Aqueous

Jade Shyback

Description

• BOOK 1 FROM THE AQUEOUS SERIES from a debut Canadian writer!
• A YA science fiction thriller about a future in which humans live in merstations under the sea!
• FOR FANS OF K. A. Riley’s The Cure and Alechia Dow’s The Sound of Stars!

Sujets

• Univers ado
• Imaginaire
• Fiction ado
• Fiction Ado
• Fantasy
• Cuvier
• Blaise
• Contemporary
• Marisol
• General
• General officer
• Monterey Canyon
• Contemporary history
• Fantasy (canción de Mariah Carey)
• Coming of Age
• Young Adult Fiction
• Dystopian

Informations

• Publié par: Red Hen Press
• Date de parution: 02 mai 2023
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781939096104
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Aqueous
Copyright © 2023 by Jade Shyback
All Rights Reserved
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the prior written permission of both the publisher and the copyright owner.
Book design by Mark E. Cull
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Shyback, Jade, 1973– author.
Title: Aqueous: a novel / Jade Shyback.
Description: First edition. | Pasadena, CA: Xeno, 2023.
Identifiers: LCCN 2022019365 (print) | LCCN 2022019366 (ebook) | ISBN 9781939096098 (paperback) | ISBN 9781939096104 (ebook)
Subjects: CYAC: Undersea colonies—Fiction. | Survival—Fiction. | Environmental degradation—Fiction. | Science fiction. | LCGFT: Science fiction. | Bildungsromans. | Novels.
Classification: LCC PZ7.1.S51873 Aq 2023 (print) | LCC PZ7.1.S51873 (ebook) | DDC [Fic]—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022019365
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022019366
The National Endowment for the Arts, the Los Angeles County Arts Commission, the Ahmanson Foundation, the Dwight Stuart Youth Fund, the Max Factor Family Foundation, the Pasadena Tournament of Roses Foundation, the Pasadena Arts & Culture Commission and the City of Pasadena Cultural Affairs Division, the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, the Audrey & Sydney Irmas Charitable Foundation, the Kinder Morgan Foundation, the Meta & George Rosenberg Foundation, the Albert and Elaine Borchard Foundation, the Adams Family Foundation, the Riordan Foundation, Amazon Literary Partnership, the Sam Francis Foundation, and the Mara W. Breech Foundation partially support Red Hen Press.

First Edition
Published by Xeno Books
An imprint of Red Hen Press
Pasadena, CA
www.redhen.org
This is a work of fiction. The names of characters, animals, businesses, places, events, inventions, and incidents in this book are the product of the author’s imagination and used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons (living or dead), actual animals, actual businesses, actual places, actual events, actual inventions, or actual incidents is purely coincidental.
For Nat Sapach, who told me I was good at this.
And for me, who believed him.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR

