Singular

by Larry Buenafe

  “Oi, that was somethin’, mate. You’re like a bloody fireman, you are! And the world’s fastest one, I’d say!” cried Benji, so excited that he was jumping up and down.

  “Lukey, stay back for a bit. You may have traces of the Sarin on your shoes, and that can still be dangerous. Take them off carefully and throw them toward the cabin,” dad instructed, as Mr. Harutyunyan and Ms. Houng worked to free Ms. Perez from her bindings. I did as dad instructed and flipped my shoes through the door to Ms. Perez’ cabin.

  Ms. Perez was ripping at the tape across her mouth, coughing and sputtering, and when it was finally removed, she cried, “Get to a safe place, all of you! They’re coming for you! Now!”

  Dad knelt next to Ms. Perez, still sprawled out on the ground, and patted her gently on the shoulder. “It’s ok, we know. We dealt with them already. Well, Lukey dealt with them. We paid them back for tying you up by tying them up. Did… did they hurt you at all?”

  “One of them snuck up behind me and hit me with something on the back of the head. I have a pretty good lump there, but otherwise I’m ok, at least physically.”

  “Are you able to stand?”

  “Yes, I think so. Thank you… thanks for rescuing me. I was afraid whoever eventually showed up would get killed by the gas they rigged up. They must have been desperate. They are not supposed to harm any of you, they want you alive.”

  “They probably didn’t expect us to be the ones to find you. In fact, it’s likely that they thought they would have us captive and that one of your partners would find you. They might even get a bonus for killing a Bright Hand member. Sorry for this, but I wonder why they didn’t just kill you instead of going through all this trouble.”

  Ms. Perez got emotional for a moment. “They… they planned on coming back for me. They were going to take me back with them, make an example out of me, among other things. They actually planned on taking all of us back with them and using us as bargaining chips with the Bright Hand. They hoped to get them to trade some of our scientists and engineers for us, and if the Bright Hand refused, they would just kill us. Well, they would kill the rest of us; me, they would probably have other uses for.”

  Ms. Perez’ face took on a weird, sick expression, and then she turned and barfed all over the place. She choked and coughed, and said, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry… maybe I have a concussion; that might be it.”

  Dad helped her down to a sitting position, and said, “Yes, that’s probably it.”

  I didn’t think that was why she got sick.

  24

  W e spent the next hour getting the rest of the Bright Hand members out of their bonds, which were more-or-less the same as the ones we found Ms. Perez in. They had all been thumped on the back of the head, tied up, and gagged, but none of the other cabins had been booby-trapped, so we were able to get them out easily. We got to Mike’s cabin last, and he was badly beaten up. We patched up the cuts on his face and hands before heading back to our cabin, and we practically had to carry him there. By now it was almost six p.m., and it seemed like a bit of a miracle that we hadn’t run into any of the remaining staff; of course, there were only five left, including Alexy; Mr. Kozlov, the cook; Riles Husker; and two others who always seemed to be at the controls in the Superstucture.

  After a short discussion, we went to Mr. Harutyunyan and Ms. Houng’s cabin, and upon entering found the mercenaries rolling around on the floor, struggling to get free from the duct tape. Immediately the Bright Hand members bolted into action; they flipped the mercenaries onto their bellies and reached into their pockets, each bringing out a small object that they pressed against the back of the mercenaries’ necks. A second later they all stopped struggling and appeared totally unconscious.

  “Fast-acting sedatives,” Mike grunted around a missing front tooth. “They’ll be out until we’re off this boat. We don’t have to worry about them anymore. Our cover story is that they’re all playing an intense game of poker and didn’t want to stop to eat dinner. I think I better be part of the cover story too. If I show up in the galley looking like this, it’ll seem awfully suspicious. Alexy and the others will wonder where they are when they don’t show up tomorrow, but we’ll be gone before they find them.” Due to the extremely cramped conditions, we exited and went to our cabin instead. When we got there, Mike looked at the other Bright Hand members and said, “Why don’t the rest of you introduce yourselves, they’d probably like to know your real names.” Then he sat on one of the bunks, appearing exhausted.

