The Apocalypse Ocean (7 page)

After a long hour of watching Tiago fiddle with the lock, June started to get anxious. “Why is it taking so long?”

Tiago’s left leg burned, a cramp from the odd position he held himself in, balanced on the back of the couch under the barred window.

“It isn’t fast work,” he grunted. “It is a
lock
. I’m not
supposed
to be able to stick just anything in it and get it to pop open, you know?”

“I guess,” June mumbled.

Tiago finally hopped down from the back of the couch and massaged his cramping leg as June stared at him. “I need to sit a second.”

June sighed, frustrated, and looked up at the window. “Why do you know how to pick a lock?”

Tiago stared at him. “Why do you think?”

June looked back down, then up, then bit his lip. “You’re a thief?”

“I do what I need to stay alive,” Tiago said firmly, kneading his calf. “If it makes you feel better I mainly pick pockets. As you can tell, I’m not so good at picking locks.”

“But what about your parents?” June protested.

“I don’t have any.”

“Oh.” That sucked the wind right out of June there. “There wasn’t … anything else you could do …” he trailed off.

“Fuck you,” Tiago said. “Stay here in this room, if you want. You don’t have to accept my help.”

“No, it’s not that …” June shook his head. “I need to shut up. Go ahead. Please.”

“Oh, well, thank you for granting me permission to continue,” Tiago said. “Is there anything else?”

June just stared ahead, not making eye contact.

In a dark mood, Tiago stood back up with a wince and got back to trying to pop the frustratingly stout lock on the bars.

Now he wished he’d practiced more. It was always a question of practicing. And he never did enough of it on the collection of locks Kay made available. Always figured he’d try that later. Well here it was. Later. And he just couldn’t get the damn thing to click.

The tiniest shift through the pick let him know he’d gotten the tumblers lined up.

“Got it!”

He yanked the lock off and tossed it to the couch. Then he tested the hinged bars, nudging them slightly.

They groaned as he opened them just a hair.

Tiago stopped. “We need to lubricate them with something. We don’t want to get caught because they heard us opening these.”

He hopped down and rummaged around in the bathroom. Then smiled to find a small bottle of baby oil under the sink.

Back at the couch he slowly squeezed oil onto the top hinges of the bars, one on each side. Then he switched to the lower hinges. The oil dripped down the sides of the windows and onto the wall, and then onto the back of the couch.

No turning back now; the mess and stains were pretty obvious. But a test shove of the bars sounded acceptably crunchy instead of squeaky, and hopefully not loud enough to draw definite trouble.

He jumped off the couch.

“Where are you going?” June asked.

“Wash my hands.”

“Come on, let’s go!”

Tiago held up his slick hands. “I don’t want to fall to my death.”

June grimaced, frustrated, and Tiago smiled as he quickly soaped up his hands and scrubbed off the baby oil.

He came out still drying his hands.

“Okay, let’s go.”

Tiago crept out onto the window and looked down at the small gap between the houses. Just large enough to store some garbage cans and for him to fall between to his messy, cobblestoned death.

He jumped, dropped five feet, and felt the roof give slightly under him.

Back up on the window, June looked nervous. “Is it safe?”

“Perfectly,” Tiago lied with total earnestness.

June jumped, struck the roof, and his feet slid out from under him. Tiles broke loose and slid away, but Tiago crabbed his way down the roof and grabbed the tiles before they went over the edge and alerted anyone that they were up there.

The roof creaked under them.

June started to move toward the side, looking toward the market, but Tiago shook his head. “Stay on the roof. They’ll notice us down there.” And when they were discovered gone, the Runners and Ox-men would fan out down there, hunting them. Rooftop to rooftop would keep them out of sight longer.

And no Ox-men would be running along these old roofs.

Tiago faced the slopes of Placa del Fuego to orient himself, checked the mists at the peaks of the island, then turned back toward the ocean. They were close to the docks.

Suddenly this crazy plan seemed possible.