CHAPTER ONE
I missed the sun. I missed its warmth on a breeze that tickled my skin, and the blinding effect of its stare. I dreamt of running beneath it, breathless, chased by the laughter of sun-kissed siblings. Bleached locks and tan skin were the fleeting recollections of my terrestrial childhood lost, but the ocean created amazement too. It orchestrated new memories that I was thankful for, and the view from my pod was unarguably magnificent—a vast seafloor aglow with life. A place where fantastic creatures floated by, winding their way through the waving gardens our botanists had engineered. New species discovered us as we discovered them, curiously approaching the glass to observe humankind, or what was left of it.
I was a lucky one, one of the few who remained, and I was trained to understand that there was no benefit in longing for a time that had perished in the sun. Besides, my subterranean plant taxonomy catalogue wasn’t going to log itself. It was time to snap out of the past and into to the present, so I pivoted my chair away from the glass, back toward my desk.
I’ve lived most of my life two and a half kilometers below sea level in subterranean merstation number three, also known as Aqueous— an underwater utopia created during an ecological coup to save the human race. The mini-pod that I occupy is standard-issue for a trainee my age, and acts as my floating, spherical bedroom underneath the sea. Made of syntactic foam and borosilicate glass, it has translucency for privacy and transparency for optimal environmental observation. Tethered above a common corridor and uniquely designed, mini-pods seal with a bottom airlock so that in the event of an emergency, not that we have ever had one, they could automatically detach, allowing the pod and its inhabitant to drift upward and become, in theory, a one-way ticket to the surface, not that anyone would want to go there.
The shell of each mini-pod contains identical furnishings. My pod, MP124, has the all-important learning nook complete with desk, chair, keypad, and monitor. There are two bookshelves located above the desk that, for the most part, are never used because the educational manuscripts and essays studied by trainees are stored on the shared drive. I keep, however, a small yellowed satchel of beads on the lower shelf. It’s the only item that I own.
My berth, positioned above the nook, is a starry planetarium of twinkling station lights. It’s an observatory of departments towering high above my pod where the corridors and gathering spaces of Aqueous stand at attention, illuminating the surrounding water. As a comforting nightlight, it’s breathtaking, and I mean that quite literally. Outside of the glass, I would not be able to breathe.
My clothes hang aligned, hooked to the side of the nook. The few outfits I have are standard-issue based on rank and will be surrendered when my rank changes. Currently, I am ranked Y10 and have been allocated Standard-Issue Dress (SID) to reflect this. Like all Y10s, I have daytime SIDs, athletic SIDs, dinner SIDs, formal SIDs, casual SIDs, and sleeping SIDs. The residents of Aqueous are valued equally, making uniformity paramount.
Behind the nook is the lav, containing only the essentials: a sink, a washlet, a shower, and the tiniest mirror imaginable because while cleanliness is necessary, vanity is not. I am given one small towel per week, never any paper, and the all-in-one cleanser is restocked sparingly. To make matters worse, minimal water consumption is expected. Showers are not only timed, they’re infrequent. Washing thoroughly, quickly, is imperative because beneath the floor of each pod is an elimination chamber designed to recycle all waste. Reusing the water too soon increases the likelihood of becoming very, very sick.
In stark contrast to the ocean beyond, everything in a mini-pod is bright white. I was taught that this, in conjunction with applied photonics, counteracted the negative psychological effects of life in the dark, but our superiors liked to jest that the all-bright-white eliminated the mess associated with teenage bedrooms. It was difficult to imagine mess in the absence of possessions.
I was staring absentmindedly at my taxonomy catalogue.
Ugh.
I pivoted back to the glass once again, abandoning my log to return to the magic of the undersea. The minimalistic design of my mini-pod did not extend beyond the glass. The waters of Monterey Canyon provided a spectacle of habitats to delight any young observer. From cavernous walls, to rocky outcroppings, and sandy sea-floor, it was an aquatic playground of magnificent proportion. Pink, pompom anemones waved at comb jellies as fangtooth fish swam by. Tiny flapjack octopi propelled themselves through the saline as the ominous anglerfish searched for its next snack. It was a seafloor performance of endless entertainment until it was interrupted by my AI Assistant.
“ATTENTION. ATTENTION. Empyreal Blaise has identified at your airlock,” it alerted.
I quickly tapped the release, allowing an elegant woman to ascend. Irrefutably the most beautiful resident on Aqueous, I never tired of her pleasant face. Wide-eyed with high cheekbones and a long golden mane, she was effortlessly regal and every inch the admiral’s wife. Her hair was routinely knotted at the nape of her neck, emphasizing her height, and her lean frame allowed her SIDs to drape favorably over a heart true and pure. She was heaven personified. Intelligent and poised, her counsel was sought by many, making her an unofficial ambassador of the station, and a wave of calm washed over me as her expression relaxed into a loving smile.
“Oh Marisol, you have the look of a lost little lamb. Are you still hard at work?” she asked, floating toward me with outstretched arms to gather me into her familiar embrace.
A lamb . . . What did a lamb look like again?
There were too many marine species to catalogue to consider the characteristics of a lamb. I disentangled myself from her long limbs.
“I’m stressed. I have no idea how I am going to get everything done before graduation. I’ve got to finish my taxonomy report, curate bacteria samples, review my labs on carbon cycling, finish the assigned code review, and log a few more hours of simulated dives. My thesis is nowhere near completion and grad is a week away, followed immediately by the anniversary.”
“But you’ll have a chance to relax at your party.”
“I appreciate that you want to celebrate my birthday, but could we postpone it? Or better yet, skip it altogether? I have no time for a frivolous party.”
“There’s always time for a party when you’re turning sixteen. You’re growing up too quickly for my liking,” she said, stepping back slightly to scrutinize my overall well-being. Her visual analysis always made me uncomfortable because we did not look alike. My small stature was shadowed by her towering height and my hair had browned during a decade in the dark.
She glanced around the room.
“You’ll have your new pod and assignment soon. I’m so proud of you, Marisol. You’ve accomplished so much in ten short years, but many of those same accomplishments will be celebrated collectively by the Y10s at graduation, an