Flood City

by Daniel José Older

  “Oh, you got your skills together that quick, huh?”

  “Maybe I do.”

  “It’s gonna be dark soon.”

  “So?”

  “I think the Star Guard put another curfew on tonight.”

  “So?”

  Max grinned. “So we better hurry.” And off they went.

  The city sped past Ato at a frenzied rush. Some of the buildings were ancient brick structures, half dilapidated and trashed, while others where majestic steel skyscrapers. They all became a blur as he amped up his speed and brushed past Max.

  “Oh, think you’re slick, huh?” Max called from behind him.

  Ato laughed and leaned into the wind the way Max had taught him. For a perfect second, he rushed ahead. The air seemed to cleave to either side of him to make way. Then his tummy gave a lurch of warning, and he realized he was tipping too far forward. Panicked, Ato kicked his feet out, too hard, waaaay too hard, and sent himself into an airborne somersault. He bounced painfully off the side of a building and then spun back out into the sky upside down.

  Max hurtled forward with a burst of flame from his boots. He cringed, seeing Ato bounce off the building, and then aimed directly for the same spot so he could line up their trajectories. Shouldn’t be too hard; he’d seen Yala do building bounces a hundred times but had never bothered to try it himself. She made it look easy, of course, because she was Yala, so anything having to do with agility was the most natural thing in the world to her. But Max knew the wall bounce took a careful balance of speed and precision. He burst toward the wall, his hand stretched in front of him. Perhaps a little too fast. Definitely way too fast, but it was too late. Max smashed hands, then face, then full body into the wall. A billion color splotches dotted across his vision for a second and then he could see again and he was springing backward right behind Ato. At least he got the angle right.

  Max whirled himself around, reached out, and grabbed Ato’s foot as it spun around again. “Gotchya!” He decelerated and brought them down carefully onto someone’s balcony.

  “You okay?” Max asked.

  Ato looked stunned for a second and then smiled. “That was amazing!”

  Max burst out laughing. He pulled a shaky hand across his face and it came back bloody. “Shoot.”

  “Oh, you’re hurt?”

  “Nah,” Max said, ruffling through his pockets for some tissue. “Think I took the wall a little hard is all.” He realized he was still laughing. “It happens.”

  “You wanna head home?” Ato said.

  “Not really,” Max said. “Mom’s working the overnight and being home just makes me mad that Yala’s gone.”

  Ato nodded. “The curfew?”

  “I don’t even care.”

  “What do they do if they catch you out after dark?”

  Max shrugged. “Send you to the academy. Chop off your head. I dunno.”

  “What would they do to me?”

  Ato had no ID of course. He was a stranger, and worse than that,he was a Chemical Baron. They had barely spoken of it since that first rainy day, and Max had simply let the fact that they were sworn enemies slip out of his mind. He’d introduced Ato as his new friend, and people generally just assumed he was from a different neighborhood of Flood City. But the Star Guard peacekeepers were something else entirely, always sticking their giant blue noses as far into people’s business as possible. “I don’t know,” Max admitted. “Maybe we should go back.”

  The last traces of daylight were disappearing from the sky around them. A few gas lamps flickered on along the walls of some nearby buildings. A holocam drifted past, making little futzy noises as it went.

  “No,” Ato said. “I grew up following rules, being careful, minding my manners. The Chemical Barons live a military existence, glued to all kinds of archaic codes that most people don’t even understand anymore. And I’ve left all that behind. I’m done following rules that don’t make any sense.”

  “So you wanna stay out all night?” Max did too, but he didn’t want his friend to get in trouble.

  “What’s the worst that could happen?” Ato said, jumping into the air and igniting his boots.

  Max followed a few seconds later. “That’s the kind of thing people say right before they get …”

  They rounded the corner and Max shut his mouth. Three towering blue Star Guards frowned down at them.

  “… caught.”

  “Three o’clock,” Effie said. Dante hucked his balled-up sock, heard it bounce off the wall and land softly on the wood floor. Effie went to get it. “Close but not quite. That was more like three thirty.”

