Sargasso

by Russell C. Connor

  “It’s just like in that movie I saw,” Cherrywine said finally. Her voice, barely more than a whisper, was still uncomfortably loud in the stillness. Amber suppressed the urge to tell her to shut up.

  “How long you t’ink it’s been?” Jericho asked over his shoulder, straining with the effort of carrying the front end of Ray’s stretcher. “How long has dis t’ing been floating out here, waiting for us to find it?”

  “Judgin by the corrosion for a ship this big…fifty years,” Ray answered. “Maybe a hundred. Who knows?”

  “Really? Cause, I’m not a history major, but I don’t think they were buying iPads around the turn of the century.” Amber waved the detector at the sleek metal-and-glass front of an Apple store, the emblem above the door smeared with grime.

  “Not only dat, but I been around Caribbean ports me whole life, and I ain’t never heard of no ‘Ozuna Sun Cruise Lines.’”

  “You think the government might be covering it up? Not telling us about all the ships that really disappear in the Bermuda Triangle?”

  “If this ship was full of people when it ended up out here, there’s no way anyone could keep it quiet,” Ray said. “Course, if it was full of people, where are they all now?”

  At the foot of the stretcher, Tuan stumbled, tripping over the corpse of a child on the floor curled into a fetal ball, and almost dropped his end.

  Ray hissed in pain as he was jostled. “Let’s take a break.”

  They lowered him gently to the floor, unsettling a cloud of dust. The others sank down around him, all except for Carlos, who caught up to them and cried, “Yo, what are you doin, get up, we gotta keep movin!”

  “We’re goin as fast as we can, but if we don’t rest, we’ll crash out.”

  “We don’t got time! Those guys, they could…!”

  “The ones from the speedboat?” Ray asked. “Who gives a shit about them, they won’t be able to find us even if they do get on board. I’m more worried about this radiation.”

  Carlos’s jaw flapped a few times. His dark face was tinged with frustration in the lantern light. “Yeah, yeah, the radiation, that too! So let’s hurry and find the fuckin hose!”

  Ray sat up on the ground, wincing with a hand on his side. “If you’re so eager, why don’t you scout ahead and start lookin for some way to get us topside? The sooner we get to the bridge, the sooner we get outta here.”

  Carlos stood there a moment longer and threw a look over his shoulder, as if he expected one of the men from the boat—or perhaps far worse—to be creeping up on him. Both ends of the concourse faded into soupy darkness; it was possible the world no longer existed outside their bubble of light. He snatched a flashlight from Tuan’s pocket, picked up the shotgun from the bag on the floor, and hurried away. His footsteps bounced around the empty mall for another thirty seconds before fading away.

  “I’ve never seen that worthless brat be in a hurry for anything.” Ray snagged the walkie and attempted another broadcast to Lito in hushed tones, but received no response.

  “Maybe he got de right idea.” Jericho looked at the ground between his crossed legs. “You know I wanna wait for Lito just as much as you do, but we running outta time.”

  “When we get to the top, we’ll be able to see the entire area. If there’s no sign of ‘im…then you guys can look for a way off the ship, and I’ll wait to see if he shows.”

  Uneasy silence fell over them until Amber finally said, “As long as we’re resting…I wanna try broadcasting on the scanner.”

  “Jesus, you don’t give up, do you?” Ray sighed. “Fine. Do it. At this point, I think I’d welcome a nice Coast Guard cutter.”

  Amber set aside the radiation detector—making sure the device was still taking a reading on the surrounding area—and dug the scanner equipment out of the bag she’d been lugging on her back. This time, when she turned it on, the Voice of the Deep was so loud, it might have been someone shouting right next to her. The gibbering echoed off the high ceiling above the upper level of the mall, and bounced between the abandoned stores. Beside her, Justin cringed, and Cherrywine buried her face in Tuan’s chest.

  “Turn it down!” Ray hissed.

  “We’re practically right on top of dat signal,” Jericho said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if it was comin from right here, on dis ship.”

