Authors: Jay Budgett
Bertha snapped a hand to her face, and groped her waist for the one of the guns she’d lost in the ocean. Dove flew past her and hurried to take the helm of the ship from Churchill, who—like Bertha—stood in awe of the towering shadow.
We were on the run again.
The Retired Lobster
groaned as Dove yanked it full throttle. The ship’s bow lifted and its engine sputtered, and we shot forward to join the ranks of the Caravan’s last few boats.
Bertha eyed the Caravan. “One hell of a ship,” she muttered sarcastically as the small craft groaned again. The dull buzz of its failing engine rang in our ears. “Next time, I’m signing up for The
Perky
Lobster.”
I glanced back at Dove, who spun the ship’s wheel with his familiar blank look. “Maybe something a bit bigger than a lobster next time,” I said.
“Good point, Car Battery.” She grumbled something about wanting to drive, then disappeared into the captain’s cabin to push Dove away from the wheel.
Churchill sat huddled at the back of the deck. I joined him. “You okay, Wingnut?”
His teeth chattered from the breeze that rose from the ocean. He smiled weakly and gave me a thumbs-up. “Peachy.” The wrinkles that caked his face quivered in the wind. I’d have guessed he was decades older than fifty, if such a thing were possible.
Mila stole a blanket from the cabin and wrapped it around his shoulders—her way of saying thanks. She owed the man her life. I guess we all did.
“Hey, Kai!” said Dove, tossing me a pair of binoculars. “You’ve probably got better eyes than me—younger and all that junk.” I realized he probably had no real grasp of the concept of aging. He didn’t know that a couple of years didn’t really make a difference.
“Whaddya see back there?” he asked.
I pressed the binoculars to my face, but it was useless: the fog that sprayed from the Caravan left the ship that raced behind us in shadows. “Visibility’s bad,” I said finally. “Can’t see a thing.”
“Afraid that might’ve been the case.” He turned to Phoenix. “Looks like we’re running blind, eh, friend?”
A small smile stretched below Phoenix’s hard gaze. “Wouldn’t be the first time.” He threw Dove a playful jab.
The two had known each other for a long time. They looked about the same age—maybe friends in another life, before they both became orphans. Before everything that happened to them, happened.
The
Retired Lobster
plowed forward, and Dove leaned against the metal railing. “Hey, Dove?” asked Phoenix. “If you’re out here, who’s driving the ship?”
Mariachi music blasted from the cabin, and the boat swerved in the water. A wave shot over the railing, and broke on the deck as Bertha’s booming laughter erupted from the helm. Mila cursed under her breath and Churchill scrunched his face: Bertha had found the record player. A trumpet solo blared, and she danced behind the wheel.
Then a muted boom sounded off to the ship’s side, and a plume of water shot skyward, twisting in time to the music—an explosion.
There were bombs in the water.
The Retired Lobster
rocked in the rough waters. Crashing waves tore at the fog that hung around the surface. Through gaps, I saw men throw packages from Caravan boats into the water: mines. They had seen the shadow that had towered behind us and recognized it as a threat, and they were determined to stop it at any and all costs. They’d blow us up too, if they had to.
The mines continued to burst, and we drove right through them, desperately chasing the Caravan. Another patch of water went skyward. Waves even bigger than the last batch crashed onto the ship’s deck. Water poured in, racing past the
Lobster’s
wooden railings. The ship teetered back and forth.
There was another explosion. Another wave. More water. We were drowning in water, even aboard the ship. Still the mariachi music thundered on.
“Where’s your lifeboat, Wingnut?” I shouted to Churchill. More waves rolled across the deck, and I could see the Caravan pulling farther ahead before it disappeared behind fog and explosions.
“DON’T HAVE A BLOODY LIFEBOAT!” he shouted. “JUST ME AND THE OPEN SEA!”
I grabbed a bucket and began bailing gallon after gallon of water off the ship. For every bucket I tossed, ten more splashed on. It was hopeless, but it was still better than doing nothing. Better to die busy, I figured, than to die bored. Another symphony of explosions sent six streams of water skyward. The ocean rocked, absorbing the force of the explosions as the streams fell downward, snapping like lightning as they struck the water.
A massive wave formed from the shocks erupting from the explosions. Ropes of surface tension yanked the water that covered the deck, pulling it toward a huge tidal wave that was gathering in the distance.