  Dante sighed. He could’ve sworn he had it right. He’d had the layout of the bedroom memorized for two years now, and it was driving him up the wall that he couldn’t seem to picture it correctly when it mattered most.

  “You wanna take a break?”

  Effie was always sensitive to Dante’s smallest aggravations. He shook his head, and she put the balled-up sock in his hand again. “You ready?”

  Dante projected the floating clock numbers into the air around him, trying to imagine exactly how far away the walls were. He nodded.

  “Two-thirty,” Effie said.

  Two-thirty, Dante thought. Almost three but back a half tick. He focused on the hovering number three directly to his right and then tossed the sock a little before it.

  “Perfect!” Effie yelled a little too loudly. “You nailed it, D!”

  Dante put a finger up to his lips and heard Effie gasp as she realized her mistake. Footsteps were already clomping down the hallway toward them. Dante threw himself into the bed and pulled the sheets up to his neck.

  The knob turned, the door swung open, and one of the bad men came in.

  “What’s going on in here?” the man said. It was a boy’s voice, someone around Dante’s age or a little younger. He sounded terrified, like he was doing his best to act brave and failing miserably. He had light brown hair and big blue eyes, and he looked like he was a little scared but doing his best to cover it up and act tough.

  “Nothing,” Effie squeaked.

  “We said no talking, no?”

  “Yes,” Effie and Dante both said.

  “So … what is so important that you are yelling, missy?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Alright, pick up all those socks. Just ’cause your parents aren’t here doesn’t mean you get to be messy.” And he was gone.

  Effie let out a long breath of air as Dante tried to get his heart to stop roaring away in his ears.

  “Identification cards, please,” one of the Star Guards said in a gruff voice.

  “Um … what?” Max said.

  Another Star Guard stepped forward. Max recognized his wide forehead and furrowed brow—it was Captain Gorus, the same one who’d bothered him on the day of the attack. “We have word that several of the Chemical Barons escaped from the cloud cruiser last week and infiltrated the civilian population. They may be holed up in an old hideaway or seeking refuge with Baron supporters within the city.”

  Max scoffed. “There’s no Chemical Baron supporters in Flood City,” and then he swallowed hard, realizing that in a way, he qualified as exactly that. “Well, if there are,” he added hastily, “we haven’t seen ’em.”

  “Show us your identifications, please, and you can be on your way.” Captain Gorus made it sound so simple.

  Max closed his eyes. There was no easy way out of this. Ato was already trying to stutter out an answer, but he wasn’t making much sense.

  “He left his at home,” Max said. “We’ll go get it and bring it to you.”

  “No can do,” Gorus said. “It is a crime in the confines of Flood City to leave your house without your identification card. Also, it’s after dark, which means the curfew has begun, which means you’re both in violation of it. So why don’t you two young fellows come with us?”

  Max had had his heels pressing lightly against the accelerators the whole time, ready
to bust out at a second’s notice. He pushed down as hard as he could and yelled, “Get out of here!” as he burst toward the shocked Star Guards. One of their huge hands was already reaching out for Ato. Max adjusted slightly and thrust himself at it, pushing it out of the way just in time.

  “Hey!” the Star Guard yelled.

  Ato powered up his boots and sped off, not caring where, just trying to put as much distance between himself and those blue giants as he could. He felt terrible leaving Max behind, but he knew it didn’t make any sense to stay—Max had ID and knew how to get away from them anyway. If Ato was caught, it meant imprisonment for sure and who knew what else?

  He rushed down the smallest, windiest alleys he could find, sped past curtained windows and abandoned buildings and floors that were wide open, revealing a whole family panorama for all the city to see. A few times he adjusted wrong—flying was particularly hard in the growing darkness—and scratched against walls or dipped too close to the jagged ground.

