City Beneath the Surface
Where the environment is so dazzling you can't see the clues for the distractions
I: Ningaloo Quarter
Meet your contact in the Purple-Ringed Octopus, Cherry Hall recalls from her updated memory, a popular nightspot. The upload was patchy, and she’s thankful for small mercies, like the functioning 3-D map. Without it, she’d be lost like a hillbilly in a Metropolis, like a city slicker in the Amazon jungle.
With slow strokes of her powerful tail she moves through the tropical seawater almost effortlessly. Obvious land—correct that—seamarks tell her she’s swimming through Ningaloo Quarter. For one, there’s the unmistakable DN-Arch, the local Arc de Triomphe: a curved structure representing the illustrious double spiral spanning Star Alley. For another, there’s Shellhenge: a ring of giant molluscs older than the city itself. Not to mention the eponymous Star Alley: its coral streets are littered with all types of echinoderms: Blue and Rose Sea Stars, Vermillion Biscuit Stars (their perfect pentacle shape adorned with white-rimmed red cells), Yellow Feather Stars, blood red Robust Feather Stars, Sea Urchins and the almost invisible Sea Cucumbers.
But even these distinguished attractions hardly stand out from the general exultation of vibrant colours, dazzling shapes, hypnotic patterns and sheer eye candy overload that live in every quarter of Equator Atoll Reef, or the Coral City as it is known across human space. Enchanted by this iridescent whirlpool of impressions, Cherry knows she must be in the right street—for lack of a better word—but she just can’t spot that bloody nightspot. And it’s hot, damn hot.
“Spare some change for a poor Butterfly fish?”
A creature that seems more of a sore spot in this underwater extravaganza than herself: with fading colours, fins tattered at the edges and a decidedly limp posture, this Butterfly fish has seen better days. But beggars, in a city as fabulously rich as this? Or are appearances deceiving? In any case, Cherry doesn’t know—the botched upload, again—what currency is used here, let alone if she has some to spare.
“Sorry, buddy, I’m new here. What’s the local money?”
“Equal Fractals.”
“Equal what?”
“Fractals. Especially patterned by the Gorgonian Corals—our banks—and uniquely self-similar so they can’t be counterfeited.”
“I see. Can’t help you, then. I’ve only got Interstellar Credits.”
The Butterfly fish’s lips curl up: “No problem, these are also very welcome.”
“Well, for a few Icreds, could you tell me where I can find the Purple-Ringed Octopus?”
The Butterfly fish opens its mouth wide in expectation. Slowly it dawns on Cherry: “I drop the Icreds in there?”
The Butterfly fish nods. After swallowing the cash he says: “You just passed it. See those swirling, purple-and-grey banded white tentacles with polyps? And that black cloud right in the middle?”
Cherry looks in the direction pointed out by the fish’s snout. “Yeah. I thought that was a sewer.”
“Oh no, that’s the Purple-Ringed Octopus alright. You enter through the ink cloud, which is just an innocent, biodegradable dye.”
“OK. Well, thanks, ehm...”
But the Butterfly fish is gone, disappeared in a passing school of yellow, black-and-white banded Masked Bannerfish. Oh man, this would never have happened to me in a normal city, she thinks, I’d have that lowlife against the wall before he’d taken one step. But this is too much, too soon, too fast, even for her. Not only is this pixie-sized mermaid the strangest body she’s ever been uploaded into, but this place taxes the senses of the even the jauntiest space-hopper, as well. She’s hot—not yet adapted to the climate, it seems—and her re-integration kinks provide a dark undercurrent to the vibrant, multihued spectacle of the Coral City. They should’ve sent some Old Earth marine biologist, not Cherry Hall the state investigator.
Of course, she was shortly briefed before she was transmitted through the EPIT-link. Nevertheless, even a minimal adaptation period would have been nice. No chance, though, with an urgent case in a short-handed agency. Of the colleagues preceding her in this place, some never returned, some went mad, and the few still barely functioning could hardly report anything useful. A contagious infliction, an unrecognisable disease surreptitiously affecting visitors. Initial infection numbers were low, but are rising exponentially. Cause unknown, potential for disaster high and rising. Time to employ a top gun.
So it was straight into the pre-grown body and dumped into this sweltering ocean with hardly a breath to spare. Still struggling to suppress that inborn breathing reflex and simply enjoy the flow of oxygen-rich water through her gills, she tries to swim in a more graceful—and hopeful ladylike—manner, and keeps gazing at all those wonders around her: so how in Fate’s name can they expect her to be sharp on the case?
Oh well, at least she’s found the Purple-Ringed Octopus. Swimming through the black cloud, hoping she won’t run into anybody, she enters the coral club. The moment she passes through the cave’s mouth the whole background seems to shift subtly. Damn re-integration kinks, Cherry thinks and shrugs it off. The variety of sea creatures inside remains baffling to her unaccustomed eyes, but luckily they sit still. All are floating around tables of flat stones placed on pillars of Hard Coral. Red Brain Corals on the floor, white Mushroom Corals on the ceiling and yellow Vase Corals—bioluminescent, lighting up the place—hanging on the walls. Next thing: how to contact her contact. Don’t look for him, he’ll find you.
“Hey, what’s a nice mermaid like you doing in a place like this?”
Prize-winning entry in the ‘worst-pickup-line-of-the-year’ contest, Cherry thinks as she turns around to see a blue-spotted crimson Coral Cod.
“Yo, Puce Boy, get a better rap. Snap it up or snap it shut.”
“With such looks, honey, be happy somebody raps at you at all. Now, care for a U-treat?”
