“What have you done?” Emperor the great looked sharply at the entrance of the cave.
“Funny thing about Smart Water.” Floyd nickered. It sounded like a chuckle. “Not only is each molecule required to be registered with several governments, it has safeguards.”
“Safeguards like what, Floyd?” Valerie rocked back and forth on her heels.
“Safeguards like, in the event of a seismic disturbance, the molecules can actually be set to return from whence they’ve been dispensed, Valerie.”
“Only those molecules?” Valerie wondered.
“We’ll see.” Floyd shook his coat, and a tiny shower hit her forehead. She looked up. The ceiling was leaking. Floyd nudged her back, and they let a stream flow down to the floor in a puddle, along with their brightly colored inhabitants. The rush of water from outside was also starting to grow louder.
Valerie had to shout over the sounds of water in order to be heard.
“See you around, Emperor!” She waved a hand at him, and checked behind her. The guard was gone. When she turned back to where the emperor had been, he was gone, too. Floyd was already moving down the hall. Valerie tried to follow without stepping on any of the light bearing organisms. It didn’t always work.
There was no shouting anymore. Just the growling of the water seeping back down into sea level. Valerie did her best to keep up. But as the light graduated to the growing pool of water at their feet, it got more difficult to see. Plus her wet jeans were about 4 times as heavy now.
She found Floyd at the terminal where they had been captured. She had to swim against the current just to get to him. She edged her way along the wall. Floyd gestured with his head to indicate that she should get on his back.
She teetered on the edge of the terminal to climb on. It still wasn’t tall enough. Floyd helped her up. He was trying something. There was a kind of fizzing around his neck, and she held on tight. She tried to time her breathing for whatever was happening. Her next experience was of a river bringing the ocean back down from the sky. It was like riding a waterfall.
Floyd’s mane was getting slicker, and trickier to hold on to. It started to cut into her palms. She tried to keep her balance and hold her breath as they fell and flew out of the torrent.
Once free of the wind and water, they were able to witness the deluge. They were wet and cold, and Valerie couldn’t help but shiver. She shut her eyes and huddled closer to Floyd. She didn’t need to see anything else.
When they touched down on land again, Valerie finally looked back up.
Wherever they were, it was night, and no clouds were in the way. She could see the stars, her stars, again.
“What did you do?” Valerie shuddered.
“I teleported us into a temporary waterfall. And then we glided back down to earth.”
“Why a waterfall?”
“I’ll admit, it wasn’t my greatest moment.” Floyd shook his coat free of as much water as he could. Valerie managed to stay atop him.
“And the Emperor?”
“Transported him and his private army up to their partners’ ship. Let them deal with the megalomaniacal mackarel.”
Valerie shook her head. One can always appreciate alliteration, but not when you’re shivering.
“Is teleportation a new thing for you?”
“Yes, I stole the code from the fish’s terminal.”
“You think we could use it instead of actually flying home?”
“We could. But I haven’t been the most reliable, if you remember the waterfall…”
The river grew quieter. They couldn’t actually see the water, because of the darkness. But as the waves started back up, Valerie let out a sigh of relief. It was over. Finally.
“When we get home…” She started, but couldn’t finish the thought.
“Yes?”
“Are you going to leave?” Valerie played with his mane to try and distract herself. “You said you were on an assignment.”
“Well… I’m really the one who gave myself the assignment. Technically I am a fugitive, just like the judge said.”
“Once the story about this gets out, they’ll know you’re here. How long can you hide out here?”
“Not sure. I sort of just left without telling anyone. Well, I told Sophia.”
“Who’s Sophia?”
“My wife.”
“She sounds nice.” Valerie was glad he had somewhere to land, but regretted that their time together was over. “I’m sure you two make a great team.”
“There’s one more thing I should check on before I go back.” Floyd looked up at the stars, and into the clear skies. “We’re pretty close.”
“This is the coast. We’re nowhere near close.”
“And here I was hoping you wouldn’t notice.” Floyd nickered and started to climb his way into the dry skies. “We’ll chase the sun to warm us up. Well, less chasing than meeting up with it. Since we’re going east.”
Valerie didn’t expend any energy replying. She just focused on staying with Floyd. For someone who hadn’t ridden bareback in 20 years, she was getting quite the crash course the last couple days.
