Afro Puffs Are The Antennae Of The Universe

by Zig Zag Claybourne

  “You don’t think we should wait till all the band’s back?” she asked Desiree’s waiting look.

  “I’ve sailed this world by myself since I was a teenager. I didn’t build this ship but I’ve damn well healed her enough times. The day I wait when I can handle something myself is the day I pack it in.”

  “But—”

  “Let me finish. I have also never been half-assed or inconsiderate enough to harm others with my incompetence. What we’re going to do is start fires. The more fires we start, the more flaming rats run to other parts of the house, the quicker the house burns. I’ll come up with a plan,” said Desiree.

  “And if you don’t?”

  “We’ll come up with a plan.”

  “That works. Come eat.”

  While they ate, the Bilomatic Entrance established a wireless connection with the Ann and caught up on current events.

  “I thought we were on vacation” was the first thing Neon said.

  “We’re never on vacation,” said Desiree. “Pass the butter.”

  The butter remained sitting. “You eat too much butter. And you know what I mean. What happened to We just came from the moon? ‘Kay? Maybe a personal day in a tourist spot wasn’t the best idea, but there are other places to go.” Neon passed Desiree the spinach. Unsalted.

  “Keita, how we looking? Sail-worthy?” asked Desiree.

  “That stress fracture I told you about? Going through the Blank stressed it the hell out. This ship’s been through too much lately, and the Gang’s been begging to do an overhaul. Crack’s extended to under the ship. I can repair it but I’d rather do it in port.”

  “We taking on enough water to drown those two down there?”

  “Back up,” said Neon. “Why’d the Blank stress the ship?”

  Keita’s eyes widened, puzzled. “You do know the Blank shifts you a little every time you go through, right?”

  “As in Star Trek transporter suicide machine?”

  “No! Just, you know, slight teeny temporal-physical strain.” She held up her hands to stay worry. “You see I eagerly went through, yes?”

  Yvonne laid a hand gently on Keita’s shoulder. “Yes, but you’re crazy. Captain? This is new.”

  “It’s not a worry,” said Desiree.

  Neon and Yvonne had an entire conversation in a single glance, then both mimicked Desiree. “It’s not a worry,” they said.

  “Except to a ship that’s been blown all to hell for eight months straight and patched on the fly with thoughts and prayers,” said Keita. “Honestly, I thought you guys knew.”

  “Captain?” said Yvonne.

  “Yes?”

  “We’re gonna table this.”

  Desiree nodded assent.

  “Boston’s nearest. We could put into port there. Temporarily hide in plain sight for a minute,” Keita said. “Just long enough for me to suit up, get under there without worrying about sharks, starving merfolk, or pissed-off singularities for more than fifteen minutes. Do my job in peace, yes? She’s in no danger of sinking. Yet.”

  “The Ann looks like hell. We’re just gonna waltz it next to Chad’s weekend schooner?” said Neon.

  “Stow anything that makes the ship look badass,” Desiree directed Keita. “Camo as much as we’re able.”

  “A lot of stealth tech took major damage.”

  “We do what we can. In and out, ladies?” She met each of her crew’s eyes.

  “In and out,” Neon agreed.

  Not a notion ever to be trusted.

  It was after ten PM the next day when they pulled into port, a moonlit night with very few clouds. The Ann had a few extra dings and a bit of smoke coming from her, but that was because a singularity had rammed her. Not the first that’d happened; wouldn’t be the last. (“Singularity impact kill those two in the hold?” “No.” “Damn.”) Boston, which often tried to stay awake as long as New York, was in late-night bro mode, which meant it had sportsed somewhere.

  “You sure we want a public port?” said Neon.

  “I own this slip. We don’t have much choice,” said Desiree. “Tie her off and disembark. Give her a chance to rest without worrying about us. This city’s ninety-five percent swanky hotels. Showers and somebody else’s bed wouldn’t hurt.”

  “You’re remarkably calm for all this,” said Neon.

  “Sister luv, I’ve had eleven ships in my life. If I mourned each one, I’d be bitter by now. Yvonne still below?”

  “Yeah.”