“Treat yourself and spare me the pleasure. I’m looking for someone snappier.”
“Yet I insist. There’s this D-pandemic, you dig.”
Uh-oh, the code word. “On second thought, I may dig in.”
“Cool, I’ve arranged a spot.”
He leads Cherry to a little round table in a private corner.
“Charlie the Cod, at your service. Well, agent Hall, name your poison.”
“So shoot me, but how do you drink submerged in water?”
“You don’t. We shoot the poison straight here, in careful doses. You see those Sea Urchins, on almost every table?”
“Those long-spined shells that give a hedgehog an inferiority complex? I thought they were part of the décor.”
“No: they’re the real deal, the straight stuff.” he waves to a passing Coral Crab with his right fin, “A Black-and-White, please, and a pair of CWs.”
“On its way, Sir.” the crab answers, snapping its big claws merrily.
Carefully carrying a Sea Urchin with both black and white spines in its right pincher, and accompanied by a pair of small silvery white fish with a black band running over the full length of their sides, the crab returns.
“On your tab, as usual?” the crab inquires, setting the Urchin on their table.
“Of course.” Charlie answers, “The spines are tipped with intoxicants,” he explains to Cherry, “White for an alcohol shot, black for a marihuana trip.”
He pricks his lower lip on a white spine, shaking softly in appreciation. “Get up, do it.” he urges Cherry.
“With my lips?” frowning her left brow.
“Your fins, your gills, your tail: whatever. Spreads through your body like wildfire.”
Reluctantly, she touches the tip of a black spine with a webbed finger. A soothing surge of intoxicating calm flashes through her body like a mini nova from a water pipe.
“Wow!”
“Good, eh.” Charlie says as he takes a few hits from a couple of black spines, “Nifty mixes here, smooth and slick. Plenty better than your outfit.”
“My new body? Had no say in that, yo.”
“Wrong colour, baby: black. Makes you stand out in every crowd.”
“Hey: my native colour. Black is beautiful.”
“Down here it’s not. Only bottom feeders like Snake Eels, Sea Cucumbers and Stingrays are that drab. Then these strange wild growths, these useless half-domes...”
“My tits? Back home most men go apeshit over them.”
“Well, they leave this male population quite cold. Our breeding habits are triggered by colours and pheromones, only if the time is right and aimed purely at procreation. We’re not obsessed with sex like you surface dwellers. To us, your tits are a liability: they kill your streamline and look like malignant growths rather than great ornamentation.”
“Listen here, Charlie: they sent me down here so pronto I didn’t have time for acclimatisation and shit. Enter the new body and go for it. Best compromise: a mermaid. In a full fish body I’d loose days just getting used to it.”
“Hey, don’t shoot the messenger. I’m just showing you the ropes.”
“OK. By the by, why are those fish swimming in and out of your gills?”
“Cleaner Wrasses: they remove parasites and fungi. Without them I’d become infested. This place has the best. They’re expensive, but hey, on the company’s account, tonight.”
“No kidding. Now what’s going on down here?”
Right on cue, a deep rumble sounds, and the whole place begins to shudder. The Black-and-White Sea Urchin on their table begins to rattle. It’s quiet again just as quick.
“What’s up?” Cherry asks.
“Just a slight tremor,” Charlie says, “don’t pay attention to it.”
“Hmm. Again: what’s going on?”
“Some strange phenomenon dubbed the D-pandemic. Haven’t you noticed? No? You will, sooner or later. However, it’s elusive, nobody can get a grip on it. Only Crazy Harry knows more, they say.”
II: The D-pandemic
Great start, Cherry thinks, the morning after, drunk like a fish and stoned as a shrimp on the first night. Oh well, at least I won’t notice transition syndrome and re-integration kinks through this hangover. Sacrificing grace for speed, she heads for the Sponge Segment. In her slowly recovering state of mind, the customary cacophony of colours and shapes temporarily lost its lustre. So, while cruising, she looks at less spectacular scenery. Like that greyish piece of coral, a serene spot in this sea of intranquillity. A lone, red Squirrelfish glides before it and —
—its mouth opens and becomes bigger than its body —
—a roaring tiger jumps halfway through the gaping jaws —
—another tiger leaps from the first tiger’s screaming maw —
—arching towards a naked woman, lying relaxed on a flat slab of rock —
—a bayonet sticking from her right biceps, while she’s looking at —
—a white elephant with impossibly long sticks of legs, carrying —
—a stony glass pyramid on a green cloth on its back —
Jesus wept, what the fuck? Cherry closes her eyes, rubs her temples and looks again: the exploding daydream is gone, and the Squirrelfish appears normal once more. That settles it, she thinks, no more drugs on the job. With sex out of the question, I sure hope there’s some rock’n’roll left. The afterimage of a ripe pomegranate keeps haunting her, but she continues on her way.
Arriving at the Sponge Segment, her senses seem to have recovered a bit, although she’s still feeling hotter than hell. The view is something else, indeed: round Yellow Sponges strife with holes like Swiss cheese, pink Sponge Chimneys like hollow fingers grasping for food, and a ruby Ascidian Colony encrusted with bright white pockmark openings mimicking embroidered jewelry. A school of green Damselfish, quickly crossing over, complements the sponge assortment nicely, but Cherry is looking for something less vibrant. There, under those emerald Staghorn Corals, some remarkable rock? Or a cement-encrusted pig’s head? No, it’s Crazy Harry the Stonefish.
He seems to be asleep, and Cherry comes closer to nudge him. Before she can touch him, though, a raspy voice cuts through the water:
“Don’t touch me! Suicidal, or what?”
