Chapter 5 Tour

Chapter 5

There was a beep as the white walls of my pod began to change into white wooden walls. I blinked and started scanning the holographic control panel. There was a 3D model of my room. I dragged a dirty white wallpaper on the walls of my 3d room, then added a soft wooden boards for the floors. Once I was satisfied, I used a finger to swipe the image upward. Immediately, my real room imitated the image from the control panel.

At least now it doesn't feel as suffocating as before.

I also learned that you can add furnitures or change them depending on your liking. I actually spend a lot of time decorating the room since I couldn't sleep a wink. I mean, I was sleeping until I dreamed about being in the plane again. Falling and falling. Then hitting the waters. Then there comes the bodies. Bloodied. Faces morphed. Gutts on the floors...

I shivered at the memory.

I woke up at around 3 am. I didn't bother to go back to sleep in case I'll dream of that nightmare again. No. Not nightmare. It was real. It did happen. 

I already took a shower and was now wearing a gray and white jumpsuit from the closet. The bathroom door itself operate via touch and scan. Inside is also customizable if you use the conrol panel, but I opted for a shower with a heater, a lavatorya and a toilet.

For now at least. 

The jumpsuit that I wore looks constricting, but it was actually light and cool. It did not restrict my movements and it doesn't even block air. 

I was laying down on my bed as I scrolled through the holographic control panel. The thing thing that I am amazed is that you can add a one way window to your room. The concept is similar to a one-way mirror, where you can see the view on one side, but not on the opposite side.

I started scanning through other furnitures and frowned when I saw some weird decorations. My brow furrowed as I was about to scroll down when the control panel suddenly beeped.

"Miss Nathalia, I have come to pick you up." A video image of Skyr suddenly popped out of the tablet. I yelped and my hands immediately flew, hoping to close the video and image of Skyr on the tablet. Unfortunately, all it did was add some random decoration in my room such as a lucky cat, a chainsaw, a human size poster of a star, bear rag, and a skeletal system. I cursed as I tried to exit the screen so I can clear up the unwanted furnitures.

I saw Skyr frowning as if he can see me from the other side. Wait, can he acctually see me? "Miss Nathalia, stop waving and come down." He said. I cursed. So he can see me. Great. "Miss Nathalia, if you won't come out, I'll have to drag you out myself."

"You can't!" I said immedaitely and looked at the mess in the room. "I'm...not decent."

"You should be concerned about your indecent action of tardiness." He said and the more I tried to fix it, the more random furniture was beng created.

"I'm going. I'm going!" I placed the tablet down and came face to face with a hanging skeleton head of a T-rex. I screamed.

"Miss Nathalia? Miss Nathalia! I am going in."

"Don't-" I tried to say, but my pod suddenly opened and Skyr, wearing the same gray jumpsuit as me, jumped in. I was sitting on my floor as I hid behind the T-Rex skeleton in embarassment when I saw Skyr having a surprised look on his face.

"C-can we go now?" I offered. Wanting to be rid of this awkward situation. Stupid tablet and futuristic decoration.

Skyr seemed to snap back to reality as he turned is back to me. "Follow me." Were his only words before he jumped out. 

I glared at the T-Rex skeleton. "I'll get rid of you later." I whispered as I followed Skyr down. 

Our eyes met and Skyr immediately cleared his throat. "Listen, here in Atlantis, we do not criticize each other's preference so-"

"Can we just go?" I cut him off.

"Right." Skyr nodded.

                                                                   ***

Skyr guided me to what seems to be a cafeteria just beside the huge white dome that I saw yesterday. I did not noticed it before, but just at the opposite side of where I we were standing, there were actually other facilities that the dome covered from our view.

Skyr handed me a bracelet similar to his. It was a thin bracelet that imediately hugged my wrist just as he attached it. "This will serve as your identification card. You can use this to get your ration of food and to enter facilities that you are permitted to. Breakfast is at 6-7am, lunch at 12-1pm, and Dinner at 6-8pm. If you miss it then you can't eat. We have two snacks that you can claim anytime."

