by Eliza Taye
My father’s face flashed through my mind’s eye.
Was this how he felt every time he’d gotten a new assignment to a long-forgotten corner of the world? Did he feel the all-consuming excitement that I did now?
For the past several years, I’d hated his love of adventure that had sent him around the world and ultimately to his death. If he hadn’t felt that, I’d still have my dad. For the first time since he died, I was beginning to understand the allure of the unknown—of discovering something no one else had before.
Across the horizon, the tangerine sky dotted here and there with mauve and pink, draping the entire landscape in a warm glow. The fading rays of sunshine urged me on to make it back before the warm colors turned to solemn twilight.
Just as the last shadow reached out with desperate hands towards the edge of Gran’s white fence, I pulled up in front of the porch and gently leaned the bike up against the house. Checking my bag and clothes for traces of sand, I hurried inside.
“Gran?” I called out as I walked in the door.
“Oh, Alexandria, how are you? Did you have fun at your friend’s house?” replied Gran, appearing at the end of the small hallway leading to the kitchen. On her shoulder draped a white kitchen towel, a stirring spoon clutched in her right hand.
“Yes, I did. What are you cooking?” I sniffed the air. A delicious aroma greeted my nose. Absentmindedly, I thought of OVRR and wondered if it could perfectly capture this scent.
“Spaghetti. It’s one of your favorites, isn’t it?”
I nodded and said, “Yes, it is.”
Letting my bag slide off my shoulder onto the floor, I followed the smell of spaghetti to Gran’s kitchen. Small in size, the table took up most of the space in front of the only counter not occupied by a kitchen appliance. Shuffling with tired legs over to the plain wooden table, I plopped down with a thud and rested my elbows on the table. Creating a bridge with my hands folded over each other, I laid my chin on them and stared across the kitchen at the yellow walls hiding beneath the cabinets. “Gran?”
“Hmm?” She didn’t turn toward me but merely kept stirring the spaghetti in the pot.
“Do you know why the Navy left this town?”
“Yes…they left because of a big disaster.”
“Oh.” That contrasted to what Dylan had said to me. Beneath the table, I crossed my ankles. “What kind of disaster?”
“A pollution incident. Something very toxic leaked into the waters. It killed a lot of the wildlife and polluted the beach irrevocably. Environmental groups lashed out and eventually ran the Navy out of the area. It was unfortunate because a lot of jobs were lost over the incident.”
“Really? Interesting.”
Gran turned toward me with one gray eyebrow raised. “What made you ask?”
“Oh, just wondering. I was biking with my friend today and noticed that none of the beaches here has any people on them. I thought it was odd since it’s summertime. I’m used to beaches being heavily crowded—not deserted.”
“Well, you just stay away from those beaches. They’re dangerous and bound to make you sick if you go there. Rumors say that whatever was wasted there was radioactive and possibly nuclear in origin, so it could still cause damage today.” Gran wiggled her forefinger in my direction, her eyes turning serious. “I mean it, Allie. Stay away from there.”
I grinned at Gran’s use of my nickname and nodded at her. Behind my back, I made a “not” sign as I nodded my head. Staying away from the beaches was exactly what I wasn’t going to do.
. . .
For weeks, Dylan and I met at the restricted beach every morning, traveling beneath the waves to his hidden city in the deep. Each day, I further explored Oceania, never getting bored with the new things I discovered. Oceania was a city of its own, so far removed from my land world I could have been on Neptune instead of Earth. From the food I ate to the people I met, all were so foreign—so alien to me. Their ways of life were somehow simpler, yet complex at the same time. Everyone in Oceania was bound by limitless rules, but they didn’t seem to care. No matter who they were, everyone in the city seemed to be obsessed with education and knowledge. I guess that’s what happens when your ancestors were geniuses.
Dylan kept his word and obtained tickets to an Aquaball game between the Narwhals and the Barracudas for today. I was eager to see how this game would be played. Unable to contain my excitement, I kept fidgeting as we waited in the long line that wrapped around the stadium.