“Good morning to you, too. Mr. Harry, I presume?”
“The Stonefish, you bubblehead. Stay away!”
“Playing hard to get, yo?”
“No, baby, I’m deadly, a killer!”
Oh please, Cherry thinks, don’t let him be really crazy. Then parts of her fragmented memory upload hit home: the bricks on a Stonefish are spiked with a deadly venom. Only Sea Snakes have more powerful poison.
“Oh fuck! Sorry about that. I’m Cherry.”
“And I’m crazy.”
“I have some questions.”
“And I have no answers. Only madness.”
“You’ve heard of the D-pandemic?”
“The City won’t have it.”
“It won’t?”
“Impossible daydreams, trippy visions, surreal hallucinations.”
“The City is just a city: a place to live.”
“You wish! It’s more than the sum of its parts.”
“Aren’t you a part, too?”
“I stand apart. I stand alone. Against the madness.”
“The madness seems to be winning.”
“But there’s a catch. In the place that never sleeps.”
“You could use some more. You make no sense.”
“The catch. The phrase. Classical mistake. Something special.”
“This is going nowhere. I asked you about the D-pandemic!”
“It comes and goes: you come, I go. Goodbye.” The stony fish turns around and disappears between the sponges. With a lot of effort Cherry restrain the impulse to stop him: his poison is very fast-acting. Check one: arm myself with antidotes. she thinks, Check two: what the fuck did he mean? Because Cherry can’t escape the feeling that—through the bizarre exchange—he was trying to get something through. But why so mysterious? He must think we’re being watched. But by whom? I better take the next step unobserved.
Cherry heads for the local HIR-embassy, still feeling flushed by the hot sea water, and thinking about ‘the place that never sleeps’. Something that’s always accessible: do they have some kind of Internet here? Another gap in her briefing info. In the safe room of the embassy, she searches the database for a local web.
There is one, a biological infrastructure weaved throughout the coral. Based on fractal geometry and cellular automata, it’s slow but quite powerful. The embassy has a connection to it, and through a firewall Cherry surfs the underwater web.
She needs to get used to the different structure and its sluggishness. But it is very robust—even the occasional mini-quake doesn’t affect it—and once a cache of information is dragged up, it’s deep and dense. Wait a second, Cherry realises, there’s a *cache*. In the place that never sleeps. So would this Crazy Harry have some home page somewhere? Cherry surfs onwards, and eventually chances upon a link to ‘Rants and raves: Harry goes mad’. It contains heated arguments about local matters that seem quite irrelevant to Cherry. Now this Stonefish is really crazy or it’s another diversion tactic. Then there is this administration link that is password protected.
The Catch. The Phrase. Something special, Cherry thinks, with a subtle emphasis on the s’s as if they were capitals. Password protection, alliteration: she tries Charlie the Coral Cod, Stupid Stonefish, Madness and Mayhem but gets nowhere.
Shit, am I losing it, or what? she thinks, exasperated, Wait a minute: Classical mistake. What about that ancient classic movie: Mad Max?
The link opens to a page with a zipped info pack and instructions: download and open in a safe place. Cherry downloads the pack, checks it for viruses and such, transports it to her stand-alone laptop, and opens it:
The Coral City and the D-pandemic:
A narcissistic emergence in denial, discarding problems in a veil of vanity.
It’s both one of the most surreal and sharp pieces she has read in her investigative career. Astute observations and insightful analyses of the Coral City’s history interchanged with paranoid rants and wild speculations. Making perfect sense at one point, drifting off into madness in the next.
Parts like:
“...the symbiotic links between the Coral Reef and its inhabitants developed to a point where a kind of group entity came into existence, powered by fractal interactions, strange attractors and fast-linking turbulence. Order out of chaos: an emergent identity called ‘the City’...”
With subsequent sections carefully analysing the development of ‘the City’ from dormant semi-sentience to a strange state of self-awareness, shedding new light on the development of the coral reef to the dominating entity of the tropical zone of the ocean-wide world. Its shortly punctuated equilibrium after First Contact and its quick establishment of the Tropic of Cancer and Tropic of Capricorn farms effectively bordering its north and south perimeters when it found out that Agave Seagrass was a hot commodity for its interstellar visitors, exported off-planet via the Space Elevator on Equator Atoll (with its renowned coral characteristics).
Fine work, but alternated with fragments like:
“...at a certain point it became narcissistic. It was not content being the greatest, it had to be the most beautiful as well. An excessive Vanity Fair needing an ever-increasing horde of admirers, it will do anything within its power to keep up appearances...”
Suggestions of disenchanted species of the temperate zones who are excluded, by way of trade barriers and fiercely guarded borders from the Coral City’s riches, and apparent first witness accounts of the strange hallucinations of the D-pandemic (...inhabitants and visitors alike experience the same bouts of strange visions, twisted depictions of things that cannot be. They last only for a short while, but are very intense and unsettling...), are interspersed with unfounded theories (...a substance on the loose inducing these hallucinations. Maybe it’s a pollutant from the Seagrass processing factories or something akin...), descend into paranoid conclusions (...that would be admitting that there is a problem, and the City’s egomaniacal pride won’t let it. So the whole thing is denied and swept under a coral carpet, hoping it’ll solve itself...) and hysterical rants.
Interspersed with enigmatic hints that Delphi the Green Turtle—the Jaded Oracle—is the only source of unbiased information, although she speaks in riddles.
Signed with:
“Crazy—still stoned after all these years—Harry.”
