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Linda Makes Contact

This Time to the Sea...

By Corliss PPublished 3 years ago Updated 3 years ago 9 min read
1

Linda activated her “submerged” mode from her climate suit, letting the suit mold as it encountered the water, and her separate head gear molded in synchronized grace, an almost bubble surrounding her. The suit is “smart” in every way; simple element conversions of conduction, cornstarch and ingredients from plants seemingly unpronounceable to Linda, completed the suit’s technology that was necessary for her goal. Sight, breath, and impenetrable armor that can with take pressure of thousands of pounds per cubic square inch and keeping her underwater were just part of the suit she wore.

“This thing amazes me every time,” she muttered to herself, head shaking the mechanics she learned in school away, leaving traces of equations and theories on land.

“Hello, Linda,” greeted SKYP. She cringed at the automated sound of the adolescent male, wanting to stay incognito from Father. The chances were slim, but she really didn’t want his SKYP to sink with hers, the tech auto-set to family mode.

“How can I assist?” he prompted after some time, causing Linda to sigh inwardly.

She didn’t want to sit like a sitting duck while she changed the settings, but if S.K.Y.P asked two more questions without her acknowledgement he would alert her “Keepers.” Comfortably weightless and nearly a thousand feet in the sea, she gave herself pause to change the settings. The medically pink layout and letter format spoke volumes of the last time she was in the suit, the glow bright in the dark spread around her. The technology synced to her retina, and she began to scan through its mechanics for the settings. She pulled up the bar that she needed; it read “Synchronized Kinetics Youniversally Powered, set to fit You.” As she moved to cut the sync with her father, her eyes filled with tears, and her chest tightened as emotion tensed her body. It almost felt as though… cutting an umbilical cord, ties to the only family she had left that’s not suspended in time in the Zones. She’d wept, thinking of her actions in the last 36 hours. Her father, that too lonely apartment, the wrinkles that deeply set around his eyes, and of his meatloaf, too salty, but she’d never complained because he was so darn proud, the nerd.

Before she knew what she was about, she instructed SKYP to make a screenplay of she and him, and she watched happily at the effects SKYP added, their smiles and the adventures shared in colorful display. There were pictures of Mother and Junior too, impossible to not include them in what used to be such a close family.

Then as a picture flashed by too quickly, she went back to it and paused it to re-watch. It was all of them, on a hiking trip to gather. They had gone countless times, but this trip was special because it was the first time she was able to lead the troop. A responsibility that made all the countless bookkeeping and cataloging worth her diligence. She knew what poison was and recognized food and medicine. She knew she was the first generation of her kind in many centuries, a foreigner and farmer, too. She often heard her parents talk about a “before” that she had never experienced.

In the society she knew there was no free-market initiative active, and there were only free people. They were given a ‘ration’ when she was little but that stopped around her tenth birthday. She remembered because her mother was depending on the sugar ration for her birthday cake, but they were now faced with having to do what the rest of society had picked up doing years ago, scavenge. It was no big deal to Linda; she just thought that they’d get a ration later, rations came late sometimes or that she could get a cake for her next birthday; but that was the last “good will” from the government or from any businesses still in operation. There were no more leaders, everyone was amuck, confused and scared, thinking that we were in the last days because of the Timed Zones. Her already been in training since she was little for such, but Linda’s tenth year solidified that reality to her family, especially her disheartened mother.

They went trailing every day since, no more casual excursions but for survival, they'd even made a patch to grow herbs and peppers. Linda was told that on her eleventh year they’d go further than they’d ever had, traveling to the mountains, looking for a surprise for her. When they got to the mountain base, Linda’s surprise was to lead the family, something she’d tried to do previously on their trail runs but wasn’t allowed.

When her family made it to the top of the mountain with no hitch and no contact with other people, Linda had guessed others didn’t think of going there; with most places being industrialized it must not have crossed their minds. Junior and Linda relished the different trees, capturing a few little birds, gathering herbs that they’d never seen on the trails but in their textbooks, and when they reached the top, they stood for a photo, all smiling, happy to be together, dirty and sweaty from the fun of racing and playing.

That night, the stars illuminated all around them, shooting stars graced their hearts, and the warmth of the moss underneath them where they camped, soft and fragrant, was a moment in time Linda would treasure forever. Linda could have looked at that picture, stayed still, a willing prisoner of time as she watched their faces, vividly animated and 3D’d, memories so fresh they felt like just yesterday in this underwater oasis. Linda felt together again, whole. That feeling was forgotten when she felt something large and muscular brush past her.

Linda stiffened and cleared SKYP from her field of vision. A rush of adrenaline coursed its way to every fiber of her being, quickening her heart, making her pulse seem too loud in her ears—the rush of pulsating blood, she hoped not making her seem like a tantalizing meal. Her tongue was too dry to swallow and looking out into the abyss did nothing for her.

