Flood City

by Daniel José Older

  “Yala! You’re … you’re in the Star Guard ship?”

  “In it? I’m piloting the thing! It’s mine! Well … ours. I got Osen and Delta with me.”

  “Osen the weirdo alien creature thing with all the big weird elephant legs?”

  There was an uncomfortable pause. “Uh, yeah. And you’re on speakercom, Max.”

  “Oh. Hi, Osen. Um … so the guy in that escape pod has a nuke.”

  “I know,” Yala said. “Krestlefax delivered your note and we busted outta the academy and came right away.”

  “Well, looks like you pretty much …”

  “Incoming!” Djinna’s voice crackled over the headsets.

  Max spun around just in time to see a fireball crest across the sky toward Yala’s transporter. “No!” Cortinas was flying up above the city. He lowered his slicer for a second, fiddling with it. Reloading. “It’s not a Star Guard ship! It’s Yala!” Max yelled, but the old rebel was too far away to hear him and didn’t have a headset. Max dove toward Cortinas. Behind him, the blast exploded against the side of the transporter. A direct hit, of course. Max didn’t even have to turn around to know. Cortinas was apparently an expert at the flying precision shot. One more and Yala would be fried.

  “Cortinas!” Max yelled. It was no use. He watched in horror as Cortinas raised the cannon up to his shoulder for a final blast and peered through the viewer. Out of breath, Max could only let out a choked sob as he careened forward.

  But the old rebel didn’t shoot. Instead, Cortinas squinted up past Max as if he couldn’t believe what he was looking at. Max slowed his jets and glanced behind him. Hunterflies, hundreds of them, were scattered out in the air directly in front of Yala’s transporter. Max spotted Tinibu right in the middle of them all, twirling around and flapping his tiny wings. Cortinas lowered his weapon, still looking puzzled.

  “It’s one of our ships!” Max yelled, finally close enough to be heard. “Yala’s on board! Don’t shoot!”

  “Your sister jacked a Star Guard transporter?” Cortinas gaped. “I’ll be …”

  It did seem even more amazing when he said it like that. But there wasn’t time to be impressed. Mephim was still out there and still had the nuke. “Cortinas, the Barons are in those pods. We need to stop them!”

  Cortinas nodded. “I’ll blast them!”

  “No!” Max yelled. “One of them has a nuclear weapon on board. If you blow the whole pod up, it’ll kill us all. We’re just trying to disable the thing so we can get to …”

  “I’ll round up the troops and we’ll track down the other two pods!” Cortinas announced, and he zipped off. Below, a huge mass of clouds congealed where Flood City once was. Instead there was just a mountain of fluffy gray clouds.

  “The vapors came through!” Djinna’s voice crackled in Max’s earpiece. “Nice!”

  “Excellent!” Max gazed at the vast cloud wall of vapors stretching across Flood City. He wondered briefly which one was Biaque, or if it even worked like that—maybe they all just scattered their molecules and become a mass of nothingness all together. But there wasn’t any time to sit there thinking about it. He’d have to remember to ask later.

  “Um, Max,” Djinna said. “You might want to see this.” Max whirled around and watched in horror as a long, scaly arm reached out of Mephim’s escape pod and dug its metal-shearing claws into the side.

  “That hit demolished our shield!” Delta yelled from the control panel behind Yala.

  Yala shook her head. “Yep, that’s Cortinas. He doesn’t miss. Looks like Max called him off though, thanks to those hunterflies.”

  We have another problem, Osen warbled in his strange telepathy. Look.

  The escape pod they’d blasted still hung in the air, levitating in some eerie miasma of green light. Worse: a huge green arm with long claws and scattered feathers was reaching out of it.

  “What is it?” Yala gasped.

  Amalgamation, Osen muttered. His thick appendages circled the control board. Abomination. Must increase shield capacity.

  “We’re still depleted,” Delta called. “I can’t recharge them yet.”

  Yala squinted at the pod. “Is that a … giant iguanagull?”

  Combined with the ArchBaron, yes. This one has employed a secret and terrible magic.

