THE WATER CARRIERS - Speculative Literary. Sample includes Prologue - setting, tone, foreshadowing of inciting event; Chapters 1 and part of 2 introducing protagonist and antagonist

“Human activities have caused the Earth to exceed six of nine boundaries necessary for keeping the planet healthy, pushing the environment well outside the safe operating space for humanity.” Smithsonian Magazine, 2023.

PROLOGUE

Iceland - September, 2023

Something was different. She had been to this lake five times before and the energy had been peaceful, serene just like a glacial lake in a remote area of northern Iceland was supposed to be. But it felt off, as if the turquoise stillness was a mirage. She and above her, her ten colleagues, their columns of shimmering pixels, would soon begin their descent to the shore of the lake. Leta scanned the boulders and granite slabs of vertical rock that rose unevenly towards the sky. There was no sign of life, at least not human.

Look around, the voice in her head said. Something’s not right. Leta was still in pixilated form hovering a thousand feet above the glacial lake. She knew the place well, knew what to expect and this feeling was not what she expected. She scanned again, the craggy outcroppings, the inlets here and there of the almost oval lake. No sign of human activity. But still a sense, as though the serenity of the water had only recently become calm. No prior storm had been reported.

Her team arrived, flanking her on all sides. Ten Tenorans like herself, still pixilating, millions of microscopic replicas of themselves, awaiting the sign from her that it was okay to proceed. Hansen, she sensed, was concerned by her hesitation. He moved closer. There was no talking in this form and Hansen had yet to perfect mind-to-mind communication. He started to solidify and descend, his sign he believed it was okay to proceed. You’re not imagining this, the voice in her head said. But she countered with the thought that maybe she had finally reached her limit. Most Water Carriers retired after a hundred missions. This was her hundred and fortieth. Maybe this arresting unease was the sign for her to stop, not for the mission to stop. She had read that Water Carriers start to hallucinate at the end of their careers. Too much radiation from space even with the refraction suits. Tenorans needed this water, they needed this mission to happen. Hansen was all in. The rest of her team were waiting for her sign. She was still the leader and she had to act. Then, against her better judgment, she gave the go ahead.

 
SECTION ONE

“This month is the planet’s hottest on record by far – and hottest in around 120,000 years.” European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service and the World Meteorological Organization. 2023.

 
Chapter One

Ari – Nubian Desert, Sudan, Africa – August, 2023

Heat rose in wavy bands over the desert sand making the air seem thick with texture, thick enough to run her hand through it. Ari wondered if her body and electromagnetic field displaced the heat’s energy so that it wasn’t visible up close but only in the distance. She tossed a small rock into the wave. Odd, she thought. It looked like the wave and the rock existed on two different planes. For something new to do this week, she could study that, and then tossed another rock. It was getting hot, too hot, but still, she didn’t want to go back. And she didn’t want to be sitting here either. There had to be more than this same old, same old, but when? A year from now? A month? If she had a date, maybe she could be patient. Maybe.

Aside from trips into Khartoum with her mother, she hadn’t been anywhere but here. Nineteen years and counting here. She reminded herself that this jumping-out-of-her-skin feeling was always worse when her mother disappeared into one of her seclusions. Her mother had been in this isolation for a full week now, ever since that mystery person named Maxstor on Tenora was reported as “gravely ill.” Her mother wouldn’t say who the man was or why he mattered, only that he did. And Ari couldn’t just look up a Tenoran person online, not on Earth, and find out who he was there or what his relationship might be to her mother. But hadn’t that Greer Hexley solar project come her way after her mother’s last seclusion? That had been the high point of her life so far. A killer high, being in charge, knowing exactly what to do, with people—not just her parents—listening to her, even looking up to her. It had been exhilarating. So maybe something good could come from her mother’s hibernation now. 

She tossed a handful of sand into the still air and tracked the grains as if her stare could weaken gravity. She spotted an egg-eater snake slithering about twenty feet off. It wasn’t interested in her. She could try and capture it, make it play with her—well, not really play, at best slide onto her arm, and if she was lucky, wrap. Nah, probably better to just give herself five more minutes to hang out, lay back and think about how maybe college could be in the cards for her. She saw herself with a group of kids her own age like she’d seen in campus images online. Except going straight into grad school would mean the students were three or four years older than her. It was worrisome, and she thought for the hundredth time that she should have applied to undergrad and not used “her extraordinary accomplishments,” as they’d said in their acceptance, to leap-frog in. She could act older even if she wouldn’t look it. She would pass. As it was, sometimes she felt ancient. Probably, it was the desert that did that to people, she thought. Demanding so much and so f’ing indifferent. Around for millions of years, around for millions more, with or without humans to fully understand it. She didn’t, that was for sure, but even more than that, as a Tenoran living here, would she ever understand what it meant not to be human? And did she even want to? No, she just wanted to learn how to hang out with people.