  Amber found the button on the scanner that allowed a broadcast and waited until the current transmission ended. Now that she was here, on the cusp of actually answering that hideous voice, all of her willpower was draining away. She had to remind herself that Tuan had already done it several times.

  Finally, when the radio speaker fell silent, she leaned down to the mic and said, “Hello? Can you understand me?”

  As before, there was a click followed by the melodic tone. She almost expected to hear the single Vietnamese word again, but instead the voice that answered this time was in English, so emotionless it couldn’t even be classified as male or female.

  “WARNING, DANGER,” it squawked, and, even though she had turned the volume low, once again the speakers blared so loud it made everyone jump. “WARNING, DANGER. ALL… RECEIVERS… ENGINE… FAILURE… BREACH… CRITICAL… LEAVE… AREA… UNSAFE.” The message started to repeat, that jerking pause between each word, as if it were having to stop to think about which one went next.

  “Turn it off,” Cherrywine pleaded. “Please, turn it off, it’s horrible!”

  “Just a second,” Amber said. After the English message repeated three times, and the line was open once more, she leaned to the microphone and asked the question in Spanish. “Hola? Puede me entiendes?”

  Click, beep, like an old answering machine message starting up, then, “PELIGRO. DESAPARECE…AHORA.”

  “What did it say?” Jericho asked.

  “Pretty much the same thing, ‘Warning, leave now.’”

  “No, it’s more informal than that,” Ray argued. “It’s closer to, ‘Danger, go away now.’”

  Amber waited until her turn to transmit came, and this time gave the inquiry in the only other language she knew.

  “What are you speakin now?”

  “German.”

  The click and beep came, but this time, there was only silence afterward. Amber turned the scanner back off and chewed on her thumbnail as she thought. The quiet of the deserted cruise ship seemed to rush back in from all sides.

  “I don’t understand,” Cherrywine complained. “What’s any of that mean?”

  “Does it matter?” Ray shifted on the stretcher. “Does it really matter what this thing is sayin or why it’s sayin it? It’s not tellin us anything we didn’t already know.”

  “It proves that whoever is broadcasting isn’t hostile,” Amber said. “They’re trying to warn people about the radiation. And whatever setup they have is capable of taking in our transmissions, determining the language, and then answering in kind.”

  “Yeah, but why is de return message different in every language?” Jericho asked. “It said more in English den it did in Spanish, and way more den in Vietnamese. And it didn’t even answer you dat last time.”

  “Because I don’t think these are pre-recorded messages at all. At least, not in each language. The fact that the sentence construction is so awkward makes me believe that the original message is being translated live, for our benefit. This computer—or whatever it is—is using what it has at its disposal.”

  “I’m not gettin you,” Ray said.

  Amber rolled onto her knees, gnawing her lip as she tried to think of a way to explain this theory, which she was almost positive had to be right. “One of the biggest pushes in linguistics programs is to develop an interface that can actually learn a language as it’s exposed to it. In other words, the more you talk to the computer, the more it’s able to speak back.”

  “Like Furbies!” Cherrywine exclaimed.

  Amber threw a jubilant arm around her neck, pulled the girl to her, and planted a smacking kiss on the top of her blonde crow
n. Cherrywine squealed in delight. “Yes, just like Furbies! If this automated broadcast is like that, then it’s going to have a larger vocabulary with whatever language it’s had the most exposure to, which, in this part of the world, would obviously be English and then Spanish. For all we know, Tuan might’ve been the first Vietnamese person it ever had contact with. It might’ve even picked up the word ‘leave’ from him, and then parroted it back to warn him. And it didn’t answer me in German this time, but if I keep speaking to it, it might.” She grinned. “The applications for something like this are…well, priceless.”

  “Okay, before we start plannin to win first place in this year’s science fair,” Ray said, “I have to repeat, we already know we need to get the hell outta here ASAP. It’s not exactly a revelation.”

  “Well maybe this is.”

  The words came from Justin, hunkered at the edge of the lamplight. They all turned to look at him. He held Lito’s revolver out with one shaking hand, and Amber realized she’d put the weapon down on the ground when they sat to rest.

  “None of you move,” he said, then coughed into his other fist. “We’re getting out of here right now.”

