Negative Film

by Leonard Petracci

  Chapter 54

  “Lazy. Always taking the easy way out,” muttered Zeke. “No mind for what could go wrong.”

  We were seated in Zeke’s motorboat, bobbing in the current of the Amazon river, flakes of rust chipping off from a cleat as he untied us from the dock. Our packs were arranged in a neat row under the back seat, and I rubbed my shoulders, grimacing from where Leonidas had pulled the straps too tight before leaving the apartment.

  “And what do you think you are doing?” Zeke had asked as Slugger started his way up the line, brushing his fingers against each of the packs to siphon away their weight.

  “Eh, forgot you were new,” said Slugger, touching Zeke’s own pack. “Makes it lighter, see? Lighter pack, faster walk. Lola taught me that bit of math.”

  “And cheating now means pain later,” responded Zeke. “No shortcuts.”

  “What?” asked Lucio. “You’re saying we have to carry these all the way to the docks? That’s miles.”

  “And the Amazon is a mere hundred feet wide, is it not? What if your friend here falls ill, and you have to carry him? Now you carry his weight and the weight of your pack, both of which you are not accustomed to. Shortcuts make you weak, and when things go wrong, shortcuts can cost you your life. No shortcuts.”

  “Little on the morbid site, aren’t we, big guy?” asked Slugger. “All life or death, black and white. Maybe there’s some wiggle room in the middle?”

  “Wiggle room is where bad things happen. It’s where the unknowns are,” responded Zeke, his expression dark. “It’s best to know where you stand. Never walk on a cliff on a snowy day, when the edge can be hidden.”

  We had trudged the entire way through the city, making our way towards the waterfront in a line led by Lola and capped by Zeke. We skirted the market, sticking to more residential side streets at his command and picking up additional supplies to Lucio’s bereavement at a supply point indicated by Zeke. By the time we reached the water, blisters had started developing under our new boots, and doubt crossed the front of my mind. We’d grown soft in the weeks under the subway, soft enough to introduce additional risk into our mission.

  For future reference, I made a mental note to implement a regimen when we returned. That was one thing the academy had gotten right— keeping us in shape.

  “Lazy,” repeated Zeke back in his boat, staring out across the water as a vessel whizzed past. He shook his head while tilting a crimson gasoline can to refuel, our boat bouncing in the wake of the other. Squinting, I could see that they were propelled by a figure in the back, a Special that pulled a wave of water upwards for them to surf upon, propelling them forwards in a continual white crest.

  “Yeah, but I doubt they’ll run out of gas,” said Lucio.

  “We can find more gas, and we can fix an engine,” Zeke said, shaking the can so the final drops of fuel trickled out. “But if that one person dies, so do the rest.”

  “Well, why not have both, then?” Lucio pried, and Zeke smiled.

  “Contingency! You’re learning. We would, but we do not have too far to go. Much of our travel will be on land.”

  I frowned, looking back towards the packs and remembering the night before when Lola had shown them our destination on the map.

  “We need to get into this general area,” she had said, her eyes glancing over the tabletop while she picked out landmarks, circling a spot the size of a dime. “From there, I can get us in the right direction.”

  “The area you circled is a few hundred miles wide,” said Leonidas, squinting down at the region. “You’ll be hard pressed to recognize anything in a spot that large.”

  “I’m not banking on me recognizing anything,” Lola answered. “But all that matters is that we get to that area. There will be signs there. And there will be artifacts, I assure you of that. Items untouched for hundreds of years.”

  “Then your word is our command, Miss,” said Leonidas. But when he showed Zeke the map, his brother shook his head, casting Lola a dark look.

  “Not many people go there, fewer leave it. It’s not somewhere I would seek. And neither should you.”

  “Just means that it’s less picked over then, no?”

  “By humans, yes. By carrion, no,” answered Zeke, then turned back to his brother, repeating, his voice low, “It’s not somewhere I would seek. Dark secrets of the forest there. Vegetation so thick it blocks the sun.”

