Blood Ocean

by Weston Ochse

  The Vitamin Vs ceased to be known as such. Petr survived Egor’s attack and took on the mantle of leadership. He asked that they simply be called Russians, which he felt was a more respectful term, honoring their ancestry. He had a box for Kavika that Victor had left. It was signed Uncle Evil and simply held an old media stick.

  Those Mga Taos who survived the sinking of their ship were assimilated into the city. The surviving monkeys took to the heights and began a life of running and jumping and stealing food. The Taos still worshipped the creatures, but in a very different way from before.

  The Corpers and the Boxers kept to their ship. What Los Tiburones had done to their water supply had shaken them to their core. It could just have easily been poison instead of the trippy hippy juice. And their partnership and affiliation with the Real People and the Rediscovered Dawn, and their promotion of blood rapes and monkey-backing, was something the citizens weren’t going to forget. They’d asked to be part of the initial meetings, but were told not to show up. For now, the Freedom Ship was a reminder of how things used to be, and a place that if seen, was quickly unseen as citizens went about the daily business of surviving.

  The Pali Boys themselves enjoyed a certain notoriety. Where before many of the groups and ships saw them as nothing more than a nuisance, a bunch of boys with nothing to do but cause havoc, now they called them heroes. Wherever they went, they were hailed as such. They knew it wouldn’t last, so they enjoyed it while they could.

  Kaja had been shot twice during the battle, one bullet shattering his left hip. It would take him months to heal. When he finally did, his chances of ever high flying again were virtually non-existent. Kavika was unilaterally asked to take on the mantel his father had once had, but he declined. The idea of a great wide world had been growing within him. The floating city, which had once been the beginning and end of his universe, now seemed so small.

  He waited a month for the city to recover before he decided to go. He asked Lopez-Larou to join him. While she thought about it, he was asked to present himself before Princess Kamala. The distaste he felt for her was palpable, but like it or not, she was their queen, and he felt inclined to obey.

  Her retinue acted as if nothing had happened. They were stuck in time. The old man was still there, along with the Samoan. Kavika still found that he was fascinated by her individually painted and ringed toes.

  “You defied me,” she said.

  Kavika noted that she was now speaking directly to him. “I did,” he said simply.

  “And you think this is good.”

  “Of course I do. How could it not be good? We were being oppressed and now we aren’t. We were being killed and used, and now we aren’t.”

  “I hated every moment of that existence. Whenever one of you was blood raped or monkey-backed, my heart ached.”

  “Yet you did nothing.”

  “I did do something. I angered you. You were my hand. You had your own uprising and did what you thought was against my wishes. Had you failed, I could have negotiated with the winners and saved our people.”

  “You wanted this all along?”

  “Of course I did. But I have to admit, I didn’t think my Pali Boys would survive. It seems that Wu’s and Kapono’s plan to create warriors really worked.”

  At mention of his father, Kavika met the old woman’s eyes. “Sometimes being a Pali Boy makes you forget you are a warrior.”

  She nodded and gathered him in with her eyes. “That’s how it is supposed to be. The gamesmanship made you all free spirits. It is how we are, it is what we needed. You’ve seen the alternative.”

  She meant the Neo-Clergy commandos. They’d been hardcore opponents and fierce warriors. But at the end, when Jacques had gathered his men around him, they’d been no better prepared for it, and no more loyal.

  “Why so complicated, Princess? Why didn’t you just tell us what you wanted in the first place?”

  “You saw what the world can bring to our city. You saw the dangers. Everything I do means I have to consider these things.” She paused to let the words sink in. Then she said, “It’s good you are leaving us.”

  Kavika smiled. “Is that a compliment, or an insult?”

  The Princess stood, her painted toes spreading as she put her weight on them and held out her hand.

  Kavika accepted it.

  “It’s a compliment, my Pali Boy. You have become too big for this place. We need you out there.”

  “Are there more of us out there?”

  “There are. We used to be in contact with some of the other cities. It’s been awhile, though.”

  “Maybe I can find them. Maybe I can organize them.”

  “Your father tried to spread the Pali Boy idea. I don’t know if any of it took, but you could see for yourself.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  A WEEK LATER Kavika was ready to go. He’d made sure that his mother and sister would be taken care of forever, and had said his goodbyes. All that was left was to convince Lopez-Larou to come with him, which was proving harder than he’d anticipated.

  Finally, standing by a small boat filled with water, dried fish and his weapons, she laid down the reality of the situation. “I can’t leave, Kavika. This is what I know. I wouldn’t be any good anywhere else.” She stared at the water.

