The Surrogacy Trade by V.M. Andrews

Author:V.M. Andrews
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Opal Tree Press

As they walked along the promenade, Ophelia enjoyed the softer light. And the cooler air. She saw about 50 people dancing to the music, which was even more energetic than it had been when she had first arrived in the heat of the day. She looked at the orange sky again.

‘I’ve never seen a sky so vibrant,’ she said. ‘I feel like I’m in a fairy tale!’

‘This place is far from being a fairy tale,’ Antonio scoffed.

They stepped onto a jetty. A blue light flashed for a second.

‘What was that?’ Ophelia asked.

‘One of Gaia’s scanners,’ Antonio replied. ‘They’re randomly positioned all over the country. Don’t worry about it.’

But Ophelia worried, as she recalled the warning from the guards in Paris. Although the tracking device had been removed from her arm, and her identity had been created as a French citizen, Ophelia still felt vulnerable. And she suspected that she might always feel that way.

‘It seems like a strange place to have a scanner,’ she said. ‘And now that I think about it, I don’t recall seeing any scanners at the train station.’

‘They get moved around all the time,’ Antonio replied. ‘There’s no way of predicting when or where any of them will be. But if they capture someone who’s not entitled to be there, the police response is both swift and brutal.’

‘So I’ve heard,’ Ophelia replied.

She glanced into the boats tethered to either side of the jetty. Inside were people sprawled across their beds, sleeping or watching their holo-pads. ‘Surely it’s steaming hot inside those boats,’ she said.

‘No,’ Antonio replied. ‘The temperature is quite pleasant under the deck, even during the day, when the coolers are switched on.’

‘What are coolers?’ Ophelia asked.

‘Electric fans blowing over the top of buckets of seawater,’ Antonio replied.

Further along the jetty, Ophelia could see some people sitting upon the decks of the boats. They all looked sleepy, as though they had just woken from a nap, almost in a state of catatonia as they stared out to sea. One man was wearing nothing but a pair of very small shorts. His chunky tanned legs were covered in thick gray hair and his balding head was dripping with sweat. He took a long sip from a glass of red wine.

When they reached the end of the jetty, Ophelia sat down, removed her sandals and dropped her feet into the water. She gazed at the horizon line. ‘It’s changed color again, even in the last few minutes,’ she said. ‘And the temperature continues to drop. It’s glorious.’

‘It’s 27 degrees,’ Antonino replied, looking at his bracelet. ‘For this time of year, this is as low as it will go. The air is cooler at sea, of course, but we don’t go out often because it’s too expensive to power the boats.’

‘It must be worth it, though, to catch all the fish,’ Ophelia said.

‘There aren’t many fish in this sea,’ Antonio replied. ‘This ocean is too warm, which means we have to travel out to the deeper sea where it’s a bit cooler.

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