Atlantea Ch. 13

DAY 1: 14TH SMITH 11,293PL

KUMAIYA ISLAND

As I walked up the jet bridge, duffel bag in hand, I realized how much I had missed fresh air during the luxurious, but lengthy, flight. I had no wristwatch or mobile phone to tell time by, but it felt like we had spent at least twenty-four hours traveling after departing Minneapolis, and, for security reasons, had been unable to leave the cabin during refueling stops. The weather at the airport in Atlantea was pleasant: sunny and dry, around seventy-two degrees Fahrenheit. Through the floor-to-ceiling glass walls around me, I could see our carbon-black Airbus being serviced. Workers, mostly female, were driving up with fuel trucks and forklifts, refueling and restocking the plane. Another group unloaded cargo from the its belly. I did not see any suitcases being unloaded; us passengers only had our carry-ons.

Khrystyna caught up with me, placing a hand on my shoulder. Her aquamarine hair looked cute in the bright sunlight. "Mr. Walker," she said.

"Please, call me Jason," I interjected.

"Thanks. Jason, I feel like I haven't made up for my rude behavior on the flight." I started to protest, but she held up a hand. "Could I drop by your place tomorrow night? I'll be staying at the island dorm anyway; it's too much of a pain to go all the way home unless there's a longer turnaround. My next flight is in two days."

"So you're saying I'm going to be at the airport for a while?"

Khrystyna looked confused, momentarily, then her face cleared. "Of course, I forget you don't know how anything works yet. Sorry! I'm not sure exactly, but you'll be going thru immigration on Kumaiya for a month or something. The island's a lot bigger than just the airport, though."

My face fell as I heard this news. 'Does this mean I won't be able to see Calista?' I thought.

The young flight attendant, noticing my distress, put her hand on my arm. "Don't worry, Jason, they make the induction process fun. So can I drop by on you? I'm pretty sure they give each of you your own apartment."

"Sounds good to me," I said. I must have not sounded enthusiastic enough, as Calista was foremost on my mind.

"To sweeten the deal, I'm going off of birth control today, and I'll give you my vote if anything happens." I had no idea what she was talking about, and was about to ask her to clarify, when Xyra walked by us, punching me on the arm and snorting derisively as she overheard Khrystyna's offer. She said something in Atlanean, as well.

Before I could ask Khrystyna to explain, she said, "Bitch!" in English, under her breath, but loud enough that I could hear. Xyra clearly heard her, too, and, despite not knowing the language, she understood the intent. Without breaking stride, she began to walk backwards. She raised her right hand, elbow bent, thumb and pinkie finger folded onto her palm and three middle fingers extended. Then she turned around again and strode off. Khrystyna had responded in kind, by reaching down in front of her midsection and stroking a phantom dick.

"What did that gesture mean?"

"It's like giving someone the middle finger where you're from," Khrystyna said. Still aggravated, she said "Those special forces divas think they're the Mother's gift to the planet!"

By now, we were entering the waiting area around our gate. A semi-circle of twelve women, all wearing purple business suits, were there to greet us. Each was holding a tablet in front of her waist.

"I gotta catch up with the other girls, okay? See ya 'round!" Khrystyna said, patting my butt before breaking off to join the other stewardesses.

I sped up to catch Chris, who was a good few strides ahead of me, and we fist-bumped before veering off to meet up with the women showing our respective last names on their tablets. "Don't be a stranger, bruh!" he said, loudly. "Let's meet up once we have a chance, okay?" I nodded in agreement, feeling good about having a friend from home in this strange new land.

I approached the woman whose device had the letters "WALKER" on its screen. She was medium height, had inky dark skin, and large blue eyes set in a delicate-looking, fine-boned face. Her tightly curled hair was dyed a vibrant pink color. In a warm voice, she said, "You must be Jason? I'm Jacintha, your Cultural Liaison; it's a pleasure to meet you." She stuck out her hand, and gave me a firm handshake. "Would you please come this way?"

We joined a flow of men, each escorted by a purple-clad liaison, stepping onto a people mover. Another flight must have landed around the same time; I estimated that there were, in total, around twenty-three other males, each with a dedicated, purple-clad escort. I overheard conversations in a multitude of tongues. I had never been good with languages, having nearly failed Spanish in high school, so was unable to recognize what the men were speaking. Based on outward appearance, though, I got the impression that the other flight consisted of Africans and Southeast Asians.

