-The Guest-

The backscattered ocean light flooded the rusty shipping container with a faint, ethereal blue glow as Guest Pelgo 5 slowly awoke from its slumber and rose to the business of the day. Fred eased his legs off his cot and began to massage some feeling into them, feeling the blood rush through his arteries, and relishing the resultant pins-and-needles sensation. He leaned over and checked his raincatcher. A tiny amount, about an ounce, had accumulated through the tube leading into the plastic bottle strapped to his wall. He decanted the rust out of it and drank it in a few calculated sips, then lit a cigarette and took a deep drag as the people of the pelgo began to navigate the narrow avenues and walkways of the container city.

How like Seattle it was, in the last days. Streets were covered in tents and shacks as the salt water inched higher and higher up the slopes, killing off beautiful green grass and mighty trees as it sucked moisture from the fragile plants. The city remained bustling and lively until the last, when the water finally passed the dams and holdfasts and began to swamp Seattle-Tacoma airport. Flights kept leaving until the drag of water on the planes was too much and the last survivors there had to abandon by helicopter, until even the Air Traffic Control tower was covered. Thankfully, there had been dozens of decommissioned aircraft carriers and other various boats, as well as planes ready to be converted to boats, in Seattle, thanks to local industries. They had floated away from the city, converting decks from launch pads to farmsteads, and planes to fishing trawlers.

Fred sighed. Of course, then he had come to the Ark. And the Founders told him 'No'. They turned him and a thousand other people on their aircraft carrier away. Determinedly, they parked the carrier at a Guest pelgo, and it was swiftly dismantled, spare parts stripped, framework repurposed. That night, in retribution, Ark Security had come in the night and disappeared ten Guests, at random. A futile gesture, at best, but it earned an outcry against it all its own.

It's the thought that counts, Fred thought to himself, as he felt to his side in the hidden compartment on his desk. The CD's familiar form was still there. He clasped his fingers around it, rubbed the papered side, and then coughed as he began to choke on the acrid, chalky fumes of his cig's filter. He scowled and flicked the cigarette out of his container, then swung fully out of bed, and stretched out to prepare for his morning run.

His sneakered feet pounded through the thick iron oxide 'dirt' on the ground on the main road as he started to run. I may smoke, but nobody can ever say I'm out of shape, or that I can't breathe when I have to, Fred thought as he roamed the container city's Ur-like tangle of streets and overpasses, practicing sprints, long distance jogs, and parkour. Always parkour. He had learned it back in Seattle and taken a job teaching it to ArkSec as part of a 'Practical Movement' class. It paid quite well, enough for an extra few water rations and the ability to purchase food from the stores on the opposite side of the wall as the fancy struck him, rather than trading in a food coupon for a hunk of bread and a bowl of salty soup twice a day.

He mantled a small box, then grabbed an adjacent container and swung his legs up over the edge, stood, and leapt the street below, landing in the open short end of an old Maersk container, and continued running down the makeshift hallway formed by a series of containers, and, on occasion, the negative space between them. He made it all the way to the end and swung down onto a ladder covered in plywood, which formed a narrow catwalk, one of several over the narrow strip of water that served as GP5's boat launch. He followed the catwalk across to the old aircraft carrier's deck and sprinted the distance from the edge of the runway to the miniature ATC tower, which was a community center now. It was also where the container city's farmers and technicians kept track of their crops, their yields, experiments, and power generation. Guest Pelgo 5 was well electrified thanks to the still-running Nimitz carrier's reactor belowdecks, which was scheduled to remain running for another twenty years.

"Fred! How was your run?" asked Isadora, the woman who stored and distributed the crops to the various businesses around GP5, as Fred slowed down, stretching and kicking his legs out as he stopped to keep from cramping.

"Great," he said, slightly winded. "How're the farmers?"

"They're doing good. Your ride is gonna be here in a few minutes, so you might wanna hurry out to the launch."

