“I thought your mom worked in the Ocean District?”
“She does, it’s just that she must be in the Central District for some reason. I don’t know.”
“Where are we?” I peered over into one of the rooms and my eyes began to widen.
Ignoring Dylan, I found myself drawn to the room on the right. Walking inside, I felt like I’d entered a portal into the past. Thin blue carpet covered the floors, but on every inch of the walls were bookcases filled to the brim with physical books. My eyes trailed up six floors of bookcases and walkways. Lifts placed in every corner of the room took readers up to the next level where a walkway wrapped around the perimeter. On each level, people walked around collecting books and using the lifts to bring them down to the collage of desks scattered on the first floor.
“Welcome to the Archive Relic Books Collection,” whispered Dylan from behind me.
“I’ve never seen a physical book before.” Mentally, I tried to count how many books there were, but I quickly lost count.
“Really? These books are classic volumes in all different categories of literature and science.”
“Still…this is amazing.” Finding the nearest bookshelf, I made a beeline over to it and at random pulled a volume off the shelf. Carefully opening the large volume, resting it across both my hands and arms, I attempted to read the title, but it was in French.
“Oh, this is unbelievable! In a city of four million people, she had to be the one to follow me.” Dylan sighed in frustration. “Allie, put the book back on the shelf.”
I turned the page, reading the English within the book. I wasn’t ready to let go of the first physical book I’d ever held in my entire life.
“Allie,” urgently pressed Dylan.
When I ignored him yet again, he somehow gently snatched the book from my hands and put it back on the shelf. “My mom is here. She’s at the circulation desk.”
I glanced over at Dylan’s now crouched form to see a tall woman in the aqua blue suits that dominated the Ocean District.
“We have to get out of here. Luckily, this side is the literature section, so she should be going in the other direction.”
A loud thud echoed through the room, causing both Dylan and me to whip our heads over to see what had happened. Someone had tripped and dropped a load of books on the ground two levels up. Everyone at the circulation desk had glanced over too. Not knowing what else to do, I simply averted my eyes.
“Dylan, is there any way out of this room besides the archway?” I whispered.
“No, we have to pass the circulation desk.” Dylan still hunched over in a crouched position as if he were tying his shoes. “We’ll have to hope someone else makes a distraction and we can go. Tell me, is she still gazing this way?”
I glanced over at the front room. Both Dylan’s mom and the two women at the front desk had already started talking to one another again. Dylan’s mom turned her head towards the archway opposite ours as the woman at the front desk pointed to it. “She’s not looking this away at all.”
“Good.” Dylan took my hand and we rushed past the front door and into the stairwell.
“Don’t you guys have elevators here?” I wondered.
“Yes, but most people take the elevators and since I’m trying to keep you from being noticed by anyone who also knows me, the stairs are the best way to get around.” We reached the lobby and swiftly exited the building. “I need to get you out of Central. Lunchtime is over and everyone is returning to their jobs. It’s a bad time to be here.”
Reducing our pace to a casual walk, we went straight to the nearest train stop and boarded a train with an orange stripe. Basically empty, compared to the crowded one we had taken to get to Central, the only other occupants were an elderly couple sitting at the far end away from us.
I sat quietly most of the way, taking in the sights as the buildings thinned out as we left Central behind. Dylan pointed out any places of interest on the way there. We crossed the main residential district that boasted a park full of what I assumed to be more artificial trees and turf grass, but there was a playground for kids and also a pool.
Perplexed, I asked Dylan. “Where do you get your clean drinking water?”
“It’s relatively simple, actually.” Dylan shifted in his seat to face me better. “Seawater is distilled through a distillation apparatus specifically designed for Oceania. Hydrogen gas is used to heat the seawater into vapor to separate the water from the salts. Once the salt is removed, the vapor is cooled in order to return it to its aqueous form. That’s done by running the water through external tubes with minimal insulation lying on the ocean floor right outside the city. Due to the cold water of the ocean, the vapor is cooled into near freezing water. But we also obtain water in other ways.”
“What kind of other ways?”
“Well, water is generated by everyone in the city by the natural processes of living. Every time we breathe, moisture from inside our bodies accompanies each exhalation. We also perspire when we exercise or get overheated and everyone urinates. Just like in the above world where water naturally evaporates and is returned to the earth via precipitation, we have dehumidifiers here that can do that. They collect every molecule of H2O, use filters to clean it, and then afterward, the cleanest water is used for drinking, cooking, and bathing. Anything else is used for the botanical garden and crops. Our systems are analogous to those once used in
