"Mr. Hunt, Ms. Walker?" McGill called back from the front seat of the helicopter. She needed a near-shout to be heard over the sound of those rotating blades.
Lucius was babbling to Ivy, trying to describe the incredible number and patterns of lights that dotted the darkening landscape. He stopped and let Ivy yell back, "Yes?"
"Trooper Calhoun told me your village only has about 100 people," the FBI agent continued, still almost at the top of her lungs. "And you wanted to visit a town. Do you understand what a city is? Have you heard the term?"
"A large town? I didn't know until today that any such places were near us."
"I think I should prepare you for Philadelphia. It has one and a half million people, and you've been living within 50 miles of it!"
Lucius and Ivy bleated in unison, "One and a half million?"
The figure was incomprehensible. After they'd said it, they lapsed into stunned silence.
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The lights of the city below them were as astonishing as its size. Lucius shared fragmentary impressions with Ivy, but he'd stopped trying to understand what he saw.
The chopper made a slow, controlled descent, and came to rest on a rooftop that was higher than any elevation he'd ever seen. How can a building be this tall? Why would anyone add so many floors? Tall as it was, he realized it was dwarfed by some neighboring structures.
The pilot, a fit-looking man older than any of the village elders, hopped out and began chaining the vehicle to moorings. McGill helped the young couple out.
Lucius was embarrassed at finding himself unsteady on his feet. Am I more wobbly than Ivy? As a cover for not doing much immediate walking, he paused to look around. Thankfully, the wall along the edges of the roof was more than waist-high. He noted that while the roof was larger than any in the village, it wasn't huge. So for some reason, these people build on normal-size lots and expand upward?
McGill led them to a doorway into the building, and down a flight of stairs into a featureless corridor lined with closed doors. Stairs and corridor were lit by glowing ceiling panels. Before Lucius could question the source of light, McGill said, "This is just an office building, a place where people work. It won't take us long to get to that house where dinner's waiting! But while we're here, does anyone need to use the bathroom?"
Not surprisingly, they did.
She escorted Ivy into a room marked "Women." The pilot, who'd come down the stairs behind them, accompanied Lucius into one marked "Men." They were all laughing when they came out. The villagers had been introduced to some startlingly new-to-them plumbing; but they'd learned city dwellers' personal "plumbing" was reassuringly like their own.
McGill's next stop was at unmarked side-by-side doors, mysteriously lacking knobs or handles. "I know you've never been in an elevator," she said. "But have you heard of them? Early models existed in the 19th century."
Lucius said, "No."
"Okay, I'll explain." McGill pressed a button on the wall, a representation of an arrow pointing downward; it lit up at her touch. "When these doors open, we'll go into what will seem like a tiny room, well lighted. It'll take us downstairs faster than we could get there by walking." There was a sharp ding! The doors opened and they stepped in, Lucius with a protective arm around Ivy. "See those numbered buttons on the wall, Mr. Hunt? They correspond to floors of the building. I can press one to take us to any floor. We want to go all the way down, so I'll press 'L'--just to be confusing, that's marked 'L' for 'Lobby' instead of '1'!" She grinned as she pressed it. "Don't worry, you'll get used to things like that."
Lucius and Ivy gasped at the rapid drop from what he'd realized was the 40th floor. He suspected he'd get used to the numbering more easily than he would the sensation. But after a closer look at the wall buttons, he had to ask: "Why is it not possible to get off at the 13th floor?"
McGill and the pilot laughed, and as the elevator came to a stop, McGill said, "Our society has some silly conventions. The number 13 is supposedly unlucky. Most people don't really believe that, but they're still a little bit superstitious. So in a lot of buildings--mostly older ones, like this--the 13th floor is called the 14th."
"But the 13th floor, or the 13th anything, is the 13th," Ivy objected, "no matter what one calls it!"
"Yep," was the good-humored response. "That's why I said it's silly!"
"But also," Lucius mused, "fearing the number 13 seems silly in itself." And our village's fear of the color red is probably just as baseless.
They stepped out of the elevator into a large room that seemed to take up most of the ground floor. It was empty save for one man seated at a desk. He looked momentarily startled, then recognized McGill and waved them on their way.
"This lobby would be crowded during the day," she explained as she led them toward an out-of-the-way door. "But almost all the workers have left by now."
They exited the building into a walled lot where a number of vehicles were parked. The pilot said goodbyes all around and left them, heading for a ground vehicle of his own. McGill shepherded her charges into a black car, made sure their seat belts were fastened, and settled herself behind the wheel.
"Do most people know how to operate these things?" Lucius asked as she drove toward the gate, with a toot of her horn to the pilot as he held his silver car back and let her precede him.
"In this part of the world, most adults do," she replied. "Most families own one or more cars, and they drive every day. They don't have easy access to the kind of air travel we just used. But most people travel by air occasionally, in those planes I mentioned. Passenger vehicles that hold hundreds of people."
Ivy said slowly, "You mean...a single passenger vehicle, flying through the air, will be carrying more people than the entire population of our village?"
"Yes, sometimes."
"Do they ever fall out of the air? Kill the people?"
McGill gulped. "Yes," she admitted, as a guard waved her past a lowered barrier. "Once in a while, they do."
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Lucius couldn't brood about that for long. They pulled out of the lot and were let into a seemingly endless line of cars, moving at a crawl. Blaring horns suggested most of the drivers were frustrated. But much as he wanted dinner, he was seeing a big city for the first time in his life--and he was enthralled.
"It's evening," he told Ivy. "Yet there's bright light everywhere. I can see lights on poles, but it's not clear how they work. They seem almost unneeded, because there are other lights on signs, forming words and pictures. In colors, some of them blinking.
"The footpaths have a gray surface, as hard as the road. The buildings, all brick or stone, are close to the footpaths. They tower to the sky! I don't see a tree or a blade of grass anywhere.
"And the people...even at this hour, the footpaths are crowded. Different skin colors, different modes of dress--there doesn't seem to be any standard appearance. Some women wear trousers. Some wear dresses as long as yours, though they're made differently. But others wear skirts that stop above their knees! All different hair lengths, too--that seems to be the same for men. And some men are clean-shaven, while others have mustaches and still others, beards."
He paused and said guiltily, "Maybe I shouldn't be trying to describe things to Ivy, Agent McGill?" He'd heard how the other police officers addressed her. "Maybe you should do it, because you understand them better?"
Ivy cut in to say, "No! I want to see this world through your eyes, Lucius!"
"I agree," McGill chimed in. "You're doing a great job, Mr. Hunt. But I do know one thing you'll probably be glad to hear. Your description of this area is on the mark, but many parts of Philadelphia have tree-lined streets. More than in other big cities--we take pride in it."
Lucius heard that pride in her voice. "I'd love to see more of your city," he told her.
"Did you ever hear of it before? Do you know what its name means?"
He thought for a moment, then said, "I think I heard the name when I was a child...but that's all I remember. I'm sorry. What does it mean?"
He couldn't see McGill's face, but he knew she was smiling as she said, "City of Brotherly Love."