by Weston Ochse
Kavika smiled thinly, then turned and walked to the port rail. Spike hurried after him.
The old oil tanker towered over its closest neighbors, offering a bird’s eye view. Immediately below them was a day tripper that had originally come from San Francisco. The words ‘Alcatraz’ were still edged in a glossy blue that had somehow withstood the elements. The wheelhouse ran from stem to stern, a hundred windowframes lining the walls, but the glass had long since been destroyed, and the windows were now covered by scraps of fabric and recycled trash. It was the morgue ship, the only above-ground enterprise run by the Water Dogs. Akamu’s body was probably down there now. His family would be repaid in shark skin and food for their donation.
When Spike slid next to him, he said, “Akamu was killed.”
“I saw him inside. He was your friend, wasn’t he?”
“Your brother and I used to swim with Akamu. We were kids together.”
“And now that you’re a Pali Boy?”
“He was full time. I’m just part time.”
They remained silent for awhile. A northerly breeze promised rain. He could almost feel the moisture on his skin.
“They blood raped him.”
She nodded. “I saw. My brother said that one of the needles pierced his heart. Sloppy.”
“Who would do something like this?”
“Maybe this can explain it.” She held out her hand. In it was a media stick.
“Where’d you get this?” he asked, snatching it and checking the display.
“It was lodged in the pocket of Akamu’s pants. The area was drenched with blood, so whoever searched him must have missed it.”
“Did you look at it?”
She shook her head. “We don’t have that kind of old tech. Do you?”
“I don’t, but I know who does. Come on.”
The main deck of the tanker was composed of a six-storey bridge all the way aft, and a main deck that ran the other ninety per cent of the ship’s length. The bridge was the home of the ship’s captain, the mates, and Princess Kamala, and also housed all the community areas. The deck was covered in metal cargo containers spaced just far enough apart to allow people to pass between them. The containers were stacked three high. Those lucky enough to live above deck were the families of former ship workers and of full time Pali Boys. Kavika and his family should have lived here as well, but his father’s death had knocked them all the way down the hierarchical ladder. He could still remember the morning after his father’s death, when they were unceremoniously removed from their third floor container and taken down to the bottom of the hold.
“Kavika, Third Mate is looking for you. Says you need to join a maintenance crew.” The speaker was a Pali Boy named Pakelo, sitting at the opening of his container, his feet dangling over the side.
“He knows I’m a Pali Boy. Why does he want me?”
Pakelo shrugged, but they both knew the answer. If Kavika wasn’t willing to do every stunt, he wasn’t going to get the luxury of living the life of a Pali Boy. Instead, he’d find himself sweeping, mopping, chipping and painting.
“Where is he?” Kavika asked.
“He was here about fifteen minutes ago, so watch out.”
“Thanks, Pakelo.” Kavika shot a worried glance at Spike; she smiled weakly in return but didn’t offer any words of encouragement.
They picked their way through the containers. Most of the doors were either open or removed. Each container was roughly twenty feet deep by eight feet wide. Although they could comfortably hold a family, many were occupied by unmarried Pali Boys. There were even a few empty ones. Sometimes Kavika was greeted by the occupants. Other times they just watched him pass. He knew what they were thinking, especially the mothers and wives. They knew that they could get kicked down the ladder if their fathers or husbands died too. There but by the grace of Pele. Kavika was a reminder to them of all of the bad things that could happen.
They passed a first floor container where a Pali Boy he had once known lived, called Keoni. His father had taken him and the others away to work on the Freedom Ship, but it seemed as if they were back. Kavika started to say hello, then stopped in his tracks.
“What is it?” Spike peered around him, then brought a hand to her mouth. “Oh.”
Kavika licked his suddenly dry lips. As Keoni turned his head slightly, the back of the head of the Rhesus monkey became visible. As the ex-Pali Boy continued to turn, he revealed the monkey that had been surgically attached to him. Tubes ran from the back of the monkey’s head to the top of the boy’s spine. Other tubes transferred fluids from the monkey’s torso to his human torso. Kavika couldn’t begin to guess what they did, but the connection served to make two into one and seemed irrevocable.
