The next morning, when Talia couldn’t even see the faint outline of Auksand on the horizon, a great weight fell on her heart. Her home was gone, along with the people she had loved the most. The air seemed colder this morning. Then, there was movement coming towards them. An airship was coming towards them with three passengers on-board. As they came closer, Arvin recognised Breanna and George, but he did not recognise the farmer.

“I see that you managed to find us again,” Arvin said as they joined them.

“Yes. You had kept heading west as we had expected.”

“And is this the farmer, I presume.”

“Yes a farmer, but I’m a traveller at heart. Derek Northwich, it’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“The pleasure’s all mine, I’m Arvin, you’ve met Breanna and George. This is Talia, and that’s Monti and Matthew.”

“Blimey, which is which?” Derek joked and Arvin pointed he different twins out more clearly. “Oh, so Monti’s the good looking one is he?”

“Hey!” Matthew called back in protest.

“He’s not wrong,” Breanna added.

“We’re already half a day’s journey into the sea, Vortexia shouldn’t be too far now,” Arvin said.

“Not far at all,” George repeated as he looked past then, and he had a look of wonder in his eyes.

“Vortexia, now that looks like my kind of city,” Matthew said and both Arvin and Talia turned around. There, just before the horizon was a huge vortex in the ocean with a vast amount of water pouring down into it. A strong easterly gust suddenly caught all of their airships and propelled them towards it. As they neared Vortexia, they saw lights in the different tiers of the city, as well as the great wall of water that was where the glass wall would be in other cities. There was also what appeared to be steam rising from its centre.

As they neared the opening, they saw a platform rise out of the ocean for them to land upon. They steered their airships towards it and, with some buffeting from the wind, they managed to land. They anchored their airships onto the platform and made sure that they were secure.

“Everyone down safely?” George asked.

“Yes, we’re all here,” Monti called back as Derek went to the edge of the platform and looked down into the water.

“Derek?” Breanna asked.

“It’s beautiful,” Derek replied in delight. “The water’s incredibly powerful but yet there is life, people living amongst the roaring of the ocean.”

“It’s incredible, and it just shows how adaptable we are as a species.”

“Despite all the hardship, we always find a way to endure,” Matthew and George added.

“Indeed,” Derek said before there was a whirring sound and the crew turned to see a basic underwater boat, a submarine to you and I, emerge out of the water. It moved alongside the platform before a heavy door was swung open.

“It’s not often that we have visitors,” The stranger said as they climbed out of the boat.

“Not many know that Vortexia is real. I’m Arvin, and this is my crew,” Arvin said before he looked around and his eyes fixed upon Derek and Talia, neither of whom looked like aeronauts when compared to the rest of the group. “And two friends.”

“I’m Nardia. Welcome to Vortexia, may I ask what you’re doing here?”

“We wished to visit the city that so many talk about. You’ve adapted to your surroundings and, to go by all the stories, you are thriving. It is truly incredible.”

“Thank you. It was our ancestors who did most of the hard work, but we develop where we can.”

“I don’t mean to interrupt as I would love very much to look around this glorious city,” Monti said. “But, Auksand, Saoulhul and Lila have all permanently locked their gates.”

“So they really were worried about MA?”

“Yes. How do you know about that?”

“We hear also hear stories about the rest of the world. It is a truly absurd notion that fresh air can be perceived as bad air, and that it can induce such a state of mind that it makes a person dangerous to both themselves and everyone around them. Those who believe this will never grow or change, as they are scared of pain and suffering.”

“I am from Auksand,” Talia said as she stepped forwards. “And to us, it was not fresh air, as I have now found out, it was a threat that made people do dangerous acts. People were dying, and it was stemming from acting without caution. You must understand that we were scared of it, and people did do things while infected that caused danger to others. We were just trying to keep everyone safe.”

“You cannot keep people safe from everything. Life is hard and challenging, and it is also dangerous. But only by taking risks and acting dangerously, as some may view it, it is the only way on which we learn, grow and thrive. Come let me show you around,” Nardia said and they were happy to oblige. First, they climbed into the boat and it dived deep into the water. Deeper and deeper they went, until they emerged on the lowest tier of Vortexia.

Upon entering the city, they were in a shallow pool of water made for parting these underwater boats, while the water from the ocean above that fell through the centre, continued to plummet below them into what seemed like nothingness.

“Where does the water go?” Breanna asked.

“That we won’t tell to any outsider. Some things should remain a mystery,” Nadia told them as she began leading them through the streets. For the most part, it was like all of the other cities in its design. Each of the tiers had the same main purpose and both the infrastructure and the buildings were also of a similar design. Arvin asked about the missing glass wall and Nardia explained that the glass had been smashed when the city had been flooded.

Nardia went on to explain that once people realised they had not been killed in the flood, they had adapted so that the water and the spray would benefit them, rather than hinder them. Farms grew water-based plants as their food supply, and engineers had turned their industries into fishing and a project to map the entire seabed. The only time that any water got into the tiers was when a tremendous storm hit the ocean, or there was a tsunami: neither of which happened very often, but they had created a water drainage system in all of the tiers just in case it did. Monti pressed her for the details on how their systems worked and she happily obliged.

When they reached tier 3, Nardia led them down a wide side street and into a glass tunnel. The tunnel passed through the cascading water before the group descended some stairs. Everyone in the group fell silent as they saw what they were heading for. To those in Vortexia, it was known as the Four Fishes.

The restaurant was a hollowed-out glass sphere supported by a thick steel frame. It was positioned in the middle of the centre, with four glass tunnels, also with a steel frame, leading into it in each of its four corners, if it had corners. It had an upper and a lower floor, and each tunnel split just before it met the sphere, giving the tunnel the look of a fish with its head connecting to its respective tier and a tail with two ends that attached to the sphere.

“Incredible,” Monti said as they entered the lower level.

“It’s magnificent, you can see all of Vortexia from here,” Derek said as he sounded like a small child as his heart jumped in his chest with excitement.

“It’s amazing,” Breanna added.

“Why don’t we all sit down and have some food? I bet that you’re all hungry after your long journey,” Nardia said and they all agreed. Arvin then noticed the kitchen for the first time, it was in the centre of the sphere and it about the same size as a large, circular bar in a pub. The exterior was made out of lightly coloured stone, but all the surfaces were that of stainless steel. It had six gas stoves with two chefs working three of them each, and a chimney that carried the steam up and out of the sphere. That was what they had seen of it from the air.

It was a relief to Arvin and his crew to be somewhere that knew of MA, but had not heeded any attention to it. Talia was slowly calming down and it seemed as though Derek had finally found his home. Over the meal, they joked, laughed and talked more about machinery and the workings of Vortexia. Monti promised that their next project would be to help Arvin make a brand new airship. They were all glad to be in each others company and they were looking forward to having many more joyous meals together, in a large variety of wondrous places.

Vortexia worked at the pace of their strongest, not their weakest. They have those who are vulnerable and risk-averse, but they did not make up the majority of society and, as such, they did not dominate the decisions of its direction or how it is run. Hope lay in the way ahead and every part had to keep moving forwards, even if it created hardship for a short while.