Chapter 24: Their Fears

“You’re going to Gran Andes and you need a way to carry a lot of things?” Celia recalled An asking her, “well you’re in luck because there’s something you should know about the country of Gran Andes!”

Airships, Celia remembered her saying.

In Gran Andes, one of the methods of transportation other than subways was the use of giant airships that floated a couple hundred meters below the tropodome. They were huge, relatively slow, and relied heavily on hovercraft technology working together with the Earth’s magnetic field to stay afloat.

“They’re actually used quite commonly in the U.C.A as well,” An mentioned, “it’s only this side of the hemisphere that doesn’t seem to like them much. The buildings of the Silk Axis and Euracia are way too tall and densely packed for airship use, and as for Ubuntara and the Oceanic Alliance, both countries have too much sand and/or water, which interferes with the hover tech it uses to stay afloat. It’s why you haven’t seen them much around where you’re from, which is also why you probably don’t know that you need an airship license to drive one.”

“An airship license? How do I get one of those?” Celia asked.

“Oh, you can just easily apply for one at any licensing office in Gran Andes. You don’t even need to be from there to get one due to international law enforcing open borders and stuff. I actually have one myself,” An explained pulling out her license, “it doesn’t take too long to get one; driving an airship is actually very easy. The longest part of the process is actually the documentation and machine training, but you said you’re an engineer right? If you have an engineering license, you get to skip all of that and go straight to the actual training because you’ve done it before. It should only take a few days at most, but it mostly depends on how fast you learn.”

“Oh that should be easy then,” Celia said.

“Yup, and one more thing; once you get your license, I know a guy who can get you an airship for a reduced price. He lives in Sector Palmas in the city of Rio de Brasília. If you don’t know where that is, it’s right above the city of Sao Aires. The cities are really close to each other and are practically connected anyway, but take it as a token of thanks for helping my grandmother.”

“And that’s why our first stop is Rio de Brasilia,” Celia explained to them as they waited in line to board the cruise that was taking them to Gran Andes, “I’ll go get the airship license while you two try to figure out where the space center might be.”

The commission was deemed a success, and they got enough money to make their way back home, pay for tickets to Gran Andes and spend about 2 weeks there without worrying about anything.

“Sounds like a plan,” Hikaru said as the three of them began boarding the ship, “we only have about a week to search before we have to start picking up more commissions on the ProtoTask app again. Luckily, the people of Gran Andes use the app as much as the people of Euracia, so we should have enough income to keep ourselves afloat while having some money leftover to buy materials to build the rocket.”

A few minutes later, the cruise ship begins taking off as Hikaru goes up to the highest deck to take some pictures while Celia goes to rest on an outdoor lounge chair. She never had to take a ship anywhere outside of going from Shanghaijing to Tokyosaka and she still wasn’t used to the constant rocking of the ship. She wasn’t the type to get seasick but was worried she might, so she headed to the center of the ship to sit down where the rocking was less intense.

Calm down Celia, you just need to reorient yourself, she tells herself as she pulls out her phone to read the text messages from her parents, let’s try to keep our mind focused on something else.

“Stay safe on the trip!” her mom says.

“Bring back souvenirs if you can!” her dad reminds her.

Celia sighs.

They still didn’t know her true purpose for going to Gran Andes, nor did they know what she actually wanted to do.

I’ll tell them one day, she tries to promise herself, but I can’t guarantee that can’t I?

She puts her phone away and looks up at the empty blue sky over the ocean.

Some clouds would be nice up there, she thinks as she stares at the vast blue emptiness, I heard that back then oceans used to have a lot of clouds because of the way they work.

Oceans were great for cloud formations because they continuously evaporated water into the atmosphere, giving it a consistent supply of moisture. However, because it was a good natural supplier of water vapor, the nano drones that populated the skies above the oceans, collect the water vapor from there and transport it to the nano drones that flew over the cities and farmlands so that they could make it rain on demand. Because it took a lot of water vapor to form a cloud, tons of it was being consistently stolen from the ocean skies, so much so that it was cloudless most of the time.

Suddenly, Celia sees a shadow loom over and turns to her side to see Hikaru approaching her.

“What are you up to?” he asked as sat down on a lounge chair next to her.

“Just looking up at the sky and wishing it had more clouds,” she replied, “the consistent pale blue is so boring. Having clouds up there to look at is much more interesting and helps me with getting used to the shaking of the boat.”

“Oh right, forgot about that,” he said, “I guess I’m used to it because I often took boat rides to go fishing a lot back then with my family. It definitely takes time to get used to, but it seems like you made the right choice choosing to go to the center of the boat. My dad told me it was where the rocking of the boat was the weakest back when I was little, so I’m surprised you figured it out by yourself.”

“Yeah I figured that out on the boat ride from Shanghaijing to Tokyosaka,” she said, finally sitting up on her chair and taking a look around, “I think I’m starting to feel better now, but where's Alto?”

Hikaru points over to the crowd of people gathered around a certain spot.

"He's over there getting his picture taken by a bunch of little kids and their parents who've never seen a humanoid robot like that before," he says.

Celia laughs and says, "poor Alto, I wouldn't want to be him."

For a moment the two of them sit there awkwardly, not knowing what to say next.

“So… about your family…” Celia finally broke the silence, “how do they feel about all of this? Have you told them what we’re planning to do in Gran Andes?”

“Sort of,” he says quietly, “I’ve already told them I wanted to be an Aerospace Engineer when I grew up, but I haven’t told them anything about wanting to build a rocket yet. I’m pretty sure my mom would probably kill me if I told her that, and my dad would be disappointed beyond belief.”

“Oh…” Celia said, “I thought your relationship with your parents would be a lot better than that after you said you guys went fishing together.”

“Haha…” he nervously laughs, “we used to but… not anymore. My mom tells me I’ve gotten too eccentric over the years and keeps telling me that I needed to fit in with all the other people and get a normal job. My dad said he didn’t care what I wanted to do, but I could tell he was disappointed when I said I wanted to pursue Aerospace Engineering. My mom absolutely lost it the day I told her that. She told I would amount to nothing in life. It didn’t feel like I was welcome in my home after that so I decided to transfer over to Euracia with my own money I had been collecting at my part time job.”

“I… didn’t know that,” Celia solemnly murmured as she looked down, “I guess that’s the sort of reaction I feared I would get from my parents… not that I would ever expect them to say those sort of things to me… I actually don’t know what I want their response to be now that I think about it. Even if they were to support me, it would feel weird that they would want me to break the law. I guess that’s why I’m still afraid to tell them everything; the outcomes are either bad or mildly bad, whereas not telling them anything gives a neutral outcome. I don’t want to break that peaceful barrier we have going on right now.”

Hikaru nodded in an understanding manner.

“I get that,” he says, “in a sort of way I regret breaking the happy relationship I had with my parents, but at the same time, I’m still glad did, because it allowed me to pursue stuff like this without worrying.”

Celia smiled and said, “you’re a lot a braver than me Hikaru.”

“Is that what you think?” he solemnly said, “in reality it’s maybe because I’ve stopped caring.”

The two of them sit there silently again, this time the silence being less awkward.

“Hey Hikaru,” she suddenly said, “if you don’t mind me asking, is there anything you’re afraid of?”

“That’s an odd question, but I suppose… I’m afraid that we’ll fail,” he said, “because if we fail, it’s over, but not only that, it would prove that my mom was right; that I would amount to nothing in life. It’s not like you can do much in prison after all... The last thing I want is for her to be right.”

“I guess that means we just have to succeed then,” Celia jokingly remarks.

Hikaru smiled, nodded and said, “I guess so.”