The rain hits us so hard, I bring the visor down just to be able to see better.
Then I look over at Minchin and he raises his arm and points south-west. When I’d asked him how long it would take to get to the EPrison, he said, “It’s over eleven thousand clips from here, so about a week of consistent travelling as long as the wind is on our back and we don’t get killed on the way.”
Gotta say, I love Minchin’s sense of humour even if it is a bit morbid at times.
So, south-west we head. I let the others start up their bots and rev forward before I lead Boon and myself in the same direction—the last thing we’d need is for someone to be stuck behind because the thing conked out.
So we make our way over the rising waters. We’re all strong swimmers but also have floats over our chests in case we’re taken under by any one major wave. It’s too bad we didn’t get Maya after all. I don’t know why I think of her right at that moment.
As she rises up ahead of my bot and slams her sparking tail down, bringing the bot, Boon, and me, under.
I automatically shut my eyes as I sink, then remember that my visor’s over my head. Maya’s got her tail wrapped around Boon, and the way he’s writhing with his mouth wide open screaming, swallowing gads of ocean, the way her tail sparks as he does, tells me that he’s far gone. That I can’t do a thing to help him.
The water down here’s so murky, once her tail stops sparking, all I see is her dark, looming silhouette as she comes for me, meaning to make me her next meal.
The jetbot’s floated back up to the surface of the water, but I feel something on my back, remembering that I sheathed the harpoon before Boon and I sat on the bot. It wouldn’t have fit on the machine otherwise.
I reach for it, knowing that it’s likely to do as much damage on her as a kiwi’s prickles would on my hand. But, when I see the others jump in the water to my sides, I remember that I’m not alone in this. I don’t have to die. Well I might still—we might all still—but I’m not alone.
They’re not just watching either. As I swim closer to Maya, meaning to lodge my harpoon in anything that looks soft, they pierce her from every which side. I can’t even tell who’s who anymore. I deploy my snorkelbot and sink myself further as we attack and attack and attack—
Then, as she turns around to face me, I panic and throw the harpoon her way, meaning to leave a dent before she eats me for good this time.
And a dent I make as her high keening starts up again, my harpoon stuck in her big eye, the size of a small car.
Then the others come in closer and stab her from every angle. One—Sanaa, from the looks of her flowy white locks—moves to where Maya’s brain should be and delivers the kill.
Two others have her tail in hand though I have no idea how they’d cut it from her, and they’re swimming up to the surface again. I look down, knowing that this time, Maya won’t be coming back up again, and I swim to the top with them.
A week later and we’re still on the water, chewing on air-dried remains from Maya’s tail. It wasn’t my first option for nutrition but when you’re this hungry, a semi-crustacean-semi-whale-ocean-thing is just the way to go.
The tail was about fifty metres long, another hundred metres in diameter, so it goes a long way. Its skin is made of some impermeable strong plastic-like stretch material so Sanaa had the bright idea of fashioning a small but workable canoe, attached to each bot, in which we could throw in our stuff, and in which we could sleep on the long nights on the ocean.
It’s not a bad way to travel, considering our low odds of survival out here. At least there isn’t another Maya to come across. I hope.
The camaraderie is something else entirely. I can’t help but get along with the others as we talk about our adventure together.
“Oh man,” Sanaa says, “remember when Romy looked so scared she threw her only weapon at the old girl?”
We all laugh at the memory. “Yeah,” I agree, “I can’t believe my luck when it lodged in her eye. I didn’t know what else to do.”
“I’d have done the same,” Franklin says and I watch her carefully.
We still haven’t had much to say to each other, Franklin and I, but this new ally-like relationship is something else entirely.
“Don’t look at me like that,” she says quickly. “I’d still hurt you if you weren’t so important to—” Her eyes land on Blair’s face, then back on mine. “To our mission.”
It sounds like she was about to say something else, but I don’t challenge her. This new tone she has with me, though still sharp, is a welcome change.
