The League

by Camille Picott

  Taro and I race to the opening. Billy scoops up Hank and hurries after us. The blast of ocean air has sufficiently diffused the sleeping gas from the grenades. Just outside the ship, hovering in the air about twenty feet away, is the Gav. Its wingspan prevents it from getting any closer. The side is open, revealing a man inside.

  We’re just in time to see two streams of flame shoot out the back of Zed’s peacock suit. At first I think he’s on fire; then I see the thruster and the exhaust pipes.

  A jet pack. Zed has a jet pack on his peacock suit.

  He glides into the Gav, landing lightly on his feet. I get a better look at the man already in the Gav who greets him. He’s tall and lean in a black T-shirt that says Got Pi?

  “Dad?”

  He sees me and waves. The neural net sits on his head, lights whirling. I wave back.

  Zed fastens the other end of his rope to the peacock suit and motions for us to join him. “Come on! Grab the rope!”

  Billy maneuvers to the front with Hank. “We need some kind of harness for her. She’s not strong enough to climb.”

  “I’m okay,” Hank says, trying to dislodge herself from Billy’s embrace.

  “No, you’re not.” Billy’s arms tighten around her. He and Hank look at each other and simultaneously flush.

  Taro crouches low and races to Aston and Mom, who are still behind their metal shield. He pulls a length of rope from his father’s belt and returns. He and Billy bend over the rope.

  I leave them to the harness construction and scuttle forward to join Mom and Aston. There’s a trail of dead bodies down the passageway. I jam a new clip into my gun and raise it, scanning the doorways for movement. An arm pops out, fires a few shots, then retracts. I return fire, but don’t hit anything.

  “Sulan,” Mom says, “get back. Aston and I will hold them.”

  I don’t reply, staring instead at the doorway where I saw the arm. I recall the bullets ricocheting off the walls. And I think of all those lame hypothetical billiard balls in applied physics. It seems like eons have passed since that particular lecture, but the math is still clear in my head.

  Balls and bullets don’t have much in common, but the math needed to calculate the ricochet angle isn’t all that different. The velocity vector of the bullet, the angle of incidence—that’s all I need to calculate the angle of reflection, or ricochet path.

  I shift my gaze to the wall I intend to shoot. An equation springs into my mind as I mentally trace the path of the bullet . . . hit the wall there and reflect the bullet over there . . .

  “Sulan, are you listening to me? Get—”

  I raise a hand to silence her. I close my eyes, running the calculation in my head. The numbers take on a life of their own, spinning out a complex equation both beautiful and deadly.

  That’s it.

  My eyes snap open. I know just where to stand and just where to aim. I inch to the right of Aston, take aim down the passageway, and fire. The bullet ricochets off the wall and flies through the open doorway on the opposite side.

  A grunt sounds from the room. Then a Leaguer’s body slumps into the passageway, leaking blood all over the floor. He doesn’t move.

  He’s dead.

  Mom and Aston stare at me. Mom’s jaw is slack, her mouth hanging open.

  “How . . . how did you do that?” she asks.

  “I’m a math genius, remember?” I’m too distracted to put any sarcasm into it. The irony of this moment is not lost on me. All my months of training with guns and other weapons, and it’s a stupid physics class that saves me.

  “I heard you were brilliant,” Aston says. “I didn’t know you were handy with a gun, too.” I feel a thrill at the admiration in his eyes.

  Hank has made it into the Gav. Billy inches his way across the rope. Taro guards the opening in the hull. I need to get rid of the Leaguers so the rest of us have a chance of making it out of here.

  “Can you draw their fire?” I ask. “I can take them down if I know where they are.”

  “I’ll draw their fire,” Aston says. “Li Yuan, cover me.”

  He vaults over the barrier and sprints like a madman down the passageway, bellowing a wordless challenge and spraying bullets before him. Mom snaps around and brings up her machine gun.

  The Leaguers don’t leave the safety of their doorways, but arms extend like tentacles into the passageway and fire. Aston moves fast, but a handful of bullets hit him. They strike the bulletproof uniform and send him sprawling. Someone takes aim as Aston struggles to his feet. Mom fires at the exposed arm, but it moves and her shot misses.

