by Joel Ross
My eyes felt hot and swollen. Everything they said made me want to cry. I huddled in my jacket, and the weight of exhaustion pressed on me, but I was too scared to sleep.
After Perry’s scream had faded, I’d snapped. I’d thrown myself at Kodoc, shouting and swearing. I didn’t know why. I’d hated Perry, and I’d almost ditched him myself. A soldier had slammed me to the ground before I got anywhere near Kodoc, though, and put her boot on my cheek.
“Where d’you want him, m’lord?” the soldier had asked.
“In the cell. We’re in no rush. The only way my victory could be sweeter would be if the mutineers try to rescue him.” Kodoc raised his voice. “We are prepared for an attack, Lieutenant?”
“More than prepared, my lord,” a man’s voice had called. “We are eager.”
“Take him away,” Kodoc had said, and that’s when the two soldiers had dragged me to the bowels of the ship.
Giving up on sleep, I leaned against the cell wall and rummaged through my pockets. I found a chunk of smoked fish in my belt pouch and told Quancita that it made my tongue swell. She eyed me like she knew I was lying, but Perla sniffled that she was hungry, so Quancita snatched the fish from my palm and handed it around.
As they ate, she said, “What kind of story?”
It took me a second to realize what she was asking, then I said, “From the time before the Fog.”
“There’s always been Fog,” Sally said. “Forever and ever.”
“You know about before the Fog?” Quancita asked me.
“A little.” I stifled a yawn. “I know that a long time ago, there was a tribe called the Amazons. They were fierce lady warriors who fought battles and sold books.”
“Books?” Sally said. “Weird.”
“Yeah, I’m not sure what the—” I stopped, and laughed at the thought of Loretta.
“What?” Quancita asked.
“I’ve got this friend,” I explained. “A fierce girl warrior who’s got a thing about books.”
I told them about Wonder Woman, an Amazon princess with a stealth jet and a sparkly swimsuit. I knew she was just a story, like Batman and Fireman, but I told them the whole tale anyway: that she delivered books in her stealth jet, eating Wonder Bread and hanging with Alice in Wonderland.
When I finished, Radiz told a story about a superhero called Supreme Curt until Sally’s snore interrupted him. We spoke in whispers for a while. Then the gentle sway of the floor and the far-off thrum of the engine rocked Radiz to sleep.
I snuggled under my jacket and smiled at how quickly little kids fell asl—
25
THE CLANG OF metal woke me. Stifling a yawn, I listened to footsteps in the hallway outside the cell. Soldiers on patrol, maybe. My back ached, and my arm itched. I wanted to scratch, but Quancita was sleeping with her head on my shoulder. Her hair smelled of burning plastic, the perfume of a refinery.
I drowsed there as memories drifted across my mind: escaping the Rooftop, exploring the Port, diving into the Station. My thoughts snagged on that moment in the Fog when everything seemed to click. A lightning bolt. A thunderclap.
It still didn’t make any sense, so I thought about our plans to start a new life on the Port instead. I thought about finding the map, too, but my thoughts always ended in the same place: with me locked in a cell on Kodoc’s warship.
I eased Quancita onto the floor, then used the latrine in the corner—enough said about that—and poked around the cell, looking for a weak spot.
“C’mon,” I whispered to a bolted panel in the wall. “Pretend I’m Bea and tell me how to get out of here!”
The panel didn’t say anything. Neither did the bars in the door or the rivets on the ceiling.
After the refinery kids woke, a soldier with pigtails slammed the door open. She stomped into the cell and dropped a bucket of mashed turnips and a jug of water on the floor.
“Eat up,” the pigtailed sailor said. “This could be your last meal.”
“What—” I gulped. “What does Kodoc want with—”
Pigtails backhanded me against the wall. My vision blurred, and my teeth cut the inside of my cheek.
“Lord Kodoc,” Pigtails told me.
I wiped my mouth and tried to act like I wasn’t scared. “What does Lord Kodoc want with a bunch of refinery kids?”
“You’ll find out,” she said, and left.