  The arm was followed by a long green head with a man’s face. Hideous fangs poked out of his scaly mouth, and his eyes were glowing red and full of hatred. He let out a shriek and then tore the tattered escape pod to shreds with a few quick swipes of his claws.

  When the debris fell away the creature hung in the air, flapping those great wings and clutching a metal case in his long, horrible arms. The nuke.

  “Oh no,” Yala said. “Things just got worse.”

  Max was making gagging sounds into his mic. “It’s a … and it’s Mephim … and it’s a … Yala, you there?”

  She hit the codex button. “Here, Max.”

  “We need to get that thing away from Flood City, preferably to the east toward the holographer’s tower.”

  “We’ll do what we can, Max, just get ready to make a mad dash to catch that bomb in case he drops it.” The creature screeched and flapped higher into the sky. He moved awkwardly, like one of those monsters from old holoflicks that wasn’t animated quite right. Mephim must still be getting the hang of his new body, Yala realized. This was their only chance. “Delta, open up with those lasers, but careful not to hit the nuke.”

  “On it.” The Star Guard cannons released a barrage of fire. Mephim spun and thrashed frantically, sending bloodied feathers whipping out around him, but still he climbed, and then he snarled suddenly and scurried out of view. She narrowed her eyes. “Prepare for maximum acceleration, Osen.”

  Osen nodded.

  “On my command.”

  Any second now … there was a screech and Yala yelled, “NOW!” just as the long, gnarled creature burst into view. That fanged mouth opened wide as his lower claws reached up, poised to shred into the glass. Yala let a tiny smile curl up the side of her face. And then the transporter jolted forward. Yala was thrown back in her chair. For a few seconds, all they could see was Mephim, flattened against the blast window.

  Then his green face contorted, and with a screech, he was gone.

  Max watched in horror as Mephim curved his huge green body away from the rumbling transporter and nose-dived toward the clouds above Flood City. “He’s gonna suicide-bomb it!” Djinna yelled. “Max!”

  “I know!”

  The creature swept past Max and Djinna, his claws wrapped around the nuke, mouth curved into a triumphant smile. Max didn’t know if Mephim was simply reckless enough to die for his cause or, worse, could somehow withstand a nuclear blast in his heightened mutant form. Either way, it wasn’t part of the plan. In a daze, Max let his head fall forward so he was pointed directly down and accelerated as hard as he could.

  “Max!” Djinna yelled. Seconds later she was beside him, the wind whipping her hair back. “What’s the plan?”

  Max pulled out his horn. He always kept it close, so stashing it in his satchel before they took off had barely been a second thought. Now it was his last hope. “We call for backup.”

  It took a few tries, what with the wind blowing against the mouth of the horn, but eventually Max found the right angle. He tilted his head just so and, still rocketing toward the cloud-covered Flood City, let out a long and sorrowful blast. He heard Djinna click in right on time with the metal rods she’d brought, dinging out that same slick syncopation she’d used at the pageant.

  It felt absurd, of course, to be playing music at a time like this, but Mephim had simply exhausted all their plans one by one. Max thought of Flood City erupting into a mushroom cloud, of every single one of his friends and family members, the people who had raised him and made him who he was, all being disintegrated in a fiery hailstorm. He put all that sorrow into the notes he played, and then he saw the first iguanagull.

  He wondered if it was
the same one who’d perched on his window. Then he saw another. And then another. They were soaring all around him. They were zooming past him, their claws extended, mouths wide open. Max didn’t know how, but he felt they understood what was going on. Maybe he’d said it with the music. Maybe they could just tell. Either way, he was suddenly in the center of a great airborne reptilian army.

  Mephim hurtled toward the clouds, clutching the nuclear bomb. Just before disappearing into the nebula, he glanced back and then shrieked.

  Iguanagulls.

  Hundreds and hundreds of them, all racing toward him. And those two horrible kids were right in the middle of it all. The first iguanagull reached him before he could finish his shriek. Mephim swatted at it with all the strength in his arm and the thing went hurtling away, but two more were right behind it. They sliced at his wings with their talons and Mephim had only one free arm to fight back with. He dodged to one side and then flapped frantically away as the iguanagulls kept coming.