“Every time I see one of them it takes my breath away.” Spike’s fingernails dug into Kavika’s arm.
One of them, she’d said. A monkey-backed.
Suddenly another person appeared at the entrance to the container. Looking haggard and drawn, clothes hanging like ill-fitting drapes from a once-plump frame, the boy’s mother noticed the attention. She shook her head like she saw it all the time, then flicked her hand at them.
Kavika was turning to go when he saw the orange-robed figure of a Mga Tao. The hooded man or woman stood vigil over the monkey-backed Pali Boy from the side of a cargo container. Kavika shuddered. Partly he wished he knew what they wanted with the monkey-backed; mostly he hoped he’d never find out.
Kavika moved on. After a blood rape, his greatest fear was to be monkey-backed. The former he could fight, but the latter was Corper sanctioned. Part of the price of belonging to the floating city was to be available for monkey-backing if a match was found. To fight against it was to harm the community. After all, the monkey-backed were walking experiments into possible cures for Minimata. One day some unlucky monkey-backed would be the one from which a cure was developed. On that day his sister would be cured, and until then, Kavika knew that there was nothing he could do about it.
He reached the far end of the main deck. The last few rows of containers nearest the bow housed some of the most important Pali Boys. Kaja, several old leaders, and some of the legacy Pali Boys like Donnie Wu called these home. It was to Donnie’s place that they were going. His third floor door was open and it didn’t take but a moment for them to climb a knotted line and swing onto the landing.
Half-Chinese and half-Hawaiian, Donnie had never quite fit in. When Kavika’s father had been the Pali Boy leader shortly after the plague struck, it was Donnie who’d been his best friend and had protected him. They’d been like brothers, and had helped consolidate the Hawaiian position aboard the tanker and the community that formed upon it. They had created the Pali Boys to help keep the warrior spirit alive, preserve many of the old ways, and stand ready to protect the Hawaiian people aboard the floating city. Since the death of Kavika’s father, Donnie was even more of an uncle than he had been before. The only thing he couldn’t do to help them was move them back to the main deck. Too much politics. His father had made too many enemies.
“Kavika, Leilani—how are you two?”
Donnie stood in the shadows at the back of the container. His legs were bowed with age. His left arm was twisted at a weird angle, the result of a long fall from a smokestack. He kept his head shaved and wore a Fu Manchu mustache. His arms, chest and thighs were covered with before-time tattoos of scenes of Hilo back before the plague. They were becoming blurred with age, but some could still be made out. Prominent amongst the indigo blur were women in grass skirts, warriors with fishing spears, palm trees, waves, and the Kilauea volcano, with lava rolling down its crusted slopes.
“How are your mother and sister?”
“They’re fine, uncle.”
“Do they have food?”
“Yes, uncle.”
“You know if you need anything you can come to me, right?”
“Yes, uncle. I know. My mother thanks you.”
Donnie laughed sadly. “
No need to lie to me, boy. We all know your mother hates me. After all, she needs someone to blame. Might as well be me.” He looked around for a place for his guests to sit. He found two chairs covered in clothes and junk. With a sweep of his arms he scooted the mess onto the floor “Here, sit.”
They did as they were told. After a moment of respect, Kavika murmured, “Uncle, Akamu was blood raped.”
Donnie stared at the floor and shook his head. “I heard. They say he didn’t survive it. Bad business.” He let a moment of silence lengthen, then asked, “So what brings you to Old Wu?”
“This,” Kavika said, holding out the media stick. “Spike’s brother found it on the body. Kaja missed it.”
Donnie held out his hand. Kavika passed the media stick. The old man stared at it and picked a little dried blood away with a fingernail.
“I have something that I think will do the trick.” He fumbled through the trash he’d put on the floor, worked a slim square of metal free with some trouble, found a wire, and then hooked it up to the square and the media stick. It took a few moments, but he eventually had a static-laced picture flipping across the square. He banged it twice on the edge of a table and the picture cleared.
