by Weston Ochse
Kavika tried to imagine a thousand Kajas or a thousand Donnie Wus and couldn’t make it work. “It sounds like he was important.” She nodded and puffed again. “My own dad wasn’t anything special before the plague, before the Cull.”
“What’d he do?”
“He ran tours to the Arizona. That was a sunken ship in Honolulu Harbor. He once told me that that ship meant more to him than almost anything else in the world.”
“Did he tell you why?”
“It went down in World War II in a place called Pearl Harbor. Do you know what that is?” Seeing her nod, he continued. “It was sunk by the Japanese, who’d surprised everyone by attacking. One thousand, one hundred and eighty-seven men went down into the sea, and none came back. He said that the ship weeps for them. Oil from the hold still seeps up to the surface of the water, even after fifty years.”
“Nice story, Pali Boy, but what does that have to do with it being your father’s favorite place in the world? I mean, it’s a sunken ship, for God’s sake.”
“I’m not sure. He never told me, you know?” After a moment, “But sometimes I think that he thought of the Arizona like our world.”
“And all the people gone from our world, do they weep too?”
“My mother told me once that we weren’t really in the ocean. She said this was a sea of tears, and we were all that’s left.”
“Your parents were both romantics.”
“What does that mean?”
“That they saw the world for what it could be, or maybe should be, instead of what it really is.”
“And what is that?” he asked, rankling a little at her comment. “Not that I really think the ocean is made of tears.”
“Easy, Pali Boy.” She made the glow one more time, then snuffed it into a bowl. After a moment of arranging her clothes, she stood and came over to sit beside him. “You take things too seriously, you know?” She put her hands on his shoulders and turned him slightly so she could massage the knots out of his neck and shoulders. “What the world really is, is a place where only a stubborn few are left to live. What the world really is, is a place where the dreams of generations were squashed by an invisible disease. What the world really is, is a place where a boy like you can get blood raped and monkey-backed and still survive because people love you. It’s a place still run by white men who don’t know when it’s time to just lay down and fucking die.”
Kavika closed his eyes as she massaged his neck. He enjoyed the silence for awhile. Finally he asked, “What happened to your father?”
“He was shot in the back.”
His eyes widened. “Do you know who did it?”
“Paco Braun.”
He jerked his head back. “What?”
“He runs most of the drugs now in the city. I spoke to him this morning.”
Kavika took one of her hands and turned towards her. Their eyes met. They were less than a foot apart. “How can you talk to him? Doesn’t it make you angry?”
She shook her head. “My father was a bastard. Both of them.”
“You had two fathers?” He shook his head in confusion.
“One that made me strong. One that made me smart.”
“Which one did Paco Braun kill?”
“He killed the one who made me smart. I killed the other one myself.”
“Who is the one that made you strong? The one you killed?”
“He was my real father. He left me in the desert when I was five just to see if God wanted to take me. I was out there for a day and a half before he came back and got me. He acted surprised to see me still alive. But no hugs, no kisses. He just told me to get in the back of our truck and he took me home.”
“Really?”
“I never knew my mother,” she said, her dull eyes staring at the light coming through the skylight. “Some said he killed her for having me, because I wasn’t a boy. Others said that she ran away because he raped her and she couldn’t stand for him to touch her. Or that she killed herself.”
“Did he never do anything at all for you?”
“He called me Lupita—Little Wolf—and he made me strong.”
He stroked her hair. She smelled sweet with a strange musk. “He made you strong so you’d survive. For as big a bastard as he was, he gave that to you.”
She buried her face in his shoulder. He felt her tears; a trickle at first, then faster until it was like a summer rain. “Then when he tried to touch me I found a way to kill him. I became the wolf. That’s when La Jolla found me.”
