I leave before I overstay my welcome, wondering where I can get my hands on some money.
A bank is a possibility. If it works here like the ones I’ve known, it’ll have a vault where currency is kept. I’m suddenly thinking like a master criminal. I don’t like it, but it’s the only choice I have at the moment. Besides, when I fix everything, none of this will matter.
I walk around until I find a building with a sign on it reading BANK OF AMERICA. I peek through the windows but can’t see the vault. I need to visit during business hours, so I find a quiet alley, set my Chaser for 9:15 a.m., and huddle down next to a large rubbish bin as I jump.
A loud whining greets me on arrival, and is quickly joined by a low rumble and the sound of feet. I don’t even have time to get up before a man wearing gloves comes around the side of the bin.
He jerks to a stop when he sees me, then barks something in Spanish and waves his arm, making it clear he wants me to move. As I get out of the way, he pulls the bin from the wall and turns it at a ninety-degree angle. A large vehicle approaches from the other side and lifts the bin into the air.
I don’t stay to see what happens next.
Upon entering the bank, I note the similarities between this facility and the few I visited growing up, but there are differences as well. First among them is a wall of thick glass or plastic that sits above the counter where the clerks work, physically dividing them from the patrons. Holes are cut into these panels for speaking and passing information. It’s an obvious deterrent to robbery, and makes me wonder how many this bank has experienced.
I walk over to the line of patrons but don’t join it. I take a casual look around through the clear wall until I spot the vault. After placing my satchel on a counter, I pull my Chaser out just enough so that I can see the screen, and then use the destination calculator to figure out the location address for the vault.
I make the jump from behind the building the moment no one is around, timing my arrival for the middle of the previous night.
The vault is pitch black. The only light comes from the Chaser screen, and it’s barely strong enough for me to see a few feet at a time. Most of the room is lined with tiny numbered doors, each having two separate keyholes.
I walk around but all I find are more doors. Some are larger and require only a single key, but it all adds up to the same thing — no money out in the open that I can grab.
Taking cash from a bank is something that feels anonymous to me and won’t trouble my soul, but with that option closed, I’m forced into a less desirable choice.
I find a store-packed street called Ventura Boulevard — again, the quantity and variety of establishments astound me. I jump from closed store to closed store, hunting for money. Many have their own safes, and those that don’t seem to have had their tills emptied at closing time. That said, I’m able to find a few notes and coins hidden in desks and under counters. To temper my guilt, I limit my take to no more than ten United States of America dollars at each stop.
I’ve amassed $63 in paper bills, and 72 cents in coins — which, as I assumed, were easy to figure out — when a loud, repetitive alarm begins blaring in the store I’ve just entered. Not having come through a door, I’m not sure how I set it off, but I hop out immediately and decide to get by with what I have for now.
At a coffee shop about an hour after the sun comes up, I go in search of food, and walk into a place called The Homegrown Café. I’m shown to a table and given a menu that immediately confuses me. The items listed are things like: tofurky and tofu scramble wrap, seitan and cashew cheese omelet, and wheatgrass shake.
The waitress approaches a few moments later. “What can I get you?”
“Uh…” Hopelessly lost, I set down the menu. “Do you have coffee?”
“Sure. Milk?”
“Yes, please.”
“Soy or rice?”
“I’m sorry?”
“Milk. Soy or rice?”
Milk from soy or rice? How is that even possible? “I’d prefer cow.”
She frowns. “This is a vegan restaurant.”
Not seeing how that’s an answer to my question, I wait for her to say more. But when she doesn’t, I say, “Vegan?”
She closes her eyes in annoyance, then opens them again and points out the window. “I think what you’re looking for is over there.”
The new restaurant is called Starbucks Coffee.
When it’s my turn to order, I point at the glass cabinet and say, “May I please have one of those muffins, and a cup of coffee?”
“House blend?” the clerk asks.
“Um, okay.”
“Black or with milk?”
“Is it from a cow?”
“As far as I know,” he says with a smile. “We also have soy, if you’d prefer that.”
“No, the cow’s milk is fine. Thank you.”
I consume my meal at one of the tables, then ask a clerk who’s cleaning the area if he could tell me how to get to the central library. The guy, while kind, is unsure.
“No car?” an older customer sitting alone at a nearby table asks me after the clerk moves on.
“Car?” I say, not sure what he’s talking about.
He laughs. “Yeah, I know what you mean. Got rid of my last one four years ago. You got a bus pass, then?”
Am I to be hopelessly lost in my own language? No seems to be the safest answer, so that’s what I say.
“You a tourist?”
Realizing it’s a good cover, I say, “I am.”
“Where are you from?”
It’s amazing how simple conversations aren’t so simple when you have much to hide. “East.”
“East Coast?”
There’s a hopefulness in his voice that worries me. “Not quite.”
“Ah. Well, I got a sister up in Boston, is all. You ever been?”
“No.”
“So you’re looking for the central library?”
I nod.
“Here’s what you want to do.”
The bus turns out to be the same public transportation vehicles I noticed earlier. According to Isaac, my new friend, I’m to take the express to “Universal City,” and then something called “the metro” to “downtown.” He explains the details of paying and riding, and then I’m off.
Even though the bus is an express, it takes nearly an hour to reach Universal City. What amazes me during the journey is the sheer amount of land that’s been taken over by the city. While New Cardiff is not (was not/never existed as) a small city, parts of the valley the bus now takes me through are (were/never were) still used as farmland.
There’s something else I notice. I’m no engineer, but even to my untrained eyes, I can tell that the buildings I’m passing — especially those more than two or three stories tall — are considerably better built than those of the world I know.
I’m also finding it hard to pick out the caste differences of the people I see. This is something I could do in my sleep growing up, but here it’s not so easy. There are a few on the bus I’d categorize as belonging to one of the lower castes, but I’m not sure where the others fit.
The metro is similar to the tram system of New Cardiff. In fact, if I squint just right, I almost feel like I’m back home.
When I reach my stop, I take a moving stairway up from the station to ground level — downtown. If I was awed by the sights before, I’m struck silent now. Here, buildings rise dozens of stories into the sky. I’ve seen pictures and films of structures as high as these, but those buildings were all in London or Hamburg or Peking or Shanghai. There are none in the North America I’m from.
I get lost once, but with the help of a passing pedestrian, I finally find the library. After I enter, I can’t keep the grin from my face. Outside, the facility looks as if it has only three floors. Upon entering, I discover that’s an illusion. The library is huge, four floors aboveground, and — accessed via more moving stairways — four floors below.