“What brings you through here?” the Boxer asked.
Akamu avoided the compulsion to reach around and check the package to make sure it hadn’t become dislodged; the movement would be a dead giveaway. He smiled harder to cover his nervousness as he vowed that this was the last time he was going to do side work for
Los Tiburones
. His smile evaporated as a foot caught him in the side of the head, sending him rolling to his right. He gritted his teeth at the pain.
“He’s talking to you, Poi Boy,” the Boxer who kicked him said. “What are you carrying?”
Akamu fought the urge to fight. He had to keep a low profile, especially since he was amidst a Corper hunter-killer team. They must be. This couldn’t be just some random gang protecting their territory. They were too well attired. They were casual, but too professional. They were definitely working for the Corpers. They might be after him, but he doubted it. He just needed to find out what they wanted, maybe point them in the right direction, and he could be on his way.
His heart pounded, and sweat beaded on his forehead. Still forcing a smile, he pulled himself to his knees, and in the process slid a media stick from his pocket. He kept it to record some of his more daring stunts; he felt the need to use it now. If nothing else, the other Pali Boys would enjoy seeing the panache he employed while avoiding these Boxers. He kept the stick in the hollow of his right hand, then rubbed his head where it had been kicked with the back of the same hand. The shadows hid the media stick as he pointed it towards his attackers. He pressed record and aimed the low-light camera in their direction.
“I’m not carrying anything,” he finally said, as he got back to his feet. He wiped dirt from his bare chest, and casually straightened the pouch on his back hip. Maybe too casually, because the Boxer carrying the briefcase nodded towards it.
“Is that what you aren’t carrying?”
Akamu shrugged. “Probably.”
“Who’s it for?”
The other two attackers had positioned themselves on either side of him. He glanced at them. They held no visible weapons, but by the way they held their arms they seemed like they wouldn’t need them. Akamu calculated his odds and didn’t like what he came up with.
Suddenly they fell on him with hammer fists into his chest and stomach, driving all the air out of him in an incredible timpani orchestration of pain. He lost control of his legs and fell to his knees. A final blow knocked him all the way over, and he landed on his side. He almost lost the media stick, but somehow managed to stuff it back into his pocket.
Pain thrummed through his torso, and he gasped for a breath that wouldn’t come. In desperation, he kicked out with both legs, striking the man on his left just below the knee and driving him to the ground. Then he brought his right hand around in a haymaker and clocked the other attacker between the eyes. Akamu kept rolling in that direction, over his downed opponent until he came to a stop at the boat’s side rail.
He glanced at the water below and saw a Water Dog staring at him. Akamu could slide in right now and escape, but then he’d owe them a ransom. It was hardly worth it. He had things under control. He’d made it out of worse situations.
He pulled himself to his feet and lashed out with his other leg. He tried to catch the remaining attacker in the groin, but his opponent managed to dance away.
Akamu decided to abandon any considerations of stealth now that he’d been discovered. He searched for the nearest line into the rigging; if he got high, there was no way the Boxers could follow. He saw what he was looking for atop the wheelhouse. Leaping over his fallen foes, he took six running steps before he felt a hand grasp at the pouch on his back. He had no choice but to slow down. Worse than a ransom would be to lose the delivery.
Los Tiburones
weren’t known for their understanding.
Spinning, Akamu slammed a protective hand over the pouch. “What the fuck you want with me, brah? I’m just trying to mind my business. Why don’t you mind yours?”
“You are our business,” said the one holding the briefcase.
Akamu realized that he did not want to know what was in it. Whatever it was it couldn’t be good.
“Listen, you don’t know who you’re messing with. This is not just
my
business. There are others involved.”
“We don’t care about your drugs. We want your blood.”
“My blood?” Akamu gulped and backed away until the side of the wheelhouse halted him. He was in more serious trouble than he’d suspected. He spun and hooked a foot over the window ledge, and saw the old woman again. Her glare had been replaced by a face carved in terror; she looked away and covered her face with her hands. He was levering himself onto the roof, when he felt four hands grab him and hurl him to the deck. The impact stunned him.
