“We’ll see each other again,” he said finally.

“It won’t be the same.” Damn it, she had promised herself she wouldn’t snivel.

“It never is.” He tilted her chin up. “And who is it that taught me that?”

She managed a smile, went up to tiptoe, pressing her mouth against his again, lips parted, sealing their goodbye with a ferocity that shocked her.

Then she stepped back and, without another word, entered the nearest car on the Denver platform. She found a seat and threaded her ticket through the chair arm. The door closed behind her. The line of windowless cars slid forward, like the first moment of a roller coaster ride, down and down and down.

Part of her had expected the royal treatment, brass bands and ticker tape and a chorus of hallelujahs to wish her bon voyage. She felt utterly alone.

No one understood the isolation of total discipline. For ten years there had been little social life, less free time.

Only the endless, grinding cycle of training and research. Ultimately, it had pushed even Sean to the outside.

At least she had Beverly. Beverly’s personality core resided in an optical wafer in her wallet. She knew she was indulging her paranoia, but it was a conscious indulgence. Once in Denver she could hook back into Beverly’s main banks through Comnet… but she had heard horror stories, and never traveled without a core. Beverly had been her cybernetic nursemaid, childhood friend, study partner, confidante, and lab assistant. Ultimately, Beverly had been the only shoulder for Jillian to cry on when her mother died eleven years ago.

She would not risk Beverly.

As she flashed within the earth, as weightless as a lost ghost, she felt that aloneness more starkly. She seemed to be passing over an invisible meridian. More than time and distance were being traversed here. And if she made the wrong decision.