The Girl in the Road (4 page)

Then the tone of her voice changes. This is a pilot project, she cautions. HydraCorp and its partners, mainly the Djiboutian government, rich from recent oil wealth, wanted to know if this is a viable, sustainable form of energy after oil runs out, in which case they'll build a TILG for the Indian Ocean and a TPLG for the Pacific Ocean and all the world's oceans could be crisscrossed with energy generators like a fishnet flung across the entire planet. This is incredible. Mohini would be clutching at my sleeve right now if she were here. And how does the TALG stay roughly in the same place? Well, because of breakthroughs in materials science, the TALG is anchored to the seafloor by means of Gossamoor, synthetic silk modeled on the draglines of Darwin's bark spider, native to Madagascar, which is not only the strongest substance known but weighs about twelve milligrams per thousand meters. And thanks to HydraCorp's partnership with China Telecom, the anchors parallel the SEA-ME-WE 3 undersea cable that carries data between Mumbai and Djibouti before veering up the Red Sea. And how does the TALG survive the many intrusions of maritime traffic? Well, gentle viewer, it turns out that the segments are programmed to sense oncoming ships and take on seawater, sinking up to thirty meters to let the ship pass, and then pumping the water back out to regain buoyancy.

The Trail is a conspiracy of ideal materials. I am fucking amazed.

When the presentation is done, a static map of the world appears and the narrator urges me to explore it with my fingers. I jump up to the screen. If I press my finger to any city in the world, a pie chart surfaces next to it, detailing the breakdown of that city's energy sources. This is marvelous. I press my finger to Djibouti. Thirty percent of their electricity is currently sourced from the TALG. The results are promising. And now I have a theory brewing in my mind, something I want to tell Mohini, a new field of study altogether, about how the source of a society's energy must necessarily shape their language, art, and culture. In the case of Djibouti, their people will be wavelike. Should I call it the sociopsychology of energy?—that then infuses its culture, even its individuals. Mohini was of a solar nature, certainly.

I need to find out my own.

Maybe that's why I'm here. Maybe the universe is conspiring in my favor.

After waiting a polite amount of time the narrator invites me to explore the rest of the museum and I take her up on it. I need to remember to ask the attendant who the voice actor is. I feel sentimental.

I descend a stairway that is slanted, crystalline. For each type of energy the narrator named, there's a dedicated floor, scientifically, technically, stylistically. I lose my intention of researching travel methods. I give myself to wonder. It's a palace of human invention. The Wood Gallery is paneled in sweet-smelling cedar and features a hologram of proto-Dravidian nomads chopping wood and throwing it onto a fire. They're wearing skins and pelts. They introduce a carcass of some woodland animal, which they roast, and it smokes and blackens. The hologram cuts away before they begin eating it, and resets, to one lone nomad wandering in the forest. She's gazing at the trees in wonder. She selects one, thanks it, and then chops it down with her stone ax. The sequence begins again.

I turn away and look at the exhibits against the wall. There's a display where you can select a wood chip, insert it into a clear box for burning, and then watch how much energy is generated. I burn six wood chips. I don't get tired of it. Everything is amazing to me. The display informs me that this gallery is powered by high-efficiency wood combustion, that in fact every floor is powered by the energy source it features. Next to the display there's a pair of immersive goggles that, when I put them on, casts me as a molecule of groundwater sucked up through a tree root. The journey up through the xylem is exhilarating. When I enter the leaf and get split up, I'm presented with a choice:
If you would like to go with the hydrogen atoms, say “hydrogen.” If you would like to go with the oxygen atom, say “oxygen.”

I say, “Oxygen.”

I'm released from the tip of the leaf and float out into the air. This is like flying. I look below me and there's a forest floor dappled with sunlight. I expect the simulation to pixelate and dissolve. But it doesn't. The trees are sharp and clear and I can see every leaf and flower. I keep floating. The programmer imagined a whole world for me. She's more than a programmer, she's a storyteller, a creator goddess. I'm crossing over a slow-moving green river and then the land turns to desert, where a caravan of trucks makes its way across the waste.

