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Chapter 29

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Daen:
Chapter 29

When Vicky saw him later on that night, Tom looked as though he hadn't gotten any rest at all.

Frankly, she knew how that felt. The Indian government had put out a press release that same afternoon, explaining the catalyzer to the world, and claiming that they were in the process of building more. Though the spokesperson hadn't actually said the words exactly, it was heavily implied that they had developed it themselves. Certainly that's how most of the world would see it at first.

As a result Vicky had been stuck in the admin building all afternoon with Tanya Elkins, a strategist with Uncoded Relations. She and Tanya's team had come up with over a hundred variations on speeches that they might give, when the time came to tell the whole truth. Unlike that initial, rage-fueled speech she'd given on the beach years ago, these were carefully worded, painstakingly timed messages. They were drafted to be understanding, yet firm, in the face of what would no doubt be an outraged Indian leadership.

Vicky was relieved to finally get away and meet up with Tom. She checked the boat's batteries with him, and then jumped aboard. When they got going, Vicky glanced at his face, and was rewarded with a surprised look. It was understandable, given that she was steering the boat around Darien Cay, instead of away from it.

When she started picking up speed out towards the open Atlantic, Tom finally spoke. "Why do I suddenly feel like Old Yeller being taken away to get shot?"

"Nah, I don't like guns," Vicky joked in turn. "Even if I wasn't coded, I'd probably use poison instead. It'd be a lot less hassle."

Tom only raised his eyebrows, and Vicky just sighed. "It's only about twenty miles away. Be patient."

The sun had set already, and the boat's forward lights didn't illuminate much, but Vicky had been here many times before. It wasn't hard to navigate from memory, even if their destination was out of sight range from Scheria.

When she caught sight of the generators, Vicky slowed the boat down and drifted closer. Tom leaned forward, trying to get a better look. He'd seen structures like this before. "More tidal generators? What are they doing all the way out here? I thought you had plenty of power back in Scheria."

"They're not for Scheria, or for Elysia," Vicky explained, putting a little more juice in the engine and maneuvering around the generators. "We started building these years ago. It's no joke building a support structure on the bottom of the ocean and then expanding it up to the surface. It's needed, though. Tidal generators only work if they're at the surface." She pointed at the metal struts just under the nearest turbine. Fortunately the tide was currently low, or he wouldn't be able to see them. "We can adjust the height by up to twenty feet, to account for rising sea levels."

Tom slowly looked around at the collection to their right and behind them. "You sure need a lot of them for.. I'd say an oil drilling operation, if I didn't know you used renewables only. Barring that, I'm guessing this is some kind of deep-sea research station?"

Vicky chuckled. "I suppose it has become that, sort of. Hold on. I'll give you the full tour."

Beyond the generators was the floating platform, nearly three hundred feet across. Or about ninety meters, she reminded herself. One of the most recent referendums in the Coded Nation was about the metric system. Because so many coded people had started out American, it had been a minor debate, but the metric system was a lot easier, so they'd decided to adopt it. Fortunately there were very few signs to change. And they still used English, at least for now.

That brought up another series of problems. English, like a lot of things descended from ancient Rome, had sexist roots. The very words 'woman' or 'female' were merely derivatives of man or male. The species was called humanity, or mankind. There had been some progress, such as businessperson, or congressperson, but those didn't include the rest of the rainbow either. Vicky guessed that eventually a whole new language would have to be created that included everyone. That could take decades though, and they had more immediate problems to solve, which was one of the things she was here to show Tom.

The platform was modular, and could be deconstructed in bad weather. James and Hamedi had arranged to 'rent' a weather satellite in geosynchronous orbit overhead, so that Scheria had its own meteorological service. They couldn't predict storms as accurately as the NOAA did, but it helped. From what she heard, they weren't expecting any high category storms or hurricanes for months yet, so this platform would probably remain intact for the whole span of the construction project.

Two coded construction workers she didn't recognize waved to her, looking surprised, and she pulled the boat alongside the platform. She explained what she was doing here, and they seemed fine with it. They helped her tie up the boat, and then escorted her and Tom over to the more solid generator structure. Built into the iron and concrete.. was an elevator.

Vicky still was impressed at how this place was laid out, even after she'd seen it built. She was an electrical engineer, not an architectural one, but it was amazing how they'd managed to build a collapsible elevator shaft, extending all the way to the ocean floor!

"I've got it from here, thanks," she told the others, and gestured Tom inside.

His expression was still a mixture of suspicion and amazement, and Vicky smiled. He hadn't seen anything yet. Wordlessly she pulled the inside lever, propelling them both downward.