  “We can find a place. We can figure out what to do when we get wherever we’re going.”

  She shook her head slowly. “But that’s you. It’s how you approach the world. You’re not afraid to go somewhere you’ve never been and start a new life.”

  “And you are?”

  “Definitely! That you aren’t is the mystery to me.” She puffed out her cheeks, and blew out. “Normal people don’t like change. They want things to remain the same for as long as possible.”

  “I don’t think that’s normal at all.”

  “Your normal and my normal are different.” She hugged herself and rocked back on her heels. “Oh, Kavika, I wish you could stay.”

  He looked long and hard at her. “I can if you want me to.”

  “I’d love to say that I do, but you wouldn’t be happy. I can see it in the way you look at things. You aren’t looking at the city anymore; you’re looking at the horizon. You want to know what’s on the other side.”

  He smiled wanly. “I can’t help it. For so long I was happy not knowing. I didn’t know the truth about blood rape. I didn’t know about the Neo-Clergy. I didn’t know that there’s an entire world out there. Now that I do, I can’t unknow. Now that I know, I have to know more.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Anywhere, for now, but eventually I’d like to go to Hawaii.”

  “You want to visit the Arizona, don’t you?”

  “Yeah,” he said, drawing the word out. “I want to see what my father saw in that oil. I want to see the ghosts of who we were.”

  Lopez-Larou stared at the gray sea.

  Kavika stared with her.

  “Leb was wrong, you know,” she said, eventually. “It is about blood. We can’t get away from it. Sure, you can join some other group and be some other thing, but who you are, is who you are.” She pointed to her jugular. “It’s in here. You’re Hawaiian by birth and you’re your father’s son. You’d do anything to remain that way. Wherever you go and whatever you do, you’re always going to be a Pali Boy.”

  He’d been nodding slowly as she spoke. “It doesn’t seem like such a bad thing.”

  “I suppose it isn’t. It’s a matter of what you do with it.”

  He turned towards her. “Isn’t that always the case?”

  She turned to him and smiled weakly. She stared at her feet.

  “So I guess this is goodbye then,” he said.

  She nodded as tears sprung into her eyes, and walked to him, hugging herself.

  He embraced her, put his chin on top of her head and held her to him. Finally, he tilted up her chin and kissed her tear-sodden lips.

  “Why don’t you put you
r arms around me?” he asked softly.

  “Because if I do, I won’t let you go,” she said, gripping herself even more tightly.

  Kavika nodded. They kissed deeply; she sobbed once or twice.

  Finally Kavika stepped away. “I’ve got to go,” he choked.

  “I know.” She wiped her cheeks with one hand, still hugging herself with the other.

  Kavika turned to get into the boat.

  “Wait!”

  He turned back.

  She ran and threw her arms around him.

  They hugged for a long while this time. They didn’t kiss. They didn’t cry. They just stood there, two people being one. Eventually it was time to go, and they parted wordlessly.

  He climbed into the boat and began to paddle, heading east. Somewhere at the water’s end, California waited. He’d been told about Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Diego. He wondered what sort of people he’d find there. Maybe he’d be like his father and start a new group. Perhaps the Pali Boys of Los Angeles. He’d open it up to all races, although he’d always have a special place for Hawaiians.

  Daddy?

  What is it, son?

  What does it take to be a man?

  Willingness to go it alone, to carve your own wave.

  It’d been a long time since he’d remembered one of his conversations with his father. He felt now that it would be far longer until he remembered another one, if at all. The media stick that Victor had given him had two things on it. One was a recording of his father’s stunts from when his father had been about his own age. The other was an apology from Uncle Evil. Both of them affected Kavika in different ways. He watched them once. He didn’t know if he’d ever have the strength to watch them again.

  Lopez-Larou called out to Kavika, but her words were lost to the wind. He dared not turn around. Instead, he offered her a shaka. He held it there for a good long while before he dropped it.

  Then he gripped the paddle and set about carving the waves.

  THE END

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  WESTON OCHSE is the Bram Stoker award-winning author of various short stories and novels, including the critically acclaimed Scarecrow Gods.

  He is much in demand as a speaker at genre conventions and has been chosen as a guest of honour on numerous occasions. As well as writing many novels, Weston has written for comic books, professional writing guides, magazines and anthologies.

  Weston lives in Southern Arizona with his wife, the author Yvonne Navarro, and their menagerie of animals. Blood Ocean is his second novel for Abaddon Books.

  www.westonochse.com

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