  Finally, when he was sure the rumbling footsteps of the Star Guards were long gone, he stopped and threw himself breathlessly against a wall. He powered his boots down to a low levitate and looked around. Dim gas lamps hung in their flickering halos, but otherwise the city was almost as dark as the night sky above him. He had no idea where he was and even if he did, he wouldn’t know how to get back to Max’s house. The one thing he did know was that he was a million miles from home in enemy territory and that he could never go back. Never. The word felt like a brick in his chest. He’d been so caught up in the excitement of the crash and hanging out with Max and learning about this new place, he hadn’t stopped to think about never going home again.

  His mom and dad were probably freaking out and checking for updates constantly with the various War and Intelligence Barons. He thought about better times with Get—how they would gorge on syntenelle snacks after every mission, no matter how messed up it had been, and watch the holocasts and know better than to ask each other about any of it, even though the screams and laser fire rebounded endlessly through their thoughts. And the one time Get did start talking about being scared before a raid, his face wide open, that brave veneer suddenly gone. Ato had admitted his own fears too and how the roar of it all used to linger, long after the mission was over, and how maybe it becoming normal was even worse, now that the roar was starting to die out. They’d both cried, and it had been like releasing a huge, heavy balloon that had been lodged in him, shoving all his insides into the wrong places.

  Maybe, somehow, they could piece this all back together. Maybe he could go home again and convince the Barons that the Flood City folks weren’t so bad after all.

  Mephim’s snarl flashed inside Ato’s eyes. He shook his head. There was no turning back. Not now. He could never go home again.

  A few tears started to threaten the edges of Ato’s eyes, but he didn’t have time for all that. He was lost and the Star Guard was after him and it was well after curfew. He blinked the tears angrily away. No. Not right now. There’d be time to grieve and be homesick later. Hopefully.

  Ato took a deep breath and tried to clear his aching mind. The thought of Mephim lurking somewhere in the city was almost too much to bear. Anyway, he had more important things to worry about, like how to get back to Max’s.

  He picked a random direction and jetted quietly off.

  Max wound semi-aimlessly through some back alleys near Flood City Plaza. Surely Ato hadn’t gotten far. Plus, thanks to the curfew, the city was virtually empty, and the only sounds were crashing waves and occasional iguanagull cries from above.

  The Star Guard ruined everything, Max thought. They literally stuck their big ridiculous blue hands into every situation and caused endless amounts of trouble. It almost made it worse that half the trouble they caused was from sheer obliviousness. They just bumbled through their ludicrous protocols and bylaws and got in the way. Sure, they handed out food, but it was barely enough for everyone to survive, and they could make things difficult for the black market whenever they felt like it. And maybe they had played a crucial role in saving Flood City from the Chemical Barons all those years ago, but they obviously weren’t doing a very good job right now. Cloud cruisers were falling out of the sky. Barons had infiltrated the city. Everything was a great big—

  A shrill whisper sounded from the shadows of a nearby alleyway. “Pssst!”

  Max froze.

  “Psst!”

  “Who is it?”

  “Come here.”

  There was too much intrigue in the air for that kind of nonsense. Max stood his ground, plotting the quickest escape route in his head.

  “Come here!” the voice repeated.

  Max shook his head. “Nope. You wanna talk to me, you come and do it. I’m not disappearing into some shadow never to be heard from again.”

  “Good lad,” Old Man Cortinas said, buzzing out of the alleyway. “This isn’t the time to be trusting strangers.”

  “Cortinas!” Max gasped. “What are you … What’s up?”

  The old rebel shrugged and swiped at the air. “Eh, you know—been lying low ever since the crash. Heard the Star Guard had a little bounty on my head.”

  “I saw you what you did that night,” Max said. “I didn’t know … you … knew how to do that.”

  “From the old days, is all. A few tricks I picked up back during the original Flood City rebellion.” The original Flood City rebellion. Old Man Cortinas had been a fierce leader back in the day, people said. Max was suddenly full of questions, but Cortinas stopped him with a single look. “Max, I need you to do something for me while I’m in hiding.”

  Max tried to imagine what that entailed, being in hiding. It sounded terrifically exciting but was probably pretty drab after a couple of days. “Anything, Mr. C. Whatever I can do to help.” Images of dashing into secret hideaways to deliver encrypted messages raced through Max’s mind.

