by Eliza Taye
One of the guards came at me with the same electrical device they had used on Samantha, but Dylan was too fast. He wrenched it out of his hands and used it on the guard instead. The man immediately collapsed to the ground in convulsions and then went still.
One by one, Dylan, Devon, and I knocked Mayor Aldridge’s eight guards unconscious. Eventually, the only one standing was Mayor Aldridge.
“You can’t beat us, Mayor Aldridge. We’re returning to the outside world and you cannot stop us. You think you can wave around your authority and everyone will do what you wish simply because you’re the mayor. Well, not anymore. We are done. The younger generation is speaking up. We’re taking a stand for what is right. We’re going to expose Oceania’s existence to the outside world.”
Devon’s face of surprise whipped back and forth between Dylan and me, but we ignored him to keep eye contact with our enemy instead.
Mayor Aldridge’s eyes widened and she opened her mouth to speak.
“Before you attack Allie, know that this was my idea. This notion is coming from one of your citizens…not an outsider. It’s over, Mayor Aldridge. Your deception and the deception of the mayors before you are done. You’ve lost.” Dylan stood directly in front of her as he spoke, not backing down one bit.
The mayor’s lip quivered as if she was trying to speak, but kept changing her words before they exited her mouth.
Dr. Wilcox appeared at the top of the stairs. “I’ll keep her here for you. You guys go on. I’m sure you’ll get a head start before they notice that she’s missing.”
Mayor Aldridge spun her gaze from us to Dr. Wilcox so fast I thought her neck would snap. She was so shocked that she tried to speak, but only little sputters came out of her mouth. Dr. Wilcox took her by the arm and forced her down to his workshop.
“Come on, we need to go. I’m sure that she’s blocked off the docking bay. We’re going to have to fight our way in.”
Dylan was right. The docking bay was swarmed with guards allowing no one anywhere near it. An uproar ensued, as the guards continually didn’t allow anyone inside. A few students were grumbling because it was hampering their field trip, but others were upset they were barred from it due to the mayor’s orders.
Like before, we started a distraction by pulling a fire alarm, which moved most of the people and guards out of the way. Only three guards stood between the docking bay and us. One turned around at a noise to his left and when he turned back to his right, he got a mighty kick in the face by Devon. The guard stumbled into the other two guards next to him, knocking all three of them to the ground.
“Go, I’ll hold them off. Good luck, you two!” Devon waved at us, his bright smile lighting up his face as he prepared to fight off the guards who were just now scrambling to their feet.
Dylan and I didn’t waste any time. We hurried over to the elevator and took it down to the docking bay. Once in the long hallway, we dashed to the main door.
Typing in his code three times, it was denied each time.
“UGH!” yelled Dylan, kicking the door. “She must have locked out my pass code.”
“Is there another one you could use? Maybe someone else’s?”
Light flickered in Dylan’s eyes and he held up a finger. “Yes, there is.” Tentatively, as if he wasn’t sure of the numbers, he punched them in slowly and the door clicked open. “All right. Thank you, Dad,” stated Dylan to himself.
Without pause, we made a beeline for the nearest seamobile and climbed in. Dylan hit the buttons to cause the protective, waterproof shield to engage and the oxygen to start flowing. Next, he pressed another button to open the docking bay gates. Water rushed in and the place began filling with water.
“All right, we’re off.” Dylan pivoted the seamobile, making it face the open gates. Turning on the engine, we rode swiftly out of the gate into the black void of the deep sea. Dylan revved the engine up to full power and we jettisoned into the blackness faster than I knew the seamobile could go. I watched the depth gauge decrease so fast that I could barely read the number before a new one appeared.
Dylan glanced at the depth gauge himself. “Soon, we’ll be on land.”
As soon as we dragged the seamobile onto the beach, I knew something was wrong. It just didn’t feel right. All of the tide pool organisms and other species I was used to seeing were hidden away. Hardly a marine organism was in sight.
“Dylan, something’s wrong.” I looked at him with worried eyes.
Immediately, he understood what I’d noticed and began looking around the rocks as well. “Animals only do this when humans are around or something bad is about to happen to their environment.”
Our answer came quickly as a helicopter soared over us and hovered above. We shielded our eyes against the glare of the sun and the wind blowing down on us, trying to get a better view of the helicopter.
Without warning, Dylan grabbed my hand and we scurried across the rocky shore into the sandy region and up the slope toward the rabbit hole. He pushed me down, let me slide under first, and then followed quickly himself. Looking beside the road on the other side of the fence, I noticed right away that my bike was gone.
“Someone took my bike!” I shouted, partly out of anger and partly because of the high wind threatening to drown out my voice.
The helicopter had followed us and still hovered directly overhead, the door to the helicopter opened and a man with a megaphone shouted, “Halt, you are wanted for trespassing on government property!”
“Dylan, we need to get out of here.” I kept looking at the man and something about him seemed familiar. It put me on edge and I just wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible.
“Yeah, come on, we’re just going to have to run.”
Dylan and I took off at a sprint down the road and ran as fast as our feet would carry us. The helicopter kept pace with us, all the while the man hanging halfway out shouting the same thing repeatedly at us.
