On the way to Atlantis, Mateo pulled up its prospectus, and took a look at
what was in store for them. It was located at the bottom of the Aquilonian
Deep ocean, so visitors would be fully immersed in the environment, just
like they would be if they were in the Atlantis from the book series. The
characters lived in a grand city, hidden from the eyes of the normal people
on Earth at the time, who wouldn’t understand. Unlike most domes on
Castlebourne—or whatever alternate copy of it this place was—Atlantis
wasn’t under a geodesic dome. The prospectus called it a monolithic dome;
just a transparent shell with no lattice structure. It was non-holographic
too, to better simulate what it was like for the Atlantians from the story,
which protected their city through telekinesis, rather than physical
infrastructure. It’s also much wider than it is tall. Other domes are
hemispheres, but the Atlantic ocean only goes a few kilometers down, so
Atlantis is shaped more like a cap, like the Aquilonian Deep itself.
Something weird happened when the train stopped at the Atlantis station. The
pod started to creak and shake a little. The doors wouldn’t open, and the
virtual windows weren’t operating, so they couldn’t see what was happening
outside. They received their answer soon enough, though. As Leona and Ramses
were once more trying to fix the issue, water began to leak through
the cracks. They became a house divided. Most of them had pressed themselves
back against the wall with the controls. Mateo and Octavia happened to be on
the other end, and did the same over there.
“I thought that Atlantis was literally under water, but not actually
in it,” Marie began, loud enough for all to hear. “I thought the inside of
the dome was fully dry and livable.”
“Without maintenance, it must have buckled under the pressure at some
point,” Leona figured. “This isn’t the real Castlebourne.”
“The domes are made of diamond!” Angela argued.
“Partially,” Leona corrected.
“How do we get out of here?” Romana asked. “Can you guys teleport?”
Olimpia shook her head. “I’ve been trying. It’s still suppressed.”
“Why would he send us here,” Ramses questioned, “knowing we’re gonna die?”
“Wait. This is part of the experience, isn’t it?” Mateo put forth. “I never
read the books, but I think Atlantis does—”
He was unable to finish the sentence before all hell broke loose. The
vactrain could hold back the deluge no more. Water came rushing in. They
were fully submerged in seconds. For most of them, this wasn’t that big of a
deal. Their nanites tightened themselves around their bodies, and sealed up.
They could have survived without air for a period of time, and even the
force of being violently tossed around the pod, but the suit was an
important extra precaution. Unfortunately, not all of them had one of these.
Octavia was totally unprotected and in grave danger. Mateo was already
holding onto her, making sure she didn’t hit her now. He was now hoping to
somehow breathe into her mouth, but his helmet was in the way. He tried to
open it up temporarily, but the nanites did not recede. They had a job to
do, and it would seem that they were not programmed with the knowledge of
Mateo’s advanced substrate. He didn’t need the suit. Octavia did, and
if he didn’t do something immediately, she was gonna die.
Mateo closed his eyes to concentrate, realizing that giving her a few rescue
breaths wasn’t gonna do much good anyway, as they were likely still trapped
under a fully submerged dome. These nanites. They were stored inside his
body, and right on the surface when engaged as a vacuum suit, but this was
not a requirement. They could be reconfigured to fit loosely around him like
regular clothes. He actually wasn’t even wearing regular clothes.
They were all nanites the whole time, clinging to each other in the form of
a shirt and pants until the suit was needed. If they could hang loosely from
him, then they should be able to adhere to something else...someone
else. Despite their protests, he commanded them to let go, and swarm Octavia
instead. Finally they did as they were told, releasing their grip on his
skin, and swimming over to envelope Octavia instead. He maintained his
mental control over them, so they would maintain their cohesion. Then he
took Octavia’s hand, and began to swim away.
Now that the pod was fully filled with water, it was no longer so turbulent.
He was able to see his friends, who were starting to exit through the giant
hole in the doors that the pressure had made. Leona was swimming over to
beckon the two of them forth. The entire station was also submerged, so
there appeared to be no respite. Ramses seemed to be less concerned about
it. He led them along the outside of the vacuum tube, to a maintenance
hatch. Once he managed to open it, the water flooded into that compartment
as well. They had to wait until it too was filled before swimming in. After
they were all in, Ramses shut the hatch behind them. Then he worked the
controls to open a much bigger hatch. The water flooded there too, but as
the space was now twice as big as before, it was no longer completely
engulfed. There was a pocket of air for them to breathe in without their
helmets. More importantly, they could finally talk about what just happened.
