders, “I think that’s the best medicine for a spoiled brat like yourself. You need to live like I did for most of my life. Struggling against all odds. I’ll show you how to be a real man, how to survive outside this safe and stupidly vulnerable enclave of happiness you assholes so readily love to keep others out of. You know how much we hate you outside this place? Huh?”

Sord grunted in pain, fearing that no acknowledgment to his question might further endanger his life.

“We’re going out there, boy. They don’t want me here, anyway, or so I’ve been told in no uncertain terms. You know what they did to me? They had some mock citizen trial and concluded I was the incorrigible type. That I gave up my chance at redemption to stay with you sweet and helpless fuckers under these domes. Hell, they were getting ready to throw me back to the wilds anyway. So we should save them the trouble and go there now. You’ll taste the bitterness of real-life reality, a reality your grandmother helped create. Yeah, I know all about your shameful family history.”

“Outside? That’s where we’re headed?” Sord squeaked with the little effort he could muster.

Suddenly, a meek voice called out a distance behind them. “This your boot?”

“Now, who the fuck is that?” Matt assumed the two were alone in the narrowing tunnel. He turned to look and saw a woman fifty meters back and holding the bioplas-boot up in the air.

“No,” he screamed back at her. “And get the hell away, lady. Not your business what we’re up to.”

At that, he spun around and quickened his pace forward.

“We’re going this way,” he grunted, exiting to the right into an even smaller portal. “Maybe we can find an escape to the outside. And I could give a shit about any perimeter alarms going off. You fuckers are so self-righteous. You think others out there don’t know about your weaknesses? Stupid shits. Overconfident in your god-like ethics and underwhelming in your decades-old technology. You could have had it all, and you wasted it. Sitting ducks you are, and you’ll get what you deserve some day from people like me that you so easily discard as trash. Do you know how hard I worked to get into this sterile hellhole you call home? Then you just throw me out as if I’m not good enough.”

“Uhm,” Sord groaned. “Loosen-up. Please!”

“I’ll fucking loosen when we’re clear of this domed prison. You’ll see how I grew up. Fighting for scraps of food, thanks to your bitch grandma. Fashioning my own weapons. Barely living through freezing winters in the mountains. Gasping for air, always gasping for air. You little wimp, now you’ll know what it’s like to really rough it, to go without nice shit like so many do. Now you’ll know deprivation, and you’ll get used to it.”

“Drones?” he uttered.

“Seriously? I can avoid Prosperity’s drones like the best of them. We’ll be long past their limited range by nightfall. I have experienced eyes and ears that are better than any decked-out mech you’ve ever seen. Prosperity tech is no match for a veteran of the night like me. We’ll reach a camp in a few days if you don’t die or I don’t kill you first.”

“Hey!” A second call from behind.

Matt turned to again find a small Asian woman, still holding the boot up in the air. He continued walking forward.

“What?” he laughed. “You ran here with that thing? I told you to beat it, lady. It’s not ours."