Oaql Seed (eBook)

Prologue:

The Wandering Lovers

One afternoon, bright reflections of the sun gleamed unnaturally from in between thin gaps in the dense purple-hued foliage of a forest called a City Garden. These places were treacherous. Footholds couldn’t be trusted, the air was poisonous, and the creatures that could breathe the air were noxious in most ways themselves. The title given to this wilderness was a misnomer, imposed by those who wished to undermine the truth, that what they called “Gardens” were in fact utter ruins of towering cities that humanity once inhabited with great pride. That is why the presence of two human people there—in the latter half of their lifespans—was particularly odd.

Maya had long red hair, red like a ripe tomato. Her renown referenced in heroic tales often began with her hair—for redheads were a rarity in this time—but at the age of sixty-two years, it was her history of courageous deeds that really defined who she was.

Her husband, Jöshi, had defining characteristics too. He sported a long white beard and a perfectly bald head. Now, there was nothing uncommon about a beard and baldness, but the pairing of Maya and Jöshi’s striking qualities, and an air of mystery about them, all wound together into the legend of the Wandering Lovers, Madam Red, and Mr. Snow, in many communities around the world.

More history was being made in the remote City Garden, as these two intrepid souls made their way up the corpses of buildings, which formed squarish hills and a profusion of sheer cliffs under a shroud of soil, plants, a network of thick vines, and trees that grew in defiance of their unnatural foundation. Trudging up one of these hills at an angle of nearly seventy degrees Maya and Jöshi finally had to stop and take some deep, labored breaths through their respiration masks.

“Please dear, keep your mask on,” said Jöshi noticing that Maya had impatiently released the pressure of her mask.

“I can’t use my nose under this thing,” Maya replied like a child caught playing with fire.

“We agreed that we’d rely on tech for this expedition,” said Jöshi as he raised his thin eyebrows and the lines along his scalp deepened. “Remember, we have people waiting for us back home.”

“Oh, don’t get sentimental now.”

Maya re-pressurized the mask and started walking again, keeping her eyes fixed on a handheld device that shot out a green light that slowly undulated as it scanned the ground. It was only after a few minutes that they arrived upon a plateau that she stopped, put her scanner away in a brown satchel across her chest, and crouched down over something silver gleaming through the soil and roots of the vegetation of the jungle. “This seems to be it,” she said, looking up at him. “Are you ready?”

“Months of investigation brought us to this point, and yet my knees shake when I consider that our hunch might be correct,” Jöshi replied.

He pulled up his sleeves and sank down to his knees beside her, pulling out a sharp hunting knife and crowbar from his own satchel. They began digging into the earth, cutting through tough roots, soon revealing that what had seemed to be a shiny object was only a portion of a larger underground structure.

“We could be digging for years,” Jöshi said loudly, wiping the sweat from around the corners of his mask. The chiming of insects seemed to grow out of the humidity of the air itself.

“We’ve nothing left but to trust our sources,” Maya replied. “The map indicated that this was the south-central entrance to the laboratory in this city.”

“And how many generations ago was the map made? We don’t know if it was the most recently updated version either.”

“But it’s all we have.”

“We’re not as young as we’d like to think we are, Maya. It’ll be hard to keep this up, let alone survive in this forsaken place for much longer.”

Maya wiped the sweat from around her own mask and chuckled, “Always the optimist, aren’t you, honey? I need some water.”

“Use the tube to drink, and don’t take off your mask!” Jöshi called out after her.

She raised her hand dismissively as she rose and stood for a moment, analyzing the trees nearby. She chose one with a girthy trunk, coiling branches, thin needle-shaped leaves, and finally a sign, which made Maya smile and say, “A little blessing for our task.” She was speaking of an almost imperceptable powdery golden glow that eminated in instants from different parts of the tree. At times it was high above the ground amidst the leaves before appearing closer to the earth where the tree’s serpentine roots rose high out of the ground. She took off her satchel and placed it down on the ground, and then taking a larger travel pack off her back, she detached a coil of rope from it. Pacing around, looking at the branches above, she finally chose a sturdy looking one to throw some of the rope coil over. Where the rope landed, she walked over and gathered it up, tying it to her travel pack, which she then proceeded to hoist up high and out of reach.

