“We don’t know where it goes!”
“It goes down!” said Will. That was enough for him. “Come on!”
The men were getting closer. Their squawkings were unmistakable. It was capture or the unknown. I dove. Will followed. Down we plunged. It felt like a nightmare—one of those dreams where you are falling and yet never seem to reach the ground. Arms and legs beyond your control. Eyes unable to focus. I tumbled and banged against the slippery sides, yet nothing slowed my fall.
Then I was suddenly plunged into something cold and liquid, brackish and wet. Water! We were in the ocean! But I had no time to be amazed. I was still falling, and now there was water over my head. I knew I shouldn’t breathe, but the urge to take a breath was powerful. I had no idea how to swim, although I knew that’s what people used to do. Once there were even giant pools of fresh water for no purpose other than swimming—not even drinking—and athletes played games to see who could swim fastest.
But now I was drowning. Strange: at the time I didn’t even know the word. My lungs ached, and my brain felt as if it were burning. I flailed wildly in the water, kicking hard. Seawater went up my nose and stung my eyes. My mouth filled.
I might have died. I should have died. But my flailing propelled me back to the surface, where my head broke through at the last possible moment before I lost consciousness. I gulped in great breaths, bobbing on the surface. The water’s abnormal salt content kept me afloat, even though I had no idea how to swim or tread water. I was also sheltered by giant steel piers. From below the enormous structure looked like a hovering spacecraft in bad need of a paint job. The gutter through which we had plunged was just one of an intricate series of pipes, conduits, cylinders, and ducts that sucked in seawater, processed and transformed it, then dispatched it to giant holding tanks while dumping the poisonous residue back into the ocean.
There was a splash, and Will emerged about ten meters away. Like me he had been forced to the surface by enough salt and pollutants to float a small car. It left a taste like licking a metal fence: saline mixed with tin, iron, and rust. He spat and thrashed but managed to stay afloat. I called out to him, and he clawed his way over to me. His swimming wasn’t elegant, but it moved him through the water. When he reached me, we embraced: wet hair, wet faces, salty tears in the salty water.
But we weren’t out of danger—not yet. Although we were only several hundred meters offshore, we had to fight the currents and several enormous intake drains that sucked water back into Bluewater. We kicked, paddled, and kept our heads above water while the sea eddied around us, churning and swirling and carrying us to land. Finally we collapsed in the black, sulfurous sand, coughing and tearing, our noses running and eyes burning. But alive.
“I don’t like swimming,” I said after I finally caught my breath.
Will hiccupped a small laugh. “It’s not like we’re going to be doing it a lot.”
“I never want to do it again.”
Will didn’t disagree. Instead he asked, “Why do you think they’re here?”
I knew he was talking about the politicians. I propped myself up on my elbows. “A peace conference?”
Will shook his head slowly. The republics had been at war for so long, it was difficult to imagine peace. And why gather here, at the headquarters of the giant desalinator? PELA, Bluewater, the Canadians, the Minnesotans, and our own chief administrator gathered in the same place where Kai and Ulysses were held prisoner…
“It’s Kai,” I said.
Will nodded.
“We have to go back.”
“I know.”
We were both standing now, staring at the spider fortress. We were soaking wet, and our clothes stank. The seawater was contaminated, unfit for any kind of life except the hardiest and the lowest. Neither of us had the energy to venture back the way we had come. Even if we could, then what?
Behind us the black sand gave way to scruffy sparse vegetation, prickly and dry. A broken road that looked as if it hadn’t been used in decades cut through to the beach. Beyond, there were a few small ruined buildings, broken signs, abandoned vehicles, and rusted machinery. In the far distance, we spotted wavering gray towers, like a field of concrete grown wild.
“Where do you think we are?” I asked.
“Somewhere on the Great Coast, near what used to be New York City.”
“How can you tell?”
Will pointed to the gray shapes in the distance. “Skyscrapers,” he said.