Go Back:
Read:
Another jump scare: a foghorn bellows.
Behind you: giant headlights shred the fog.
Evasively you’re whisked away — out of the oncoming path of this massive container ship — sleek and stacked to the gills with colorful shipping containers, stenciled boldly with the same word emblazoned across the hull: CASTLE.
You buzz the tower — but it’s not a bridge — just a wall of sensors, indicator lights blinking in the mist.
You fly up — faster — pushing into the soup.
The horn blares, quivering the fog like antinodes in a standing wave — the feeling is: Kabuki drop: clear skies inside a vapor bell jar.
Then you see it: Land — a coast — an industrial port — straight ahead — the whole island — marked by a ruddy silhouette — backlit by gloaming.
Skimming over the water, you make your approach.
The port is too bustling to be laden with snow, but everything else is blanketed in powder white — the large hill in the background — capped by a skyscraper fading into the cloud zenith like an umbrella over the hill — sheltering concentric streets, rings of identical rooves and dusted yards — spiraling all the way up to the tower.
The island is gray and hazy: imbued with dusk. But the port is vibrant. Row after row of colorful shipping containers, each branded CASTLE — getting stacked and unstacked, rapidly: not by gantry cranes, but by a pair of colossal robotic arms.
Automated Guided Vehicles and straddle carriers zip around — either already loaded or moving into position to get loaded — those deft claws, clenching and depositing the ribbed containers like toy cars.
You drift around the base of a second set of arms, offline, lifeless, like the feet of the colossus. Again the foghorn bellows: breaking through the veil — not head on, but sideways — muted — until its turbines kick back in and the water churns and sprays, graceful in how it manages the speed of its auto-docking, tucking itself neatly into the open berth — as the second pair comes online, springing into action — casting long moving shadows — ripping the containers — two by two — off the ship and onto the backs of AGVs waiting to receive them, then scuttling off.
The ride has you floating at more or less their height — meandering slowly through the port’s guts, getting crisscrossed and overtaken by the various models of delivery machine — like you — navigating the stacks, turning a corner here or there but eventually you ease down a corridor strung with bistro lights, warm and oddly cozy: and terminating at a trendy-looking shipping container home built into the back of this dead-end lane.
You slow down — closer.
The lights are on. Someone’s inside.
Closer: the blinds rattle. A pair of eyes peeks through.
The camera lands. You wait.
The door cracks and slowly peels open.
The person’s walking out.
The title appears across the screen:
GOD WATERS
CUT TO BLACK.