  5

  Carlos sprinted up the middle of the dark mall until a stitch in his side forced him to stop. He bent over with his chin nearly touching his knees, and sucked at the humid, dust-filled air. The particles coated his tongue, caused him to cough, but he barely noticed. He felt too anxious. Too desperate to get those other fuckheads moving again.

  Because, if Ray was right, and those really were the Dominican’s men in the speedboat, then there had been a time limit on the drug lord’s gracious offer, one he didn’t bother to make clear in their meeting. That, or maybe he hadn’t trusted Carlos in the first place. And really, why should he? Carlos hadn’t exactly done a bang-up job so far. Three of the Steel Runner’s crew were dead (four if you counted Lito in that group, and, god, Carlos certainly hoped he was rid of the man, even if it meant not having his head to present to Santiago), but he could only claim indirect responsibility for one of them. Anger warmed his cheeks at the thought of failing this test, followed by an even more acidic flush of sorrow at missing out on the opportunity.

  There is a third option, muhfuckah, a sly voice in his head purred. That Santiago was playin you for a fool from the beginnin.

  He forced himself upright and started running again. The only obstacle in his way was the missing fuel hose, and what a stupid fucking idea that had been. He needed Jericho alive now, to work his magic and either find a replacement or rig up something to get the Runner moving, and once that happened, Carlos could finish off the rest of them, including the white kids, and find a way off this ship. He just hoped it would still be in enough time for Santiago to have mercy on him.

  Ahead, the concourse opened up into a huge lobby in the belly of the cruise ship, with an ornate chandelier suspended over his head, from which most of the glass had long ago fallen. Far above, he could see an arching skylight that stretched across the entire ceiling. When the ship had been new, this lobby would’ve been filled with sunlight during the day, and anyone standing where he was now would have had a fantastic view of sky or stars. Now, it was so crusted over, all he could see were the last distant pulses of lightning the storm had to offer. A bank of elevators stretched around the lobby in a semicircle, but they weren’t going to carry anyone to the top of the ship anytime soon.

  A door to the far left bore a drawing of a stairwell. He hurried to it, jerked it open…

  And froze.

  The dark stairwell beyond was littered with bodies, stretched out across the steps, and lying over and across one another in the floor at his feet. Carlos thought they were bodies, anyway. They weren’t dried-out husks like the corpses they’d seen—or even those spongy, melted-looking things the pirates had become—but deformed shapes so twisted he couldn’t tell where one ended and the next began.

  All of them emitted a cool, blue glow, as if their leathery skin was made of neon.

  They lit up the entire stairwell. In the glow, he could see chests rising and falling in easy, gentle rhythms. The goddamn things were asleep, like bears hibernating in a den deep in the woods.

  Carlos backed up slowly. Every muscle in his body felt as taut as tripwire. When the door he’d just flung open started to swing closed again, the rusted hinges gave an angry squall.

  In the stairwell, there was movement. A few heads rose up from the pile of bodies, fastening on to Carlos with eyes that pulsed so brightly with blue light, they were like staring into car headlights. One of them gave a strangled, raspy cry, and that it was all it took to wake up the entire brood.

  Carlos spun and ran.

  6

  Justin was sick.

  There was no fooling himself any more. He could feel the disease or radiation or whatever it was working through his guts like a snake, changing him, remaking him. Soon, it would turn him into a creature like that little girl, so he could haunt these derelict ships for all eternity.

  But he’d come to terms with that. He could even live—or die—knowing that Amber didn’t love him.

  What he couldn’t stand—what he could not tolerate for even another second—was the idea that these lowlifes might get her out of this, only to rape and kill her like they’d probably planned in the first place. Amber may’ve forgotten what they were, but he hadn’t. He would make sure she was safe if it was the last thing he did.

  And then, before he could surrender to the siren song of those blue flashes, the ones that now seemed to be inside his head, he would put this gun in his mouth and pull the trigger.

  But first things first. He attempted to steady the weapon he’d taken with both hands, but the barrel still wavered wildly between the two remaining pirates. Sweat trickled down his face, and he wiped it on his shoulder. “Show me your hands!”

