The Breakers Series: Books 1-3

by Edward W. Robertson

  "Not much of a Bat Signal," he said. "But at least it's something."

  She kept both eyes on the piece, waiting for it to speak. It was early evening and a steady breeze brought cool air in from the sea. After a while, they sat. The sun lowered itself to the sea, reflecting from the waves and the wet sand. Flocks of gulls stood on the beach facing the wind. The gold rim of the sun winked away.

  Mauser sighed. "Well, when all else fails, hit more buttons."

  He poked and prodded at the metal lump. It made no sound, but after a few seconds, the little blue light blinked erratically. Mauser held the device to his ear, then shook it and brought it to his mouth.

  "Hello? Alien marauders? We're about to launch a doomed attack on our mutual foe and, well, if you're not doing anything better, we could really use a hand."

  More silence. The light flickered a few times, then went black.

  "Why isn't it working?" Raina said.

  "Let me check the instruction manual."

  "Have you tried all the buttons?"

  "Yes, I've tried all the buttons."

  She reached for it. "Let me see."

  Mauser held it away. She grabbed his wrist and bent it sharply. He winced and scowled and handed over the device. It weighed down her palm, as heavy as bullets. She pressed everything there was to press, then scratched at the light in its center.

  "Why isn't it doing anything?"

  Mauser shook his head. "Fucked if I know. Maybe it is. Maybe they're ignoring us. Or creeping up on us to kill us and take it back. For all I know they sailed to India and they're ten thousand miles out of range."

  Black water rolled up the beach, smacking the sand, its foam frosted white by the moonlight. "They won't help us."

  "It's only been a couple of hours."

  "If they want to find us, they will." She turned to him, hand on the hilt of her knife. "We won't be the only ones who want revenge."

  Mauser stared out to sea. "We couldn't beat them when we had an army of our own. Without the aliens, what kind of chance do you really think we have?"

  "Any. That's enough for me."

  She walked south across the sand, angling toward the paved path that ran beneath the cliffs between the beach and the street. Ragged volleyball nets flapped limply in the wind. Mauser shuffled along behind her. At the end of the path, she climbed the steps to the street and jogged through the dark houses. The surf boomed below. She went to Carl's and knocked on the door.

  "You missed your training," he said, backlit by candles. "By two days. Come back tomorrow."

  She moved into the doorway. "Did you hear what happened?"

  "I spend all day teaching you to fight. Is that the sign of a man who gets out much?"

  "The Catalinans massacred the Osseys, then attacked the Dunemarket. They killed Jill and her husband and my friend Martin and everyone who fought back."

  Carl glanced past her shoulder to Mauser, then rubbed his mouth. "Are you okay?"

  Raina shook her head. "I need you to help me kill them."

  "You mean join a fight that's already been lost?"

  She looked him in the eye. "Goodbye, master. I have work to do."

  "Wait." He opened the door wide and stood back. "I just made tea. Bad luck to turn down tea."

  She couldn't say no to that. He found a third chair for Mauser and brought out three matching red mugs. Mauser introduced himself. The tea was hot and black and even had sugar.

  Carl slurped and set down his mug. "Tell me you have more people."

  "You were the first stop we made," Mauser said.

  "For a suicide mission? Such an honor."

  "You're a warrior," Raina said. "What's the point of honing a knife if you're never going to use it?"

  Carl raised his eyebrows. "Some find the act of honing relaxing. And a good way to keep the fat from settling on your middle."

  "It's a waste. You can fight better than anyone here and all you do is go to the beach and show off."

  "Show off? You were spying on me."

  "All they do is take and kill. And they get away with it because they move while everyone else stands still." Raina clenched her mug of tea. "I won't sit around any more. I'm going to kill Karslaw or die trying. Either way, it means I don't have to live in a world where he's the winner."

  Carl ran his finger around the lip of his cup and glanced at Mauser. "And you?"

  Mauser laughed humorlessly. "Generally, this is where I'd tip my cap, congratulate him for a game well played, and flee into the night. But his people killed a friend of mine. A kid. I don't think I'd feel right if I ran out on that."

