by Weston Ochse
They opened the door and found themselves in a closet. Except for several empty boxes, it was empty. They were as yet undetected, but they still had four floors to travel, and an unknown amount of people to get past.
The hallway was deserted and not at all what they’d expected. The Freedom Ship was universally thought of by the citizens of the floating city as a palace; a place with clear air, sharp corners, white walls and the antiseptic cleanliness of story-book royalty. Where everyone else lived in the ghetto, this was the shining beacon of civilization, just like the one he’d heard spoken about in the Bible.
But the Freedom Ship was nothing like that. In reality, it smelled terrible, with a distinct hint of feces. The floor was far dirtier than even the most slovenly third mate would allow. The walls had a coating of grime, like the lower holds of some of the older, unaffiliated ships, the ones without third mates at all.
Kavika and Spike glanced at each other. This was definitely not what they expected.
The hallway ran almost the length of the ship. It dead-ended at the engine compartment, which took up three levels of the rearmost section, but they wouldn’t be going there. They had to get to the staircase in the middle of the ship. Once there, the plan was to travel directly to the floor they needed and find the Boxers they’d come to get.
They separated as they moved down the hallway. Kavika pressed his back against one wall, Spike the other, and as a pair they skulked down the hallway towards the center of the ship. They passed several sets of closed doors before they came to an open one on Kavika’s side.
He gestured for Spike to edge forward so she could see into the room, which she did, moving inch by inch, leaning slightly forward to see in. Then she straightened and gave him a nod.
He approached the room, peered around the corner and found it empty. The only things inside were ropes and odd metal objects hanging from a wall: tools of some sorts, but he didn’t know what they were for.
They waled on. By Kavika’s count, they had thirty more doors to pass before they’d reach the first set of emergency stairs. At the next door, they heard shuffling from inside, and a pungent smell surrounded the opening. They tried to peer in, but all they saw was an empty floor. The wall to the next room had been removed. They exchanged looks with each other, but were unwilling to stick their heads into the room without knowing what was going on.
But the next room was the same way.
As was the next.
A whole series of rooms along the left hand side had been converted into something. They might never have found out what was in the room had they not heard voices emanating from farther down the hall and ducked into one of the open doors.
They plastered themselves on either side of the opening, facing into the room, and what they saw so shocked them that they stood there staring, even as a pair of Boxers walked past their door, talking jocularly about something or other in Chinese. Only when the voices had been silenced by the closing of a door down the hallway did either of them say anything.
“What the hell is that?” Spike asked in a wondrous whisper.
“I think it’s a cow,” Kavika said. Then, after a moment, “But I’m not sure.”
The cow stood in the middle of the room, amidst a mound of dried plankton and seaweed. It was black and white, just like the pictures Kavika had seen in books. In fact, it looked just like the cows from the pictures, except that this creature had been attached to some sort of machine. A metal cone was affixed to its mouth, at the end of a metal hose running from the ceiling above. A metal cone was also affixed to its rear, connected to a metal hose running into the floor. But the strangest sight of all was what appeared to be a set of metal fingers that reached under the stomach and was affixed to appendages there. These metal fingers pulsed in alternating beats, causing the metal hose to which they were attached to leap and shudder, as if something was inside.
“What are they doing to it?” Spike asked.
“I don’t know. I just can’t get over it.” Kavika turned his head and realized that there wasn’t just one cow. There were dozens, all lined up along the outside wall. The reason they hadn’t seen them earlier was because they were centered on the walls of the rooms. Each had the same hoses attached to them, running into the ceilings and into the floors. “Cows... they have cows on this ship.”
Kavika brought his hand up and rubbed his face. He was just plain amazed at the sight. He’d heard about these creatures. Donnie Wu had told him about entire businesses that sold nothing but beef to people driving by in cars. Cows had had a cult following in America, and had been a primary source of food, but that was on land. Not only was their presence strange, but it was damned insulting. That the Corpers had them aboard the ship, especially when there were ships where folks were starving, was an extravagance that seemed imperiously wrong.
Then he heard a sound that absolutely terrified him. Halfway between a whine and a cry, it came from all the way at the other end of the immense rectangular room, and soon it was joined by others just like it. The noises became more insistent and soon the large room was filled with their bleating.
Kavika and Spike drew their sticks from their backs and advanced carefully along the wall. When they reached a doorway, they hurried quickly past, but they were otherwise unimpeded in their journey to the source. They passed a dozen doors before they saw what appeared to be a small pen, holding smaller versions of the cows. These had yet to be assaulted by the metal hoses, and were staring hungrily at Kavika and Spike as they came into view.
They glanced at each other, then stared wide-eyed at the incomprehensible sight. Finally they just shook their heads. This was just too much. Nothing had prepared them for this sort of thing.
They checked left and right and moved out of the room, leaving the cries of the calves behind them. At length, they reached the stairs, which were covered with threadbare red material that muffled the sound of their feet.
Spike went first. Moving in a crouch, she held one stick in front of her and let the other one trail behind her.
Kavika came after her, moving the same way, his ears pricked for any sound.