  I do the fastest calculation I have ever done in my life. My gun is already up. I fire a split second before the Leaguer does. His gun goes off, but not before my bullet hits him. His shot misses Aston and bounces off the wall. The Leaguer falls, just his boots and ankles visible in the doorway.

  Aston gets back to his feet and keeps running. I can just make out the up-and-down motion of his glow stick. He’s out of the Leaguers’ range, for the moment.

  “Did you see the others?” Mom asks.

  I nod, fixing the locations of the remaining Leaguers in my mind. Only two of them are left. I draw in a steady breath, working through the math. I shoot two more times, and the last two Leaguers die. I stare down the hall at the unmoving bodies, at the blood oozing across the floor.

  The sight of what I’ve done makes me queasy—and a little awed. Those were damn good shots. Maybe being good at math isn’t such a bad thing.

  “That was brilliant, Sulan.”

  I turn to look at Mom. She’s beaming at me—for killing people. For fighting. Despite the death all around me, I can’t help the goofy smile that spreads across my face. Warmth rushes through me. Morning Star is proud of me. Mom is proud of me.

  “A warrior and a math genius.” Aston—Black Ice—strides back to us, also smiling at me.

  Gun would just die if he could see this. The warmth in me expands some more.

  “Thanks,” I say, grinning up at Aston.

  “You’d be one hell of an asset to a merc team, kid.”

  “Aston,” Mom says sharply, “don’t encourage her.”

  The elation rushes out of me.

  “Mom,” I say, tamping down my hurt, “I know you want to protect me. I get that. You don’t want me to end up on the wrong end of a gun. But I think it’s time for you to acknowledge that no matter what you do, that still might happen.”

  “Sulan, I only meant—”

  “I know what you meant, but even a math prodigy has a right to learn self-defense.” I turn my back and walk away. Leave it to Mom to ruin the best moment of my life.

  “Sulan . . .”

  “I know you want me to be like Dad, but I’m your kid, too.”

  I keep my back to Mom and take off my gas mask, resting it on the floor. Would it have killed her to let me have my moment? To tell me that it’s okay to be like her?

  Hank, Billy, and Taro are all in the Gav. They wave to me from across the gap, calling for me to hurry.

  I tug my zipper to make sure Riska is secure inside my suit, dropping a quick kiss on his head as I do so. Then I seize the rope and swing my legs, hooking them over the rope. I do not look down, a trick I learned from Gun. I shimmy out into in the moonlight. The fresh air clears my head. There’s a dull ache in my chest from my conversation with Mom.

  I’m about ten feet from the Gav when the smell of the biological tank hits me. I forgot how bad it smells. Dad reaches for me, pulling me to safety. I throw my arms around him, surprised to find my cheeks wet.

  “You all right?” he asks.

  I nod without saying anything. I wish I could tell him everything that just happened with Mom, but what’s the use?

  “I saw you take those Leaguers down right before I climbed across the rope. Good shooting.”

  I turn and see Taro looking down at me. The gentleness in his eyes defuses some of my frustration.

  “Bet my dad was impressed,”
he adds.

  “Yeah, he was.” I sound as glum as I feel. I take a deep breath and step away from my father.

  I get my first look at the ship where we’ve been held captive. It’s a big freighter bobbing ink-black in the night. The silhouettes of Mom and Aston fill the jagged hole in the hull. They exchange words. From where I’m standing, it looks like they’re arguing. Then Aston grabs the rope. He moves across it like a spider, quickly eating up the distance. It’s easy to see where Taro gets his grace and strength.

  There’s an explosion two floors down from our escape point. Another hole is torn in the hull. I drop and cover my head as debris flies through the air.

  Another one of Zed’s booby traps, I think.

  When I look up, Zed is lying flat on the floor, grunting as he braces one boot on the wall next to the open doorway. He grips the rope with both hands, straining. It’s been torn in half, shredded by explosion. Taro is on his hands and knees at the edge of the Gav, also pulling on the rope. The two of them pull Aston to safety.

