Tankbread 2: Immortal

by Paul Mannering

  “Look at you, pretty birdy. Look at you, little birdy...” the girl crooned and reached out to stroke something at her feet.

  Else could hear it now, the thin cries of a young seabird, either taken or fallen from one of the high nests. The girl straightened up, her thin legs tanned and smooth.

  “Pretty birdy . . .” she cooed again and Else saw the nearly ready-to-fly fledgling huddled on the deck. The girl raised her bare foot and stomped down on the baby bird, crushing its back and making it squeal, a sharp anguished sound. The girl stomped her foot again and again, giggling as she crushed the life out of the chick.

  Else watched as the child grinned at the smear of mashed flesh and feathers, then scraped her foot along the deck, wiping it clean. Lowanna stirred and started to grizzle. The child spun around and stared at Else with wide green eyes. Her expression was a mixture of guilt and angry surprise. A dark bruise running from her eye and down across her tanned cheek colored her face even darker.

  “Go away!” the child shouted and bolted through the nets and containers towards the high structure of the ship’s interior.

  Else followed, ducking and weaving past the ropes and nets. She reached the door just as the girl was heaving it open. Overbalancing, Else slammed her shoulder into the wall and grabbed the girl by the back of the neck. The child screamed as Else swept the machete up to the girl’s face. “Shut up!” she growled. “Shut up or I will cut your fucking head off.”

  The trembling girl went silent. Else felt a warm wetness spreading over her leg as the terrified child wet herself.

  “Who else is on this ship?” Else snarled over the girl’s shoulder. The girl whimpered and said nothing.

  “Tell me,” Else warned.

  “Ev-everybody,” the girl whispered.

  “Show me,” Else said, aware that Lowanna was crying lustily now and even the noise of the roosting birds wasn’t enough to cover it.

  The girl reached out and gingerly twisted the door handle. Else stepped back, the tip of the machete hovering over the girl’s shoulder. The child pulled hard and the door creaked open wide enough for them to slip inside. A puff of stale air that stank in a thousand different ways wafted out over them.

  “The ones inside, alive or dead?” Else asked.

  “Alive,” the girl replied and stepped into the dark. Else followed her. The girl stopped and looked back. “You have to close the door,” she explained. Else reached back and pulled the door shut. They stood now in the pitch dark of a narrow corridor.

  The child seemed at ease here. “I’m going to get in trouble for sneaking on deck,” she said. “But not half as much as you’re going to cop it,” her voice carrying a malicious smirk in the darkness. A click, and a jury-rigged line of electric lights banished the shadows.

  “Where is everyone?” Else said.

  “Below decks and the up-highs are up there,” the girl waved at the ceiling. “Captain and crew mostly. They live good up-high. One day they’ll take me and I’ll live above too.”

  “How old are you?” Else asked.

  “Dunno. Almost old enough for boobs, I reckon.” The girl stared at the wriggling lump on Else’s body. “That baby yours?”

  “Kinda,” Else said, not in the mood for further explanations. “Show me where your people are.”

  The girl walked ahead, leading Else down a flight of stairs. Turning at the landing the girl skipped down the next flight. Else followed her; close enough to cut her down if necessary, but not too close. The walls here were painted in garish graffiti. Stick figures marched in crooked lines and tiny crosses floated above their heads. Scraps of faded cloth and plastic hung from the ceiling and walls. Older art had been covered with new layers in some places. In others the paint had been scratched away and rough letters, spelling out names, were etched into the metal. The girl stopped at a door set in the painted wall.

  “You can still run away,” she said with a sly smile.

  Else lifted the machete and pressed the point to the girl’s cheek. “I can still cut you too,” she smiled back.

  The girl twisted away and opened the door. The smell was stronger now. A miasma of shit dissolving in piss, the stench of sweat, sex, and cooking smells all combining into the stink of people living in tight conditions for a long time.

  In the vast empty metal chamber beyond lay a tent city. Each small area was marked off with grey and stained hanging sheets. People talked, laughed, swore, and coughed in the gloom. The electric lights stopped at the bottom of the stairs. Guttering oil lamps hung sporadically throughout the open space, straining to burn in the foul air.