  "Even if it means dying?"

  "I don't know anymore."

  Carl took a drink, holding the tea in his mouth before swallowing. "That doesn't sound all that rational."

  "It isn't. They've pushed things past reason. For smart or for stupid, I'm with Raina until the end."

  Raina didn't say anything. It felt good to have Mauser's confidence, but there was something frightening about it, too. It made things more real.

  Carl nodded. "Tell me more about your plan."

  "The islanders are sitting around the Dunemarket celebrating," Raina said. "We're going to find the other survivors. Hit back. We'll attack just like they do—fast, relentless, without warning."

  "You should walk away," Carl said. "A place is just a place."

  "Not when it's been stained with the blood of those you love."

  The man sighed through his nose. "I need to think. See me again before you strike."

  "I would have anyway." Raina finished her tea. Mauser said goodbye and Carl nodded. It was full cover of night, perhaps ten o'clock, but that was the best time to do what came next.

  She had lived in the Dunemarket for months. Delivered messages between Jill and her conspirators. She had kept her eyes open the whole time because you couldn't trust people. Between all this, she knew the homes of most merchants and rebels within a two-mile radius of the market. Some had died. Many had left. But others stayed, hiding in their homes while the Catalinans camped in the ruins of their former lives.

  The first merchant Raina approached was a young woman who lived in a somber blue house on the hill across from the cemetery. When Raina knocked, she cracked open the door and flashed a pistol.

  "We're going to fight back," Raina told her. "Take our revenge and take back what's ours."

  "Go away," the woman said. There was a crack in her voice that sounded ready to split into a wail. "You think the answer to killing is more killing?"

  "No," Raina said. "I think the answer is killing Karslaw."

  "This place is damned. You want to die here, you go right ahead."

  The woman closed and locked the door. As Raina walked down the drive, the woman's silhouette appeared in the upper window. It was still there by the time the houses cut off Raina's view.

  The second merchant they approached was a middle-aged man named Vince. He was fond of puns and had sold toys from a brightly colored stall, allowing them to be bartered away so cheaply that Raina suspected he did it not for food or goods but for the pleasure of handing one of his well-kept dolls or sets of wooden blocks to a laughing child. He lived in the pastel apartments northwest of the market, and when she knocked on his door that night, it was the first time she'd seen him without a smile.

  "I thought the whole thing was just talk," Vince said from his doorway. His face was blank and far away. "Rebellion. War. Hooey, I thought—bunch of bluster from puffed-up men with too much time on their hands." He rubbed his eyes. "Then they shoot Agustin dead. Right in front of Jill. Easy as throwing out the trash."

  "It didn't seem real," Mauser said softly.

  "It's sick. It's a sickness and I can only see one cure." Vince stuck out his hand. It was twice the size of Raina's but soft like well-worn leather. "Tell me where to go."

  "Talk to everyone you can trust," Raina said. "We'll be back in two days. Be ready."

  Vince held up his hand in goodby
e.

  Beth lived in a shack in the park two miles down the same street that ran through the Dunemarket. Before the attack, she had delivered seeds and advised people how to grow crops; when she wasn't away, she ran a table of knickknacks she picked up over the course of her journeys. Trimmed berry vines surrounded the shack like natural barbed wire. As Raina neared the door, she heard the unmistakable double click of a shotgun being pumped.

  "Beth?" Raina said. "It's Raina. Jill's dead, but the rebellion isn't."

  Beth laughed from somewhere in the tree beside her shack. "No? Then who's next on the chopping block?"

  "I'm gathering up everyone I can. Do you still believe?"

  "Is this a fucking joke? You're not old enough to buy cigarettes."

  "There's no more cigarettes being made," Raina said. "No more money to buy them. No more laws to stop me. I'm here to ask you if you want to finish what Jill started."

  "I want it all to go away. For the plague to never have happened." Beth laughed again, a sick croak. "I'm done with this place. I'm not following a fucking sixteen-year-old into combat. That's the sign it's over, isn't it? I'll see you in hell."

