“He wouldn’t have been warning you to stop because he was worried about you Mae. These mainland Monos are angry. They have been treated like a lower, inferior class for generations. He would have been furious that another group of Acers were bound for the luxury of Intentionality, prioritised because of a genetic fluke. If you are remembering because your Evo-gene has experienced something in the past, then it’s possible one of your ancestors did actually see Luke in his earlier angrier, rage against the machine days. Twenty years ago life on the outskirts of Intentionality was torturous. The Monos lived without heat, not enough food and long, monotonous working hours of hard labour. This for a man of Luke’s intellect would have been unbearable. ”
A tear dropped from my eye where it had been pooling. It splashed on Willem’s hand. He looked directly into my eyes, lifting my chin slightly with his left hand and promised that my solitary struggle was over. I neither needed to feel the burden of guilt nor the hopelessness of my inabilities alone. We were in this together, along with every member of this sub. Willem laid his head on my shoulder and there we drifted off into a half dreamlike state while the sub passed through the uncharted waters of the Polar Ocean.
I have awoken to the very harsh, real sound of the warning alarm booming into every pocket of air in our tiny hull. There is not so much a sense of panic in the room amongst the passengers, more a practical movement of people reacting as they have been trained. I of course have not been trained. I am in a real state of shock. I am no good to anyone and shall remain in my chair until told to do otherwise.
Around the front of the sub I can see the vague shadow of icy water seeping in through a fissure in the bottom of the hull. Some passengers are off balance. We must be leaning slightly to the right. I am observing Mrs Jones who is calmly ordering her guards to the portholes where they can make a true assessment of the damage and lookout for the cause. The Grand Acer is speaking animatedly on the telecom system whilst Willem and Luke can be clearly seen discussing an emergency action plan.
“… incoming to the left, travelling at optimum speed, Ma’am. It appears to be a missile of some sort. I can’t see a tracker we may be able to remove ourselves from its path if we dive,” shouted a guard at the front left of the sub.
“Craig, dive, take her down ten metres but steadily, we are taking on water,” came the command from Luke.
The sub is groaning, struggling to respond whilst all the time I hear a scratching of metal on rock. The sub is caught, possibly hooked on the jagged rock by one of the protruding bits of metal from the outside of the hull.
It is time to help. Communicate to Willem. I know what to do and exactly how but I will need his force too. We only have a few seconds before we are struck down again.
“Willem, remember when we fought off that guard. We actually moved him with that repelling force. Do you think we could project outwards to push this sub off the rock?”
This was clearly a great idea. Willem is bounding over.
“Incoming from the right Ma’am, they must be surrounding us… definitely more than one vessel above on the surface… just picking us off like fish in a tank,” bellowed a second guard
The moment is now. This is what I can do to attempt to save my rescuers. This is payback time. I must not fail.
Willem caught both my look and hand simultaneously. The fear and survival instinct in us both kicked in. I can feel a magnetic pressure very much like the ones in my dreams. Almost immediately a tremor just about apparent to the eye is beginning to spread away from us. It is clear but wave like and getting stronger. I am struggling to stay on my feet; the heat emanating from our palms is immense. It feels like my hand is submerged in boiling water. The wave has reached the shell of the sub. My fear is that we are not yet strong enough to push through. We have to, it’s imperative that we save these people. The metal is swelling outwards, further strain to the shell and it will give way, allowing the frozen water an opportunity to gush in and drown us. I was wrong, a silly, immature, naive suggestion. I am not a super hero and never will be. I have endangered the very people trying to save me!
“Mae, what is happening? My fingers are on fire and my bag has just been catapulted across the room!”
That can’t be Lily not at a time like this!
“Lily, this is a force that we project when we are in danger. I have only experienced it twice before, however Willem has also been in this situation and so I think you are feeling it too because of the connection. We need your help we are in grave danger. Please focus your mind on pushing something really heavy away from you. Imagine that this thing is frightening, that it will attack you, if you can’t hold it away.”
“Ok Mae, I am picturing Natura! Will that do?”
“Ma’am we need to evacuate this sub, dress yourself in your wetsuit and prepare to dive towards the sea bed we can regroup there.” Another order from Luke meant for Mrs Jones.
