The Creation of a City inside One of
the Most Desolated Places in the World
Ying Wa College, Po Lok Cruise Tong, Fiction: Group 3
T
he first thing I heard when I woke up was. “Welcome to the Gobi Desert. This is going
to be your new home for the next few months.” I wiped my eyes and tried to get the
sleepiness out of me. I could now see who was talking. “She isn’t pretty, but we’re
going to be changing that soon.” said Jim, “Get up Ryan you sleepyhead!” We were
part of a team sent to terraform places as to make them habitable again. China was running
out of space and sent us to try and make the Gobi Desert habitable again. Our team comprised
of the best scientists China could find. We were given the best technology available to do this.
Though personally it seemed absolutely ridiculous to me, the others were quite excited about this
new adventure. Jim was the team leader and would be supervising all of us. He’s a great morale
booster with his funny jokes and inspiring speeches. Janice was the biologist, she’s a shy person,
not really talking to many people, and generally avoids contact. Noah was the meteorologist, a
surprisingly outgoing person for someone who usually investigates the atmosphere. Lance was
the engineer, he’s pretty big, but he’s a man of few words. Tommy was the ecologist, he’s going to
determine if the desert was habitable for humans. There were some other people who are assistants
of mine and the others, but the most important ones were here.
Noah’s already begun setting up the camp with Jim. The rest of them were either moaning
about the heat or jumping around in anticipation. Me? I just started looking around, not much to
see though, just sand and more sand. I pulled Janice over and asked, “What’s it going to take to
make this place habitable?” she said softly, “Well, we’re going to need to have water and sustainable
source of food, I don’t think sunlight would be a problem though, we would also need to reduce
the temperature difference between day and night.” I was already running calculations in my
head to figure out what was going to be needed here to finish this. It would be a monumental task
here. The sand could be remade in a parent ingredient for dirt though the climate would have to be
drastically changed. Water could be made with some sand, though I will need to ask head quarters
to provide us with some Hydrogen canisters. I would also need some sort of way to heat the sand.
As I walked away, equations going on in my head. I didn’t notice Janice anymore, and she was too
shy to ask me. So she stood there, until the campsite was fully set up.
The campsite itself was pretty okay. I told Jim about the things I predicted I would need and
he said he would ask Headquarters for them. I started making plans and talked to Noah about
the climate and Tommy about the ecology, finding out what we were going to need to complete
our mission. It was the whole day before I finally went into my tent and curled up into bed and
quickly fell asleep. The next day wasn’t much different, with me sharing my solutions with
team and fulfilling my basic needs. I was used to this when I was back in the lab, where I would
go on and on about some projects I had visualized in my head. It went on like this for a while,
headquarters were preparing our supplies and what we ordered and some new materials for
building a permanent home for us.
A few months have already passed and already some progress has been made, my prototype
sand to soil machine was being built and I hope that could make some soil for us. Janice was