I take off the goggles. I'm back in the Wood Gallery. The hologram sequence is right at the moment where the animal carcass burns. I watch it a second time and then a third time. I feel like I could watch it all day.

I descend the stairs and explore the Water Gallery, where the walls are made of waterfalls, and eight mills pinwheel on the energy they make. The floor is crisscrossed with streamlets, each of which powers a display table featuring a notable world dam.

Below these are the Coal Gallery (uninspired), the Oil Gallery (depressing), the Nuclear Gallery (neon orange and green), the Geothermal Gallery (my favorite besides the Wood), the Wind Gallery (I set all the turbines spinning), and the Fusion Gallery (a hologram of Enid Chung at her bench, making the discovery).

The Solar Gallery is on the second floor. There's a miniature array I'm invited to manipulate, a model of the Sun Traps in Sudan. I remember from the floating pie chart that they supply twenty percent of Europe's energy and forty percent of North Africa's, after ARAP (African Resources for African Peoples) repossessed the land their governments had sold off and forced new lease agreements. My euphoria increases: despite the snake, despite the terror, overall the world is only getting better.

Now is the time for me to undertake a great journey.

I float down the last staircase. I come to the same lobby where I'd first entered. I ask the attendant: “Where's the Wave Gallery?”

He points to a doorway in the wall behind the front desk. “Down one more flight,” he says. “It's in the basement.”

So this'll be the room dedicated to the Trail. From the doorway comes a warm chlorine smell. This staircase is concrete, not crystalline. It looks much older than the rest of the building. I turn around to ask the attendant a question but he already has the answer: “It used to be a warehouse for fishwaalas. We preserved it and made it part of the museum.”

I thank him. I wonder if he can see me glowing, if he can see that I'm a different person than I was when I first came in.

I descend the staircase and come into a broad, low room. In the ground there's a rectangular pool, maybe eight meters across. From this side to the far side is a pontoon bridge, each section bobbing with gentle artificial waves. I realize I'm looking at a prototype of the Trail.

A young woman stands up from where she'd been crouching on the opposite side of the pool. She's wearing a red swimsuit and holding a red foam buoy.

“Namaste!” she calls.

“Namaste. Are you the lifeguard?”

“Yes,” she says. “The pool is only two meters deep, but that's enough to drown in. Have you watched the film?”

“The what?”

“The film in the cinema. About how the Trail works.”

“I thought you weren't supposed to call it the Trail.”

“You're right! The TALG. Don't tell anyone.”

“I won't.”

“Go ahead and try it,” she says.

“Try what?”

“Walking on it, silly!” Even from this far away I can see she gets dimples when she smiles. “That's what it's here for. I promise I won't judge you. Believe me, I've seen everything.”

I can sense she's eager to see me try. She probably sees couples and families, mostly. Not another woman alone, like her. I can feel she wants me to succeed.

I take a step toward the edge of the pool. The concrete walls have been painted with murals: a sunset on the left, a moonrise on the right.

I stall.

“So you just … walk across it?”

“Well, you can explore it any way you want. You can swim around it if you brought a swimsuit—there's a changing room over there. But walking on it is the coolest thing, in my opinion.”

“Won't it sink when I step on it?”

“It's buoyant,” she says. I can tell she gives this speech a lot, but makes sure to infuse it with warm reassurance every time. “We call the segments ‘scales' because they ripple. Each scale reaches down one meter and displaces three hundred and forty kilograms of seawater. Each scale is also hollow, made of aluminum alloy and shaped like an upside-down pyramid, with a hundred and thirty kilograms of ballast at the bottom to counteract the weight on the top. So you're fine! Some water might slosh in and you might get your feet wet, but don't worry. I haven't seen them sink yet.”

“Oh yeah? How long have you worked here?”

She laughs. “Only two months, I guess. I'm on break from college.”

“Where at?”

“IIT-Bombay.”

“That's where I went.”

“You did? What did you study?”

“Nano and comp lit.” I don't tell her I left my second semester.