At the last moment my sister has put the final piece of the jigsaw together producing a trident of power within us. Our rippling wave thrusts forward, pushing through the metal casing like air through a curtain. I am counting; one, two, three, four… boom, a blast of energy hits the rock and ricochets back towards the sub. There is the sad cry of ripping metal, then an enormous jolt that lifts the sub clean away. Craig is agog but is reacting as I watch. We are diving down, unfortunately we are a fraction too late to avoid the first missile. We take a direct hit to the tail end of the sub. Our rudder is sent hurtling into the passenger compartment, trapping the Grand Acer to the wall and seriously wounding two Mono guards who leapt in to protect Mrs Alder as it sailed past her legs. Most passengers are struggling to maintain balance and others are completely knocked onto the flooding floor. The impact has not completely ripped the sub in two; we are not taking on board water at an alarming rate. Willem and I have bought a little time and that is a seriously important commodity when you are recalculating your own survival, stuck as we were on that ledge, we would have sustained a direct hit. I shudder to contemplate who we would have lost in that scenario. Eventually we will have no option but to go into the water. The wetsuits will save us for a matter of minutes. So it is clear that we will need to choose both the right time and a realistic, effective plan if we are to survive. I have stopped, and once again find myself as a bystander trying to take in the damage, assess where I am needed, versus where I will be in the way of the natural chain of command. A quick glance informs me that Nurse Spendlove is bandaging Mrs Alder’s leg, whilst others are moving to the drier end of the cabin. Craig is reassuring the passengers and it is evident that Willem is calculating not only what we as a trident are capable of, but also how we can use that power once more to regain some sort of safe passage up to the surface. Emerging then out of the cacophony of sound, I can make out a clear pleading wail. It is The Grand Acer, Nurse Spendlove makes a move to get to him, comfort him, but the sub groans with a deep despairing sadness, a virtual warning. We can’t take the chance to reach out to him. He is bleeding too badly; even from a distance we can tell that he will not survive to see his girls again. We know this, yet even more harrowingly he knows this. I cannot allow him to fade away alone at the other end of a stark unforgiving piece of metal. I have to go to him, comfort him in his sorrow.
“Willem I am going to the Grand Acer, I am not leaving his side until the last moment.”
“Mae, have you completely lost your senses? That end of the sub is unstable, if your weight is too great for that mangled structure to support you, more than just metal will be lost into the ocean. I cannot let that happen, you are our hereditary link. The only proof I have that my great grandma survived.”
“Ok, prepare me for the cold and the ocean but I am going to that poor man.”
If I can edge slowly towards the back of the sub, I can test for the strength of the structure as I go with a heavy bag that I have found. It is full of supplies and is in effect replaceable and unfit for purpose, there is not one person on this sub that
is feeling hungry right now! If it can’t take the weight of the bag, it won’t hold me. The screeching of metal continues as the aftershock waves roll around us but the floor holds firm. Pretty soon I am close enough to touch the Grand Acer. He is breathing heavily under the mangled metal. He can just reach my palm with his fingertips. I squeeze gently which brings him round from his hypnotised stare.
“Look after my babies, let them never be in any doubt that I loved them more each and every day. Don’t fill them with the horror of my passing. They have suffered enough. Tell them simply that I have gone to be with their mother in a place filled with flowers, warm nights and love.”
His breathing became shallow within the next few minutes, the cold, shock and the blood loss helped to speed his passage.
Eventually he closed his eyes for the last time, sighed and passed away from the horror of this situation, to his adored wife and their shared vision of paradise. Tears rolled down my face joined by huge heaving breaths. He was in the end a father first; no one else had known that about him. Sitting as he was but half an hour ago with an air of superiority amongst an uprising. He was simply looking out for his family, just the way I am attempting to do.
I can now feel a weight in my head teamed with the sound of whispering, more like chanting actually. It is my sister. I think that she is praying. I also now realise that I did not close the line of communication. She will have seen and heard everything in my thoughts, feelings and imaginings. She has been dragged into reality. One that she is ill prepared for; she is me at the beginning of this journey although she has the misfortune to be experiencing it at warp speed.
“Lily listen, I am coming for you. You need to go with Julia and Elizabeth. Do not go to the preparation cylinder. It is not what you have been led to believe. You will need to trust me and those girls. They are working for the people I am with right now. You must promise not to say anything about what you have just experienced through me.”
“Mae, I don’t understand but you know that I trust you with my life. The preparations have felt a little abrupt and military in the last few hours. I was beginning to feel a little uncomfortable. Come back to me safely. You are as always my first priority. I am you; you are me, forever that shall be.”
Suddenly I became aware of the danger we were in. Something had to be done effectively and immediately to avoid further losses. I looked around at the movement in the cabin. This was no longer measured and efficient. In its place was a developing vision of chaos. Some people were shouting orders and others obeying in blind panic. No one wanted to drown in here but no one dare take the decisive role towards an escape either. The options weren’t welcoming; we would drown in here or die of hyperthermia out there. They were our stark yet real options. I took a moment to think and to communicate with Willem.
“If we go up, can we guarantee finding a gap in the ice? Is there an emergency dinghy?”
“Yes to both, we slept for most of the journey. Our sub was in the process of surfacing when we received a warning from the mainland guard. They questioned our intentions. We responded with a message that we were delivering you, but they heat scanned the sub and discovered more bodies than we had suggested. That’s when they began the attack.”
“So Willem, those rocks that we nearly hit are in fact the mainland?”
“Yes I suppose they are.”
“If we wait until dark, could we inflate our lifejackets to get to the surface quickly and then climb the last rock face? Surely The Resistance will be looking for us if we don’t arrive at the port in time. Failing that we could take the dingy and a couple of us could row to the Mono port. The guards will assume we drowned. They won’t be expecting survivors from a double missile attack. My only question is why they were suspicious in the first place? I thought Intentionality was a peaceful place.”
