DustRoad Page 4

  * * *

  He woke her before dawn and she nodded drowsily, activating her motor. The moon had set but the stars were brilliant overhead, a luminous garland reflected in the flat sea. It made her feel tiny, just an insignificant dot against the vastness of the ocean, and the world, and the universe beyond. But in an odd sort of way it made her feel important too, part of something grand. She wondered where the next days and weeks would take them, and if they’d ever make it to Mariner country.

  It was late on the second day when they saw the gull, just a wheeling speck against the clouds. Nate watched it keenly. “Another day or two,” he said, “if we’re lucky.”

  But in the end it didn’t take that long. As the sky grew pale the next morning Kara spotted something on the horizon and quickly woke the others. It was a pale, ladderlike structure, obviously man-made, rising from the sea in a perfect arc. Nate shielded his eyes.

  “I can’t make it out,” he said. “Maybe it was part of a building but the rest crumbled away.”

  “Hey, look,” Joe said, squinting down into the water. “It’s getting shallow.”

  He was right – beneath them Kara could see patches of silty sand dotted with black rock and clumps of wrack. They had to be nearing the shore.

  By the time the sun was overhead the seaweed had begun to brush against their ankles, thick clots of it covering the sea floor. Not long afterwards Kara touched ground for the first time, breathing a sigh of relief as she stood for a moment, her rubber sandals sinking in the muck. Soon they were half-wading, half-swimming through a saltwater swamp, using the life jackets to stay afloat.

  The shape in the distance was clearer now – two twisted metal pipes linked by regular diagonal struts. The arc was part of a larger structure, winding back on itself like a coil of rope.

  “I’ve heard of this,” Nate said. “I think it’s what they called a rollercoaster – it was something they did for fun back in the Tech Age. Like a train running on rails. But really fast and short.”

  “Like me,” Joe pointed out.

  As they slogged on, other shapes began to appear on the horizon: a giant ribbed dome patterned with moss and green algae; a beached ship with steel masts and a dark, flaking hull; the head of some huge cartoon creature with circular black ears and a salt-rotted grin. Closer to them, smaller objects rose from the swamp: boxy hulks that Joe identified as cars, all washed against each other in great rusted heaps. Sometimes they were forced to leave the water and scale these rickety barriers, scrambling across roofs and bonnets, watching for spikes of steel and shattered glass.

  It was from the top of a particularly high and treacherous junk pile that Kara first spotted the settlement. A cluster of towers rose from the water, but these weren’t square and blocky like the ones at home. They were slender and cylindrical, with blue roofs and rusty spires, branching from a larger structure half sunk in the water and the weeds. Encircling this central building was a network of walkways lashed to wooden pilings, rough-hewn and ramshackle but clearly still in use. There were even a few rowing boats moored to the outer jetties, bobbing on the crystal waves.

  “It looks like the Shanties,” Joe said. “Only smaller.”

  “It could be dangerous,” Nate warned. “It might be a pirates’ lair.”

  “I feel like pirates would have better boats,” Kara said. “Anyway, we don’t have a choice. We need to work out where we are, and it’s not like the next place we come to will be any less shady.”

  They waded towards the encampment, letting down their life jackets so the RPV hung loose around their bodies. Reaching a jetty, they clambered up. Kara kept the cord of her knife wrapped around her hand as they moved towards the central building. The whole place was silent, just the creaking of the boards and the cry of gulls perched on the tower tops.

  The peaked structure loomed over them, clearly in a state of some disrepair. The outside was supposed to look like brick but as they drew closer Kara saw that it was just a paint job, flaking away to reveal wooden clapboard underneath. In the near side was an arched doorway, and from inside they could hear the murmur of voices and the clink of glassware.

  “That sounds fun,” Joe said, pointing to a plank nailed beside the doorway, where the words ‘MAGIC KINGDOM’ had been scrawled haphazardly in red paint.

  “What’s so magic about it?” Nate wondered. “I don’t like this, you guys.”

  “Neither do I,” Kara said. And she leaned on the door, inching it open with a rusty groan.

  The voices stopped abruptly and twenty heads swivelled in their direction. Kara saw men and women, the former heavily bearded, the latter weathered and mean-looking. They sat around plastic tables sipping from chipped ceramic cups, and Kara could smell the tang of home-brewed Selkie.

  “No, no, no!” a voice called out. “No kids allowed in the Magic Kingdom.”

  A ruddy-faced woman stepped from behind the makeshift bar, waving a filthy cloth.

  “We just need—” Kara began but the bartender cut her off.

  “Nobody cares. Whatever sob story you got about your folks being stole by pirates or et by gators, we don’t want to know. Just leave before I call Big Mickey.”

  “But you don’t understand,” Nate objected. “Our ship w—”

  “Mickey!” the woman screeched. “Get out here. We got trouble!”