“My father was a bastard for dying,” Kavika offered. “But that’s the only thing about him I could ever fault him with. I told you he was a tour guide, right? That’s someone who shows other people things that have gone on before or what others have done. After the Cull, he never really stopped. When the Great Lash-up began, he was the one who got all the Hawaiians together. He taught them the old ways. He lifted them up from the decks, not all of them, but a few. He did this to remind them that they’d once been warriors. He did this to give them hope.”
“Hope for what?” she asked, her voice hoarse.
“Hope that we’d all somehow survive, because as long as we were defying death every day, then we’d be afraid of nothing when the time came.”
“Your father was smart. That sounds like a good plan.”
“Except I used to be afraid.”
“And you aren’t now?”
“I was afraid of what would happen to my family if I died. I was afraid of what everyone would say.”
“And now?” she asked again.
“Now I know it doesn’t matter. I was monkey-backed and blood raped and I’m here to talk about it. Nothing happened to my family while I was down. Nothing anyone can say to me can equal what that monkey took from me. There’s nothing anyone can do to me anymore.”
She whispered in his ear. “What the world really is, is a place where a Pali Boy evolved from a boy to a monkey to a man.”
Then she kissed him, softly, her lips lingering along his jaw.
“What the world really is,” he replied, “is a place where a shark and a Pali Boy can find a little peace before it all turns to shit.”
“Is it all going to turn to shit?” she asked, moving down to his neck and kissing it where it joined at his chest.
“Probably.” He kissed her forehead. “But we’ll find a way to survive it.”
“Are you that confident?” she asked, looking into his face. “Or that crazy?”
He smiled. “There really is no difference between the two. Donnie Wu told me it was all a matter of point of view. My confident is your crazy.
He finally kissed her upturned lips. “If you’re confident enough, you can get crazy with a shark and survive.”
“You sure about that?”
“Watch me.”
And he pulled her to him.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
DADDY, WHAT DID you do before the Cull?
I showed tourists the consequences of history.
What’s a tourist?
A person who pays to go somewhere so that they can feel bad about their ancestors.
Why would anyone want to do that?
They think they have to. It’s a sort of punishment for living life too well.
KAVIKA WOKE QUICKLY. He felt better than he could remember feeling in months. The weight against his left shoulder and ribs told him that Lopez-Larou was still there. The sun had risen. They’d thrown off the covers. He could feel the sweat sheeting his body.
He lay there for as long as he could before his bladder demanded release. Easing her head to the mattress, he got to his feet, went outside, and found a communal bucket.
Turning to go back inside, he found a mountain now blocked his way.
“You’re the one who had the monkey.” Skin as white as the foam on the waves, chest bare, with an orange and purple mumu around his waist. The man reached out and touched one of the wounds on his side where an umbilical had been attached.
K
avika took a step backwards. “I don’t mean any harm.”
The vast man shook his head. “You did enough harm with that stunt to cause us trouble for years.”
“I don’t want to fight.”
“You should have thought about that before, but then you were monkey-backed and didn’t have a choice.” He chuckled dryly. “There’s a price on your head, you know.”
Kavika glanced around. He could escape if he needed. He just had to make sure that the man’s immense hands didn’t get hold of him. He squared his shoulders and lifted his chin. “I don’t want to fight, but I will if I need to, fat man.”
The man’s chuckle rumbled through his cavernous torso. “I’ll give you this, boy. You got spunk.”
“Leave him alone, Tio,” Lopez-Larou said, leaning against the doorframe of her container and stifling a yawn. “What are you doing here, anyway? Isn’t this a little ghetto for you?”
The man smiled. “I just wanted to see who it was that got my niece into bed.”
“It could be half the Taos and half the Winkers, and it still wouldn’t be any of your business.”
“Maybe not, but it would be a notable achievement if that happened. Certainly one way to drum up business. Speaking of, we still need to talk about what you owe me.”
“I’m working it out.”
“It wasn’t your product. I get to decide how you work it out.”
Lopez-Larou immediately changed her attitude. “Tio, please. Give me until tomorrow.”
