Waterless | Teen Ink

Waterless

April 10, 2016
By remote_vase BRONZE, Ardsley, New York
remote_vase BRONZE, Ardsley, New York
1 article 0 photos 0 comments

I am a human, but I’m not just any human. Let me leave it at that.

In the room  that holds the last few drops of water, the TV turned on. This is no ordinary TV, like the ones from before Year 3K. This is the most recent model of the holographic TV. The first model was made in 3501. In the past 300 years, the TV has evolved a lot, into our current model-- the model of year: 3801. Controlled by our glasses, which are also holographic, we can easily watch whatever we want. If you are a human, I deeply apologise for this sudden flow of knowledge. It’s completely natural for me to do this.
I am not supposed to be here, but I tagged along with my friend because I wanted to supervise. Some guy was talking to my friend. I extended my hearing, and heard that guy say, “Who is that weird looking guy?”
“Him? You mean the hubot? He is a human and robot combined. He’s was the first prototype for his ‘species’. He is robotic in his knowledge, thanks to his DNA change, but he is human in his limbs, and organs. ” My friend paused for a moment, and said, “other than his brain, which is a CPU.”
“Isn’t the word for human and robot called Cyborg, not hubot? Why not call them cyborgs?”
“You don’t remember? Weren’t you alive when we evacuated Earth? The word Cyborg was copyrighted years ago by some guy with a name I cannot pronounce. Now, he and all the other creations are called hubots.”
“I don’t remember, and no, I wasn’t alive when we evacuated that planet. Anyway, why is he here?”
“He is a major help around the city and just wanted to watch this meeting--” Now, I retracted my hearing, and listened to the TV again, as opposed to their conversation.
“Today is the co-- We interrupt this weather report with breaking news: the last water storage tank has just shattered, sending pieces of glass all over the place. Luckily, everyone in the room escaped with minor cuts and bruises. It cracked because today is the coldest day in the history of this planet. Signing off from the top of the tower, Rufus Ross.”
Hold on a second, I said, “Why hasn’t the tank shattered? We’re standing right next to it, right? I’m pretty sure this isn’t an illusion... We would know if it exploded!”
“You must remember,” my friend said, “The news is 30 seconds faster than real time. Everybody, run! The tank will shatter soon!”
“Oh, dear. Everybody is forgetful today, even the hubot…” He mumbled to himself.  I took off running away as fast as I could.I think the tank exploded; I am not entirely sure as I passed out after a couple of seconds of running.
I was suddenly awakened by some guy. I was in my room. My small, blue, dark room. The guy took up half of the room, even though he was thin. He was tall, and he looked like an old man with 3 little white hairs sticking out of the top of his head. He was using a real cane, because the holographic ones do not support weight over 35 lbs. I woke up in my bed, wondering how I got here. Then I remembered the events of the past day. This guy told me, “Hello, I am Mark Fisher, the main deliverer of important messages. I used to be the head xenobiologist on the shuttle that brought us to this planet. By the way, a xenobiologist is a biologist who deals with otherworldly DNA systems. Oops, right. You’re a hubot. Anyways, I made an injection that has kept me alive for a long time. No questions now. I have retired from my science experiments, and now I am a messenger. Yes, this is ancient technology, but you would not be woken up by a hologram, would you?”
“No, I would not.”
“Ok. This is an important message from the main head of the city. He prefers to remain unnamed, although you probably know him, being a hubot. You were in the water storage room as the tank exploded. Now we have no remaining water, and are in a drought. In the morning, when you wake up, you must head out on your journey to find water. This water must be found and brought back to us within 3 days, or all humans, and most hubots will start dying.”
Oops! He exclaimed, “I talked for too long! It's time for me to go! Goodbye.”
“Wait, what?” But he was already gone. Just great, more work for me. Now I have to check the security cameras and find out exactly what he said, and how he disappeared. I do not know what happened to him. We have not invented teleportation yet, nor have we invented invisibility. Then I remembered that he said he was a scientist. Maybe he secretly discovered how to make himself invisible. Very impressive.
The next morning, I woke up early, and went out on my journey. It was quite troublesome getting out of the city's boundaries. Apparently, the guards had not been notified of this trip. After wasting an hour, I was allowed out of the city. Into the forest I went.
