The Wind and Waves

“Oh, here they come,” Blake said.

“Hey, guys,” Bernicia called. “Guess what happened. Here’s a hint: it was awesome.”

“Don’t wanna,” I grumbled. “Leave me alone.”

“Hmm? What’s up with her?” She and Travis sat down with the rest of us.

“As it happens, Shurikit is a surprisingly sore loser,” Larry replied. “Do you guys want donuts? I got Blake to grab some.”

“These things are the bad kind of great,” Blake vouched.

“What does that even mean?” Bernicia chomped on one. “Oomph! Oh no, you weren’t kidding.”

“I know.” I stood up. “Let’s go swimming somewhere.”

“Oh! Good idea,” Travis said. “I saw on a map earlier that there was a sea east of here.”

“Let’s do it,” Blake yelled.

“This late at night? Do you guys ever sleep?” Larry incredulously asked.

“Ho ho ho, getting cold feet, are you? We can go for days without sleep,” I gloated.

“Swimming in the sea is always better during the day,” Larry said. “And besides, you guys need swimsuits. We can do all of that tomorrow.”

“Mehh, if you say so,” Travis sighed, plopping onto the roof’s surface.

As the rest of us followed suit, Larry said, “Just a moment, guys. Don’t you want to go to someplace more comfortable?”

“Why bother?” I gazed at the stars. “What, were you raised in a house or something?”

“I heard somewhere that it isn’t the house you pay for, but the land it’s on,” Blake said.

“Hmm… never mind.” Larry laid down as well. “We’ll head out first thing tomorrow, then.”

~

“I wonder if you can drink this,” I muttered, raising some seawater to my mouth. About a second later, I learned exactly why people purify the stuff.

“How did it taste?” Larry casually asked.

“You knew all along, didn’t you,” I angrily spluttered. “I’ll make you drink the whole ocean!”

“Hey, I know we can trap air with our wings for floating,” Bernicia called, “But have you tried using them as flippers?”

“Why would you do that? We’re air types, not water types,” Blake replied.

“I say it’s at least worth giving a try,” Bernicia figured. “Hey, I bet I can dive deeper than you.”

“You’re on.” Blake and Bernicia both dove underwater.

“Ugh, Larry, these fish keep bumping me,” I said. “Shouldn’t they be afraid?”

“I don’t get it either,” he replied.

“I’ll scare them off, then,” Travis decided. He had left his helmet on the sand, showing off his curly, platinum blonde hair. “I bet our screamers will work in water.”

“Where do you get these bizarre ideas?” Larry yawned. “Though I am kind of curious.”

Screee.

“Wow,” Travis observed. “I didn’t know fish could move so quickly.”

Blake and Bernicia still hadn’t surfaced, but I wasn’t worried. Thanks to our extensive lung conditioning, we could hold our breaths for about ten minutes on average.

“How deep do you think we can go without getting crushed?” I wondered.

“The only way to know when we’ll get crushed is to actually get crushed,” Travis figured. “Not it, by the way.”

“Coward.” I turned to Larry. “Hey, are there any crabs around here? I want to hunt crabs.”

“Didn’t I scare everything off?” Travis asked.

“Meh, give it some time,” Larry replied. “They aren’t as paranoid as… umm, never mind.”

After about half an hour of futilely chasing sea creatures in the submarine sands, I suddenly surfaced. “Bernicia and Blake.”

“What about ‘em?” Travis lazily asked. Then he straightened as well. “Oh, shoot!”

“We’re diving! Keep a lookout for hostiles,” I yelled at Larry.

“They’re fine,” he said.

“We don’t have gills, idiot! Come on, Travis,” I called.

“Right behind ya!”

Considering the challenge they took; our best bet was to go straight down at the dropoff.

After a bit of searching, we caught sight of a hole on the side of the fish-infested reef, about a hundred meters down. Not only was it perfectly round, but it also emitted a weird glow…

I looked at Travis, and he nodded. At this point, we were both at our limit in terms of both air AND pressure, so if this wasn’t anything important, we would be in trouble.

But then, Blake and Bernicia had dived in this area as well, and they were gone…

As we approached the dome, I realized that I was accelerating towards the hole… faster than I was swimming?

Suction! I furiously tried to backpedal, but only succeeded in almost completely depleting my remaining air stores.

I can’t focus! This was a mistake, I realized.

The place suddenly went dark, and something metal slammed shut behind us. Then I heard a sound like a toilet being flushed, and the water began draining away.