Tiago led them away from the market along rooftops. They clambered awkwardly up drain spouts and slipped on tiles. But they made it to the edge of the docks after an exhausting hour.

“Did you hear that?” June asked.

Tiago turned back. “What?” he asked irritably.

“I thought I heard gunfire.”

Maybe there’d been a popping sound, somewhere in the background of Placa del Fuego’s ocean of noise. But it was far enough back they didn’t need to worry about it this second.

“It’s Placa del Fuego, June,” Tiago muttered. “Someone’s always getting held up.”

The docks ran out from the seawall, long piers of concrete stacked with unloaded goods and Ox-men hauling carts back and forth. The poor bastards had risked their lives to escape the hellish servitude of Okur, to end up doing the exact same thing for hellish pay in Placa del Fuego.

“I think we’re safe to get down,” Tiago said to June.

With a little luck and some searching, they found a fire escape. A woman hanging clothes up on the railings scolded them as they rattled quickly down it past grimy, charred windows into other domestic bustle.

As the pair of them passed the seawall and got close to the docks, Tiago relaxed a little. The Ox-men guarding them would have called the alarm by now, phoned Kay, and the entire town would be crawling with people hunting for them. He was so, absolutely, screwed if he stayed on the island now.

But they’d at least gotten to the docks.

Tiago stopped a dockworker in greasy coveralls overseeing the unloading of a ship docked near the seawall. “We’re looking for a ship called
Strainer
, have you seen it?”

The man frowned. “
Streuner
? Dock seventeen. On the very end. See?” He pointed.

It was a gunmetal gray boat with a large green flag with a black and yellow X on it. It looked a hundred feet long, big enough to require tying up to the T-shaped end of the dock.

There was sleekness to the hull, a low cabin over the decks, and a black-windowed cockpit and pilothouse combination at the center of the ship. A small forest-like bundle of communications antennas and other devices bristled from the top.

That ship, Tiago thought, looked fast. He could see a small guide mast on the deck in front of the cabin, for the parasail that would pull the boat while it was in the dead zone. But if it was Nashara’s boat, once clear of that, he bet it would have engines for the long trip off planet through the wormholes that led away from Octavia to other worlds.

June yanked Tiago’s collar and spun him around.

“Hey!”

Tiago got ready to curse the boy out, but the words died on his lips. Back on the far edge of the seawall stood a very, frighteningly familiar figure in those tattered robes and the shadow-filled cowl.

People ran from the area, fleeing the space around it.

“The Doaq,” June said. “It’s come for us.”

“Us?” Tiago squeaked. “I don’t think it …” he trailed off. The Doaq had looked over the top of the crowd right at them.

That couldn’t be right.

And since when had the Doaq started hunting anything in broad daylight?

Tiago watched the unnaturally long jaw dislocate and drop, down past the alien’s chest, down almost to its feet. The Doaq glided forward.

Toward them.

Anything that stood in the way disappeared into that impossible maw: tables and chairs along the seawall that people ate lunches on. Decorative rocks and bicycles. The Doaq swallowed them all.

“Why the hell are you just standing there?” June screamed at Tiago, who shook himself out of his shock.

“Go. Go!” he said, walking backwards, pulling June with him.

Then they both turned and sprinted toward the dock leading to
Streuner.
It was an act of faith, believing that the people on that boat could protect them.

But really what else could they do right now? There was nowhere to go to ground. Nowhere to hide that the Doaq or Kay wouldn’t sniff them out of.

There was nowhere to go but dock seventeen.

And as fast as they could.

They shoved people aside as they ran along the slow curve of the last section of seawall, ignoring the curses aimed in their direction.

It took a minor eternity to finally transition from stones and pavers and cement to the wooden planks of the docks. The slap of their feet turned into the clank of loose wooden strips underneath.

Tiago realized he was screaming as he ran. Dockworkers were turning to look, and then jumping into the water as they realized it was the Doaq they ran from.

He glanced over his shoulder. The Doaq had gained on them. Tiago had half the dock to go before he reached the
Streuner
, and the Doaq swooped up the dock some three hundred feet behind them.