  Desiree ducked her head into the stairwell. “Yvonne! Bring our guests. They’re with me.” When Sharon and Compoté—in civilian clothing from the Ann’s locker—stood before her, she said quite simply, “If you’re looking for your opportunity to escape, this is it. Five seconds. In six seconds, I implant you with a chip. Go more than twenty-five feet away from any of us, we’ll know. Touch any kind of communication device, we’ll know. Boston is crawling with Agents of Change. We’ve already sent them your info. They, too, will know if you’re in violation of the leash. Do we understand each other?”

  “We haven’t rebutted,” said Sharon.

  “Beautiful,” said Desiree. She indicated their wrists. They proffered them. Keita injected them. “If you’re resourceful enough to slit your wrists to get ’em out, kudos,” said Desiree.

  Even camouflaged, the Linda Ann was clearly no ordinary ship. It garnered attention. Desiree hated attention. Couldn’t be helped, although the detour was more for the captain than her ship. Desiree needed her bearings back. Needed to set things on pause.

  The ship was locked down. Nothing now but to disembark. Necessary equipment nestled efficiently in shoulder bags each woman slung over a neck and shifted to a hip. A group of drunks, pasty under the moonlight, who’d been loudly cursing each other—and who the crew realized were dawdling to see who might come off the sweet boat whose lights had just blinked off—made their way along the dock, two of the five wearing red baseball caps.

  The crew of the Linda Ann viewed them from the gangplank. The Chads sobered long enough to view back. Three black ladies, a Mexican lady, a white lady, and a white dude. The drunken Chads did the social math, and it didn’t add up to America.

  Something, though, made the small group of men stay quiet as the strange assembly made way wordlessly off the plank and equally wordlessly down the dock away from the three Chads, one Steve, and Donnie.

  That’s how the men thought of their group: Three Chads, One Steve, and Donnie. A couple of the Chads always wore their caps when out for a night. Boston. Woooo. Fuck everybody and everything! Another woooo just in case the first needed translation.

  Spooorts!

  “Team caps,” Neon murmured to Yvonne.

  “No,” Yvonne murmured back.

  The ladies felt the eyes watching them until they were out of sight of the drunks, and only then did Neon and Yvonne realize how tensed they were.

  “Can I say it?” Neon said.

  “Say it,” said Yvonne.

  “Groups of white men freak me the hell out. Especially drunk ones. Bad mojo.”

  “Testify.”

  Sharon glanced over her shoulder, but she couldn’t see the Chads anymore. She caught Neon in turn glancing at her. “No argument from me,” Sharon said.

  “We’ll get to a main street, get a ride, get a hotel,” said Desiree.

  Fireworks exploded over the water, far from the docks yet large enough to brighten the area. Then a volley.

  “Is there major sports happening?” said Neon.

  Keita already had her comm out. “Summer festival,” she read. “Downtown tourist harbor.”

  “That explains the wandering drunks,” said Desiree.

  “I think nighttime in the city explains the drunks,” said Yvonne. “Hallmark of civilization, right?”

  “Change in plans,” said Desiree. “Let’s eat, then let’s get back to the ship.”

  “Bad mojo?” asked Neon.

  “Bad mojo. Let’s get the fuck out of here b
efore traffic becomes terrible,” said Desiree.

  They got the fuck out of there.

  They’d gotten halfway through the dessert course when Keita pulled her comm from her knapsack. “Captain…I got fire sensors going off.”

  Neon pulled out her comm. “I show a ride in the area. Minivan. Five minutes out.”

  Yvonne stood. “I’ll get the check.”

  Desiree sighed and set her fork down.

  They exited the minivan blocks away and covered the rest on foot.

  The Ann burned a bit. Fore, midships, and aft, flames licked over the railing. There wasn’t a lot that was flammable, but enough. The dispersal of the flames screamed Molotov cocktails. The liquor on the ground confirmed it. Someone had even tried to pour the word GREAT on the gangplank and light it but had only succeeded in a few scorch marks and likely singed shoes.

  And of course, fire suppression on the ship was offline because, you know, heaven forbid Keita actually get to do her freaking job.

