A Lost Wish

Travis and I stopped at a cliff overlooking a choppy, windblown sea.

“The no-man’s-land ends here,” Jim announced. “The autoturrets won’t attack anything past the shore.”

“Wow. This is the same water as at the beach?” I squinted against the chilly spray of seafoam. “Huh. Tastes the same.”

“But it’s all dark and wavey,” Travis noted. “I wonder if it’s the same as those riptide trials we had to run last year.”

“Ugh, those sucked,” I groaned. “Hey Jim, what are we doing out here? Where’s the seaplace?”

“Seaburgs.” He pointed out to the water. About half a kilometer out, I saw what looked like an enormous orb bobbing in the moonlit waves.

“People live in that thing?” I scrunched my nose. “That’s worse than Penny’s hideout.”

“That’s a Topdeck, not the living spaces,” Jim replied. “They’re the only way into the Seaburgs. No one is up there right now, looks like, so I’ll have to call in a boat…”

He stopped when he heard the ka-ka-ka-chink of my wings extending.