The teenager’s already-tenuous relationship with her parents and siblings had gone even more downhill after she went in the water by Portsmouth, and tried to swim out to sea, attempting to immerse herself in the ocean water and learn more about it and the creatures who lived in it, to help the aquatic ecosystem in some way. But she’d been unable to explain her reasoning, had totally failed when she tried to unravel her complex thoughts and emotions to justify her actions, and she’d ended up here, in this dreaded facility. This prison.
Gwyneth harbored a great deal of resentment over that, and over the fact that she had not seen or heard from her parents for the better part of a year.
Her mother was stout and severe, looking dour today, her thick black eyebrows forming scowls over her eyes. Katie McDevitt had never been as interested in the outdoors as Gwyneth’s father, and had always scolded him for spoiling the children. Not as much of a scholar as her husband, she was always complaining about people she knew—neighbors, shopkeepers, anyone, it seemed that she happened to encounter outside the house.
Too angry to look at her parents any longer, she turned away and tried to reconnect her thoughts with the sea, which was making a welcome appearance as the fog dispersed. She saw sections of water now, dark blue and mysterious through the gray mists.
“We don’t know what these Sea Warriors are all about or how your name got on a list,” her mother said, her presence and words intruding, just as the doctor had done earlier. “But joining them is completely impossible.”
Abruptly, Gwyneth spoke slowly but clearly, as she could on occasion. “Then why did you come here?”
“To tell you about the existence of the list, and the letter, and to try to explain to you why it is all out of the question.”
“I wish you’d never told me about it, then,” she said. “Now get out and don’t come back!”
In the depths of her mind, Gwyneth heard a terrible sound, and she sensed that it was a large gathering of sea creatures just offshore, numerous species crying out to her for help. She had never heard such horrendous, spine-jolting screeches before, but knew instantly—and for a certainty—what they were.
I can do nothing to help you, she thought.
For several awful minutes the sounds grew louder in her consciousness, hurting her head, and finally they faded away—giving her physical, but not emotional, relief.
Peripherally, Gwyneth saw her mother backing up, and heard her whispering to the girl’s father. Then she said to Gwyneth, “Very well, dear, we’ll leave you here to get better.”
As if in a strange dream, a disconnected reality, her parents came toward her and kissed her on the forehead, her father first and her mother last. But he said nothing, just looked at her in an odd way, reflecting on his lack of understanding of her, and his lack of compassion.
They took the letter from the windowsill, even though Gwyneth had not read it yet. She heard them walking toward the open doorway, going through and shutting the door behind them. It made the familiar locking noises, ominous metal clicks that Gwyneth did not like.
She could envision herself growing old and decrepit in here, never meeting the qualifications for release. The complex feelings associated with that realization swam in her mind, like piranhas eating away at any positive thoughts that tried to surface, making her feel dismal.
And she sensed something else out at sea, special people who wanted to see her. The Sea Warriors.
Gwyneth remembered the unfocused one-page letter she had looked at so briefly. Now, startlingly, it became suddenly clear in her memory, and in a vision she read it consciously for the first time. The Sea Warriors were arriving to pick her up later today, and would wait for her at the main village pier—but only until 11:00 a.m.
Feeling desperate to get to the pier, she looked at a clock on the wall. She had only an hour and a half to make good her escape.
Just offshore, Alicia arrived in a long, sleek jetfish pod that surfaced and opened on top to release her from its oxygen-rich enclosure. She climbed out onto the red, softly-glowing skin of the amalgamated creature, then plunged into the cold water.
She and Kimo had been aboard the unusual craft for eighteen days, having sped across five oceans just beneath the surface of the water, making stops along the way to pick up volunteers for the newly-formed Sea Warriors. To keep everything organized onboard, they had brought along his cousin Danny Ho, the caterer who had donated sealed packages of food. They also had Shauna McDill with them, a professional storyteller who was good at arranging games for the passengers to play during the journey—amusing intellectual competitions that did not require cards, boards, or game pieces. Neither Danny nor Shauna were on the list of volunteers, but were donating their time.
There were many people from the recruitment list aboard the jetfish pod now, sitting shoulder to shoulder on long benches that had been formed by the sea creatures to accommodate human forms. A number of passengers were eating Danny’s packaged food—healthy snacks, breakfasts, lunches, and dinners from a variety of recipes that included selections of red meat, white meat, and fish for the main courses, and nutritious side dishes. The food was going over well with everyone.
Kimo and Alicia only had a few more stops to make before returning to Hawaii, on a route that would take them across the Atlantic to the Panama Canal and through to the Pacific, getting them back to the islands in a day and a half. There, in waters off Loa’kai, the new recruits would be introduced to the deep-ocean locker of Moanna. With her special powers of discernment, she would either accept the volunteers and transform them into hybrids, or reject them….
Alicia shivered in the cold water as she swam alongside the hull of the linked animals, which glowed with a soft red translucence as they waited for her to go into shore, and then return. Jetfish had the ability to change colors like chameleons, and could make themselves invisible in any environment by blending in with it. They could look like the ocean itself if necessary, or like the bottom of the sea. The day before, they had changed into a beautiful spectrum of colors on the interior of the passenger compartment while Alicia, Kimo, and volunteers were inside, causing many exclamations of wonder.