Tiago knew he shouldn’t look over his shoulder, it slowed him down, but he couldn’t help it.

The dark pit of the Doaq’s maw was so wide and inescapable, ready to swallow them, the pier, and anything else.

As to where all the stuff that was scooped up into the maw went, only those swallowed knew, and they’d never come back to talk about.

Tiago realized he was about to find out. He wasn’t going to make it to the end of the dock, where the
Streuner
waited. Maybe even if they made it, they’d still be swallowed up.

Maybe it could eat the whole boat.

He glanced back over his shoulder, and as he did so, a loud boom came from the end of the dock. Something
large
whipped past his head, and the Doaq staggered and fell.

Its mouth dipped, hitting one of the concrete sides of the dock and swallowing a chunk of it, concrete chipping around the edges of its mouth.

Another boom stopped it as it struggled up to its feet again.

Tiago redoubled his run, as did June. He ran so hard it felt like his joints would pop, his brain would be jarred free of his skull, and his lungs would burst into flames.

The booms turned into an all-out barrage. Continuous thunder rolled from the ship, bursting out from large guns that had rolled out of hidden ports in the front and rear of the hull.

His eardrums stopped trying to understand the deafening sound as the entire section of the dock under the Doaq disappeared.

The Doaq had picked the wrong ship to run at.

Two dark-skinned crewmen, just like Nashara, held out their hands at the top of the plank leading onto the deck. Tiago sprinted into them, knocking them over and collapsing, panting, and amazed to still be alive.

“I’m Tiago. This is June!” Tiago yelled as soon as he could pull a deep breath out of his panting.

“Cast off!” Someone yelled, and the plank was tossed free. From his viewpoint on the deck, Tiago saw a tiny rocket dazzle and fill his vision as it fired, then shot up several hundred feet into the sky, dragging a parasail with it.

The foil expanded, filled with air, and the ship began to move.

A pair of feet in familiar boots stopped in front of Tiago’s face. He looked up, still blinking. 

It was Nashara. 

“Stay down,” she snapped.

Nashara walked with a slight limp and wore a patch over one eye. Her hair had been burned off, and one arm was in a sling. But she was alive, and Tiago hadn’t been expecting that.

She kneeled down and kept both of them shoved close to the deck, shielding them with her body. She shouted something, but he couldn’t hear it through the ringing in his ears, because the guns still hadn’t stopped:
Streuner
shivered constantly as it continued firing on the Doaq. It wasn’t hurting the Doaq, but it certainly kept knocking the thing back off its feet, keeping it from advancing closer. 

As the Doaq struggled to move forward, the ship slowly built a bow wave as it sped up, moving away from the docks under the power of the giant parasail high above.

A minute later, the entire ship slowly struggled up onto the hydrofoils underneath its hull, and it popped free of the resistance of pushing against water.

They sped away from the docks, the deck tilting alarmingly as the
Streuner
turned hard toward the open sea.

He’d made it.

He’d gotten free of Kay. And survived the Doaq.

He was free of Placa del Fuego.

Every second he sat curled up on this deck, they were moving further away from the harbor.

“Are you hurt?” Nashara asked again, standing up and letting go of the two of them. She glanced back at the dock, and Tiago swore he could see the faintest hint of relief.

Tiago shook his head. “No, no, I’m okay.”

“You should still come below and let me check you over. This way.”

Tiago glanced back at the receding dock. It was hidden by a roiling cloud of smoke and fire. A fishing boat tied to the dock that Tiago had run past slumped into the water and rolled over, vomited a gush of air and debris, then slipped beneath the harbor water.

Nashara ushered both of them down steep, varnished wooden stairs into a command and control center, filled with electronics. All of them
working
no less. Four crewmen sat in large, organic chairs that looked to have molded themselves around their bodies. Cables draped from the backs of helmets, and complicated figures danced in light across their faces.

