Danger's Race

by Amanda Carlson

  The Water Initiative, in which the wealthy had taken all the boats, along with all the resources they could gather—including all valuable medical supplies, engineering tools, inoculations, scientific research—and floated them out to sea, was continuing to ruin lives thirty years after it had set sail.

  Water communities hadn’t been a foreign concept in our ancestors’ world. Before the dark days, people had been cultivating life on the ocean for years. As far as history stated, those communities had flourished. The individuals, referred to as sea farmers or hydro-farmers, had successfully farmed vegetables and the high-nutrient seaweed we were here to find.

  I’d once seen a picture of a floating home. It’d been spherical, the living space completely clear, set half above, half below the waterline, with a large circular deck that kept it afloat. It’d had solar panels on the roof and water-purification systems built in. It had looked peaceful and serene.

  No remnants of these places or homes had survived the meteor and its aftereffects.

  I rested my back against the chair. “Why didn’t you go with them?” I asked. There was no doubt he’d been asked. They would’ve wanted any and all scientists to join them, without exception.

  “Because my place was here,” he stated firmly. “With the people.”

  “But there’s no people here,” Daze said, speaking for the first time, gazing around the space as if to make sure we simply hadn’t noticed more individuals in here with us.

  “Yes, well.” Walt bobbed his head, his wispy white hair defying gravity as it wafted around his head. “The days and months got away from us. After Goldbright left, we had no more communication with the city, no crafts to speak of. We had no idea what happened when the Flotilla left. I envisioned a total collapse of the city. Then, ten years ago, a full twenty years after The Water Initiative left, a new scientist joined our ranks, filling us in with stories of another corrupt government—the one he was running from. A few years after that, we were taken over by a small militia. Then my friend Ronston, a fellow scientist, died.” He gestured casually to the right, which I assumed indicated the other dome, and bowed his head in defeat. “It was easier to continue working here, and in the end, after so many years, I have to admit I was a coward. Too frightened and too old to deal with what I assumed to be chaos in the city. You have a right to call me out. I’ve failed the human race, which is just irony, when it has always been my agenda to save it.”

  I stood. “You’re no coward, and you haven’t failed anyone,” I told him firmly. “What you’ve been able to achieve here is nothing short of miraculous. And who knows? Maybe if you had gone to the city earlier, your research would’ve stopped or you would’ve been killed. There’s no way to know for sure. But we’ve found you now, and if it’s still your wish, we will see to it that you and your research get safely to the city, where you can be of the most help to others. You have my word and my protection.”

  He slowly lifted his head, nodding, hair waving. “I would like that,” he said. “To see the city again before I die is my greatest wish.”

  “Then we’ll make it happen,” I said. “But there’s one thing we need clarification on right away. The militia you mentioned. We need to know everything about it and the remaining tribe members and any other scientists who live here.” I began to pace. “We came here hoping you could tell us about a person named Tandor. We think his father might’ve been a scientist.” I turned to meet Walt’s startled gaze. There was some recognition there, and that gave me hope we were on the right track. “We’re here to find sodium alginate, but if your tribe has been infiltrated by a militia, our first priority will be to make sure your community is safe.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Walt stood, making his way to a table that held glass vials filled with colored liquids, and all but growled, “We scientists found this place all those years ago because the good people who lived here originally welcomed us. Without their help, none of this would’ve been possible.” He made a frail, sweeping gesture around his dome. “Some talented engineers helped us make these durable, long-lasting homes that can weather any storm—short of full catastrophe, of course. The community at the time was over a hundred strong, survivors to the bone. They knew how to work.” He shook his head wistfully. “Many of the original members have died, as well as many scientists, but the remaining inhabitants, somewhere around twenty, have been infested by a small militia group for going on five or six years now. Horrid people, for the most part. They live for violence and practice oppression with a strong arm. After their infiltration of the tribe, they found out about us scientists—myself, my old friend Ronston”—he gestured to the right again absentmindedly—“and three others, although one fellow died just a few months ago. The newcomer who arrived ten years ago. It was a shame to lose him. He was a brilliant mathematician. So, that makes three of us scientists alive now, including myself. Once upon a time, I believe there were twelve of us.” He cleared his throat as he waved a hand. “Anyway, these awful militia men have run us into the ground demanding our services.” Walt made his way back to his seat. “But by complying with their orders, we’ve done nothing but a disservice to ourselves, because now they’ve gotten used to all of the comforts we bring them. They kill for indiscriminate reasons, with brutal force and violence, and have, from what I’ve seen, managed to convert many of the remaining tribesmen to their cause. Certainly upon threat at first, but they have cleverly turned this once hardworking tribe into nothing more than a lazy, demanding population. It’s nothing like it used to be. I look forward to vacating the area.”