“There is much more these creatures can do,” Kimo had said when they made that display. “There are billions and billions of secrets in the sea.”
When a man asked what more the jetfish could do, Kimo had just smiled and said, “If they want to show you, they will. Jetfish are very intelligent creatures, you know.”
Alicia had liked Kimo’s answer, and she’d exchanged gentle smiles with him….
The village of Apperton was not far away from her now, only around half a mile. Almost an hour ahead of schedule, she swam slowly toward the shore, but the water was so cold that she decided to generate a gentle wave that lifted her a little higher in the water. This enabled her to stop swimming and float toward shore on her stomach, with her back warmed by sunlight that was breaking through wisps of fog. It was a new technique she had discovered on this trip, swimming or floating on the upper portions of the sea as if she had fantastic buoyancy, instead of standing on top of the wave. It was much more comfortable for her now, and would be less obvious to anyone watching from shore.
On this initial recruitment trip she had discovered other new things as well. For the first recruits they picked up, Kimo used a small, improvised jetfish boat that transported people from the shore to the pod—a shuttle system. But, practicing with her own abilities, Alicia had discovered a way to allow others to ride atop waves that she generated—a technique she began using to bring people to the pod. In this manner she had been able to carry as many as four additional passengers with her on each wave, having picked up that many volunteers at a time from some of the port cities. It pleased her that she had enlarged on the manner in which she had transported Kimo from Wanaao to Honolulu, and that she was also making larger waves than she had demonstrated for Jimmy Waimea and his student-camera crew at Waikiki Beach. She would continue to w
ork with her wave-generating skills, trying to improve them.
In recent days Alicia had noticed an interesting commonality among the volunteers, an intensity and focus that was quickly apparent when each of them boarded at their various pickup points. Now she sensed the collective psychic energy of the passengers she’d left behind in the pod with Kimo, as if every one of them knew innately that they belonged together, that they were an important team.
Of the two-hundred fifty-three verified names on the list, people that she and Kimo had hoped to pick up around the world, forty-one had notified Jimmy Waimea that they could not take the time to be involved with the Sea Warriors, or were not interested—and he had told Kimo before departure to remove those names from the list. A handful of others had simply not shown up to meet them at the announced pickup points, for unknown reasons. Kimo and Alicia didn’t speculate much about that, and focused on rounding up as many volunteers as possible, as quickly as possible.
The recruits they had assembled aboard the high-speed pod—one hundred ninety-four of them—made for a good start, and that number should increase a little with additional stops in Ireland and Scotland, and then in Florida and Panama on the way back to the Pacific Ocean and Hawaii. Every one of the volunteers seemed enthusiastic, and determined to contribute. Most of the men and women were unafraid of being transformed physically by Moanna, while others expressed some trepidation—but at least all of them were brave enough to give it a try. One man who’d struggled with his fear said nonetheless that human beings needed to sacrifice themselves if necessary, to make up for the horrors and depredations mankind had inflicted upon the ocean.
Now Alicia slowed even more in the water and remained high on the wave as she floated prone toward shore, with the sun continuing to warm her. She could see the dock now, and was heading toward it because that was where her young recruit was supposed to be, presumably with the permission of her parents or guardians. Alicia wanted to pick her up early if possible, but saw only an old fisherman on the end of the structure, sitting on a bench. His head lolled to one side, and he appeared to be dozing, not noticing her.
Before leaving Hawaii on the jetfish craft, Alicia had practiced for days in the waters near Wanaao Town, and had successfully generated waves that were at least twenty yards in width. While she was doing that, in preparation for the trip Kimo did his own practicing, seeing what he could come up with to supplement her abilities. One morning he dove into deep water and brought back a school of skatefoils, large, flat whitefish that he taught to carry him and Alicia on their backs, skimming along the surface of the water. The pair had to sit on the creatures’ backs so as not to fall off, but the largest skatefoils appeared to be capable of carrying as many as seven passengers at a time, while even the smallest could accommodate two.
Considering the unique, sea-related talents that Kimo and Alicia had, she wondered what the new recruits might be able to do, beyond their pre-Sea Warrior professions and activities. They were oceanographers, professors, environmental activists, migration experts, fishermen, divers, and more. Among the people onboard that she liked the most personally, she had spoken briefly with two men—a dolphin trainer from San Diego and a Chilean author of a high-school textbook on ocean ecosystems who lived on Juan Fernandez island off the western coast of South America. She also liked the tall, blonde actress, Monique Gatsby. In recent years, the former model had generated worthwhile publicity about a number of ocean causes, using her star power to protest against overfishing and the dumping of toxins, plastics, and nuclear wastes into the ocean. She had a captivating smile and pleasant demeanor, and Alicia thought they might become friends.
