They stepped back into the hall and headed up the stairs. They made it halfway to the next level before they happened upon a man lighting a cigarette. He looked up at the same time they saw him.
Spike attacked with her sticks, catching him in the head and throat, and again in the head. He fell hard to the stairs, stunned, his eyes unfocused but still open, until Spike kicked him in the face, sending him to the place of happy Japanese dreams.
Kavika stepped forward and stubbed out the freshly lit cigarette.
This was their first encounter. Frankly, he’d expected more. The ship was easily the size of at least half of the ships in the floating city. It should have been able to hold thousands, but so far they’d only heard or seen a few. Sure, they’d only been in a small fraction of the space so far, but there still should have been more.
Spike beckoned for him to follow. They hit the next level and knew they were in trouble right away, when they saw dozens of Corpers wearing dark suits and white shirts. Some of the nearest stopped what they were doing and gaped at them, while, farther down, men and women came and went, busy at some task. Kavika glanced up the stairs toward the fourth level and saw a group of Boxers descending.
He had no choice. He grabbed Spike, turned right and sprinted down the hall.
An alarm went up behind them.
People screamed after them in Japanese, and a Klaxon sounded.
But all of those noises were drowned out by the sound of the roar they heard in front of them. They skidded to a stop as an immense space opened before them on the left, opening into an auditorium with stadium seating. On the floor-to-ceiling, wall-to-wall screen was an immense lizard creature attacking a city filled with skyscrapers. Fire leaped out of its mouth as it screamed again.
“Kavika!”
He dropped into a crouch, both sticks at the ready.
Spike had already engaged the first Boxer who’d caught up with them, taking out his knees.
Kavika stomped on the back of the man’s neck, then attacked the Boxer coming up behind him. He twisted and reverse punched with the short end of the sticks into his opponent’s sternum. The Boxer’s face blanched white as he fell to his knees.
Then they were in the thick of it.
The Boxers didn’t have any weapons, which evened the odds. Although they were outnumbered, Kavika and Spike had Escrima sticks, and they knew how to use them.
Kavika was kicked and punched several times in the face, but he gave better than he got, his sticks dancing in a fandango blur. Soon there was a gap in their opponents’ defense as one fell unconscious. Both he and Spike saw it at the same time. They reversed their run back the way they’d come and burst through, running pell-mell towards the stairs.
They took the stairs two at a time until they ran into more opponents. Kavika had been wondering where everyone was; now, he’d clearly found them. It took them more than a minute of battering the Boxers’ feet and ankles before they made the fourth level. At one point, they’d managed to tackle Spike and hold her down, one sitting on her back and another twisting her neck. Kavika managed to rap one of his sticks against the side of the first guy’s head and snap his neck; while the other froze at the sight, Kavika did the same to him. Although he and Spike made it to the top, they didn’t arrive unscathed.
They turned left into a narrow passage; the left wall was made of glass, beaded with moisture on the inside: a greenhouse, complete with plants, trees and grasses.
To the right was a room filled with six vats of cycling red liquid.
They limped past them and hit their target room at a run. Spike was battered and bleeding, but she kept right behind him. Dark shapes exploded from their beds, leaping to intercept them, but where the occupants were groggy, Kavika and Spike rode the leading edge of violence. They whipped their Escrima sticks in a modified Heaven Six, blocking with the broad edge and striking with the hard-knobbed ends.
Back to back, they were unstoppable. They were a machine of whirling pain.
Until a pair of dark figures took out their legs.
Kavika felt smothered for a moment as bodies surged over him, grabbing, slapping and punching. He kicked out and brought his arms across the bare skin of his opponents. Shark skin was as smooth as glass when felt one way, like a thousand tiny razor blades the other way... this was what he pulled across their flesh. They screamed, and with their cries came his own roars of outrage and fear and unspent energy.
For a moment, he was free.
Shouting came from outside the room; feet pounded along the hall. He and Spike only had a moment.
He stood as the lights came on and revealed a scene of chaos and murder. Two Boxers lay dead, one strangled with Spike’s legs still locked around his neck.