“What’s going to happen between now and then?”
“Anything. Everything.” She shrugged and smiled like a niece who knew how to work her favorite uncle. “Just until tomorrow, okay?”
The moment stretched until it seemed as if Tio wouldn’t agree. Then finally he nodded and lumbered away. When he was gone, Kavika asked, “Was that about the drugs Akamu was carrying? Are you in trouble with this man?”
She nodded. “That was Paco Braun.”
Kavika frowned. “He’s the one who killed—”
She nodded again. “I tracked the drugs to the Taos. Your friend Kaja sold my product to them.”
“Then we’ll get the chits or whatever he got for them and give it to Braun.”
She shook her head. “That won’t do it. He wants the product.”
“Why? You were going to sell it anyway, right?”
“Yes, but he wants me to fail. He’s got... plans for how I repay him.”
“Can you still get it?”
“Not in a million years.”
“Then what are you going to do?”
“I have no idea,” she said, looking at the sky and shaking her head.
An hour later found them on Ivanov’s sub. He had a table and chairs arranged on the deck. Breakfast was coffee, biscuits made from seaweed, and pickled fish. Kaja sat in a chair next to him. Oke, Mano and Akani swung idly overhead.
Ivanov beckoned for them to join him. He poured an acrid cup of coffee and sipped the hot liquid.
“Any news about Spike?”
Kaja shook his head. “I’ve had the boys out looking for signs. Nothing so far.”
Ivanov gave Kavika a haunted look.
“What?” Kavika asked.
“Nothing. I just think that if it’s been this long, nothing good can come of this.”
“I can’t not look for her.” Kavika kept his head down and his voice low to control his emotions. “She’d look for me.”
Kaja put a hand on Kavika’s shoulder. “We’ll figure this out. Don’t worry.” He wiped his mouth with the back of his other hand and looked around the table. “We haven’t found Kavika’s friend, but the boys have discovered a few things.”
They all turned toward the zeppelin anchored to the top of the Freedom Ship. It had arrived sometime in the night. It had come and gone perhaps a dozen times in Kavika’s life. As a child, he’d thought it was an immense bug, and it scared him. Now it was a mere curiosity. The rumor was that it went out to hunt whales.
Kaja turned to Lopez-Larou. “You told me I should walk the decks sometimes, remember?”
She glanced at Kavika self-consciously, then back at Kaja. “I remember.”
“It’s amazing what you can see if you only look,” Kaja said. “It should have been obvious all along.”
“What are you talking about?” Ivanov grumbled.
“Girly here told me I was looking at the world through a hundred-foot lens. She thought I should pay a little more attention. And you know what? It paid off.”
“What did you discover?” she asked, chewing on a corner of a biscuit.
“The zeppelin came because the Tao ship is sinking.”
“Why? What’s the connection?” Kavika asked.
“Not a hundred per cent sure, but there’s been a lot of activity both with the Corpers and the Real People since it happened. The Real People spent considerable chits getting people to help save the Tao ship. It’s as if it belongs to them.”
“Or something on it belongs to them,” Lopez-Larou said. “My guess is that the monkey-worshippers run a farm. Like the rice farm run by the slavers, except the Taos weren’t harvesting rice.”
“They were harvesting blood,” Kavika said. “My blood.”
“There’s definitely a stronger connection between the two groups than I’d realised.” Kaja turned to Ivanov. “I’m surprised that you weren’t aware of this.”
Ivanov waved the comment away. “I keep to my own business. As long as I have my missiles, everyone leaves me alone. So it’s just me and my Vitamin Vs.”
Kaja shook his head. “I think you know more than you let on.”
Ivanov grinned like a beast. “I’ll always know more than I let on. It’s how you survive.”
“So what’s the zeppelin for?” Kavika asked.
“Isn’t that the question? Where does it come from? How is it powered? Who’s on it?” Kaja let the questions hang.
