Generation Z (Book 1): Generation Z

by Peter Meredith

  “Right the diameter.” Eve held up her hands forming a circle between her curved fingers. “That diameter thing cuts it in half and you can find the, uh, the, uh…”

  Again, she filled in her own word, only now she did with a softer tone, “The ratio of the circle’s circumference…” Eve began to blink and sway, still holding her hands up. “The circle’s circumference to its diameter using pi which is commonly shortened to 3.14159 or simply 3.14.”

  She grinned and said, “Excellent, Jenn. You brought me back just in time. As always, Eve would have ruined everything.”

  “Jillybean?” Jenn asked, searching her eyes.

  “Who else would I be?”

  Jenn’s head began to feel spinny. “Eve maybe, or that other girl you mentioned before, Sally, I think.”

  The light in Jillybean’s eyes dimmed somewhat. “It’s Sadie, but she’s not here. No, it’s just me. Eve can’t handle irrational numbers, perhaps because she’s irrational, herself. I use pi as a pass code to keep her from escaping. It wouldn’t be good to let her loose on the world. But enough about her. How are we doing? Almost ready to go, I hope?”

  She looked past Stu, who had quietly watched the strange conversation and the even stranger transformation, to Mike, who was hauling the now filled cart towards them. “Good, we’re almost all set. I’ll need those batteries in the boat, Mike.”

  Jillybean climbed into the skiff, tilting it crazily, and pulled a couple of plastic-coated cables from the little engine. The water was up to Mike’s waist as he brought over the first of the heavy batteries. Using an adjustable wrench, Jillybean connected it to the engine and then linked the next.

  “Do you remember the numbers?” she asked Jenn after Mike had tied the cart to the back of the skiff and climbed in.

  “Yes: 3.14159, but what about the lights in the watchtowers? The guards will see us.”

  Jillybean chuckled, “Oh ye of little faith. I designed not only this gate, but also the wall, the towers, the lights and the electrical system that feeds them. When you punch in the numbers, not only will the gate open, there will also be a five-minute interruption in the power supplying the towers on this side of the island. Five minutes will be plenty of time to get away.”

  Nervous about the electricity flowing behind the buttons, Jenn used just the tip of her finger to press each in turn. There was a tinny sound, like a spoon striking a can and then the heavy metal gate opened.

  “Everyone duck,” Jillybean whispered as she flicked on the electric motor, which purred as the blades began to spin. They were cutting things very close. Jenn had to hug the prow as they scraped through the opening, while Mike and Jillybean threw themselves over one another to keep from being torn out of the boat.

  Once free of the tunnel, Jillybean surprised them by steering them straight east towards the dark and ugly city instead of going north, which was, as far as Jenn knew, the only way back to the Pacific. She glanced at Mike, who shrugged. Neither said anything and for five minutes they slipped through the cold water of the Sound at the boat’s full speed, which was about three and a half miles an hour.

  When the tower lights clicked back on, they still seemed very close and everyone held their breath as the beams swept the water. To Jenn they made the island look alive, like a many-eyed monster searching for its next victim. Luckily the guards were mostly concerned with anything that might have gotten in close during the interruption and their lights ran along the shallows near the island before methodically moving further and further out.

  By the time the lights turned towards the skiff and its trailing cart, they were nearly a half a mile away.

  “I think we’re good,” Jillybean said and turned the boat south, again confusing Mike and Jenn, who shared another look. Jillybean saw it and sighed. “I suppose I should come clean with you now before we get too far into our adventure. I don’t actually have a boat. We’re going to have to steal one.”

  “From who?” Mike demanded. “And why do you say ‘we?’ We’re not thieves. Like I said before, we ‘borrowed’ the Calypso and I’ll bring her back one way or another.”

  Jillybean patted his arm. “I believe you. I don’t plan on giving back the boat we’re going to take. It belongs to the Corsairs.”

  Mike jumped as if pinched. “We’re going to steal a boat from the Corsairs? Are you kidding? How?”

  “I don’t know yet.”