“Okay. Here we go. Akamu probably kept this for stunting. I had one. So did your father, Kavika. They’ve fallen out of popularity, though. Coming up with the equipment to view them is hard.”
This was the first Kavika had ever heard of it. “My father had one? What happened to his?”
“It was lost when he dived the line.” Donnie shook his head. “Was never seen again. Anyway, my viewer hasn’t been used in some time, but it’s not like there’s been any technology advancements since.”
“Kavika thinks that he might have an image of his attackers,” Spike pointed out.
“He just might.” Donnie fiddled with the buttons. “Here we go. It was night and he had lowlight working. Hmm.”
“Why hmm?” Kavika asked.
“Yeah. Why hmm?” asked Kaja, climbing into the container behind them. “What you doing talking to Uncle, Kavika?”
Kavika stared at Kaja for a moment, wondering how to answer. He didn’t have any problems with the Pali Boy leader, but there was politics involved, some of which he understood and some of which he didn’t. The worst times were when Kaja and the others sometimes just stopped talking when he joined them.
“Hello, Spike,” Kaja said.
“You can call me Leilani,” Spike said.
When Kaja raised his eyebrows, she stuck her tongue out at him.
“We found Akamu’s media stick,” said Kavika, before Spike could do anything worse to Kaja.
“Why didn’t you bring it to me?”
Kavika glanced at Spike, then back to Kaja.
“Give it a rest, Kaja. You missed it,” Donnie Wu said. “These two found it on the body in the morgue. Sloppy, if you ask me.”
“I didn’t ask you.”
Donnie glanced around him, then at Kaja. “You’re in my place, Kaja.”
Anger flashed across the Pali Boy leader’s face. Still, he apologized. “Sorry, uncle. Bad day.”
“This might make it better. Look,” he pointed at the square. They all watched as two figures coalesced in the low light. It took a moment for the autofocus to kick in, but when it did, there was a clear shot of a man dressed in all black. The queue on his head was unmistakable.
“Boxers,” Kavika and Spike said simultaneously.
“What was Akamu doing to get their attention?” Donnie asked.
Kaja shook his head. “We’ll never know.”
“What do you mean?” Kavika asked, finally finding his voice. “We have a clue. Shouldn’t we at least find out?”
“What are you going to do? Go to the Boxers and ask them? Think they won’t try and kill you too?” Kaja scoffed. “Come on, Kavika. You won’t even leap with us, what makes you so brave all of a sudden?”
“He’ll do it,” Spike said, “And he’ll show you.”
“What will he show us?” Kaja sneered.
“That he’s braver than all the rest of you.”
“That’s right. Brave like his father, right?”
“Hey!” Donnie stood.
Kavika stared at the Pali leader’s tattoo, the one proving that he’d dived the line. His father would have worn a tattoo just like it had he survived.
“Listen, you want to do something about this clue you found, then do it.” Kaja took a step towards Kavika and pointed at his chest. “And when I say do it, it means you have to. If you don’t, then you are no longer a Pali Boy. Not even a part time Pali. Get it? You and your mother and sister will find yourselves moving ship and working for the Corpers. Hear me? Am I clear, Kavika?”
Kavika nodded. Although Spike had put him in this position, it was an opportunity to show what he could do. Fear and excitement began to build inside him. Still, he had to gulp around his heart, which had found a home in his throat. “I hear.”
“Good. Until then you’re no Pali. Steer clear and we’ll leave you be. Try and go skyward and we’ll knock you down.” Kaja laughed, then backed to the entrance and gripped the climb line. He shook his head and laughed again. “Ridiculous.”
“What’s ridiculous?” Spike demanded.
“That I’m even giving him a chance. He’s never been able to prove himself. What makes him think he can do it this time?”
“What makes you think that you aren’t really a woman in disguise?” Spike countered. “You’re more of a woman than me. Now that’s what I call ridiculous.”