“It needs fuel,” Ivanov said. “Unless it gets energy from the sun, it has to land to refuel sometime.”
“What sort of fuel does a zeppelin use?” Lopez-Larou asked.
“Don’t know and don’t care,” Ivanov grunted.
They sat for awhile, not talking, just eating. The winds were calm, but the gray slab of the sky promised rain. Finally it was Oke that broke the reverie, lowering himself to the deck and padding over. He whispered into Kaja’s ear. The Pali leader’s head shot up, and he looked at Kavika. The expression on his face was anything but happy. He put down his bowl of fish.
“Come on. We gotta go.”
“What is it?” Kavika asked.
“Princess Kamala. She wants to meet you.”
Kavika’s eyes went wide. No one talked with the princess. As royalty in exile from Hawaii, she was beyond speaking to. In fact, he could count on two hands the number of times he’d seen her in person outside a procession.
“What does she want with me?”
“Don’t know.” Kaja stood and nodded to Ivanov. “But we need to go.”
Kavika had planned to walk, but one look from the Pali leader made him reach out and grab the nearest rigging. Soon he was pulling his way towards the old ship the Hawaiians called home. It felt good to use his muscles, although he could feel his skin pulling at the wounds in his back and side. He had a little trouble with a net, and was forced to hang on with an elbow, lest he fall a hundred feet.
Mano, who was following close behind, probably to help him if he needed it, laughed at him and flashed a shaka as Kavika glanced around to see if anyone had seen. Hanging on with his elbow, Kavika shaka’d back. The sense of belonging that he’d lost when he’d been beaten from the sky had returned, and it filled him with warmth.
They alighted on the deck, and Kaja ran up the stairs to the bridge. Kavika had grown up looking at the black tinted windows his entire life. Never once had he set foot on the bridge, nor did he ever think he would.
An immense Samoan with arms the color of night, thanks to his many t
attoos, stood at the top. He let Kaja through. Kavika tried not to look into the gargantuan’s snarling face, but he couldn’t help it. The guard looked adept at snapping necks and hurling Pali Boys to the deck feet below. But he let Kavika past.
A narrow deck led around the side, the window on the left and the railing on the right. The door onto the bridge stood around the corner. It opened from the inside; Kaja stepped through it and beckoned for Kavika to come in behind him. It took a moment for him to adjust to the relative darkness of the room, so he just followed Kaja’s lead. When Kaja bowed, so did Kavika.
Then he saw her. She sat in a large wicker chair with a flared back. Another Samoan stood on her left and a thin elderly Hawaiian stood on her right. She wore her gray hair long. Seeing her was a shock; for some reason he’d always thought of her as young and vibrant, but the woman before him was anything but young. Of course, she couldn’t be. Princess Kamala had been with them ever since the Cull. Maybe she’d been a girl then, but now... now she was a grandmother.
“Kaja, is this the one?”
“Yes, Princess.” Kaja kept his head down, slightly bowed at the waist when he spoke to her.
Kavika noted that she was staring right at him and that he wasn’t in the proper position. He corrected his stance and now stared at her toes, which were each painstakingly painted with a flower, each encircled by a gold or silver ring.
“And you say he was monkey-backed?”
“Yes, Princess.”
“But he doesn’t look like he was monkey-backed. He looks like any one of your Pali Boys.”
“He was Kapono’s son.”
“That explains much... including his curiosity. How is he feeling now that he’s been freed from the monkey?”
“Kavika,” Kaja said, “Princess Kamala wants to know how you are feeling.”
“Er, do I tell you or her?”
There was a pause as Kaja received direction.
“Tell me,” Kaja said. Then to Kavika’s unasked question added, “It’s just the way it’s done.”
“Okay, then. I’m actually feeling fine. Maybe a little stiff.”
Kavika waited for Kaja to repeat what he’d said, then realized that he wasn’t going to when Princess Kamala asked another question.