  Else blinked at the huddled mass of faces that turned to stare at her with open curiosity. The girl walked confidently along the narrow path between the clustered families and tugged on the arm of a man standing half-hidden in the gloom. He leaned over and looked down the girl’s pointing arm to where Else stood, wary and alert, scanning the strange crowd from the doorway.

  The girl returned, the man in tow. He wore a patched shirt, the red check pattern on it faded to a bloodless pink. His thick beard and roughly cut hair framed cold blue eyes that stared at Else as he calculated the value of the woman at a glance. The girl held his hand as they approached.

  “Where the hell did you come from?” he said by way of greeting.

  “The land,” Else said. Still watching the peering faces, looking for any sign of her baby in the crowd.

  “Why’d you wanna come out here?” the man asked.

  “Looking for my baby. He got taken. A friend said the Sea People might have taken him.” Else casually lifted the machete and rested the back of the blade on her shoulder. “I’m here to take him back.”

  The bearded man regarded her for a long moment and Else stared back at him.

  “They call me Hob,” he said.

  “Else,” Else replied. “Where’s my baby?”

  “She’s already got one,” the girl said from her place by Hob’s waist.

  Else bared her teeth at the girl and tightened her grip on the machete handle.

  “Shut it, Sarah,” Hob said, one hand raising to cuff the girl. She shrank back and gave Else a dark look.

  “This is Lowanna, she isn’t mine. Her parents are both dead. My boy is only a couple of days old. He was in a little boat. The flood washed it up by where the river goes out to sea. When we found the boat, evols came and Jirra said they dressed like Sea People. We killed a lot of them, but Jirra didn’t make it. He was Lowanna’s father. Her mother died after she was born, a few days ago. So I’m looking after her now and I’ll ask you one more time. Where the fuck is my son?”

  Hob shrugged. “We got laws here. Laws keep things straight. You get a share of water. You get a share of food. You bring back salvage, you get a bigger share. We got another law. Law of salvage. You find it off ship, it’s yours. A gun, a tin of peaches, or a kid. All the same under salvage law.” Hob raised his voice as he recited the law, and the watching crowd murmured their agreement.

  “I’m not staying here. I just want my son.” Else shifted Lowanna in the sling to a more comfortable position on her hip. “If you don’t give him back, you’ll be the first to die.”

  Hob grinned and slowly turned his back on Else. “We got a dispute over salvage!” he shouted to the crowd. They grumbled and shifted in anticipation. “We got a law for that too!” he roared. The crowd agreed noisily.

  “When two parties are at odds and no agreement can be reached, let them decide it between themselves. One fight. One winner. End of story!” Hob was talking to them and Else. She could see the way they responded, the way his words roused them from the stupor of living in such close and desperate misery.

  These people wanted to see someone else suffer. They wanted blood on the walls, broken bones and shattered teeth. They wanted their frustration and fear to be crushed. They wanted a victory and damn the cost. No glory could be too small or remote. Else aimed to disappoint them.

  The gathered throng came a
live. They leapt and crawled over each other, scampering up the walls on ropes and onto ledges with the practiced ease of monkeys, or people shut in a confined space for far too long.

  “Are we gonna settle this in the Hole!?” Hob shouted. The crowd took up the call.

  “Hole! Hole! Hole!” they roared.

  “Where is my baby!?” Else pushed back at people who pressed against her, the stink of them turning her empty stomach.

  “The kid is salvage. You gotta fight for him!” Hob sneered.

  “I’ll kill you!” Else shouted to be heard above the crowd.

  “Not me, love! You fight the one who claimed salvage!” Hob addressed the excited crowd: “This woman came from on land! Came here saying we took her salvage!” Hob feigned indignant surprise and the crowd dutifully booed and hissed.

  “Rowanna!” Hob yelled to the ceiling. A woman came through the press of people. She ignored the hands that patted her shoulders and back. She took no notice of the shouts of support and the instructions on how to kill the stranger. She held a tiny bundle that nursed against her swollen breast. She stared at Else with dead eyes.

  “Rowanna, do you want to give up the salvage you rightly claimed as your own?”