They came to the landing on the next floor, and a hallway running parallel to the one below. They didn’t know what was on that floor, but they didn’t need to. They had to go up. The Real People had told them exactly where to go. Everything else was just getting in their way.
They were moving to the next level when they again heard voices coming towards them, ran back to the second level, and found an unlocked door. They dashed inside, closed the door and put their backs against it.
The room was someone’s living space. Five times larger than a cargo container, it boasted more couches and chairs than any two Hawaiian families owned. To the left of the door was a kitchen area. A tall cabinet gave out a humming noise.
“Oh, dear God,” Spike muttered. “It’s a refrigerator.” She opened the door and stuck her head inside.
Kavika heard her hollow giggle. He came up behind her and they basked in the chilled air blasting from the open door. Jars and containers rested on several shelves. An apple and three bright yellow onions sat on the bottom shelf. One of the jars was filled with white liquid. The other was filled with what looked like water.
Spike picked up one of the onions and inhaled deeply. She grinned in satisfaction. Then she grabbed the other two. She tried to stuff them in her suit, but it was almost skin-tight. She held them out to Kavika.
“Can you carry these for me?”
“I don’t think so.”
“But Kavika, do you know what I can do with these and some fish?”
He couldn’t help but laugh. That she’d been born a boy was impossible to tell. To him, at least, she seemed girl through and through. “We can’t, Spike. Look, if you must, you can carry them there and there,” he said pointing at her chest.
She actually looked at them as if considering it for a moment.
“I was just joking,” he said.
She blinked. “Oh... yeah.” She smiled self-consciously. “Never mind.”
Kavika chuckled softly. He grabbed the jar filled with clear liquid and opened it. A quick sniff and a taste told him it was water. He took a deep drink of the cold liquid. It was the best tasting water he’d ever had. He held some out to Spike. At first she took a small sip, but was soon gulping it down. Together they finished the water, and put the empty jar back in the refrigerator.
They didn’t go any farther into the room to check out the sleeping area or the closets. Instead, they returned to the door. There they noticed a peephole that allowed them to look into the hall. Kavika checked and found it empty.
They stepped back into the hall and headed up the stairs. They made it halfway to the next level before they happened upon a man lighting a cigarette. He looked up at the same time they saw him.
Spike attacked with her sticks, catching him in the head and throat, and again in the head. He fell hard to the stairs, stunned, his eyes unfocused but still open, until Spike kicked him in the face, sending him to the place of happy Japanese dreams.
Kavika stepped forward and stubbed out the freshly lit cigarette.
This was their first encounter. Frankly, he’d expected more. The ship was easily the size of at least half of the ships in the floating city. It should have been able to hold thousands, but so far they’d only heard or seen a few. Sure, they’d only been in a small fraction of the space so far, but there still should have been more.
Spike beckoned for him to follow. They hit the next level and knew they were in trouble right away, when they saw dozens of Corpers wearing dark suits and white shirts. Some of the nearest stopped what they were doing and gaped at them, while, farther down, men and women came and went, busy at some task. Kavika glanced up the stairs toward the fourth level and saw a group of Boxers descending.
He had no choice. He grabbed Spike, turned right and sprinted down the hall.
An alarm went up behind them.
People screamed after them in Japanese, and a Klaxon sounded.
But all of those noises were drowned out by the sound of the roar they heard in front of them. They skidded to a stop as an immense space opened before them on the left, opening into an auditorium with stadium seating. On the floor-to-ceiling, wall-to-wall screen was an immense lizard creature attacking a city filled with skyscrapers. Fire leaped out of its mouth as it screamed again.
“Kavika!”
He dropped into a crouch, both sticks at the ready.
Spike had already engaged the first Boxer who’d caught up with them, taking out his knees.
Kavika stomped on the back of the man’s neck, then attacked the Boxer coming up behind him. He twisted and reverse punched with the short end of the sticks into his opponent’s sternum. The Boxer’s face blanched white as he fell to his knees.
Then they were in the thick of it.
The Boxers didn’t have any weapons, which evened the odds. Although they were outnumbered, Kavika and Spike had Escrima sticks, and they knew how to use them.
Kavika was kicked and punched several times in the face, but he gave better than he got, his sticks dancing in a fandango blur. Soon there was a gap in their opponents’ defense as one fell unconscious. Both he and Spike saw it at the same time. They reversed their run back the way they’d come and burst through, running pell-mell towards the stairs.
They took the stairs two at a time until they ran into more opponents. Kavika had been wondering where everyone was; now, he’d clearly found them. It took them more than a minute of battering the Boxers’ feet and ankles before they made the fourth level. At one point, they’d managed to tackle Spike and hold her down, one sitting on her back and another twisting her neck. Kavika managed to rap one of his sticks against the side of the first guy’s head and snap his neck; while the other froze at the sight, Kavika did the same to him. Although he and Spike made it to the top, they didn’t arrive unscathed.
They turned left into a narrow passage; the left wall was made of glass, beaded with moisture on the inside: a greenhouse, complete with plants, trees and grasses.