  “So you’re saying you can’t do it, then?” asked Slugger. “And here I was, thinkin’ we had the best guide in the country. Just a bit of greenery is all. We had plenty of that at home.”

  Zeke bristled, then turned to face Lola again, asking with suspicion in his voice, “Where exactly in that area do you seek?”

  “Oh, you know, around,” Lola said innocently, not quite meeting his eyes.

  “And why there? What are you hoping to find?”

  “We’ve caught wind of an expensive artifact of our own,” I interjected before Lola could answer. “But we’re not the only ones who know of it— there are others, people who hope to find it before we do. People that would kill us for it. And you.”

  “Not me,” Zeke corrected, and took a slow breath, his eyes turning hollow and his lips thin. “Can’t kill me. But there are worse things than physical injury.” He cast an eye down to his stump of a finger. “Worse things than physical death. The body may live on, long after the spirit has cracked. Perhaps for some, it is best they die.”

  He grunted as he retired to his room, stopping in the doorframe. “I will take you there, but what happens to you shall not be on me.” Then he retired, leaving us in silence.

  Back on the boat, we started to drift, joining the mass of fishermen, trading barges, and tour boats that cluttered the river delta. One blared its horn for us to pass, and Zeke revved the engine, releasing a cloud of black smoke into the air, the cylinders sputtering in protest.

  “Thank god I can fly,” muttered Arial behind me. “If this ship goes down, I’m not sinking with it. You’d think they could afford something a bit nicer instead of being misers.”

  I turned back to speak with her, but instead was met with her elbow as Slugger crashed into us, and Lucio pulled down Lola and Darian from where they sat on the front of the deck.

  “What the hell—” started Darian, trying to struggle back to his feet, but Slugger cut him off.

  “Down, lad; don’t get up. You'll have plenty more time to complain later. Just look first.”

  He pointed over the lip of the ship, and we rose slowly, our eyes peering out over the water.

  Chapter 55

  In the center of the river, traffic parted left and right as if being driven by an invisible wedge, boats nearly tipping over onto their sides as fishermen clung to the railing. Coming to a rest, they rocked back and forth, water sloshing onto the decks and horns blaring. And through the center raced a vessel powered by a wave generated by no less than four Specials, with Lacit standing at the helm.

  He raised a languid hand as he passed, casting others aside with a light flicking motion, as if he were swatting lazy flies out of the air. The other boats raced to do his bidding, and directly behind him, Blake laughed as their wake lurched a nearby dock, tossing two workers into the murky water. Then four Specials raised their hands on the back of the boat, calling the water upwards, doubling their speed as they raced towards the jungle.

  As they zipped past, I made out several familiar faces— Sparky sat to the right of Blake, the fireball-wielding henchman leaned against a metal pole near the prow, and others from the hotel were scattered between them. Their boat was easily twice as large as ours, the hull still shined bright against the afternoon sun, and their packs looked as if they had been bought the night before.

  “I’m assuming,” said Lola once they were a hundred yards away and boats began to flow back into the center accompanied by the cursing of sailors. “That would be Lacit? Charming fellow.”

  “It would. And you don’t know the half of it
,” I said, pushing myself to my feet. “Glad you’re on our boat, Lola, and not theirs. They’re moving fast enough that if they had a guide as well, we’d never catch up.”

  “Can we just switch boats with them?” asked Arial. “Maybe catch them in the night or something?”

  “Only if you want to switch guides too,” said Zeke, patting his hand against the steering wheel. “It’s not the equipment, but the operator that matters.”

  She made a face as she looked Zeke up and down, her eyes pausing on the piece of breakfast still present on the man’s lip and the tan torso that had yet to be caught in a shirt.

  “Great, I feel much better now,” Arial said. “But I don’t suppose there’s any way we’ll be catching them in this.”

  “My job isn’t to catch them; it’s to get you there before them,” answered Zeke. “By the looks of it, we wouldn’t be the ones doing the catching.”

  “He’s right,” said Darian, helping Lola up to her feet. “That’s the first chance I’ve had to sense Lacit’s power, SC. And you couldn’t get me to touch it. It’s like a hot coal, an ember— I’d get burned if I tried to use it. There’s no containing that.”

