“Not exactly,” Graham says.
We both turn toward him, waiting for an explanation, but already suspecting. Graham has a habit of delivering bad news with unnatural calm.
“I saw water spouts,” he says. “Beyond the building. They’re what made me notice it in the first place.”
“Whales?” I ask. As far as we know, the ocean’s largest living residents—ever—still live. We haven’t seen any during our voyage, but whales tend to stay near coastlines, where deep water wells up to the surface, bringing nutrients and plankton into warmer waters.
“No idea,” Graham confesses. “And no desire to find out.”
“Agreed,” Mayer says. “Something that large…”
She doesn’t need to finish. We’ve faced a handful of Scion, ranging in size from ten to twenty feet. There was also a school of mutated hammerhead sharks. Hundreds of them, but with two hammer-shaped protuberances, and four eyes. While the sharks paid us no attention, the more aggressive Scion had to be fought off.
Whale-sized Scion…that is a horrible thought.
“Just get us to shore,” I say. “Then I’ll lead the way.” Assuming the landscape is at all familiar.
My stomach twists with thoughts of home. By car, it would be an hour drive from the city. On foot, it will take a few days, give or take, depending on what life on shore is like. I’m terrified by what I’ll find. I don’t know if my family had returned home by the time Greenland’s ice sheet slid into the ocean. I don’t know if they survived the resulting wave, the rise in sea level from a surprising rise in global temperature, the poisoned air or the Scion repopulating the planet. I have no knowledge about this part of the world. All I really know is that everywhere we go, we find death. And if that’s what’s waiting for me at home, if there is a home to find, then at least I will be able to find some kind of closure.
That’s not going to happen
, I think, as though determining it will make it real. “Grains of sand,” I whisper.
“What was that?” Mayer asks. Her hand is interlocked with Graham’s. While there are no religions or governments to confirm their union, the pair married five years ago. We held the ceremony in a tent, using rings scavenged from the dead. When I brought up the lack of paperwork, Mayer rolled her eyes and said their union was real in the eyes of God, and that was all that mattered, to which I rolled my eyes.
I don’t speak of, or to, God. I haven’t since the very Holy Land that He had promised to Mayer’s ancestors was washed away.
“Remembering a lie someone told me once.” Before she can ask me to elaborate, an explosive spray of water and air bursts from the back of a large creature, curving up through the water’s surface, headed straight for us. Something the size of a whale poses a serious threat, but if our ancestors found ways to slay creatures that big, so can we. When two more humps join the first, I realize the name of our catamaran is the punchline to a joke. In a world like this, hope will get you killed just as quickly as facing down a pod of sea monsters.
31
I’m the last to reach the bow. No matter how strong I become, Graham and Mayer remain a few steps ahead of me. They had a head start, from their various military trainings, but also from the genetics passed down by their parents. Keen eyesight, fast-twitch muscles for strength and speed and teeth that can saw through rope and never need care. They’ve had to pull three of my teeth. While I might be the last to arrive, at least now I can keep up.
I catch the long speargun Graham tosses me, and then I step to the rail. We tie lines to the spears when using them to fish, but not this time. The three brown humps rolling through the water maintain their collision course. I can’t really make out any details, but they’re large…large enough that the spears will be little more than a deterrent. Even the largest predators will flee if they’ve been injured. No meal is worth dying for. Of course, those were the rules in the Old World. We’ve encountered Scion in the past that haven’t quite mastered that survival rule. And with creatures as large as these, it might never become a rule.
“I’ll take the left,” Mayer says, loading her spear and stretching the black rubber bands down into place, using all six to ensure maximum power. It would also create one hell of a kickback. The weapons are designed to be used underwater, where the fluid around the speargun absorbs much of the reverse force generated by all those rubber bands snapping free. But with practice, and a high tolerance for pain, they can be used effectively from the boat deck. And they’re far more effective than conventional firearms, since bullets tend to fracture upon striking the water, and they lose their deadly energy just a few feet deep. Even at point blank range, the spears are going to penetrate deeper, and thanks to the sharp barbs at the tips, they’ll do more damage.