We ate the turnips and drank the water, and then the kids taught me a game called A Thousand Black White Cards, where you made up a new rule every turn. The first rule was: You can’t give yourself points. That was Quancita. The second rule was: You get five points if you decide not to make a rule that turn. That was Radiz. The third rule was: You have to call me Caterpillar Pants or you lose half your points. That was Perla. The fourth rule was: Every other turn, you can steal one point from the person who looks the most like your favorite animal. That was Sally.
The fifth rule was: I don’t get it. That was me.
Quancita explained again, and I pretended I understood. We played the game until there were a hundred rules, none of which made any sense. Apparently the point wasn’t to win; the point was to keep the game going. After an hour the score was:
Quancita—34
Radiz—51
Sally—froglegs
Perla—9 and 21
Me—hoo-hoo-hooo
“Hoo-hoo-hooo isn’t too bad for your first time,” Quancita told me, then shrank into the corner when Pigtails and another soldier slammed inside.
“You!” Pigtails snarled at me. “Come with us.”
She dragged me upstairs to a hallway with evening light streaming through porthole windows—apparently I’d spent an entire day in that cell. She shoved me into a clammy room with vats of water and told me to wash up. I splashed with one hand while I checked the floor and walls for loose boards.
No luck.
Pigtails yelled for me to hurry, so I undressed and climbed into a vat and groped for the drain at my feet. It was too small to slip through. I scrubbed with soap powder that smelled like tar, then climbed out and opened a vent in the wall that blew hot engine air to dry me.
After I dressed, the soldiers marched me upstairs and into the brisk air under the evening sky. I glanced at the edge of the deck, my mind scrambling for a way to escape, but Pigtails shoved me toward an ornate door that opened into a small, fancy dining room.
Hooded lamps glimmered in the corners. A plush carpet covered the floor, squares of framed art called “giftwrap” lined the walls, and mesh chairs surrounded a table heaped with food.
Kodoc twirled a chopstick at the head of the table. His lips narrowed when he watched me stumble inside, and his monocle flashed.
Sweat sprang to the back of my neck.
“Sit him down,” Kodoc told the soldiers. “There.”
Pigtails shoved me into a chair beside Kodoc.
“Now leave us,” he ordered.
The door closed behind them. I didn’t move, studying the roasted pigeon legs on the table, heaped beside steamed buns and bowls of drippings and okra and spiced churros. And a plate of what I was pretty sure were oranges. They were orange anyway.
I’d never seen so much extravagant food in one place, not even in the Assembler skyscraper.
“Eat,” Kodoc told me.
“Not hungry,” I muttered.
“Are you sure,” he asked politely, “that you want me to repeat myself?”
My hand shook a little as I grabbed a roasted pigeon leg. I ducked my head and nibbled at the meat. Tender and hot, with some kind of tangy crust. I took a bigger bite, and juice ran down my chin.
“You like the duck?” Kodoc asked when I finished. “Have another.”
Duck? Huh. I grabbed another drumstick, then speared a steamed bun with a long fork-thing, and wondered if I was fast enough to get across the table and spear Kodoc with the fork-thing—
“What is the threat?” Kodoc asked.
I almost choked. Could he read my mind?
“Don’t be afraid,” he said with a terrifying calm. “I made you. You’re my creation, my tool. A man does not break his own tool . . . unless he must. Now tell me—what is the greatest threat we face? The greatest threat to our survival?
Getting thrown overboard by loco Rooftop lords, I thought.
“The Fog,” he told me. “Wouldn’t you agree?”
“Y-yeah,” I stammered. “Yes.”
“If the Fog rises, we’re finished. Not just the Rooftop, not just Port Oro. The entire human race, dead forever.”
He paused, waiting for me to say something, but I didn’t know what he wanted to hear.
A chill frosted his eyes. “Do you understand what I’m telling you, boy? Raise your head. I’ve seen your eye already. I gave you that eye. Can you hear the words I am saying? Do they mean anything to you?”
“Yes,” I said.
“What happens if the Fog starts to rise? Next week, next month, next year. What happens?”
“We—we’re finished.” I tried to remember the words he’d used. “The entire human race is dead forever.”
“And you think I’m the villain?”