  Jenn stared back to see if Jillybean’s fractured mind had fractured again. She seemed like her ‘normal’ friendly self. “Maybe we should talk about this,” Jenn said. “If I had known this was the plan, I don’t think I would have come along, and I know I wouldn’t have let Stu come. We don’t stand a chance against the Corsairs. There’s like a million of them and only four of us.”

  Jillybean frowned. “A million? Jenn, hyperbole isn’t helpful. We need to discuss this logically. I agree, the chances seem slim as we sit here in this little boat. If we allow our imaginations to run wild we can easily picture the Corsairs to be an immense, monolithic horde, hyper-vigilant and armed to the teeth. But is that how they truly are?”

  Once more Jenn was lost in Jillybean’s words. “What are you saying? That they’re really weak? Maybe you don’t know them like we know them. No one is stronger than the Corsairs.”

  “Is this conjecture on your part or do you have proof?” The word conjecture threw that sentence so far out of whack that Jenn was afraid to open her mouth.

  Stu coughed, soft and weak before saying, “The proof is that no one’s ever defeated them. That’s a fact. They come and go as they please and they take what they please. For ten years the rule has always been: if you see the black flag, you run. I think we should look at another option.”

  “Mike?” Jillybean asked. “What do you think?”

  He answered in a whisper, “I don’t know. What do the signs say?”

  Jenn was just craning her head back when Jillybean said, “The signs?” She wore a wide grin, looking like she was holding in laughter. “Normally, I’d say go for it, but the signs aren’t going to help now. I’ve looked at all the options and this is the only viable one. Yes, it’s dangerous, but just a few hours ago you three were threatening to walk to San Francisco, which is even more dangerous as well as useless. Even if you lived through the journey, your friends would be long dead.”

  They were quiet as the skiff purred south. Somewhere off to their left there was a splash and a bubbly moan. The sound was faint, still Jillybean steered them away from it. Eventually, she said, “I can take us back easily enough. I have a transmitter that will duplicate the power shortage. We can go back and no one will know.”

  The desire to give in was so strong in Jenn that she was afraid to look back at Mike and Stu. They would see the fear rising in her. She looked up and jerked in surprise. The missing stars had returned and the sky was full once again.

  “We should go,” she said. “To the Corsairs, I mean. The stars are back. They came back to guide us.”

  Mike and Stu looked up in a synchronized move. Jillybean only gazed fondly at Jenn. “You are simply adorable, Jenn Lockhart!” Jenn was pretty sure being adorable was a good thing and stuttered out a thank you, which only made Jillybean grin that much wider. “You say the stars are back? Did they go somewhere?”

  “When we were on your island, the stars were…I don’t know if they were missing or if they went anywhere, I just couldn’t see them. It was like they were hidden from me.”

  “It’s true,” Mike agreed. “It really was strange. I didn’t want to say anything because I didn’t want to spook anyone.” Jenn could tell he meant that he didn’t want to spook her.

  Jillybean nodded, perhaps thinking she looked wise, however the cat’s grin was condescending. “That’s so interesting. Primitive men might have thought the same thing when they stood around their fires at night. It’s sort of sad that you don’t get that small luxury, you know, sitting next to a fire and gazing up at the stars.”

 
; On the hilltop, having fires out in the open was too dangerous, while on Alcatraz, the idea of hauling wood all the way from the mainland just to let the light and heat go to waste would never happen. “I don’t know if it’s all that sad,” Jenn replied, her tone cold. The cat’s grin was bad enough but to be called primitive on top of it was out of bounds. “When my father was crushed by a building and I became an orphan, that was sad. Not having a fire outside isn’t sad.”

  Jillybean was crestfallen. “No, I didn’t mean it that way. I was referring to the effects of ambient light on our perspective…” Jenn groaned, interrupting Jillybean, who drooped. “Sorry. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. The science stuff just sort of comes out and you have to know I don’t mean anything by it. I’m not trying to make anyone feel bad.”

  She was so apologetic that Jenn reluctantly said, “It’s okay.”

  “Good, good,” Jillybean said, eagerly. “I’m glad you guys are letting me come with you. I use this little boat to go into the city whenever I need something, you know, something Neil wouldn’t approve of, but it still feels like I’ve been cooped up for so long that it’s driving me a little crazy.”

