The New Humans

Chapter 19

Once everyone had gone, Ash picked up the ball and went to the water's edge. He took a few steps into the water, dove in and swam an awkward breaststroke, holding the ball in one hand. Every so often he glanced at the ball to see if it had sent other messages. He looked back, had swum for approximately sixty yards, then swam again for thirty feet to the left.

He stopped, there was nothing there, the bathers were just a blur from that distance. He tried to dive to check if at least there was something underwater. Deep down the water was colder, and the seabed was littered with rocks. He swam down and spotted a pole of rusted iron ten feet underwater. He tried to approach that, but struggled to stay down; his body wanting to return to the surface. He tried to concentrate, as Adam told him You decide what to do. He swam closer to the pole and grabbed it. He tugged at the pole but nothing happened. When he tugged it a second time, the pole bent towards Ash like a lever.

The rocks around the pole moved apart and opened a gap as wide as his head. A white liquid flowed from it. The water swirled around him faster and faster, turning into a vortex. Ash tried to return to the top, but as soon as he reached the surface a current pulled him back down. He tried again, but a force kept pulling him to the bottom. Then, in front of him, the water compacted to create a sphere five feet in diameter. Cavities formed, shimmering in its surface, until it resembled a skull.

"My life might last a few hours." The voice hissed like a snake and made Ash tremble. "What I produce devours me. Thin I am fast, large I am slow, and the wind frightens me so. Who am I?"

Was it a riddle? Ash was so awestruck that he hadn't fully understood the question. He went over it again. My life lasts a few hours: could it be a butterfly? The bigger they were, the slower they flew, but they weren't frightened by the wind. What I produce devours me: the memory of some insects who eat their parents came to Ash's mind. No, it had to be something simpler. Who was afraid of the wind? Fire. And one could also say that fire devoured what it destroyed in its passage. Maybe the answer was a fireplace? No, the speed with which wood burned didn't depend on the width of the brazier. More likely it was . . .

Ash couldn't hold his breath much longer. Expelling precious air, he said, "A candle."

Under the water the word left his lips like an incomprehensible sound, but the skull bowed in a sign of assent.

"This thing all things devours: birds, beasts, trees, flowers. Gnaws iron, bites steel; grinds hard stones to meal. Slays king, ruins town, and beats high mountain down."

What devoured everything? What gnawed iron? Ash had no more breath left; his lungs were collapsing into themselves like bags from which all the air had been sucked. He tried saying, "Rain."

A vortex of water pushed him down and threw him against the rocks. What slayed kings, ruined towns? Ash blew out the last ounce of oxygen he had in his body. "Time!"

Then the face made of water disintegrated and the rocks which had opened before into a small gap moved again until a huge chasm formed in the sea, sucking at the water that surrounded him. The current dragged Ash into a dry passage that seemed like some kind of chute. He vomited out all the water he had swallowed and opened his mouth trying to breathe in as much air as possible.

There was water on the chute, under his back, and it made him slide very fast. Ash felt as though he had traveled almost a mile on that ramp, until he fell onto a concrete floor covered by about four inches of water.

What had happened? He tried to think logically. Probably in that stretch of sea there were nanorobots that had shaped the water. Ash had read about these technologies; they were molecules that could be controlled through an external electric field. They could be included in any solid, liquid, or gaseous substance and, as they moved, they pushed all the other molecules of the compound, causing the substances to move when commanded. The fire brigade used them to extinguish fires at specific points, and Ash had heard too of flamethrowers that shot remotely controlled jets of fire.

Ash lifted his head and looked around. He had fallen into an open space similar to a sewer but surrounded by metal walls. There was no ceiling, only endless walls. In the middle of the room was a cabin, like a cable car.

Could it be this was the tunnel to the city of savants?