  He had to drop the nuke, even if he was torn to pieces in the process. If he could just break away for a second or two and figure out where Flood City was in all these clouds. The boy swooped past him, blowing on that infernal horn, and the girl followed quickly after. They had some kind of plan, that much was clear. Mephim clobbered an attacking iguanagull and then felt sharp teeth close over his shoulder. He was so surprised he almost let the nuke slip out of his grasp, but he caught it at the last second and then flung the creature off him. Blood poured freely from the gash it had left behind. Feathers were everywhere.

  Where was Flood City?

  The beasts seemed to be pushing him somewhere. He sensed their drive as they swooped, snapped at him, and then retreated. The music those kids were playing must be having some kind of hypnotic effect on them. Mephim snarled. Where was the boy?

  Suddenly, though, it didn’t matter. The clouds cleared below and Mephim spotted the towers of Flood City, standing like ghosts in the night.

  Mephim made a smile that showed all his teeth. Three iguanagulls were swooping toward him, talons out, but he didn’t care. He stopped flapping, felt gravity take him, and then squinted down at the city rising out of the cloud bank. He had wanted to hit it smack in the center, but really any old spot would do. A nuke was a nuke, after all. When it was over he’d lick his wounds and begin the exploration. But first: With a shriek of laughter, ArchBaron Mephim released the nuke.

  The trio of iguanagulls had caught up to him. He hissed and scratched two of them with his back claws and then clobbered the third. Any second now. A fourth showed up, seemingly out of nowhere, and snapped a chunk of flesh off his leg. He batted it away. Too much time had passed. Mephim dove past the flocking iguanagulls. The whole world should be a fiery apocalypse by now, not a pleasant autumn evening. There should be mountains of toxic dust and flame exploding across the sky. There should be chaos!

  Mephim flapped farther toward the city. Nothing. No explosion. Nothing. The clouds were clearing and so was Flood City, floating away in a flickering light like a … hologram.

  Mephim howled. He raged back and forth in the sky, shrieking and thrashing his claws at whatever iguanagull dared come too close. Below him, the empty ocean stretched for miles and miles. Somewhere beneath the surface, a nuclear bomb was descending harmlessly into the depths.

  The boy. It had all been a trick. Mephim craned his head up and saw the little scumbag hovering in midair, staring back at him. He gnashed his teeth and charged.

  Max felt a strange calmness as Mephim came howling toward him. The creature wanted him to flee, he could see it in those flaming red eyes. A good chase, and then he’d tear Max to shreds and rain his entrails over Flood City. Max decided not to turn away. Instead, he powered up his jetboots and shot forward, directly into Mephim’s charge.

  Behind him, Djinna yelled, “Max! No!”

  Max felt the wind go out of Mephim’s lungs as soon as they crashed into each other. The creature had been taken completely off guard and was all flailing limbs and flapping wings for a few seconds. Max pushed forward, wrapping his arms around that scaly torso, and thrust his jetboots into their highest setting.

  Before Mephim could regain his balance, they were over Flood City, the real one this time. They hurdled between towers and over alleyways. Max felt claws slash across his back. He knew he was bleeding but there was nothing he could do about it. He reached around and found where the tattered wings connected to the creature’s shoulders. The iguanagulls had already done a number on them—most of the feathers were gone, and one was hanging awkwardly to the side. Max grabbed the other, tried to figure out the least pleasant angle for it to be in, and then pulled with all his strength.

  Mephim screamed and slashed at Max again, but his arms had been weakened by the iguanagulls’ attacks. The wing was broken. Max was fading fast, but he knew exactly what he had to do. He only hoped he’d made it close enough for everything to work. He released his bear hug on Mephim, put his jetboots up against the creature’s chest, and blasted off. Beneath him, the creature hovered there for a full three seconds, his broken wings flapping pathetically, and then a blast of freakish blue electricity sliced through the air and wrapped around his waist. Mephim’s eyes, which just seconds earlier had been narrowed with murderous intent, suddenly opened wide. Another streak of electric ghost burst out into the sky and wrapped around his leg.