  “We will get you out, I promise,” I told him. “It will take us some time to make sure it’s safe in the city, but we will get you out.” The story Walt had just recounted was fairly dire, the militia being a big complication. But, as he’d spoken, it had become clear to me that Tandor had indeed originated from here—as possibly one of the tribe’s original members, as a child of one of the scientists, like we thought. I turned to Case. “What Walt said makes sense. I’m pretty sure this is why Tandor was so cocky and overly confident when he left this place.” I paced as I put my thoughts together. “I bet the militia members who stayed behind were waiting for him to take over the government, so they could come up and bolster his agenda when the coup was over. Then Tandor would be in control of all this.” I made a sweeping gesture to encompass Walt’s home and the dome next door. “He also knew everything here would be well protected until he needed it.” It was a sobering thought. If Tandor had completed his mission successfully and brought these valuable resources to the city, everyone would’ve been at his mercy. He would’ve used food, inoculations, and Plush, among other things, as weapons of punishment and to incite loyalty.

  The city would’ve become a war zone.

  Case’s expression was hard to read as he addressed Walt. “How many militia members are we talking about?”

  “Oh, it’s hard to know.” Walt scooched forward in his seat. “Ten, twelve? They don’t come around very often. They make the regular people of the tribe do most of the work—what’s left of them anyway—even though most of them are just as bad now. My dome is a little out of reach. I struck a deal with them years ago to fix their bio-printers and provide them with the slurry, in exchange for leaving me alone. If they threaten me, which they do on occasion, I tell them I’ll just kill myself. That keeps them quiet. They like their cupcakes.”

  “I bet they do.” I scowled. They were very delicious. “How about if I told you we could get rid of them, not only for you, but for the original tribe members who haven’t been completely assimilated?”

  His white bushy eyebrows rose, bunching somewhere in the middle of his forehead. “Do you mean kill them all?”

  That was stating it bluntly.

  “That,” I hedged, “or run them out of town.”

  “And how would you achieve such a thing?” he scoffed. “Where would they go?”

  That was a good question. I glanced at
Case. “I’m sure we can come up with something.”

  Case grunted noncommittally.

  “I’m not sure what I want,” Walt confessed, rising off his chair and shuffling forward, taking his time to stand upright. “Surely not all of them are bad. We’re all trying to survive in this world, are we not? Some with more violence than others.”

  That was a nice way of putting it.

  Changing the subject for a moment, I said, “As I already said before, we came here looking for sodium alginate, a key ingredient for the cure for Plush.” I had the old man’s attention now. “It comes from seaweed. Does seaweed still grow here?” I couldn’t help injecting some hopefulness into my words.

  Walt made his way once again over to the table where the seedlings were growing. “Not in the ocean, no. And only one scientist I knew was able to grow seaweed in his lab. They sexually reproduce, you know.”

  No, I hadn’t known.

  Maisie interjected, “Alginic acid is an anionic polysaccharide found in the cell walls of seaweed, mainly kelp. Its chemical formula is six parts of carbon, eight parts of hydrogen, five parts of oxygen—”

  “Stop, reader.” Walt chuckled. Maisie stopped immediately. “That’s a handy piece of technology you have there, boy,” he said to Daze. “Protect it for all it’s worth.”

  Daze nodded vigorously. “I will.”

  “Now where was I?” Walt asked.

  “Seaweed sexually produces,” I supplied.

  “Oh, yes,” Walt said. “It was incredibly lucky that some smart soul retrieved samples from the ocean before it all died out. They risked life and limb for it, among other things they collected.”

  “Do you know who it was that retrieved it?” I asked.

  “The scientist who grew it in the lab didn’t take it from the ocean himself,” Walt replied. “But it doesn’t matter either way. They’re both gone. Seaweed and scientist. He took off with The Water Initiative.”

  I hadn’t been expecting that, and my voice mirrored my disappointment when I asked, “Are you certain?”

  “Pretty darn sure,” he answered. “If he didn’t, he left right around that same time and never came back.”

  I took a seat in order to digest this information. “Did this scientist by chance have a son who went by the name of Tandor?” Giving up wasn’t in my nature. Our journey had led us here, and so far, even finding this place was an extraordinary win, but I was going to push for it all.

  “He did have a son. He went by the name Teddy or some such thing. Never saw him much. They lived on the other side of town,” Walt said. “Left him behind, too.” The old man dipped his head. “The kid couldn’t have been more than five or six at the time. Left him with a couple other scientists. None of us could ever figure out why he didn’t take him along. There had to have been room. They took an entire fleet!”

  Teddy had to be Tandor.

  “Do you remember this scientist’s name, Teddy’s dad?” I asked. “When Tandor, who I think might be Teddy, left this area, he had sodium alginate powder with him. If his father was working with seaweed, the logical thought process indicates that it came from here, even if it was made a long time ago.”

  “The father went by the name of Candor. Well, that was his surname, I believe. After the disaster, none of that really mattered anymore. You just called yourself what you liked.”

  Teddy Candor had become Tandor. After all, the name Teddy didn’t evoke much authority.

  “The name Candor makes sense,” I said, my tone coaxing. “Now we just need a location. It doesn’t have to be exact. If all you have are landmarks, that’s okay. We’re going to need to check the place out.”