"Thanks, mom. You pack me a lunch?" Fred asked, with a sarcastic grin pinned lopsidedly to his face. She punched him playfully, then hugged him and sent him on his way as an ArkSec boat pulled up to the launch. Fred walked to the edge of the farm deck, then descended the ladder and boarded the boat by its landing craft-like front end. There were a couple of ArkSec gendarmes aboard who looked a bit uncomfortable at the prospect of a Guest on board their lovely, pure-white boat, getting rust residue on the deck, but they would have to suck it up. I've been taking this shuttle boat for three months now, and will be for the foreseeable future, Fred thought as the boat slowly left the marina, and roared away at full throttle, its anti-hydroplaning catches digging into the waves to keep the boat's speed even.

Of course, that's the problem with the foreseeable future; human foresight was inherently limited. The Wall was a monument to that.

They passed the immense, checkpointed structure dividing Ark in two without ceremony, but it never ceased to awe Fred, this monument to fear.

Built as the Immigration reached its peak, taxing Ark beyond capacity, the Wall was a structure of steel rebar, concrete, and Arkoral, the 'miracle material' from which most of the Ark was constructed. The Founders had it hastily constructed to ward off the specter of raiding parties of unsatisfied Guests deciding to take food and water by force, and it had permanently alienated Founder and Guest, a physical barrier in addition to the emotional one. For the Founders, it was a line in the sand that they would never cross, a line that allowed them to sleep soundly at night, secure in the knowledge that we're not like that... that rabble. For the Guests, it was a basic, almost child-psychological statement; we won't share. The wedge it drove between them was more than physical. You could almost feel a transition in tension, from anticipation to fear, when you crossed it from Guest to Founder sides.

The boat reached Security Command, just across the water from the Guest pelgos, and docked immediately, the front end's armor plating retracting and extending in different sections to form a ramp into the elevator terminal, where a man processed Fred and gave him a badge that said VISITOR TEACHER - GUEST, then sent him on his way. The class was held in a large gymnasium that Fred had filled with large military-grade crates, civilian detritus, and even a few old Maersk or Hanjin shipping containers. There, using the reconfigurable nature of the room's furnishings, he was able to set up a complicated freerunning trainer course and combat tactics testbed.

His class began to trickle into the room, and he enlisted a few of them to prep for a gymnastics course. Once the room was ready and the majority of the class had arrived, he began to teach.

-The Radical-

Joe Chen sat placidly in the large white swivel chair as banter flew back and forth between the Ark-World Unification Party's representatives, Ark Security's leaders, and the Founder Council. Damning accusations were tossed over his head like sharp stones or arrows as the tension in the room reached fever pitch. Still, Chen said nothing, his large, epicanthally folded eyes half-lidded, his facial expression relaxed, his mouth creased with a slight frown. His eyebrows arched upwards, completing the expression of a man who is equally confused and disappointed.

His mind faded out of its Zen state and back into reality as the argument reached a boil.

"-water rationing RIGHT NOW!" one of the AWU councilors on Chen's side of the room shouted at a Founder.

"If we've told you once, we've told you a thousand times-"

"Our people are DYING in the slums because you Founders rock back on your asses and take everything for yourselves!"

"We're giving you all we can! What, do you think Founders' Tower is just some pleasure palace or... or some Garden of Eden?"

"Yes! As a matter of fact, I do!" Chen took a moment to reflect on the stupidity of those arguing. The hotheaded young man to his left was doing a poor job of bringing the Founders and Guests eye to eye. Instead, he was widening the gap between the people of Ark and the owners of it. Chen scowled and heaved his bulky body out of the chair. Instantly, the room fell hushed, and Chen took command of the silence, bending it to his will.

He had had a gift for talking, for inspiring, for leading people, since he was a small boy in the People's Republic of China, before the Flood. He had an intrinsic understanding of problems that bordered on the uncanny, and had a knack for getting other people to want to solve those problems his way, be it with words, example, or reward. Here, he was going to do it again, or at least try his damnedest to salvage what little respect the Founders had for his little political movement.

"Brothers and sisters," he said, his thick Chinese accent and smoky voice distorting his words, turning a low pitch into a growl and a high pitch into a scratchy hiss. Regardless of whether or not you found his voice attractive, one had to give Chen credit; the sound of his voice would have an equal effect on a room whether he were saying 'I'm going to shoot you all now' or 'Yes, Santa, I'd like a magical pony for Christmas'. "I sense my comrades are a bit... radical for your tastes." His vowels were elongated, and ended with a faint trace of an ah-sound.

