The Neptune Promise

by Polly Holyoke

  :They don’t seem too happy with us,: Dai comments.

  :All right. Let’s surface and see what’s got them so worked up,: Janni says, :but stay out of range of their spear guns. If they ask us where our scuba gear is, we’ll tell ’em we have primo tech breathers.:

  Janni gestures that we should all surface, and the divers nod their agreement. We swim for the surface in two separate groups. The moment they pop their heads out of the water, the two raise their dive masks. They’re both younger than I expected. One is a slim Latina girl about our age and the other is young man a few years older who has watchful eyes. The resemblance between them is so strong, they might be brother and sister.

  “This is our wreck,” the girl bursts out. “You have no right to salvage it.”

  “How can it be your wreck?” Janni asks. “It’s just lying here in the ocean.”

  “All the wrecks in this area belong to the Chicas Duras, according to the Salvage Truce.”

  Ree stiffens beside me.

  :That’s the name of your old gang, isn’t it?: I ask her telepathically.

  :Yeah,: Ree replies, eyeing the girl with interest.

  “I’m sorry, but we’ve never heard of your truce,” Janni is saying.

  “I think you’re lying,” the girl says, her face flushing. “You’re just a bunch of slimy indie salvies trying to pick on our turf.”

  We must look puzzled by all the odd terms she uses, because the young man reaches out and puts a calming hand on her shoulder. “Mi hermana, ellos no entienden,” he tells her quietly. Then he addresses us. “Six months ago, all of the salvage and scrounger gangs around here agreed to divide up the wrecks so we’d stop wasting time fighting and killing each other.”

  “The last time I knew, the Chicas Duras weren’t into scrounging,” Ree says, disdain in her voice.

  “Time’s change,” the girl says sullenly. “There’s so little to eat left in the city, we started scrounging and salvaging in the sea instead.”

  “You’re Julita, Tina Marisol Toro’s little sister, aren’t you?” Ree asks.

  Julita gives Ree a suspicious look. “How do you know Tina?”

  Ree rolls back the sleeve of her wetsuit and swims closer to show her a small tattoo of a viper on the inside of her arm. “Because my name is Maria Victoria Lara, and I am Chicas Duras, too.”

  Julita is quiet as she stares at the tattoo, and then she raises her gaze to Ree’s. “Tina’s dead,” she says, a world of bitterness in her tone.

  Ree closes her eyes, and I sense her sharp grief. “I’m sorry to hear that,” she says, opening her eyes again. “I owed her my life many times over. What happened to her?”

  “She was killed when Los Coyotes attacked and forced us from our old neighborhood.”

  “They never would have dared a year ago,” Ree says, her eyes flashing with anger. “Did La Valiente avenge this attack?”

  “She was… badly wounded that night, but she still leads us. We joined up with some scroungers who live near the water. There are fewer Chicas Duras now, but we live better.”

  “Could you take me to see La Valiente?” Ree asks.

  :Are you sure you want to do this?: I ask her. Going on shore is always dangerous for us, but going on shore in LA is a hundred times more so.

  :Look, La Valiente is tough, but she’s fair,: Ree tells us all. :I’d rather negotiate with her up front and get her permission to salvage the wrecks around here than trespass and risk a fight with her divers.:

  “I would have to ask if she will see you,” Julita is saying.

  “Ask her,” Ree says, “and we will leave this wreck for now. I’ll come back here at ten tonight to meet the two of you and see what La Valiente says.”

  After we slip back under the waves, Janni’s expression is tight with anger. The moment we reach the tows, she turns on Ree.

  :Next time, don’t set up a meeting without consulting me first,: Janni says, :and don’t volunteer to do something that could get us all killed.:

  :We need to find out more about this truce,: Ree fires back, :and I didn’t volunteer anyone but myself. No one needs to come with me.:

  :There’s no way we’re letting you go by yourself,: I say before Janni can.

