by A. L. Knorr
Hiroki said, "The fellow in the crane is Mr. Biden. He's agreed to help us out today."
Hiroki waved to Mr. Biden and the arm of the crane lowered the platform to the ground where Hiroki had us step onto it. Mr. Nakesh and Miss Marks stepped up with us. Miss Marks had traded her power suit for khaki pants and a fatigue jacket, with a cute pair of white sneakers. Cat-eye sunglasses hid her eyes, while a pair of mirrored aviators perched on Mr. Nakesh's nose.
"The masks, Hiroki?" Miss Marks murmured.
Hiroki blinked. "I almost forgot." He bent to his bag and retrieved a bunch of tinted goggles and face masks. He handed them out to us. "Better put these on."
We all put the glasses on and settled the masks over our mouths and noses. Miss Marks tucked her sunglasses into a fancy pearly case and dropped them into the shoulder bag she carried. Mr. Nakesh hooked his on his collar.
"The first step is you two." Hiroki beckoned to Georjie and Targa. "Step up beside me at the railing here. I want to show you something that will help. It’s a blueprint of sorts."
The crane lifted us into the air while we shifted around to let Georjie and Targa have the best view of the land below.
"See the border flags?" Hiroki pointed to the small orange flags nearly lost in the ground cover. They staked out a broad arch which swung behind us and curved off gently to either side. Given that we were making a round dome, I presumed they marked out a full circle.
The platform came to a halt and swayed gently. "Now, if you watch, you'll see something else that we've delineated." He picked up a remote control the size of a key-fob and flicked a switch. "Watch."
Thin, neon green lines appeared. They appeared to have no obvious order. They were being projected onto the ground by lasers fixed to the crane's arm.
"My team did a lot of calculations for this part of the prototype," Hiroki said, leaning his elbows on the railing of our platform. He pointed a finger down at the lines before us, tracing them. "You won't be able to tell because it's too big, but the laser maps out the continents as they looked on early maps when people thought the world was flat. We took our inspiration from the United Nations flag and logo. It closely resembles a flat-earth map as well. Because we're creating a place for humans to live that is, if we consider within the dome the only safe zone for life, not actually a globe but under a dome, we thought we would take an existing model rather than trying to create our own." He pointed to the edges of the dome. "The Arctic would technically be a shelf that runs around the perimeter of the dome, but we've left that part out, too. We really just need the main continents for our experiment today."
“The actual domes wouldn’t be laid out this way, would they?” Akiko asked.
“No,” Hiroki shook his head. “We thought that following a flat-earth map would be interesting and challenging for you guys. Give you a chance to really show off your powers. We needed a template to work with, and the flat-earth map already existed, so it was easy for us to borrow.”
He turned to address Georjie and Targa. "Working together, can the two of you put the water where it is supposed to be, and the continents where they are supposed to be, as mapped out by the lasers? I can help guide you, as it'll be difficult at first."
Targa and Georjie looked at each other.
"At the same time?" Georjie asked Hiroki.
"As you wish," he answered. "However suits you."
"I need to have my feet in the dirt," Georjie said.
"Oh!" Hiroki looked surprised. He signaled the crane operator again, his cheeks pink. "Of course,” he said, as though he’d known it all along. “I just wanted you to have an overhead view of the project first."
I shared a look with Akiko. It was clear Hiroki hadn't known Georjie needed to have her feet in the soil. No big deal. He wasn't omniscient. So why did he feel the need to cover it up and pretend he'd known all along?
The platform began to move again, lowering us to the ground. Once close enough, Georjie kicked off her sneakers and jumped down, landing barefoot in the soil.
"Can you still see the lasers?" Hiroki asked.
"I'll be able to in a moment," Georjie replied, cryptically. She pushed her goggles up into her hair and pulled the mask away from her mouth. “These are just annoying,” she muttered.
Hiroki turned to Targa and hefted his bag. He seemed flustered. "We can go back to the vehicles and drive you down to the ocean, Targa."