To the right was a room filled with six vats of cycling red liquid.
They limped past them and hit their target room at a run. Spike was battered and bleeding, but she kept right behind him. Dark shapes exploded from their beds, leaping to intercept them, but where the occupants were groggy, Kavika and Spike rode the leading edge of violence. They whipped their Escrima sticks in a modified Heaven Six, blocking with the broad edge and striking with the hard-knobbed ends.
Back to back, they were unstoppable. They were a machine of whirling pain.
Until a pair of dark figures took out their legs.
Kavika felt smothered for a moment as bodies surged over him, grabbing, slapping and punching. He kicked out and brought his arms across the bare skin of his opponents. Shark skin was as smooth as glass when felt one way, like a thousand tiny razor blades the other way... this was what he pulled across their flesh. They screamed, and with their cries came his own roars of outrage and fear and unspent energy.
For a moment, he was free.
Shouting came from outside the room; feet pounded along the hall. He and Spike only had a moment.
He stood as the lights came on and revealed a scene of chaos and murder. Two Boxers lay dead, one strangled with Spike’s legs still locked around his neck.
Someone grabbed Kavika from behind. He raised his arm and spun, trapping the hand that had reached out for his shoulder. And there, as if a gift from Pele herself, was the Boxer whose image had been captured on Akamu’s media stick.
Kavika shouted, “Come on!”
Spike released the dead man and fought her way to her feet.
Kavika pushed the Boxer hard and felt him lose his balance. Kavika kept up the pressure, angling them towards a window. He screamed, as if the sound could add fuel to his momentum. Face to face, the Boxer’s eyes were wide with shock.
“Behind you!” screamed Spike.
Kavika felt a blow, but it did nothing to slow him. The Boxer hit the window at full speed, and it exploded outwards. As Kavika was pulled through with the falling man, he realized that Spike had grabbed onto his back. Together, the three of them fell four stories into the lagoon.
When he hit, all the air left him. He sank deep as he somersaulted through the water. Once he slowed, he wanted nothing more than to breathe, but he didn’t know which way was up and which was down. The water was darker than any night, devoid of life and the light of the stars.
Just when he thought his chest was going to implode, Kavika felt hands grasp him, then movement as he was drawn to the surface. He surged into the night, sucking the cold air in with great gulps. Eyes open, he saw everything in a blink of an eye:
Boxers leaning out the broken window high above.
Spike surging free just as he was.
Water Dogs all around them, just as planned.
Donnie Wu hanging from the rigging of a nearby ship, a torch in his hand.
The Boxer floating face up in the water, a few feet away.
Kavika sank back into the water with the feeling one only gets at the end of the day when everything has gone to plan. Now to get the Boxer back to Ivanov, where he could be interrogated. No one would mess with the submarine, and the old Russian had hinted at being able to make anyone talk.
But when Kavika next surfaced, all wasn’t as he’d thought it was.
Twenty windows had opened at the base of the Freedom Ship. Divers with flippers like the Water Dogs dove into the water. The Water Dogs around him backed away—they weren’t prepared for a fight. Kavika grabbed the Boxer and yelled for help, and two Water Dogs returned for him, but just as they reached to grasp his outstretched hand, a great weight fell upon Kavika.
He sank down and down and down as something pressed all around him. The Boxer was still unconscious, his face inches from Kavika’s. Then their descent was halted, and Kavika found himself violently
jerked free of the water and flung into the sky.
A net!
Connected to a crane atop the Freedom Ship, a cable descended to the net that now held him and the Boxer. Spike was nowhere to be seen. Kavika tried to see below, but all he was able to catch was a furious fight in the water as it roiled and foamed with struggling Water Dogs and Boxers. Then, before he was pulled back into the ship, he saw the torch waving above Donnie Wu’s head. Knowing that his old friend was there was a small speck of hope, dropped into a growing chasm of dread.
Hands reached to grab the net and it was soon pulled onto a high platform. The net dropped to the hard surface, making him shout in pain as his knee was wrenched by his own weight. They pulled the net off him and, while one man held a knife to his jugular, stripped Kavika of his sharkskin. When he was naked, they threw him on the floor.
Chests heaved. Eyes flashed. Angry mouths spat curses. He could see the Boxers’ collective outrage in their stance—outrage that a disgraced Pali Boy would dare to breach their sanctum. Kavika knew that pain was coming. He knew he was going to be hurt terribly. And for one brief moment, he didn’t even care.
Then he saw Spike as they carried her past him. They’d removed her sharkskin as well, revealing her for what she really was. He would have liked to catch her eye, but she was unconscious, a lump forming on the side of her face.
A minute passed, maybe more, as he listened to the Chinese talk amongst themselves, mingled with his thundering heartbeat.
Then a figure hove into view. His target. The Boxer. He rubbed his head, then replied to something said to him by one of the others. He stood imperiously above Kavika for a moment, looking down at him, before calling for something. There was a flurry of movement.
Two men grabbed Kavika’s wrists and ankles and held them firm.
