Chapter 11
Nathan asked the taxi driver to drop him at the park, a short walking distance from his mother’s house; he felt like he needed some fresh air. It was fantastic to enjoy the spectacular stuff OBU could offer but Nathan still preferred the natural beauty, even the basic freedom to breathe fresh air. However, there was one point Cathy had made that did make sense: if pollution hadn’t been reduced dramatically, there wouldn’t be much fresh air for everyone to breathe.
On one hand, OBU was great for reducing pollution, getting rid of global warming and protecting the environment; but on the other hand, people had built an invisible cage to pack everyone inside. Nathan wasn’t sure the approach of using one technology to solve the problems that were created by other technologies was the ultimate solution. He didn’t have the answer; therefore, Nathan kept walking in the large park.
The park, like Nathan’s mother’s house, was far away from the oceanfront, the rich eastern suburbs of Sydney. Nathan had grown up in a sprawled out, flat, ordinary western suburban neighbourhood, and he had enjoyed this park throughout his life until he moved out of his parents’ house when studying at university. Nathan had very fond memories of this park, with the large grassy oval where he had played cricket for many of his teenage years.
Nathan wasn’t a fan of Australian football as he found it too aggressive for his taste. He was not a confrontational guy, and maybe that was the reason Cathy had broken up with him, because he lacked the male aggressiveness and roughness. While other male teenagers and university students were punching each other to fight for the girls they pursued, Nathan had never bother to get involved with that kind of stuff. It was fortunate he found Cathy, who loved him for what he was, but she eventually drifted away from him.
Through Nathan’s life, until meeting Master Wuwei, he had never had a single fight with another guy. He knew it was quite unusual for a young white male like him in the highly sport-orientated, binge-drinking and aggressive Australian society. The night he had met the Taoist master was the first time he had ever gotten drunk in his life. He told Master Wuwei about his problems with Cathy and his wish to learn how to fight, and the next morning, not only he was fifteen years in future, but he also had this fantastic super fighting skill. He had beaten six big guys who were armed with daggers and short swords singlehandedly, without inflicting even a cut on himself. How did he know those graceful moves and how to break or dislocate a guy’s joints without thinking, as if it was part of his second nature?
One thing was sure, that Mater Wuwei had some kind of power, so if he had the ability to send him into the future, it’d be no big surprise if he had also implanted these wonderful fighting skills in him. Nathan supposed that the ability to see through people’s masks in OBU could also be the by-product of his mind training, although it had only given him a brief glance of Mary’s pretty face and he hadn’t been able to replicate the ability ever again since being in OBU. However Nathan believed, for some unknown reason, that his ability to see through the masks would return to him one day.
As soon as thoughts about Mary entered his head, her piercing blue eyes immediately burst into his mind. Even with his eyes open, he could still remember meeting her eyes vividly. He was sure that her eyes were pleading for his help; somehow she knew that he was able to help her. Mary and her people were in danger; if he hadn’t defeated all of the attackers, apparently government field agents, as he was told later, Mary and her group would have been killed.
Nathan understood the environmental benefits OBU had brought to the world, particularly after Cathy’s tour and their conversation this afternoon, and knew he should feel disgusted and angry towards Mary, who wanted to destroy OBU and bring pollution and global warming back, but he didn’t.
Nathan had always been a good boy. He had never broken any school rules, or put one foot wrong in his entire life, but now he just couldn’t get Mary, the most wanted terrorist, out of his mind. Nathan shook his head in disbelief; what was wrong with him?
Nathan was in such deep thought that he almost bumped into another person.
“Sorry,” he apologized but then shouted out immediately, “Amy, is it really you?”
It was Amy, his co-worker at the little bakery before his ‘disappearance’. Amy had changed; the fifteen years had sculptured her into a stunning woman. Her chubby teenage appearance was replaced with a sharp and absolutely beautiful face.
However, Amy didn’t seem surprised at all.
“Hi, Nathan. How have you been? I heard that you came back yesterday and I thought about visiting you, but here we are, bumping into each other right on my doorstep.”
“Your doorstep? Amy, I didn’t know you were living around here.”
“I only moved here a few years ago; that flat over there.” She pointed at a greyish building right on the edge of the park. It must have been built recently because Nathan couldn’t remember ever seeing it before.
“What a surprise! Amy, we are neighbours now.”
“Do you live nearby as well?”
“Oh I grew up in this area; my parents’ house is only a five-minute walk that way.”
“What a coincidence,” Amy laughed.
“Amy, how did you know I was back so quickly? I haven’t had time to talk to or meet anyone yet.”
“Nathan, it’s OBU age. Any local news can be spread out instantly the second it’s on OBUK.”
“What’s OBUK? I assume it has something to do with OBU, right?”