“I’ll get the right.” I pluck a spear from the open case on the lounge bench and load it into the gun. Propping the gun handle on the bench, I use both hands to pull down the six black rubber bands, one-by-one, until they’re all locked in place, their deadly force held back by a small trigger. I lift the long weapon and lower the end of it toward the creature on the right.
Graham takes aim beside me, and we wait. Without having to discuss the plan, I know it. We’ll fire as one, and if we’re lucky, the three injured animals will panic in unison and flee without confrontation. That’s the best case scenario. And if it doesn’t work, Graham will handle strategy, Mayer will lead the assault and I’ll use my noggin to find a weakness. We know our roles, and we don’t question or doubt them. It’s how we survive.
“On the next rise,” Graham says, his voice a whisper.
The three creatures slide beneath the waves, leaving footprints behind them. Tracing the footprints back through the water, I can see that they’re rising and falling every fifty feet. The next rise will bring them within sixty feet of
Hope
. It’s a long shot, but allowing them to dive once more would allow them to come up right beneath us.
I adjust my aim to where I think my target will rise. My index finger slides over the trigger.
The ocean swells.
The creatures break the surface.
Sunlight gleams off of gray-blue skin.
The long bodies bend, arching back into the water.
My finger tightens on the trigger. But doesn’t pull. Why can’t I fire?
“Stop,” I whisper.
Graham and Mayer obey without question. They don’t ask for an explanation, either, but I owe them one. “They’re not Scion.”
“What are they?” Mayer asks, her eyes still on the water, muscles tight and ready.
The distinctive dorsal fin, seen for just a moment, brought back nearly forgotten memories of a family trip. “American Princess.”
Graham’s focus wavers as he glances in my direction. “Excuse me?”
“The name of the ship.” I raise my speargun, keeping the tip pointed up and away from us. “We went as a family. The five of us. The boys were both five.” I horde the details, precious gems, just for me.
“Abe.” Graham’s serious tone pulls me out of the painful memory. “What are they?”
The ocean beneath us glows as sunlight reflects off of white skin, the underbelly of a creature whose twenty-foot long, rough-edged flippers appear angelic. “Humpback whales. They eat plankton. Not people. Or boats.”
The fifty-foot-long whales perform an underwater ballet, swimming around the catamaran, rising and falling, offering up their light-reflecting undersides like submissive dogs, an Old World greeting that says ‘we mean you no harm.’ And I believe them. After a few minutes, even Graham and Mayer have abandoned their weapons. We watch the display in silence. Mayer sheds the first tear. I’m not far behind her.
When the dance slows and the whales rise to the surface, their big black eyes just staring back at us, I move to the stern dive deck. One of the whales meets me there, raising its barnacle encrusted head. I see my reflection in its eye and reach out my hand. The boat bobs on a wave, and when it settles again, my hand comes in contact with the cool, solid skin of one of the world’s most majestic creatures. “You’re still alive.”
The whale lets out a resounding call, the sound audible above water and reverberating for hundreds of miles underwater. Then it sinks away, leaving me to fall back against the hull, choked up.
“I think they were happy to see us,” Graham says, his smiling face above me, looking out at the sea with a newfound wonder.
“The world is as different and frightening for them as it is for us,” I say. We might have hunted them near to extinction once, but with the arrival of the Scion, we’re almost kin now. Our encounter might be as meaningful to them as it is to us.
I shout a “whoohoo!” as one of the humpbacks rises up next to the ship, breaching forty feet of its massive body out of the water, before toppling down again. Water explodes away from its girth, leaving me laughing and spitting salt from my mouth. I’m drenched in salt water, which will dry crusty and itchy, but this is the best day of my life in fifteen years. Graham and Mayer stand above me, soaked and smiling. Graham has his arm around her.
This…this right here, is why we’re alive.
