Rising Tide (28 page)

“‘Boffins'?” Maya asks.

“Sorry. It's a word I use for Miranda's people.”

“Miranda,” Maya says. “We heard a lot about her in the camp.”

“Yeah,” I say. “She's like the unofficial leader of this group. She's the one who brought them all together to work on a cure. You haven't met her yet?”

“No,” Hector says. “She seems busy.”

“C'mon,” I say. “Let me introduce you.”

So I bring them over to Miranda, who has been smiling all night. Which causes this swelling and warmth inside my chest. That I could help bring her people back makes me feel good. That it makes her happy makes me feel better. But I still don't know what those feelings mean—to her, to me, to anyone.

“Hi, Ben,” Miranda says. Her skin is slightly flushed from the hooch.

“Miranda,” I say, “I wanted to introduce you to Hector and Maya.”

Miranda smiles and puts out her hand. “Oh, yes. I've heard a lot about you.” Maya shakes it first, then Hector. “I'm so glad to meet you. I'm happy that Ben was able to get you out.”

“We're grateful to be out,” Maya says. “We wanted to ask . . . I mean . . . we're not sure what you want to do with us. Do you need us to leave?”

“Do you want to leave?” Miranda asks.

“Actually,” Hector says, “we've been talking about it and we thought . . . I mean if you didn't mind . . . we were thinking—”

“We'd love to stay if we could,” Maya interrupts.

Miranda smiles at her. “The way I hear it, you two would fit in nicely around here.” The smile fades. “And we're still short some people. Besides, I don't even know if they would let you off the island at this point. They're pretty protective about the location.”

“That's okay with me,” Maya says. “It looks like you have access to food and shelter. And places to bathe.”

Miranda's smile returns. “That won't be a problem at all.”

“Great,” Hector says. “The others . . . they told us about your work on a cure. I'd . . . I'd like to help.”

“Good,” Miranda says. “Then it's settled. We'll start in the morning.”

Maya and Hector move off, and Miranda looks over to me. Her eyes are shining. Or maybe glassy. “Thank you,” she says. “Thank you for getting them out.”

I nod. “I needed to do it.”

She puts a hand on my cheek. Then she leans in and kisses me. It's the first time we've done this in front of other people. I kiss her back.

As we pull apart, I catch Clay at the other end of the room, scowling at me. Then another boffin comes up to Miranda and she turns to talk to her.

Sergei finds me a little while later. “It is good, Ben,” he says.

“What is?”

“This,” he says. “All of this. Our people. Miranda.”

I'm guessing Sergei is a little drunk.

He's staring at Miranda. “You know she's like a daughter to me, yes?”

“Of course,” I say.

“And I love her like one.” His eyes move to me. “Like my own.” He smiles, then it fades. “I knew her parents. I promised them.” He grabs my shoulder, leans in a little too close. “I promised them.”

Leave it to the boffins—all logic while sober, all maudlin while drunk.

I look at Sergei and see tears in his eyes. It unnerves me. I turn to go.

Sergei's hand claps down hard on my shoulder. Pulls me back around. “You,” he says. His voice is a little too loud. A little too emphatic. “You do a good job of protecting her.”

“I try,” I say.

And you make her happy.”

“Are you sure?” I ask.

“I am.” He pats me again. “Ben . . . you should . . . I mean, you . . .”

“Sergei . . .”

He shakes his head. “You shouldn't let this slip away, you hear?”

“Okay, Sergei.”

“No,” he says. “No. I had someone—long ago.” He shakes his head again. “I let it just . . . slip away.” He mimes opening his hands, gives a little smile. Then his face turns serious. “I never forgave myself. Don't do that, okay?”

“Okay,” I say.

“Promise me,” he says.

“Sergei, it's okay.”

He places his hand on my cheek. “Promise. Me.”

“Fine. I promise.”

“Good,” he says, the smile returning. “Good.” Then he stumbles off.

I catch Miranda's eye from across the room. She is happy, smiling. Gorgeous. Shining. Part of me wants to walk across the room, pull her to me, and kiss her. But now doesn't really seem like the time.

Still, it feels like a perfect night.

Then I catch sight of Rosie glaring at me, too.

Well, almost perfect.

The next day, Lewis shows up to meet everyone and get a sense of the operation. Also to establish his authority.

I'm not really part of either.

I want to stay here with Miranda, of course, but there's not much for me to do here. I crave the activity of the main island. And as long as Alpha is here, I'll never feel comfortable.

Miranda is busy with the boffins, sharing the new data she stole from the Cabal, giving them their assignments, answering questions.

I wander for a bit, walking the edge of the island, and then I find myself back in the boffins' area.
They're going to need new buildings out here
, I think.
If everyone is going to stay.
The newcomers need a place to sleep. Right now they're all huddled in the largest room in the place. Last night they basically passed out in any space they could. And they're going to need more room for their experiments. We're going to have to talk to Lewis about a long-term solution.

Somehow, as I'm wandering, I find myself at Alpha's enclosure. It's kept away from the main work area. He's in a cage in a building with another layer of fencing around. Miranda explained to me their security measures. Even I had to admit they sounded pretty thorough. And they damn well better be. Because they're keeping a live Feral here. And if he were to escape, well, who knows what might happen? Which is why Tamoanchan has been insisting on everyone staying out here. Heading back to the island would mean another quarantine period before I could do anything.

