by Andrew Gates
She shook her head.
“Not people on their own. But I saw movers. Someone had to be driving those movers, right? Animals don’t drive.”
Margery shot Grey a look of confusion. He did not know what to say. He simply stood tall and placed his hand on Ophelia’s shoulder. He was silent for a moment, but then he looked at her again.
“Did anyone in these movers see you?”
Ophelia shook her head.
“I was looking through the bushes. I don’t think anyone saw me. I wanted to make sure you knew first before I went to them.”
“Well don’t. Stay here for now. Do not talk to anyone else but the two of us, alright?” Grey guided her with his hand and started walking back the way they had come.
He took a long sigh of relief as he walked along. They were lucky. It was a miracle that that all nine of them were accounted for. He did not expect they would be so fortunate again.
The walk back felt faster than the walk out and it was cushioned by the relief of having found Ophelia safe and sound. Grey could also feel the temperature getting warmer and the sunshine growing brighter. It must have been mid-day by the time they returned.
Once they got back by the stream, it did not take long for them to spot the group. Everyone was excited to see Ophelia returned to safety. Dan and Iris seemed especially relieved. They were the first to embrace her when she came back.
After the celebrating was done, Grey pulled Dan and Ophelia aside.
“What is it?” Dan asked as the three of them gathered a few meters from everyone else.
“Sorry to do this. I know you probably wanted to find shelter right now, but this is important,” Grey said, addressing his brother. He turned to the girl now. “Ophelia, tell Dan what you told me.”
“Can I tell the others too?” she asked.
“Just Dan for now.”
Ophelia turned to him. She suddenly seemed nervous for some reason.
“I saw a path. It was not natural like the forest. It was wide like the transition zones and there were movers driving on it.”
“Movers? You mean with people?” Dan asked.
“I only saw the movers, but there must have been people inside. And who would have built the path?”
Dan looked up at Grey with a concerned face. They locked eyes for a moment but then he turned back to the girl.
“How big were these movers? Were they like the ones in the station?” he asked.
He thinks they’re driven by mantises, Grey realized. The thought had not occurred to him until now.
“No, they were bigger. Much taller and wider. They looked like the size of three movers in one.”
Dan took a deep breath and wiped some sweat from his forehead. He closed his eyes and took a step back. Grey knew what was going through his mind. When he reopened his eyes, Dan placed his hand on the girl’s shoulder and leaned down.
“Ophelia, do you think you could find this path again?” he asked.
“What?” Grey said, butting in. “Why?”
“I want to see it for myself. Especially if it’s what I think it is.”
“What do you think it is?” Ophelia asked, clearly not understanding.
“A road,” Dan replied.
“A what?”
“A road. It’s what they used to call driving paths. Think of them as transition zones on the surface,” Dan explained. “If it is a road, then that’s a problem. It means the mantises have built a way to get around the surface quickly.”
“You think the… the creatures built it? How do you know it’s not people?” Ophelia asked, still stuck on her old theory.
“Until I see that path, I don’t know anything for certain. Can you take us there?” Dan said again.
She nodded silently.
“Good,” Dan replied. “Then let’s go. The three of us. We’ll meet back with the group when we’re done.”
Grey nodded and walked back to the others. They all stood around, resting. Most of them were quiet. Selena turned to face him as he joined the group.
“We have to go check on something real quick,” he said to her. “I can’t explain now, but we should be back soon.”
“Is it food?” Selena asked.
Grey shook his head.
“More important. We’ll be back soon. Take care of the girls for me.”
“You know I will.”
“I love you.”
“I love you too.”
After each of them said their quick goodbyes, Dan and Grey followed Ophelia through the forest. It felt odd going back the same way they had just come, but Grey’s familiarity with it made him feel more confident that he could find his way back.
Their walk was relatively quiet. No one spoke. They just followed Ophelia’s lead as she navigated the terrain. At times she would stop and look around, checking her bearings, but she would always settle on a direction and keep moving.
A few minutes passed but it did not take long before Grey could hear sounds of engines. He slowed down and tried to quiet his footsteps, but with so much foliage covering the ground, it was hard.
Dan and Ophelia seemed to slow down too as the engine noises grew louder.
“It’s just through here,” the girl explained softly, pointing forward.
“Let’s see if we can see something,” Dan whispered back.
He looked around for a few moments. Grey was not sure what his brother was looking for, but eventually he walked towards a tree. When he got there, Dan jumped, grabbing onto the lowest branch. He hoisted himself up like he was back at the gym. When his neck was above the branch, he pulled one arm over it and then swung his whole body until he was on top. Using the trunk for balance, he pulled himself up.
“See anything from up there?” Grey asked, trying to keep his voice down.
Dan shook his head.
“No, I need to climb higher. Here, join me.”
Dan leaned down and held out his hand. Grey walked over to him and grabbed it. With Dan’s help, Grey was able to climb onto the branch fairly easily. Once they were both on top, Dan reached for another branch, this one much more accessible than the last.
“Stay here,” Grey quietly said to Ophelia.