We walked towards one of the huge disk like machine where people were lining up. Once it was our turn, Skyr looked towards me to make sure that I was looking. "Scan your bracelet here." He said and placed the bracelet on the scanner for a few millisecond. There was a short beep and holographic window suddenly emerged. "Then you just click what you want and done." I saw him tapping on the window and then it vanished. The table below opened and a tray of food popped out. "Now you try."

I did as he asked and scanned my bracelet. The same window popped out and I finally got a good loook of the menu. All in all there were a variety of food combination to choose from. All were seafood and the ocational sea snake meat with a side of sea like vegetables. I clicked the one with the salmon and crab meat since it was the most familiar dish I saw. The window was no replace by the food tray in front of me. I took it and followed Skyr to look for a place to sit.

"Skyr!" A man called out from one of the table. The man has a white blonde hair and gray eyes. He was wearing a white jumpsuit like the rest of the people from the table where he was sitting.

Skyr clicked in tongue in annoyance, but gestured for me to follow him. As we neard the table, the man changed his glance from Skyr to me. He tilted his head to the side and looked at me. Then his curious glance was replaced with a teasing one that he aimed Skyr. "Look guys! Our general is escorting a girl." He announce. The people sitting ont he table gave him a supporting applause and cheered.

Skyr didn't seem amused as he gave the man a death look. "Jack, 30 laps, 500 pushup, 1000 squats, and 300 jump overs. And if the rest of you won't stop clapping like seals then you will have to join him." Jack's face seem to drop while the others immediately busied themselves by eating.

I looked at Skyr with wide eyes. I am not athelete but I can safely assume that the punishment that he gave Jack seems like a death sentence.

"Come on, general!" Jack protested as he looked at him in disbelief. "I was just kidding!"

Skyr ignored him and gestured for me to sit on the table. A girl with brown hair and yellow eyes grinned as she moved to give us a space to sit. I gave her a small smile as I sat beside her. Skyr followed and sat beside me. "This is one the new freirs. Her name is Nathalia Trace."

"Freirs?" I asked. The word sounded weird in my mouth.

"It's what we call the people who's blood passes the minimum requirement to use our Atlantean abilities." A man with dyed green hair and sea green eyes said. "My name is Watson, by the way." He reached out a hand for me to shake. It took it. "I asssume you met Jack." He pointed to the guy, who was now pouting at Skyr. "Then there's Emily." He said and pointed to the girl beside me.

Emily smiled is a petite girl with freackles on her cheek. By the looks of her I can guess that she's half Asian and American. "Hey!" She smiled and shook my hand in greeting. "It's been so long since we had a new freir."

"Right." I said and gave Skyr a look as I remembered someone. "What about Rachel? She's a freir too, right? Where is she?"

"She's doing fine. Asleep though. She recovered physically but she is still mentally traumatised."

At this, Jack stopped pouted as finally joined the conversation. "Traumatised? That bad?" He asked.

"She lost her unborn child." I said defensively. Not liking his tone. "Why? Haven't you guys experienced the same crash?"

"What crash?" Jack asked. 

"Plane crash with..." I shook my head at the thought since I do not want to loose my appetite. "How did you guys get here?"

"I was in a car crash when a lady named Jessica saved me." Jack said. "Watson was in a hospital that was being raided by soldiers. Emily had her grandparent's farm burned down as they tried to capture her. Lucky for us that we were saved in time."

"My grandparents died from a gunshot that caused the fire." Emily whispered beside me. Her gaze focused on the food in front of her.

"Point is." Watson says to change the subject. "None of us are safe in the surface anymore. All we can do is train so we can help others like us."

Jack slammed his fist on the table. "I know I got out of it lightly, but the others...I'm sorry." He told me. "I just can't believe that they would go through such lengths just to capture people like us. Our taxes are being used just to fund that kind of barbaric practice!"