If gills could sigh, Cherry thinks, the water around me would be bubbling. Then again, her intuition tells her to use some of that info, warbled as it sometimes is, to her advantage.
Maybe I should query some citizens, very openly, and let it look like I’m on a dead track. A little paranoia goes a long way in her line of work. And carry a sample phial with me, in case another vision overwhelms me: see if it contains traces of strange substances.
She interviews the usual suspects: mayor Bill Cody, a huge, fat, black-spotted white Barramundi Rock-Cod; Heather Slambam, head of Coral City’s PR-department, a sly Lionfish with the odd, vile insinuation; and D.D. Williams, director of the Visitor Centre, a multi-coloured Harlequin Tuskfish, his appearance alone a living ad for the Coral City. Neither questioning leading to new insights. While the frequent approaches by these ragged, begging Butterflyfish—that almost magically disappear as soon as she dares to give some small change—and that constant threat of an underground rumble don’t improve her temper, either. On top of that, the heat remains stifling: but shouldn’t her body be used to these tropical circumstances?
When returning from another fruitless interrogation—Captain Blowhorn of the CCPD, a yellow Trumpet Fish—she swims through the back streets of the O’Malley Alley. This is a quiet part of town: just a small school of silver, yellow-finned Moses Perch sheltering under Plate Coral ledges, a few Blue Tang atop some Branching Coral and a lone Thick-lipped Wrasse digging up invertebrates. A good place to let her senses come at ease. Still, something is nagging at her, a feeling of being watched. Almost as if something’s hiding in plain sight.
One moment, she’s languidly floating along the quiet alley, the next she shoots like a torpedo to a certain part of the scenery that wasn’t there a minute before. Bracing for impact, her hands do not crash into solid rock but grip a more yielding material: flesh. What first appeared to be a green piece of hard coral abruptly turns into a burning crimson cephalopod. Caught red-handed, it tries to confuse its captor by enveloping both in a black cloud, but it takes a lot more than that before Cherry Hall lets go of her quarry. As the ink disperses, she asks:
“Why are you following me, ink boy?”
“I wasn’t following you, I was just hiding from my creditors.”
“I’ve got no time for such bullshit, fuckwit. See this tail here? It’ll use your big head for a punch bag if I don’t get some answers pronto.”
The squid turns an ashen yellow, a slight shiver runs through all ten of its tentacles, and it says:
“Well, OK.”
“Who are you?”
“I’m Bud the Cuttlefish—I mean—I’m one of the Buds.”
“One of the Buds?”
“We’re a brotherhood: there’s CoolBud, IceBud, LightBud, DryBud and WiseBud.”
“A nice little family. That’s all of you?”
“Unfortunately, the oldest Bud got drafted.”
“And you?”
“I’m the junior: RoseBud.”
“Figures. Why are you following me?”
“We’re told to keep an eye on you and report your activities.”
“To whom?”
“Our client.”
“Don’t be such a dumbfish. Who is your client?”
“I don’t know. WiseBud runs our operation.”
“You can tell your boss, this WiseBud that if I get my hands on him I’ll have his rings cooked for starters, and that—“
Cherry’s anger seems to literally shake her surrounds, as another mini-quake rumbles through the coral and its fishes. Distracted, she loosens her grip and gone is the shadowing cuttlefish. Cherry, furious at herself, looks around madly but the colour-changing squid—a master of mimicry—is invisible to her once more. I should be angry, driven, relentless. Normally I have such a slug for breakfast. she thinks, Stupid tail, I miss the itch between my legs that gives me my edge.
🐚🧜🏿♀️🐡🐙🦑🐢🐠🦈
The next day, she heads for Mon Repos, a relatively barren hilltop in the outskirts of Anemonia where Delphi the Green Turtle rests at night. Slowly, she’s becoming used to all the Coral City’s splendour—while wondering how this seems to be the only city she knows of with no slums—and sometimes she’s able to pick up things that are somewhat out of the ordinary. That Staghorn Coral, shouldn’t it be viridescent instead of this bleak grey? That fish: what’s a mackerel doing here? What’s more —
—four round pocket watches float into view —
—one hovers atop a branch of blackened staghorn coral —
—and becomes soft and drapes itself over the branch —
—the other three watches become soft as well —
—gracefully flexing with the flow —
—while the lone mackerel remains very straight —
—a strange shape enters the scene, like a ghostly sheet of a human face —
—as the solid bottom disintegrates into rectangular blocks —
—and some of the blocks become long, pointed cones —
—that shoot off into the distance, heading for the surface —
—as if piercing the world, as two cones lodge themselves —
—in the lonely, stiff mackerel —
Jesus, another one. Cherry thinks, while squeezing the air out of her sample bottle, hoping it catches some traces. If it’s contagious then it’s anybody’s guess what havoc it’ll wreak in the HIR. The amount of tourists that have been here is enormous, it’ll spread like wildfire. She blinks several times, pressing her eyelids hard, shakes her head and looks again: that wasn’t a mackerel, but a Barracuda that had strayed from its school. Noticing it’s being noticed, it speeds back to the school passing overhead.
Nice dilemma: I pay close attention to my surrounds for signs of Bud Inc., she thinks, and this increases the number of D-pandemic fits. She continues onward for the Jaded Oracle, in a semi-random route, and gets no more hallucinations, nor any signs of shadowing cuttlefish.
In the meantime, night has fallen and in the right shadows, Cherry is as invisible as any semi-sleuthhound squid. She arrives at Augural Hill, thankful for the somewhat less repressive heat of night, fairly sure she wasn’t followed. An enormous turtle sits on its crest, looking out over the suburban stretches below. Wary, both reluctant and curious, Cherry approaches the dappled green head with its black, enigmatic eyes.