The Founders nodded, and all in the room took their seats. Only a few, on whose parades Chen's intervention had seriously rained, stayed standing, but within a few moments, they seated themselves as well.

"Let us go back to the beginning of the Ark," he said. "During the late 2010's, it began as an eco-research project. A super-sustainable city of the future. Agriculture and aquaculture handled on-board, no waste, no emissions. Perfect." The Founders were nodding; they knew this already. They had known for years. There's the facts, now I need to lay down the spin.

"But then, when the seas rose, people began to flee the land and hunt for Ark. And eventually, they found your city, and you welcomed them at first. But then, as more and more showed up, it became clear that you couldn't deal with the needs of tens of thousands of people showing up and demanding food, water, and a roof over their heads.

"I was one of them. I helped build this place. And in return, you Founders gave me and mine a place to stay and bread to break. For a time, things were good. But now, that time is over, and things are just getting worse. The Ark cannot survive on its own; food production is overtaxed and water rationing is becoming so severe that most of the workforce can't physically do their jobs. We have to find land and get help-"

And that was always where that train of thought derailed and burst into flames. The Founders began to scream in outrage until Chen held up a hand and roared for silence, overpowering the room instantly.

"If you will not consider my solution, consider this. While we fight here and tear apart what little unity we still have, we are giving the Ark more time to tear itself apart! We need to reach a consensus soon, and fighting will not help, in any way, shape, or form!"

Chen took his leave after getting in his final word, and the room echoed with his last syllable as he stormed out. The Founders looked shocked at this display of caprice, and the AWU looked shocked at this display of impatience. He could almost feel the thoughts of the people left in the boardroom. Chen's never like this!¸they were thinking. Well, if you can't put aside your differences soon, he'll start being like this.

The elevator ride down Founders' Tower took a while, but it was fleeting in the grand scheme of things. Chen's boat was waiting in a canal outside to take him back to the Guest Pelgos. As it puttered down the canal, careful not to make any wake, Chen looked up at the Tower as it raked the sky, glowing as the Arkoral reflected the light, and contemplated what he had just seen. That is the third meeting in the past month that has failed miserably. The second that has ended with me storming off. The first that has ended with me realizing that the Founders will not listen to reason.

It will be war.

It will have to be war. And if it is, then God help us all.

The Daughter

The boat seemed to be drifting randomly around. Actually, it was drifting randomly around; they were out of gas, and the Engineer and Skipper had resorted to rowing using paddles made from an umbrella. Now, though, the Skipper was dead, and so were her parents. She had seen them all die, seen them gasping as their lungs shriveled from dehydration and their minds failed them. Engineer had taken up both paddles. They were down to three liters of water, including the half-liter they had sucked from the air using empty bottles pumped full of air and held in the blistering sun, and Engineer was distilling the body fluids of Skipper and her parents to hopefully squeeze an extra liter from the dead bodies. The sickening panorama of sunlit blood and urine and bile in liter bottles represented their last hope to sustain their existence further.

Right now, the Engineer was cursing violently at the gas engine as he attempted to pour fuel into it. Nothing would work; though they had kept the tainted gas, the engine wouldn't take it, and they had no way to distill it. She didn't even know if it was possible to distill gasoline.

She leaned back onto the deck of the little boat. She would have cried, but she knew crying was a waste of water, because her tears were made of water, and if she wasted it, she would almost certainly die. She didn't want to die. Sure, she wanted to see her parents again. She believed in Heaven. She thought that if she died, that's where she was gonna go. No, she didn't think; she knew. But at the same time, part of her didn't want to. There was a part of her that said 'You didn't survive your parents for nothing. You're going to make it out of this.

'You're going to do them proud.'

She wanted to do that, more than anything else she had ever wanted to do. She had wanted to be a princess two years ago. She had wanted to learn how to sing a year after that. Now, she just wanted to make her parents, wherever they were, proud of her. She knew that now, that was all she'd ever want.

And that big, white tower out on the horizon was the place to start.

"Mister Engineer?" she asked. The tall, spare man with the submachine gun slung across his back turned and looked at her, then his eyes widened and he let out a whoop. He dashed over to the railing and splashed some water in celebration.

"What is that?" she asked him.

"That? That's the Ark! That's our new home! We're saved!

