Cameron Stracher - The Water Wars

“What didn’t they do?”

“But you’re alive.”

Sula stopped cleaning the harpoon and regarded me for a minute. Then she slowly pulled her wet suit away from her shoulder to reveal an ugly scar that ran beneath her collarbone and across her entire chest. It was purple and red, knotted and lumpy. It looked as if the skin had been ripped rather than cut. It had obviously bled for a long time and never been stitched or cared for properly. Whoever had injured her had wanted it to hurt.

The wet suit snapped angrily as it fell back into place.

“They called it a lesson ,” she said. “But they should have found a better student.”

I looked away, out to the flat gray expanse of the sea. Bluewater operated in a lawless vacuum. Governments—even the worst of them—had to answer to the people. History had proved that even the most brutal dictatorships collapsed. Wasn’t that what we’d learned in school, that Illinowa had to answer to its citizens? But to whom did Bluewater answer?

We were adjacent to the runway but sheltered behind the emergency stairwell. We could see two jets and three helicopters. A platoon of soldiers guarded the planes, but they seemed distracted and bored. They were not yet missing their two dead comrades. Alarms still rang on the lower floors, although no one had fired a shot for a while. There was no sign of Ulysses or Will.

“Where are they?” I asked.

“They’ll come.”

I wished I felt as confident as Sula. I told myself that Ulysses would protect Will. The pirate king had survived many scraps and scrapes, but surely nothing compared to infiltrating Bluewater’s global headquarters. He had his wits and Nasri’s gun and a shot of adrenaline that was wearing off. I hoped it would be enough.

Then they appeared. Ulysses looked gray and weathered, while Will was flushed and breathing hard. But they were alone.

“Where’s Kai?” I cried.

“Everyone fled when the shooting started,” Ulysses answered.

“Why didn’t you hold your fire?” Sula asked.

Ulysses growled at her. “It wasn’t our shooting. Their cozy little meeting broke up in gunfire.”

Sula’s eyebrows dipped and knitted as she tried to register this information. “Who was shooting?”

Ulysses explained that before they had reached the presentation room, they’d heard a loud argument and then gunshots.

“Put a damper on the rest of the gathering,” he concluded.

“We might have gotten in too,” said Will. “But everyone scattered.”

“What could they be fighting about?” I asked.

“What they always fight about,” said Ulysses. “The future and who’ll control it.”

“It’s bedlam now,” said Sula.

“This’ll suit our purposes,” said Ulysses. “When everyone’s running, they have to run somewhere.”

“It’s the direction I’m worried about,” said Sula.

“Patience.”

I didn’t know how Ulysses could urge patience when things had gone so disastrously wrong. If the politicians were shooting at each other, Kai and his father were trapped. And when the shooting stopped, surely someone would spirit them away, making rescue impossible.

But patience wasn’t necessary. The emergency doors on the far edge of the roof burst open, and a handful of guards emerged, leading a man who was nearly a head taller than any of them and a boy who was paler and thinner since the last time I saw him. My chest tightened.

“ Hello ,” Ulysses whispered. He crouched low and thrust out an arm to prevent Sula from rising. “We have guests.”

With all the shooting below, I could see now that the roof was the most logical escape route for Torq and his men. The guards were on high alert, and they moved cautiously, with guns extended and fingers on the triggers. Kai and his father were not cuffed or bound, but Torq grasped the father’s wrist in his hand. Next to Kai’s father, Torq didn’t look quite so tall, but he still outweighed the man by twenty kilos. Torq’s brown hairless body was shining like a genetically modified fruit—built to withstand drought, disease, and predators.

“There’s fifteen rounds in that chamber,” said Sula, nodding at Ulysses’s gun, “and I can take two before they even start shooting.”

“The gun’s half-empty,” Ulysses responded. “And there’s a dozen guards on the roof besides the men with baldy.”

Sula scratched a tooth with the tip of one finger. “Once they’re on that jet, there’s no way to catch them.”

“They won’t get on the jet.”

I crawled to Will’s side and whispered in his ear. “Kai looks just like his father.”

It was true: Driesen Smith was a more elongated version of the boy. Both were tall with blond hair and had the same way of standing, as if nothing were important, even as their lives were in the hands of corporate criminals. But Driesen glanced surreptitiously about the roof, and I could tell he was deciding whether there might still be an escape. A driller didn’t survive for long without being skilled at seizing opportunity where others wouldn’t dare.

They were probably less than a hundred meters away, yet the distance was nearly insurmountable. I wanted to wave to Kai, to tell him we had come to save him, but he was barely visible behind a phalanx of soldiers. A few steps, a quick dash, and I could pull Kai away, but I would never make it half that distance alive.

As my stomach churned and the air filled with the crackling static of communicators, an idea came to me. It was simple, really—not dangerous at all—but I had to convince Ulysses and Sula to let me try.

“I’m going to get him,” I said.

“Don’t be crazy,” said Will.

“I can do it. I’ll take the destabilizer.”

Sula shook her head. “No. If anyone takes it, I will.”

“They’ll shoot you before you get close enough,” I said. “They know you’re armed. I’m the only one who can get inside and use it.”

I knew I was right, and I knew the others knew it as well. But Will refused to hear me. “I’ll do it,” he said. “They won’t shoot me.”

“You’re too old. They’ll think you’re a soldier, and they won’t let you get near.”

In normal circumstances Will might have been flattered to be considered a soldier. But the only way to walk unarmed into the midst of Bluewater’s elite security force was to appear harmless and nonthreatening. I was the only one with that chance.

“We can intercept them at the plane,” Will offered.

“It’ll be too late by then.”

He turned to Ulysses. “Don’t let her do it.”

“I want to,” I insisted. “Kai is my friend. It was my idea to come after him in the first place. Besides, I’ll be fine.”

Ulysses frowned, but his eyes betrayed him. “She’s the only one who can slip past unchallenged,” he agreed. “It’s our best chance.” Will wanted to argue, but the decision was already made. “If there’s any sign of trouble,” said Ulysses, “dive to the floor, and don’t come up until the shooting stops.”

Sula handed me the destabilizer. It was no larger than a bottle cap, and she strapped it to my wrist like a timepiece. She explained that when I pushed two small protruding buttons at the same time, it would generate a shock wave that would knock down anyone within a ten-meter radius. “But make sure you stand straight and have both feet on the ground, or it will take you with it,” she added.

I ran my fingers over its smooth black surface. I was amazed that such a small device had so much power. But there was only enough charge for one shock wave, so I would have just one chance. Sula gripped my arm as if she was going to say something more, but all she said was, “Hurry now.”