Johann Quisumbing

A Fictional Series by J Quisumbing

Chapter 11

Robby was lounging on one of the couches of the TV room of the recreation center. He and Tess were just finishing watching the day’s recording provided by one of the camera crew who made an unedited copy. On the TV screen was the Belinda bringing in the bloated net of debris collected by Ito’s boats to the port side mid-section of the outer ring.

“Oh, I love watching this,” Robby said.

“Hey, Dad, what’s got your interest?” asked Rob Jr.

“Sit down, son, and watch how they transfer all that trash from the open sea into one of our collection pens without lifting it out of the water.”

“Great! I never get a chance to see this part.”

Rob Jr. plopped down on the couch next to his dad. The video was showing one of Belinda’s crew tossing a rope to an awaiting personnel in orange jumpsuits on the outer ring. They started to pull in the rope which was attached to the tow cables of the filled net. Then, the Belinda backed up a shortway.

“How are they going to get all that junk over the outer ring into the pens?”

“Just watch, son.”

The video showed the outer ring from the perspective of Belinda’s fly deck. What looked like a rocky breakwater was in actuality thousands of recycled plastic cubes fused together. The video started to pan to the left following the men pulling on the cable. They disappeared behind a long dark vertical wall with diagonal yellow stripes painted on it. It seems to be about 20 feet high and about 40 feet in length and made of steel.

“What is that, dad?”

“Well, son, if you bothered to get your nose out of your computer games, explore around and go outside from time to time like your little sister, you would have known that this was the port side gate into the collection pens.”

The gate started to slowly open until the top, of which, disappeared under the water.

“Oh, cool! it’s a massive drawbridge!”

A crewman in orange jumpsuit gave a whirling signal with his hand. Robby knew that was the signal to engage the winch. The tow cables went taut and not long after the bloated net was slowly pulled in.

“Wow! It looks like a big whale being pulled into one of those outlawed whaling ships shown in an old National Geographic films. And all that stuff is garbage?”

“Yup, son.”

Then, the screen went dark

“Hey, Tess? Where is the part when Alicia fell into pen number 10?”

“Oh hon, it’s not in that file,” said Tess. “I’m reserving that for tomorrow night. I promised Ito that he and his family can watch it with us.”

“Okay, I got to get up early tomorrow anyway. I want to process all that material by tomorrow night.”

To be continued…

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Note from the author:
Oceanus Adventure is a fun effort on my part to enter the wonderful world of creative writing. It’s a story of a group of people who launched themselves into the Pacific Ocean on an artificial island to solve the Great Pacific garbage patch. My hopes is that this will end up into a TV series.

Comments and idea suggestions will be most welcomed. I hope you enjoy.