Ben Rosenstock, Staff Writer
April 25, 2012
Filed under A&E
When Holly released Jabéko’s hand, she found herself standing in hot, blindingly white sand. The sea, remarkably blue and reflective, extended as far as she could see.
The beach around her was similar to beaches on Earth, except for the silver half-circle wall that marked the barrier between the recreational area of the beach and the residential neighborhood behind it. Showers were positioned at intervals along the half-circle, but the technology was much more advanced than Earth’s. As Holly watched, a small boy, covered in sand, walked through the shower station and emerged on the other side clean and dry.
Holly noticed one other essential difference: the people. Everyone had the same strange look to them that Jabéko had. No one had dark eyes; there were blue eyes, green eyes and yellow eyes so pale that they seemed to blend in with the whites. None of the women had particularly long hair.
She realized with horror that not only had the government manipulated their memories and thoughts, they had tampered with their physical appearances. She stumbled toward the sea and savored the feeling of her feet on the wet, blissfully cool sand before stepping forward again, looking at her reflection. Her hair was cut much shorter than she remembered, and her brown irises had turned unnaturally blue.
“Partíllí!” Jabéko called.
It took Holly a moment to force herself to stop shaking and realize that he meant her. She turned and scrambled back up the beach to meet Jabéko.
“What’s our plan?” Holly asked.
“I have a friend that can give us what we need,” he replied. “Follow me.”
Jabéko led her along the beach, and memories began to hit her. Memories of playing on that same beach as a small child. It disconcerted her, because the memories weren’t truly hers. As she glanced around, she noticed the lifeguard stations placed at short intervals along the beach. Her heart raced as she watched them, spotting guns tucked into the pouches at the front of their stations. Why would lifeguards need guns?
Eventually they reached a section of the beach where only one person lay sun-bathing, a chubby man with a bald head and black swimming trunks, probably in late 40′s. Holly remembered him distantly; he was a family friend in this fake life of theirs.
“Klaudier,” Jabéko stated, speaking once again in Dûlínían, and Holly recognized the name. “The island’s residential conspiracy theorist and jack of all trades.”
Klaudier grinned crookedly. “That’s high praise,” he said in a gruff voice. “What do you need, my friend?”
“What can you tell me about that invisible dome?” Jabéko asked, gesturing at the sea.
“It’s meant to protect us from intruders,” Klaudier said, but it was obvious that he didn’t believe it. “The buoys out in the water mark the point where the dome starts. You can walk through it, but from the outside it’s a wall. If you get anywhere near those buoys, the lifeguards will get really serious and snatch you out fast.”
“What’s your theory?” Jabéko said. “I can see you’re dying to tell it.”
“It’s clear they’re not keeping other people out, they’re keeping us in,” Klaudier said. “If you were to make it to the buoys, I’m sure the lifeguards would shoot you with one of those guns of theirs. But nobody’s tried it, and I don’t know how they would explain it if they were to shoot one of their own citizens.”
“And why haven’t you tried to escape the island if you think the government is keeping you held up here?”
“I don’t think, I know. But I’m perfectly content living here. As curious as I am about why we’re being held here, I’m okay with it until they start force-feeding me vegetables.”
Jabéko paused. “Can you see the island from the outside?”
Klaudier shook his bald head. “Nope. It’s all just a big white bubble. Or, at least, so I’ve heard from the occasional visitor here. The visitors are always from the United Nations. You can tell from their badges. Another reason I think we’re just pawns in their game.”
Holly thought about it. It would make sense that the only people allowed in were from the United Nations. They were overseeing the whole operation. What Klaudier didn’t know was that it wasn’t the whole government, just a rogue sector.
“Hey,” Klaudier said, peering at Jabéko curiously. “I like you. Most people on this island don’t care. ‘Ignorance is bliss,’ and all that. But not you. You’re like me.” He paused. “But you weren’t always like this. Why do you want to know all this?”
“Just curious,” Jabéko said quickly. “Hey, one more request, Klaudier.”
“And what would that be?”
“Do you still have those flares? The special ones?”
Klaudier looked shocked. “I do have one or two, but it’ll cost you.”
“I’ll take one.”
“What do you want it for?” Klaudier grinned widely. “You’re planning something, aren’t you? Something big.”
Jabéko smiled, but Holly could see the tension throughout his whole body. “This is what you’ve been waiting for, Klaudier,” he said. “Everything’s going to change.”
Only a few minutes, Jabéko and Holly had arrived at Klaudier’s place of residence, an enormous house by Earth standards. He teleported them into the basement, which seemed to be half-laboratory, half-storage closet. Random trinkets lay everywhere, most of which Holly recognized because of the template in her mind.