“What just happened?” Olimpia asked.
“We survived,” Ramses answered. “Again.”
“Did you know I could do this?” Mateo asked, jerking his head towards
Octavia. She was still in his suit, because she had no mental control over
the nanites. And for some reason, neither did he.
Ramses waded through the water towards them. “I didn’t. Good thinking. Can
you release her?”
“They’re being difficult,” Mateo replied. “It was hard enough getting them
to switch over to her. Now they don’t want to come back.”
Leona waded over too. “It was probably your adrenaline, which allowed you to
exercise more control over the nanites than they were programmed to be
subjected to. They only exist in three states: dormant, emerging, and
stabilized. They’re stable around her now, and aren’t listening to you,
because...” She contemplated the issue. “You’re too far away.” She shrugged.
“Give her a hug.”
Mateo hugged Octavia, placing himself closer to his nanites, and commanded
them to recede into his implants and go dormant, which they did. So he was
still naked, but he didn’t want to command them to do anything else. He was
afraid of another glitch.
“I’ll tweak the programming, and maybe boost the signal,” Ramses decided.
“Might be nice if we can do what Mateo did, but on purpose, and with less
resistance.”
“I did it on purpose.”
“I meant, premeditatively.”
“Where are we?” Romana asked, looking away as if examining their
surroundings, but she was really just uncomfortable with seeing her father
like this.
“Service tube,” Ramses answered, wading back in her direction. “They put
pods in here to repair and replace parts.”
“How do we get out?” Angela pressed.
Ramses kept going towards a computer terminal, which was thankfully,
waterproof. He started looking through the data. “I may need time to come up
with a solution.” He shook his head. “Seven people, six suits, and flooding
appears to be quite comprehensive. We need a clear path out of this dome,
and into the next one. We can’t just walk though, or even try to swim to the
top.”
“Octavia’s gonna be stuck here alone, in the water, for an entire year,”
Marie pointed out. “No food, no freshwater. No escape.”
They all looked sadly at Octavia.
She took a breath. “What else is new?”
While Ramses was trying to come up with an escape plan, Leona was at another
terminal, trying to figure out how to drain the water out of here, so at
least Octavia would have a dry place to stand. The Waltons, meanwhile, were
working on extracting a dayfruit smoothie module and a water recycling
module out of their respective pocket dimensions. Octavia needed these
things more than they. The ladies solved their three problems in enough time
for the jump to the future. The tube wasn’t designed to be drained of this
much water, but it did have a drain, which could take care of it over
time. Octavia would be alone, and in this terrible place, wet for a few
days, but at least she would have food and water.
“I’ll stay with her,” Romana declared.
“What?” Mateo asked her. He was fully clothed now.
“It’s something I can do, and I should, Romana reasoned. “She shouldn’t be
alone. She’s been so alone.”
“You don’t have to do that,” Octavia assured her. “It’ll be boring.”
“Actually,” Ramses said. “The terminal has some entertainment stored on it.
I don’t know why, as they don’t really use human workers for this, but it’s
there. Should last you. Lots of ancient reality TV, though.”
“Have you not found somewhere better where they can go instead?” Leona asked
him.
“Afraid not,” Ramses responded. “Atlantis is totally flooded. Every nook,
every cranny. The vactube was the only dry space, but it only stayed that
way, because there wasn’t any activity. We altered the pressure differential
by coming here.”
“It’s okay,” Romana decided. “We’ll make this work.” She smiled at Octavia.
“Together.”
Their watches beeped.
“Last time to back out,” Mateo said.
“Not gonna happen.” Romana hugged her father. “I’ll see you in a year.
You’ll see me in a minute.”
Midnight central hit. When they returned, Leona’s draining program was
complete, and the service tunnel was totally dry. The weird part was, Romana
was in a different spot, but Octavia wasn’t. The former was sitting on one
chair, resting her feet on another, casually filing her fingernails. The
latter was exactly where she was before, still wet, and very confused.