Sanaa giggles. “What a life. I mean, Rome,” she says. “Did you ever imagine any of—” She raises her arms high in the air, taking in our surroundings. “Well, any of this?”
I chuckle and say no. Once upon a time, I would have been content with my life underground as a Citizen. Even my job with the Prospos was something else.
“I have to admit,” I say. “My life was quite—normal—until I came across you Sorens. You changed everything.”
Minchin and Sanaa chortle but Blair doesn’t react.
“Do you regret any of it?” he asks. He hasn’t said much in our chats. The question takes me aback, it’s so loaded. His big bright eyes are even brighter under the sun, and since his skin’s browned on the ocean. I don’t answer him.
Of course I have regrets, but he knows that. On the other hand, I never would have had Abigail, never would have held her in my arms if it weren’t for the Sorens.
“Some of it,” I say. I don’t need to elaborate. He nods at me, understanding and regret in his eyes.
“Me too,” he says. Again, so loaded. If we were alone, I think he’d say so much more, but he holds back.
I’ve realized in the last few days, my anger towards these Axiom has dissipated some. I don’t know why, but my desire to kill Blair or Sanaa or, to a lesser extent, Franklin has gone. The more I think about it, the more I’ve convinced myself, it’s not them.
Fact is, if they’d wanted me dead, I would be dead by now.
“Why that night?” I blurt. “Why did the Axiom come in shooting, that night of all nights?”
I know it was likely one of the largest collection of generals and Soren Leaders that they’d see in months if not years, so I know that’s likely it. But I want to hear it from Blair.
“We figured the Leaders—they felt safe,” he says softly. I don’t miss the part where he says, “they” rather than “you.”
“They were drunk, feeling good, superior. Untouchable. It was the only real time to do it.”
“And why—” I say, “did you not clue ME in? I mean I’d been visiting Sanaa for months. I was in touch with you at the EPrison. You both had SO many opportunities to warn me this was coming down.”
Even as I say it, I know the impossibility of bringing me in on the plans.
“You know they were monitoring you, Rome,” Sanaa confirms. “You know we couldn’t. There was no way to without the risk of them knowing the plans too.”
“So what were the plans then?” I ask. “What are they? Just shoot everyone to scare them? I mean, who are you anyway, who are the Axiom?”
“We’re just people that realize the Sorens have lost their way,” Franklin says. “There aren’t that many of us. But we’re in this to bring down this new leadership that’s been formed—this new messed up leadership. You know it’s not right.”
Of course I do. “But isn’t this what all your Sorens wanted all along? To take down the Prospo? I mean what did you think would happen once you did? Did you think no new leaders would show up? Did you really think no one would care about power and strength and names and all that the Prospo left behind?”
I remember something Blair had said to me once several years ago as we were walking through the North on our way to the Metrills. He’d said maybe all powers are meant to be destroyed at some point.
“And what about the Metrills?” I say. “Does any of this matter, who’s l
eading who and who’s killing who? In the end, if their plans come about, we’re all dust.”
It all seems so insignificant. We’re all fighting each other from within, from without. Whereas this larger power beyond our comprehension is making plans to destroy everything that we’re fighting for.
“We’re nothing more than an ant colony fighting a wasp colony,” I say. Or maybe the sun’s finally getting to me and I’m losing my grip. Still I say, “When the gardener and his hose show up though, their wars are over. That’s it. They’re gone. Aren’t we like them?”
My words keep the others silent for a few minutes. I just want someone to refute them, but I’m met with utter silence. I sigh and lean my head back to close my eyes. I’m trying to stay positive here. But what am I trying for? What am I fighting for?
“Oh wow,” Minchin says, maybe an hour later. “Check it out. She really does heal.”
He shows us his leg, where he sports a large cut from our last fight with Maya.