  “Well yeah,” commented Lucio with a roll of his eyes, “Newsflash: he ripped up a section of street just trying to get at SC. I think it’s safe to say that he’s dangerous.”

  “No, you don’t understand,” said Darian, shaking his head. “That would have been like a brisk walk to him. He was holding back, probably because other officers were watching. Or maybe some other reason, maybe he doesn’t even like playing with that much power. Maybe he didn’t really want to catch SC. Either way, he’s been fighting with training wheels on, and I don’t want to be around when he starts revving the engine.”

  “We don’t plan to be,” I answered, then cast a glance at Lola. “Our goal is to avoid confrontation.”

  “Then let’s make sure we stick to that plan,” said Darian, squaring his shoulders and looking me directly in the eye.

  As the other boats on the river recovered, Zeke pushed the throttle, tilting the nose of the boat into the air as we entered pursuit. But his pace was lazy, and Lacit was out of sight before we even reached top speed.

  “And how exactly do you plan to beat them to our destination?” I asked Zeke.

  “Because they had four Specials,” he answered calmly, taking a swing of water from a canteen, the wind tugging at his scraggly hair.

  “And that would be an advantage, wouldn’t it?” I asked, and he raised an eyebrow.

  “You got two ears, don’t ya?” he asked. “Four Specials, brand new equipment, new boat. Reliance on their powers above all else. It’s a well-oiled machine with fragile parts. They’re fresh, not seasoned. They’re lazy.”

  “We know, we know,” said Lucio, cutting him off and waving a hand in the air. “No mind for what could go wrong. The Jungle doesn’t forget.”

  “Right, boy. Looks like you are a good student; picked you out well.”

  “I am the smartest of the bunch,” Lucio said with a bow, while Lola rolled her eyes. And I made my way to the back of the boat, my thoughts on Lacit’s Specials, and how I had manipulated water in the sewer the last time I had seen him.

  Reaching out with my power, I pulled at the region of water just beyond the turmoil of our engine, raising the liquid a few inches with a test. The force point I created drew it in like a miniature tornado, balling the water upwards in a greenish blob, a lone minnow darting around the interior with frightened eyes. Focusing, I altered the shape of the blob, forming a U-shaped wave that followed a few feet behind the boat.

  Then I drew in a deep breath, speaking as I gathered my power.

  “Well, if we are going to pursue them, we’ll still need all the speed we can get.”

  And in a fluid motion, I rolled the water forwards, the wave rising under my command, rushing underneath us to push the vessel like a surfboard. Combined with the engine, we now moved at twice the speed, leaving the other traffic far behind.

  And as we entered the jungle, Zeke cast a look back at the wave, then at me, pinning me down with a knowing stare. Then he smiled, speaking.

  “You didn’t tell me you were an Aquatic.” he said, the next few words laced with sarcasm. “I don’t think I ever would have guessed.”

  Chapter 56

  “We travel up the river to here,” said Zeke, tracing a finger along the map as we gathered for dinner. “After this, we enter true jungle. Refueling and restocking here before. And here, we move inland.”

  It was day two of the excursion, mosquitoes were thick in the air, and sunscreen was lathered in a generous layer over our bodies. We’d changed into the clothes provided by Leonidas, tan shirts and shorts with more pockets than I could count, with dry fabric that wicked moisture away from our bodies. Our boots were now worn in, though we’d cut apart a small sheet of moleskin Zeke had provided at breakfast to tend to the blisters, and when I wiggled my toes, I could feel the soft material compressing between them.

  The bags under our eyes and yawns testified to the amount of sleep from the previous night. Inside the center of the boat, at the cabin, it was unbearably hot, but outside was swarmed by thousands of bugs. The rocking of the river seemed to simultaneously lull my eyes shut and jerk me awake, prompting dreams such as falling off cliffs or tumbling down stairs, keeping me just barely in the realm of sleep. With each movement, the entire boat shuddered and creaked, the metal beams threatening to snap as the canvas flapped in the wind.