But Targa shook her head. "I don't need to be in the water to control it."
"Ah, of course." Hiroki's cheeks flushed pink and I noticed Jody and Mr. Nakesh sharing what I thought was an unhappy glance. Hiroki put his bag down again and signaled to Mr. Biden, and we were hoisted into the sky.
Once again, Hiroki had shown ignorance about Elementals. These two bits of evidence left me wondering just how many supernaturals Hiroki had actually worked with. I glanced at Petra and there was a wrinkle of concern between her brows which I could see even under the goggles. I wondered if she had noticed Hiroki's blunders.
Georjayna's feet were planted in the soil, ankle-deep.
A dull and deep groaning sound rose to our ears. My heart began to pound in response, as it sounded like the very ground underneath us had a serious bellyache. Higher pitched twangs as well as loud snapping sounds punctuated the yawning growl of displeasure. It took me several seconds to realize what we were hearing—roots deep underground, stretching and breaking. The pure force Georjie had to be exerting was eye-watering.
We leaned over the railing, watching the terrain for signs of movement. Vertigo swept over me as the topography began to heave and shift. Cracks appeared in the dirt, yawning open and then collapsing. Lumpy mounds rose rapidly as though punched violently from underneath. The crackling and groaning sounds popped and echoed and reverberated through the air. It sounded like some colossal wooden hinge badly in need of lubrication was being pried open by Herculean fingers.
Then all movement and sound ceased.
We looked down at Georjie and she looked up at us, her hands hovering in the air and a look of amazement on her face.
"This earth is full of seeds!" she called up to us.
"Isn't the earth always full of seeds?" Akiko called back.
"Not like this. There are literally hundreds of thousands of species, many of them not native to Canada. If I made them grow, we would have the world's most diverse and colossal greenhouse right here—not to mention a problem with the law."
"That's the idea," Mr. Nakesh called down at her. He bobbed his head. "Not the problem with the law part, just the greenhouse bit."
There was a beat while Georjie absorbed this. "You put them here?"
"My team did, yes," Hiroki answered. He cleared his throat, still seeming a bit uncomfortable.
"Ohhhh…." Georjie let out a long understanding sigh and her expression and body language conveyed that her entire being was melting with pleasure. "You want me to develop them?"
"Yes, once you've shifted the continents into place, if you'd like, you can populate them with plants."
Facing front, Georjie said, "It's like the best theme park game ever." She spoke as though to herself, but the words drifted up and we laughed. She looked up again. "But some of these species are invasive."
"That's what the dome is for," Petra replied. "They'll never escape the barrier."
Georjie let out a long breath. "If you say so. If you're wrong I'll have to kill them all later, and that would suck." She returned to her work.
The cacophony started up again and the world below us shifted and swayed, dropped and rose. The topography began to make some sense of itself when the swells and dips of the land began to follow the laser lines. Replica continents rose as the floors of replica oceans and seas sank away. Jagged rocks appeared as Georjie unearthed stones and assembled them haphazardly. The optics of random rocks emerging and rolling around in the dirt to congeal and climb one another was bizarre and mesmerizing. The air was filled with dust and I was grateful for the goggles and
the face masks.
The earth between the continents began to darken, and soon water seeped from underground.
I looked over at Targa and saw that she had also taken the goggles and mask off and was concentrating in the direction of the Atlantic, drawing it through the ground. Dirty water swelled and churned as it bubbled up through the earth, filling the caverns Georjie had built.
Goosebumps marbled the skin of my arms as we watched the heaving, churning real-life map of the world being constructed by Georjie and Targa. It was messy, filthy, and disorganized, and a little sickening to the senses, but through it all I was thoroughly amazed.
At first it looked like a mud pit, but as we watched the water began to clear. The land continued to shift into place, roiling and seething, and the water crept higher and higher. The air was so rich with the smell of soil and water, even through my mask, that it reminded me of the greenhouse in Georjie's basement.