“I grabbed some of her—oil or whatever that is—” he says, pointing to a jar on his side. He’d kept whatever liquid she had dripping from her tail in it. “In case we get really—really—thirsty,” he’d said at the time, but our travelling suits have held up. We’re not drinking as much as we should, but we’re fine for now. Besides, the blackish brown tar-like stuff does not look one bit appealing enough to drink.
“I put some on this just coz it was drying up and a bit gross you know? But look.”
Just days ago, the gash was angry and infected, now his skin puckers up around the sides, drying up in a healthy red and pink glow as if it was a mere scratch.
“Wait,” Sanaa says. “I thought our nanites are dying. I thought this can’t happen—”
“Well it—can’t,” Minchin agrees, as all eyes land on me.
What?
“I thought you just lied about that,” Sanaa says, “so that we could get on Minchin’s boat.”
“I did.” I made it up on the spot, not really knowing if my lie would work. There would be no way for me to know that Maya’s blood actually does—this.
“But—how can that be?” Sanaa says as they all frown at me.
“It’s a—bizarre—coincidence, Rome,” Blair says. He pauses for several seconds before he continues. “Has your father—I mean has Doctor Hennessy’s holo been contacting you at all?”
No, I think. I wish! When I say so, I realize my voice doesn’t sound convinced. Still I would know if I heard him, wouldn’t I?
“Maybe he’s found a way to send messages through to it,” Blair says, the moment it clicks in my brain. Why not? I still don’t know exactly how those Metrills’ technology worked, but it made sense that they’d find a way around the block or whatever it was the Soren Doctors did to stop his voice from coming to me.
My eyebrows lift at the same time that Blair says, “Maybe they’ve been connecting with you this entire time. It just didn’t register.”
Wow. Then I say, “It makes sense. It fits with everything we know about the Metrills, doesn’t it?
“Why—” I might as well tell my team the thoughts as they come to me. “I wonder if that’s why I’m so driven to go to the EPrison.”
Blair nods his head, then Sanaa does as well.
“Reckon there’s something there I’m compelled to find, other than that Metrill I saw.”
All right, Doctor Hennessy. I’m on board anyway. Coz it’s wrong to call him father but doesn’t feel right to just call him ‘the holo’ either.
Lead me, I think, imagining my brain opening up to him, to his silent messages.
Then Franklin’s breath hitches as I realize she’s staring at something in the distance. I scramble to my knees, staring in the same direction the others do. We’ve arrived. We’re at the EPrison.
Equator Prison
The Equator Prison isn’t quite what I’d pictured. I’d only seen small parts of it, small enough to intimidate me. What rises above is far more impressive and I realize I wouldn’t have done all this to get here if I’d had any idea just how devastating it looks.
It rises from the water, a pie-shaped reddish brown building, about thirty stories high. It sits on black rocks, sharp on some edges, flat on others though they look slippery and mossy. Nothing to hold on to.
Below the rocks though, is sand, the whitest sand I’ve ever seen, inclining into the ocean water. The bizarre combination of pretty and gnarly is jarring. I can’t see behind the building but from this angle, this is it. A building on a tiny desert island.
“Wow,” I say, to chuckles from behind me. We stay afloat in the water, about forty feet away, as we all get ready. Maya’s blood is good for the heat too, we find, as we slather as much of it as possible on our skin, wherever her protective shell doesn’t cover us from the glaring sun.
“It has four main—floors,” Blair says. “Just about five hundred people when I was here last, though that number fluctuates a lot.”
When I saw them pick Blair up from here, I saw a bit of gnarly metal on the fence, a large reddish building from behind. I assumed it was surrounded by the fence, but it’s only one corner of the building, not even standing straight.
In fact, it looks like it could slip into the ocean any moment. Doesn’t even have a proper fence. Then I look all around me. If they haven’t bothered with keeping the fence steady and in working condition, it can only mean bad things.
I remember my time at Azure Prison. There were strong fences in place, but not to keep anyone in.