  It was clear that the Bright Hand looked for a certain physical type for the kind of duties these guys were performing. They were all roughly the same size as Mike and were wiry and athletic-looking. Although they had all been hit on the head and tied up, they looked ready for action. The one on our far left said, “Me name’s Wilson Johannsen. Yeah, I know, two last names.” He had starkly blond hair close against his head, bright blue eyes, and large front teeth. Based on his accent he seemed clearly to be Australian.

  The one next to him grunted, “Salgado.” Based on his accent I assumed he was American; he was dark, with curly black hair, a narrow face, and a thin mustache.

  The next one, in a high, reedy voice, said, “I’m Chi Kim.” He had virtually the same hair as Ms. Houng: messy on purpose, eyes that appeared totally black, and a long scar on his left cheek. There was something else… I couldn’t quite figure it out, but there was something strange about him.

  The last one stood up very straight and stiff, almost in a military fashion. Although his skin was fairly light, and his eyes were blue, he had a short, tight afro hairstyle and wide nose. “Sydney Alamo,” he said, in a loud, commanding voice.

  We began to introduce ourselves to them, but Mike said, “No need. They know who you are. You’d better get up to the galley, they’ll come looking soon and we don’t want that.”

  We trudged down the rusty stairs one level and entered the galley. The only ones there were Alexy, Riles Husker, and Mr. Kozlov. Alexy hopped up out of his chair, a bit of meat falling on his shirt, and said, “My friends, I was afraid all of Mr. Kozlov’s food was going to go to waste. Any idea where the rest of the crew are?”

  In a perfect Russian accent, Wilson Johannsen said, “They decide to celebrate end of voyage with poker game. They say not hungry now.”

  “Oh? Well, the more for us then. Come, my friends, eat, eat.”

  Boy, that was easy… he didn’t even question it…

  We scattered around the galley, since it was less crowded than usual, and dug in to… a weird meat sandwich between two slices of hard bread. “Crikey, this bread is tough… at least it’s somethin’ different, though, eh?” said Benji, tearing into the sandwich as best he could. Alexy had invited Ms. Perez to sit with him, and he had three of the sandwiches in front of him; the hard bread didn’t seem to bother him at all, as he bit into them with gusto. As we ate, dad whispered to me, “That was quite an afternoon. Are you ok?”

  “I didn’t get hurt at all.”

  “That’s not what I mean.”

  “Well, you know I don’t really like hitting people, but in this case, I had to so it’s ok, I’m fine.”

  “I don’t know if you remember when you were little you would try, and sometimes succeed, at hitting mom and me quite often.”

  “Yeah, I remember. But you taught me not to do that, and why it’s bad. I don’t forget what you teach me.”

  He got that strange, smiling-but-almost-ready-to-cry look on his face, and again I was left confused. Instead of saying anything, he just patted me on top of my blond wig.

  After eating, Mr. Harutyunyan entertained everyone again by lifting Alexy over his head. He whooped and hollered as if he was on a roller coaster, and when Mr. Harutyunyan finally set him down, he said, “Reminds me of being a little boy, my papa throwing me in the air. Please, come back anytime, for the rest of your life you ride for free with Alexy!” Even Ms. Perez was laughing and clapping wildly, despite all the bad things that ha
d happened to her today. If I was her, I wonder if I could do that…

  After dinner we went back down to our cabins, and because of the poison that was likely still in the area in and around Ms. Perez’ room, she agreed to stay in the cabin of Mr. Harutyunyan and Ms. Houng. “Come on, we women stick together,” Ms. Houng declared, and that appeared to help Ms. Perez make up her mind. “This big guy go stay with John and Benji. Girl’s night out!”

  I went down to Ms. Perez’ cabin to close the door so it wouldn’t be obvious that something had gone badly wrong there. I grabbed my shoes while I was at it, figuring that I could spray them with water to remove any remaining remnants of the gas. As I closed the door, Alexy came down the circular stairs and called out to me. “Hello, my dear! Visiting Zoey, maybe getting some beauty tips? Oh, pardon me, I didn’t mean to suggest that you need beauty tips… Well, tomorrow is a big day, yes? You will get to see Australia, an amazing place. What will you do first?”

  In my best girl voice, I said, “I… I don’t really know. I guess we’ll just see what Melbourne is like.”