From Jöshi’s vantage point, Maya had her hands on her hips, her back toward him, and it looked like she was admiring her work. He shook his head and smiled. How could someone change so little? He thought to himself, admiring how her lean frame was virtually unchanged from the first time he saw her forty-three years ago. When she disappeared behind the tree, Jöshi got back to digging.

And she, as soon as she was sure Jöshi couldn’t see her, sank down to her knees and sat still for a time, clutching at her chest and breathing with difficulty. Frustrated, she pulled the mask off her face. Though she could take in more air now, the quality of the air made her take breaths with discomfort anyway. Acridity filled her mouth, reminding her of the taste of rusty metal and battery cylinders when she worked at a tech shop for salvaged materials years ago, often using her mouth as a third hand.

After a few minutes, Jöshi called out to her, “Bring me the laser-knife. I think I’ve found a spot where I can cut into it.”

“One moment,” Maya replied, getting to her feet, fixing the mask over her face again. “You better be sure because firing it up once more will drain the rest of its charge.”

Jöshi demonstrated his certainty by stomping on a part of the uncovered surface. Loud, hollow echoes filled the air.

“You hear that?” he shouted.

“That I do!” she replied. She turned back to the tree and lowered the pack down and extracted something from a side pocket covered in a tattered gray cloth, about the length of her forearm.

A minute later, she returned to the dig site. She handed Jöshi the tool still covered in the cloth. As he took it, he did a double take of her. Though most of her face was concealed by her oxygen mask, the strain in her eyes and her unusually crouched posture made his mouth sink into a frown.

“This is it,” he said. “If this doesn’t work, we’re leaving.”

He unwrapped the laser-knife from its sheath. It looked like a large butcher’s knife from a distance, but upon closer inspection, the blade was much wider, and where its sharp edge would have been, there was a minute gap with a green light glowing in it. Taking hold of it with a firmer grip now, Jöshi flipped a switch at the butt of the handle, and the green light along the edge of the blade turned bright red.

He didn’t waste another second, plunging the laser-knife into the unnaturally silver surface smeared in the remnants of the moist earth they had dug through. Soon the blade’s whole length was in up to the hilt. Ignoring the sizzling sounds, the smell of burning, and a chalky taste, he cut horizontally until he had carved out a large imperfect circle.

“That was easy enough,” he said just as the laser-knife began blinking red. “That’s it; it’s about to die.” Then, it was blinking green, and finally it switched off completely.

The little suction pads Maya provided him were attached to the surface of the metal, and they pulled the freshly cut trap door open with surprising strength—as compared to most people their age. Looking down into it at first revealed nothing but darkness, but when they leaned down closer, heads poking into the hole, they saw dim white lights flickering below like stars in a clear night sky. This gave them a sense of reverse vertigo, as if they found a hole in the earth that led out straight to the vastness of the universe.

“Alright; let’s set up the cable and lower me down,” Maya said resolutely. They both made their way over to the tree she had selected and Jöshi attached his own pack to the rope hoist, but before raising them out of reach, they unpacked an array of travel-size gadgets and carefully organized materials like color-coordinated cords, little light emitting glowterns that could be worn like necklaces, and two sets of detachable cleats for their boots.

Within a few minutes, they were ready. One end of a thin but extremely durable cable-rope was tied around the trunk of a girthy tree near the hole, while Jöshi wound some of the slack of the cable around his waist through a friction and ratchet device attached to his belt. The other end was attached to Maya around her leg, torso, and right shoulder. She was wearing her brown satchel again, her cargo-pants pockets were full, and she zipped up her vest that she wore over spandex material that clung to her muscular body.

She tied...