  From the opposite side of the lantern, Ray asked, “What the hell are you doin, kid?”

  “Don’t move!” Justin shouted. “I mean it!” He got to his feet, wobbling unsteadily. The darkness crouching beyond the lamplight seemed tinged with midnight blue to his dizzy eyes. “I will shoot you if you make me!”

  “Justin, put the gun down!” Amber begged. “They’re not gonna hurt us, don’t do this!”

  “Bring that flashlight and get up,” he told her, without taking his eyes from Ray and Jericho. He continued backing away, toward the nearest mall avenue, and beckoned. “You too, Cherrywine. Your new boyfriend can even come, if he wants. But we’re leaving these two here and finding a way off this ship on our own.”

  “No, we are not!” Amber argued. “We will die if we split up, don’t you see that?”

  “Listen to her,” Ray said. “We need you as much as you need us.”

  “That’s bullshit! You’re just…just t-trying to confuse me!” Justin paused to cough. A vein in his forehead pulsed fire in tempo with his heartbeat. He did feel confused, fuzzy-headed.

  And angry. So angry, and he wasn’t even sure why.

  Justin darted forward, grabbed Amber by the wrist, and hauled her up. “Move! Now!”

  Cherrywine made a move to rise. “Amber, what do we do?”

  “Just stay there, stay with Ray!”

  “Do what you want, but we’re going!” Justin tugged Amber along, toward the next row of stores, where they could turn the corner and be out of sight. Then they would be safe. Cherrywine and Tuan made no move to follow. What was wrong with these people? To the pirates, he shouted, “Don’t try to follow us!”

  “Amber, we’ll find you,” Ray called back.

  Justin started to rage at the audacity—them making him out to be the villain!—but the little electronic gadget Amber had left on the ground began to emit a fast clicking noise.

  7

  The cruise ship’s maintenance tunnels were a dank, corroded maze. Lito and Eric followed them more or less randomly, avoiding holes, taking ladders or stairs whenever possible, going whichever direction would
lead them up. It was claustrophobically hot down here, and Lito wondered what they would do if their only flashlight went out. Eventually they found a hatch leading up to a space that was more of a hallway than the pipe-and-electrical-conduit corridors that took up the very bottom decks of the ship. He shone his light on a door just a few yards away marked ‘SECURITY OFFICE A.’

  Lito crawled out onto the floor and then offered a hand to help Eric up. The rich prick brushed it off, pulled himself up, and then leaned against the wall to rest. He’d sulked the entire time, following without speaking. Not that the silence hadn’t been appreciated, since every time he opened his mouth, Lito wanted to punch him.

  He tried the walkie again, got nothing but static. They were just some amateur models he’d picked up at Radio Shack a few years back, not designed to transmit through the heavy steel bulkheads of a ship like this.

  Either that, or Eric’s right, and everybody else is dead.

  “Let’s keep movin,” he said. “That next wave of radiation is comin.”

  They approached the door of the security room, an office that had once housed whatever passed for law enforcement aboard this ship, flabby rent-a-cops charged with escorting drunk passengers back to their staterooms. Lito handed Eric the flashlight and said, “Hold this a sec.”

  As he figured, the metal door was locked. He put his shoulder to it one time, and almost ended up falling straight to the floor when the rusty lock shattered into pieces. Eric snickered.

  “You ever get tired of bein a douchebag?” Lito asked irritably.

  “You ever get tired of being a fuckup?”

  “I don’t think you know me well enough to make that call, gringo.”

  “Oh yeah? Tell me, what exactly have you accomplished tonight? Besides losing my ship, losing your ship, losing your crew, and ending up here while you wait to get fried?”

  Lito couldn’t argue with that, so instead he stepped through the broken door.

  On the other side was a plain office with only one cluttered desk, and several lockers with a duty roster posted beside them. One of the lockers was a metal-screened gun cabinet stocked with nine-millimeter pistols and riot shotguns. Lito figured he could break the lock with some muscle, but there probably wasn’t much point; the weapons inside were long past their prime after so much time in the sea air.