  The crowd went still, listening for an answer to Hob’s question.

  “They took my Alex,” Rowanna said. “I prayed to the Captain that he would be spared. Captain gave me salvage. I thank the Captain for that. I’m never giving up my baby. He’s Captain’s gift to me.”

  Hob turned to Else, grinning a showman’s smile. “How about you, girly? You gonna crawl back into the mangrove swamp and dust? You gonna walk outta here and go back to dodging evols?”

  “I’m leaving,” Else said, never once taking her eyes off the tiny figure in Rowanna’s arms. “And I’m taking my son with me.”

  “We have a contender!” Hob bellowed.

  Else charge forward. The mob grabbed her, holding her arms and lifting her into the air. They carried her through the dark corridors of the ship. She would have fought them all. Cut them down and waded through the river of their blood, but two men hung off each arm, keeping her still.

  The Hole was deep in the belly of the ship, a dark and empty chamber of steel walls and doors. The gloom retreated from the sputtering light of oil lamps as the crowd pushed into the room. A fence of woven wire had been erected around an open space. The wire strands had been braided into cables with shards of glass and jagged metal jutting out to form vicious barbs. Hob stepped up to the fence and twanged a taut line.

  “It ain’t Thunderdome!” he told the crowd and they howled in delight. “It’s the cage match to end all fucking cage matches. It’s the judge, the jury, and the fucking executioner! You come in here, you’d better believe in your cause!”

  The crowd stamped and cheered, clapping their hands as they were swept up in the excitement of the show and the suffering to come.

  Hob waved the noise down to a guttural growl. “We got a salvage dispute. We got two women set to tear each other apart for the right to claim a puke-stain as their own. Another mouth to feed, who fucking needs it?!”

  The crowd roared in approval and Hob waited till they subsided to continue. “Salvage is salvage, we don’t dispute that. The last one standing gets to claim the kid and the Captain’s reward! Even King-fucking-Solomon couldn’t give you a deal like that!”

  The crowd cheered again and Else was forced to the edge of the wire. Hands lifted the screaming Lowanna from her sling and Else twisted in the rough grip of a dozen hands, glaring at a young woman who took Lowanna in her arms and cradled the baby gently.

  “Gotta hand over the knife. You’ll get it back,” Hob said. “If you win,” he added with a grin.

  Else growled as the machete was taken from her. The lowest wire rope was lifted and she slipped into the square ring. She stood for a moment, taking stock of the surroundings. A movement high above the spectators’ heads caught her attention. A small camera mounted on the wall turned and stared back at her.

  Rowanna came in from the other side. She had stripped down to a ragged pair of long shorts and a filthy bra, stained with grime and sweat. Her hands were empty and any remaining expression had drained from her face.

  “Get it on!” Hob yelled, banging on a steel corner post with the back of Else’s machete. Else stepped sideways, feeling the floor under her feet and watching her opponent. Rowanna didn’t move for a moment and then took a hesitant step forward. Then two more. She was now within five feet and Else closed the gap in two long strides. Her fist slammed into Rowanna’s nose. Blood gushed, sending Rowanna stumbling backwards.

  Shaking her head, the woman blocked Else’s next punch by grabbing the fist with both hands and biting down on Else’s knuckles. Else raised her other fist and slammed it down on top of the woman’s head. Rowanna dropped to one knee.

  Else drew her foot back to kick at the woman’s head. Rowanna sprang upwards, her entire body driving into Else’s swollen belly and knocking the wind out of her. The body blow pushed Else back against the wire. She felt her flesh tear, and a sharp stabbing pain blossomed in her shoulder.

  With an enraged howl Else clapped her hands hard against Rowanna’s ears. The woman screamed and pulled back, her ragged nails slashing at Else, tearing her shirt and raking her skin.

  Else pulled herself off the sharp wire. Feeling blood pour down her back, she ripped her shirt off and twirled it into a thick cord. With a snap she flicked it at Rowanna’s shrieking face. The woman lurched backwards, one hand slapped to her eye as blood and fluid spilled down her face.