One of them ripped the pouch free from his back, while the other tied his arms behind him. He came to his senses in time to see the third one step forward with the metal case.
“Please—leave me alone!”
“‘
Please leave me alone,
’” one of the Boxers mimicked, in a high-pitched whine.
“We’ll leave you when we’re done,” the one in the center said. “Hold him still.” He kneeled and opened the box.
The lid hid his actions, so Akamu couldn’t see what was in there until it was prepared and ready. He struggled against the Boxers, but couldn’t do much with his hands tied. Still, he got in a kick, sending one doubling over, clutching his stomach.
The Boxer lifted a mechanism from the box, from which nine thick needles extended on glass tubes. He straddled Akamu, sitting on his pelvis, and ripped Akamu’s shirt away with his free hand.
“Hey, wait a minute, I—”
Akamu never finished. The Boxer shoved the nine-needled device into his chest.
Akamu opened his mouth to scream, but nothing came out. The pressure was too much. He gaped as the tubes turned red, his eyes rolling back into his head. He tried to focus on what was being done to him, but his body refused his command. The sounds of the floating city were replaced by a singular thumping that was soon the only thing he heard. After a moment, he recognized it as his heart beating. The sound took over his entire consciousness. He concentrated on it. He knew it for what it was—his life blood.
Then it began to slow.
And then he was gone.
CHAPTER TWO
D
ADDY, WHERE ARE
the rest of the people?
They’re out there somewhere, wishing they were here.
Why don’t we invite them, if they want to come here?
There’s not enough room and not enough food.
But the
Corpers
would help them, right? They’d figure out a way to help them, just like they’ve helped us, right?
Corpers
help themselves first.
Then they’d help them?
I wouldn’t count on it.
K
AVIKA
K
AMILANI STOOD
high above the deck, staring far out to the horizon where he could see open water. Between him and the gray-blue of the Pacific Ocean were hundreds of ships of every type and size, welded, hammered, tied, chained or otherwise cobbled together. Grabbing the rigging for the bird nets with one hand and balancing on a support cable with his feet, the Pali Boy turned one hundred and eighty degrees to see more of the same—ship after ship after ship, until they were no longer individuals but a single floating city:
Namo No Toshi
, or ‘City on the Waves.’ And there, blocking out the horizon like a black cloud, was the ten-story Freedom Ship, home to the Corpers, whose lifestyle was built upon the suffering of all others.
Akani swung in beside him. “Whatchu doing giving stinkeye at the haolies, brah? They gonna find out and come get you.”
Akani and Kavika couldn’t be more different. Akani was a head taller than Kavika. His arms were thick as anchor cables and covered with before-time tattoos, where Kavika’s skin was smooth and unadorned and his muscles were just beginning to develop. Akani had his hair cut into a mohawk, but Kavika liked to keep his long. What they both shared were ready smiles, and now Akani flashed his at Kavika.
But the younger Hawaiian wore his ever-present worry on his face like a birthmark. “No stinkeye,” he said. “Just wondering what it was like before.”
Akani shrugged. “Why think about things you can’t control? Might as well wonder why the fish swim in the ocean or the Sky Winkers stare at the sky.”
The two of them wore shorts down to their knees. Cured sharkskin was lashed to their forearms and palms, providing protection against the burning of the ropes and cables as they used them to transit the heights of the city. On their feet were slips of rubber, cut to fit their soles and lashed across the top of their feet to provide better traction, especially on the wet decks and rigging.
Kaja joined them. Tall and lean, he was the leader of the Pali Boys. Kavika couldn’t help but admire everything he did. Even the way he stood was cool, and made Kavika shift his position until he could match it. Kaja’s skin was free of tattoos except for a single thick line that began at his hairline and ran down his face, neck and chest to disappear into his shorts. He’d Dived the Line and survived. The mark told everyone of his bravery.
“Whatchu two lolly-gagging for?”
Akani glanced at Kavika before he answered. “Little brah says he’s waiting for the storm. Wants to become full-time Pali.”