  A little crazy? Jenn thought.

  Mike must have been thinking the same thing, because he coughed suddenly and turned away to hide the startled look on his face. After a moment he pulled himself together. “Yeah, we’re glad, too. Just a question. Are you sure you know where you’re going? I have a map of Washington if you want to see it. There’s no way to get to the ocean in this direction.”

  Jenn cast a dubious eye down at the skiff. “We don’t want the ocean, do we?”

  “Not in this thing,” Jillybean answered. “We’d be swamped by the first wave that hit us. No, the ocean would be bad and it would take us a hundred and eighty miles out of our way. This way is a shortcut.”

  “A shortcut to where?” Stu asked. “You know where the Corsairs actually live?”

  They were nearing a point of land that rose like a turtle’s back out of the water. Jillybean steered them to the right of the dark mass. “Yes, we’ve known for quite some time. Four years ago, a couple of slaves escaped from the Corsairs. They were able to give us a detailed layout of what I like to call their lair, for want of a better word. The pirates are holed up in the town of Hoquiam in Grays Harbor.”

  She was interrupted by Mike who began unfolding his map with a great deal of crinkling. “Can I borrow your flashlight?” After she handed it over he scanned the map, tracing the craggy, maze-like Sound inland all the way to Olympia. With one finger pressed on the city, he went in search of the Corsairs’ lair. “Here it is, Grays Harbor. Hold on. We can’t get there from Olympia. There’s nothing connecting them.”

  “That’s true enough, but it gets us close. As you can see, the Sound runs for about forty miles to Olympia. From there it’s a quick ten-mile walk across to the Chehalis River which we’ll ride right down to the harbor. If we press on hard enough, we should be there by two in the afternoon. After resting, I propose we attempt to cut out one of their ships around midnight.”

  “There’s one problem in this plan,” Stu said, “Me. We left the wheelchair back in that tunnel and you probably should have left me behind with it. Now, we’ll have to find a clinic or a hospital in Olympia. It’ll eat up time we don’t have.”

  A side wind swept Jillybean’s hair in front of her face. She laughed and turned her face into it. “Don’t be silly, Stu. I would never have left you behind. You are special. You’ll ride in the cart.”

  “And the boat?” Jenn asked. “You said we’re going to take it down a river. How are we going to get the boat across to the river? Ten miles is kind of far for me and you to carry it, and if we’re carrying it and Mike is pushing the cart and Stu, who will provide security? Someone has to scout ahead or who knows what we’re going to run into?” Jenn was secretly happy to have thought of this before anyone else, anyone but Jillybean, that is.

  “You’ll see,” she said, in that infuriatingly cryptic manner of hers.

  Chapter 30

  Mike Gunter

  Jillybean steadfastly refused to answer their questions concerning how they were going to cross from the very southern end of the Sound to the Chehalis River. Her response was a somewhat nerve-wracking: “It’s a surprise.”

  Mike wasn’t just unnerved, he was more than a bit angry. “Out in the wilds is no time for a surprise.”

  His tone couldn’t be missed and Jenn had done the smart thing, locking eyes with him and saying, “It’s okay, Mike. We trust Jillybean, right?” She nodded until he started nodding as well. “She got us this fine, uh skiff-thing. And it’s got a motor. I’m sure she’s doing the right thing.”

  This was the end of the discussion until they finally made it to Olympia, a city that was slowly being engulfed in plant life. Even in the dark, the buildings weren’t starkly defined as in many other cities. Their edges, covered in snaking vines, looked soft. The roads, or what there was left of them, were worse. With the tens of thousands of trees sprouting through every crack and seam, they were barely passable.

  They putt-putted along an inlet that ran right down the gullet of the city to the farthest reaches of Puget Sound where many of the docks were rotted away.

  Jillybean picked her way through the mess until she found a dock that was both intact and had a pulley system in place. “First thing, let’s get everything hoisted up onto the dock,” she whispered.