  “Please, take my advice: get out of the city when you can. The country has many wonders, so go and find them.”

  “Sure, I will. We will. Thanks, Mr. Alexy. You’ve been so nice to me, I appreciate it.”

  He seemed a little bit choked up for a moment. “Just remember what I said. If you ever need a safe place, you just come and find old Alexy. Will you promise me?”

  “Yes, I promise. Thanks again, for everything. Even for letting me catch mice and rats.”

  He laughed heartily. “Ok, my dear, time for some rest. See you in the morning, eh?”

  “Sure, good night.”

  He winked, spun around, and trundled off toward his cabin.

  25

  W hen I returned to our cabin, I found it crowded. Mr. Harutyunyan by himself filled up a lot of space, but Mike was there also, sitting on dad’s bunk. “Oh, good, we were waiting for you to get back,” he said. “Now let me tell you how tomorrow will go. There will be a large Bright Hand contingent at the docks. When we disembark, they will form a column that we will walk through, leading directly to a vehicle. We get in the vehicle and get out of there as quickly as possible. That’s the best-case outcome. Of course, we know that government forces plan to capture you somewhere near the docks, and at this point we don’t believe that they know that we have knowledge of their plans, so we think we can surprise and disrupt them enough to get out of there safely. We’ll switch vehicles a few times on the way to hopefully throw off anyone who might be tailing or tracking us. We think they probably planned on a stealthy approach, with a small group of highly trained operatives, and we don’t expect them to try to use lethal force because as we know they want to capture you at all costs. So, we believe and have planned for overwhelming them with numbers, allowing us enough time to get away.”

  I noticed dad and Benji making eye contact, and Benji said, “Yeah, I reckon we’ll get out alright. Gotta be ready for anythin’, though. They won’t let us get away without a bloody fight, eh?”

  Mike smiled. “That’s why we’re bringing numbers. We have a bit of tech that should help too.”

  “Crikey, you hoons have thought of everythin’, haven’t ya?”

  “Well, I don’t know about that, but we tried to anticipate as much as we could and planned for those things. We don’t plan to fail, I can tell you that.”

  They continued to talk for a while longer, but I had other things on my mind. I covered my mouth with my hand and whispered, “Ava, what happened to that ship that was following us? It couldn’t have just disappeared.”

  “Quiet as a mouse or slippery as an eel, or both. Could have gone forty leagues under the sea, or could have hightailed it out of here, or maybe even took wing.”

  Oh, boy. “Please, explain what those things mean. Normally I would ask dad but he’s busy right now.”

  “Oh, how long must I suffer? Alright, here you are: they may have sunk, or they may have turned and gone away quickly enough that they are out of range, or they might have even been a very low flying plane. Any of these are possible. In any case, there’s no sign of them now.”

  “So, you’re continuing to look for them?”

  “But of course. Them and anyone else who comes over the horizon.”

  “Hey, should we go check on the mercenaries, make sure they’re all still unconscious?”

  “It couldn’t hurt.”

  “It couldn’t… I’ll take that as a yes.”

  “As you wish.”

  Oh, boy.

  I stood up and said, “Dad, I’ll be back in a minute, I’m going to check on the guys we have tied up in the other cabin.”

  “Mard, would you go along? Just to be safe, if you don’t mind.”

  “Is my pleasure. Let’s go, little one.”

  We tip-toed down the corridor and peeked into the other cabin. All the mercenaries were out cold except one: the big man, the one who did the talking, was sitting up. He looked groggy but was definitely awake. “Didn’t use enough sedative on me. I was out for a while, and you gave me quite a headache, but I’m up. My arms and legs are dead for now, but I can feel them coming back, it won’t be long. Listen, why don’t you just give it up? They’re going to catch you, there’s no way you’ll escape. Why make it hard on yourself and everyone else? Even though you knocked me out and broke my hand, I don’t want you to get hurt. You’re pretty strong, you know. Bones are not easy to break, and you snapped mine like they were popsicle sticks. You could do a lot of good for your government.”

  I didn’t know what to say, but Mr. Harutyunyan did. “You may be brainwashed, but he is not. He, and we, are not interested in helping your corrupt, war-mongering “government”. Lukey, please go get Mike, ask him if he has more of sedative that he gave to these mercenaries. I will wait here.”