  :I think Ree’s right to want to talk to these people,: Tobin says thoughtfully. :We need to understand this truce and which wrecks it impacts, or sooner or later, we could end up in a nasty fight with these or other salvagers.:

  Tobin’s calm words seem to defuse some of the tension between Janni and Ree, and as a group, we talk through our options. In the end, we decide that if La Valiente agrees to see Ree, five of us with a tow will accompany Ree to the shore. But only Ree and I will actually go on land.

  :You’re the best choice if I have to take someone with me,: Ree says to me. :The Chicas Duras are mostly female, and you can keep your head in a fight. You can read their minds, too, and make sure they are telling us the truth.:

  I feel flattered that Ree wants me at her side, but then I remember how it felt when Janni and I stayed with Thom on land and almost suffocated. Dai remains near me while I struggle to choke down some dinner. I’m grateful when he doesn’t nag me to eat more.

  As we finish, Dai contacts me on a private send. :I know I can’t talk you out of going with Ree,: he says, looking resigned, :but be careful up there.:

  :I will be.: I face him, hoping he might give me a hug or a kiss for good luck, but after an awkward moment, he turns away just like he did before when we rescued Cam.

  Trying to hide my hurt, I swim off to check my spear gun and make sure it’s firing properly. I know Dai’s trying to protect me, but every day we’re not together, it gets harder and harder. I’m starting to fear we’ll never work things out, but a stubborn part of me refuses to give up on us.

  We return to the wreck and hide inside it an hour before Ree’s to meet Julita. I ask the dolphins to keep a lookout for the divers and make sure they aren’t planning any nasty surprises for us.

  :two divers come on the same tow again,: Densil reports right at 10 PM.

  :Are they alone?: I ask, my pulse racing.

  :there are no other tows or divers near here,: Densil reassures us.

  Ree and I surface to find both Julita and her companion have returned. “La Valiente wishes to see you,” Julita says to Ree, looking considerably friendlier this time. “I haven’t seen her smile for a long time, but she smiled when I told her you still breathe. This is my brother Miguel. Follow us, and we’ll lead you to the new home of the Chicas Duras.”

  We follow their tow southeast several miles. When they park and chain their tow to an old submerged seawall, we park ours there, too. Janni orders Kalli and Dai to guard it.

  :Their tow is such kludge,: Janni says shortly, :keep your eyes peeled. I don’t want some scrounger to come along and steal ours.:

  Glancing down at my wrist computer, I discover we’re near Redondo, only twenty miles from Long Beach and the old port of LA. Following Julita, we swim over the remains of a big marina and the foundations of a power plant swallowed years ago by the rising seas. The pollution here tastes so awful, I tell Mariah and her family to head back to cleaner waters. Janni and Shadow stop just below the surf line. We hover over the remains of a paved street lined by old buildings, their upper stories battered and broken by the waves.

  :Good luck,: Janni tells Ree. :Sorry I gave you a tough time earlier. I think this is a good idea, but I’ll think it was a massively bad one if you two don’t get back here safe and sound.:

  Ree nods, and I don’t say anything because I don’t want her and Shadow to sense how frightened I am. Julita motions that we should follow right behind them now. As we swim up through the surf, I can see why she wants us to stay close. She’s swimming over the relatively smooth street, but on either side of it, the waves roll and smash against the foundations of old buildings, reducing them to a jumble of rebar, broken walls and jagged concrete slabs.

  :I’ll never take our clean sh
ingle beaches around Safety Harbor for granted again,: I say to Ree as we kick our way up to a rough cement shoreline.

  When we leave the water, we stop to pull off our fins and look around us. :There was a lot I took for granted back at Safety Harbor,: Ree says in a subdued voice. :I forgot what it’s like here.:

  The stark black windows of empty buildings stare at us like sightless eyes in the pale wash of moonlight. A dead street light juts at a drunken angle from the cracked pavement while the skeleton of a large, derelict truck, long ago picked clean by scavengers, blocks the road.

  Carrying their dive equipment, Julita and Miguel walk quickly, leading us toward a nearby hillside. Heat from the day’s blazing sun radiates off the cement. A hundred feet from the water, Julita pauses and gives a low whistle. Silent as a ghost, a young man armed with a crossbow rises from behind a slab of concrete and waves us on toward a big, round drainage culvert set into the hillside.