A crush on a real flesh and blood person—human or Tenoran. If she shouted it, would anyone hear? Sometimes, it felt like her body would just burst. True, she’d figured out how to masturbate but what she really wanted was whatever happened with a real person. Watching romantic movies online made her want to puke. Predictable, sappy. But there were a few good films, showing deep friendships. What she wouldn’t give for a friend like that, someone she could share her feelings with, someone who wanted to know her, really know her. That could, would she felt sure, happen at school, in Switzerland. Where there was snow. Skiing. New food. Not to mention learning from the best fusion power scientists in the world. 

She didn’t want to sit up, but she forced herself. The snake was gone, and off to the sides, nothing was moving on the sand, at least not that she could see. Not smart to be so distracted out here, but she’d sense danger. She had a knack for it. Like the time with the horned viper all camouflaged in the sand, coiled just a few feet from her. It would have been curtains if she’d stepped on it, but somehow she’d known it was there without actually seeing it. Living on the desert her whole life, she could run with her eyes closed, sense terrain and direction. And she was fast. BFD!

Maybe, if she really had to go to Tenora, which her father had always said was a “when, not if” situation, she could negotiate with her parents to return to Earth for graduate school in the fall. The Swiss Plasma Center for Fusion Research, the best institution in the field, had given her a full scholarship for her achievements, so wouldn’t that mean something to her parents, persuade them? She could commute to Tenora. Ha! So many millions of miles, billions. But she still hadn’t even pixilated into deep space. Oh shit. She’d totally forgotten. She’d promised her mother she’d fix the pixilation suit by the time she emerged from this latest seclusion. Damn. She sprang to her feet and took off for the workshop, and then it hit her again: the fear that if she had to go to Tenora, she might be stuck on that wasteland for the rest of her life.

 
Chapter Two 

Hexley – Virginia, USA – August, 2023

Hexley was waiting for his rhythm to kick in. It usually happened after two hundred meters, but at four hundred he was still off. Instead of breathing every fourth stroke, it was every other. Choppy, no glide, no easing of his mind. Why couldn’t his wife agree with him on something so important? He just knew, had had a feeling, Greer’s upcoming announcement would not be good. And when Eleanor had asked him how he knew, he’d felt so challenged, as if his insights, his premonitions had no merit.

“I’m not challenging you, Hex,” Eleanor’d said as if reading his mind, “I’m guiding you like I’ve always done.”

“I know because I know our daughter, Eleanor.” And you don’t, he thought now, you never did. Should he tell her that?

“We’re not telling Greer she’s genetically Tenoran. Not now. It’s not time,” she’d said.

Again, always, her answer was no. He should quit asking for permission and just tell Greer. He could meet her when she arrived later and tell her. He needed air at every stroke now. When was the last time he couldn’t maintain breathing every other stroke? He was so upset he grabbed the water with his fists and pushed it under and behind him, but that only made his stroke harder. He opened his hands again. Keep swimming. It always worked to clear his head except it wasn’t working now. Because this time something felt different. Greer suddenly coming home with an announcement and they’d barely heard from her all year, hadn’t seen her since last Christmas, nine months now? He’d been patient, hadn’t he? Greer had no idea how patient he’d been. For decades. Water went right up his nose and he stopped. With the stinging inflaming his sinuses, disgusted and irritated, he pushed himself forcefully through the water towards the side of the pool and, in one effortless motion, hoisted himself out.

“Be patient, Hex. When everything is ready, we’ll tell her. You’re almost there and your brother, Maxstor, will be dead soon, and you’ll replace him as Tenora’s Head of the Council. You’ll see.” Yes, Eleanor had been kind to him last night; she’d smiled and even kissed him lightly on the lips. He closed his eyes and smiled. He loved her lips. She knew this was hard for him and he couldn’t be angry at her. Without her strategies and his work, Hexley Enterprises never would have grown to control almost all of Earth's water purification and distribution systems. He nodded. And he never would have had the patience to develop a way to stop Tenora’s water missions. He wiped himself down, stripped out of his briefs and headed naked to his bath. Maybe a steam next or a scalding shower. Let it all drain out of him. He was so close. The nets were probably only a few tests away from perfection. And his brother, a few breaths away from death. And then his nephew, Malon, would succeed Maxstor on the Council. Any day now, Malon had said. Then Hexley could go home, be welcomed, honored? Eleanor and Greer by his side. But that’s why Greer had to know, she had to get ready, learn to pixilate. “Patience, Hex,” Eleanor said and then had come her kiss. “Your love for your daughter is blinding you." He’d shaken his head at her words and she’d given him the I-know-you slight smile. Always her knowing what was best for him, as if he was some misinformed child.