  A man shoved through a doorway, almost filling it. He wore a white apron spattered with red and in one hand he grasped a huge cleaver.

  “No trouble,” Nate said, retreating to the door. “We get it. We’re leaving.”

  “Wait,” Kara said, holding her ground as the man stormed towards her. “We just need some help. We have money.”

  The cleaver stopped in mid-swing. The bartender’s eyes narrowed.

  “What sort of money?” she asked. “Show us.”

  “We don’t have it with us,” Kara admitted. “But we can pay hard cash to anyone who’ll help us get back to the M—”

  “There you are!” a voice cried, and Kara turned in surprise. A figure stepped from the shadows at the back of the room, striding towards them. “Dang, cuz, I’ve been waiting for you all day.”

  The newcomer had dusty hair swept up in twin spikes, flashing yellow eyes ringed with black paint and a mangy fur coat mottled with threadbare patches. From the voice Kara thought it was a girl, but in the dim light she couldn’t be sure. A firm hand took hold of her wrist and she started to pull away, but the stranger leaned in close.

  “Kara, be cool. Just follow my lead.”

  The sound of her own name shocked Kara into silence. The stranger turned to smile at the crowd, exposing rows of filed teeth, pointed and capped with silver. “Now, there’s no cause for alarm. This here’s my second cousin twice removed – Jenny. She’s been slapping oars all night from upcoast and I reckon she’s got herself a mite addled from sleep deprivement. Ain’t that right, Jen?”

  Kara was fixed with a stern stare, and to her surprise she found herself nodding. “Um, right.”

  “And these here youngins –” the stranger indicated Nate and Joe – “are my other second cousin Fred and their good old pal from back home, whose name is, um, Shrimpy.”

  Joe opened his mouth to protest, then thought better of it.

  “She said they had money,” the bartender protested, gesturing at Kara. “She said there was money for someone who’d take them somewhere. Muh-something, I was listening.”

  “Oh, no, she said honey,” the stranger insisted. “She could give you all the honey you want if you take her back to her, um, mother. Who is a beekeeper. In Baton Rouge.”

  The bartender scowled. “That sounds pretty farfetched to me. They walked into our place. I say they’re ours to deal with. Right, Mick?”

  Mickey grunted and took a step forward, gripping his cleaver.

  But the stranger stood firm, one hand straying towards a belted holster where a silver pistol hung. “Listen, you know who I work for and you know why I’m here. So I s
uggest you back off, right now, unless you want more aggravation than you can handle.”

  The bartender’s face flushed and Kara heard the clunk as she shut her mouth.

  “Now we’re headed to my cutter,” the stranger went on, drawing Kara to the door and kicking it open with one booted foot. “But it’s been awful nice meeting you all, and I hope to be back real soon in your charming little burg. Bye now.”

  Kara was yanked through the door, Nate and Joe on her heels. Out in the light she saw that the stranger was barely older than she was, grinning through those weird silver fangs. “If you want to get back to the Mariners, you’ll come with me. Those limpets in there might be slow, but it won’t take ’em long to figure out you’re no cousin of mine. My boat’s this way.”

  The stranger marched away along the jetty but before Kara could follow, Nate grabbed her jacket. He leaned close, Joe squeezed between them.

  “I don’t like this,” Nate hissed. “Who is that person? Where did they come from? Is it even a girl or a boy?”

  “I think neither,” Joe said. “Back in the Shanties we had a teacher who—”

  “Is it important?” Kara cut in. “Besides, what other choice is there? Stay here?”

  They turned as the door to the Magic Kingdom creaked open and Big Mickey stepped out, swinging his cleaver. Nate’s eyes went wide and he gulped. “Hey, cousin!” he shouted. “Wait for us!”

  They hurried after the stranger, weaving through a twisted spiderweb of jetties, shacks and unsteady walkways. Kara caught up, striding alongside.

  “Back there, you knew my name. How?”

  The stranger snorted. “Everyone knows your name, Kara. Everyone’s seen your clip, except for inbred backwater clambuckets like that lot back there.”

  “What clip?” Kara asked. “What are you talking about?”

  “Your speech?” the stranger said, enunciating carefully as if Kara wasn’t too bright. “Persuading your people to stand up to the Mariners? Couple of months back you couldn’t walk two blocks without some news jockey trying to screen it for you.”

  “You mean…” Joe said, his mouth hanging open. “You mean Kara’s famous?”

  “You could say that,” the stranger said, shrugging. “I mean, I don’t really see what all the fuss is about – I figure anyone could’ve said that stuff. But it was pretty popular. Got a lot of folks talking.”

  “You know not all Mariners are like Cortez, right?” Nate asked nervously. “Some of us are OK.”

  “Whatever. All I care about is how much they’ll give me for bringing you home.”

  “So you’re a mercenary?” Nate scowled.

  “I’m whatever I’m paid to be. Smuggler, sailor, trader. Jack of all trades.”