This close to the Cay, it was only a few thousand feet- meters- down. As they neared the bottom, the lights came on automatically, illuminating their ocean floor project. The transparent walls of the elevator allowed them both to get a good look at the full scope of it.

Tom gasped, looking out as if his eyes couldn't take it all in fast enough. From the position of the lights, the edges of their new barrier were clear. It was another circle, just like the ones they were constructing around Scheria and Elysia.

Then they were inside the warehouse facility at the bottom, and their view was obscured. The elevator doors opened quietly, revealing a darkened room beyond. By rote memory Vicky stepped out, reaching for the control panel to the side, and began flipping light switches. "Until the first few shipments of iron and steel from India arrive, this was as much as we could build. Those two guys upstairs are the only ones here for now. Their job is to monitor power utilization, mostly. They're probably up there for the fresh air. We're still fine-tuning the air filtration system in this place."

"This is no research station," Tom said breathlessly, staring at the wide corridor surrounding them. Doors lined the walls to their north and south, and there was a clear cafeteria and sleeping quarters to the west. "I saw the circle of concrete and steel out there. You're building a dome here, underwater! Or you will be, anyway. I couldn't really tell the size, but it looks like it might be at least as big as Elysia!"

"That's right. Once the dome's complete, we'll pump out the seawater, pump in some air, and have ourselves the world's very first seafloor city."

Tom seemed to be at a loss for words, for perhaps the first time in years, so Vicky continued. "We're still workshopping possible names. Atlantis seemed a bit on the nose. Kasskara was another idea, but that's over in the Pacific."

"And this building is where you suit up construction workers to go outside and build up the dome?"

"Somewhat," she hedged. She gestured to the other side, where the control room was currently situated. "Most of the work was done by remote-piloted drones actually. We only need to suit someone up and send them out if there's a problem we can't fix remotely."

She turned on the lights in the control room, and started up one of the computers. After a short wait time, it displayed a systems map of the entire seafloor project.

"So this is why you asked for so much more iron, steel, and concrete than you needed just to build the two domes up there! I figured you were willing to get bargained down on the amounts, but you didn't budge on that. This isn't the only underwater city you plan to build, is it?"

"Assuming we can get this one built and working right, yes. We don't exactly have a lot of surface land to work with, and asking uncoded nations to give up territory really wouldn't go over well. This is the next logical step."

Tom gave a short laugh. "I figured you'd set up shop in Antarctica somewhere, or maybe get your hands on more Atlantic islands. This.. I did not expect. But how do you plan on getting air into this place? I didn't see any umbilical to the surface on the way down. I take it you plan on building one after the dome is completed, so that people can actually breathe?"

Vicky hesitated. This was one of the more closely guarded secrets which Abner wanted kept that way. But Tom had proven repeatedly he could be trusted. Not with a gun maybe, but at least with overall strategy. If he could be convinced that they could still expand the Coded Nation, he might be willing to be coded himself, and stick around. "Actually no. We aren't going to build an umbilical at all. We're going to harvest oxygen straight from the ocean itself, using the catalyzer technology."

Surprisingly, Tom smiled at that. "I knew it! I knew Tan's research wasn't just about air pollution. Not at first anyway. This was about the domes all along." He paused briefly. "Has he figured out how to separate oxygen from hydrogen? Without causing a chain reaction, that is."

"He did, about a month ago. The air-clearing stuff was mostly an accident. Still, it got us what we needed, so I'm not complaining. Fai's testing his design right now, converting samples of water into breathable O2, while letting the hydrogen float up into the sky. He should have a working O2 factory long before this dome is built. We might even be able to tie it into our desalination efforts."

Tom shook his head. "Leaps and bounds. You people never stop being amazing, do you?"

Vicky looked away, a little embarrassed despite herself, as Tom took a closer look at the screen. "Wow, Tan's O2 harvesting process must be a real power hog. I'm no city designer, but it looks like you've got enough power running through here to keep three cities lit up."

Suddenly, Vicky realized this place's secondary purpose. For years she'd wondered where all those samples were being sent. It made all the sense in the world that they would end up here at the bottom of the ocean. Where else could things be kept at low temperatures and completely out of sight at the same time?

Trying to act casual, she reached over and shut the computer off. "I don't know much about the separation process," she said truthfully, once again grateful that her code allowed her to stop at that and not say any more. "Come on. There are a pair of suits with our names on them. Care to walk the ocean floor for a while before we head back?"