"What's the Ark?" Now, she was very confused.

"Didn't your parents ever tell you?" The Engineer busted out the water rations and handed her a full liter. Her eyes widened and she took it.

"Thank you, but isn't this a lot? I mean, what if they don't have any there?"

The Engineer made a funny sound, someplace between a chuckle and a snort. Then, he laughed, a deep laugh from the belly, and took a swig of his water.

"The Ark? Without water? Little girl, they're practically the ones who invented desalinization. You'll see, it'll all be better soon."

"Okay," she said, shrugging and taking a drink. If he was going delirious and wasting all their water, then it was his funeral.

Then, the boat rode into an immense shadow, casting it into darkness that seemed Stygian to their malnourished, unadjusted eyes.

"WHOAAA!" the girl shouted, reaching out to touch the huge curve of white material that hung precariously over them. It seemed to glow, catching light and then hurling it away.

"That's the breakwater. It's made of Arkoral. The same stuff they used for the rest of the Ark. This right here," he said, slapping the huge, recurved white arch, "is tougher than concrete. When they grow it, it helps to lower the seas, because it takes CO2 from the atmosphere, and uses it to grow.

"Anyway, chemistry lesson, over," Engineer said, as he sat on the sun-bleached deck of the ship. "What's the first thing you want to do when you get to the Ark?" he asked, as they passed another layer of the breakwater. With each concentric circle, the water got shallower and calmer, until eventually, it took on the coloration of the sand under an isolated atoll. They were approaching the pure white, glowing Arkoral structures of the Founder pelgos.

"I dunno. I guess I'm gonna go ask for some food. I'm really hungry."

"Have a protein bar to keep you tided over?" the Engineer offered, smiling and generous, infused with new hope at the sight of Founders' Tower.

"Sure," she said.

And then, a roaring noise accompanied by the wail of sirens silenced the two as an ArkSec boat pulled up alongside them.

-The Scientist-

The view from Amelie Parker's desk was a sweet one; from this high up, she could see the Ark sprawled out before her, Guest pelgos and Founder pelgos alike. They were both beautiful in their own way; the rust red of the Guest pelgos slow but steady erosion catching in currents and swirling around the Founder resorts and walls. This view never ceased to remind her that, regardless of all Chen's populist prattle and the Council's impassive stubbornness, the Guests and the Founders were as close to one as two could be. The Founders needed the Guests' skills to build their vision, and the Guests needed the Founders' aid, be it medicine or food or, especially, water.

She sighed and tore her eyes from the view, and her mind from its reverie, so that she could return to her work. Damn Arkoral and its stubborn genetic code. She had tried to play with the keying of the clone samples she had been afforded by the ArkLaboratories complex, who held the only base sample of Arkoral, but all it had yielded were sticky messes of multicolored goo or big, light rock-like plates; the accursed stuff just wouldn't grow right when she altered the keying of the genes responsible for growth rate, seeing as the idiot savant who had sequenced the stuff in the first place had put the locus of the growth rate gene on the carbon-enzyme chromosome, and she couldn't change anything without completely voiding Arkoral's ability to utilize environmental carbon. She supposed her plates could be used as armor, but she wasn't here to find a revolutionary new bulletproof material.

She was here, Amelie reminded herself, to make Arkoral grow faster, stronger, and more rigid. Raging over the materials she had been given would not accelerate her research.

Amelie pulled out her notes and pored over them for another few minutes, attempting to catch out any clues that could help her that perhaps she had subconsciously missed. Nothing. She could swear she had tried every combination of genes in the whole of Arkoral's genetic code, but obviously she hadn't.

She had to keep trying. She know the true usefulness of the material (it had built the Ark, after all) but it had so much potential! It could be so much... better.

She booted her computer and started up a sequencer application, loading her files on Arkoral, and began to play with the genetic sequencing in an idle fit of boredom. Nothing worked. She had already tried dozens of the combinations she was setting up. Genotype ratios, DNA rewriting, there just didn't seem to be any way. She knew there was; there was nothing in the world that was unimprovable.

Arkoral was probably as close as things came, though.

In frustration, she abandoned her post at her computer for the third time today. She swung out of her swivel chair, pushed open the door to her office, and headed for the elevator.