[Original Novel] Metal Fever 2: The Erasure of Asherah, Part 6

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I chose a seat at the far end with my back to the hull, so nobody could get the drop on us and I could scope out everybody else who entered. I was expecting thugs. Instead, a muscular looking woman with angry eyes and a mess of black, curly hair stormed in.

“You think you slick? You think you sneak by me? Come here for brothel like always, bastard!” I looked at Dad, also baffled by the unfolding spectacle. “You pay child support! Three months no pay! You think I no find you? I know you come here for whore! Always with the whores, I tell parole officer!”

I slowly got up, holding my hands out in front of me in a futile bid to calm the furious hurricane of a woman. “Listen, I think you have me confused for someone else. If you settle down and explain to me what you-” She slapped me hard, surprising me more than anything as I instinctively expected her to injure her hand on a metal faceplate which is no longer present.

“Three months! No child support! Trash barge! Pig man!” I protested that I was transplanted into this body less than an hour ago, and the man she wanted is probably long gone. “I not fall for that again! You try that last time! Pay child support! Dongmei starting school! You pay for clothes! You pay for meals!”

My ocular implants auto-scanned her face and brought up all relevant search results, revealing that she’d once starred in a couple of VR pornos. I judiciously decided that now would be a bad time for a boner, and closed out of the search.

The entire time I was doing that, she just kept screaming insults and hitting me. I winced, the closed-in acoustics of the submersible hull amplifying her every shriek. I asked Dad if Alejandro gave him anything like a receipt. Of course he didn’t, not wanting a paper trail proving he’d worked on me. I didn’t want one either up until now.

I kept protesting that she had me confused with whoever’s body this was before. She wasn’t having it, so instead I started to play along. “That’s right! I came down here for whores! Is that what you want to hear?” She stared at me in shock, so I carried on.

“There’s nothing left for child support! I spent all my savings on a mountain of oiled up whores! Then I buried myself in it like a pile of freshly raked autumn leaves! It was like a cozy fort in there. I think the ones at the bottom of the pile may have suffocated, but they knew the risks!”

Her scowl slowly morphed into an expression of confusion, then placid sobriety. “You really not him, are you.” I held my hands out to my sides in earnest surrender. She sighed. “Didn’t think so, he would deny forever. Sorry for making scene. Now I never find that bastard.”

I offered her a DNA sample. She declined, explaining that he’d already left plenty of DNA all over her residorm through the years. That was the end of it. I’d have wished her well but she was so done with everything that she cleared out of the sub before I could say another word.

The ruckus deterred anybody else from boarding, so we had the sub all to ourselves on the way up. The same tedious docking process now played out in reverse. The inner hatch swung shut, locked tightly against the rubber o-ring.

Then the unseen outer door shut, signified by the dull thud I could both hear and feel through my seat. Brief, audible whooshing as the space between the closed doors equalized with the ocean and flooded with seawater.

Then at last, the now-familiar lurch as the sub pulled away from the docking collar. What an elaborate mating dance it is, all to keep us small soft humans insulated from the monstrous weight of the ocean.

I then heard and felt the ballast tanks purging, and the sub began to rise. I looked to Dad for explanation. “The cables mostly just keep the vertical path of ascent and descent aligned with the habitat. The ballast tanks still do most of the work of raising and lowering the sub.”

I expected the currents to become stronger as we approached the surface, on account of the storm. Instead the moon pool was perfectly calm when we surfaced through it. It didn’t make sense until Dad and I emerged from the stairwell into the sunshine.

“Where’s the storm?” Dad laughed and slapped my back. “That’s what I said the first time, too. The habitat is deep enough that it’s totally insulated from storm currents. Like two different worlds. No day or night down there, no indication at all of whatever’s happening topside.”

I wondered aloud why anybody would choose to live down there full time. “It’s peaceful” Dad objected. “I can absolutely understand the appeal, even if it’s not for me. The subsea crowd and the topsiders mostly keep to their own, like oil and water. Very different mindsets.”

I suppose there’s no better way to really get away from it all. I never really considered the option before...but then again, even in a place like this I managed to get noticed.

Dad made a few thinly veiled pleas for me to stay longer, as if I didn’t desperately want to. But he saw the same goons I did. He knows it has to be this way. I couldn’t very well get halfway around the world by air taxi, and so wound up taking a speedboat to a floating airport.

When I voiced my nervous feelings about the only recently abated storm, the captain of the sleek orange vessel assured me that trips were timed to avoid storm activity and gas ‘burps’ from the sea bed.

I had no reason not to believe him. Presumably this little gig is how he pays the bills, and he looks to be in one piece. Still, the man looked as ragged as a carnie, head engulfed by a ratty beard which at some point in his life had graduated to a full blown mane.

He and everyone else on the little boat wore torn, faded tank tops, swim trunks and flip flops. Something told me I would be too if I knew conshelf life better. Each also wore what looked like a soda can sized air tank with integrated regulator on a lanyard around their necks.

When I asked about that, the captain became visibly annoyed by the distraction but answered over his shoulder that anybody out here who knows their ass from their elbow carries at least a modest air supply on their person.

I sheepishly sunk into my seat somewhat and resolved to keep my trap shut for the remainder of the journey. I was now getting the occasional curious stare from other passengers who must’ve assumed by my appearance that I was an old salt, only to then hear me asking tourist grade questions.

Not even an hour away from Dad’s seastead and already I was attracting more unwanted attention. I learn quickly though, and resolved not to open my mouth going forward unless my immediate goals required it.

The silence gave me a chance to savor the feeling of salty ocean wind rushing through my hair. Of all the considerations when I had my fullmetal surgery, it somehow never occurred to me that I’d miss having hair.

Soon, the airport loomed into view over the horizon. A stunning sight, curvilinear white structural elements mounted to cylindrical concrete ocean spars swooping this way and that, coming together to support the tremendous flat deck which planes landed on and took off from.

As if arranged for our arrival, a plane eased into a soft landing at the far end of the platform. It abruptly slowed, presumably by the same type of capture harness I knew were used aboard aircraft carriers.

I heard nothing like the cacophony of jet engines. Nor had I seen the usual drum shaped protuberances slung beneath its wings. Thinking back to the electrically levitated air taxi, I realized yet again the extent of what can happen in six years and set about ordering a ticket through my ocular interface.

It spewed ads at me for all manner of foul, skinner box style freemium games in the process. My ad blocker killed most of them but I had to manually shut down the rest, including an obnoxious flashy pop-under for something called Speed Foam.

“Speed Foam! Yeah! It’s like Velocity Valerie, classic Speed Foam Mascot always says: “I’m Velocity Valerie, the classic Speed Foam Mascot”. YEAH! SPEEDFOAM!”

I was curious enough about what “speed foam” could possibly be for that I nearly ordered some just to find out. Does it make whatever you put it on faster, foamier, or both? But as yet, I had no permanent address and distressingly little coin to my name.

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^{Stay Tuned for Part 7!}