Chapter 17 Chapter Sixteen

The 20th century has left four permanent legacies to future generations: nuclear radiation, waste gas, toxic chemicals and plastics, and plastics are the first of the four.Hamburgers are not sustainable. Even if there were 10 billion hamburgers, they would have disappeared without a trace through digestion and excretion, and the 10 billion Styrofoam packaging boxes they left behind will never disappear.Plastics are generally light enough to float on water.Nylon nets thrown into the sea by fishing trawlers will always be floating in the sea, as long as they don't fall apart, they will become an eternal killer of fish.Coca-Cola bottles and shampoo bottles end up in the oceans, washed up on beaches all over the world.The Rocky Mountains will crumble, the Strait of Gibraltar will disappear, but a plastic six-pack of groceries will never die.Diamonds last forever, and so do plastics.That's good news for some members of the animal kingdom.Jellyfish, for example, could benefit from this.While jellyfish-eating animals could easily die from eating a floating sandwich bag, the jellyfish escaped death and thrived.But for seals, sea turtles, fish, birds that dive for food...and humans, that's bad news.

On the way across the wide Hudson River to old New York City, Margery has been inexplicably silent and aloof.Sandy hardly noticed that he was lost in thought himself—strange to say, he was not worried about whether he was going to be seasick again, although the southward flowing river met the northward tide, Making the river rough and turbulent at first, but thinking of Hamilton Boyle's words. "Another sandwich?" Margerie asked, fumbling in the box she had brought Sandy saw that the first sandwich in his hand was barely touched. "Not now. Margery? Do you think a Highkleigh would do that?"

"You mean bombing our city? I don't know, Sandy, do you?" "No! It's totally against their principles, I'm sure." She nodded and just said, "Eat the sandwich." Once they were out of the waters of the Hudson, the trip was as pleasant as it could have been imagined.The boat slid forward and came to a slow stop, and the small motor made a low and soft rumble under the inertia. Margeley said this was West 34th Street. There is no "shore" to climb here.The original banks were submerged.There are buildings on both sides, which block the impact of the tide and the current of the Hudson River, so the water here is very calm.Also, the water was so clear that Sandy leaned over the side of the boat and looked down and could see the bottom—streets, abandoned cars and trucks, and some huge things that Margeley told him were buses.

The two men dragged the boat to the open space between the two tall buildings until it was above high tide.The sidewalks are littered with brightly colored plastic debris from the waves.Margerie casually mentioned that they were garbage left over from the past, and Sandy looked back at the water in disgust. "Are you just 'swimming' in the trash?" he asked. "Oh, all organic trash has long since decomposed and disappeared," she reassured him. "There's nothing in the water to make people sick. Not here anyway. If you go a little further south, there's a real problem, where it used to be." All sorts of nasties leaked out after the nuclear plant flooded. But not here. Well, do you want to go to the top of that building?"

Sandy squinted in the direction of her finger, shaking off the ridiculous orange "lifejacket" that Margelia had made him wear. "what is that?" "The Empire State Building," she said curtly, "how about you looking out from the top?" A wave of water rolled from the river to Sandy's feet, and he hurried back. "Oh, well," he said listlessly, "we'll have a good time." He was almost right.It would have been exactly as he said it would have been if he hadn't been in a bad mood.After all, what they did and saw was exactly what he had always dreamed of as a boy.At this time, he was in the center of the "Big Apple" in New York. Of course, it was not what he expected at all, but it was here, beside him.Overhead is a clear blue sky and misty white clouds, and all around are the windows and walls of the tall buildings that made New York the first city of skyscrapers.

It's not just the two of them here.Another block away, there are some small boats on the river, some of them are gliding by inertia like Sandy and the others just now, some of them are flying across the water, the hydrogen motors are blowing out, and the boats are full of people. Dee couldn't guess what these people were doing here.A huge barge was moored across the river between two buildings, and a crane was hoisting piles of stuff into the cabin: insulated strand wires, office machines, lighting fixtures. "They're 'digging for gold'," Margery explained. "There are useful things everywhere in these buildings. If the water rises a little higher, all these things will be wasted. It's very likely...the original people used them up." How much copper! So people take what they need whenever they want."