  My eyes swing back to the ship, back to where I saw Mom standing. Staring back at me is a ragged gash three times the size of what it was before. Seawater gushes into the void. Waves reach up, grasping at the lilting freighter.

  “Mom!” I lean out of the Gav, gripping its flesh and scouring the black water below. It boils as great air pockets eject from the ship. “Mom!”

  Roiling water. A broken freighter. That’s it. That’s all I see.

  Mom is gone.

  21

  Negotiation

  I struggle to open my eyes. My throat is scraped raw from all the screaming. My eyes feel swollen from weeping. The side of my neck aches where Aston stuck me with a tranq gun.

  I force my eyes all the way open. A face leaps into focus. It’s Dad, his eyes rimmed with red.

  I look around, struggling to recall where I am and what’s going on. Then the smell of the Gav hits me, and I remember: Mom is gone.

  “Dad?”

  “Sulan.” He leans over me, smoothing my hair back from my face. He still wears the neural net. His hair is a mess, which is not unusual for Dad. I find myself focusing on the little holes in his shirt along the shoulder and collar seams; Mom has been trying to make him get rid of that shirt for at least a year.

  Mom.

  Tears well up. I choke on a wail and stuff it down, willing my tears to dissolve. I can’t fall apart in front of everyone again. All it got me last time was a tranq in the neck.

  A yowl sounds in my ear. A black-and-white-striped head butts me in the cheek.

  “Riska!” I sit up and scoop him into my arms. He purrs and lets out a few more yowls, looking fully recovered from the ordeal on the ship. I press my face into his softness, using the moment to dry the rest of my tears.

  When I look up, I see Taro, Hank, Billy, and Aston seated around us. They avert their eyes, giving Dad and me some privacy in these tight quarters, I suppose.

  Only Zed is on his feet, pacing back and forth. His hands shake. A thin layer of perspiration covers his face. He’s still in the peacock suit. I try to summon anger as I gaze at him; after all, it’s his booby trap that killed Mom. For some reason, I’m completely drained of anger. Drained of just about everything, actually.

  Dad and I sit on a bench the color of dried bubble gum. It makes a lopsided U around the interior of the Gav. It ends a few inches from where the doorway begins. The entire inside of the Gav is the same dirty-pink color. The walls and bench are soft to the touch. Curving ribs march down the length of the creature’s torso.

  The Gav’s neck forms a passageway at one end, which leads into the head. Two chairs sit in the skull area, the same dark pink as everything else.

  There are two large window-like structures on either side of the Gav’s body. They resemble giant water balloons, and I realize I’m looking through bodily fluids. The scales beyond them are like two-sided mirrors, allowing me to see through. Outside, there’s nothing but black sky.

  “They caught me in the East Sea,” Zed mutters. “I should have picked a different entry point. I should have swam closer to the rocks.”

  “Uncle Zed,” Billy says, “you need to take your medicine.”

  He whirls on Billy. “Did you map the landmines?” He grabs Billy by the front of his jumpsuit and shakes him. “Did you stash those grenades in the bunker like I told you to?”

  Billy, suspended in his uncle’s grasp, doesn’t squirm. “Uncle Zed,” he says carefully, “you need to take your medicine. You know Mom doesn’t like it when you skip doses.”

  Zed shudders and releases Billy. He flips open a pocket in his pants, pulls out a white pill, and tosses it into his mouth. He resumes his pacing.

  Dad’s eyes are puffy with grief, but his face is dry. I lean on his shoulder and draw comfort from him. He puts an arm around me and squeezes.

  “Mom?” I whisper into his shoulder. I need him to say it. To make it final for me.

  “She’s gone, sweetie,” he whispers back.

  Sobs try to climb out of my throat, but I clench my teeth and bar their path. Composure, I tell myself. Hysteria won’t change anything. Riska yowls again, and I pat his head and settle him onto my lap.

  Dad squeezes my shoulders again. His voice is conversational when he speaks. “When you and your friends were kidnapped, I hijacked the Gav and came after you.”

  “You hijacked the Gav?” I know he’s trying to distract me, and I’m grateful for it.