These men were dressed similarly to my group. They had on flat leather sandals, billowy shirts, open to the navel, and leather pants. The pants, like mine, were as tight as they could be, without causing discomfort, and also had no pockets. I was reminded of the many times my mom dragged me to see The Nutcracker ballet; multiple times per year, even, whenever one of my sisters made it into the production. The male ballet dancers usually had tights on, leaving little to the imagination about the shape of their butts, and even providing a decent idea of how well endowed they were up front. I could see the other men around me surreptitiously checking each other out. Everyone I could see had a substantial bulge around their groin, and shapely, rounded glutes.

The purple clad women were checking us men out, too, and were not bothering to hide it. Jacintha's eyes had dropped to my midsection as I neared her, and when she made eye contact, moments later, there was no hint of embarrassment on her face. Equally, I could now see her eyes roaming the bodies of the men, drinking in the handsome faces and cut, tightly-clad physiques. Far from being an anomaly, her behavior was the norm; the other liaisons' heads seemed to be mounted on swivels.

The small terminal that the pack of us were moving through was modern and mostly familiar, with a clean white and light green motif throughout. A soaring roof was high above us. Floor-to-ceiling windows and glass interior walls let in sunlight and provided an excellent view of the deep blue ocean stretching away from the island. There were, however, some differences from any airport I had seen before. I was used to such places posting signage in at least three major languages. Here the only signs were in the Atlantean script, which, for now, I was calling Aurebesh, as the same characters were used in the Star Wars movies. Another difference was that overall cleanliness was being maintained not by janitorial staff, but instead by crude-looking robots. The floor to the left of the people mover, for example, had several dark gray boxes, each the size of a portable refrigerator, crawling along the floor like caterpillars. Making their way up the sides of the exterior windows were crab-like robots, with rotating brushes whirring against the thick glass panes.

While we were making our way out of the terminal, Jacintha explained what a Cultural Liaison, or CL, actually did. From long experience, the Atlantean government had learned that visitors like myself needed around a month to learn enough about Atlantea, and adjust to the significant societal differences. Without such an assimilation period, they found that a lot of men hated their time on the island, or failed to do well at whatever job or academic pursuit they were here for. Or they failed to, as she put it, "be successful in other ways." That last part was cryptic, but I figured there would be time enough for clarification. It turns out that each visitor, such as myself, was assigned a dedicated CL. While she had other administrative duties, she did not have any other men to look after for the next month. After that, she and I exchanged pleasantries. She was twenty-three years old, and had been a CL for a year, having first received the equivalent of a bachelor's degree in World History at Diamandis University.

The people mover had come to an end several minutes earlier, and our impromptu troupe had walked past a gift shop and cafe, neither of which had been open for business. Eventually we came to the top of a steep staircase. Above us was a sign, with a downward-pointing arrow and a pictogram of a railway car. There was writing on the sign, which I presumed meant "subway" or "train", but could not be sure.

As we walked down the broad staircase, I was surprised to see how quickly our surroundings changed. After descending about twenty feet, the smooth white walls of the airport transitioned to older ones constructed from thick marble slabs, with steps made of the same material. Unlike before, it was clear these steps had been well-trod. It felt like I was walking through an old museum in New York City, with deeply-worn grooves from countless years of foot traffic, except perhaps an order of magnitude more so. I almost slipped in a particularly large, smoothed-out rut on the lip of one of the steps. At the bottom of the stairs was a subway platform, designed to look like a large grotto, with high, rounded ceilings painted in bright red, purple and orange hues. Statues of were mounted across the tracks. I only got a good look at one of them, the most prominent: a uniformed woman holding a shield on her right arm.

"It's just one stop to my office," Jacintha said. I could see down the tunnel, and as a train approached, it was preceded by a wave of purple light, given off by vertical armatures that bent inwards as the train approached.

"Holy shit!" I said, then looked around in surprise as I realized that many of the men around me had let out some kind of epithet as well.