  Else stepped up and punched her opponent in the cheek, crushing the bloody eyeball that hung by a strand of tendon against her face. Rowanna’s scream became shriller.

  Else lashed out with a snap kick. As straight and hard as a blade, the edge of her boot crushed Rowanna’s throat, reducing her screams to a choking gurgle. Lost in the red fury, Else leapt on the woman and buried her thumbs in her eye sockets. Rowanna convulsed, her feet beating a desperate tattoo on the bloodstained floor.

  Else howled and felt the thin wall of bone at the back of the woman’s eye sockets collapse under the driving pressure of her thumbs. She pushed them into Rowanna’s living brain until the woman shuddered and lay still.

  Every muscle of Else’s body ached. The room spun around her and she could hear her baby crying. She staggered to her feet and felt the floor tilt crazily.

  “Baby . . .” she said, reaching out towards a sudden flare of darkness that swallowed her whole.

  Chapter 5

  Shifting murmurs of half-heard phrases always filled Else’s sleep. The voices came from before she could understand words. From the time when her senses floated in a warm liquid womb and the world was only half-perceived. Like a dream, she remembered the soft shapes of men and woman dressed in white, inserting long needles into her liquid world. She moaned as once again a sliver of steel slid into her arm.

  “She’s waking up,” a male voice announced. Else opened her eyes and then sat bolt upright, flailing in panic. She gasped in pain as the fresh stitches in her back pulled taut.

  “Relax, no one here will harm you,” the man said, his voice slurring. Else slid sideways off the bed. Hampered by the plastic tubes buried in her arm, she half-fell to the cold floor.

  “Where’s my baby?” Else demanded. She tugged at the lines in her arm, wincing at the sharp pain this caused.

  “He is fine. Sleeping in fact, just as you were.”

  “Who are you? What are you putting in me?” Else gained her feet and stood unsteadily in some kind of cotton shift dress, glaring at the man in the off-white coat on the other side of the narrow bed.

  “My name is Doctor Clay. I’m giving you saline, some essential nutrients, and blood. O negative blood. Your type has proven difficult to match with anything other than a universal donor type.”

  “Take these needles out. Do it now!”

  “As you wish.” Doctor Clay moved around the
bed and slowly reached out. “Hold still . . .” He slid the first IV line out and instructed Else to press a finger on the spot while he removed the second needle. Else looked around the room, a clinic of some kind with only two beds in it and the other one was empty. Cabinets lined the walls and everything shone in either stainless steel or sterile white.

  “I’ll see if I can find something to dress that with.” The doctor moved stiffly. Else waited until he was clear of the bed and then started looking for the baby. Every cell ached to hold her son again. But there was no sign of him.

  “Everything okay?” the doctor asked.

  “Where is my baby!?” Else lunged at the white shape, her head spinning in a slow yaw of dizziness.

  “You will see him again soon.”

  Else frowned; this all felt wrong. The way he moved, the slight slur in his voice. She hesitated, a sudden flare of awareness igniting her nerves and making her skin ripple in disgust. Doctor Clay stood staring at her.

  “You’re dead,” she said. Doctor Clay blinked slowly. Else let her eyes search the room for a weapon.

  “There’s no need to panic,” Clay said. “You are in no danger.”

  “You are. You’re in so much fucking danger right now, if you had any sense you’d be screaming.” Else took a step forward, her bruised hands curling into fists.

  “Things are different here. You will learn that.” Doctor Clay’s voice remained calm, but he took a step backwards for each one that Else advanced.

  “I’ve spent my entire life destroying things like you,” Else said. “Things that thought they were right and just and doing the best for everybody. But they were wrong. You’re always wrong. You don’t know what is right for me, for my baby. Not for any of us!”

  Doctor Clay backed into the wall. He reached for the door handle and Else slammed a hand down on his wrist.

  “No,” she said. “I’ll destroy you all. No exceptions. Ever.”

  Else’s hand drew back and the doctor’s eyes went wide. He opened his mouth to speak. Else punched at his throat. The dead doctor blocked the punch and Else’s knuckles tore open on the metal band of his wristwatch. Clay’s nostrils flared. His eyes clouded and Else jerked her arm back from his twitching nose.