Madeline Freeman - Speechless

A girl with a special ability. A secret mission. A discovery that will change everything.

Aria lives in two worlds. The first is the flooded ruins of Los Angeles, where she spends her days scavenging for long-forgotten treasures.

The second is the surface, where if people knew she could breathe under water, she would be shipped off to a detention facility for aberrations. Her only reprieve from reality is The Colonists, which live-streams the life of her longtime crush, Enrique.

When the opportunity to join the Colonists arises, Aria leaves everything behind to try out for a life of adventureand, perhaps, romance.

But the selection process is more perilous than she could have imagined and when her secret comes out, the real danger begins.

This futuristic take on The Little Mermaid will pull you in as our brave heroine fights to find her place in the world and save the person she cares about most in the galaxy.

Now he is certainly sailing above, he on whom my wishes hang, and in whose hand I should like to lay my lifes happiness. I will dare everything to win him

E ven here, thirty meters underwater, Aria couldnt shake the feeling someone was watching herand for someone to see Aria swimming would be disaster.

The faded shafts of light that penetrated this far down illuminated nothing out of the ordinary among the ruins of Los Angeles. Still, the sense of unease didnt let up as she inhaled a breath of salty ocean water and exhaled through the gill slits on her neck.

Although no person technically owned the submerged remnants of the old city, it hadnt stopped salvage companies from staking informal claimsand defending against perceived incursions. But she and Alonzo had been careful. No one, least of all Cavanaugh and his thugs, knew they were here.

A voice crackled over the comm in her ear. We should get going or well be late for work.

Aria twisted, the current lifting her hair and swirling it around her head like a halo of red tendrils. Alonzo Gonzales floated two meters away, striking the plastic-and-rubber fins on his feet at intervals to keep himself just above the ocean floor. No matter how many times Aria saw Alonzos face obscured by his scuba gear, she never got over how silly and out of place he looked. But ever since he had come to live with her family a decade earlier, there were few places she went that he didnt followeven if he had to look ridiculous to do so.

Instead of typing a message on her wrist comm, Aria pointed at the tunnel they were excavating and held up her right hand, fingers splayed. The only drawback to her not needing a mask to breathe underwater was the limit to her communication.

Alonzos sigh was so loud that the comm in Arias ear dropped out for a second. Weve been at this for weeks. Another five minutes wont make a huge difference. Lets go. We promised Melody wed be on time for once.

Aria stuck her tongue out, the salt water tart on her taste buds. She sucked in a mouthful of the briny liquid and blew a stream in his direction, knowing it would disperse long before reaching him anyway. They still had plenty of time to return to the DuoCraft and make their way to the restaurant before their shift. When Melody had approached them about working tonight, Aria tried to talk her way out of it without giving too much away. She didnt want to get her sisters hopes up if this salvage didnt live up to their expectations. But, if this was all Aria hoped it would be, the credits from tonights shift would pale in comparison to what they would find.

They were close to a breakthrough; she could feel it. Tingles sparked up her fingers whenever they were close to a discovery. Alonzo called it her fish sense, but while he made light of it, shed grown to trust the feeling over her years salvaging the flooded ruins of this once-thriving city.

She swam back into the tunnel, darting through the area theyd been widening for Alonzo and his scuba gear. With one press of a button, the flashlight in her wrist comm illuminated the layers of sea-slick brick. She squinted through crevices into the blackness, hoping to glimpse somethinganythingbeyond.

Just then, a high buzz reverberated through the water and sent a spike of adrenaline zipping up her spine. The noise was unmistakable.

A motor.

Panic flashed along her arms and legs, gathering like pinpricks in her palms and on the soles of her feet.

In the two weeks they had been working down here, no one had come anywhere close to their location. Tourist season didnt begin for at least another week, and there was only one company who ventured here anyway. Their Ghosts of Old LA tour combined special holographic renderings of the sea floor with a guide telling spooky, allegedly true stories. Two summers ago, one of their boats veered off course and came nail-bitingly close to one of Arias scouting missions. Cover had been thin and if they had moved much closer, they would have seen her.

Unless this wasnt tourists. Were Cavanaughs men patrolling the area?

Arias feet slid against the flexible tunnel shielding as she backed her way out. Fingers closed around her ankle and, with Alonzos help, she lurched the rest of the way out, her heart hammering in her chest. Alonzo floated into view, his wide eyes visible even behind his mask.

Aria peered into the water above them, scanning for any sign of the craft. The buzzing hum suffused the surrounding water, as if the sound were coming from everywhere at once.

I dont have eyes on, Alonzo said through the comm. We need to hide.

Clenching her jaw, Aria squinted through the shimmering slants of sunlight. The obvious place was their excavation tunnel, but her fathers most important rule was to never hide where youre searching so no one gets suspicious and pokes around to discover your treasures when youre not there.

Actually, that was rule number two. The most important rule was for no one to see Aria in the water.

She and Alonzo typically selected a hiding place when they first arrived at a salvage site, but this part of the old city had been so decimated by the earthquake that there were no good options to choose from. Aria closed her eyes, calling up the routes they had taken on their different excavation runs. They always parked their DuoCraft in positions a kilometer away from the site, so she had entered the area from countless directions. Her minds eye traveled along the meters and meters of black cord she had stretched along the ocean floor to act as a tether for Alonzo. The currents here were unpredictable and so strong they had threatened to whisk even Aria away on more than one occasion.