Then, for reasons even I'm not sure of, I go inside to look at Alpha, careful to deactivate all the security measures in place, making sure I reactivate them as I pass. This is nothing new to me. My father taught me you don't take chances with Ferals, and I'm proud to say I never have.

Well, except letting this one fly with me. But that was Miranda's idea and it wasn't my ship, so I didn't have a whole lot of say in the matter.

Alpha looks a lot like the last time I saw him. His hair is still long and tangled, but he looks a little cleaner. I wonder if that was the boffins. Taking blood samples might be a lot easier without a layer of dirt and shit and matted hair. Miranda has access to some tranquilizers. and they've rigged a system where they can easily administer injections if necessary. They might have knocked him out and scrubbed him down.

The idea almost makes me vomit. Too easy for his contaminated fluids to get on someone that way unless you were covered head to toe.

I'll have to ask Miranda.

But he's pacing when I walk in, until he sees me and launches himself at the bars of his cage, shrieking, challenging. If he could, he'd be on top of me in an instant, his teeth on my neck or some other place where they might be able to kill. He'd let me die and then tear into me with hands that might have once held a spoon or fork, with a mouth that might have once been capable of speech.

No longer.

Once again, I feel the urge to pull out the revolver and splatter his brains on the other side of his cage. But I don't. I promised Miranda I wouldn't. But I keep hoping for a reason that we don't need to keep this thing. A reason to dispose of him, drop him in the ocean and let the creatures there rid the world of his threat forever.

But not today.

I double-check the security as I leave. Okay, triple-check it.

I mean, fucking Ferals.

When I get back to the lab, Miranda is waiting for me. “You okay?” she asks.

I nod. “Yeah. Fine.”

She looks at me, doubtful.

“I'm fine.”

She shrugs. “Okay.”

“What did Lewis want?”

“What doesn't he want?” she says. “I had to give him a breakdown of what we're planning. What we need. What we're going to do with it all.”

“Was he satisfied?”

She tucks some loose hair behind her ear. “I don't know. I think so. But we need a lot. We have the mind power now, but we need supplies. Glassware, chemicals, hardware . . . . more. Lewis . . . I don't know that he liked all of that.”

I nod. “He's going to need to organize ship captains to go forage, give them lists, teach them what to look for.”

“I guess,” she says.

Up until now, this plan of Miranda's has seemed nebulous—boffin stuff, science, nothing to do with me—but right here I see a piece of the puzzle that makes sense to me.

“Let me do it.”

“What?”

I feel something, a slight burning in my belly, a fire rekindled. “Let me go deal with it. I'll talk to Lewis. Help arrange the ships. Help get you your supplies.”

She looks up at me, unsure.

“This is what I'm good at, Miranda,” I say. “I fly ships. I forage. I don't know all of what you need, but I can figure out a way to get it.”

“Ben—”

“It's what I'm good at,” I repeat.

“Along with pissing people off, getting thrown in cells, getting beat on . . .” She ticks them off on her fingers.

“I'm a decent pilot, too.”

She sighs. “I know.” She crosses her arms. “It's not a bad idea.”

“Then why not let me do that?”

She meets my eyes. “I thought that you were going to stick around this time.”

I look away. “I can't do anything for you here.”

In her eyes, a challenge. I keep talking. “I know ships. I know captains. I know foraging. Can you really trust anyone else?”

She sighs again. “No.”

“Okay, then. I'll do it. I'll go to the main island and talk to Lewis and start finding ship captains.”

“What are you going to fly, Ben?”

I shrug. “I don't know. Maybe I'll fly with someone else. Maybe I'll convince Diego to take the
Osprey
.”

“And Rosie?”

“I don't know, Miranda. I need to figure it out.”

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Yes,” she says. “You're really the only person I would trust.”

“And I'm the best person for the job.”

She just shakes her head.

“Go on. Say it. Say I'm the best person for the job.”

“Sometimes it surprises me that you've survived this long.”

I smile at her. “This will work.”

“I'll need to give you a list of what we need.”

“Yes,” I say. “Please do. I can figure out some of it, but not the . . . science stuff.”

Miranda shakes her head. “I'll take care of the ‘science stuff.'” She pushes a strand of hair out of her face. “I don't expect that Lewis will like this much, but . . . he's in this up to his ears. He lives or dies with us, and for us to live, we need everything. I'm polling my people to see if they know of any caches or intact research locations. We'll need to get as much as we can.”

“Whatever you need,” I say.

She tilts her head at me. “You kinda like all this jumping around, don't you? You've never been in one place for very long.”

I open my mouth.

“The
Cherub
doesn't count,” she interrupts.

“Then no.”

She chews on her bottom lip. “Do you think you could ever get used to this island living?”

I inhale slowly and consider my next words. It's been something I've been thinking about for a little while now. I guess ever since the
Cherub
blew up. Will I ever be happy in one place? Will I ever be happy on the ground?

“I don't know,” I say. “I think maybe.”
With you
, I want to say. But the words won't come out. “But I'll always need the sky,” I say. “I've been thinking that if they won't give me the
Dumah
, then maybe I'll see if I can get work aboard another ship. At least until I can figure something else out. I think if I can fly from time to time I'll be okay.”

“Well, then it's a good thing you get to go back to it.”

Yeah . . .

“Get me your list,” I say. “We don't have a lot to barter with, but I'll see if Lewis can help. Maybe Diego, too.”

She nods, then looks at me, something unspoken in her eyes.

“Try not to get yourself banged up this time,” she says. “I won't be there to patch you up.”