  They turned and walked away. Mauser hiked his pack up his shoulders. "For the good of the recruitment campaign, perhaps we should pretend like I'm the one in charge."

  "She didn't turn us down because I'm too young," Raina said. "She turned us down because she's worthless."

  "Is that your professional opinion, doctor?"

  "She's sitting in her tree like an old crow. All crows do is shriek."

  "What we need is hummingbirds," Mauser said. "The silent assassin."

  She shook her head. "We need people who are willing to die."

  There weren't as many as she hoped. After two days of trudging around San Pedro, Lomita, and the hilly peninsula, she turned up just a dozen recruits. Most of the rebels had been killed in the fighting or disappeared in its aftermath. Many of the survivors disavowed the whole rebellion or meant to move out of the region. Hopes dwindling, Raina went back around to revisit the few who'd pledged support and lead them to the bunker miles to the west.

  Down the metal steps, Vince gazed across the concrete walls and full shelves and whistled. "If we've got a place like this, the islanders can have Pedro."

  Not for the first time, Raina counted their numbers, as if doing so would magically double them. Seven men, four women, Mauser, herself.

  "It isn't enough," she said.

  In the flicker of the lamps, Mauser looked skeptical. "I don't know how many more we're likely to get. If we're sneaky, we may be able to take out Karslaw, but let's not kid ourselves."

  "I used to fight with packs of dogs for food. The group learns from the leader. If you scare him enough to run, the rest will follow. But if he always fights back, the rest will too. Even after you kill him."

  "And I thought my middle school years were rough." Mauser let out a long breath. "There's nothing to stop us from taking a few more days. Who knows. A few more people, and we may be able to escape after the initial attack. Go all Fidel Castro guerrilla-style on their corrupt island asses."

  Raina turned to the others. "Find all the guns and friends you can. Be ready to move in three days."

  "I know a guy," Estelle said. She was a young woman and she'd lost her husband in the battle. "Girlfriend took a laser to the gut in the market. He'll fight."

  "Bring him in."

  "One more thing," Mauser said. "If you've been holding back on the tanks and rocket launchers, now would be the time to make them known."

  They spread mats and sleeping bags on the dusty cement, speaking of what had happened in the market and what they'd seen since. In the morning, they dispersed, roving to the homes of their friends. Most of Raina's knocks went unanswered. At Mrs. Miller's place, the woman refused to answer the door, her voice coming muffled from the other side.

  "Nobody's fighting anyone," Mrs. Miller said. "It's over. They said they're reopening the market. Life goes on."

  "Except for the people they killed," Raina said.

  "Don't you do it. Don't you stir up trouble. We finally got a chance for peace."

  "That's the upside to being conquered."

  "Don't you do it," the woman said. "You won't like what happens."

  Raina wanted to batter down the door and stab the woman. It hadn't occurred to her that some of the survivors might side with the attackers. The very thought was alien, an affront, something that needed to be killed before it spread.

  "You did it, didn't you?" Raina said.

  "Did what?"

  "Told Karslaw. Betrayed Jill."

  "I don't know what you're talking about," Mrs. Miller huffed from behind her door.

  "Peace wouldn't be enough for you," Raina said. "You're a fat-cheeked vole. What did it take to buy you? A servant? A home with electricity?"

  "All I wanted was peace! Like we'd had for years. Jill was ready to throw all that away."

  Raina smiled and walked away. She continued her rounds of the peninsula but was unable to find a single recruit. The moon crept up the sky, less than a quarter full and shrinking by the day, devoured from within by its own endless hunger.

  When it reached its highest, she returned to Mrs. Miller's.

  The doors were locked, but Raina had spent too many years harvesting the fruit of the apocalypse to be put off by a closed door. As the crickets urged her on, she crouched at the back door and teased the lock open, then took a bobby pin to the deadbolt. After a few minutes of wriggling, it snicked open.