  Walt seemed to sink deep into thought. He began absentmindedly rearranging things on the table in front of him. After a few moments, he finally lifted his head. “The scientist Candor kept to himself. He arrived here well after we’d established a community. Some said he was running from something, but most of us were escaping from danger, so that wasn’t especially peculiar. We didn’t interact as a group much—only when we needed something specific, or had a need to exchange data of mutual interest. Scientists are fairly solitary beings. We prefer it that way. When Candor left to join the Flotilla, no other scientist picked up his work, as far as I know.”

  “That’s good information to have. Thank you,” I said. “But he left a child behind, and that child had something in his possession that reflected his father’s work. We’ll still need to hunt down his residence and check it out for ourselves.”

  He nodded, his expression turning mournful. “If you go there, it will be very dangerous.”

  One of my eyebrows quirked. “The residence itself is dangerous? Or getting there will be dangerous?”

  “They’ve got traps set,” he said. “And they’re very particular about who comes into town. If they find you, they will kill you outright with no questions asked.”

  They sounded very welcoming. And very typical. No surprises there.

  “Even the tribespeople?” I asked. “Will they react hostilely if they see us?”

  “I believe they will, but I don’t know them all, especially the younger ones,” Walt said. “Like I said, those I used to know—who tended to be mild-mannered before—have assimilated fully into the militia lifestyle. They will follow the predilection to strike first, investigate later, which goes against every scientific code I live by. It’s a shame to see it.” He shook his head sadly.

  Case asked Walt, “If we go investigate the scientist’s residence, what are the chances we’re going to find any sodium alginate there?”

  “It will be slim,” Walt answered. “Sodium alginate is a binding agent. It works well in the blood. It gathers things to it, detoxifying as it moves along. What do you need it for?”

  “We’re working on a cure for Plush,” I said. “Well, not us specifically.” I gestured between Case and myself. “Our scientist friend is. Along with the sodium alginate, Teddy had a quantum drive filled with formulas that had Bliss Corp logos and government stamps all over them. We think it was Candor’s work.”

  “I was involved in many discussions about Plush over the years,” Walt said. “The upgraded stuff never should’ve been approved for the market. Bliss Corp was in it for profit alone. It hadn’t been fully tested. I shudder to think of all those people who were harmed because of greed and incompetence. Then the meteor struck, stranding all those innocent souls in limbo with no treatment.”

  “That’s exactly why we’re here,” I said. “To help those people. Our friend Darby believes that he can help the infected with what’s on the quantum drive and a few key ingredients, one of them being sodium alginate.”

  “Well, if this boy can do that, more power to him,” Walt concluded. “Though the scientist in me thinks it’s highly unlikely.”

  “He cured me,” I said, feeling a little defensive about Darby and his abilities. “If he can do that, I have faith he can help more people. He just needs the right ingredients.”

  Walt’s mouth tumbled open. “You were infected with Plush? For how long?”

  “Under forty-eight hours,” I answered. “But that’s not the point. The point is he removed it completely from my system, using the powder Teddy brought with him. If he can do that for me, he can do it for others.”

  Walt’s eyebrows shot up. “You’re a very lucky girl. He got to you before any damage could take place. But once DNA has been permanently altered, it’s very hard to get it back to its original state, especially after a significant amount of time has passed. He will have a rough road ahead of him.”

  “Darby has said as much,” I agreed. I wasn’t going to share with Walt the low percentages of success Darby had quoted me. “But we came here to find what he needs. Teddy certainly believed he had access to a cure. It made him supremely confident, not to mention sloppy. He was ready to infect people with Plush to achieve his goals of taking over the city.” I was going to leave out all the sex-slave stuff that came after with H
utch. No need to give the old man a heart attack.

  Walt’s gaze drifted somewhere over my right shoulder. “Now that we’re speaking of it, if I remember correctly, the elder Candor spent many years on his work before he left. If it’s there, you’ll find it.” He shuffled toward the bio-printer. “I will work on drawing up a map. In the meantime, let’s make some more cupcakes.”

  My stomach growled at the prospect of more delicious food. We’d been discussing things for a while now. It was hard not to feel overwhelmed. I was supremely happy that the old man had come around and was willing to cooperate.

  As Walt began to open some containers and dump them into the bio-printer, I walked over to Daze, who sat at one of the tables. “We came here hoping to find Tandor’s home, and instead we find all this,” I said. “What do you think?”

  He glanced up at me, his expression full of innocence. “This is going to change everything, isn’t it?”

  Yes, kid, it surely will.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  “How in the hell are we supposed to run these militia members out of town? Once they figure out we’re here, it’ll be war.” Case’s voice was strained. “You heard Walt—many of the tribespeople have assimilated.”

  We stood outside in the drizzle, trying to come up with a decent plan that didn’t include blowing up everyone we encountered from here on out.

  Walt had printed up more delicious food. Something called pasta with a red sauce he’d told us was originally made with a fruit called a tomato. It’d been wondrous. The emotion I’d felt while eating something with such profound flavors had been equal to finding the ultimate salvage every minute for an entire year. I’d nearly wept, bewildered by what we’d been surviving on for so long, happy that I hadn’t known this existed until now.

  I hadn’t been the only one overcome. Case and Daze had had similar looks on their faces. Walt had been kind, not intruding on our private revelations.