She nodded.
The two brothers spent a few minutes climbing as Ophelia sat at the bottom. Now that they had made it above the canopy, the view got a lot more interesting. Grey could not believe it. Looking at the vast ocean was one thing, but seeing land extend forever made him feel as small as the insects he’d been swatting.
“Wow,” he said aloud as a breeze blew through his hair.
“Look,” Dan said, pointing. “That’s the road. It’s true.”
Grey looked towards where Dan had pointed. A roadway cut through the trees, a dark scar in the terrain, black and smooth like the armor worn by the mantis attackers in the city. Whatever this road was made of, it was definitely not the same material used in the station.
Atop the road sped enormous movers. Their wheels looked to be as tall as a person and the vehicles appeared to be sleeker than any model that Grey had ever seen. They flew past at vertiginous speeds, the sound rising in pitch until they were upon them and then dropping as it whizzed away. Grey shuddered.
“Oh, those definitely don’t look like Federation movers,” he said, licking his dry lips.
“Not at all,” Dan agreed. “It’s a good thing we know about this now, before we learned about this the hard way.”
“What do we do?” Grey asked.
“Well…” Dan paused, “this complicates things. The road is essentially another barrier now. We can’t go past this line without being spotted by the mantises.”
Dan was right. This road was busy. They had ten seconds at most before another mover sped by.
“Where did they all come from?” Grey asked.
“And how many are there?” Dan added.
Grey studied the road some more and realized that he was only looking at it from one direction. The way he was pos
itioned in the tree, he could only face south. He had to adjust his whole body to look the other way.
Grey sat down on the branch, held on tightly to the trunk and slid his legs over to the other side. Then he stood up again, now facing the north.
And that’s when his questions were answered.
Far in the distance, the road met a looming silhouette of tall structures. Many of them seemed new, built out of gleaming metal. But others looked much older, built from stone, some crumbling apart like images of old surface era ancient pyramids. Some were shaped like rectangles, others like spires or boxes. Flying machines swarmed around the tall structures like insects to a carcass.
A city.
“Dan, I think you need to see this,” he said.
He could hear Dan adjusting. Grey did not dare look away. He was transfixed.
“Holy shit,” Dan eventually said. “Is that what I think it is?”
Grey nodded his head.
“I think we just found the answer to a lot of our questions.”
“But… but how could the mantises have built that so quickly?” Dan asked, not catching on.
Grey finally turned his head to face his brother.
“Don’t you see? They didn’t. It must have been built a long time ago. A long, long time ago.”
IRIS TUCKED HER ELBOWS IN and pressed herself against the window. Everything was chaos in the tiny escape pod. Ophelia shouted. Tears streamed down her face like a torrent, like the very water that had broken in through the cracks of their home.
“Dad!” the girl called out. She desperately tried to crawl over the others. They held her back.
Trace looked back at his daughter. His face was caught somewhere between sadness and pride. He said something back to Ophelia, too muffled for Iris to hear. His lips moved without any sound. Then he turned to her and stared her straight in the eyes.
Iris struggled to hear the words at the time, but in her memories she could hear him perfectly.
“Iris, you take care of her. I trust you. Can you do that for me?” the father asked.
It was a heavy question to answer. Iris did not even know what to say. She simply nodded her head in reply.
That was the last thing Trace said to Iris before he died. She had made him a promise. And at the first sign of trouble, Ophelia had almost been killed.
I let him down, Iris thought to herself, remembering her final encounter with Tracey Saljov. I let him down.
Iris crouched over the creek as she finished her business. She stood downstream, as to not contaminate the group’s drinking water. She tried to pick a spot far enough away that nobody could see her, yet close enough that she could get back to the group at any second.
She dipped herself into the stream until she felt clean and then zipped up the back of her jumpsuit.
It felt like well over an hour since Dan, Greyson and Ophelia left to check on… something. Though Iris did not know what demanded such immediate attention, she knew it must have been important. She hoped they would be back soon.
Iris found her companions right where she’d left them. Selena was sitting on a rock, sharpening a stick with a stone. The young girls both sat on the ground near their mother, eating what looked like grass from the ground, pulling it out by the fistfuls. Jallah and Margery stood on the opposite side of the creek from the others, embracing.
Selena was the first to see Iris. The mother smiled at her as she rejoined the group, but then suddenly turned her head. Both of the girls did the same thing. They must hear something I can’t.
Iris turned in the same direction, not sure what she was going to find. To her relief, the other three members of the group had returned. They seemed to be healthy and safe.
She’s back! Iris took in Ophelia with a smile. The memory of Trace’s last words to her still played in her mind.
Kaitlyn and Misha were the first to get up. They both ran to their father like animals to food. Greyson embraced them as they shot into his arms as fast as bullets.
“Oh, thank the Lord Beyond Both Seas!” Selena said as she stood up. “Where have you been? It felt like hours!”
Dan nodded his head.
“I know,” he answered, “but I had to be sure.”
Jallah and Margery crossed through the water, joining everyone on this side of the creek.