“What do you want, little one?”
Cherry’s pixie-sized mermaid body has been grown to Coral City’s average, and to a 3-yard turtle she appears quite small indeed.
“I have a question.”
“Only one?”
“Yes.”
“That’s good, because I will answer only one. With a little fable.”
Cherry thinks a while and says:
“What is the chain of events that leads to the hallucinating visions that both the Coral City’s inhabitants and its visitors are suffering?”
Delphi answers, very slowly, with soft sentences placed apart by odd pauses. Most creatures would have great difficulties following it, and it is definitely inaudible for any hiding snoopers. However, Cherry—as any state investigator—has enhanced hearing and a very sharp memory that effortlessly records the Jaded Oracle’s sayings:
——
“Once there was a little Cuttlefish that was the pride of his family.”
——
“His colours were brighter, his patterns more elaborate than anybody else’s.”
——
“He knew it all too well, and showed off at every opportunity.”
——
“Then one day he saw a beautiful squidette from another neighbourhood.”
——
“He tried to impress her even more than the rest, and put on his flashiest show.”
——
“But he got overheated, and all his vivid colours faded to grey.”
——
“Now he’s just a plain cephalopod, victim of his vanity.”
——
“When his shame becomes too big, he hides in his own ink cloud.”
——
“It’s a spectacular sight, because unlike the black of his brothers,”
——
“his ink has all the colours of the spectrum, outshining everything else.”
——
Nothing more after the last pause. The giant tortoise remains unmoving, even through another earthly tremor. It’s an analogy, Cherry thinks, the Cuttlefish standing in for the Coral City. But the point remains unclear to her. Since there is nothing more forthcoming, she says her goodbye.
“Thank you so very much, Delphi.”
“No thanks, little one.”
“Anything I can do for you?”
“Realise...”
“Realise what?”
“...that I’m not omniscient.”
Fair enough, with a riddle like that. The gargantuan turtle has closed her big eyes, indicating the session is over. Cherry leaves, with a feeling that she gained another piece of the puzzle. If she could just decipher it, and fit it in with the rest. One vision, though, she can’t shake off: even though they became fluid, these watches kept ticking, loud and clear...
🐚🧜🏿♀️🐡🐙🦑🐢🐠🦈
Back into the safe room of the HIR-embassy, Cherry runs the contests of her little sampling bottle through her analysing equipment. A long list of normal ingredients for tropical seawater in a coral reef environment: plankton, microbes, traces of faeces, an assortment of pheromones, the lot. But there: a few vestigial hints of anomalous substances: lysergic acid, phencyclidine and dimethyltryptamine. Hallucinogenic drugs, and what a combination! Her secret database on the use of drugs in diversion notes the following about the mix of these three substances: ‘This combination triggers the critical paranoia threshold, and unleashes images from the subliminal’.
Somebody is using that powerful combination to overwhelm people with visions from the subconscious. But who? The Coral City? But why? She reconsiders the Oracle’s fable: the Cuttlefish lost its lustre when it got overheated. Well, she did feel hot all the time but thought it was due to her lack of acclimatisation. Suppose, she thinks, that it really is warmer than normal. What is the influence of too warm seawater on a coral reef? Her database has the answer almost immediately: coral bleaching.
The pieces fall into place. Before she got her attacks of the D-pandemic, she was looking at discoloured coral. So every time the City thinks people see its less alluring parts, it overwhelms them with a psychedelic shot, unleashing personal bouts of madness, unravelled the mind’s hidden depths. That a lot of these visions appeared strangely alike, Cherry figures, is because this classic painter has probably found his way into the collective subconscious.
Anyway: the whole affair is a side effect of global warming and a vain City. So for Cherry it’s the same old lesson: a budding civilisation that needs to meet its energy demand in an ecological friendly manner, lest it not smother in its own shit. However, that’s for the HIR’s smooth talking diplomats to explain, she only needs to report her findings.
III: Non-global warming
Later on, Cherry tries to make a preliminary report but gets stuck. She requests data on the planet’s climate, both from her interstellar empire’s satellites orbiting this water world and from the libraries and meteorology stations of the Coral City itself. Using analysing software to correlate the incoming statistics, she soon finds that there are no signs of global warming. The average yearly temperature variations are well within the expected range. This doesn’t make sense: why is the coral bleaching, then? Because it is bleaching: camera recordings, insensible to hallucinogens, show this beyond doubt.
OK, software: highlight areas of the planet that have temperature changes, colour code: red for warmer, blue for colder. On the world map several areas light up in light blue, indicating a minor temperature drop over the years. One area lights up in deep red: Ningaloo Quarter and its immediate surrounds in the Coral City. Which makes—in a way—even less sense: there are no industries or natural phenomena that could cause such a sharp rise in that area.
Of course, Cherry could let the HIR’s scientist research the very local warming phenomenon. But she hates loose ends. Furthermore, she’s being traced by too many parties. Not only the Bud party, but these beggars bothering her on the weirdest of moments: too much coincidence. On top of that, a semi-sentient city that knows when somebody is watching its bleached parts shouldn’t need help in keeping an eye on her: it can do the job much better by itself. There is still something fishy. She goes for a swim, hoping it clears her mind.
Inevitably, she heads for Ningaloo Quarter, and can almost sense her surrounds getting warmer. Half of the feeling is probably psychosomatic, but still. From the corner of her eye she notices a piece of the environment, well-nigh perfectly matching its colour against the background, keeping up with her. Not in the mood to make a big deal about it, she waves to one of the Buds and shakes him off like she’s already done several times with his brothers. She’s got bigger fish to fry. This gets her near the Sponge Segment, Crazy Harry’s lair. This time, the Stonefish is awake, and about as approachable as usual.