“What a mix. I'm studying nano too.”

“It's useful,” I say. “Lots of jobs.”

She knows I'm still stalling. But she's gracious enough not to say so. She says, “Do you want me to show you how to walk on it?”

“No, it's all right,” I say. Now I feel ashamed. Apparently this has been done. I need to get over it.

I take off my boots. I place one bare foot on the surface of the first scale, right in the center of its solar panel, and then transfer more and more weight to it. I'm surprised that it holds. My weight creates a wave and the wave travels up and down the Trail. The surface is rough like sandpaper, not smooth like what I think of as a solar panel.

I continue forward. I let my knees be soft. I hold out my arms like a dancing Shiva. The scales bob more vigorously and I stop to regain my balance. I keep going. I enter a sublime headspace: my body learns from the mistakes I don't have words for, and my anima makes corrections.

I take a final lurch to reach the opposite side. My feet are wet and leave dark prints on the floor. I come face-to-face with the young lifeguard. She's gorgeously built, short, solid, muscular, like a gymnast. Her smile is that of a girl well loved.

“Good job!” she says. “You're a natural.”

“Are you?”

“Oh yeah,” she says. “When I get bored here, I just run across it.”

“Show me.”

She smiles and puts down her foam buoy. Then she jogs across, as if it were a solid sidewalk. I'm amazed.

“How did you do that?”

“You just learn to read it,” she calls from the other side. “Your body learns to anticipate how it's going to move when you step on it. It's just a matter of practice.”

“I want to try again.”

“Do it!”

I love her enthusiasm.

Taking the first step is easier this time. My body makes ten thousand unconscious calculations in terms of ankle, spine, wrist. I don't hurry.

“See? Now you're a pro,” says the lifeguard when I'm by her side again.

I want to go back and forth all day and get as good as she is. “Have you ever walked on the real Trail?”

She looks over her shoulder to make sure no one is coming down the stairs, and then she sits down at the edge of the pool and dangles her legs in. I roll my pant legs up and sit down next to her. The water is warm.

“No,” she says. “It's illegal. I would if someone took me there, though. It'd be interesting to try it out on the open sea where the waves are a lot bigger.”

“Do you think it can be done?”

“People have tried.”

“Do you know anyone who has?”

“Not personally. You hear rumors about desperate kids and extreme hikers and such. And then there are rumors
about
rumors, like cults and ghosts and whole villages that live off the Trail.”

“What do you think?”

“I think there are more things in heaven and earth than can be dreamt of in our philosophy!”

“Wouldn't expect Shakespeare from a nano major.”

“Ohho?” she chides. “Free your mind.”

She's right. I feel chastened. It was a cliché I said without thinking, only to prolong the conversation because I like her.

I try again. “So there are ghosts on the Trail.”

“Well, I've heard of one, Bloody Mary. Supposedly she walks back and forth on the Trail and preys on travelers.”

“Anyone seen her?”

“ 'Course not. But people never come back from the Trail, and so it's easy to say, oh, Bloody Mary got them.”

“And not—”

“Not the hundred other things that could go wrong, right. I think it would be hell. Even if you were well prepared. You can't prepare for everything that could happen, even if you went to the Mart.”

“The Mart?”

“It's some kind of secret store in Dharavi. They cater to fishwaalas, but I heard they also have a special stock for ‘long-term workers.' ”

“Like pods.”

“Yeah, camo pods. Walkers have to be careful. Security is lazy, but I imagine they don't want to take chances anyway.”

“I wonder what walking on the Trail does to them.”

“What do you mean?”

What do I mean? I want to tell her all about my new theory of the sociopsychology of energy. How Mohini was of a solar nature but I'm just realizing here in this moment that I'm of a wavelike nature.

How I'm having a transcendent experience at this museum.

How I was at the Azad Maidan bombing yesterday.

How someone tried to assassinate me in my home in Thrissur.

How a barefoot girl has been following me and I think she's an agent of Semena Werk but I haven't seen her in twelve hours and so I think she lost me.