  “Cause trouble.”

  “Um … what?”

  “I … we really, the rebels, need you to cause as much trouble as possible.”

  “What kind of trouble?”

  “That’s up to you. Search within your wicked little heart and find that place of love for your city and wrath toward the big blue boneheads. But mostly, we want to make them feel like there’s lots and lots and lots of us. Cause a little confusion, you know? Wreak some havoc of the highest order.”

  “I guess I understand.”

  “You’ll figure it out. If nothing else, just get some paint and write Property of Flood City Guerrilla Squad on something the Star Guard feels like is theirs. That really makes them mad.”

  “Okay, Mr. C.”

  “And bring your friend with you, he looks like he could use some mischief making in his life.”

  “Who?”

  “The little pale fellow you’ve been running around with. Apo … Aro …”

  “Ato?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “How do you know about …”

  “Thank you, Max,” Cortinas said as he jetted straight up into the sky. “You have no idea what a help you are.”

  “Mr. C!” Max called, but the old warrior was already gone.

  Max zipped out into the plaza outside the Music Hall without even realizing it. He immediately eased off his accelerator. There would be Star Guards all over this place, presumably, to keep vigil on the downed cruiser. But there was the cruiser, lying like a dead animal in a heap of ruins, and no one else seemed to be around. Odd.

  Max landed as quietly as possible and slow-walked toward the wreckage. Something wasn’t right. He could feel it in the air all around him. The one time the Star Guard was actually supposed to be somewhere and they were nowhere to be found. Figured.

  A hatch opened with a clang and Max froze. A hand came out, then a face. It was Ato.

  “Ato!” Max said, sighing with relief and running toward the cruiser. “What are you … ?”

  Ato lifted a blaster cannon and pointed it dir
ectly at Max.

  “Um … what are you doing?”

  “Shut up!” Ato’s face was contorted with fear and rage.

  “What’s going on?”

  “Shut up, I said!”

  Max refused to believe that his friend had been playing him this whole time. The pieces just didn’t fit together right in his head. There was a scrabble of motion from the other side of the square and Ato looked toward it.

  Max turned and felt all the air leave his lungs at once. There was Ato, jetting toward the cruiser at breakneck speed. And there, on the cruiser, was Ato, his face stricken. The Ato on the cruiser swung his blaster around just a second too late and his one shot flashed harmlessly into the night sky as jetboot Ato ran full force into him and they both toppled over the side.

  Utterly perplexed, Max ran over to see what was happening. There were two Atos. He hadn’t been hallucinating. One was dressed in the slightly too large clothes Max had lent him and the other had on a school uniform a few sizes too small. Other than that they looked exactly the same. Twins. By the time Max reached them, the surly school uniform Ato had untangled himself and taken off down an alley with the telltale unsteadiness of a new jetbooter. Max’s Ato was nursing a fat lip.

  “There’s two of you!” Max said.

  Ato nodded. “I’m afraid so.”

  “Your brother seems like a real jerk.”

  Ato nodded again. “Pretty much. We better get out of here. He’ll probably be back with more friends and bigger guns.”

  Max agreed and they jetted down an alley. “I wonder what he was doing in there, your brother?”

  Ato shook his head. “Probably looking for the nuke.”

  Max burst out laughing. “Whoa! Ato … okay … nuke? As in nuclear warhead? That’s hysterical! That’s …” He looked at Ato. Ato wasn’t laughing. “Wait. You’re serious?”

  Ato nodded.

  “But … no one has nuclear weapons! That’s absurd! The last ones were destroyed eons ago! Way before the Floods. They’ve been teaching us about it in …”

  Ato shook his head. “I saw it, Max. It’s real. We studied this stuff too, believe me, because it’s, like, a crazy obsession with the Chemical Barons. I know all about nuclear weapons, and the thing that was stashed in the engine room of that cloud cruiser was without a doubt a nuke. I … I should’ve told you before, I just—I knew the Star Guard was there so the Barons wouldn’t be able to get to it and …” His voice trailed off.