  Mr. Harutyunyan’s face looked like a scary, angry mask you might wear on Halloween. I didn’t really want to leave because I was afraid that he might try to hurt the bald man, but I didn’t see what else I could do, so I went as fast as I could to get Mike. I was back with him in less than a minute, and it seemed like we were just in time, because Mr. Harutyunyan had his hands balled up in fists and he and the bald man were staring at one another. “Oh, sorry, we were just having friendly chat,” he grunted, but he still looked furious.

  “Well, well, look who woke up. He looks like he could use some more sleep to me. Would you mind terribly helping me roll him onto his stomach, fellows?”

  “I will help, is my pleasure,” Mr. Harutyunyan growled.

  The bald man chuckled. “Hey, Mike, that face looks painful, and your tooth, man, that has to hurt. Who knows, maybe we’ll get the chance to do it again, but next time I’ll finish the job.”

  “There’s an easy answer for that: I’ll just pay you more than they do, and next time you’ll work for me. That’s what you do, right? I mean, it’s really pretty simple.”

  The big man laughed. “Oh, I don’t know, sometimes you do things on principle, and sometimes you do them because you enjoy it. With you, I guess it was a little of both.”

  “But your principles will change for the right amount of cash, right? Now, here’s a little something, done purely out of principles, you understand.” And Mike stepped forward and punched the big man right in the mouth. His head spun to the side and he spit blood onto one of the sleeping mercenaries.

  For some reason this made me intensely upset. Normally I would never say anything against an adult, and certainly not try to order them, but I yelled, “Hey, that’s enough! Just roll him over and give him the shot, that’s what we came here for, not all of this.”

  Mike looked down and chuckled for a moment. “Yeah, you’re right, I’m sorry. He got me down to his level for a minute. I need to watch for that, keep myself under control. Come on, Mard, let’s put him to sleep.”

  Mr. Harutyunyan grabbed the big man and quickly had him on his stomach, and Mike pressed th
e sedative against the back of his neck. He stopped moving a second later. “He’s a big, strong guy, but a second dose should keep him out for quite a while. I don’t think we’ll have to worry about him now. We’ll be off the boat and long gone before he or any of these others wake up. Hey, thanks for the reminder to keep my eyes and mind clear, Lukey.”

  I didn’t know what to say, so I just turned and walked back to our cabin. I told dad what happened, and he said, “We’re probably going to see a lot more action like that when we get off the boat tomorrow. We’ll all need to keep our emotions in check in order to get out of this unscathed. Do you understand, Lukey?”

  “Yes, I’ll be careful. I know what you mean, dad.” I think I know what he means…

  “Now, we’re all going to need to try and get some rest. This has been a crazy day, and tomorrow is probably going to be even crazier, if that’s a word, so we’ll need to be at our best. Mike, are you ok?”

  “Sure, I’m cool. I kind of blew it over there but I’m under control, don’t worry. We’ll be ready.”

  “Well, they’ve gotten the drop on you once; let’s hope it doesn’t happen again.”

  “Crikey, are you mongrels ever gonna stop talkin’? I need some bloody sleep,” said Benji, sounding irritated but with a smile on his face. They all chuckled, Mike exited, and we settled in for a long night of pretending to sleep, due to the anticipation of the events of tomorrow. Dad let Mr. Harutyunyan take his bunk, and he curled up in the corner next to the little closet at the end of the bunks; I took my normal spot next to the bottom bunk to wait out the night and anticipate the events of the following day.

  26

  M orning took a long time arriving. I snuck out twice to check on the mercenaries, but they were all snoring each time. I practiced holding my breath and got up to fourteen minutes, although I thought I could probably go longer. I asked Ava if it was possible for her to show me pictures or videos, and she said that she was not currently tied in to my visual cortex but could work on it. Well, actually she said something about tunnel vision and breaking a butterfly upon a wheel, but I eventually got her to explain what she meant. Anyway, I thought that it might come in handy if I needed to learn something quickly, and especially something I didn’t want people to know that I know. For example, suppose I wanted to learn martial arts. I might not want them to know I was studying it, and having instructional videos playing directly into my visual cortex would accomplish that.