“What the hell happened?” Mateo asked. “Octavia, you’re on our pattern?”
“I don’t see how.”
“What’s that humming sound?” Olimpia asked.
Leona knelt down to the floor, and pulled her bag off to open it. She took
out the crystal that Pacey had given them. The colors had abated after the
initial lightshow, but they were back, presumably triggered by the time
jump. “First thought. This put her on our pattern, hopefully for her sake,
temporarily.”
“Oh, Romana. You’ve been alone this whole time,” Mateo whined
apologetically.
“NBD,” Romana said, hopping off of her chairs. “I watched every episode of
Survivor and The Amazing Race. I read those Witches of
Atlantis books too. I know why it flooded.”
“Still,” Mateo said, embracing his daughter again. “I’m sorry that happened
to you. I wish Pacey would have just been clear about what that crystal was.
Talk about a solution without a problem.”
“It’s really okay. Now we know. And that’s not all we know.” She walked over
to the hatch they had come in through, and opened it. No water came in. “As
you said before, it’s all part of the experience.”
Even though they were confident that it was fine, the six of them cautiously
passed Romana, and stepped out of the tunnel. The train station was
completely dry. Everything was fine. Had they imagined it?
“You’re not imagining it,” Romana said. “It’s periodically flooded on
purpose. I don’t know what the exact schedule is, so we shouldn’t stick
around, but I have not been living in that service tube this whole
time.”
“Why would the station be flooded too, through?” Leona questioned. She
looked down at the pod, which was still warped and damaged. “That’s a major
safety hazard.”
“That I believe was an accident,” Romana determined. “Pacey left a door
open. Only the dome itself is meant to be inundated. I closed it.”
“I’m proud of you,” Mateo said.
She laughed and scoffed. “Dad. Anyway, I looked for Buddy, and he’s not
here. He must have moved on to a different sector in Recursiverse, perhaps a
different planet.” She used airquotes.
“How do we do that?” Ramses asked her. “The vactube is down, so do we take a
spaceship?” He used airquotes too, because if there were indeed ships
here, they were probably only simulations, meant to make it feel like
visitors were traveling through the simplex dimensions, to worlds light
years away, when they were probably only driving to the next dome over.
“The Atlantians didn’t use ships,” Romana explained as they were leading
them down the corridor, still in the perimeter structure of the dome. She
stepped into the driver’s seat of a shuttle cart, and drove off once
everyone was on board. “If they wanted to leave Earth, they used something
else.” She drove them a few kilometers until they reached what was clearly a
Nexus building.
“Is this functional?” Leona asked, intrigued.
“I don’t think so,” Romana replied. “You tell me.”
“Hey, Venus Opsocor,” Leona said to the aether after walking in. “Are you
there?”
No response.
“She may not wanna answer,” Leona explained, “but I’m guessing that it’s
simply not a real Nexus.”
“Probably not.” Romana started to walk up the steps to the control room.
“Shut the door.” She reached into the room without stepping in, and swung
her arm once against the wall.
Marie smirked and looked up towards the ceiling with her eyes. “We’re
moving.”
“Yeah,” Romana agreed. “Right now, we’re rotating into the next dome over,
while that dome’s Nexus rotates into here. It takes about four minutes, and
is meant to be imperceptible. If you’re paying too much attention, you can
tell that it’s just a simulation, but visitors are expected to step into the
cavity, and pretend that it’s real. We don’t have to do that. We’re just
gonna wait for the rotation to be complete, open the door, and we’ll be in
the new dome.” She pointed. “I think there’s a corridor over there, so we
could have just walked across, but...”
They stood there and waited. Only Leona wandered into the cavity, mostly out
of boredom. Technicolored lights rained down on her from the Nexus drum
above, but that was all they were; lights. The rotation ended, and they
left. Everything looked pretty much identical to where they were before,
until they crossed the ring, and opened the inner doors. They were
definitely not in Atlantis anymore.
Romana passed by them, and held her arms out as she was spinning around.
“Welcome...to Ce—”
She never finished the word. An explosion knocked them all on their asses.