Klaudier led them to a massive heap of junk at the back of the room, one of many. “They’re in here,” he said, and he began dissecting the pile, throwing metal parts and pieces everywhere to reach the bottom.
“It’s really not safe to have dangerous explosives buried at the bottom of a hunk of trash, is it?” Jabéko said. “Especially costing as much as they do.”
Klaudier shrugged. A moment later, he emerged from the pile, clutching a very small, silver gun.
Immediately her knowledge of Dûlínía told her what it was. Though most Dûlínían weapons were similar to Earth’s, like the black pistol Espenelda had used, this flare gun was more than lethal; it could wipe out several houses in one blast or set an entire neighborhood on fire.
The flares, however, weren’t primary used for destruction—they had the ability to fire massive messages into the air. The messages were visible from many miles away, and that’s why the flares were so expensive. They had many uses; over the years, many rich men and women had used them to propose to each other. They were used in military expeditions to relay essential information sometimes, also.
“How much will it cost?” Jabéko asked.
“It’s on me, for now,” Klaudier said with a genuine smile. “But if I don’t see any suitable change around here, I’m going to hunt you down until I get my pay.”
“Thank you,” Jabéko said, and he reached down to take Holly’s hand. “Your help may have saved many lives.”
“One more thing,” Klaudier said. “Don’t try to teleport right over to the buoys immediately. If you’re within 20 feet of them, your brain chip will stop working.”
That meant their memories of their Dûlínían lives would be erased. Jabéko gave Holly a knowing glance.
“Thanks again,” Jabéko said.
A moment later, they’d appeared on the beach.
“Here’s the plan,” Jabéko said. “First, we snatch a gun off one of the lifeguards. We’re going to need it when we’re chased. If it comes to it, Holly, you’re going to have to kill someone. I know that’s impossible to think about, but you’d be saving many, many lives.”
Holly’s pulse quickened, but she nodded. “Then what?”
“We teleport into the water,” Jabéko said. “Not within 20 feet of the buoys, but as far as we can get. It might take the lifeguards a moment to realize who it is with all the people in the water, and we’ll have some time to reach the buoys. Of course, once we’re close enough to the buoys, they’ll probably attack, so that’s when the guns will come in handy. Once we leave Waíhírí, we’ll be fugitives in the real world. So we’ll have to act fast.”
“So what do we do once we leave?” Holly asked. “What are we going to make the flare say?”
“I have faith that somebody is looking for us.” He pulled out the flare gun and tapped the back of it until a hidden screen flipped out of the gun, displaying a keyboard. He typed in ‘The Correspondence Device is here.’
“Who’s going to read that?” she asked, confused. “Nobody on this planet knows what a Correspondence Device is. Plus, we don’t even know where it is.”
“We’re going to find it,” Jabéko said, stammering a little. “And I have faith that there are people looking for us. Maybe they just need to know where we are, and where the Correspondence Device is.”
“But we don’t know where it is!” Holly shouted. “And even if we did, how would they be able to read this language!? It’s Dûlínían!”
“I had hoped that—”
“Dude, this whole time, you’ve been going on faith alone!? I thought you had some grand master plan that would get us out of this godforsaken universe! But not only are we still in the same universe, we’re on the same planet.”
“I know!” Jabéko shouted. There was a moment of silence, and then he spoke again. “I’m aware. I have a husband back home. But a few minutes ago we were living another life, a life that wasn’t even ours. And now that we know the truth, this is the only thing we can do.”
Holly stood there, thinking about their situation. They had no idea where the Correspondence Device was, and even if they succeeded in escaping the island and teleporting to the other side of the sea, it would be a struggle to find it. In no time, their faces would probably be posted all over the world.
“Alright,” she agreed. “Let’s do it. But we need to make sure we’re together at all times. We’re going to be doing a lot of teleporting.”
After several more minutes of nervous planning, they moved.
As they teleported to the closest lifeguard station and Jabéko snatched in to grab his pistol, both Holly and Jabéko were suddenly aware that this was something they had never done before. When they had lived on Earth, they would have never thought of doing something so risky and bold. As they teleported out into the ocean, shocked with the sudden relative coldness of the water, they tried to get rid of these thoughts. There would be time for self-reflection later.
Their swimming was awkward because they wanted to make sure they stayed close to each other so they’d be able to teleport at the opportune moment. They paddled furiously, seeing the buoys in the distance.