“Gagh!” Gasping for breath, I immediately searched for a way out of here. “Should have known this would screw us over,” I grunted, feeling around the large seal. “Travis! You alive? I can’t find any chinks here!”

“Look,” Travis called from the other side of the chamber. “There’s a hatch on the ceiling.”

“Hah, thank goodness. Open it, open it!”

We emerged into an antechamber, feeling like half-drowned birds. Or rats. Half-drowned bugs? Can bugs drown? I don’t really know.

Directly in front of us stood a classy-looking metal door.

Since we were wearing our wetsuits, neither of us were armed at the moment. I have to be prepared for anything, I thought. “All right, Travis. On two, we bust—”

The door opened, revealing a ruddy-looking girl with tanned skin. “Man, I’m getting all the visitors,” she said. “Well, come on in, I guess.”

The place… looked like a completely normal apartment.

I looked behind me. Through the open door was the antechamber, with the airlock leading to the sea. I looked back in front of me. “What in the world?”

“Yeah, what is this place?” Travis asked.

“Really cold, that’s what,” the girl said. “Welcome to Secret Hideaway Number Three, Gen 1’s second-to-last-resort safety room against the I-bots.”

“I-bots?”

“Those tall robot things. I’m sure you’ve seen one; they were designed specifically to subdue aeronauts.”

“Oh! Yeah, those things are mean,” Travis nodded. “Nice place, by the way.”

“Yeah? It’s comfy, I guess, but it’s mostly just cold. I’ve been hiding out here for maybe a month, and I still haven’t figured out how to heat up the air that filters in.”

“I can’t really feel it,” I began, “But then, we are wearing wetsuits.”

“I could go for one of those,” she sighed, moving to the kitchen. (A kitchen! Underwater!!) “I’ve been a Pennysicle for so long, I’ve nearly forgotten what heat feels like.”

“A what?”

“Oh, yeah. Penny is my name,” she supplied. “Larry figured you’d find your way here.”

“Well, I’m Shurikit, and he’s Travis,” I replied.

“A pleasure.” Penny began brewing up some coffee.

“We’re looking for our pals,” I told her. “One has short hair and dark skin, the other has a unibrow and freckles.”

“Oh, yeah. They’re in the other room. So, four total? That checks out.”

“If by ‘checks out’ –” I spread my wings with a stately ka-ka-ka-chink- “you mean we’re aeronauts, then yes.”

“Ah, I see. Your wings seem a bit more malleable than the previous set’s,” Penny observed.

“The previous set? You know about Gen 2?”

“What, Larry and Roy didn’t tell you? When we busted the joint after things went south, we stole as much data as possible. Roy and Larry were supposed to meet with me at our mountain hideout, but, well, things got complicated. And now I’m here.”

I recalled what Larry said when I was panicking at the shore: ‘they’re fine.’

Of course he knew! Maybe he was trustworthy after all.

“They were supposed to be these marvels of bioengineering,” Penny explained. “They perfected two attributes with them: water breathing and scales. They had good speed and strength, and could also change the color of their scales for some minor camouflage.”

“That’s a lot of perks.” Travis sounded dubious. “If they’re such paragons, then what happened to them?”

“I did some sifting through my haul.” Penny sipped her coffee. “Based on what I found, it looks like they died.”

“How’d that happen?” Travis was engaged, but I was now deep in thought.

“There was this saying our warden said once: ‘the brightest flames also burn out the fastest.’ I guess he was talking about them, because that’s exactly what they did,” Penny continued. “Since their immune systems were apparently super weak, they caught some kind of infection that killed all four of them in a few days.”

“Hardcore,” Travis nodded.

“Hey,” I said. “You mentioned that they perfected water breathing. What’s an aeronaut supposed to do underwater?”

“Don’t ask me,” Penny shrugged. “Everyone in Gen 1 got that feature, too. But then, only Larry’s actually worked right, and all of Gen 2 ended up dead, so it was kind of pointless.”

“Really…?” I looked closer at Penny. There were strange, dull silver lines running along her neck.

“So they ditched that feature for our generation,” Travis concluded.

“Looks like it.”

“Oh, hey guys,” Bernicia called. She and Blake walked in, holding cups of coffee. “Have you tried this stuff? It’s really bitter, but it stimulates your brain.”

“N-no thanks,” I replied, quickly distancing myself from it. “Let’s just head back up. Larry’s waiting on the shore.”