Kaja glared at her a moment, then shook his head and rolled his eyes. “Live large, Wu.” Then he swung away.
Kavika sat down heavily, but Spike grabbed his arm and jerked him back to his feet. “There will be no sitting down. You’ll have every Pali Boy eye watching you in less than five minutes. You need to start planning. You need to start doing.”
Kavika knew she was right. He also knew that he felt sick to his stomach. He imagined the look on his mother’s face as they were evicted, all because he couldn’t come to terms with his fear. Bile rose in his throat as his face tried to turn green. It took a moment, but he managed to swallow it back down. When he finally had control of himself, he turned to Donnie and thanked him. Then he turned back to Spike.
“You ready?” she asked.
He nodded.
“Just to be sure, tell me what we are ready for,” she said.
He licked his lips. His mouth had gone suddenly dry. “To find us a Boxer?”
“Seriously? Is that the best you can do?”
He tried again, with only the most minute of improvements.
“Your father would have been scared too, Kavika,” said Donnie Wu. “Being a Pali Boy isn’t just about being scared to do something. It’s often about being scared not to do something. This might be your chance—your only chance.”
Kavika stared out the door of the container to the open water far below.
Some chance.
CHAPTER FOUR
PIECE OF SHIT Puta!
Lopez-Larou seethed. It’d taken her weeks to scrape together three hundred grams of waffle dust. The others like Paco Braun and Sanchez Kelly produced that in a day, but they’d been around. They were established and had multilevel source networks to deliver their product. Sanchez Kelly had more than a dozen runners and could deliver whatever someone wanted to the farthest reaches of the ship. It was rumored that he even had customers aboard the Nip Ship, a tale that Paco Braun tried continuously to quash, reminding everyone that the Japanese were his customers and his alone.
How was a girl to get ahead?
Favor chits, that’s how. Both Kelly and Braun had chests of favor chits, each one annotated with individual signs and sigils. They might as well be kings, for all the people of the floating city owed them. Lopez-Larou snorted at the thought of lard-ass Braun and sleek Kelly wearing robes and crowns like she’d seen in the picture films. But then she sobered as she realized that f
or all intents and purposes that was the reality. They had all the food and sex they wanted and lived without fear of Boxers, blood rape or the Neo-Clergy, and were as untouchable as the Nips.
She stared into the heights of the Japanese Freedom Ship at the center of her floating metropolis. She could just make out figures moving on the top deck beneath a high, hot sun in an almost cloudless sky. She wondered what favors Kelly was owed from the likes of those living on the freedom ship. She’d heard they had running water, electricity, and all the food they desired. For a moment she tried to imagine herself there, but it was just too impossible. She ripped her gaze away and focused once more on the task at hand. She had things to worry about that the high-living Nips could never realize. To get ahead, she had one choice and that was to steal from the dead.
She stood in the shadow of the prow of a small Chinese junk. Like her, it was out of place. Made of polished woods, it was a drop of beauty among the gray metal hulls and decking that made up the rest of the city. A reminder of a time when luxury was as important as functionality. Few knew that the owner, Joey Li, liked certain pictures and had a taste for old-school meth. What should have been obvious was hidden by the beauty. She understood this tactic of obfuscation, which was why she now wore a dress and more makeup than any self-respecting Tiburón would. For her kind, travel in the city on the waves cost. Los Tiburones owned the trade in making life livable. Their reality wasn’t cheap, and everyone wanted a piece of it. Whenever they traveled it was assumed they were carrying, which was why she’d reached out to one of the aggravatingly acrobatic Pali Boys. No one would have ever confused one of those simpletons for a runner.
Which was why she’d thought her plan had been perfect—perfect, that is, until the Boxers had not only decided to blood rape her runner, but had botched it and killed him in the process. So here she was. Instead of harvesting scraps and combining her own chems, she was dressed like a transvestite and staring at the Morgue Ship, wondering how in a Cheech-and-Chong Hell she’d be able to get inside and retrieve her product.
“What you doing there? Hey!”