“Go away, you know I’m crazy.”
“Yeah, and mad to the max as well.”
This reference to his password silences Crazy Harry, if only for the shortest of moments.
“Can’t talk to you normals, without a filter.”
“What kind of filter?”
“Filtered coffee, plankton espresso, Sargasso tea.”
“Sounds good.”
“Follow the leader.”
Cherry follows Harry to the Anemone District. Of course, anemones are abundant in the Coral City, but AD houses some of the most spectacular. With their squat cylindrical bodies, anemones attach themselves on hard surfaces and their vibrant ring of tentacles provide a home for several creatures, most prominently the Anemone Fish. Harry heads for a large purple one, with long tentacles and white tips.
“Don’t touch the tips, full of—“
“—lethal stinging cells. So this café here is an Anemone Fish only affair?”
“Accessible to those in the know.” Harry swims around the great anemone, its tentacles softly swinging in his wake. “Pete,” he calls out, “Pete, where are you? Harry here.”
Subtle movement from within the purple anemone: a crab, almost invisible through its crimson-spotted armour.
“Harry, old stonehead. Out for a cuppa?”
“Yeah: you serve the best. Can I bring a friend?”
“No worries. Is it the mermaid out there?”
“Yes.”
“You do have a peculiar taste. But come in.”
Around the crab, the tentacles of the anemone open up. Cherry follows Harry inside the purple maze. They position themselves near a table-like pillar and the long tentacles close above them. Once inside the Anemone’s protection, Harry’s paranoia seems to ease a bit.
“Cherry, meet Pete the Porcelain Crab; Pete, meet Cherry the Black Mermaid.” Harry’s restless eyes still scan his surrounds, “Is it safe?”
“Safe as can be,” Pete answers, nonplussed, “whaddya want?”
“Double espresso, as usual.”
Mocha, if you have it.”
“No problem.”
As Pete leaves to prepare the coffee Urchins, Harry begins: “Finally, a fellow cognoscenti. You got to my pièce de résistance?”
“I did,” Cherry says, searching for a diplomatic answer, “it’s...interesting. Sharp in places, but sometimes overstating its points.”
“Overstating its points? This City is mad, and will sacrifice us all to maintain its illusions of grandeur!”
Look who’s talking, Cherry thinks, but says: “Harry, it’s not the Coral City that I’m worried about. It’s vain, maybe excessively so, and tries to hide the spots of coral bleaching in its most-visited quarter. There’s something more going on, and I can’t put my finger on it.”
“Coral bleaching?” Harry asks, and Cherry brings him up to speed.
“Can’t help you with the local warming phenomenon,” Harry says, “I’m not a scientist. But the Buds are bad news: slugs-for-hire, working mostly for the Underworld Syndicate.”
“Underworld Syndicate?”
“The local mafia: mostly involved with smuggling illegal workers through the Great Barrier.”
“The Great Barrier?” Cherry asks, feeling more foolish by the minute.
“The border sealing the Coral City and its surrounding Seagrass farms off from the rest of the world. Or rather vice-versa. Stinging Coral cordons, dense stretches of Piercing Hydroids, Cone Shell minefields with Sharks patrolling the perimeter.”
“But why? Theft? Doesn’t Seagrass grow in the temperate zones, as well?”
“Exactly: officially it’s for keeping thieves out, but practically it’s to keep the competition away from off-world trade access: the space elevator.”
“Very interesting: nobody in the HIR is aware of this barrier. Very poor business ethics, reflects quite negatively to the interstellar community at large.”
“But the City guards its riches, come what may, and deals very harshly with those that try to reveal its dark secrets. I’m already taking a mad risk telling you this!” Harry’s quiet evaporates, and he’s scanning his surrounds like mad again.
“Cool down: the HIR does not interfere with a planet’s internal affairs. Revealing this will hardly cause a fuss, a small tourist boycott at most. The Seagrass trade will not be affected: it is a sought-after commodity, and will find its way to its eager customers. That’s the way it’s gone for ages.”
“Too bad: this City, for all its splendour, is rotten to the core. How’s it gonna change if nobody forces it?”
“You—the natives—will have to do that yourselves. The HIR gives advice, but does not mingle with what it sees as internal affairs.”
“Even if the world you’re dealing with is basically a totalitarian state?”
“In general, a military intervention is far too costly for both sides. The HIR provides free information to less advanced cultures and waits ‘till progress takes its course.”
“And in the meantime the lower classes suffer.”
“Like those ragged Butterfly fish?”
“Nah, the begging Butterfly fish aren’t poor, they’re only looking the part. Idealists that donate the collected money to the good cause. Naive buggers!”
“Oh?”
“The only way to get that money to the temperate zones is via the Underworld Syndicate, who take their cut. But their biggest business is supplying the Seagrass farms with dirt-cheap illegal labour.”
“So your local mob also has a stake in maintaining the status quo?”
“You bet your sweet tail!”
“About time I paid them a visit.”
🐚🧜🏿♀️🐡🐙🦑🐢🐠🦈
The next morning, Cherry crosses the Crablands on her way to the Genolan Caves. It’s darker there, but once her eyes have adjusted her vision is good. Slanted rays of light shine through the semi-darkness, and their dispersion illuminates the Coral City’s underworld. It’s not quite as drab as she expected, with bright red Hermit Crabs waving their heavy-bristled arms from their shelled homes, Painted Crays scuttling over the undergrowth, and Shovel-Nose Lobsters, almost perfectly camouflaged with their brown, thatch-like coverings, scavenging for the Coral City’s decaying wastes.