I hunched my shoulders and glanced at Kodoc’s neck. A sharp fork in my hand and desperation in my heart. Yeah, he was the villain, all right. I’d never been a fighter, but I was fast. Maybe fast enough to get over the table and stab him in the throat.
“You disappoint me.” Kodoc lifted a napkin beside his plate to reveal a steam-bow. “Put the carving fork down.”
Heat flared in my face, and I set the fork aside.
“I’m the only thing standing between the Fog and the moldering remains of humanity,” he told me. “I’m the only thing standing between the Fog and all the snot-nosed children, all the huddled families, all your friends and family.”
“You—” My voice cracked. “You killed my mother.”
“I’ve killed more than your mother, boy. I will save the human race, whatever the cost. Ask me what the price is.”
“Wh-what’s the price?”
“Turning myself into a monster.”
I bowed my head, my pulse pounding in my ears. Why was he telling me this? What was he saying? What did he want from me?
“You think I don’t know what I am?” he asked in his slithery voice. “Of course I know. Only a monster can beat the Fog. Only a monster is willing to do anything. Kill your mother, kill your crew. I’ll ditch the entire junkyard and bomb Port Oro into ashes. And for what?”
I watched grease thicken around the duck bones on my plate.
“To activate the Compass,” he said, “which is our only defense against the Fog, our only hope. Do you imagine there is anything I will not do?”
“No,” I said. “But—”
“But what?”
I kept my eyes on my plate. But Kodoc wanted to do more than just beat the Fog. I knew that. I knew him. Sure, the Fog was the greatest threat to the human race, but he wasn’t about to lower the white and then disappear. He wasn’t going to disband his army and stop ruling people. No, he had some other plan.
When I didn’t answer, Kodoc touched his steam-bow. “I will control the Compass, boy, and I will lower the Fog. But first I need the map you found.”
Tendrils of fear squeezed my heart. “I—I don’t know—”
Without warning, the Predator spun and tilted. The dining room jerked. The lanterns flickered, and the drippings in the bowl sloshed. An orange rolled from the plate and plopped to the ground.
Kodoc grabbed the table, glared toward the door . . . and the warship righted herself. The lanterns glowed steadily, and the orange stopped rolling in the middle of the carpet.
“You were saying?” Kodoc asked, his cold gaze shifting toward me.
“I d-don’t know what you mean,” I said. “I didn’t find any m-map.”
“Don’t lie to me.”
“No, really, I—”
Kodoc lifted the steam-bow and pointed it toward me. Panic stopped my heart. He fired and the click-hiss whispered death in my ear, but the steam-bow’s dart flashed inches past my neck and embedded into a corkboard on the door.
Three bells dangled from the board, and they jingled at the impact. A moment later, the door opened. “My lord?” the soldier with pigtails asked.
“What happened, a moment ago? The Predator does not run so rough.”
“The engineers think it’s a snag in an intake valve, m’lord.”
“That is not acceptable.” He tapped his finger on the steam-bow. “Everything is prepared for the boy?”
Pigtails bowed her head. “Yes, my lord.”
“Take him.”
Kodoc dabbed at his mouth with a napkin, then sauntered outside. Pigtails dragged me along, across the deck toward the stern. A squad of soldiers drilling with grappling hooks sneered at me, and three gearslingers rushed past, muttering about “bird strike.”
Pigtails brought me to a small quarterdeck where a few soldiers stood over four huddled kids.
“Quancita,” I said.
Her teary gaze shifted toward me, then she looked away. Toward the Fog. No. Toward a diving plank ten feet from her and the other refinery kids.
“You dove into the Station,” Kodoc told me, strolling toward the plank. “You found the map. Yes, I know everything. The mutineers aren’t the only ones with spies.”
I tried to answer, but horror choked me. He was going to make the refinery kids walk the plank. He was going to drop them into the Fog.
“One by one,” he told me, seeing the realization on my face. “Until you draw me the map.”
“You can’t—” I struggled to get away from Pigtails, but she just clamped my arm harder. “They’re just kids.”
“Not anymore,” Kodoc said. “Now they’re kids you care about. Now they’re leverage.”