“What a beautiful day!” I exclaimed to absolutely nobody. Suddenly, a byerd chirped, almost as if in response to my comment. Maybe I actually did say that to something… Good for me! After quite some time walking, I decided to take a short break. I found a nice, big rock and lay down on it. Suddenly, the rock shifted, but soon reverted back to it's normal position. This is very abnormal for large rocks such as this one. I knew that this was either a trap, or a secret entrance.
I looked around me, and as I predicted, a huge temple looking like the ones from thousands of years ago was behind a couple of trees. It was made out of mossy stones, appearing golden under the sunlight. It had stairs running up to the huge entrance at the top. It is designed like… what’s their name? Oh, yes... the Aztecs. Those ancient people were architectural masters. I ran as fast as I could to this place. Up the stairs, and through the entrance, thinking about how Someone must have run away from the city and built this masterpiece. How long did it take them to make this on their own? I pondered the thought for a moment, Probably longer than my existence. Who is this guy? I vow to find out some other time.
Although the outside looked ancient, the inside had tons of modern technologies. Somehow, the building got power without solar panels, or any of the ancient fossil fuel technologies. He had all of the latest holographic equipment, as well as some of the equipment that is not sold in the cities. This includes holographic kitchens, walls, and furniture. The walls appeared solid, but you could walk right through them! That explains why there were absolutely 0 doors in this building. Where the owner is, I do not know. I had hoped he was in here, but it turns out he or she is not. If I could find the creator, that would be great, as it would provide valuable insight on how to build this masterpiece. Hopefully, that person could also tell us where he got all of the holographic stuff.
Maybe this guy is Trump, the creator of holographic items. No, not the mushroom Donald Trump. Charlie! He is more commonly known as Trump. I assume his best friend (the messenger, Mark Fisher) injected him with that “long life serum”. They always played together on earth, and once, Charlie got lost in the woods. I continued to explore every room. One wall said “DO NOT ENTER” but I felt like exploring more, so in I went! Walking through the wall was as easy as the rest of the rooms. Falling through the floor was just plain out unexpected. I found myself in slight pain in a new floor hidden under the building. There were very few walls down there, but the rooms were twice, if not three times the size. I cautiously walked through a few rooms, and soon, I found an ancient DVD. The average person on this planet does not know what a DVD is, unless… They’re from earth! Yes, he must be Trump! I saw a DVD player on my way to this room. I looked around for a short while, and in the fourth room, under the sofa, under the books, was the DVD player. I went back to that room with the DVD, inserted it, and pressed play. I started to see the movie on the wall. I sat and watched it.
Hello, everyone. It’s Charles Barkley. It’s 3619. Our ship has just landed. Earth has blown up due to a huge meteor. So sad. Now, some of us “earthlings” are on Kepler186-f. We recently discovered that all plants are black. All trees are black. All grass is black. All the soil is black.
Wait, what? I thought to myself,  the grass is green… Why is he saying that it is black? Can I fast forward to the important stuff? Continue watching for now…
Yes, I created the holographs. I am now rich and famous, but unlike other famous people, I am not rude. We have a major plan as of what to do with this river--
River? I already know about this! How do I fast forward? Oh well, continue watching… 
What are these plans? Put the water into storage tanks for safekeeping. We are also going to do some experiments on the grass, making it green. Now, person watching this, you may wonder-- What happens when the water runs out? Here is our plan: we will---
And it stopped in mid-sentence. Right before the good part that told me where the water is. Well, there goes a perfectly good opportunity to complete my mission. Can I fast forward, then rewind? Nope. That was pointless. Let me go now. And just as I was leaving the room, the DVD started playing again.
This storage will be by the Mountains of Yawn, far away from the cities. This way the cities have no way of being flooded. We hope the day the water runs out does not come soon. Goodbye, my friends!