The first of the plants began to appear, sprouting out of the earth like tiny hairs in a million shades of green. Wiggling and vibrating in response to Georjie's power, everything grew rapidly. Grasses, flowers, shrubs, vegetables, and herbs burst into bloom and filled our eyes with verdant shades of green speckled with yellows, pinks, and blues, while the taller plants continued onward and upward.
The oceans and seas were now full of shifting, slopping water, which began to calm as Targa let them be. Georjie was now a slash of blond hair in the sea of green below us. The tops of the trees were lush, and a canopy had formed along the fresh banks of dark water. Vines looped through tree branches while mosses crept over bark.
Georjie's arms came to rest at her sides and she looked up. "How's that?"
"Beautiful," Hiroki called down to her. "Marvelous job, both of you."
For several moments, we gazed out at the incredible scene before us. It looked like a huge swamp dotted with large forested islands.
"It's so quiet," Akiko murmured, who had now abandoned her mask and goggles too. I glanced at Petra, who had her goggles up in her hair and her mask hanging around her throat. I smiled at our quiet rebellion and slipped mine off as well. The dust was clearing and it felt nice to breath the air.
"Yeah, like it needs birds and animals and bugs," I added.
"Of course," Mr. Nakesh said. "We will introduce those to the domes as well. We want the experience of living in a dome to be as natural as possible. Like a paradise, or an Eden." He rubbed his hands together and turned to gaze at Petra with an expression akin to adoration. "Let's get to the next part. It's the most exciting. Our Euroklydon will now make our impenetrable dome."
Saxony
"Its borders will follow the flags we've set out." Hiroki said as he took out his kerchief and mopped his forehead.
Georjie had rejoined us on the platform and we were once again hovering over the ground. She leaned over and whispered to Petra, “Euroklydon, that’s what they call you?”
Petra nodded.
Hiroki continued, "Petra has a remarkable ability to allow material through the field while keeping out everything else. If I live to be a thousand I don't think any science could ever explain it."
Petra stepped away from us and a look of concentration came over her face. She held her hands apart, palms facing one another, and then let them rest slowly at her side. Her eyes had an unfocused look.
“You won’t be able to see it,” Hiroki said. “It’s invisible to all except Petra.”
"I can see it," said Akiko.
"You can?" Hiroki sounded shocked.
Akiko nodded. "It looks like heat, sort of. If you didn't know it was there, you'd never see it. Your eyes wouldn't know how to focus on it."
Hiroki took out a notepad from his chest pocket and jotted something down before tucking it away again. I stole a glance at his notes but his scrawl was hard to make out. The only word I caught was 'cryptochromes.' What was that? I made a mental note to look it up later.
"But you have to get it around us." I was looking at Petra. "How do you do that?"
"You each have a unique signature," Petra said. "I can feel it, and then I make the atoms of the force-field pass through yours."
At the look of alarm on our faces she added quickly, "Without hurting you. Kind of like this." She held the fingers of both hands spread open and passed the fingers through the spaces of the opposite hand, between each digit. "Touch it again," she directed me.
As I did, the solid surface of the force-field seemed to vanish as my fingers passed through it. "That's so bizarre," I said. "It’s like a shadow passing over your skin."
"Now, I'll make it bigger."
The shadow passed over my skin, went up my body and disappeared. I looked up. There was nothing to see but clear blue sky.
A beat later and Petra said, "Okay, Hiroki. It's up."
"Great." Hiroki bent to his bag and pulled out a plastic flare-gun. "Just to demonstrate the efficacy of the barrier." He cocked the gun and fired it into the sky.
A red flare of light shot from the gun with a pop and hurtled into the sky. It hit the invisible barrier and exploded into a million sparking fragments.
"Can I try?" I asked.
"Absolutely," said Hiroki, putting the gun down and smiling at me. “Have at ’er.”
I cocked my arm and released a fireball as hard as I could. Rather than flying up, like the flare had, it flew across the land at a blazing speed. Much brighter and faster than the flare, it hit the force-field with a dry crackle and exploded. A blue wave of ripples shot outward across the wall of the barrier. Against the forest beyond, it looked like a computer-generated effect.