“Have your holotickets ready, please! The game is scheduled to start in twenty minutes and we want everyone seated by then,” announced a loudspeaker in a computerized feminine voice.
A second set of doors opened as the line parted in two and finally began moving. A high-tech machine scanned our tickets as we meandered past it into the long corridor that led to the seating areas. Once out of the dimly lit corridor, the bright blue shining lights backlit by the bubble-shaped aqua pool spread out across the entire arena. The edges of the water bubble threatened to gush over the sides of the barriers at the bottom containing them. Only two rows of seats sat close behind the barriers with VIP written on the backs of them.
We found our seats squashed in the dead center of the stadium on the left side of the court. Sitting down, the cushioned seats conformed to my body just like every cushioned place in Oceania. I still hadn’t gotten used to that.
“Are you ready for the game we’ve all been waiting for? The Narwhals against the Barracudas! North of the city against the east of the city! Here are your teams!” came the announcement as the lights above the stands dimmed to black and the lights refocused on the interior of the aquadome.
On the right side of the arena came the Barracudas dressed in blue and black skintight suits with masks obscuring the lower part of their faces. On the left, the Narwhals donned in gray and yellow swam to the center to face off against their opponents. Each player wore the masks obscuring the lower part of their faces that Dr. Wilcox had recently developed.
A water cannon shot out the ball, a bright yellow orb with red stripes around it, beginning the game. All twelve players swam for it. A team member of the Barracudas grasped it and swam for their team’s goal.
“Allie,” Dylan nudged me with his elbow.
“Yes?” I glanced over at him, my eyes continually flickering back to view the action in the arena.
Dylan pointed to a small button at the back of the seat in front of me. He pushed his and a holoscreen projected a magnified image of the action in front of him.
I did the same and it was like my own personal channel for watching the game. I could swipe it left or right to see whichever portion of the arena I wished.
Grinning excitedly, I paid attention to the game once more. As the Barracuda team member who’d first gotten the ball had it passed to him, he whipped his arm forward to make a goal. Just when I thought it was going to make it in, the goalie for the Narwhals used a powerful squirt gun to push the ball out of the way of the net. A Narwhals player snatched up the ball and immediately swam for the opposite end.
Before the player could even make it to the center of the arena, someone from the opposing team swam in to intercept the ball. Twisting his body and almost corkscrewing through the water, he evaded the player, eliciting cries of adoration from the fans. Evading additional attempts at an interception, he passed the ball to another player just outside the net and they shot it into the goal before the goalie even raised the water gun. The lights of the arena flashed yellow and gray, making it clear which team had scored.
Every player returned to the center of the field, treading water in parallel lines with their teammates. The water cannon situated almost directly in front of where Dylan and I sat blast another ball into the water and another play began.
All the players swam for the ball, the Barracudas once again gaining first control. However, this time, the Narwhals intercepted the ball. Back and forth down the arena, the teams continually stole the ball from each other. Whoev
er had the ball did their best to twist out of the grasp of their attackers, completing underwater flips, twists, and turns. Sometimes, the evasive maneuvers worked, but sometimes they didn’t.
Time flew by so fast that the call for half time caught me unaware. Right away, robots filled the stands offering snacks and refreshments stored in warming and cooling containers inside their body cavities.
“Are you enjoying the game?” asked Dylan, giving me a white-toothed grin as he hailed over one of the robots.
“Yeah! It’s a lot of fun and very different than I had expected. It’s very exciting too. You were right when you said it’s a mixture of many other sports, though.”
“Yes, it’s pretty unique too.” Dylan ordered two fizz pops and a snack of tasty food called green ooze made of sea kelp, fish, and something else I hadn’t dared to ask about yet.
“How long do these games usually last?”
“Until one of the teams reaches ten points. Each goal is worth a point, but as you can see, it’s not that easy to make a goal.”
I agreed heartily, sipping my orange-flavored fizz pop as I nodded. “I’m going to go to the bathroom before it starts again.” The robots crowding the aisles moved aside to allow me passage.