She did hope it would be somewhat cooler here, but the heat here is as stifling as in the City. Somewhere on the right there should be the entrance to the dreaded caves, but on the left appears —
—A strange, long, deep hall —
—black panels on the right —
—walls full of paintings and sculptures on the left —
—slanted beams of sunlight shining through —
—the spaces between the panels —
—an indistinct dark figure painting —
—a grey portrait on a black panel —
—superimposed the bust of a woman, in flying colours —
—her face, hair and clothes all movement —
—of red, yellow, blue and alabaster —
—a lonely hand grasping at nothing —
—in vain, as streaks of absolute blackness —
—invade the surreal scene —
Jesus wept, Cherry thinks, A nocturne in the deep, this is getting out of hand. With a mental sigh she shrugs the hallucination off and heads to the right. She carefully checks the cage opening and its surrounds but it doesn’t appear to be guarded. Strange, and after a long pause to ascertain there’s nobody tailing her, she enters the cave.
Inside, it seems pitch dark but after her eyes adapt there are things to be seen. Like the fact that every square meter on the bottom is occupied by large stingrays. Most seem asleep, and hardly stir through another rumbling quake, but not all.
“Hey, can’t a tired fella have his siesta in peace?”
“It’s strictly members only here, dumbfish.”
“Or should we call you lunch?”
“Easy, fellas, it’s just a lost tourist. Lady, this place is strictly off-limits for foreigners. So be a good lass and leave.”
“Well, they did tell me I could find Dean the Stingray in here.”
“You’re using the wrong channels, lady. Now begone before we change our minds about lunch.”
“OK, I guess I’ll have to push my interstellar merchandise somewhere else.”
“Interstellar merchandise?”
“Yeah, a couple of long-range stunners, a few sonic grenades.”
“Well, maybe the Dean can spend a few minutes with you, after all. Come this way.”
Cherry follows the stingray as it moves deeper into the caves. It takes a lot of twists and turns through dark and rumbling corridors. The heat is stifling and the tremors seem louder, too. Eventually they end up in a small cave that is in fact only separated by a single, small passage from the large entrance cave. The diversion tactic is useless as Cherry has a 3D-map of the ultrasonic soundings of this area imprinted in her memory.
“Hello Dean, I’m bringing—“
“—a lady with an interesting offer. At least I hope so, for her.”
“News sure travels fast around here.” Let’s act impressed. “Can we talk in private?”
“Gene and Bean are my left and right fins, my ears and eyes. So speak.”
“I propose an exchange of information.”
“Information? What about those weapons?”
“Of course, I don’t have the real weapons. Much too easily detected in the spaceport. I do have blueprints that would enable you to produce them locally.”
“Very interesting. And what would you need in trade for that?”
“Certain specific information. My employers were severely underpaid in a particular deal involving a faction called the Free Dolphin Union.”
“That’s outside the Coral City. Why don’t you pay them a visit?”
“Of course I can’t and you know it. The whole planet is an ecological sanctuary. Any illegal planetfalls would be detected by the HIR’s satellites. That’s also why your syndicate is doing such thriving business. So please don’t insult my intelligence.”
“The people of the FDU are a pain in my alimentary canal. They staged a worker’s revolt in some of the Seagrass farms. Didn’t stand a chance, of course. Since then, we don’t deal with them: they’re bad for business.”
“But they still are one of the main recipients of the Butterflyfish beggars.”
“Those beggars are so green. Their money almost always ends up in the wrong hands.”
“Wouldn’t you know it. However, in this case, money didn’t go from the Coral City to the FDU, but rather directly from the Butterflyfish beggars to—let’s say—an interstellar trading emporium with a branch in the City. First they bought some geological survey data—that was freely available on the HIR’s infonet, by the way—and then followed it up with an actual order. They made a small prepayment for a certain type of mining equipment. That equipment was dropped from orbit, disguised as an incoming meteor, right on the agreed spot. However, the final payment—a very substantial sum—was never made.”
“That’s too bad, but that’s all in the game. However, my syndicate was not involved in this.”
“Indeed, otherwise I wouldn’t be here on my own. Now I’m looking for more info on the FDU. You have dealt with them before, and you still have lots of other contacts, needless to say. Are they still involved with worker’s revolts and such?”
“They are, but they’re hopelessly ineffective. Experts at endless meetings, organising loud protests, and writing slogans and pamphlets. Since that one uprising they’ve been quite calm.”
“That’s all? Staging a revolt in such a well-guarded City is no small feat. There must be more to it.”
“Well, there’s a splinter group called ‘The Kraken Wakes’, a pathetic lot. They stormed the Great Barrier, but only caused minor damage. There was this lone kamikaze dolphin, wanting to launch itself—loaded to the gills with explosives—into the DN-Arch, but the weight of the explosives slowed him down so much he was easy meat for the shark patrol. They’ve been quiet of late, as well.”
The Kraken Wakes, Cherry’s mind starts to race, there’s some connotation here. Not that old novel, something even more ominous. Wait a second: Krakatoa!
“That’s not much to go on. Anyway, here’s an info pack for the stunners. If you have any more info, drop me a line at Cherry@gorgonmail.com. Then you might be in for the sonic grenades.”
“Wait a minute: how do I know this info of yours is any good?”
“You don’t. You try it out and if you like it you know how to contact me.”