Jacintha rolled her eyes at my reaction. "Yes, it's like Wakanda," she said. "And no," she added, "this isn't Wakanda."

"That explains why Calista thought Black Panther was a comedy!" I blurted out.

"Who?" Jacintha asked.

"Calista Corey," I said. "She's my girlfriend. She's why I'm here."

"You have an Atlantean girlfriend?" Jacintha asked, eyes wide in surprise.

"Is that unusual?" I asked.

"I've never heard of a male who even knew they'd met an Atlantean girl before coming here! How did you meet?"

Just then, the train arrived. Like the plane, it was made of a black metal that resembled carbon fiber. The surface of the car was clean; there was no sign of graffiti. It was also covered in pits and deep scratches.

"How old is this subway car?" I asked, wide-eyed.

"We'll get to that later," Jacintha said.

We entered the car, and sat down on a lacquered wooden bench. Like the steps leading to the platform, there were obvious indentations in the smooth wood, where countless butts had seated themselves over the years. On the ride to the next stop, which lasted about ten minutes, I relayed an abbreviated version of how I had met Calista, how she had saved my life, and how her unexpected pregnancy precipitated her rushed return to Atlantea.

"I do love my job," Jacintha said, with a smile that reached both eyes. "It's never boring!"

"Will I be able to see her while I'm on this island?" I asked; it was something I had been worrying about ever since learning of the induction period.

"I don't think so, unfortunately. I'll ask my supervisor, to double check on that, though. You are the only client I've ever heard of who even knew they had met an Atlantean, let alone knew they got her pregnant, or had a serious relationship going." She looked down at her tablet, which looked similar to an iPad except fully translucent, and slowly swiped through screens of data. She mumbled to herself in her native language. As we arrived at the next station, I touched her shoulder, as she seemed so engrossed in what she was looking at.

"Don't we need to get out here?" I asked.

Jacintha looked up with a start. "Oh yes! Of course. Sorry!" she said, as she stood up quickly and tugged on my sleeve. We exited the car just as the doors closed behind us, trailing a group of males and their liaisons. Others had remained on the subway, presumably heading to different locales around the island. Like the airport station, this platform was constructed primarily from weathered, brightly-painted marble slabs. After navigating a series of broad, well-worn staircases, we exited onto a large square. It reminded me of pictures I had seen of London, or Paris, although I had never been to either one. Jacintha led me across the plaza and into a wide, three-story stone building. Inside, the old building had the pleasant, musty odor of a university library. We took an elevator to the top floor. I noted it was made by OTIS, a company whose logo I had seen before in the Unites States. Her office was comfortable, with a chaise lounge, comfortable easy chair, and an antique wooden desk.

* * *

Before I could say anything, my stomach growled. Despite Xyra's heroic efforts to supply me with breast milk throughout the flight, I was used to having at least three to four times that amount per day.

"Aw hell," Jacintha said, "I forgot you're probably hungry for lunch."

"No," I said. "Well, yes, but it's not your fault! They served lunch not too long before landing, I just didn't eat any."

At one point during the flight, Khrystyna had told me to, "tell your CL about your dietary needs," and only now did I understand what she meant.

"I am on an unusual diet;" I continued, "to keep a long story short, I only drink breast milk."

"But you eat some solid food, right?" Jacintha stated.

"No, I really don't; it doesn't taste good anymore."

"Are you kidding me? That isn't even, like, nutritionally possible!" she said.

"I've been that way for months," I said, raising my arms up to show that I was not all skin and bones. "Back home I was living with four women who were all nursing, and I kinda got in the habit."

"That part I can understand," Jacintha said, "but I don't see how you're not either a liar, or else dead right now. And you're obviously not dead." She came up and prodded my exposed chest. I had found that, since switching to a breast milk diet, my lean body mass had increased, rather than the opposite, and I was more cut than ever. Her finger met the taut skin of my right pectoral and the rock hard muscle beneath. Momentarily distracted, she traced down to my abs, before focusing on the matter at hand once more.

"You can ask Khrystyna, the flight attendant in our section," I offered to the skeptical CL.

"How did you survive the flight without eating? Did you fast the whole time? That's a long, long flight!"

"Well, the Valkyrie on board was nursing, so I breast fed with her," I said.