Another volunteer was a Canary Islands artist who specialized in making illustrations of colorful fish for various publications, and knew a great deal about Mediterranean species. They had also plucked a scientist from a National Oceanographic ship at sea, and a Japanese environmentalist from an old, unseaworthy vessel operated by anti-whaling activists. Kimo and Alicia had even been to the Great Barrier Reef of Australia and the coastal bases of Antarctica, where a number of scientists worked.
One of the new recruits was an irritating, egotistical man named Vinson Chi’ang, in his mid to late thirties. An outspoken author and oceanographer who appeared regularly on cable news programs to encourage ocean-related ecological programs, Chi’ang wrote the “Think Blue” series of non-fiction books, popular with schoolchildren. When Alicia left the jetfish transporter moments ago, the mustachioed Chinese-American man had been speaking in a loud, authoritarian voice in the passenger compartment, saying how important it was for the public to “think blue” in addition to thinking green, that blue was even more important to the world from an ecological standpoint than green. A handful of the volunteers hung on his every word, while others made disdainful expressions in his direction, obviously finding him annoying.
A young woman seemed to worship him, an attractive French oceanography student named Pauline Deveaux. She had joined the voyage at the port of Cherbourg, when Chi’ang was already aboard. It wasn’t long before she was sitting next to him on the jetfish transporter as he spoke about the plight of the ocean, expressing his opinions about actions that needed to be taken. Napoli Mora, a well-known environmental activist from Italy, kept interrupting Chi’ang, trying to override whatever he said with something that Mora considered more significant. At times, Mora, a small olive-skinned man in his sixties, looked ready to throw punches at Chi’ang, so Alicia hoped they would find a way to get along—instead of trying to talk over each other.
A number of the volunteers said they had been strongly attracted to the sea from an early age, and felt a deep, calming sensation whenever they immersed themselves in saltwater. Some had been going out on boats in recent weeks without knowing why, or camping on beaches for the first time, or hiking for miles along the seashore—all before learning about the Sea Warriors and their own personal connections with the fledgling organization.
To Alicia, it all seemed predestined.
For days, since Beavan told her about the food delivery man leaving a door unsecured every morning, Gwyneth had been watching, and found it to be a potential escape route. Day after day the man followed the same, predictable routine, leaving the delivery door blocked open for a few minutes so that he could get in and out easier with his boxes.
That morning she went out into the exercise yard at her customary time, where she saw Beavan striding around the perimeter at a brisk pace. Two medical attendants in gray smocks were in the yard watching the patients who were out now. Gwyneth counted six other patients, plus herself. It was a bit warmer today than it had been recently, and the fog had cleared enough that the sun was shining through. It felt good on her face and hands.
She kicked a rubber ball around and chased it by herself, as she often did, but this time she remained as close as possible to the door that the delivery man used. At 10:20 she saw him enter, pushing a hand truck of boxes along an outside corridor. Glancing around as she leaned down to pick up the ball, she saw Beavan make eye contact with her and then fall suddenly to his knees, crying out in discomfort. Obviously he was feigning something in order to create a distraction for her. Somehow he knew she had a desperate need to escape this time. He’d told her he was observant, and maybe he’d heard something said about her, perhaps a couple of hospital officials discussing the Sea Warrior list and the letter she had received.
Her pulse jumped when she saw both attendants hurrying over to help him. The delivery man was out of sight, having gone into the adjacent cafeteria. Gwyneth darted into the corridor, opened the blocked door and ran outside onto the sidewalk. She ran to the right for a short distance, turned down an alleyway, and then kept changing streets and alleys as she continued rushing downhill, in the direction of the seashore and the public dock.
She kept expecting to hear someone behind her shouting a command to stop, but that didn’t happen. Wearing jeans and an Irish sweater, the petite young woman ran past st
artled villagers. She saw the dock now, and an old fisherman in a pea coat and cap standing at the end of it, looking out to sea.
Dripping wet, wearing a black, one-piece swimsuit, Alicia climbed a wooden ladder up to the deck of the weathered structure. As she reached the top, she didn’t see anyone except the old man.
“I’ve been watching you come in from way out there.” A smile creased his aged, ruddy face. “It almost looked like you were floating in from across the ocean.”
“I like to swim,” she said, glancing at her watch. If the volunteer didn’t show up in eighteen minutes, she would have to move on.
But at that moment she saw a small figure running toward her on the dock, looking back frantically, running as fast as she could. A policeman was running behind her, shouting for her to stop.
The girl’s eyes were desperate when she reached the end of the dock. She had trouble catching her breath.
“Are you Gwyneth McDevitt?” Alicia asked the tiny, elfin girl, who looked exactly as Kimo had described her from his dreams. Initially, they’d gotten her surname wrong.
The girl nodded, looked nervously over her shoulder at the oncoming, shouting officer. She had bright blue eyes.
Without another word, Alicia pushed her into the water and jumped in after her. The girl cried out, and coughed as she swallowed seawater. Then, holding the diminutive teenager around the waist, Alicia generated a wave, and stood up with her on top of it. They rode it out to sea, with the shouts of the cop fading behind them….
Ocean: The Sea Warriors Page 6
