CHAPTER 7

Caleb and Ariadne opened their eyes and found themselves in the middle of a vast valley, the grass was so long that it reached the children's knees. They had never seen a greener and longer grass–or any grass at all–in their lives.

Up in the sky, it was daylight, even though it was night only a few seconds ago. Furthermore, Caleb noticed that the heat there was not as penetrating as in the camp, but warm and pleasant.

Realizing that he was still holding Ariadne's hand, he let her go and put the voyager in his pocket.

"Where are we?" She asked. "This place looks like a dream. Are we already dead"?"

Caleb was turning in circles, his gaze wandering in amazement at the mysterious place and trying to understand where they were; it did not look like anywhere he had seen in photographs.

Then, he realized why.

"I don't think we're at home anymore," he admitted.

"Well, we know that already."

"No, I mean in our world."

"What? That's insane… is it?"

It was, indeed, but all the evidence pointed to it: the excessive vegetation, the sudden change from night to day, the regular heat. Caleb, however, knew that, like all scientific hypotheses, he had to put his theory to the test.

Without warning and with all his courage, Caleb took the breather off of his face.

"Caleb! Put it on again!" Ariadne screamed anxiously and prepared to help him, but he stopped her.

Caleb took a deep breath and let the air flow back and forth to his lungs… and nothing happened. In fact, that was the cleanest oxygen he had breathed, the original.

"It's okay, you can take it off," he cheered to Ariadne.

She hesitated at first, but when she saw that Caleb was good, she followed his initiative and took off her mask.

"So?" She asked Caleb expectantly.

"It feels fantastic," she said as she inhaled and exhaled. "We're definitely not in our world."

"No. Wherever we are, it imitates how ours was before climate change."

"Who are you?" A female voice asked from behind.

Both Caleb and Ariadne turned around and saw a woman standing about fifty meters away from them.

"Who are you?" She repeated.

They couldn't speak and certainly didn't expect to see anyone other than The Engineer in that place.

"I'm Caleb Smart, and she's Ariadne Carmichael, we're looking for Icarus Abbott," he finally replied.

"Wonderful! Icarus has been waiting for 18 years for someone to show up," the woman confirmed with a smile.

"So, is he really here?" Ariadne asked.

"Absolutely. Where else would he be? Come with me now, and I will take you to him."

Caleb and Ariadne followed the woman through the valley and went downhill until they arrived at a three-story house, the largest they had ever seen, and it was full of big windows in its stone walls.

The front yard was full of trees and shrubs leading to the entrance, and a few meters to the left of the house, the ground rose to a cliff overlooking the ocean.

The whole place gave the couple an inner peace and gave them the feeling that everything would be fine, that there was nothing to fear.

"Over here, children" the woman called them, forcing Caleb and Ariadne to leave their amazement behind for a while.

"This place is wonderful," Ariadne whispered Ariadne to Caleb. "I now understand why 'The Engineer' never came back."

Caleb nodded astonished but suspicious about the origin and location of the spot. How was all that possible?

The woman went up the stairs to the porch and opened the door.

"Come in, I'll call Icarus." The woman went upstairs.

The duo entered the house and immediately found it disappointing compared to the exterior. The walls were completely empty, not a single frame hung in it. Likewise, there was no decoration anywhere else, just a few pieces of furniture and the windows.

Caleb's admiration for the world instantaneously disseminated, and an uneasy feeling grew inside him; something was wrong. The house looked very welcoming, but as soon as you walked into the sensation it created was the other way around. What if it was a reflection on the inhabitant's personality?

"Children," the woman called them still with a smile as she came down the stairs to meet them again. "Let me introduce you to Icarus Abbott, the engineer."

Behind her, a man with long hair and a long beard came down to their encounter. He was probably in his 40s, but he didn't look like someone you'd sit down to talk to. In fact, he didn't look friendly at all, which alarmed Caleb even more.

"Well, well. Finally, someone deciphered the voyager," said Icarus emotionless. "Welcome to my house, I am Icarus Abbott, and she is Ava."

The woman waved her hand to greet them. Surprisingly, she seemed happier to see them than Icarus himself.

"And your names are…" Icarus insisted, staring at both.

"Caleb Smart," introduced Caleb.

"I am Ariadne Carmichael," Ariadne imitated him.

Then, Icarus' gaze wandered away from Caleb and focused entirely on Ariadne, and his expression became bitter–if that was even possible–as if she had uttered a bad word.

"Carmichael?" He interrogated her quietly.

"Yes, why?" She replied cautiously.

"You're Solomon Carmichael's daughter, aren't you?"

"Yes, that's me. Do you know my father?"

"Know him? I hate him, and the last person I hoped to see here is his daughter. Have you really solved my riddle?"

"We did it together," Caleb said.

Icarus examined them for a moment.

"All right, then. You can stay."

"Where exactly are we now?" Asked Caleb.

"By using the voyager you have teleported into another dimension, mine."

