Free Talented by Sophie Davis Page A

about another hundred miles or so east – yet I hoped that since we had the hover mobile it wouldn’t be a problem.  In a road mobile the trip would take hours, but in a hover mobile we could get there in just a half an hour.
    “I guess we could do that,” Henri answered with a s hrug.  “Erik?  Any complaints?”
    “Have at it.  You can take her to the ocean if you want. I think this might be wher e we part ways,” Erik answered.
    “Do you have something better to do?” I demanded, for some reason offended that he wanted to run off so soon.
    “Actually , I do.”
    I scowled at him.  “Fine.  Be that way.” I turned to Henri, “You don’t mind do you?”
    “No, not at all .  Erik, I’ll meet up with you later tonight?”
    Erik nodded before heading out the door to the restaurant.
    Henri led me back to the towering, above-ground parking garage where we’d left the hover mobile, and we set off for the short trip to the beach.  Even though it had been over a hundred years since the nuclear reactors had leaked nuclear waste contaminating the planet’s oceans, very few people risked swimming.  Instead, most people favored lakes and ponds – fresh bodies of water that didn’t connect to the ocean.  As a result, the Eastern Shore beaches were relatively empty, and we were able to land the hover mobile right in the sand.  I impatiently waited for Henri to pop the glass covering; once he did, I kicked off my shoes, and jumped over the side of the car, landing deftly on the balls of my feet in the soft sand.
    I inhaled deeply and closed my eyes.  The smell of salt water and seaweed fil led my nostrils. I inhaled a little deeper and concentrated my mental energy towards expanding my sense of smell.  I could pick up traces of fish and kelp, mixed with oil from the fishing boats.  I’d always found it weird that people would eat the ocean life, but refuse to swim in the water.  I exhaled happily.
    The breeze coming off the water was cool , but the sand was warm from the afternoon sun.  I dropped to my knees and picked up handful after handful of sand, letting it trickle through my splayed fingers.  As long as I kept my eyes closed, I could pretend that I was a little girl on the rocky beach of Capri.
    When I was very young, before we started moving around all of the time, my family lived in a stone house built into the bluffs overlooking the Tyrrhenian Sea.  My mother would take me down to the beach at the base of the bluffs and let me play in the pinkish-orange sand.  I would collect bottles of the sand and take it back to the house, where I would painstakingly sort out the pink and orange grains under a magnifying lens.  My mother knew that the colored sand was a by-product of the ocean contamination, but she never ruined my fantasy by letting me in on the secret.
    The sand on the beach at the Eastern Shore was not pink or orange but rather a dark brownish black.  The water here was a dark, muddy brown, a stark contrast to the clear, sparkling water of the Tyrrhenian Sea.  I kept my eyes closed, and walked towards the sound of the waves lapping the shore.  I heard Henri calling my name over the breaking of the waves, warning me not to get in the water.  I ignored his counsel, and walked until I could feel the water swirling around my ankles.  I stood, inhaling the salty spray, until my feet had sunk so deeply in to the wet sand that Henri had to help me out.
    As the sun began to sink lower behind us, I knew my time at the beach had to come to an end.  Mac had said I needed to be back by dark, and I didn’t want Henri getting in trouble on my account.
    Henri and I rode back to Headquarters in silence.
    “Thanks for today,” I said sincerely, when we pulled into the parking bay of Elite Headquarters.
    “You deserve it, you’ve been working so hard.”
    “I still appreciate it.  It was nice of you to go to the trouble of getting permission from the Captain and all, to let me go,” I