A bathroom break and ten minutes later, the game resumed. Much like the first half, each team struggled to gain a goal, and keeping the score, Narwhals one and Barracudas zilch.
Transfixed on the game, I was baffled when a whistle sounded and everyone returned to the center of the arena. “What’s going on, Dylan?”
Leaning over, pausing from popping a green ooze ball into his mouth, he explained, “If one of the teams hasn’t scored at all after twenty minutes past half-time, the stakes are increased.”
“Stakes?”
“Watch and see.”
Returning my gaze to the arena, I watched as two balls were catapulted into the center to be grabbed by the players. Two members of the Narwhals team became the holders of the ball and fought to get their goals. One succeeded while the other got the ball stolen by a Barracuda player, who in turn scored for his team.
Regardless, the next play introduced yet another ball. Each time a team scored, another ball was added until there were five balls in the arena all at once, ensuing chaos for the players and confusion for me. The intense action made it difficult to tell who was scoring and who was stealing from an opponent. The stadium flashed one of the team colors every five minutes or so.
All too soon, the game was over—the Barracudas had come back from a terrible start to win the game. Since Dylan was from the east side of the city, he and I both cheered loudly in elation at their win.
Thick crowds ensued as everyone tried to leave the stadium at once, making it slow going for everyone. When Dylan and I finally made it out, a thought occurred to me, prompting me to ask a question. “Hey, Dylan? In the past several weeks, you’ve shown me a lot and explained everything to me on how Oceania works. But one thing I’ve never found out is how you get your oxygen down here.” I gestured out with wild arms, nearly smacking the person to my right. I muttered a sorry to them and refocused on Dylan.
“I think, in order to answer your question, I need to take you somewhere.” Dylan nodded once subtly with the corner of his lips stretched up into a smile.
Shining triangular shards of glass were curved into a dome-shaped roof encompassing an invisible building sitting just at the edge of the Central District. Narrow steel gray columns surrounding the perimeter of the structure gave the only perception that perhaps the roof wasn’t floating in thin air. Statues of various people that I didn’t recognize adorned the fringes of the pathway to the double door of the building.
Once inside, I was transported into a world I’d never known. It felt like we had left the ocean behind and entered a tropical rainforest. Moist air filled my lungs with each intake of breath. Warmth enveloped me, creeping in like the foliage surrounding me. Giant leaves nearly as large as a human reached their green hands out towards me, brushing against me with soft, waxy leaves dripping in dew as I walked along. Green as far as the eye could see shrouded me in a cocoon I never wanted to leave.
I’d never been to a forest before, but I liked it almost as much as I liked the sea. There was nothing like experiencing something directly, and my imagination in the OVRR hadn’t done justice to the magnificent beauty of a forest. The assortment of new smells wafting into my nose made me take notice of the blooming flowers and damp leaves in a variety of shapes and shades. Stopping to touch and inspect each plant, I could finally sympathize with Dylan’s fascination with the intertidal zone—I was feeling the same with the gardens.
Breaking me out of my reverie, Dylan stated, “This is one of the ways we get oxygen for the city. Ample amounts of carbon dioxide is pumped into this atrium every single hour, collected by the air ducts on the ceiling that has shafts and pipes leading to and from each enclosed space in Oceania. As on land, the plants fixate CO2 in the carbon fixation cycle and Calvin cycle to create the oxygen we breathe as a byproduct of their biochemical processes.”
Glossing my fingertips over a lime-green leaf of a plant nearly twice my height, I bent over to smell the budding purple flower that seemed to crane towards me. “But there’s no way that’s enough.”
“Well, you’re right. Our oxygen comes from a variety of sources. Another source is through the electrolysis of water, which gives us the byproduct of hydrogen gas needed to warm vapor back into water. Yet, another source is through various chemical reactions, but most of the oxygen obtained that way is stored as compressed air for emergency use.”