“Gun ports are offline,” one of them reported to Nashara, swiveling about. He looked at June and Tiago through a yellow visor. “One of these the boy?”

Nashara nodded. “Yes. We got lucky.”

“And …?” he asked, an expectant look on his face.

“We’ll find out,” Nashara said. She limped on down deeper into the ship, leading them toward the bow. There was a small kitchen area with a booth table. More polished wood, Tiago marveled.

Nashara opened a drawer full of small devices, then leaned against a cabinet door. “We have to wait a little while longer to use the first-aid kit,” she said.

“Why?” June asked, his first statement in all this time.

“Dead zone. We use mostly shielded weapons and emergency engines. And me, of course. Nothing else operates.”

An alarm sounded. Tiago flinched. “What was that?” He had visions of the Doaq flying through the air like a witch, dive-bombing them from above.

But a second later the lights flickered on throughout the dim interior of the boat. Fans kicked on, and unseen mechanical things under his feet clattered and shook.

“We’re out of the dead zone,” Nashara said with a grim satisfaction. She pulled a scanner of some sort out the drawer.

“Then we made it?” Tiago asked as she waved the device over him, and then June. “It’s all over.”

Nashara looked June over a little bit more carefully than she had Tiago.

“What … what’s going to happen to me now?” June asked.

Nashara stopped and looked at both of them. “We need your help June. You were the last person to see Pepper alive. We need to take a look at what happened, by getting into your mind.” She saw the expression on June’s face and reached out to reassure him. “It won’t hurt you. I promise.”

June looked up at her with tired, defeated eyes. “And then can I go home?”

“Your parents are waiting for you in Reception, we were able to get them a ticket out. But first we’ll need to get you aboard my ship, the
Takara Bune
and get that snapshot of your mind. Go with Arayn, here.”

Arayn was a very pale-skinned crew woman in a green utility jacket. “This way,” she waved at June.

June followed her forward down the tight hallway.

Now Tiago was alone with Nashara. She slid into the seat and pulled out a small piece of paper, folding it over and over again.

“I am yours now,” Tiago blurted.

Nashara kept folding the piece of paper until she had turned it into a small flower. She set it upright on the gleaming table between the two of them. “What do you mean by that, Tiago?”

“You
know
what I mean,” Tiago said. First it had been Kay. She had used him as a foot soldier, a frontline pickpocket in her growing empire. “You can read me. You can read my thoughts just like
she
can. I know what that means.”

Tiago had defected, now.

And he wanted to know what happened next.

That single, healthy eye flicked over him. And Nashara smiled sadly. “What happens next, Tiago, is that I pay you what I promised. I drop you off somewhere where you will be safe. And that is the end of our relationship.”

“I didn’t know she was going to trick you into fighting the Doaq,” Tiago said, leaning across the table. He’d expected the boat to sway more than it did, but the foils kept it almost rock steady. “It was a trap from the beginning. And I’m sorry. If that’s why you don’t want me here, just look at me. Read me, and know that I didn’t help her do that.”

He knew he was begging. But he’d always known he wasn’t in a position of power here.

But he had to stay on the boat.

He wasn’t going to get dumped out into some other, newer street.

She looked up at him with the one eye, and Tiago flinched away from the stare. What would he do to someone who’d possibly been part of a plan that cost him an eye? What would someone as powerful as Kay do?

Maybe this was why she was going to leave him in some strange new city.

I don’t know anything much about the worlds beyond the island, Tiago thought. He wanted to escape, but he didn’t want to do it alone. He didn’t know anything about technology, or the wonders people took for granted outside the dead zone.

He needed a guide.

A teacher.

And protection.

“I knew it was a trap,” Nashara said. “But I wasn’t expecting the Doaq.”

Tiago found that hard to believe, knowing the things Nashara had seen and participated in.

Nashara shook her head as she saw his expression. “It’s a massive universe, Tiago, with many participants. I’m not sure what the Doaq is, or what it wants. I’m just glad we survived it. For now, my goal is to find Pepper, if we can. If June can help. Maybe together we can get some answers. I’d like to know if the Doaq is a threat to the Xenowealth. But Tiago, I’m just a tiny player on the edge of some large events. I don’t know half of everything. The universe is not tidy. You don’t always get quick answers.”