They must’ve reached the 20-foot zone, because all of a sudden, they began to feel their memories shutting down. That life they had lived was disintegrating in front of them. Holly no longer recognized any of the planet’s features. She now felt completely alien, an urchin swimming in a foreign sea.
Though they were able to hear the lifeguards screaming in the distance, they ignored all sound in their fervent swimming. They were only feet away from the buoys when the lifeguards reached them, grabbing Holly’s arms. The flare gun was buried deep in her pocket, but it wouldn’t have done her any good anyway. Jabéko had the only real gun, and he struggled to get it out.
Holly flailed her legs randomly. She had no control; it was just like her skirmish with Espenelda.
Jabéko aimed the gun and fired one frantic shot, but the recoil seemed to take him by surprise, throwing him underwater for a moment. The bullet just barely missed Holly’s head and hit the closest lifeguard in the shoulder.
The other lifeguards recovered from their shock quickly and trained their guns on the threat: Jabéko. Four bullets were fired simultaneously, just as Jabéko dived into the water, trying to escape. One bullet soared through the air and struck the water far away. Two of them shot through the water—Holly had no way of knowing if they hit Jabéko. The last bullet hit Holly in the chest.
Holly had no idea that it had happened, only that she was inexplicably sinking. It took a few moments of underwater confusion before she noticed the blood tainting the water in front of her and figured she’d been shot.
But she couldn’t give up. She had to try, somehow, despite all the odds, to escape.
So she swam.
She swam, still underwater, toward the buoys, and finally passed them. She was out.
She turned around momentarily to try to find Jabéko, but instead found a rock-solid wall where the buoys had just been. So this was the invisible dome. Only invisible from the inside.
She couldn’t search for Jabéko. She didn’t have time for that. Holly knew that if she didn’t die from the gunshot first, she would drown. She scrambled for the surface, trying to get just one gulp of air to try to clear her thoughts.
But when she tried to paddle upwards, she found herself completely unable. The pain in her chest was unbearable. And so she sank.
She hit the bottom more slowly than she’d expected, and when she did, she turned over onto her stomach, burying her head in the sand. Pain throbbed everywhere, not just her chest. It pounded in the tips of her fingers, in all the little nerve endings throughout her body. It slammed at her brain and lungs over and over, relentlessly.
Holly was unconscious of what exactly she was physically doing, but when her eyes momentarily cracked open, she noticed that she’d been clawing desperately through the sand, as if to make a hole to bury herself in. Her eyes must’ve opened to find what obstacle wasn’t allowing her to dig any farther.
It was metal.
Despite her state, despite the fact that water had already begun to trickle into her lungs, everything clicked. Of course. When she had first arrived in this universe, she had been in some sort of underwater prison. When she’d opened her eyes, she had been standing on the metal of the Correspondence Device. And then, once she’d been led out of the underwater prison, she had been right there on the island. She had seen the island even before the template was installed in her mind.
It had been under the island the whole time.
Holly reached slowly into her pocket. The flare gun had slipped out onto the sand. She grabbed it feebly and rolled over onto her back, trying to summon all the strength she had left to pull the trigger.
The blast was so strong that Holly was immediately knocked unconscious, but it worked. As the flare worked its way to the surface, it divided the water around her. All the water that had been pressing her down shot up into the air and blew away, some rolling over the invisible dome. Water had entered her lungs, but there was no more that could harm her—for the minute until the ocean overwhelmed her again, at least.
Being unconscious, Holly was unable to witness the event. Rather than exploding in the sky, something stopped the flare short: the dome. Once it made contact with the dome, a massive hole was ripped open, and the dome began to slowly dissolve as if it were made of some magical material. Jabéko, who swam madly on the other side, paddling away from the lifeguards, stopped and watched in wonder.
Jabéko realized that not only was the dome designed to keep people in, but it also served as a dam. The water levels had seemed abnormally low around the island—it seemed the government had tried to keep most of the water out to give its prisoners an idyllic existence.
Now that the dome was gone, water flowed in freely, and Holly was pushed to the surface, floating on her back. Jabéko spotted her in the distance and swam after her. The lifeguards had momentarily ignored him.
Reaching Holly, Jabéko threw an arm around her and began running back to the beach. When he reached the shore, he could see that there was chaos. People gathered their things and teleported away, fearing the flood they would inevitably encounter once the sea reached them. A moment later, Jabéko and Holly had arrived outside their ‘house.’
Immediately, Jabéko got to work pumping the water out of her lungs. She had almost died, but there was still some life in her. As he pumped, he glanced up at the sky, and was relieved to find a string of black pods flying over the island. Help had come.
Loading ...
Comments
Leave a Reply