Emily finally seemed to recover. She looked at me in curiosity. "Have you decided to join the front liners?"

I blinked. "The what?"

"She hasn't decided what job she'll take." Skyr said beside me. And when he saw my questioning look he answered, "Front liners are like soldiers. It's a job that only freirs can apply because of our abilities. We train the new recruits like them" He pointed at the three people around the table. "in order to help us rescue more people your youself. The more people who joins us the more people we can save."

"Plus, you get to wear these cool white training jumpsuits!" Jack beamed. "Who says jumpsuits trends are over!?"

Watson gave Jack a look as he patted his back while Skyr shook his head and gave Jack his plate of salad. "Jack. Eat. Stop talking."

And that was the end of our conversation as we continued to eat.

                                                                     ***

After breakfast, we separated with Jack, Watson, and Emily since it is about time for them to train. Skyr lead us along the path where various green houses stood. I saw people wearing green jumpsuits walking around. I saw a man pressing a button on a tablet and hovering spheres started to water the plants. Another was pushing a hovering cart full of stranged water plants that I assume are seedlings.

Whenever they see Skyr, they would call out and greet him. Skyr would simply nod and wave his hand at them in acknowlesdgement. 

"You seem popular." I said.

"I was part of the team that help retrieve them."

"They were also recued?"

"Yes." He said and gestured around him. "This is our green house where we grow the vegetables. To your far right is the fish arm. If ever you choose not to join the front liners then you can join the Weavers. They specialize in agriculture."

"Is this the job that others poeple who cant become front liners do?" I asked.

"Mostly, yes. There are still a lot of jobs out there that you can do. But I do hope that you join the front liners." He said as we crossed a bridge with buzzing drones feeding the small fishes below us. "We don't get much friers these days."

I looked at him with a raised brow. "What about the Atlanteans born and raised here?"

"There aren't that much of them left, but they are out there." He says and we watched as two men carried a large salmon off of the manmade pool. A robotic drone came and helped the man drop the salmon in a hovering container. "They are currently on a mission to invade government facilities and rescue more people who are being tortured out there."

We started walking again. This time headed towards towards the far right. But before that, we stopped as Skyr pointed at our other side. "That's where the others are staying. It's kind of plane looking but it is the most grounded design that we could...provide. I think it resembles an apartment building in your world?"

No it doesn't look like an apartment building!

What I am looking at right now is similar to one of those tree lamps from online shops. The 'building' has a huge stem with small spheres at the bottom. I saw people riding them and carry people to the larger spheres on the 'building's branches'. 

Yeah. Apartment my ass.

"What are those?" I asked.

"It's their rooms."

"Can I move there?"

At this, SKyr gave me a look. "I thought you like your new place. The pods are bigger than their room. And it gets bigger the taller it gets."

I cringed. "It...grows?" I asked dreadfully.

"The more your Atlantean abilities progress, the more that it grows. The pods are actually a combination of organic and technological investions made by our scientists." He said. "And I thought you like your room? I mean, you already took the liberty to-"

"I'll stay in the pod! I get it. Can we go now?"

Skyr started leaded us to what he calls the research facility. Apparantly, it is also one of the jobs that we can take. Sadly we cannot enter it unless we decide to join. To join, the new recruits would be tested of their intelligence one week after entering Atlantist. He says that most non freirs awaken a dominant skill of intelligence the longer they stay. They can either join the research facility or practice medicine.

I looked at Skyr as he lead us towards their medical facility. It might be late for me to wonder about this but they really obsses about domes and circular facilities. And you can only guess what the medical facility looks like. A dome.

A freaking solid white and glass dome. We passed through glass doors that slid open as we got near. People wearing light blue jumpsuits and lab gowns greeted us. Well more like greeted Skyr.

"What are we doing here?" I asked.

Skyr lead us towards the white aluminum floors and faced of of the many doors along the hallway. He paused in front of it a he gave me a smirk. "To visit a friend of yours." He said and then placed a hand on the scanner. It opened and we went inside.