Yay! This is getting easier and easier! I decided that it couldn’t hurt to explore this place a little bit more. I found a bathroom. This was unexpected. I knew that everything in this house was holographic, and this house has no water, as holograms cannot hold water. The thing is, the bathroom does not have water in it either. Not even in the toilet bowl. I touched the toilet bowl, expecting my hand to go through it, but it was solid! Then, I touched the sink. Also solid! Wow. What a change of design. These look incredibly holographic! Whoever painted this must be a genius! I made a sketch in my mental notebook of the structures of everything in the house. I walked out of the house and noticed a huge shadow above. What could that be? Shall I use my claw? Why not! I drew energy from the plants around me (leaving a small brown circle that will grow back soon) and used that energy to grow my claw. The claw comes out of my head, and is decorated like a plant. The claw went up about 800 feet and hit something metal. I made the claw grab the metal structure, and pulled myself up it. Another huge house? It’s floating! The floor is metal, makes sense, but everything else are holograms! What happens when it rains?
I realized that I couldn’t figure it out on my own, and would need the help of the builder, so I gave up on that place, and continued my challenge. I ran as fast as I could to the familiar place that apparently held the water storage. I ended up in a huge valley with a giant holographic billboard that says “Storage moved 10 miles west!” So I followed those vague instructions, and saw a smaller, still holographic billboard saying that the “Storage moved 20 miles north!” And so, I followed the instructions, and ended up in a cave.
There was writing on the wall that said “Welcome to the Storage! You will find it 10 miles further into the cave!” 10 miles?!! That has got to be the deepest cave ever discovered! The city will be overjoyed to find out about this! I must mentally map this out! This floor feels kind of unstable… Is that bad? No, should not be too terrible… I took a step, and it was terrible. I fell straight down into a huge hole with water on the bottom. I can swim, but… OH NO!!!!!! I still have a hole in my skull from the claw! Water may enter my CPU! I have got to get out of here! Sound recorder activated in case I black out. HELP ME!!! I screamed, and blacked out. Based on the sounds I recorded, Charles Barkley said “Is [...] hubot? [...] into trap? Must [...]” and that was all I could get out of the soaked recorder. I woke up on a plastic waterbed, realizing that I had fallen into water, and some internal features were damaged. I asked for the time, and fixed my internal clock. I was talking to some guy, and all of my past memories of him had obviously been wiped out by the water. “I am Charles Barkley, considering you don’t remember me, the water must have wiped out an incredible amount.”
“Oh, yes, now I kind of remember you. Was that pyramid house yours?”
“What pyramid house?”
“This one!” I tried to project my sketches of the building but couldn’t find them. The water must have wiped those out as well. “Where are my sketches? Trump, do you know?”
“Nope. Must’ve been wiped out by the water. I’m so sorry for your loss,” Charles said sarcastically.
“I can tell you’re joking. But, I have something else to do in here. I must bring water to the city.”
“Oh, no you won’t. I won’t let you do that.”
“Well, why not? We are in a drought, and this is the water reserve in case of droughts…”
“No. Leave now. I will not allow this madness.”
“I will not leave until my mission is completed!” And suddenly, he was attacking me! He jumped on me repeatedly. I thought I would be able to defeat him, but he must have built up incredible strength over the years of living here. I managed to push him off, and tried to run away, but ended up in a huge room with lots of holographic walls and furniture, similar to the pyramid. Now I am almost confident that the pyramid was Trump’s. The only difference in here was that in every other room, (according to my x-ray vision) there was water. Tons of it. I attempted to contact the city and tell them about this place, but I could not establish a connection. I saw Trump looking down at me from the top of this room.
Somehow, he mentally whispered to me “You will never escape me! Have fun getting the water to your precious city… Today is your last day of operation.” No one can telepathically talk to me unless they are… HE MADE HIMSELF A HUBOT!!! He is a villain! A traitor! He disobeyed the city! That explains why all of his recent products have been faulty and caused many injuries throughout every household. When--I mean, if I get back to the city, we must hire a new holographic manager. Now, how will I defeat this guy? He’s a perfect match for me. There are no plants around here, so I cannot use my claw. Plus, he is probably a newer version of a hubot, making him more powerful. I have gathered the stats, and I cannot defeat him without otherworldly help. What happens if I do defeat him? How do I get water back to the city? This is hopeless.


The author's comments:

A note to the reader: a "byerd" is a species of bird found on this planet


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