  They didn’t watch for very long. Desiree and Keita were quickly up the gangplank, both reaching into their bags and pulling out a string of gelled balls, which they snapped from casings and lobbed into the nearest flame. The heat exploded the gels into flash-dispersed fire retardant. They repeated the procedure until the only things left were scorch marks on the deck, a few licks on the pilot cabin, and two women with soot and sweat mixing on their faces.

  Fucking. Humid. Boston.

  And, of course, now sirens.

  Desiree and the engineer descended the gangplank to return to the group.

  “Why do we do this?” said Neon. “Why in fuck are we jumping out of planes, flying around the fucking moon, getting rammed by dinosaurs, and having our goddamned boat tried burned to the goddamned ground!”

  Part of the Linda Ann’s skin showed under the clear light of the moon where the camo tech had failed.

  “We don’t make a difference, Desi,” said Neon. “This wasn’t ghouls, vampires, angry fucking gnomes or the ghost of bitch-ass Custer. This was people.”

  “Let it go,” said Yvonne.

  Wasn’t meant to let go. “This was people,” Neon repeated. The angry, poison tears finding purchase on her face would have killed a bear with a single drop. “This could have been the same people we saved three weeks ago. The same people we’ll save a year from now. The same people who have done nothing but consume and destroy every last good intention anybody attempts.”

  “Nee…” Yvonne hoped to lead her off.

  “Fuck, no. This will not stand.” Neon turned on a heel. She didn’t know exactly where she was going, but she knew whoever was there when she got there would not have a good day. Not for a long time.

  It was just a matter of following the scent of beer and angry laughter. Angry laughter had a sharp scent. It smelled like fear.

  “Let her go,” said Desiree.

  “I should go with her,” said Yvonne.

  “I need you to stay with me,” said Desiree. “Otherwise, somebody’s gonna die tonight.”

  “Understood.”

  Neon returned twenty minutes later.

  “Did you find them?” Desiree asked, voice as cold and emotionless as the final tide.

  “Yes,” said Neon.

  “Did you hurt them?”

  “No.”

  “Good. That’s not a stain you need,” said Desiree.

  “I shouted, ‘Hey!’…and they ran.”

  “What’d they see?” said Desiree.

  “A woman coming to kick their ass.”

  Yvonne weighed in, pointing at Neon. “There’s something dark in you.”

  “You just noticing that?” said Neon.

  “No, I mean really. Like Dark Phoenix shit. Like you have just begun to fuck people’s shit up,” said Yvonne. “I felt it when you first saw ’em on the dock.”

  “And you’re sure they torched my boat?” said Desiree.

  “Positive,” said Neon.

  Desiree picked up her pack by a strap and swung it over her shoulder. “If it seems like those sirens are coming this way, move us out. I’ll be back.”

  “You said—” said Neon.

  “I said you didn’t need that stain.”

  She left.

  Neon and Yvonne remained rooted to the spot. Silently. Their captain was gone.

  “She’s not gonna kill anybody, is she?” asked Keita.

  “I don’t think she’s got to kill you to erase you from Earth,” said Yvonne. “There’s about to be some hellacious offscreen physical and spiritual violence.”

  “You two, back on the ship,” said Neon to Sharon Deetz and Truman Compoté. Neon thought of the captain’s return, likely late, likely tired, likely pained.

  She, Keita, and Yvonne stared at each other under a moon that was now a bit hazier than before.

  “What do we do?” said Keita.

  “I’ll brew tea,” said Neon.

  Deetz and Compoté marched across the ship, down the stairs, and back into the hold in respectful silence.

  Desiree found them.

  She wasn’t in any mood to fight. She pulled out her focum and shot each before they even realized they were being shot. They kissed concrete hard.

  She stripped them naked. Shoved wallets and phones in a pair of salmon chinos, cinched the pants closed at the waist with the belt, then tied the legs together, looping it across her chest. The rest of the clothing, shoes, and caps she gathered in a pile; emptied atop it one of the bottles of vodka they’d bought that they hadn’t used to torch her boat; pulled a match from her bag. The flame wouldn’t travel to anything else, but the other chinos and patriotic jeans of the Chads wouldn’t live to see another day.