Someone grabbed Kavika from behind. He raised his arm and spun, trapping the hand that had reached out for his shoulder. And there, as if a gift from Pele herself, was the Boxer whose image had been captured on Akamu’s media stick.
Kavika shouted, “Come on!”
Spike released the dead man and fought her way to her feet.
Kavika pushed the Boxer hard and felt him lose his balance. Kavika kept up the pressure, angling them towards a window. He screamed, as if the sound could add fuel to his momentum. Face to face, the Boxer’s eyes were wide with shock.
“Behind you!” screamed Spike.
Kavika felt a blow, but it did nothing to slow him. The Boxer hit the window at full speed, and it exploded outwards. As Kavika was pulled through with the falling man, he realized that Spike had grabbed onto his back. Together, the three of them fell four stories into the lagoon.
When he hit, all the air left him. He sank deep as he somersaulted through the water. Once he slowed, he wanted nothing more than to breathe, but he didn’t know which way was up and which was down. The water was darker than any night, devoid of life and the light of the stars.
Just when he thought his chest was going to implode, Kavika felt hands grasp him, then movement as he was drawn to the surface. He surged into the night, sucking the cold air in with great gulps. Eyes open, he saw everything in a blink of an eye:
Boxers leaning out the broken window high above.
Spike surging free just as he was.
Water Dogs all around them, just as planned.
Donnie Wu hanging from the rigging of a nearby ship, a torch in his hand.
The Boxer floating face up in the water, a few feet away.
Kavika sank back into the water with the feeling one only gets at the end of the day when everything has gone to plan. Now to get the Boxer back to Ivanov, where he could be interrogated. No one would mess with the submarine, and the old Russian had hinted at being able to make anyone talk.
But when Kavika next surfaced, all wasn’t as he’d thought it was.
Twenty windows had opened at the base of the Freedom Ship. Divers with flippers like the Water Dogs dove into the water. The Water Dogs around him backed away—they weren’t prepared for a fight. Kavika grabbed the Boxer and yelled for help, and two Water Dogs returned for him, but just as they reached to grasp his outstretched hand, a great weight fell upon Kavika.
He sank down and down and down as something pressed all around him. The Boxer was still unconscious, his face inches from Kavika’s. Then their descent was halted, and Kavika found himself violently jerked free of the water and flung into the sky.
A net!
Connected to a crane atop the Freedom Ship, a cable descended to the net that now held him and the Boxer. Spike was nowhere to be seen. Kavika tried to see below, but all he was able to catch was a furious fight in the water as it roiled and foamed with struggling Water Dogs and Boxers. Then, before he was pulled back into the ship, he saw the torch waving above Donnie Wu’s head. Knowing that his old friend was there was a small speck of hope, dropped into a growing chasm of dread.
Hands reached to grab the net and it was soon pulled onto a high platform. The net dropped to the hard surface, making him shout in pain as his knee was wrenched by his own weight. They pulled the net off him and, while one man held a knife to his jugular, stripped Kavika of his sharkskin. When he was naked, they threw him on the floor.
Chests heaved. Eyes flashed. Angry mouths spat curses. He could see the Boxers’ collective outrage in their stance—outrage that a disgraced Pali Boy would dare to breach their sanctum. Kavika knew that pain was coming. He knew he was going to be hurt terribly. And for one brief moment, he didn’t even care.
Then he saw Spike as they carried her past him. They’d removed her sharkskin as well, revealing her for what she really was. He would have liked to catch her eye, but she was unconscious, a lump forming on the side of her face.
A minute passed, maybe more, as he listened to the Chinese talk amongst themselves, mingled with his thundering heartbeat.
Then a figure hove into view. His target. The Boxer. He rubbed his head, then replied to something said to him by one of the others. He stood imperiously above Kavika for a moment, looking down at him, before calling for something. There was a flurry of movement.
Two men grabbed Kavika’s wrists and ankles and held them firm.
The Boxer knelt between Kavika’s legs, pressing his knee painfully into his crotch. His other foot rested beside Kavika’s hip. As the Boxer leaned over Kavika, his plait draped along the left side of Kavika’s face.