  Moonlight gushed through the kitchen windows, flooding over the marble floor. Raina waited beside the staircase to adjust to the deeper darkness of the house, got out her tanto, and climbed to the second floor. Mrs. Miller was a lump beneath the comforter. Raina parted the sheer curtains so slowly they barely made a scrape. Under the slitted eye of the moon, she eased onto the bed and put Mrs. Miller's throat to the knife. The woman thrashed, trapped beneath the comforter, blood soaking heavily into the down feathers.

  At the bunker, Estelle had returned with a woman her age with stringy blond hair and the petrified anger of someone who's resolved to die. Mauser brought back two thugs. Raina had seen them at the inn. Quiet men who weren't afraid to be caught staring.

  The next day, she ranged south from the bunker, jogging through the rolling green hills with their horse paths and pretty shops tucked between the trees. The day was hot and she doubted she'd brought enough water.

  "Raina."

  She whirled. A woman wavered from the trees beside the dirt horse path. Her skin was taut over the bones of her face. Her hair was cut raggedly short, white flecks among the black strands.

  "Mrs. Grundheitz?"

  The woman reached toward her, tendons straining the back of her hand. "Is it true?"

  Raina could see it on the woman's face. She nodded.

  Martin's mother jerked, her face twitching. "In the attack?"

  "Yes."

  "And is the rest true, too?"

  Raina cocked her head. "That he saved my life? Yes. He killed many of them. He was brave."

  "I heard you mean to fight back."

  "I do."

  A warm wind blew between them, carrying the smell of sun on leaves. Mrs. Grundheitz tipped back her head and watched the smears of white clouds in the rich blue sky. "I want to join you."

  "Mrs. Grundheitz," Raina said.

  The woman's gaze snapped to her. "You're just a girl, Raina. Don't tell me I'm too old or too weak."

  "But if you die, your blood will end."

  Martin's mother laughed with the sound of dark things escaping the deep parts of her chest. "After Martin, I couldn't have more kids. My blood will end no matter what I do. Let me spend it fighting the ones who killed my son."

  Crickets chirped and chirped. If Raina said yes, she knew the woman would die. "Do you have a gun?"

  Mrs. Grundheitz reached into her waistband and produced a .45. "Will this do?"

  "Come wit
h me."

  She brought the woman back to the bunker. They got a few more people that day. On the third day, they added just one, a boy not much older than Raina who cried when he thought no one was looking. In the concrete walls beneath the surface of the earth, the energy of the bunker felt like an electric ghost, crackling and mad and ready to discharge. Raina got a cup of water from the tap built into the wall. There were gallons and gallons collected from somewhere, but she doubted the system could produce it faster than the twenty people now in the bunker could drink it.

  She passed out food. Packets crinkled. People chewed in silence, gazing into their past and future. Upstairs, the heavy door handle opened with a clunk. Raina went for her knife. Mauser's two thugs jogged down the stairs.

  "Catalinans are gone," Bryson said.

  He was a few years younger than Mauser and had greasy brown hair and eyes that were too small and close together. She wanted to not like him, but while she'd canvassed the hills for troops, Mauser had been working with the others, offering basic training and an explanation of the tactics they would use to assault the camp at the Dunemarket. Earlier that day, he'd told her Bryson was the best soldier they had. She knew the name, too. Her parents had worked with him when they joined the rebellion. She wanted to ask Bryson about them, but then he'd want to ask about the death of her father.

  Raina gritted her teeth. "Did you see where they went?"

  "Sure. Out on the water, a sail stands out like a flag. They're cruising back to Catalina."

  "Cowards," Martin's mother whispered. "Why did they come here at all?"

  "What say you?" Mauser said. "Are we ready to strike? They think they're safe there. They'll never expect it."

  They all looked to her. Young and old. Martin's mom. Vince. Even Bryson and his quiet, angry friend. Lanterns burned from the tables, casting shadows across the bunker. Raina felt a presence. Not the spirit of a person. The spirit of power. The will to accomplish what would be impossible for one of them to do alone. Raina set down her packet of freeze dried apples and stood.

  "We'll take my boat. Storm the castle. Karslaw will be there."

  "You don't mean tonight," Mauser said. "How will we get inside the palace?"