I re-suctioned the compatible case, so its victim would have the pleasure of inhaling their last breath. Today, the monitor held an image of a young boy, eight, maybe nine years old. His blank face transfixed on mine, a serial number, and a red light. He came through the tube that ran in the centre of the room. His eyes were an intimate, yet pale red, a similar tone ran through his nose. The boy had been crying, for obvious reasons. The monitor now displayed the boy's heart rate, fairly steady. I shut my eyes and threw my fist at the obnoxiously large blue button. The metal bond attached to the boy's chest gave away a low buzz, sharply jerking the body.
Slowly exhaling, my hands gripped at the neighbouring lever and slowly pushed it upwards, I watched the compatible case dehydrate and attach itself to the body. I mentally traced where the plastic hinged against the boy's bare torso, around his limbs and onto his face like a mask, then the tube gushed with water and flushed the boy out into the wide, open sea.
It'd been a few years since I got put to this job. It still made me break sweat every time the water gushed another orphan, widow or homeless out into the sea. My parents were drifted too, when I was younger. My father was an oil miner, but since the third Wold War happened, oil levels were low, and he had had a rough time finding work. My mother did not lose hope, until the day, they got the Notice. "Mr and Mrs Moore are to be drifted one month from Notice receival date for failure to submit taxes, Master Jesse Moore is to be placed in Atlantis Children's' Home 7 business days before drift date". The rule was that everybody paid the same tax. So, the next month flew by. My father put on his heavy oxygen tank every morning and swam out to work under the caves of Atlantis, trying to earn every last bit of cash for my savings. My mother sat by the gallery window on an old rug, sworn to silence, constantly stitching and knitting my garments.
Then the day came for me to go. I sat in silence while my mother gave me a bath, carried me in an embrace into the bedroom. I sat in silence while my mother dressed me in a shirt and shorts. But I squirmed and screamed when she zipped me into a too-tight, scratchy wetsuit and flung on a harness. I didn't whinge to my mother about the clingy harness, I knew better. I didn't cry to my father about me wanting to stay, I knew better. I stared at my parents tear up when the officer clipped my harness and flung me over his shoulder, I stared when he buckled me into the sub and I stared until they were a far away distance.
The day I left the Home, they forced me into the floater job, told me I had too much emotion, that it would make me stronger. The funny thing was, I think it only made me more sentimental, but it was my only chance of not getting drifted. All the workers sat in the mess for lunch, talking their usual talk. I sat at the table with Alex, a friend of mine from the Home. We sat alone, and she talked. I mostly listened, but sometimes we talked about drifting from Atlantis, going to find the real one. She worked in filter system, where she creates the compatible suits. She's been at her job just as long as I have, but guts, those she's got more of. Alex alters the suits and sectors oxygen capsules to the edges, undetectable of course. She's good at what she does, but I can't help but worry for the people I drift, I worry that they won't realise the suit has been changed, similar to a wetsuit. Alex's small, dark, round face stares into my eyes. Her eyelashes bat and she licks the moist line at the edge of her top lip.
"What do you want?" I grumble. I know that look.
"Jesse let's go find Atlantis, the real one, the one with the people with psychic powers and prosperity, from the old stories"
I chuckle. Alex can be naive sometimes. "Yes, tell me when you have a plan to leave without getting detected, meanwhile I'm rather busy sending orphans out to sea so I can pay my taxes." I scrape my food tray along the table as I stand up.
"Jesse, come on, think about it, no more taxes, no more guilt, no reminder of an ugly past, a whole new world"
"I'm telling you I'm ready to leave, just when you get me a foolproof plan" I say, completely sarcastic.