The decision was made there and then. Willem and I would leave first just in case anything went wrong. Apparently the knowledge and evidence I hold within my brain is invaluable to the cause. I am also able to communicate with The Grid; Willem is able and willing to protect me. We would work to persuade The Resistance to come back urgently and mount a rescue mission. Meanwhile in pairs the rest of the survivors, eight in total would also leave the sub in ten-minute intervals, rising to the surface in the relative safety of the moonlight and there they would begin to paddle to shore in the life raft. Next would be Mrs Jones with Luke and so on. Craig and his guard would leave last. He was tasked with sending a non-stop mayday call to his team through the communication panel of the sub, we weren’t convinced it had survived the collision, but even if there was a minute chance that they were receiving us it was worth attempting. The quicker we were out of the ocean the better, before any more of us and in particular those ready to lead a new government succumbed to the below freezing polar temperatures.
That just left the body of the Grand Acer. I vowed to return to reclaim his body and give him the burial he deserved when our mission was complete.
We sat for hours in the cold damp and eventually dark carcass of our sub. We had been able to stem the flow of water with the seat cushions however it was now lapping at our knees. It was time…
We had the luxury of the air lock to allow two passengers out at a time, without flooding the rest of the cabin, but once out of the sub the team really were alone in the freezing depths, guided by the rock face and the trajectory of the life vest in its attempt to race towards the surface.
All too quickly it was just the two of us in the air lock. I forced a smile and Willem squeezed my hand. We placed our foreheads together, took a deep breath each before Willem released the catch, forcing us both out into the treacherous waters and finally to the surface. Not the route I had followed in my childhood dream! I clung to both of my lifesavers, Willem on my right, my vest on the left. The sensation was strangely comforting, like moving on the travelators in The Nest. I kept my eyes closed, head down and listened to the gush of water as it moved past me at speed. Just before my lungs had burnt through my ribs and my brain had begun making its own escape plan, we surfaced with a boom and tidal wave. The euphoria was overwhelming; it streamed through my veins and into my voice box. I let out a cheer followed by a drowning cough as I gulped in a mix of seawater and air combined. We were alive, well and most definitely looking at the starry, night sky. What an entrance into the world. I had been reborn into a new world, though one where we would fight for our rights, NOT be told what they are. A world where I would fend for myself, but value what I had properly earned.
Thirty-six
We paddled, clinging to our life vests, towards the relative security of the shore. Our journey took a lot longer than I anticipated because of the tide. Initially I couldn’t help but relish the sharp feeling of the water on my face and the keen taste of salt that lightly stung my lips, the divine fresh fragrance of rotting fish, seaweed and ice. However that novelty was short lived as the stark reality of imminent death through hyperthermia hit me like a wave in a storm. How was I going to travel that distance, with only my lifebuoy and rudimentary swimming experience? Would my wetsuit really limit the death of my extremities? Would I be eaten by unknown underwater creatures?
Willem had of course already worked out to the second, the amount of time we would be safe, enveloped as we were in the frozen water, together with the speed with which we needed to paddle. Our swift, direct route through the waves would allow us to stay alive, but would also mean that our arrival on the rocks, rather than the beach would result in an immediate climb with frozen fingers and numb toes. Not the ideal tools for gaining purchase on the slimy, ice laden surface.
Still we made it. My suit is pretty much shredded, due to a mixture of clumsy attempts to move my legs upwards and the shards of rock, which protruded from the wall. We know from the human voices, which could be interpreted as screams or cheers, that some of the others have surfaced safely; but to look would be to lose focus. We don’t know who is thrashing, failing, and ultimately dying
in the icy water and who is succeeding. I hope that the flailing is no one. Everyone in our party is valuable to the cause, not to mention cared for by a family member, praying like Lily for their safe passage.
We have stopped to rest for a while at the top of the cliff. The sky is dark, cloaked in mystery and incredibly beautiful. Every area in front of my eyes is decorated with clean, bright iridescent white diamonds of light. The icy ground is shimmering amongst the dark rock and the sky is aglow, spotted with torch like star beams. Never have I felt so open, lost or vulnerable yet free.
My thoughts have wandered on several occasions to the Grand Acer and his watery grave. Strangely I am concerned for his feelings.
Will he be lonely?
Will he be safe?
Are there afterlife beings that may be able to guide him to his wife?
Could there be the possibility of those mermaids from the old stories of the world before the Evo-shift, finding him and bringing him to life? They may assume that he is a lost sailor.
Of course I know that this is delusional positive thinking at best, the ramblings of a person about to lose the plot at the worst. What else do I have at this moment but hope?
“I can see that you are cold Mae, come closer, can you see the lights? They are coming from the landing pier and further along is your first view of the perimeter fence. I thought you may need a reason to continue with your awesome effort.”
“What is that glorious glow? The one with the golden hue topped in a rosy pink halo? I want to go there. It looks warm and inviting, opulent, precious yet protective.”
“That is the glow of Intentionality, the city that never rests. As you can see its presence is felt for miles around. Natura demands a twenty-four-hour work ethic. The Acers are devout followers. Many scientists work the night shift for months and as a result the lighting has been developed to replicate that of the daylight. Most Acers never see the night sky in its true natural beauty.”
Intentionality Page 18