Tom smiled at that, looking enthusiastic. He seemed to lose interest in the power requirements, which was good. Vicky didn't like misleading him, but even she hadn't been told what this place really was, and for good reason. Those samples weren't just valuable- they were irreplaceable!

-.-

Over the next few months, the construction of the domes began in earnest. Almost the instant the first shipment of materials arrived from India, there were dozens of drones in the air, buzzing like bees as they constructed their new hive. With Vicky as an escort, Tom saw the rooms in the admin building converted into a transmission center. From there, each operator controlled an individual drone.

Given how new and complex this technology was, the coded operators were remarkably quick learners. There were a few accidents at first, such as drones trying to balance a load and then dropping it. Abner had wisely recommended that areas literally underneath construction be evacuated before the work began. It led to some cramped quarters, but everyone agreed: better a short-term inconvenience now than an accident killing someo**ene, or a storm just washing their whole nation into oblivion.

Tom watched the construction process with fascination. The operator only controlled the drone as it was up there, placing and welding the materials. When the man at the computer released control, the drone was sophisticated enough to fly back down on its own, avoiding any stationary obstacles or other drones on its way. Then it would pick up a load, or team up with another drone to pick up a large load, and fly back up before waiting to be controlled again.

He had only limited understanding of computer science, but it made sense that they could be programmed with simple tasks like that. Tom had never seen robotics, computer programming, construction, and molecular chemistry all seamlessly integrated together before, though. It seemed like a perfect analogy to the coded people. Everyone had different skills and weaknesses, but they all had equal value and an equal say. When everyone agreed like that, cooperation wasn't something that needed to be forced on anyone.

Again, Tom considered getting coded. As time went on, he was becoming less and less valuable to Vicky and the others. There were still people back in the States who hated coded people, but Humanity First had mostly faded into the background these last few years. This new leap forward in technology had ruffled quite a few feathers, especially to people who still insisted on thinking of coded people as a threat, but most people were approving of it.

Tom smiled as he remembered the Indian government's outrage. In the days after the catalyzer technology had been sent to every major nation in the world, Tom had gotten at least a hundred calls a day from various officials. Threats had been leveled, and complaints registered. They'd even mentioned condemning the Coded Nation before the UN, but that had been an empty threat. It would mean admitting that they had never intended to share the catalyzer in the first place.

As for the rest of the world, reactions were mixed depending on where you went. The Chinese people had been mostly for it, given the high rates of air pollution in many of their cities. A lot of European countries had started using their catalyzers first, perhaps hoping for some kind of prestige from being the first people to trust in Dr. Tan's research.

Like any other coded person, Fai Tan had been eager to share credit with the rest of his team. Molecular chemistry was his greatest strength, but he was quite clear that each of his forty-odd people had contributed and was valuable. After a townhall vote which Abner had supported, the Coded Nation revealed that the catalyzer was just a happy accident: a byproduct of the real work Tan and his people were doing.

Splitting molecules had been a thing for decades, from what Tom had read. He remembered high-school lessons on electrolysis, if only vaguely. Fai's research went beyond that and into large-scale applications. His breakthrough into harvesting oxygen directly from seawater was still a secret. When Tom heard that, he immediately thought of that underwater city they were building offshore, and it all made sense. Vicky, Fai, Abner, Holly, and God-only-knew how many others had all been planning this for years now! Even back then, they must have known how fast coded society would grow.

Come to think of it, it couldn't just be those four. Keeping secrets from other coded people just wasn't done. Given how long ago this project must have been started, Tom estimated at least four hundred coded people had known about it right at the beginning. And yet not one of them had told a soul- even him. Tom had come to terms with being kept in the dark, and he didn't blame any of them anymore. If word had gotten out to the US government, they would have done whatever they could to acquire this molecule-separating technology, and to control the coded people who developed it. They'd done the right thing keeping it quiet.

What other nation in the world could trust its entire population with a secret, and have that secret kept for years in perfect silence? Abner was right: these people weren't even human at all. They were better!

As the domes took shape, it also became clear that the catalyzer wasn't the only happy byproduct of Fai's work. His people had developed a way to align carbon molecules, at least that was how Tom understood it, making steel harder and stronger. Ordinarily a dome the size of the one they were building over Scheria would need a bunch of support pillars, but with the altered steel they were using, only one pillar was needed. It was right in the middle of town, shooting straight up to the top. Tom set up a camera to take pictures of the sky over Scheria every four hours. He submitted those pictures to the website, and people all over the world watched time-lapse construction of the dome.

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