"Yours? What do you mean?"

"This is my dimension because I created it and design it to look like our original world before its corruption."

"How did you create a dimension? I didn't know it was even possible"

"Just because something seems impossible to achieve doesn't mean it is. I actually built everything you see around you, even Ava."

Surprised, Caleb and Ariadne turned to look directly at Ava directly.

"Does that mean she's a…?" Asked Ariadne.

"A robot? Yes, she is. Do you like the way I designed her to look exactly like a human being? Almost imperceptible at common sight. Anyway, you pick whichever room you like."

"Actually, Mr. Abbott, that's why we're here," Caleb interrupted him. "We'd like to ask you to come back to the real world with us."

Icarus stopped and raised an eyebrow, facing them.

"Excuse me, what did you just say?"

"The world is a disaster, it's hazardous to put a foot out of the cities, there are people living outside, there are no plants and animals nearby, and the weather could kill you. We desperately need help, and we thought you could help us fix it."

The man did not react and stared directly at the couple as if he were deciding what to say next, but could not formulate the right words in his head. Then, unexpectedly, he laughed loudly.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he scoffed. "Please don't tell me you came here just to ask me that because if you did, you're not that clever."

Caleb and Ariadne opened their mouths, and exchanged glances, not understanding what was going on. Wasn't he expecting that?

"Oh my God, you really did, you really thought I left you the voyager just to come back with you." Icarus stopped laughing and took on a serious expression. "I'm not coming back, I didn't flee all those years ago just to return, and neither should you."

"Why did you leave the voyager to Eudora then?" Asked Caleb, worried.

"I told her to give it to the right person, a smart person like me because I wanted to save one. Only a smart person could solve my voyager and then it would bring them here, where they would avoid dying."

"What do you mean dying?" Asked Ariadne.

"As your friend said here, the world is a disaster, which fulfills exactly the prediction I made years ago. If this continues, the world as you know it should end in less than a decade."

The pair could hardly believe what they were hearing. The world's end was coming, and Icarus did not even care to try to avoid it? Why? Refusing to accept the truth, Caleb kept demanding the answers he'd been waiting for.

"How can you turn your back on the world just like that?"

"Because people like Carmichael did it in the first place. They are the ones responsible for the current state of the planet."

"Everyone was reckless and polluted the environment. My father may not be perfect, but he is not the only guilty," Ariadne argued.

"What on earth are you talking about, girl? Don't you know what happened?"

The innocent looks on their faces betrayed them.

"No, you don't," Icarus chuckled. "I'm not surprised at all. After all, history is told from the perspective of those who write it; what a great opportunity to hide their mistakes. Well, children, let me tell you the true story behind the catastrophe."

"We were alerted that if we kept polluting the environment, there would be irreversible consequences. I worked hard day and night to develop sustainable solutions to prevent a possible doomsday. Although some countries listened to me, the majority did not; they did not believe the warning and treated me like another activist.

"By 2030, the climate already began to be affected: temperatures rose everywhere, glaciers melted, polar bears and other animal species extinguished, sea levels rose, cities disappeared.

"All these conditions made life tougher in a plethora of places, and protests aroused. A war for resources began, in which countless people died. I was then contacted by a general to examine possible strategies, in particular the dropping of bombs. I predicted that a nuclear bomb would be the drop that would spill the glass of the environment; it would ultimately make life on the planet unsustainable and affect the climate forever.

"I warned them to not use it, to end that ridiculous war. The next thing I knew was that a huge explosion on the other continent… a nuclear bomb dropped ripping countries to pieces and claiming thousands of lives.

"When I confronted the army, they laughed at my face. Then I discovered the crude truth: the design of the bomb was taken from a design I had made for my Atomic Energy course when I was in college; it was meant to measure the damage caused by nuclear explosions.

I realized… it was my fault; I was a genocide."

Icarus remained silent for a minute, controlling his breath and wiping a tear from his cheek. In a trembling voice trembling, he made an effort to carry on.

"The oxygen got contaminated and the green died, just as I said. The government hid the real cause of the devastation, and those responsible acted as if nothing had happened at all. That was the moment I knew I couldn't keep living there.

"I built this dimension, a place to run away. I trusted that there would be at least one person worth saving, but they had to think differently from the others. I decided to design a puzzle, and if they could decipher it, they would come here, a one-way ticket.

"When I finally gathered everything together, I left the device at Eudora's and ran away here, where I created Ava and have been waiting for someone ever since."

Caleb again felt heavy in his stomach, and a low whistle circled around his ears, his mouth wanted to utter words, but they did not come out. Ariadne took a hand to her mouth in dismay, and tears gushed from her eyes.

"If only my former friend had not given my designs to the army, probably nothing would have happened," Icarus concluded.

"Who was your friend?" Ariadne asked him in a brittle voice.

He locked his gaze in her eyes.

"I think you already know his identity. I'll give you a hint: you see him every morning and evening at the table and bear his last name."