  “I have a few tricks up my sleeve. Besides, I was the only one who could track you. I picked up your mom, Aston, and Zed on the way here.”

  “You tracked me? How?”

  Dad smiles. He looks down. I follow his gaze to Riska, who’s cleaning his tail.

  “I programmed him with a unique radiation signature.” Dad pats Riska’s head. “I can find you anywhere in the world, so long as he’s with you.”

  “Is that why you gave him to me? In case I got kidnapped?”

  “One of the reasons, yes.”

  “One of the reasons?”

  “Yes.”

  I narrow my eyes and study his face. What is he hiding?

  “Will you tell me how Riska found me?” I ask.

  “His claws eject a special pheromone that he can follow. When he scratched you, he marked you. Mom got him out of the net right away and sent him after you.”

  I reach up, rubbing the palm of my hand over the scratches on my chest beneath my jumpsuit. And here I thought Riska had just panicked. He was actually marking me, protecting me.

  “Riska sprays venom out of his mouth,” I say.

  “Yes. I designed him to do that.”

  “You didn’t think that was something I should know?”

  “At the time I gave him to you, no.”

  His answer annoys me. I lapse into silence, too drained to press him. After a few minutes, I speak again.

  “When the Gav’s eye used Morse code, that was you?”

  “That was me.”

  “Did you know Mom was Morning Star?”

  Dad sighs. “Yes.”

  Every part of me aches from Mom’s loss. “Why didn’t she tell me?”

  Dad lets out another sigh. His arm is still around my shoulders. One of his fingers begins to tap against my upper arm. “I always told her she should. But she saw how you devoured those old Merc episodes. She was afraid if she told you she was Morning Star, you’d feel like you had to grow up and be like her.”

  So instead she tried to make me grow up and be like Dad. I force my mind in another direction so I won’t start crying.

  “Did you purposely engineer the Gav to stink?” I ask, latching onto the first thing that grabs my attention. “It smells awful in here.”

  He grimaces. “I’m working on that. It’s the side effect of the carnivorous-plant DNA. The next generation will be better.”

  I exhale, very careful not to think about Mom. It will be a long time before I can think about her without my emotions turning
into knots.

  “What now?” I ask.

  “Now, I call Mr. Winn and negotiate.” Dad glances across the Gav. Taro, Hank, Billy, and Aston look up at us in unison. Apparently, our private time is over.

  “What do you mean, negotiate with Mr. Winn?” I say.

  “You don’t steal from Mr. Winn without any repercussions,” Dad replies.

  “But you’re his lead scientist. None of this”—I gesture at the Gav—”none of this would be possible without you.”

  “Mr. Winn has a no-traitor policy,” Dad says. “Everyone in Global is replaceable, even I.”

  “I don’t suppose you’d consider running away with the Gav and making a comfortable life on a deserted island? Maybe forget this whole business of moving to the compound?”

  “Do you really think you’d like living on a deserted island?” Dad asks.

  I ignore the question. “How are you going to negotiate with Mr. Winn?”

  Dad’s smile does not touch his eyes. “I’ve got the news story of the decade: World-renowned scientist hijacks classified biological warship to rescue his daughter from the Anti-American League. Imugi, world’s most-wanted terrorist, killed in action.”

  He picks up his computer tablet and taps the screen. A montage of video footage fills it: the Gav landing on the freighter; Zed, Mom, and Aston dispersing into the ship; Zed finding us; the ambush on deck; the pile of dead Leaguer bodies with a close-up on Imugi’s mask; Taro and I setting C-4 bombs; Mom, Aston, and I taking out the Leaguers while everyone else scurried across the rope and into the Gav.

  Dad’s got it all on his tablet.

  “You filmed our rescue,” I say. “You made everyone wear cameras. And you mounted some on the Gav.”

  “That footage is worth good money,” Aston says. “Without it, we’d spend the rest of our lives on the run. It’s a brilliant exit strategy, Hom.”

  Dad acknowledges the compliment with a nod. “This footage will get Global good press for at least a month. Demand for the Gav and other Green Combat weapons will go through the roof. The government’s military contract is open for bid right now. If Winn spins this right, it’ll land him the contract.”