  She left with the sling containing their identities, regretting the fact that the five naked men would see tomorrow, and the day after, and likely the one after that.

  When she was back on the Ann’s gangplank, she whipped the pair of pants into the dark Boston water, where she gave not a damn how long it’d take for them to saturate and sink. No, her thoughts were laser-focused right now, first of which was she hoped someone had brewed tea. Boston was as good a place as any to start a battle and end a war. She’d put the word out to the Agents of Change.

  After tea? Party.

  “It wouldn’t surprise me if one of those fuckers was Nonrich,” said Desiree, who had gotten up extra early the next morning to scrub the deck and found everyone else had the same idea.

  She hadn’t found Keita.

  Keita was in the murky water.

  Ship got fixed; Keita emerged pissed: “It’s like I can smell the water through my flipping skin!”

  The scene: breakfast and the spreading of vengeance like butter on toast.

  Which Neon had denied Desiree. Butter.

  Sharon and Compoté sat at the breakfast table with them. It was one thing to fuck someone’s world ideologically, another entirely to fuck up someone’s ship. Without any intention of repairing it, Sharon quickly mentally added. “You expect me to tell you whatever I know about operations here?” said Sharon.

  “Do you know any?” Desiree said.

  “No.”

  “Did not think so. What was Nonrich paying you?”

  “Hundred thousand plus perks.”

  “I’ll double it if you stay out of our way and make yourself useful. Do I speak your language?”

  Sharon paused. Truman was the one who operated out of duty and ideology, even though neither she nor he had ever truly pegged down exactly what Nonrich’s ideology was. Truman caught the pause and gave his commander a single nod.

  “That a secret nod of play along till we become clever enough to fuck things up?” Desiree said.

  “No,” said Compoté, “that’s a nod of I’d like to retire with all my original body parts.”

  “Surprisingly prudent,” Sharon noted.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “I feel I should interject,” said Neon, “as I’m the realness, which, by the way
, is my code name. The Realness.” She locked that in with Desiree and Yvonne with a don’t test me tilt of her head. “Are we gonna pretend to abide these fuckers?”

  “Neither one of us are teenagers,” said Sharon of she and Truman. “We have definitely not drunk the Kool-Aid, so to speak.”

  “I know this how?” said Desiree.

  “We know the party line is ultimate bullshit,” said Sharon. “We’ve been to Atlantis. Hell, we fucking fight Jetstreams!” she said, indicating with widening hands the crew before her. “You’re fucking fairy tales and myths in our ranks. I’d have to be ten levels of stupid to die for Nonrich solely for their bullshit. Honestly, we mostly just sit around, looking badass.”

  “We do,” said Compoté.

  “Just so you know, we don’t fall under the heading Jetstreams. They’re not proper nouns,” said Yvonne.

  “That’s how we think of you,” said Sharon.

  “What do you think of the Thoom?” said Desiree.

  “Influential as fuck. Stupid as fuck.”

  “Crewcut, she tells you to behave, what do you do?” asked Desiree.

  “Already said I want all my limbs,” Truman said.

  “Keita, I want you and Yvonne on final repairs. I want the Ann prepped for speed. Here’s what we’re gonna do: make some noise, then get the fuck out. And, Yvonne?”

  “Yes?”

  “Any Chads get near this ship while I’m gone? Revoke their white privilege with all due prejudice.”

  “Motherfuckers will take a knee before me,” said Yvonne.

  “In that case, dismissed. Neon, you’re with me.”

  The crew of the Linda Ann grabbed their respective breakfast sandwiches and napkins, and set to work.

  Sharon and Compoté were sent back to holding while Neon and Desiree conversed, then released later that afternoon when Desiree said, “Come on.”

  “I know the obvious Nonrich buildings. I want you to point out three that are not,” said Desiree. She wore a bright yellow mid-calf summer dress with large hibiscus patterns dotting it, satchel strap over the shoulder and between the boobs in case anyone they encountered—meaning primarily her accomplices—needed to catch hands. Her orange flats, stylish yes, were excellent running/scaling shoes.