She paused, a moment of clarity hitting her. She must calm down; the stakes too high, she refused to let her vitality to slip at the hands of fear. She closed her eyes and imagined that day again, the laughs, her mother’s look of happiness, her brother, wild and free, and her father, the life of their crazy pack. She knew she could not lose what was precious to her completely and didn’t want her leaving her father to be in vain. Courage and the will to live were what pushed her, made her check her fears and be of sound mind. She did some breath work, steadying her nerves and calming the senses. She opened her eyes, finally ready, the storm of fear over. Something came to her hand again and stayed. This time Linda was prepared and took another calming breath.

"It's a dolphin," Linda gasped out in her delight. It was beautiful, ocean blue grey with white stripes flowing horizontally down it’s body, mirroring that of waves, a hardened sand colored belly for whenever the dolphin felt the need to scavenge the ocean floor and the four pairs of eyes that adorned from the top of her cranium then along the sides, going to her elongated blowhole. Textbooks that her mother reviewed with Linda in her studies revealed that the beast before her, seemingly a female, did not look like the dolphin humans knew centuries ago.

It was the year 2040 when the climate broke open a hell on Earth; entire cities sunk into the seas, mountains collapsed because of tectonic plates, and storms of sand, lightning, thunder, and fire swept the Earth. Religious ancestors claimed it was “biblical;” foretold hundreds of years prior, yet the climate and rapid destruction of the ozone, waters, and Earth were a clear answer in foresight. The ONLY biblical things that occurred in the era of the four-year storms was the isolated destruction of government capitols, “money cities,” EMT (ElectoMagnetic Pulse) generators, and HAARP (High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program) equipment, along with secret bases across the globe.

Thus, the birth of the Peace and Free Market Initiative came into fruition. It was also the birth of mutant creatures like the one, clicking in communication, in front of Linda. Whether they were released experiments from governments or mutants from toxic sunken cities, one couldn’t really say. The officials then were isolated, and their sins documented only for “The Few” to review, their crimes against humanity kept locked away until somewhat recently. Their entire bloodlines were housed on secret lands and seas until their complete extinction two hundred years ago.

This dolphin seemed extra friendly, having Linda follow her deeper into the water. As they traveled deeper still, Linda almost abandoned their excursion, her own mission weighing heavily on her mind. Just as Linda was adjusting SKYP to translate to her companion, a green light penetrated her interface from a distance.

“Oh. She’s taking me somewhere.” Not just a companion swim as she’d assumed.

She approached the city sized radioactive glob, a curious sight. Clicking from what sounded like another creature that was not Linda’s travel buddy radiated. Linda was unbothered; there were creatures everywhere in the sea. Plus, she still fascinated at what was ahead. Then she noticed her buddy begin to drift out of eyesight, and Linda chose to follow her guide. As she followed, she noted the green light was radiant enough to showcase what looked like a ripped tail fin and highlighted that her companion was the personification of grace in these waters. Musing, Lisa dubbed the dolphin, “Ripped.” Seemed a fitting name for her guide and buddy. Then, suddenly, Linda splatted into something that must have been SOLID; her suit shelled in reaction to contact, bouncing her off whatever structure she’d hit.

She postured herself to examine the materialized structure. “I didn’t process a building outside of the glowing city,” she mused.

Linda gasped.

“What…” she’d marveled.

“Who…” The words dying in her frazzled mind. Her brain couldn’t fathom a sentence, the shock too great.

It was a man, yet not. No suit upon him, his hair was wild about his head. Eyes, inhumanly large like that of a praying mantis. Vertically standing like she, he must’ve stood 15 meters long, and he had flippers as feet. Upon further inspection, he was different than all other beings and creatures she’d met. Unlike the Atlanteans that emerged just a hundred years ago, not like the vicious merfolk or even the Syrians from the Constellation B, who preferred the sea to the lands, unlike their cousins from the A constellation. He was massive, yet unmistakably human(ish) and male.

He made the first move, his elegance, unnatural for what he seemed to be. Mere inches from Linda’s face, his too symmetrical features gazed into her helmet, wide eyes dilating like a cat. Intelligence shined, then in the most childish way he tilted his head, his neck nearly too thick to complete the feat.

Linda giggled.

He clicked.

Linda activated SKYP for translations, the wiring sound soft enough to be ignored by her, made the man do several excited circles around Ripped and Linda. She clicked her apologies, and he calmed, the bubbles the only sign of his previous agitation. He looked bewildered. Then, though she believed she could be astonished no more, he spoke.

“Technology has come far,” his bass voice strained.

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