Finding out that
Nashara
herself was just navigating her way through all this as best she could shocked him.

He looked at her suspiciously. “Are you saying that to make me feel better? To play my mind?” He asked. She could be manipulating him like Kay had. If she had the same talents, why not? 

“It’s okay if that’s true. You seem calmer than Kay,” Tiago continued in a hurry. “I used to think my life mattered to her. But not when I saw what she did with us all against the Doaq. Those lives meant nothing to her.”

Tiago felt the ship slow, hydrofoils sinking deeper into the water until the hull hit water.

Nashara crushed the little flower she’d been toying with into a wad. “I find it interesting that sometimes we become the thing we’re fighting hardest against,” she said thoughtfully. “And Kay is fighting hard against an unimaginable past on Okur. I don’t think she will stop fighting it for quite a while. Sadly, it means she’s sometimes not better than the bastards that created her.”

Tiago thought about Placa del Fuego, caught between the forces of Kay and the Doaq, and wondered if the island would survive the both of them. “She wants to rule Placa del Fuego.”

“I know,” Nashara said. “And I may have helped her. Probably made it worse, though, interfering by giving her those weapons.”

A loud alarm whooped through the ship. Tiago jumped up. What was wrong?

A fluttering sensation in the deepest pit of Tiago’s stomach left him suddenly dizzy and grabbing for the edge of the table. He swallowed bile, and looked around. 

Nashara stood up and grabbed his shoulder. “It’s okay, Tiago. Come.”

She steered him back up the stairs past the monitors and crew, then out onto the rear deck of the ship. There was nothing there but a wall of impenetrable blackness. And water.

It was a wormhole, half sunk into the ocean, and they’d just passed through it. And passed from the world of Octavia to the next place the wormhole led to in the series.

Tiago gasped. He’d never seen one this close, towering over his head. Large enough for a whole ship to pass through. This thing had once floated above his world. Spaceships had once passed through it before being deorbited.

And now him.

The sky overhead was covered by a dark, orange cloud in outer space, wisps of it streaming off toward the horizon. And cutting the sky in half: a silver twinkling band. The Belt of Arkand. He’d heard it mentioned by sailors, and here he stood looking at it with his own eyes.

“You got away,” Nashara said. “Consider that a victory. But there’s no place for you on this ship. We can drop you off further downstream. There are schools, maybe even housing, that we can help you with. And I’ll pay you. As I promised.”

Tiago looked around at the strange sea they plowed through, and saw another wormhole far ahead in the distance propped on floats and bobbing on the surface of the green ocean. That wormhole led to yet another ocean, and more worlds.

More possibilities.

“I want to be one of your crew,” Tiago said.

“That’s not an option. You’re too young.”

“If you won’t take me as crew for your ship, then take me back,” Tiago said.

“To Placa del Fuego?” Nashara asked.

“As close as I can get.” Tiago looked back at the maw of the wormhole behind them. “How long will that money you’ll give me last here, among the rich people? As long as it will back there?”

Nashara didn’t respond.

Tiago leaned against the railing and looked at the water foaming past. “Thought so,” he muttered. “Now that you have what you want, you can cut me loose. And how long will I last here? I’ll be a little, ignorant child to your people. I don’t know how to make any of your machines work. I don’t know even know how to work in your worlds. Better to take your money and go back where I can make it last.”

“Kay will hunt you down if you go back anywhere near there and she hears your name,” Nashara said.

“I know how to hide,” Tiago muttered. “And your money will help keep me safe.”

He looked over at her, watching him with that single black eye.

“Okay,” she said. “We’ll take you back through, if that’s what you want. We’ll come back aboard the
Takara Bune
and release you.”

Tiago nodded. “That’s what I want,” he said, fighting a wave of disappointment, and turned his back to her.