Ship in the Desert

What Abda Wants

Abda awoke, wrapped her canvas hammock, to the familiar site of her cluttered desk staring back at her from the opposite wall of her snug one bedroom cabin aboard the 0asis.

"Come on Abda! Cap, just said we can expect Plastic Beach to be waveside all day! Oh sorry, did I wake you?" yelled Castle bursting into her room.

"No I was up, if just barely. Did you say waveside all day?"

"Why else do you think I'm wearing my swim gear? Plus I've been working on my newest spearfishing prototype. See?" Castle holds out his prized possession. It's a bulky looking contraption inches from Abda's face. Bits of rust speckle the pole and paint chips start to float to the floor.

"Wow Castle, that looks great," she lies.

"I know, right? Let's get a move on before all the prime real estate gets taken!"

"How's the weather today, Castle?" Abda asks

Castle steps towards the door. "We're in the middle of the desert Abda sooo," he flings her cabin door open, "Sunny!" Castle runs down the narrow walkway connecting the row of cabins to the rest of the ship.

0asis is a retrofitted Giga Class Aircraft Carrier. The flight deck has been removed and filled with water so the sea planes that populate Earth Ultima can take off and land, if the can find it. While 0asis is huge relative to the average sized person it is a needle in a haystack compared the Earth Ultima's continent spanning desert. 0asis has been circling the desert since her people were run off by the two competing superpowers of Earth Ultima and for most aboard 0asis is the only home they've ever known.

Plastic Beach squeaked underfoot as Abda and Castle precariously made their way down to the breaking shoreline on the top deck of the lumbering caterpillar-track carrier. Two foot waves gently crashed against the sand as Abda set up camp for the day. Castle made a beeline for the shore while making some last minute adjustments to his harpoon. Menacingly large fins glided atop the rolling waters before dipping back beneath the surface as Castle began to wade through the water in their direction.

"Be careful, Castle!"

"You know me Abda, I'm always careful," yelled Castle before diving into the breaking waves.

Abda began to glow a bright shade of green as the chlorophyll in her skin reacted to the sun. Minutes passed before another word from Castle but Abda wasn't worried. Castle, like most people living on 0asis, had the ability to hold his breath for up to an hour. They had descended from a group living close to the water during the Zero Event and had retained most of the mutations that enabled them to live in the water as comfortably as on land. Some of the elders onboard would tell stories about people who had changed so much that they had no choice but to remain in the water, permanently. Even on a boat full of extraordinary beings Abda still stood out for her particular mutations. She needed very little food and could survive almost entirely on oxygen and nutrients she filtered from the sea water but even half a day without light from the sun and she would be bedridden. After a week in darkness she'd never wake to see the sun again. Lucky for Abda in the great desert wasteland of Earth Ultima's interior there was always plenty of sun.

"Abda, I got one!" yelled Castle.

A brightly colored koi twice the length of Castle leapt out of the water with a gleaming hook in its mouth. The slack string left on the water's surface quickly tightened as the fish began to dive and sprint towards the back of the ship. As the remaining spool on Castle's rig ran out the harpoon mechanism gave off a high pitched whistle.

"Uh oh," squeaked out Castle before being violently tugged underwater.

"Castle you better not hurt him! And get that hook out of his mouth!" Abda shouted at the rippling water where moments before Castle had been standing triumphantly. The elders aboard who cared for the koi would not be amused by Castle's antics. Abda had already been punished enough for being associated with Castle and she had no intention of ruining a perfectly good day by indulging him further.

"I'm ok," Castle choked out after emerging from the water a couple hundred feet away, his head caked in wet sand.

"Woo hoo," Abda responded sarcastically, halfheartedly waving her hands in celebration. "You're lucky Rio didn't catch you messing with his favorite.."

"Who cares about Rio's stupid fish. There relics of a past most of us aren't old enough to even remember." Ever since Abda, Castle and those like them had to flee the coasts of Earth Ultima for safer harbor inland aboard the monstrous treadborn 0asis. The 0asis was a tiny harbor surrounded by thousands of miles of inhospitable desert. Abda and Castle had called the place home all their lives. Only the elders remembered how the other Locals had turned against them over time. The others slowly came to feel that those with special powers should serve the greater good. Believing their freedom to be in jeopardy the gifted few fled inland. They quickly stumbled across a stranded ship miles from the nearest body of water. After a few years of study and repair they finally set sail across the desert in an endless circle. Only a fortunate few on Earth Ultima have the radio frequencies and route schedule. The doomed pilgrimages hopelessly searching for 0asis were scavenged whenever the ship came across a wreck. These crash sites served as excellent sources of information, supplies, and building materials for those aboard.

"You don't mean that Castle," Abda snorted. "We finally have a chance to get off this bucket of bolts, see what's out there and your first instinct is to spit in the face of those deciding who gets to go?"

"Well when you say it like that." Castle knew that Abda wanted to see the world more than anything else. Maybe that's why he did what he did?