Kaja raised his eyebrows and apprised Kavika, who tried to stand straighter under the other’s gaze. “You ready to make the leap? You wanna leave part-time and be full-time? Think you can do it, Kavika?”
The Pali Leap was the most dangerous stunt any Pali Boy could ever make, but to become a full-time Pali one had to do it. Like the leap from Nu’uanu Pali Pass on the old island of Oahu in the days of King Kamehameha, if the winds were right, a Pali Boy could jump out and be pushed right back.
If
the winds were right. More than one wannabe full-time Pali Boy had fallen to his death, or worse, been maimed when the winds shifted or suddenly died entirely, as they tried to change their fortunes and garner the respect of the Hawaiian people. When it happened it was considered Lono’s will. Kavika wasn’t so sure that luck didn’t have a lot to do with it, too, and if there was one thing that he didn’t have, it was luck.
Akani laughed. “Look at him. He looks sick.”
Kavika tried to push the fear away, hide it behind a memory like the others told him to do, but he had nothing scarier than the idea of leaping into the air without a rope, cable or net to hang on to.
Kaja placed a hand on Kavika’s shoulder. “Don’t worry. Everyone’s scared at first. Soon you’ll be up here with the rest of us... like your father was, loving life and living large.”
Akani leaned back, gripping a line with one hand and howled, “Living large!”
The cry was echoed in the rigging across several ships as other Pali Boys took up the cry. Kavika couldn’t help but smile. If the Water Dogs ruled the water, the Pali Boys most certainly ruled the sky.
He watched as a Pali Boy named Oke dove from the top of a container two boats away towards the deck far below. The bungee line slowed him so that by the time he was a few feet from the deck, he came to a stop. He grabbed a line of fish from an unsuspecting haolie, then snapped back. The haolie, an elderly Filipino with gnarled legs and arms, screamed obscenities, Kaja and Akani exchanged grins and took off towards Oke, grabbing lines and netting as they went. They moved upwards so they could dive downwards, propelling themselves through the sky. The nets used by the residents of the city to harvest birds for meat served as the Pali Boy expressway.
Kavika remained. Part of him wanted to join the others, but he knew that if he did he’d be expected to do things he wasn’t prepared to do. The Pali Boy motto was to
live large,
and they did so at every opportunity, but he seemed to be more aware of his own mortality than the others. He told himself that he’d love to
live large
, but he also had to find ways to feed his mother and sister. They’d never be able to eat if he became a crip, unable to climb into the heights again.
The wind shifted, bringing him the smell of cooking meat. He searched with his eyes and saw a group of haolies armed with handguns guarding a barrel hollowed out into a barbeque. Kavika’s mouth watered. He could almost taste it. But as one of the smaller Pali Boys and with no other male in his family, meat was a very rare treat. He could count on one hand the number of times he’d been able to bring meat home to his mother and sister since his father died. Five Pali Boys hung on ropes above the cooking, just waiting for the haolies to let down their guard. The only thing better than stealing freshly-caught meat was stealing freshly-cooked meat.
Haolies were what the Pali Boys and the rest of the Hawaiian families called everyone else aboard the city, but in truth the city was divided into distinct ethnic lines. The Hawaiians called an old oil tanker home and were its sole occupants. Kavika and his mother lived in the bottom of the bottom. Hawaiian society was based on a meritocracy, so where you lived was based on your ability to contribute.
The Boxers lived aboard an old Chinese guided missile destroyer. They attempted to harvest their own fish and plankton, which put them in constant conflict with the Water Dogs. Water Dogs lived over the sides of the ships and called the water their home. They controlled everything outside of the Corper fish bins and fought constantly to keep anyone else from fishing. If you wanted to eat from the water and didn’t want to go through the Corpers, you had to become friends with the Filipino Water Dogs. If you weren’t their friends, you were their enemies.
A single ship far out on the edge of the city was occupied by a strange contingent of haolies. Once scientists and engineers, they were called Sky Winkers and spent their time staring at the winking lights in the sky. They said they communicated with the lights, but Kavika and the rest of the Pali Boys thought they were ten waves past crazy.