“That’s no good. I think we rather keep you here until we’ve checked the value of your goods.”
“Then you better catch me first,” Cherry says as she speeds through the connection to the main entrance cave, a niche so well-hidden that Dean’s seconds never thought to guard it. With Gene and Bean hot on her tail she enters the large cave and swims for the exit with all her might. However, the shouts of her pursuers alarm the dozing stingrays that try to intercept her, and some succeed in stinging her with their whip-like tails.
Knowing she’s been getting a very rich dose of venom the stingrays leisurely follow her, sure in the knowledge that she’ll drop down any second. Cherry, though, doesn’t slow down and is gone before they realise it. I’m so chock-full of antidotes that your stings are almost a relief. Cherry thinks as she’s safely out of reach, But I’ve got more important things on my mind than you suckers. Barely slowing down, she heads for the HIR-embassy.
Back in the safe room she obtains the data as fast as she can. The heat is increasing, fast. Much too fast. her brain storms, The Coral City is releasing tons of hallucinogens, I had to swim whole parts with eyes closed, going on dead reckoning and GPS feed. Geological surveys: specifically those of the crust beneath the Coral City. Heat signatures of volcanoes and lava flows. There: the main hill of Ningaloo Quarter is mainly hollow, with one offshoot running deep into the crust, very close to the asthenosphere. Separated from a main lava flow by a thin wall only. A wall that could easily be pierced by some specific deep drilling equipment, just the type of equipment that ‘The Kraken Wakes’ had acquired...
Cherry pushes all the alarm buttons she can think of, requesting an emergency evacuation of Ningaloo Quarter and its surrounds. But the rumbling in the distance tells her she’s already too late...
IV: Red Leviathan
From the depths of the City, a Leviathan awakes. His arousal is accompanied with a deep, subsonic rumble that splits ears and cracks coral. Fissures appear on unsuspected fault lines, showing the blood red glowing beneath. The water seeping into the ruptures immediately begins to boil, and through the thunder of breaking rocks, the cries of dying coral, and with an aura of superheated steam bubbles the head of the Red Leviathan emerges.
The gargantuan head shakes violently, frees itself from the last pieces of rubble and blackened coral. His mouth is open in a continuous scream, a deafening roar that has all but the bravest souls swimming for their lives. A wild mane of long hair and a full beard flow down from the Leviathan’s head, a crimson glory of thick locks slicing through the living mosaic of coral colonies, ultimately dividing into thin rivulets scarring everything they touch.
The shoulders break free, and monstrous hands throw great boulders in all directions. The steam formation becomes explosive and emits shattering shockwaves from its burning epicentre. The waves of destruction emanating from the fully unleashed Leviathan make it impossible to look directly at the towering monstrosity arising from ground zero. Perhaps by now his humongous feet are making their all-crushing stand, perhaps by now his abomination of a mouth has broken through the water’s edge and is spewing vile amounts of ash and noxious gasses in the crisp, clean air.
However, for the few interstellar land-dwellers that man the bottom side of Ningaloo Quarter’s space elevator, those sights are hidden behind the onrushing tsunami. The immense, soaring wall of water crashes ashore, crushing all life and dislodging the bottom of the space elevator from the land. Slowly, ever so slowly, the lowest parts of the sky-splitting structure impact on the tropical island. A sinusoidal shockwave passes through its length, and at the very top the violent lash dislodges the space elevator from its anchor in geostationary orbit. However, due to the greater orbital velocities of its higher parts it does not come down in a single place: its disintegrating components fall on the exact equator in the rotation direction of the planet, the top pieces glowing white-hot from the friction of re-entering the atmosphere. Satellite images show an expanding circle of tsunami waves, its centre pinpointed by a line of white-foaming splashes of impacting space elevator debris, and a dark plume of pure filth, rising slowly but inexorably...
Originally published in Postscripts 14, March 2008;
Reprinted in the anthology Goddesses of the Sea, February 2018;
Author’s notes:
Heavy Metal fans will recognise that I stole the title from Savatage, namely their song “City Beneath the Surface” from their original demo—when they were called Avatar—and later EP The Dungeons Are Calling;
A lot of inspiration came from my first visit of the Great Barrier Reef near Port Douglas back in 1996 or so. There was no coral bleaching then, and the explosion of life and colours made a lasting and deep impression. I revisited Port Douglas and the Great Barrier reef during the total solar eclipse of 2012, and both my sister and I were appalled at how much coral bleaching had destroyed the reef we both had snorkelled when it was still pristine;
In 1999, I took a long trip through Western Australia with friends, during which we visited Ningaloo Reef, which was also quite spectacular. Recently—last year—I visited it again, and while it does seem to have had a bleaching event, it seems to be on the mend from that. Anyway, hence the Ningaloo references in the story;
Any references to global warming are intentional;
If yu must hallucinate, it might as well be Dalíesque;
An earlier version of this story was rejected several times when F&SF editor Gordon Van Gelder commented (in August 2003, when it was de rigueur to sned stories and receive answers by postal mail): “The setting here is very creative, but the secret agent story didn’t work for me—I found it a bit unconvincing and ham-fisted, alas”. That hurt, but in a good way because it made me rewrite the story for the better. Moral of this experience: if the editor of a major magazine gives you personal feedback—even if they do reject the story—then pay attention. They’re almost always right;
It was my fourth professional short story sale—paid at a rate that was considered ‘professional’ by the SFWA at the time of acceptance—and my 17th sale at that time. So far, I’ve had 20 professional sales and 60 sales total (out of 93 stories I have written in total that I think deserve to be published);