“Sure of what?” Selena asked.
Dan continued walking until he was in the center of the group. He looked at Iris first.
“Can you hear me alright?” he asked, solemnly. Iris nodded. This seems important. “Good,” Dan continued. “I need everyone to hear what I have to say.”
Greyson, Ophelia and the girls joined in with the group and stood around Dan. The entire group was as quiet and still as the trees.
“Grey and I discovered something,” Dan explained in a serious tone. “We think we know what’s been going on. We’ve been discussing it on the walk back and we think this explains everything, the atmosphere, the mantises, even Iris’s future language.”
Evolved-English, she clarified to herself, though she decided to stay quiet. She knew this was not the time.
“The mantises do not live in the ocean. They live on the surface and they have for a long, long time. What we found was a mantis city,” Dan continued. Iris wondered if she heard him correctly. She took a few steps towards him, hoping to hear more clearly. Dan must have seen her move, because he turned towards her and repeated his words.
“The mantises live on the surface,” he said again. “Grey and I found a mantis city. Ophelia found the road first, but on closer inspection, we could see that’s where it led. There were vehicles far too large and advanced to be human-made.”
“The city had new buildings mixed in with old, very old. It looked nothing like images of old surface cities,” Greyson interrupted, “but there were even vehicles that could move through the air. They glided over the buildings like submarines in the sky.”
Iris tried to envision that. It was a pretty sight, but one she could hardly believe. It took all of her power to hold back a snort here. The city itself was hard to believe, but flying submarines?
Dan nodded his head towards his brother.
“That’s right,” he said. “And this means a few things for us.”
“Wait, wait…” Margery interrupted. Iris had to angle her head to hear her better. “You said this could explain everything that’s been going on. I don’t understand! Even if this is true, how does a mantis city explain why we can breathe?”
“Because,” Dan answered, “as a species, it took humans thousands of years before we could construct cities as large as the one we saw. Not to mention the roads, movers and flying machines. It’s clear that the mantis’s technology is better than ours and it takes time to innovate like that.”
“And?” Margery asked.
“So…” Dan continued, “the mantises must have been on the surface for thousands of years. Which means we, the Atlantic Federation, have been underwater for thousands of years.”
It felt like Iris’s heart had fallen right out of her chest. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes for a moment. When she reopened them, she could see the look of shock on the faces around her.
“Iris, could this be true? You know more about this than anyone!” asked Selena, quickly turning to her.
“I… uhm… don’t know. Theoretically, I guess,” Iris began, although she was wholly unprepared for this discussion. “I’ll be honest, this belief seems like it relies on a lot of assumptions. You just saw a city, right? You didn’t actually see the mantises in person, did you?”
“We didn’t, but it’s got to be them,” Greyson responded. He sounded certain.
“Our guess is this,” continued Dan, “while we were underwater, the planet simply evolved. The barren surface after the war started to grow trees again. The trees produced oxygen. Oxygen fed the animals. Over thousands of years, animals evolved. They grew in size and intelligence. Out of that came the mantises.”
“That also explains why Iris discovered the evolved languages,” said Greyson. “Time was not slowed down for us. We simply skipped ahead.”
“And it wouldn’t take millions of years for this kind of development to happen. Obviously the Earth wouldn’t be starting from square one this time. There were probably parts of the planet less affected by the bombs, maybe some plant life survived here and there,” Dan added.
“But… but that doesn’t make sense,” Iris interjected. Both Dan and Greyson seemed surprised by her response. It was as if they both thought she would back them up. “Even if there were plants here and there, thousands of years is too short a time for the kind of evolution you’re talking about. For a barren planet to produce life, for a species to develop the type of technology we’ve seen… that would take…”
“Tens of thousands of years?” Greyson asked.
Iris simply nodded her head. All eyes were on her.
“Potentially,” she eventually said.
“Then we’ve been beneath the water for potentially tens of thousands of years,” Dan corrected.
Iris put her hands in the air. This was just too much for her to deal with right now. The freezers were programmed to wake us up when the station was livable, she thought. It couldn’t have been that long. The other stations all woke up before us. Why would it have taken that long?
Everyone was quiet for a moment. Iris wiped her face. She could feel it covered in sweat. Someone said something, but Iris was no longer paying attention. Like most sounds anymore, the words were muffled and inaudible. The teacher did not mind though. She did not want to be distracted right now. She closed her eyes again and held her hands over her ears.
Think! She thought to herself. Could this really be possible? Could the Atlantic Station have been underwater for… thousands of years?
Iris remembered learning about the freezers and the Dark Years back in college. None of the professors knew how long it lasted, but most assumed it was less than a year. She remembered seeing the trees far below the public sectors of the station. They had grown so tall, like an old forest of the surface. She remembered reading the early transmissions dating back to the first years of the Federation’s activity. The English was like nothing she’d ever heard and the other stations seemed surprised that the Atlantic was transmitting at all. She thought about the air flowing through her lungs right now and the lush green that surrounded her.
