George Washington University, Washington DC, December, 2077, Friday…
"The person at the number you are trying to reach is not available. At the sound of the tone you may leave this person a short message."
Sandy Clark waited for the tone and then briefly said why she was calling. She figured that after all these years she might even have an incorrect number. If so, some complete stranger would get the message, scratch his head, and then forget about it.
The historian's frustration. Even when you're dealing with recent history. She put the phone back in its stand. The number she called had come up on one of the reference e-docs she had received Wednesday from the National Archives. It had been a long shot. Considering the state of her thesis, long shots were not to be overlooked. She didn't even know whether Bob Nash was still alive. If he was still alive, it could take some time to figure out where he lived now. She didn't want to take that time at the moment.
She had been in her small cubicle since 7:30 that December morning. In the first week of January she had to give a progress report on her thesis research. In the interim she also had her parents' 25th wedding anniversary where attendance was mandatory. As a consequence, she felt the pressure of time on her.
She knew she was far from being ready for the progress report, so she left Miss Boots, her lovable old Maine coon cat, sprawled on the covers of the unmade bed and took the maglev into Foggy Bottom. The high-speed train ran above the old tracks of the DC Metro and was filled with the usual passengers for that time in the morning.
Riding with her were the homeless, wearing the multiple layers of clothes that represented their entire wardrobe, carrying all their other belongings in old duffel bags. Most had spent the entire night on the train or sleeping in the stations. Sometimes the police would run them off but most of the time they didn't bother. With their low wages, cops weren't too many steps from being homeless themselves. In fact, some of them were.
There were also the prostitutes and their pimps. The latter usually kept a low profile, knowing that the cops usually went after their girls that usually got off with no more than a warning, especially if they offered a freebie to the cop.
There were the muggers. It was easy to tell them apart from the homeless since the muggers were usually better dressed. One studied Sandy for a moment. She gripped her taser and prepared herself, but nothing came of it as his attention turned elsewhere.
There were also the activists, those who carried signs for all kinds of causes, proselytizing for some new religious sect or warning against some new government conspiracy.