I’m not talking about the three of us as survivors, I’m talking about humanity as a species. Only we have the kind of minds capable of fully appreciating a moment like this. There’s no evolutionary benefit to regarding beauty, in art, music or nature. It’s just part of what makes us unique. Of all the Machine’s creations, we had to have been its finest. Until we nearly destroyed it all.
Another whale call freshens my smile. But there was something different about it. The tone. It wasn’t the long droning call of a satisfied humpback. It was sharp, and short.
Worried.
Afraid.
I stand to my feet and turn to warn the others, but they’ve already separated. Graham scans the ocean, binoculars to his eyes. Mayer runs for the forward deck where we left the spear guns.
A swirl of light blue pulls my attention back to the water. The whales are there for just a moment, their flukes pounding hard. Soon, all I can see are their bright white flippers, sliding away into the abyss, where they can stay for fifteen minutes before needing to surface for another breath. Our friends have fled.
But from what?
I climb back onto the deck beside Graham. “See anything?”
He scans from left to right, looking out at the Atlantic, then snaps to a stop. He focuses the lenses and then very calmly says, “Secure the sails.”
The Leopard 48 has two large sails. In strong winds, we’ve hit 15 knots. On a day like today, we’re cruising at a comfortable 8 knots, which is basically nine miles per hour, or about my average jogging speed. That Graham wants to lower the sails means he’s about to start the engine and hit our ‘under power’ top speed of 20 knots. The motor hanging off the back of the boat isn’t the original. We pilfered it from a speed boat. Using Graham’s mechanical know-how and my scientific—what Mayer calls ‘crackpot’—ideas, we blew up one motor and converted the second into a propane-powered work horse. I draw down the sails, pulling them in tight so they can’t create drag.
The motor roars to life, filling the silent ocean with the long forgotten sound of human technology.
Mayer returns to the back, wielding two loaded spearguns. She puts both down on the padded lounge bench and ducks back into the galley, headed for the forward deck.
“Keep an eye,” Graham hands the binoculars down from the helm station.
I move to the back deck, gripping the chrome crossbeam above my head, and I place the lens to my eyes. “What am I looking for?”
“Not sure,” he says. “But it’s the only thing out there. And it’s big.”
The motor growls. The blades spin and bite into the ocean. Graham shoves the throttle forward and stands, as the dual hulls tilt upward.
I cling to the bar as my body leans out over the churning water. My view is shaky, swaying back and forth. I steady myself from the bouncing as we cut through waves. Even with all of that, I see it.
At first, it’s a swell in the ocean, water sliding over something large. But then several long spines, like exaggerated dorsal fins, cut through the surface, each one ten feet tall.
Are they killer whales?
I wonder, trying to keep the binoculars steady. Orcas do prey on larger whales, attacking as a pack, especially if there are calves present. That would explain the humpbacks’ hasty retreat. But the long black dorsal fins approaching us from behind are nearly twice the size of the largest killer whales. And they’re moving in perfect symmetry, undulating up and down in two single file lines. It’s a single, very
not-whale
creature. A Scion. Enemy of human and humpback alike.
I nearly fall over backward when the thing lunges out of the water, turning its massive head and bulbous eye toward us, sneaking a peek. As it splashes back down into the ocean, I stagger back to the lounge bench to grab a speargun.
Mayer returns at the same moment carrying the third speargun and extra spears. She nearly drops them when she sees the Scion plunging back into the sea. “Holy shit.”
“Graham,” I say, trying to mimic the calm he’s perfected over the years. “Any chance you can go any faster?”
“We’re pegged,” he shouts over the wind blowing through his dreadlocks. “But I see the shore on the horizon. You’re going to have to hold it off.”
A quick calculation using our rough speed and the approximate four miles to the horizon from Graham’s elevation gives us about 10 minutes to fight and survive, or die trying. It’s the best we can do, and it’s gotten us this far, but I’ll be damned before I die now, with home and its potential horrors, so close. Speargun in hand, I walk to the back rail, and like Jonah or Ahab, I wait for my sea monster to arrive.