Amber Skies: A Post-Apocalyptic Novel (Book 2 of the 2136 Trilogy)

CHAPTER 2 - PART 1

Doctor A led me through the white maze of hallways and into one of the containment chambers we had used to first come down to this underwater facility.

My stomach was doing summersaults while the side panel lights flashed rapidly by as the elevator sped to the surface. Doctor A stood like a Greek statue near the control board, unfazed by the elevator's rapid ascent.

I leaned my back against the railing support and tried not to fall. By the time we stopped and the hatch hissed open, welcoming a warm gust of ocean air, my knuckles were ghost white from clenching the metal. I stumbled after the Doctor as she exited the elevator and onto the docking station. I shook my hand to activate the blood flow to my fingers. The tips stung as they swelled with warm blood. The commotion in my abdomen had subsided marginally since we left the cell, but now my head was spinning.

The water's murky grey whipped up against the facility's loading dock like a panting dog, but the sky was calm compared to the last time I was here. The tossing waves seemed to taunt me and only worsened my vertigo. My head felt heavy and tilted to the side. My body followed behind and was welcomed by the cold tongue of the Atlantic ocean. I disappeared below the dark water, my body sinking beneath the rushing waves, and the undercurrent. For a moment, I thought about allowing myself to sink to the bottom. It would be easy. I could end it all right here and now, but that nagging voice in the back of my head whispered back to me the deeper I sank, "Not yet. Not yet."

The salt of the ocean licked my wandering eyes, but did not sting. The burning in my thighs and the spinning in my mind weakened until it too faded like the surface in the dark. There was a peace about the unknown of the ocean this far out from shore. Something alien and welcoming in its solidarity and simplicity. It was quiet down here. All noise and chaos of the world above seemed to vanish behind a veil of silence I had never known before. I drifted for a few moments more, then kicked my legs towards the surface. When my head broke the barrier, the sound of chaos returned.

I had drifted thirty yards from the dock and I could see Doctor A standing there talking with two of the soldiers, her arms and hair flailing in the wind. I heard one of them yell, and they turned to where he was pointing. Even from this distance, I could see the strain on Doctor A's face turn to elation upon seeing me alive, bobbing above the surface. I flipped onto my back and kicked my way towards them, not exerting any more energy than absolutely necessary. As my ears sank below the water a second time, the peace of the silence below welcomed me. And for the first time in my life as I gazed upon the world above, I felt free. The grey clouds overhead no longer personified our situation on the planet. There was meaning again behind the storm shadowing us from the rays beyond. And even a stream of sunlight pierced through their underbellies and beached itself upon the ocean's face.

My cheeks ached as the first soldier grabbed ahold of my arm and hauled me up. Doctor A's eyes found mine as my feet found solid ground.

"Are you okay?" she asked, squinting her eyes in my direction as the sun illuminated us with its light.

The back of my neck and the bareness of my skin glowed with warmth. I stretched my arms out to the sides and welcomed its heat.

"Never better," I said, and I meant it.

The dark blue of the ocean had done something to me. Washed away the ugliness of this world and replaced it with clarity.

"What happened?" the Doctor asked.

"I slipped," I said, but said no more. Why shatter the moment?

She examined me with the eyes of a worried mother who has just found her child hanging from a tree branch thirty feet up. The immediate panic was as clear as the sunshine that had somehow pierced through the abyss of overcast. I lowered my gaze from hers and stared off into the distant horizon.

"Take her to the pod," the Doctor ordered the closest soldier, "and dry her off before she catches a cold."

I found that declaration rather amusing considering I was already sick.

The soldier's gloved hand looped through my arm and tugged me down the dock towards the pod bobbing against the wooden beams. Doctor A followed close behind. I could hear her heels clicking along the mat streamed over the walkway. As we approached, the pod's door was open and one of the soldiers inside helped me down the ramp.

I sat down on a grey polyester seat and pressed my head against the paneling. The pod rocked gently with each battering wave. The shifting actually calmed my stomach. Doctor A stepped down the three steps and sat across from me in one of the solo pads. She harnessed herself in with straps and let out a deep sigh.

"Not a fan of the water?" I asked.

The color of her skin was the answer.

"You'll get used to it," I said, as though I knew what I was talking about. Heck, this was technically only my second time ever out on the water. I much preferred this marginal liberty to the bound, gagged, and unconscious route.

"You would think I'd be used to it by now," she said, "with the amount of times I've been ferried back and forth."

"I'm not sure I could ever get used to this," I said. "The ocean is so beautiful."