  The air grew heavy with the static of the angry electrified dead. Max didn’t know if he could keep climbing; everything was starting to get all foggy and weird looking. He was pretty sure he was about to pass out and probably vomit too. How terrible it would be to puke midair and then fall forward into it and then get eaten by electric ghosts and/or Mephim. Then he chuckled, in a ridiculous, morbid sort of way, because he was thinking about barf at a time like this, when his life and the very existence of Flood City was in the balance.

  One of Mephim’s gut-wrenching shrieks rang out. Max swiveled his body slightly and saw another blast of bright blue enveloping the horrible thing, pulling Mephim slowly into the static-filled wire graveyard.

  Wonderful, Max thought as he tried to point his descent in a trajectory that wouldn’t land him in the ocean or the ghostyard or impaled on some pointy steeple. And I didn’t even puke.

  Max exhaled for what felt like the first time in years and gradually decreased the power of his jetboots until he reached the ground, just in time to pass out.

  “Max?”

  The dream was too pleasant to let go of. Hundreds of plants were rising from the ocean; vast crop fields and forests stretched out all across Earth, where waves had once been.

  “Max!”

  “What?”

  It was Yala, and oddly enough, she was standing outside. Behind her, Max could see the ocean stretched out all around them. It was a beautiful day; the sun was streaming through a bank of blue and white clouds, shimmering across the water. “You’re alive.”

  Max put a hand to his face. It was solid, so that was good. He nodded weakly. “I’m glad.”

  “And you saved Flood City from being nuked with your ridiculous plan.”

  “Oh?”

  Yala nodded, looking prouder than Max had ever seen her. “You did good, little bro.”

  Max smiled and then realized that there was a huge armored dinosaur-type monster standing discreetly off to the side. “What the—?” he yelled, scooching up.

  “Relax, Captain Awesome. It’s Osen. The tarashid I told you about?”

  “Oh.” Max tried to study the creature without being all obvious about staring, but it didn’t work. The thing didn’t seem to mind all the uproar; it just bowed its big armored head and stood there emanating a peacefulness that was startling for such a bugged-out-looking alien.

  “He healed you, Max. All those scars that the iguanagull Baron lashed across your back when you were fighting? They’re barely even noticeable.”

  “He … he did?” Max turned to the tarashid again and summoned up his humblest voice
. “Thank you, Mr. Osen, for healing me.”

  Again the great creature bowed slightly.

  “Where are we?”

  “The roof of our building. Mom thought you might want some fresh air. Plus people keep coming by to visit and talk to you and bring flowers and things and they wouldn’t take the hint that you need your rest.”

  “I guess I do since I’ve been unconscious for … how long?”

  “Just a day, more or less. They checked you out at the hospital and said you’d be okay. But everyone’s talking about you and Djinna and Ato and the iguanagulls fighting that Baron creature … it’s amazing!”

  “There he is.” Biaque glided across the rooftop toward them, a big grin plastered across his face. Tinibu fluttered up past him and perched on Max’s shoulder. “The hero of Flood City.”

  “Stop,” Max said. “I didn’t do anything alone. And Tinibu saved Yala’s life!”

  The hunterfly made a chirpy noise and adjusted his footing on Max’s shoulder.

  “Max!” Ato and Djinna came running across the roof.

  “You guys okay?” Max asked.

  “Are we okay? Of course we are!” Djinna said, her hands on her hips. “You’re the one that almost got ate by a giant transforming Baron monster! Are you okay?”

  “I do believe I am,” Max said, and when Djinna smiled he knew it was true.

  Ato still looked worried. “We didn’t know what happened to you for a little while there. You just disappeared into the clouds and then went radio silent.”

  “I know. It was messy. Mephim?”

  “Became one with the Electric Ghost Yard, far as we can tell,” Biaque said.

  “What happens now?”

  The vapor put a thoughtful expression on. “Truth be told: We don’t know yet. The Star Guard is gone, so Flood City is without any real food source and completely unprotected from the Barons for the first time since the original rebellion.”

  “Are people scared?”

  “Of course,” Yala said. “But they’re excited too. It’s something completely new, and even though it’s dire, everyone seems to believe, against all odds, that we’ll find a way to survive. We’ve come this far.”