We ran full speed for at least half a mile before Dylan pointed at what looked like an abandoned, dilapidated barn with a shed to the left of it out in the middle of a field. “What is that?”
“It’s a barn.”
“Let’s go in that direction. Maybe we can elude them there.”
I didn’t know how great of an idea that was, but Dylan and I both changed directions and headed straight for the barn. Looking over my shoulder, I saw that the helicopter kept going in our former direction, but then doubled back to follow us.
It wasn’t long before we reached the shed. A hole in the roof acted as a skylight, illuminating the center of the inside. The interior was slightly damp and with a lot of random junk piled inside.
“Oh, this is perfect.”
“What? What is?” I wondered breathlessly, leaning over on my knees and gasping for air. All I could think of at the moment was that running through a real field was so different than virtual cross country.
“This,” Dylan pulled off a tarp partially covering something large.
I looked up from my gasping state and my eyes grew wide. I began shaking my head as Dylan straddled the object. “Oh, no. That’s one of those really, really, really old motorcycles. It is not like the game you played at your party.”
I could hear shouting outside. The helicopter had caught up to us and probably landed by now.
“Look, Allie, there’s no other option and we can’t outrun them on foot.”
“But, Dylan, look at that thing! It probably runs on gas!”
“No, there’s a solar panel right here. I’m sure it’ll work.” Dylan turned the key that had been sitting on top of the seat in the ignition and the motorcycle roared to life. “Come on, Allie. Get on.” Dylan revved the beast.
The doors to the shed opened up and startled us both. Dylan instinctively started the motorcycle forward and I grabbed onto him as it passed, flinging my leg onto the other side like I was mounting a horse.
As Dylan gained speed and struggled to keep the heavy thing strai
ght, I tried to get situated so I wouldn’t fall off. “Hold on tight, Allie. We’re going to outrun this helicopter.”
I did as I was told and grabbed onto Dylan’s waist for dear life.
We cut through the field like a scythe, killing and tearing out the grass. Dylan continually struggled to keep it steady, whipping us into dead corn stalks as he veered into another field opposite the one we in which we’d found the shed.
Glancing backward, my loose hair kept whipping across my face barely allowing me to see. Through the strands, I could hardly make out the helicopter lifting off the ground and continuing its pursuit. Dylan kept his attention forward and on driving while I kept updating him from the back.
Just as Dylan finally seemed to gain good control of the bike, the fields started to get bumpier. I felt myself get jolted up out of the seat several times. Dylan had finally learned to keep the bike steady, though. I guess playing all of those virtual motorcycle games really did work in the real world after a bit of practice.
“Allie, hold on,” shouted Dylan above all the noise.
I spun back around from recently checking the helicopter’s status to the front to see why Dylan was repeating something he’d already told me. Everything became clear when I saw Dylan was about to go off an earthen ramp.
“Dylan, no!” I shouted.
But it was too late, Dylan soared off the ramp and we went airborne. I screamed in fear, but I had to admit part of it was elation…just a small part.
We landed and nearly fell over due to Dylan’s quick turns. We were closer to town and this place was more inhabited. The stares we got from people who hadn’t seen a manual anything in years were astonishing. We went through town down Main Street, dodging hover cars and people walking about.
I glanced back when I heard a blaringly loud noise and saw that a second helicopter had joined the first. The same man still hung out of the helicopter repeating the same phrase over and over. One more look at him and it all made sense. He wasn’t government. He was the private investigator I had run into outside the fence of the restricted beach.
“Dylan, the helicopter people…they’re not from my government. They’re from Oceania! They’re Mayor Aldridge’s goons!”
“Ugh!” was all I heard Dylan say as he turned the bike down the paved street that would take us to Gran’s house. “Does your grandmother have a connection to the Network?”
“Yes, she does.” I tucked my head behind his back. The wind from the increasing speed of the motorcycle due to the perfectly paved road was becoming more brutal to my poor eyes that had seemed to run out of tears.
“Good, then we’re going to have to act fast. Once we get inside, we need to upload every piece of information on this disk to the Network. Once it’s out there, everyone will have access to it. There will be no hiding Oceania. There will be nothing Mayor Aldridge or anyone else can do. The damage will have been done. They won’t be able to do anything to us then.”
“All right.” The bike reached maximum speed and I grasped onto Dylan’s waist even tighter to ensure I wouldn’t be flung off.
By the time we reached Gran’s house, the helicopters were a little ways behind us. When Dylan stopped the bike in the driveway, we let it fall to the ground as we sprinted up onto the porch and into the house.
“What in the world is going on?” cried Gran at our sudden burst into her house.
“Hi, Gran,” I greeted, quickly brushing past her on our way toward the den.
“What?” Gran grabbed my arm. “Alexandria, what is going on? Where have you been? Everyone is looking for you!”
“Yes, I know, Gran, but I don’t have time.” As gently as possible, I wrenched my arm out of Gran’s grasp and followed Dylan into the den.
He was already working on uploading the information.
“Allie, I need your passcode to get onto the Network.” Dylan’s fingers hovered over the virtual keyboard, ready to type it in.