"Wow!" Georjie laughed with amazement. "There it is! Did you do that?" she asked Petra.
Petra shook her head, looking mildly dazed herself. She was gazing at me with something akin to awe. "Nope. The force-field did it all by itself. I guess there was some juice behind that fireball."
I grinned, feeling a little cocky. "Some."
"Crank it up a notch, just for fun," Hiroki suggested.
"Don't fry us, Saxony," Targa said.
"I won't." I drew back my arm again, stoking the fire and drawing more heat up my arm as I released a larger, hotter fireball. I threw it in the other direction. Everyone squinted as it streaked into the air.
"I can feel the heat of that thing on my face," cried Petra, with her hand up to protect her eyes. Her hand bumped her goggles and she slid them down over her eyes again.
My fireball hit the inside wall of the dome with a light dry thud which didn't do justice to the heat I had packed into it. But the corona of blue ripples and the burst of fiery light that followed had all of us making sounds of appreciation. This time the blue ripples lasted a long time and the force-field seemed to waver before settling back into its quiet and invisible existence.
"What about fresh air?" Akiko asked Petra.
"Petra can make a barrier which air can permeate, if she wishes to. That's one of the most remarkable things about it," Hiroki explained. "It’s impenetrable but permeable. Truly magical."
He turned to me. "Are you ready for your part?"
I gulped and my stomach did a little flip. "I've never made a sun before. It's going to be very hot."
"You can do it," Hiroki said. "If you have any trouble, we can get you there with coaching. Besides, you'll have Petra to help you. So we don't have any accidents, move away from us and into that clearing." He pointed. "Petra will lift the sun telekinetically while you increase its size slowly. Does that make sense?"
Petra and I nodded. Hiroki signaled the crane driver to lower us to the ground where Petra and I stepped off into a wonderland of lush green life. Petra put her goggles back up on her head.
"I did some rough calculations," Hiroki said from the platform, "but I had to guess a bit because I don't know how hot your fire is or how dense your fireball might be. I figure, if you make it roughly twelve feet in diameter, it will suffice for today's work."
"Twelve feet." I could do that. “I
don’t know if it will burn in perpetuity, though,” I said. “I’ve never just left a fireball to burn before.”
“That’s all right,” said Hiroki. “Let’s just get the thing up there for starters. We can work on its lifespan later.”
Hiroki stepped back onto the platform and had the crane lift it again. Targa gave me an encouraging wink as she peered over the side, then she slid her goggles into place and spoke to Georjie and Akiko, who both seemed to agree that now was finally a good time to wear the goggles, too. Mr. Nakesh and Miss Marks stood on Hiroki’s other side, out of my view.
Petra and I made our way to the clearing Hiroki had appointed and stopped.
I looked into Petra's strange, silver-gray eyes, and she gazed back.
“Nervous?” she asked.
“A little,” I admitted.
"I've had more coaching than I'd like to admit," she said with a quirky smile. "Georjie and Targa have put me to shame with how well they manage their powers. I'm sure you will too. I'll stand behind you. I don't really fancy being roasted today."
She took a step behind me.
“Heat doesn’t bother me so I’m trusting you to lift it as fast as you need to so you won’t burn,” I said over my shoulder to her. “I’ll make it small, then toss it up. Can you make sure it doesn’t come down as I blow it up?”
“Piece of cake,” Petra called as she took a few more steps back.
She put her goggles back into place. I didn’t bother with mine. Light from fire had never hurt my eyes, even when I was surrounded by it or when my whole body had been aflame. If anything, it had taken my eyesight to a whole new level.
I waited until Petra was well behind me, then took a deep breath and closed my eyes, visualizing the fireball I wanted to make. I spread my hands apart and sent two small jet-streams of flame toward one another where they collided and swirled in a messy blur of fire. Rolling my hands in small circles, the misshapen ball began to form a rough sphere. It boiled and flickered and seethed in the air, spinning slowly and licking flames outward like it didn't know which direction was up.