“Yeah, the equivalent of Facebook in OBU; it’s really called OBU book, but for short most people just say OBUK,” Amy said. “Talking of Facebook, it’s ancient history. I still can’t believe fifteen years have passed since your disappearance. Nathan, what happened to you?”
Nathan offered the same explanation to her as to all the others.
“Memory loss,” Amy said thoughtfully. She looked at Nathan, gazing into his eyes for a long time. It almost felt like an eternity to Nathan, but in reality it’d been only a second or so. Although they had worked together in the bakery for almost two years, this was the first time Nathan had looked into her eyes. He sensed that there was something else behind the brown eyes; he wasn’t sure what it was, and didn’t want to guess either.
Amy put a strand of her long brown hair behind her ear, and then said, “Nathan, I am so glad that you finally came back. We all thought that we had lost you…you know, you treated me so well, like a real gentleman in the bakery, and I was really sad after you disappeared…”
Nathan didn’t know what to say; he patted Amy’s arm. “Thanks, Amy. It was you who looked after me in the bakery.”
A moment of awkward silence fell.
“Amy, what do you do now? I assume that you are working in OBU, right? It seems like almost everyone is working in OBU nowadays.”
“Yeah, I am working in OBU.” Amy regained her posture. She looked at Nathan again, back to the way she had looked at him in the olden days. “I work for an international charity organization, OBUarity that stands for OBU Charity. It was founded by the OBU Corporation, the largest corporation in human history. I suppose that OBU has made so much money that they decided to share some with the poor countries.”
“Wow, that sounds great. So what exactly are you doing for OBUarity?” Nathan found it much easier for their conversation to flow now.
“Well, we do move around a fair bit, but during the last few months I have been working at a school in Africa to help the poor kids from local tribes. Nathan, what are you going to do?”
“I don’t know yet; remember I only came back yesterday morning, so I have to settle down first and think about it.”
“Nathan, there are lots of perks to working for OBU, like visiting all of the places around the world for free.”
“I thought one could do that in OBU anyway.”
“Yes but only in theory. Although it’s much cheaper to travel and visit other countries in OBU compared with travelling in the real wor
ld, it still costs a lot if one wants to travel frequently. For an average person, it’d still be a struggle to have more than a couple of holidays each year; but if you are working for OBUarity, you’d have an unlimited permit to visit any place in the world.”
“When do you have time to travel whilst you are working in African schools?”
“Nathan, it’s OBU age; I could have a lunch break in Paris and be back at work in the African school afterwards. Travelling in OBU is just a data set switching, requiring no time at all. Of course one would have to be able to pay for them, but in my case, it’s free.”
“It does sound really good, but I am not sure if I would be qualified to be a teacher because I haven’t finished my uni studies.”
“Nathan, you have done two years of uni, and I am quite sure that’s enough to get you a position as a teacher in OBUarity; they need more hands than they have at the moment so anyone putting their hands up would have quite a good chance. Plus, you had quite good marks at uni.”
“It’s really tempting.”
“Nathan, leave it to me, I’ll make some inquiries and I’ll get back to you very soon. You can always decline the offer, or try it for a short time to see if it suits you. You have nothing to lose.”
Nathan thought about it for a moment and then said, “Thank you very much, Amy; I do appreciate your help. You know I have been worrying about whether I’ll be able to get a job in the OBU age at all.”
“So it’s settled then. Nathan, I am so glad you came back, and it’s so exciting to think we might work together again,” Amy said after they exchanged contact details.
Looking at Amy’s back as she walked away, Nathan felt quite good about the opportunity, but at the same time, he felt a bit uneasy with Amy. He sensed that there was something more than just friendship and the anticipation of being co-workers in Amy’s tone. They had started working at the bakery almost at the same time but back then the three-year age gap had been huge for Nathan. Amy was basically a kid to him, therefore, during the two years they had been working together, he had rarely paid much attention to her. Amy could have had a typical high school girl’s crush on him, an older brother type crush, thought Nathan, but that was fifteen years ago, and now Amy would be thirty-two years old. Even though he hadn’t asked her if she was married or had any children, he knew by instinct that she was single and had no kids, just from the way she talked, her clothing and the way she walked. He didn’t know why or how, but he found he had an increased ability to observe others, like how he had known the attackers in the bar in Little Amsterdam were hostile as soon as they had arrived. Maybe it was the violent energy around them.
Turning his thoughts back to Amy, Nathan thought it was ridiculous to think that she could still fancy him now even if she had had a high school crush on him all that time ago. After another moment, Nathan chuckled to himself and dismissed the thoughts. He remembered reading an article stating that in work situations, male colleagues always overestimated their attractiveness to their female counterparts, and it was exactly his situation right now. Who did he think he was, Prince Charming? Nathan laughed at himself; Amy was just genuinely concerned about him as a colleague, a friend, and nothing more than that. Nathan looked back at the grey building one more time, and then turned, walking towards home.
Out of Body Universe - Part One Page 12