  “We’ll be setting up a watch system,” Zeke had said as the sun descended and dusk rolled over the river. “Seven of us, seven hours of sleep. Each of us gets one of those hours.”

  “We’re in the middle of a river. What could possibly attack us here?” Lucio had asked, flicking a piece of rust into the water, watching as it twirled into the depths.

  “Caimen,” answered Slugger. “Scurry right on up the side of the boat while you sleep for a Lucio snack.”

  “More like other people,” said Zeke. “You’ll not be needing to fear the animals, just respect them. But out here, there are no laws. A thief becomes a murderer if it removes all traces of crime. More importantly, we’ll be wanting to get in the habit. Once we go deeper in the forest and leave the boat behind, there will be some animals demanding greater respect.”

  “Lucio, could you just give them some memories to make them think we taste less like burgers?” asked Darian.

  “Doesn’t work like that,” Lucio said. “Any mind too alien is impossible for me to penetrate. It’s like speaking different languages. Maybe Slugger here can just wrestle the Caimen away.”

  “Huh, never actually thought about that,” Slugger had said, pensive. “Never really tried out my power on larger animals, never had to. Wonder if it would work and I could give the gators a run for their money.”

  “It’d work,” Lola said, unrolling her sleeping pad. “For animals, there’s no barrier to power usage.”

  “Oi, you think you know my power better than I do?” asked Slugger. “I'm what you call a field expert.”

  “I think I know theory better than you do. Power strength dictates how well can impact others with your power, due to their aural projection. Since animals, and regulars for that matter, have no powers, they have no projection, and therefore no protection.”

  “Break it down into less syllables for me, will ya?” yawned Slugger.

  Lola rolled her eyes, then continued, “When you use your power on someone else, their power interferes with it. It’s a natural defense mechanism, a blockage. There are some powers that slip past, like Lucio’s or Siri’s, because the body thinks that it’s friendly. Basically, they trick their way through. It’s similar to how you can use your powers on people that trust you. It’s because their natural defense doesn’t activate.”

  Slugger cocked his head, then looked towards Lucio, who had remained heavy when carrying him away from the facility we escaped prior. But beyond the stare, he s
aid nothing, and Lola returned to preparing her bed.

  That night, Zeke took the first watch in case we had any difficulties settling in. The first hour passed, and Slugger took second while Zeke claimed the main bed at the far end of the cabin. Within ten minutes, he was asleep, and within thirty minutes, the murmuring began. At first, I thought it was an animal, a combination of rustling and heavier breath in the darkness. Then the breath turned to low growls, and the growls to words, and the words to sentences.

  “Safe,” The word came out like gravel and through clenched teeth. “Safe. Safety here. Danger. Safe. Danger, danger coming. Always. Always in darkness.”

  “The hell?” Slugger whispered, his head entering the cabin to be met with ten open eyes and five shrugs. Lola rolled over, her hair flattening against the side of her head as her ears disappeared, leaving the rest of us behind.

  “Lucio, think you can do something about that?” I asked a few hours later, as he was returning from watch.

  “Sure, I’ll just go meddling with Crazy’s head over there while we’re alone in the jungle with him. Nothing could go wrong there, right?” he retorted, rolling over to pull a blanket around his ears. “Seems like the guy already has a funky definition of reality. Do we really want to blur the lines for him?”

  The rest of the night passed slow, and Zeke had pulled out the map after a breakfast of granola, raisins, and dehydrated milk the next morning— the combination that seemed to be both sharp and mushy in my mouth at the same time, and leave me both hungry and not wanting another bite.

  “Seems like we would be heading inland pretty early, no?” Lola said slowly, following the path that Zeke traced along the river.

  “If your enemies know they are being followed, farther up the river is the perfect place for an ambush,” responded Zeke, turning away. “And while I can smell danger, there are places where it cannot be avoided. Bends in the river surrounded by thick vegetation where we cannot dock, for instance, or cliffs on both sides. I’d advise we avoid corners where we can be trapped.”