“5126403,” I responded quickly.
Dylan typed it in perfectly the first time. “All right, I’m in. All we need to do now is upload everything.”
Sharp banging on our front door rattled the whole house.
“Open up. There are wanted trespassers in your home!” yelled a voice I was sure belonged to the man who had posed as a phony private investigator.
“Gran, don’t answer that door!” I called out, although I knew she wouldn’t listen.
Dylan glanced at the time left on the upload. “We aren’t going to make it in time. We need to go. Is there a way to sync this with your communicator?”
“Yeah, you just touch it to the computer. It will transfer the screen and all of its contents to the omniphone and we’ll be mobile.”
“Great.” Dylan took my omniphone and placed it against the back of the computer screen. Both flashed green to indicate the connection had been made and Dylan double-checked the screen on my omniphone. “All right, let’s go.”
I heard the door open and Gran greet the man at the door.
Dylan and I slipped out of the den and into the laundry room at the back. The single window easily lifted up. Dylan went out first and then helped me out. Once we were both outside, we started running into the field behind the house.
Before we’d gotten very far, we were noticed. Suddenly, we were surrounded. Men in hover cars and the two helicopters enclosed us on all sides.
Dylan gazed down at my omniphone in his hands. I looked at it, too. The loading went from ninety-nine percent to one hundred percent.
“It’s up!” shouted Dylan, his entire face shining.
“Yeah!” I screamed as Dylan and I gave each other enthusiastic high-fives.
We did it. Now the whole world would know about Oceania. It wouldn’t be a secret anymore—billions of people would have knowledge about the underwater city. Mayor Aldridge had no power now. She could do nothing to us without angering nations across the globe. The Oceania Project to save humanity—to save only the brilliance of humanity—was out and the world governments would have to answer to its citizens.
The man in the helicopter shouted down, “Be prepared to be apprehended.”
Dylan opened his arms wide and yelled up to him. “It’s over! There’s nothing you can do about it. It is done. The world knows!”
The man in the helicopter paused, while the people around us looked at one another.
Dylan and I merely shared an equally happy grin of accomplishment. We had done it together and now it was all over.
Epilogue
A year passed and my life completely changed. For one thing, Sunnyville became a livelier place to the chagrin of most of the elderly residents there. Due to the town being the terrestrial gateway to Oceania, it became an international tourist hotspot. I still had to spend my summers with Gran, but now they promised fun and excitement.
However, the biggest change of all came from the experiences and insight of my first summer in Oceania. Gran had been right. My father’s death had affected me more than I wished to admit to anyone. My escapades under the sea had awakened a love for nature and sense of adventure that made me feel closer to my dad. It had also made me aware of my passion for doing what was right in the face of adversity. Oddly enough, it had begun to help me fix my tattered relationship with my mother. Finally, I understood her passion for her business—no matter how boring it was to me, and her compulsive need to constantly be focused on it. We’d started talking about my dad and I think that helped ease both of our pain at his loss.
As for the world finding out about Oceania…well, there were mixed reactions. Initially, there was an outcry from people around the world when they found out the origins of The Oceania Project. Almost everyone screamed that it was an injustice to keep Oceania a secret from the common people. They also felt wronged that the ones chosen to inhabit Oceania were only the brightest of the bunch, not a mixture of everyone. After a while, things died down and people became curious about Oceania. They wanted to visit it. They wan
ted to see the technological advances the city had that we didn’t.
The world governments eventually issued statements, but they never outright apologized for what they had done. The American government got a lot of blame because of the project, but the politicians smoothed it over quite nicely and calmed the people.
No one ever knew that Dylan and I were the ones who leaked the information. We had sent it anonymously and there was no way to trace it back to us. People tried, but it never quite worked out.
“Hey, Allie!” Dylan ran up to me, his hair even shaggier than it had been last year.
“Hey, Dylan, what’s kickin’?”
“Well, the tourists lately.”
I laughed. Dylan had been appointed to the position of liaison for both the people of Oceania and the rest of the world. When he wasn’t in school, like now, he had to take tours back and forth to the city. It was tedious, but it allowed him to learn more about our world, gain a little extra money, and it meant we got to hang out from time to time.
“So, how’s Chicago, do you like it any better?”
“Mhm, just a little bit.” I held my forefinger and thumb close together, and laughed.
Dylan also laughed and joined me on the rock I was sitting on. He offered me part of his lunch, a sandwich, and chips or as he called it Land Dweller food, as we both looked out at the calm sea from the beach that was once restricted. We still considered it our beach, even though its official name was now Oceania Beach.
“So, Allie, I was thinking.”
“Yeah?” I popped a chip into my mouth.
“I think I found another underwater city.”
I peered at him through slit eyes of suspicion. “Really?”
“Yup, it’s quite far from here, though.” Dylan bit into his sandwich nonchalantly.
“Oh, yeah? What is it called?”
“Atlantis,” stated Dylan with a smile that suggested he was holding back a laugh.
I shoved him slightly and he almost fell off the rock. He grinned back at me and I couldn’t help laughing.