The
Retired Lobster
dropped low as the massive wave pulled us into its trough. A frothing crest loomed overhead, and the boat quivered as its engine gave a final shout.
Bertha ran out onto the deck. “It’s dead!” she announced.
“Thanks for clarifying,” I said, and she rolled her eyes. “With engine performance like that,” I added, “I’d have thought
you
built it.”
“You better hope we die,” she said, shaking a fist in my direction, “or else I’m gonna kill you.”
“If you’re half as bad at murder as you are buildings things, then I won’t bother to worry.”
Phoenix grabbed the deck’s edge, and I did the same.
Brace yourself
, he mouthed, and I nodded as the wave’s crest curled over us. For a brief moment, our ship hung, suspended, in a shimmering tunnel of blue. And then the wave crashed upon the ship, and light danced in the corners of my eyes. I felt my body yanked from the deck, crushed between salty tendrils. I tried to let myself go limp as the wave tossed and pounded me like a baker with a ball of dough. My neck snapped from side to side, and water forced its way into my nostrils to drown my lungs.
Then my back was slammed against something solid, and I felt sand in my palms. I moved my fingers, and felt a plastic bottle, and then an aluminum can. I pushed my feet down and I felt land, or something like it.
New Texas.
I hauled myself out of the water and onto the beach. I rubbed my eyes and saw Kindred waving to me in the distance. Then a hand slapped itself across my face, and my ears rang.
“Don’t insult my inventions again,” said Bertha in a husky voice.
I watched her outline as she hiked toward the fortress, then I turned and ran toward Kindred, who was now leaning over a limp body at the ocean’s edge. As I got closer, I recognized the face: Churchill. A clump of seaweed covered his bald head.
Kindred raised a hand to her cheek. “Oh, dear,” she whispered, “I think he might be—oh gosh, I really think he might be—”
“Dead?” I offered.
She nodded with pursed lips. Sand crunched behind us—Sparky was running across the beach, a wrapped syringe and a beaker full of black fluid in his hands.
“Hey, KB,” he said, nodding in my direction before kneeling next to Churchill and filling the syringe with the black fluid. Tim poked his hairy head over Sparky’s shoulder and started reaching for the crumpled wrapper Sparky had torn from the sterile syringe.
I stared at the black liquid in the beaker. “What is that exactly?”
Sparky tore open Churchill’s shirt and plunged the needle into his chest. “Cafetamines,” he said. “A chemical cocktail of my own creation, consisting of caffeine and amphetamine salts.” He stared at me for a second, and his left eye twitched dangerously. “I use them every day,” he explained.
“Well, that can’t be good for his heart.”
“Nothing is bad for a dead man’s heart, and I’d guess we could both agree that a bad heart is better than a dead heart.”
Tim gained momentum in his quest for the crumpled wrapper, but then Sparky saw and snatched it away. Tim frowned—if such a thing were possible for a sloth. I’d never seen an odder couple.
Churchill shot upright, screaming. “JESUS CHRIST, MY CHEST!”
“He’s seen Jesus!” said Kindred, clapping her hands. Tim yawned, and Kindred turned to me. “Tim’s a Jewish sloth,” she explained.
Churchill panted hard. “It feels like my heart’s smashing against my bloody chest.”
“Excellent,” said Sparky, his eye still twitching slightly behind his glasses. “That’s how it’s supposed to feel.”
Kindred patted Sparky’s hand. “We’re going to have to talk about this later, dear. You’ve got a problem. An addiction, I’m afraid.”
Sparky narrowed his eyes. “And what would you call your obsession with blueberries, then?”
Surprise flashed across Kindred’s face. “Well, I—er—they’re very
healthy
, you know!”
Churchill propped himself on his elbows and scanned the horizon. “Where’s my ship?”
Kindred bit her lip.
The Retired Lobster
had, well, retired.
“And the Caravan?” he asked.
“We—well, we lost sight of it… what with the tidal wave and the fog,” she explained. “And then you guys washed ashore and—there was a lot of pressure, okay?”
A horn sounded offshore, and with it, the fog surrounding New Texas dissipated, revealing the Caravan, coiled around the island like a snake around its prey. Someone gave a signal, and the red and gold tapestries we’d seen earlier were spread out again. The blue must have been hanging on the opposite side, I thought: they hadn’t surrounded us to attack us, but rather to hide us. We were now in a world apart. Away from the rest of the ocean. Away from the Federation. Alone.