"It looks dangerous," Sandy said, watching as two men leaned out from high up in a building to direct a crane down what appeared to be a bundle of metal bars. "Well, it's kind of dangerous," said Margery. "Many buildings are rotten at the bottom because of the erosion of the river. Every once in a while a building collapses. You don't have to worry about the Empire State Building, though, it's well built." Very durable and strong." Sandy stared up at the Empire State Building until his neck ached, but he wasn't too concerned about whether it was going to collapse or how to get to the top.He didn't think this was something worth worrying about. The muscles built on the Heckley spaceship could allow him to climb up to a height of about 300 meters with ease, but he doubted whether Marzhili could do it.Walking into the building, there were water stains in the hall at the bottom of the building. He pointed it out to Marzhi, and she nodded seriously. "In bad weather, storm waves can go all the way here," she told him, "and it's getting worse, and I think the Earth's atmosphere still hasn't stopped warming. Come on!"

Sandy later discovered that they didn't have to climb all the way to the top of the Empire State Building.From the lobby they went up four flights of stairs, passing several floors filled with piles of debris.One floor is filled with humming and rattling generators fueled by hydrogen to power the floors above.Margeley explains that most of the city doesn't have any outside electricity because the underground power grid is also submerged in water.However, with these generators, they can comfortably take the elevator to the observation platform on the eighty-odd floors. There was no one else on the platform but them, and even if they had to climb up it themselves, the view was totally worth it.Despite her bad mood, Sandy found herself deeply attracted.In front of you is the entire human world!To the west and north is the city of Hudson, across the wide river and the bay, to the south and east is a large continuous sea with only a few islands dotted on the water, which is between Brooklyn and The Queens area was previously formed by the accumulation of glaciation.There are few tall buildings left in old New York on the island, and two taller buildings stand on the top of the island.In addition, he could clearly see the body of the world-famous statue of Liberty in the middle of the open bay, with its torch raised above the water.

He said happily: "This is really great!" Margeley said nothing.She was looking at the lighting fixtures on the ceiling, and when she turned her head, Sandy saw that her eyes were clouded. "Margerie?" He called out to her cautiously. She shook her head and looked around.There were still only the two of them on the dilapidated observation platform, but they could hear a group of 'gold diggers' knocking and tapping just one or two floors below.She glanced at the ceiling, then seemed to come to a decision that Sandy couldn't figure out what it was.She turned to him, a sudden broad smile on her face.

"Yeah," she said, "it's nice to have just the two of us here, isn't it?" He frowned in surprise.The woman was almost giving him some sort of sexual suggestion!He cursed in his heart the sex customs of the earthlings that confused him.What should he do now?Put your arms around her and just do that right here?On the skyscraper's sun-filled observation deck, at any given moment, someone is stepping out of the elevator. It seemed as though he should, for with a smile she took a step closer to him, even leaning over, her lips within an inch or two of his. Sang forced his face closer angrily, while reaching out to hold her.To his surprise, although she let him hug her, and even wrapped his arms around his neck herself, she turned her face away.Her lips brushed his ear.Sandy tried to turn his face away, but she held him still.

He realized she was whispering something in his ear. The breath that came out of her mouth told him that, but not in this ear. He stepped back and said, "Not this ear. The hearing aid is on the other side." She frowned, and immediately smiled again.She put her lips to his audible ear, and whispered again: "Sandy, don't talk. This is very important. I'm going to ask you if you want to do something. Just say yes and we'll go. Don't argue with me." He looked away in bewilderment, only to see that the smile on her face was more decidedly provocative than it had been at first.He was even more confused. "Ah, Sandy," she sighed, stroking the back of his neck. "It's not the best place, don't you think? Look, sweetheart, I know there's a clean place downtown where you have to go for a swim, but it's sure to be fine. What do you mean? Do you want a more secluded place?" Where can I be with you?" She also winked at him. Sandy let out a long breath.No matter what happened, it was sure to be interesting. "Of course," he said, and added, "My dear."