"1230-100320", Hector recited.

The doors opened and he stood on the threshold. He gazed out on the deteriorating street. It been several hundred years since people had regularly left theit dwellings to walk upon the elevated walkways or ride autocabs on the ribbons of pavement. He'd been so eager to get Outside and now on the brick, he could hardly get his feet to move. It was so.....big, so vast and not neatly manicured like the cityscape in the holoprograms. He could hardly see the river for the brush growing along the banks, but his nostrils flared at the small of the water and he heard the noise of it's swift passing. It was morning, so the sunshine fell directly into the east facing doorway. It felt warm on his pale face and he stepped out into it. The door closed behind him.

     He squinted as he looked toward the river and he realized that the sun in the holoprograms had never shone directly in his face. The pillars of an ancient bridge stood on either side of the river, a monument to the long era of the motorcar, it's deck having long ago collapased and washed aways. Across the river he could see the tops of the skyscrapers downtown. Other people lived there, but he'd never met any of them in the flesh. He met them in the viraul world of school and church. In fact, he realized he'd never been face to face with any human, except his mother. Suddenly the thought of actually meeting his father frightened him.

   "What if he doesn't like me or wishes he'd never had a son? What if he has a family out here that he loves and knows nothing about me?" Hector asked himself.

     He could not bring himself to go farther out and turned to go back inside.