A thin line of boats formed a bridge between the island and the surrounding ring of the Caravan. Phoenix walked to where the line met the shore, ready to meet the Caravan’s leaders. His hair glowed gold in the scattered sunlight. You’d never have known he’d just had the crap beaten out of him by the tidal wave.
“Ah, the Caravites,” said Kindred. “They’ve got their own little clans, they do. The vagabonds, the exiles, the thought-to-be-lost-at-sea-men, the Irish, the—”
“Founders,” interrupted Churchill. He thumped a fist to his chest proudly.
“The English,” said Kindred, rolling her eyes. “Few bolts missing in those ones, if you ask me.”
Phoenix lifted his left hand to his head and rested his thumb along his jaw. His forefinger was pressed to the corner of his eye, and his middle finger pointed skyward. It was a strange salute, but I remembered the explosion in the Tube by Moku Lani when Mila had done the same thing on the screen. It was an obvious departure from the standard Federal salute. It was one they could call their own: the Lost Boys’ salute.
Three men emerged from the first boat’s cabin as its bow struck the beach. They walked single file at first, but, upon seeing Phoenix, the first two broke formation and stood shoulder to shoulder, protecting their beloved leader.
Phoenix muttered something, his hand still held to his head, and the guards returned the salute before parting. A man with a thick beard, a captain’s hat, and two bushy brows like patches of wool stepped forward. The two guards dropped a ladder from the bow, and the three of them climbed down to the beach.
Churchill waved a hand. The guards, their leader, and Phoenix approached us, whispering among themselves. Whatever they were talking about, the bushy-browed man appeared to grow increasingly concerned. The guards pulled Churchill to his feet, and their leader offered me his hand.
Kindred motioned for me to take it.
“Uh… hi,” I said at last.
“Name!” he barked. I almost fell backward—here was a man used to giving orders.
“Kai,” I said, still startled. “Kai Bradbury. And you are?”
“Vern,” he said with a nod of his hat.
“
Captain
Vern,” Churchill corrected him, and he looked mildly irritated. “The great captain. A man who needs no introduction… except for this one.”
“That’ll do,” said Vern, nodding. He was man of business, not civilities. The titles, the formalities, they were a nuisance to him. He gave Kindred and Sparky curt nods, which were returned with a curtsy and an excited headshake, respectively.
Tim stuck his tongue out and extended a claw, but Vern ignored him.
“Shall we board?” he asked, already turning and walking back toward the boats.
“Come on, Captain!” said Churchill, jogging beside him. “Don’t you care to stay a minute? Flex your feet on solid ground?”
“I prefer the wooden slats of a ship’s cabin. Solid ground makes me feel woozy after all these years.”
“Uh… well, of course, Captain… I feel the same way… with the woozy…” Churchill flexed his toes in the sand several times before boarding the ship. Phoenix and I followed.
The first boat’s insides were bland at best. A black table and chairs rested in the room’s center, and the windows were covered in thick, dark drapes. A single glass light fixture hung overhead. The room was clean but simple. A piece of curved glass served as its only décor.
Captain Vern offered us seats. “Come sit,” he said. He turned to Phoenix. “Where are the others?”
There was a knock at the door, and a guard pulled it open. Mila and Dove climbed inside. The guards glanced at Vern and he nodded ever so slightly. They snapped cuffs around Mila’s wrists.
Phoenix rose from his seat. “I thought you wouldn’t do this,” he said, staring at Vern.
Another guard ran toward me. I tried to dodge, but Vern grabbed me, and the guard snapped the cold metal cuffs around my wrists.
Vern smoothed his bushy brows. “You know the rules, Phoenix,” he said coldly. “You know what must be done.”
Sage clutched the corners of her ragged dress as she walked. It was midday, and she was supposed to be in the kitchen, but she’d planned to meet Charlie. So she’d snuck out without telling Cook.
The paneled wooden walls told Sage she was approaching the chancellor’s chambers, and ahead, she heard his raised voice. The door must have been cracked open.
“…Don’t put this on me. How the hell should I know how they got it? You’re the one who let it get this far… We should’ve nuked the damn club when we had the chance.”
Sage stood outside the door and heard Miranda’s voice echoing in the chamber within. “You really are dim, aren’t you, Hackner? I hope the next chancellor has at least a quarter of a brain stem. It’d certainly be an improvement.”