Nicholas Smith - Deliverance

“G-get away,” Rodger said, kicking. He looked over at Magnolia. “Mags, you got to wake up, you…”

His strained voice trailed off as the man with the machine gun bent down. He spoke in a foreign language that Rodger didn’t recognize, but whatever it was, he sounded angry. So Rodger kept his mouth shut.

The man kicked him in the side. It hurt like hell. Then he walked away, his boots clanking across the metal deck. Rodger watched him go. He looked around him at the massive ship, hoping to find some clue as to where they were or how to escape. Several old-world vehicles were parked on the deck: a truck with oversize tires and a mounted machine gun in the bed, and three cars covered with armor plating. They all appeared to be in working order, with petrol tanks and oil canisters sitting beside them. There were also fuel cells on the deck to power the trucks that didn’t run on the archaic fuel.

Beyond the vehicles was a metal garage with two wide doors, both of them half open. Inside were more cars, a few motorcycles, and gigantic shipping containers. More people in the armored suits were loading what looked like cryogenic capsules into the containers.

Rodger turned his head the other direction, straining to see more. Tarps covered bulky shapes along the bow. One of them wasn’t tied down properly, and he caught a glimpse of what lay beneath. Cages, dozens of them. Several barrels burned along the railing on the ship, spreading an orange glow over the occupants.

No way. Nobody’s that crazy.

Chained Sirens, all of them apparently unconscious. The cages were stacked like crates, three high and who knew how many deep. This was some sort of cargo ship, and Rodger had a feeling he and Magnolia had been added to the manifest. But what the hell would these people be doing with captured Sirens, not to mention him and Mags?

His answer came a few minutes later, when one of the armored soldiers opened a cage and dragged a Siren across the deck. It slowly came to, head cranking from side to side to look at its captors. It clawed at the air, but the man with the chain yanked the beast to the deck as two more soldiers strode forward with machetes. They hacked the creature to pieces without even bothering to kill it first. Blood spattered the rust-coated deck as it let out an inhuman wail.

When the men had finished butchering it, they brought pieces over to the barrels and set them on grates over the top. Rodger’s stomach churned. Now he knew where the barbecue smell was coming from. He had to get out of here before he and Magnolia suffered the same fate.

The red glow of the lighthouse drew his attention. It flashed several times, then went dark. A horn sounded, and the armored men stopped what they were doing. They looked up at the tower that rose above the metal roof amidships.

Screaming in the foreign dialect came from all directions, and Magnolia finally stirred. The alarm sounded again. Footfalls came toward him, and the man with the machine gun and the skulls on his shoulders crouched down between him and Mags. He looked at Rodger first, and Rodger saw that the man had only one working eye behind the almond-shaped visors. The other eye was milky white.

“You speak the English, yes?” he said in his deep voice.

Rodger nodded warily. He noticed an octopus engraving on the breast of the man’s chest armor. Was it some sort of symbol like the raptor?

The man checked Rodger’s bonds with his good eye, making sure they were tight. “You will no get away like the others,” he said in broken English. He paused to look up at a man who had emerged in the lookout tower above; then he looked back at Rodger. “They call me el Pulpo. I am king of the Cazadores . ”

“I’m Rodgeman,” Rodger said, trying to be polite. “I’m from the Hive .”

The man tilted his helmet as if trying to figure out what to make of him. Rodger did the same.

“Who are the Cazadores?” Rodger asked.

“Last of the humans.” He raised a long metal-clad finger at the containers. “We come every six months, save those frozen ones we can and bring back to our metal islands. We breed them there.”

“And what do you want with us?” Rodger asked, hoping it wasn’t the latter option, especially for Magnolia’s sake.

“You see soon.” He stood and slung his rifle over his back. “Live long enough, you see the sun!”

“The sun ?” Rodger said, uncomprehending. He wanted to ask questions, but he was so terrified he could hardly form a sentence. Was it really possible that these barbarians were taking him to an island where the sun would shine?

El Pulpo turned his working eye to Magnolia and leered. “Pretty. Not many as nice as this one on our island.” He laughed—a humorless cackle that made Rodger shiver. “Big plans for this one.”

“Leave her alone,” Rodger said. “Don’t touch her, or I’ll—”

The man looked back at Rodger and laughed again. The deck suddenly vibrated, metal groaning as the gargantuan ship began to move. The Klaxon sounded a third time, and the anchor chain clanked onto the deck on the starboard side.

The ship was setting sail, and Rodger had no idea where it was headed.

The street raced by in gray and brown flashes as X gunned the engine of his motorcycle. Miles, apparently unconcerned by the speed, sat calmly in his custom seat, enjoying the ride.

Les had volunteered to come along and help find Rodger and Magnolia, but X told the others to stay behind. The ship needed repairing, and Layla needed saving. Michael had refused to leave her side. Seeing the young man’s pain brought back a feeling that X had suppressed during his long exile on the surface. It was an emotion that he shared easily with Miles, but he hadn’t felt it for another human in a very long time.

Hell, X had never been good at loving people.

Another emotion swirled through him as he drove. An emotion he was good at feeling. Anger .

He was angry at Jordan. He was angry at the militia soldiers he had been forced to gun down, including his old friend Sergeant Jenkins, who had apparently sold his soul. And he was furiously, righteously angry at the Cazadores who had kidnapped Rodger and Magnolia. He wanted to dismember them alive for daring to steal his friends away so soon after he had found them again.

Focus, old man. Save them first, then worry about getting payback.

The bike zoomed toward the coast, swerving around debris and jolting over cracks in the pavement. As soon as X and Michael had carried Layla into the airship, the ship’s AI had shown them the video feed of an old-world truck racing away from the area where Rodger and Magnolia had vanished. X had a feeling he knew where the seagoing bastards were taking his friends. The lighthouse had stopped blinking several minutes ago, and a horn signaled that the others were preparing to leave the harbor.

He didn’t have much time.

If he didn’t get to the ship, Rodger and Magnolia would be lost forever—assuming they were still alive now. X continued to debate whether he should have told the divers the truth about the cannibals. He knew from his own experience in captivity just what they planned to do to his friends.

He had always wondered whether there were people on the surface, but these were not the sort of people Captain Ash had hoped to discover. Somehow, these pirates or barbarians or whatever they were had gone undetected by the Hive and other airships all this time, and X had wanted to keep it that way.

But now the bastards had his friends.