At his nod, one of the soldiers shoved Rizal onto the plank, then prodded him forward with the tip of a sword. Rizal’s legs trembled, and a keening came from his throat. The soldier jabbed Rizal’s back, and he fell to his knees and clung to the plank.
A sudden grinding crackled above the rush of blood in my ears. The aft side of the Predator dipped, and Rizal shrieked and clung tighter. The soldiers grunted, and I stumbled. Pigtails grabbed my jacket, and Kodoc snatched at a railing for support, then crossed the tilted quarterdeck.
He put his mouth to a voicepipe. “Engineering! Report!”
A tinny reply came: “It’s not an intake valve, m’lord. We’re . . . tracking the malfunction down.”
“Track faster,” Kodoc snapped.
“Yes, m’lord.”
Kodoc turned from the voicepipe and told me, “You’re lucky that your little friend didn’t fall already.”
The grinding noise stopped, and the Predator straightened just as jerkily as it had dipped.
“Are you going to stand there,” Kodoc asked me, “and watch him die?”
“No,” I whispered.
“How about the next one? The girl called Sally?”
Nausea rose from my stomach to my throat. “No,” I repeated.
None of the kids looked at me, none of them pleaded or begged. They were slumkids: pleading and begging had never helped them before.
“Well?! Will you draw me the map?” Kodoc grabbed my hair in his fist. “Or shall I start dropping—”
“I’ll draw it,” I told him. “I’ll draw the map.”
26
KODOC STARED AT my freak-eye for a long, trembling moment—then released my hair.
“Bring him,” he snapped, and stalked across the deck.
The soldier with pigtails twisted my arm behind my back and pushed me along. Airsoldiers climbed ladders and adjusted valves, trying to track down the ship’s malfunction. I stumbled past a stairwell leading into the depths of the Predator, toward a huge copper barrel called a “capstan.”
Kodoc nodded to a clear patch of deck behind the capstan. “Put him there.”
“Yessir,” Pigtails said, and shoved me
forward.
“My lord!” a roof-trooper called from the rigging. “The third aft rudder is . . . twitching.”
“Twitching?” Kodoc snarled. “My flagship does not ‘twitch.’”
“The drive system’s acting up. Never seen anything like it.”
“Put him to work,” Kodoc said. He tossed a canvas pack to the soldier with pigtails, then strode away.
Pigtails pointed to the floor and told me, “Sit.”
I sat, and she rummaged in the pack for a sheet of paper called “housewrap” and a waxy red pencil called a “crayon,” then told me to get drawing. I spread the housewrap on the deck. How much did Kodoc know about the world below the Fog? Would he recognize the roads and mountains and parks and city?
Probably. Which meant I needed to keep this map almost correct. After thinking for a minute, I drew a wavy line. I made a river, then sketched in a few parks, more or less in the right places. Next I drew a stick figure with a straw hat—but on the wrong side of the intersection.
I spun the paper around, started outlining the city, and the warship jerked again. The engine backfired with three loud POPs. Airsoldiers shouted, and the smell of melting bronze filled the air.
“Hoy!” Pigtails kicked my leg. “Keep drawing.”
I shaded in the city, then started on the Compass. Except I put it far to the north of the city. Nowhere near the real Compass. The ship jerked a few more times, and the buzz of activity grew angrier each time, like a wasp’s nest. I ignored the shouting and drew the lines of train tracks or pod-car paths—until Pigtails lifted me by the scruff of my neck.
I tried to break free, but she just shook me as Kodoc stepped closer and eyed the drawing on the ground.
“That’s a tidy map, boy,” he said.
Pigtails released me. “Say thanks.”
“Thanks,” I muttered.
“How closely does it match the map in the Station?”
I hunched my shoulders. “Pretty close.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yeah—yes, sir.”
“Any changes you want to make?”
“No, I—” I shook my head. “It’s good.”
Kodoc crouched beside the map and traced one of the tracks with a fingertip. “If you’re lying to me, I will find out. Sooner or later. You know I will. Then I’ll draw a line right down the center of the junkyard, and I’ll ditch one half of that festering slum. Do you know how many people will die?”