We continued deeper into the forest with Dylan explaining their oxygen attainment processes, as we arrived into the arboretum part. At the entrance of the archway were at least six trees many times my size in girth. Just beyond them, the arboretum sported all types of trees in various stages of growth, creating a myriad of colors and shapes. Some had drooping branches and leaves that resembled tears falling to the ground. Others had leaves so tiny that millions of them must have been needed to cover the whole tree. So varied in appearance, I wondered if they’d ever naturally existed together.
“However, in order to keep our oxygen pure, we have to get rid of the carbon dioxide in the air from the millions of people exhaling. Unfortunately, our forest isn’t enough to eliminate all of the CO2 we breathe out, so, we use a mixture of sodium hydroxide and calcium hydroxide to ‘scrub’ the CO2 out of the air. Chemical reactions are then used to eradicate it.”
I glanced over my shoulder at Dylan. “How in the world do you remember everything in such detail?”
Dylan shrugged. “I already told you…we learn it in school. It’s not something you easily forget. It’s quite fascinating.”
I laughed and moved on, pressing further into the understory, getting lost with Dylan in the wilderness of trees “You’d be right about that. But people on land usually forget a lot of what they learned in elementary school by the time they get to high school—trust me.”
“Dylan Baker. I am surprised to see you here.”
Dylan and I both spun around.
Standing next to a giant tree, much wider by far than the trees surrounding it, was a woman. Cedar-brown hair muted with traces of brownish-red twisted tightly back into a bun, contrasting with the very pale skin of her face. Both her hands were clasped in front of her waist where her caramel-colored skirt met her green blouse that mirrored the emerald of her intently gazing eyes, which she fixed straight at Dylan.
Dylan raised his hand in greeting. “Hi, Mrs. Miller, I’m here showing one of my friends around. She’s a new friend I made in school this past semester.”
I felt Mrs. Miller’s eyes rotate in my direction. Her stern gaze eerily reminded me of the evil stepmother from the Cinderella movie that haunted my childhood nightmares.
“Oh, and what would your name be?”
I panicked inwardly for a moment. What would happen if I lied and she tried to look me up? I knew e
veryone around here was catalouged. What if I was found out?
I decided to chance it.
“My name is Allie Williams,” I told her a partial truth. My name was Allie, but I lied about my last name. No way would my obscure last name be in their system, but maybe there was another fourteen-year-old Allie Williams.
“Hmm, I see.” Her glare returned to Dylan. “Dylan, you are in some trouble with the Master Coders. Dr. Reynolds would like to see you.”
I noticed Dylan’s smile and calm demeanor began to waver. The fake smile faded and a twinge of urgency rose in his eyes, but only for a moment before it vanished. “All right, Mrs. Miller. Let me say goodbye to my friend and I’ll come with you.”
Mrs. Miller peered down her nose at us as she raised her head in either suspicion or hubris. “Make it quick.”
Dylan nodded curtly and spun around to face me. The urgency returned to his eyes as he tugged me a few feet away and behind a tree with leaves spreading down in a sharp arch as if it were crying. “Allie, you’ve got to get out of here. I think my double visits to the topside world have been discovered. The Master Coders are the ones that monitor, when, where, and who uses their codes to gain access to specific areas of the city. I have to go with Mrs. Miller or she will become suspicious and detain me.”
I started to panic. The time for me to return to the surface was drawing near. I had to get going soon, but what would happen if Dylan wasn’t able to take me? What would happen if he were caught? If he were caught, I would be too.
Dylan must have noticed the fear in my eyes because he looked intently at me and instructed, “Allie, you’ve got to get out of here on your own. Go back to Dr. Wilcox’s house. He’ll give you what you need to return to the surface.”
Chapter 10
Stunned, I watched in a daze as Dylan’s form disappeared into the foliage, trailing Mrs. Miller out of the garden. My heart sank as he vanished. All I could think about was how I would get back to Sunnyville without Dylan. Better yet, how would I find Dr. Wilcox’s house? I never paid attention to how to get there. I did know he lived on the other side of town, but there was no way I would be able to find my way back. It was impossible.