“Fang,” the Boxer said softly.
“What?”
“I am Fang.”
“What? Fang?”
“Yes. I want you to know me.” His English was fluid, with only a hint of Chinese. “I want you to know who it is that blood raped you.”
The words sunk in like a stake through Kavika’s heart. He surged against the restraining hands. He tried to kick out, but felt someone sit on his knees.
The Boxer pressed harder with his knee. He turned his face as if he were staring at a strange little bug.
“Who do you think you are to come to my home?”
Another face moved into view above the Boxer’s shoulder. This one had a rounder face and was hairless. He wore glasses. His short black hair was combed back. He held out a mechanism for Fang.
When he spoke, it was Japanese. Kavika realized he was seeing a Corper.
All he could see of the man was the upper part of his torso. He wore a dark suit with a white shirt and tie, and showed no emotion. Once he’d handed the device to Fang, he backed out of Kavika’s vision and was gone.
Then Kavika’s attention switched to the device.
Made of metal and elastic, the only thing he could focus on were the nine needles protruding from its center.
Kavika felt a scream coming from a million miles away. It rushed to him at light speed as the device descended. And only when his chest was pierced did it burst free, a scream of agony and anguish that came from a place in his soul that would never be the same again. Another scream came, but this one was from somewhere else and peeled away as his voice cracked, then silenced.
The last thing he saw was Fang’s grin, wide behind the Fu Manchu.
The last thing he heard was a chuckle.
Then... nothing.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“T
HEY TOSSED HIM
into the lagoon.”
“Water Dogs brought him.”
“He’s going to be okay.”
“Why won’t they let him in the sky?”
“Nothing many other people haven’t experienced before.”
“No sign of Leilani.”
“Why’d he go on the ship?”
The voices came and went, and eventually Kavika regained consciousness. The first thing he noticed was the punctures in his chest. He’d stepped on a nail once and the metal had gone all the way through his foot; this was how his chest felt, but he had nine wounds instead of one. His hand went to the space but found nothing there, except a bandage.
Blood rape.
He’d hoped it had been a dream.
He cracked open his eyes and returned to the miserable universe he called home. He was lying on his side. His sister lay next to him, her sightless eyes staring at him. She lifted a trembling hand and touched his face.
“Brother.” Her voice was soft and weak. “What have they done?”
The cloying smell of oil from the bottom of the hold wrapped around him like cheesecloth. “They got me, Nani.” His voice was old sandpaper.
“You were crying in your sleep.”
He tried to smile. “I’m too big to cry.”
“You’re never too big to cry. Sometimes I hear momma crying.”
Kavika let the words sink in. The thought drew him deeper into the miasma.
“They took my blood,” he said after awhile.
“It’s not so bad. They’re doing it for me, right?”
Kavika pressed his hand against her hair. “That’s what keeps me going, Nani. That all this means something.”
He shook his head and sat up. It was harder to accomplish than he’d anticipated; the paralytic they’d shot into him still had its sticky fingers wrapped around his spine and legs. He peeled the bandage away from his chest to see the thick central puncture, surrounded by eight smaller wounds.
“Old Wu brought you in last night.”
Kavika looked up. His mother had been sitting there the entire time.
He met her gaze and saw in it everything he needed and so much more that he didn’t. All her words about his father and about being a Pali and not taking care of the family slid beneath his love like a riptide.
“How long was I out?”
“Not too long. Maybe ten hours.”
“Where’s Spike?”
“No sign of Leilani.”
He sat up straighter. No sign? “Are you sure?”
Her mother shook her head and poured him some water. He clambered painfully out of bed, took it and drank deeply. He saw that he was naked, rifled through his bag of clothes, and pulled out a clean set of shorts. He leaned over and kissed his sister on the forehead.
“Keep Mom in line, Nani.”
His sister smiled.
He stood and gave his mother a nod. She nodded in return.
Then he was hurrying up the levels. His legs plodded against the deck, but the more he was able to work them, the easier walking became; by the time he reached the open air, his muscles felt like they were back to normal.