“Look at all that water!” Jennifer gasped after I slowly pulled the truck out of the ship's hangar and turned towards Vancouver.

  Although the coast was still a few kilometers away, the Strato Carrier had been traveling at such a high altitude that the ocean was still clear, even at this distance. The kids all pushed against the window and let out a chorus of oh’s and ah’s.

  “We’re going to get a chance to take a closer look, right?” Eddie asked quietly, not taking his eyes off the window.

  “Don’t worry, I’ve set a couple hours aside for us to check out the coast later today,” Jane assured the little ones. “We’re going to visit a couple other places first.”

  The kids simultaneously let out a moan of disappointment.

  “Hey! Jane didn’t say we weren’t going, just that you had to wait a bit. We’re going to meet a samurai friend of mine at a local attraction. We’ll head to the shore after that,” I snapped. “A little patience, please.”

  “Fine… we’ll survive, I suppose,” Eddie pouted.

  I couldn’t help but smile at his sullen attitude. A year ago he hid behind a sarcastic, snarky attitude, but ever since he’d discovered poetry, he’s slowly come out of his shell and started looking for new experiences. I never would have imagined that he’d get this excited about something as simple as visiting the seashore.

  Spooky had parked the carrier just north of Vancouver, so I slowly brought the truck to a more reasonable cruising altitude before accelerating towards the city.

  From the outside Vancouver didn’t look that different from any other megacity that I’d visited. Titanic concrete defensive walls more than ten stories high topped with defensive weapon emplacements with massive spires of glass and steel looming behind them. It was only after we crossed this outer barrier that I began to notice some significant differences.

  Unlike Calgary, Vancouver had a number of massive internal walls that split the city into different sections. Since most civilians had access to hover transports, this didn’t really restrict travel, which meant they probably served a defensive purpose. The design actually made a lot of sense once I thought about it. During an incursion the government could lock down specific areas and prevent the Antithesis from spreading too far.

  Sure, they’d probably find their way into the utility tunnels or dig through the defensive barrier given enough time, but they kept the aliens contained long enough for the samurai to respond. It was way more efficient and effective than assigning several hundred bears to create a perimeter.

  The other big difference was the massive port on the west side of the city. Although the outer wall didn’t block off the waterfront, there was an inner wall that ran parallel to the shoreline a couple hundred meters in.

  A series of massive shipping terminals, naval docks, and what I could only guess was a samurai wharf, based upon the collection of unusual and futuristic ships docked there, completely dominated the shoreline. It seemed like they tried to squeeze as many ships into the area as was physically possible, which kind of made sense. If they developed docks outside the wall, they’d be vulnerable to both ground and sea based Antithesis, and PMCs would take extra time to respond to issues. At least this way they had a small measure of protection from the city’s defenses.

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  I shook my head I’d been so distracted by the sights I’d forgotten to check exactly where our destination was. Quickly pulling up a navigation application in my augs, I entered the address of the Aqua Garden and watched as an augmented reality guideline slowly appeared in front of me.

  We made a wide turn around an extremely tall and opulent-looking skyscraper before heading to a fairly flat section of the city. While most of the sectors had several megabuildings and skyscrapers, this one didn’t have anything over five or six stories. Not only that, but there appeared to be a number of manicured garden areas. It was actually kind of pretty.

  The guideline led me to a long, squat building that had a sweeping design. It wasn’t practical, but it was pretty.

  I set the truck down in the nearly abandoned parking lot outside and shut off the engine. According to both Grey and the information I’d dug up through the information nets, this place was supposed to be fairly popular. Maybe it was too early, or the fact that there were still Antithesis outside the city had put people off.

  “What is this place?” Issi asked curiously.

  “The Vancouver Aquatic Gardens,” I explained. “It was meant to be an aquarium, but they only managed to move the corals out of the old location before the Antithesis got to it, not the fish.”

  The girl’s face fell. “No fishes?”

  “Don’t worry, little one, even though there aren’t any real fish, the curators recently retrofitted many of the exhibits, adding holo projectors. Now you can see just how the ocean looked before the Antithesis got to it,” a melodic female voice echoed out from near the entrance to the complex.

  I turned and found a figure I recognized slowly wandering our way. The woman sashayed forward, moving with a feline grace. She wore a sleeveless pink blouse and brown slacks, which matched her bronzed skin and short, frizzy brown hair. Jane and Alan stared at her suspiciously, so I jogged over and stuck out my hand to show them she was a friend. I’d forgotten how tall she was, just short of six feet, so I might have had to thrust my hand more up than out.

  “Gray, good to see you again,” I said. “I barely recognized you without your usual *ahem* uniform.”

  “I don’t like wearing nanites out in public,” she replied with a smile. “They make great armour, but tend to give people the wrong idea about me.”

  “I can’t imagine why,” I mumbled, remembering the last time I’d seen her in the skin-tight layer of liquid nanites. “This is my family: Jane, Alan, Jennifer, Eddie, and Isabelle.”

  “Issi!” the little girl immediately declared.

  “Well, it’s nice to meet you, young lady. My name is Layla Khalil, but you may know me by my samurai name, Gray Goo,” Gray declared as she crouched down and stuck out her hand.

  I blinked. I’d talked to the woman half a dozen times over the last year and had not once thought to ask her real name. Embarrassing.

  “Nice to meet you,” Issi declared seriously, shaking Layla’s hand. Her attempt to seem mature brought a smile to everyone’s face.

  “And you, young lady,” Layla replied before straightening up again.

  “I’m sorry if we seemed suspicious,” Jane said as she walked over and offered her hand. “We’ve learned the hard way that being related to a samurai doesn’t always make our lives safer. We still need to be cautious around strangers.”

  “Don’t think anything of it,” Layla said, first shaking Jane’s hand, then Alan’s. “I understand how it can be.”

  Layla reached into the bag at her side and dug out a handful of plastic bands, holding them out for everyone. “I went ahead and paid for your visit. All you need to do is take one of these, attach it to your wrist, and then wave it over the sensor at the door. I know, it’s kind of an old -school system, but sometimes the old ways are best.”

  The kids each quickly grabbed one, and I bent down to help Issi fasten hers before turning back towards my friend and taking a band for myself.

  I quickly glanced back at the Kodiak, which had settled nearby, and summoned Bob and the bodyguards. The group piled out of the military vehicle and rushed over to stand behind the family.

  “Sorry, I didn’t buy your buddies any passes,” Layla smirked.

  “It’s fine, Bob can… no, Nyx, you mind buying a couple extra passes that Bob can pick up? I’d ask him but, you know…”

  It’s no problem.

  “Thanks,” I mumbled before gesturing for Bob to go collect the bands, which were printing from the nearby machine.

  Since the kids seemed to be getting a little restless, I clapped my hands to draw everyone’s attention. “Alright everyone, even though I want you to have fun today, it needs to happen SAFELY. Stay close to either Jane, Alan, or me, and don’t even try to lose your assigned escort. If you do, you’re going to find your vacation getting a whole lot more boring. Got it?”

  “Got it,” Eddie replied for the group.

  “Good. Then gather up. It’s time for us to get a look at this place. This is the first stop of our first vacation ever, so let’s do our best to enjoy it!”

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