  The culvert is closed off by twenty-foot-high heavy metal doors. Julita steps up to them and places her palm on a small panel near their center. A thudding sound emanates from deep inside, as if some sort of giant bolt just shifted. Then Julita slides open a smaller door set inside the larger ones and gestures we should enter.

  Ree and I exchange nervous glances and step through it. My old fear of dark, close places tightens my chest as we walk deeper into the hillside. I concentrate on breathing in and out as our footsteps echo off concrete walls and we leave the sea farther and farther behind us.

  :You’re sure we can trust these folks?: I ask Ree.

  :No Chicas Duras would harm another, but I know little about these scroungers they live with now,: Ree replies, tension in her own mental voice.

  At least it’s much cooler and the air is damp inside the culvert, which means our lungs shouldn’t dry out as rapidly. We come to another metal gate guarded by a stocky woman armed with a solar rifle, who nods to Julita and Miguel and looks at Ree and me curiously.

  On the other side, the culvert widens into a huge, underground chamber almost the size of an old football field. Colorful tents and odd-looking shelters made of everything from aluminum siding to wooden pallets line the chamber in neat rows and circles. Many of the tents are still lit, people walk between them, and the scent of cooked meat and spices lingers in the air. Someone is playing a guitar and a woman sings along with it softly.

  “Dios mio, there’s a whole town in here,” Ree breathes in surprise.

  “Aren’t you worried this will all flood when it rains?” I ask Miguel.

  “The scroungers’ engineer closed the old gate to the culvert that channeled water here. So, during the few times it rains, we stay dry, and it’s cool in the summer and warm in the winter.”

  “We have plenty of electricity, too,” Julita says proudly, “because we have solar panels hidden all over the hillside and ruins above us.”

  “Our greatest resource, though,” Miguel says, “is the spring the scroungers found. We have fresh water to drink and bathe and grow our crops.” He gestures to a section of the chamber where an odd variety of tanks and lush green plants sit under grow lights. “This is how we feed ourselves.”

  “Come, La Valiente is waiting to see you,” Julita says.

  She leads us to a tent near the center of the chamber. A young woman stands on guard outside it, but she nods to Julita and Miguel and pulls the tent flap aside for us. Inside the simple tent, a regal-looking woman with a strong nose and dramatic dark brows reads by the light of a solar lamp. Her thick black hair is streaked with silver and pulled back in a long braid. She looks up, and a smile lights her face. My breath catches. She looks remarkably like Ree.

  Then I notice her chair has wheels. Ree crosses to her in a rush. She kneels beside her chair, throws her arms around her, and buries her face in La Valiente’s shoulder.

  The woman strokes her hair gently. “I’m so glad to see you again, my niece.

  chapter thirty-one

  La Valiente nods to Julita and Miguel. “You may go,” she tells them with a small smile. “As you can see, I’m in no danger from our visitors.”

  Julita and Miguel leave the tent. After a long moment, Ree moves back and sniffs. Silent tears flow down her cheeks. I’ve seen Ree angry dozens of times, but I’ve never seen her cry.

  “What happened to you, Tia?”

  “A crossbow bolt paralyzed me when Los Coyotes broke a truce and attacked us in the night. My fighters carried me to safety, and I lived. But I don’t want to talk about me. I want to talk about you and the wonderful thing that has happened to you.”

  I draw in a breath. This woman must know about Ree’s Neptune transformation.

  “So, what is it like, living in the sea? Is it very beautiful down there?” she asks, a wistful note in her voice.

  Ree wipes her tears away with her hands. “It’s beautiful up north, but the sea is a dangerous place. Stronger predators prey on weaker ones all the time.”

  “Then perhaps it is not so different from here,” La Valiente says, looking disappointed. “But I forget my manners. Please introduce me to your companion.”

  Ree introduces me, her aunt holds out her hand, and I shake it. Her grip is firm, and her brown eyes are warm and curious. “Any friend of Ree’s is welcome here,” she says, and I thank her.