"You nursed with a Valkyrie," she said flatly. I was not sure if she was actually asking a question or not.

"Yes, her name was Xyra. She seemed pretty mellow about it, for a special forces commando ninja."

Jacintha's jaw dropped. "Wait, say that again."

"Special forces commando ninja?"

"No, dummy, her name!" she said, looking exasperated.

"Xyra?"

"Could you hold on a second?" she said. "I need to make a call."

I shrugged, now worried that I was in trouble. Jacintha sat behind her desk, put her tablet on the wooden surface, and made a few hand gestures. Moments later, a fifteen inch hologram of another woman appeared above the tablet, and Jacintha began speaking to her in animated Atlantean. I did notice a few words here and there that seemed to be in English: "fuck", "why", and "real". The holographic figure kept calm, periodically consulting someone, or some thing, off to the side. After ten minutes of back-and-forth, my liaison visibly relaxed, and soon after that she hung up.

"Well, Jason, you are, shall we say, quite the case. That was my supervisor, in case you hadn't guessed, and she told me to basically shut the fuck up, not ask questions, and take what you say at face value. Of course, she was a lot more polite about it. But, translating the bureaucrat-ese, it means something way above my pay grade is going on." I held up my arms, implying that the circumstances were beyond my control. "So let's see," Jacintha continued, counting on her fingers as she recited a litany of firsts. "First, you actually know you met an Atlantean woman, had a relationship with her, got her pregnant, and came here to reunite with her. I've never had a client like that, or even heard about a client like that. Ever! Next, you live on breast milk. It sounds like one of our field agents corroborates your story in her notes, so I guess that's true, too. I don't know how it's possible, but whatever, apparently Picobiology isn't as mature a science as we thought! Then you nurse with a fuckin' Valkyrie on the plane, and actually live to talk about it! Then, it turns out you can pronounce her name, which is supposed to be impossible for foreigners. Next you're going to tell me you had sex with her, and lived to talk about that, too!" Jacintha's voice had risen an octave by the end of her rant.

"About that last part," I began, "we did--"

Jacintha held up her hand, "Stop! I don't want to know." Just then, another hunger pang swept over me, and my stomach growled, louder than before. "Let's just focus on the here and now." She took a deep breath, composing her thoughts. "We are going to have to go off script. We'd normally cover this topic next week, but I can improvise."

With that, Jacintha unbuttoned her purple jacket, folded it neatly, and put it on her desk. It only had a few buttons, towards the bottom. Below was an unremarkable white blouse. This she unbuttoned as well, taking her time, then shrugged out of it. She was not wearing a bra, and the casualness with which she revealed her stunningly beautiful torso took my breath away. Noting my reaction, she said, "I guess that's early lesson number one; being topless here isn't a big deal." It still seemed like a big deal, to me, though. She had high, round breasts, with forward-facing nipples in the center. Her boobs looked smaller, in volume, than Natasha's, but not by much. I could barely make out her black areaolae against her almost equally dark skin.

"A quick lesson in Atlantean etiquette. This is going to sound awkward in English, which is why we normally don't cover it until you've had more language classes. Anyway, when a woman offers her breast milk to you, she will say, 'Is your mouth dry?' It's an old way of asking someone if they're thirsty, but nowadays it's only used in the one situation."

"Wait," I said. "When are women going to offer to their breast milk?"

"It's a common thing," she said, patiently. "We're getting ahead of ourselves again. But here, nursing women do it all the time."

"You mean with other adults?"

"Yeah. My sisters and I breastfeed each other once a day; well, usually. Just for a minute or two."

Questions began piling up in my head as Jacintha blithely revealed what were, to me, shocking revelations about Atlantean society. But all of this talk about nursing had made my hunger pangs just that much more acute, and I did not want to distract from the proceedings with my curiosity.

"So," she continued, "there are two stock phrases to use in response. If you are not interested, for whatever reason, you must say, in Atlantean, 'My cup runneth over.' Which is another out-of-date way of saying your bladder is so full that you badly need to pee, except nowadays you'd never say it, except in this one situation."

"My cup runneth over," I repeated. I found it hard to concentrate, as my eyes kept drifting down to her bare chest.