  The dead were sending up moans that echoed throughout the city. It was an eerie sound that had all of them keeping one eye constantly on the far end of the dock as they worked. If one of the dead came, their only choice would be to jump into the water, pulling Stu along with them.

  Luckily, it was so dark that the dead didn’t see them working to raise both the skiff and the cart. Stu climbed into the cart once it was on the dock and Jillybean had them place the skiff over the top of it.

  “I’ll go first,” Jillybean said. “You two follow along with the cart.” Weaponless, she set off down the dock which creaked and swayed beneath her.

  “Does this feel crazy to you?” Jenn asked, as she picked up the rope attached to the front of the cart.

  Mike nodded. “Still, a part of me trusts her. It’s like she’s thinking three steps ahead which is way better than me. All I know is that we gotta get Stu and everything out of here before one of them comes.”

  “So, get moving,” Stu hissed from the cart. “I don’t trust this at all.” If something happened, he would be a sitting duck unable to do anything but shoot his M4 which would only attract more of the beasts.

  Mike went behind Jenn, grabbed a part of the rope and took almost all of the weight of the cart. Jenn was left holding a slack line. She held it up as he pulled. “Show-off,” she whispered. In the dark, her teeth seemed whiter than ever. He found himself staring at that smile instead of watching where he was going and nearly walked off the side of the dock.

  He was sure his face was red as a beet, and even though she couldn’t see it, he stared down, watching his boots and placing each one squarely in the middle of the dock. It wasn’t a very long dock, which was a good thing since Stu and the skiff added enormously to the weight of the cart. Mike was out of breath by the time they came to a low, grey building that had once been a yacht club; now it was nothing more than a fire hazard. At some point in the last dozen years, a pickup truck had blasted through the front doors. It was now on a set of stairs, canted dangerously to one side.

  Jillybean was standing in the lobby among a spray of twinkling glass and spears of wood. “In here.” She waved them inside and helped to take the skiff off the cart. “You’re like a pearl,” she said to Stu.

  “Sure, I guess,” he said tiredly. His young face was worn and his eyes were dim.

  “Sorry to say, Stu, but you look like crap,” Mike said. “Do you have any pain meds, Jillybean? Like aspirin or something?”

  She snorted. “Do I have pain meds? Of course, I do. I’ll
just need a little light. Jenn, if you’ll be a lamb and keep watch. Grab one of the guns. Oh, except for that one.” Jenn had pulled out an odd weapon that looked like a cross between an M4 and a shotgun. “That one’s special.”

  As if the “special” gun would go off if it was looked at with crossed eyes, Jenn placed it back in the crate very gently, taking an M4 instead. Jillybean took out her flashlight and beamed it into her opened med bag.

  “Jeeze!” Mike hissed. “Are you crazy? The dead will see the light. Turn it off.”

  “Give me a moment.” It was more like two minutes, though it felt like ten as the seconds dragged out. She handed the flashlight to Mike. “Keep it pointed at the crook of his arm.” Moving with practiced dexterity, Jillybean got an IV going and then sank a needle into a port in the line, giving Stu some sort of liquid pain medicine. In seconds, he lay back, his constricted features relaxing.

  Mike turned off the light as fast as he could. The four of them sat in the dark listening for the dead and only Jillybean was disappointed when none came sniffing around. “It’ll mean we’ll have to go to them.” Mike gaped in astonishment. “You’ll see, it’ll be okay,” she said. “Let’s get you ready. Have you ever used a low-light scope before? Just click it on. Go ahead, give it a try.”

  He put his eye to the scope and then backed away again, but only for a moment. “Holy cow, I can see everything. It’s a weird grey color but I can see you and Jenn and, and this is just crazy!” Jenn was looking back at him with strange ghostly eyes. He saw her make the sign of the cross, almost as plain as day.

  “Yes,” Jillybean said. “Don’t waste the battery.”

  “How do you have batteries when no one else does?” he asked. “That, uh, other girl said you make them. How?”

  He expected her to give another of her unfathomable answers, however she said, simply, “Reading. Pick up a science textbook the next time you go to a high school. You’ll be amazed how simple some things are. Speaking of which, where’s the box with my books?”