  “Tia, we must go back to the water soon,” Ree tells her, “but I have to ask you something first. Your divers found us when we were trying to search a wreck for bins and tanks,” and she explains why we’ve returned to the Southern Sector.

  “Ty Rath agreed to help you grow this c-plankton?” La Valiente asks, her eyebrows raised.

  “His people are going to help us set up and guard the warehouses where we will grow it.”

  “I know Rath. He’s one of the most brilliant men I have ever met. And the people who engineered you must be brilliant, too. I will put the word out that you may salvage our wrecks and Julita and Miguel will guide you around them. But how will you staff these warehouses?”

  Ree and I exchange glances. “That’s a problem we’re still trying to solve,” I confess. “We need a lot of people because my father and his helper staff want to set up three different growing units around the LA basin, in case one or two of them are found and destroyed by the government.”

  “We probably have many here who would be willing to help you cultivate this c-plankton. Our scrounger friends are not fighters, but they are resourceful and hard-working, and they care very much about our planet.”

  “I will have to ask my father, but I think he might be happy to have your people’s help.”

  “You should be careful as you work our wrecks,” La Valiente warns us. “Just last week, we had a strange incident where one of our divers was savaged by a shark.”

  “What was so strange about it?” I ask, foreboding sweeping over me.

  “He claimed the shark had human features and arms. Normally I’d ignore such a wild tale, but Pedro is a sensible sort.”

  “He may have been attacked by a mutate that is part human and part shark,” Ree says and explains about the shredders that Ran Kuron created.

  “Can you tell us where this attack happened?” I ask La Valiente.

  “Down in the Redondo Canyon at a wreck two miles off shore.”

  Ree and I exchange sober looks. If a shredder is near here, then Ran Kuron probably is, too.

  ~~~

  On La Valiente’s orders, Julita provides us with a chart of the wrecks the Chicas Duras control. In the weeks that follow, she and Miguel often meet us at those wrecks and show us where we might find the kind of bins and vats we need. In exchange, we tell them when we come across cargo we think their community could use or sell. Both Julita and Miguel know that we’ve been genetically engineered to live in the sea, and neither seem much fazed by that. They mostly seem jealous that we can work the wrecks so much longer than they can without worrying about getting the bends or running out of oxygen.

  Our days soon fall into a patt
ern. In the mornings, we search our newest wreck looking for anything our shore team could use to hold seawater. If sinks, tubs or vats need to be cut free, Sunny lights up his work space while Penn detaches them with the salvage saws the Rathenistas found for us.

  Then our strongest team members, Ocho, Dai and Shadow, or “the Grunts” as they start calling themselves, come and muscle the vats and barrels up to the top of the wreck. When he’s not helping the Grunts, Tobin stays busy taking care of the many scrapes and cuts we get working on these old ships. And all the while, the dolphins keep a careful eye out for the Marine Guard, shredders and Kuron’s sub.

  After night falls, we contact Cam, and he or some of his fellow smugglers arrive in quiet boats to winch our finds aboard and deliver them to Rath’s people. They, in turn, smuggle the equipment to three different warehouse locations around LA. I love the nights Cam and his crew help us, for Robry and I can often steal a few minutes to talk with him. It takes weeks for his bruises to fade, and he walks stiffly for a time, but I’m so relieved that Cam wasn’t permanently injured that night he contacted Rath for us.

  In the precious minutes we have together, Cam tells us more about his life as a smuggler, and we tell him more about Safety Harbor. He’s fascinated by our lives in the sea, but I also sense a sadness in him as he watches us talk.

  “You both have changed so much in a year,” he says once, and I think the same about him. The kind, open boy I knew is gone and has been replaced by someone much harder, more bitter and more reserved.

  Cam also gives us updates on the progress of the c-plankton nurseries. He seems bemused by the variety of people working together to set them up. The first one, in Torrance, is already growing c-plankton and is staffed in large part by scroungers from La Valiente’s community.

  “Those scrounger folk are amazing at adapting and making stuff,” Cam says, shaking his head. “Their engineer installed the oddest looking biomass generator I’ve ever seen, but it powers a whole warehouse full of grow lights and seawater pumps.”