In the future

People will wear an outer layer when they go outside that protects against sun, pollutants, skin irritants and contact poisons. An inner layer that is comfortable and skimpy. Outer is uniform to not draw attention. Inner can be very personal but only vetted friends will see it. Temperature inside is constant. cooler at night. Lighting also uniform, ubiquitous. No windows. Meredith and her Mom were playing hide and seek, like they often did. Except this was not the time or place, as her mother said, calling to her. The city was dangerous, with strange people and places. Meredith was 4 and did not have a good sense of timing. Or maybe she did. Maybe she knew her Mom was worried and wanted to cheer her up. She always seemed to enjoy playing hide and seek. But now her Mom didn't seem to be able to find her. She was calling her, but her voice was getting farther and farther away. Meredith jumped out of her hiding place and ran to where she had seen her last. Mom, she yelled. Mommy! She ran down a street, looking everywhere and turned a corner. Now she was really lost and she began to cry. "I just wanted to play. I just wanted you to make you happy." Today, her Mom had seemed unhappy and they had gone for their walk in a different direction. Usually they went to the corner and got some coffee for Mom and a treat for Meredith. Then they would see what there was at the grocery store. Some days they didn't buy anything, but usually there was something Mom needed: flour to make muffins or something for Meredith to drink. Mom said there was a time when people just turned the faucet and drank what came out. But you couldn't do that now. A man was walking down the street toward her. She looked at him carefully. He looked nice, with a blue shirt and nice pants and shiny shoes. She got up and ran to him. "I lost my Mommy," she said. "Can you help me?" "I don't know." he said. "I"ll try." The man was a government agent, he was not someone used to helping children, but he was not a bad person. First, he called the police and reported the situation. "What's your Mommy's name?" he asked Meredith. "Susan," she said, but I call her Mommy." Do you know where you live? In a tall house with an elevator. On the eighth floor, number 801. Near the market. OK, he said, let's see if we can find your house." They could see a tall building a few blocks away and headed toward it. "Not this way," said Meredith. She seemed very sure. "Did you and Mommy walk here?" he asked. In the end, he left her with the police. He had to be at a meeting at 1 and he couldn't take her with him. She was very tired and hungry and he really didn't know anything about little girls. After his meeting, he went to the police station and asked, "where is Meredith? Did you find her mom?" The person who had been working when he dropped her off was not there and no one else seemed to know anything about her. She was not in the computer. There were no young girls named Meredith in the city records. Over the next few days, when he could, he checked out tall buildings, with apartments number 801. None of them were missing a little girl. Of course, there was not always someone home to answer his question. After about 10 days, he went back to some of the places he had gotten no answer. He found a man who said he had just moved in. There could have been a little girl living here before, he said, but I don't know. When Charles asked the manager, he said, "I can't give out information like that." Hmmm. That made Charles wonder. If there hadn't been someone there before, he could probably have just said no. He waited outside and talked to people who came out of the building. "I don't know," they would say, or "maybe so." Finally, he did talk to a woman who said, "Meredith?" she lived on my floor. She and her mothere went everywhere together. And now they're just not there. Do you know anything about them?" "I met Meredith the end of last month on Delaney Street. She was lost. I took her to the police station, but when I went back, they acted like they didn't know what I was talking about." He got the mother's name from the neighbor. She asked him to let her know what he found out and gave him her name and number. He looked for information about Susan, but found little. There was nothing about a partner or a daughter. She had worked in a shoe store for many years. He went to the store and asked about her, but the people there didn't know much. She had stopped coming to work about the time Charles had found Meredith. She was a good worker, but not very talkative. They didn't know much, although she sometimes mentioned her daughter, buying shoes for her once. The shoes had a built-in tracker, like parents sometimes bought for their kids. It didn't seem like that was important to Susan, she had picked them out because they were on sale and she thought her child would like them. They had rainbows on the side, but otherwise looked ordinary. "Can I activate the tracker?" Not really. The Mom would have the code to set it up on her phone. They didn't make the shoes any more, because some unscrupulous people had gotten access to all the codes. It was a long shot, but Charles wondered if some of the unscrupulous people he knew would be able to tap into that information. Did he want to owe Johnny a favor? Not really, but he felt a strong pull to find Meredith. He hoped she was ok and safe with her Mom...but where could they be? Meredith had said her Mom seemed worried that morning. He went back to the street where he had found her. Where had they been heading? Was she looking for a new place to live? Meredith's clothes were not a clue. He thought, the shoes. she was wearing the shoes with the tracker. Now he would have to call Johnny. Johnny knew a guy...he had to promise not to turn him in before he could get access to the system. When hea talked about Meredith to the men, it was clear that he was worried about her. "What's she to you?" they asked. "Why do you care?" "I don't know," he said. "I just want to make sure she's okay. It's odd how she disappeared.' "It would take you a while to check out all these shoes," the man told him. "But you can eliminate some of them. All these are in the same place--waiting to be incinerated." "There's about 50 pairs still active in different parts of the city. And we only know the building, not which apartment." He went to three buildings that day and tried to find out if there were any little girls living there. Then he realized Meredith could have easily passed for a boy, so he went back and tried again. If she was hiding, though, maybe he shouldn't try to find her. Maybe it would be dangerous for her--or him. As he approached the fourth building, he recognized a car parked on the street, a greenish sedan that he had seen before. Someone else was trying to find her--but why? What secrets could a four-year-old girl hold?