They couldn’t care less if Azure Prisoners wished to get back to their sad lives outside the prison. The fences were in place to keep desperate people from trying to break in.
But here—
“Has anyone but Franklin ever escaped from here?” I ask, to scoffs from the others.
“Not for long,” Blair says as he looks at Franklin. “Which is why you’ve got the right people with you. Frank’s the only one I know who’s survived an escape.”
“Barely,” she replies, “and not with my entire team either.” She sighs and stares back at Blair. Why is she doing this, I wonder? I don’t say it out loud though.
If there’s one thing I know about Franklin, it’s that she’ll do anything for Blair. She loves him—as he does her. That must be nice, I think, then fight off the shaking in my knees.
“Okay,” Minchin says as he puts the jar of Maya’s blood under a tarp to our side. “What’s the plan here?”
We all automatically look to Blair. This might have been my mission in the beginning, but there’s no denying he’s the commander here.
“There’s a small cave on the south side of the island that we can hide all—this—” He points to our collection of jetbots and Maya remnants. “We can enter from there as well. It’s the main entry.”
I look back up at the EPrison and see some sort of balcony or structure wrapped around its middle.
“What is that?” I ask. Can’t imagine why they’d need a balcony for a place like this.
When I turn back around, I see Franklin shiver. “It’s their—moat—” she says. “Put in place when people started throwing themselves out the windows. People don’t throw themselves out any more.”
A—moat—? Sounds archaic, and weird, and misplaced. Weren’t moats at the bottom of the castles? Certainly not halfway up the structure.
“Is it full of crocodiles?” I ask, knowing that can’t be the case, but what do I know about moats other than what I’d read from ancient myths?
“No—” she says and her voice shakes as she fights off another shiver. “Much worse than that.”
I want to grab her by the shoulders and shake the words out, but she has a haunted look on her face. I realize this must be the worst thing to happen to Franklin today, returning here after getting away.
“Just stay away from it guys, okay?” Blair says. “Trust me on that.”
We make our way around to the south side of the EPrison, and I spy a small cave on th
e north end of the rock, just as Blair said.
“Where are the guards?” I say. Surely, if Azure had its guards, a place like the EPrison, where the ‘Too Dangerous’ are brought in would have some as well?
Blair scoffs again. “There aren’t any here, Rome,” he says. “Wait til you see what’s inside. It’s not what you’d imagine. They don’t need guards here.”
A prison without guards? That just doesn’t make sense. So people can come and go as they please as long as they have transport then. Then, I realize, how would they get transportation all the way out here?
We park our makeshift vehicle in the rock and shake out our legs, getting used to being on land again.
Then Blair leads us deeper into the rock and raps at a small wooden door.
I brace myself to fight though he hasn’t said anything about fighting.
When the door cracks open, a tall lanky man stares out at us, looks at us one at a time, then spies Blair. “Why you—” he yells as he runs forward. My arms go up at the same moment Minchin moves to the side, though my eyes don’t miss Sanaa and Franklin staying put.
Then, just as I’m ready to jump on this lanky man, I stop in my tracks when I hear laughter. He’s hugging Blair hard, laughing as he does. “You bar-sterd!” he says in an accent I haven’t heard yet. “Why are you back here?”
Blair chuckles as he taps gently on the man’s back but he keeps his arm around him. “I thought you’d be dead by now, mate.”
“Oh I’m trying,” lanky man says. “It ain’t easy ya know.”
Then he finally looks around at the rest of us. When his eyes land on Franklin, his grin grows wider.
“Ah, girly,” he says, “so good to see you made it too.”
To my surprise, Franklin walks into his arms for a tight hug as well, and she rests her head on his chest, her eyes closed.
Minchin coughs beside me as we watch this reunion of sorts. Then, finally, Blair turns to us. “Team, this is Ronan Blair. My—our—granddad.”
Romy's Last Stand: Book III of the 2250 Saga Page 11