  Kara smiled despite herself. “So, Jack, do you have a name?”

  The stranger turned, putting out a hand. “The name’s Lynx, and I am mightily pleased t—”

  Shouts rose behind them and Kara twisted, shielding her eyes. Back along the jetty she saw the bartender breaking into a run, the machete-wielding cook lumbering at her side.

  “Last chance,” Lynx said. “Come with me, or stay with them.”

  “I’m in,” Joe said.

  “And me,” Kara agreed.

  Nate rolled his eyes. “Fine.”

  At the end of the pier was a battered trawler with a wooden cab and the name Ursula stencilled on the side. “You, cast off,” Lynx said, gesturing at Nate. “Kara, grab the wheel. I’ll start her up.”

  They bounded on to the deck, Lynx tugging open a metal hatch and dropping inside. Kara heard a strange groan beneath her feet but it was soon drowned out by the rattle of the engine, chemical smoke pouring from an exhaust pipe at the back. Through the glass of the cab she could see the bartender waving her arms, then Lynx reappeared, slamming the hatch down.

  “Well, what are we waiting for?”

  Kara shoved the stick forward, feeling the boat move away from the jetty. Joe and Nate stood in the stern, watching as the bartender skidded to the edge of the pier, her furious cries barely audible over the din of the motor.

  “You get back here, you little punk!” she bellowed. “You didn’t pay for your drinks!”

  5

  The Gulf

  They spent the night on the Ursula’s deck, surrounded by ropes and tackle and mysterious wooden crates, the stink of chem fuel filling Joe’s nostrils as he curled against Kara’s side. Lynx held the wheel with one hand, humming an ancient song about a ring of fire while the stars turned overhead. Joe wasn’t sure why, but he liked the young smuggler. Lynx had a funny way of talking that he didn’t quite understand, but they seemed genuinely eager to help. Maybe it was only for the money, but that seemed pretty normal in this world. He doubted if Kara would’ve done any different.

  As the sun rose he sat up and took his bearings. The water around them was dark and polluted, glittering with patches of oil. In the distance he saw a steel structure floating on the ocean, rocking from side to side with a dull, ominous clang.

  “Where are we?” he asked and Lynx turned, fixing on a smile that didn’t look quite true.

  “This is the Gulf of Mexico. I know these waters well. I’ll get you where you need to go.”

  “Why have we turned west?” Nate asked, sitting up beside Joe and checking the compass on his life jacket. “From where we started I thought the Shoals of Panama would be south, or south west at least.”

  “This is the best heading,” Lynx assured him. “Go dead south and you wind up in the Caribbean, where there’s more pirates than palm trees. But, hey, if you want to be a galley slave…”

  “It’s fine,” Kara said, rubbing her eyes. “You pick the heading.”

  Nate frowned, whispering behind his hand. “I don’t like this.”

  “So you keep saying,” Kara hissed back. “But we’re here now, aren’t we? And I don’t think Lynx is planning to hurt us, I just don’t get that feeling.”

  Nate flushed. “What feeling do you get? I just think we should— Hey, is that land?”

  Joe shielded his eyes as the sky grew lighter. There was a dark haze on the horizon and he heard the cry of gulls.

  “You said we were making for Panama,” Nate protested. “Not across the Gulf.”

  Lynx shrugged, trying to seem casual. “We need fuel. We won’t make it on two tanks.”

  “So why didn’t you say anything before?” Kara asked, getting to her feet.

  “It’s clear you don’t trust me. I didn’t want to alarm you for no good reason.”

  “I trust people who give me the facts,” Kara said, pushing past Lynx and cutting the engine. “Now we’re not going anywhere until you tell us what’s going on.”

  Lynx hesitated and in the silence Joe heard a noise – a kind of muffled groan. He’d heard it when they first came on board but now it was louder, more insistent. It seemed to be coming from under his feet.

  “I’m telling you, it’s no big deal,” Lynx was saying. “We’ll fuel up, then we’ll be on our way.”

  “That’s a lie,” Nate spluttered. “This has to be a set-up.”

  Joe got down on his knees, peering through a gap in the deck. He squinted, sure he could see something moving. Then an eye blinked open and he cried out, leaping to his feet.

  “There’s someone down there!” he shouted. “Someone underneath us!”

  Lynx tried to shove forward but Nate got there first, reaching for the hatch and pulling it open. His face fell.

  On the floor of the ship’s hold lay a dark-haired woman, bound at the wrists and ankles with a gag stuffed in her mouth. She was wide awake, staring up at them with pleading eyes.

  “I gave her a sleeping shot before I tied her up,” Lynx said, annoyed. “Seems it’s worn off.”

  Kara took hold of Lynx’s lapels, shoving the smuggler back against the boat’s railing.

  “What is she doing down there?”

  Lynx wrenched a hand free, pushing Kara away. The two of them stood no
se to nose.

  “She stole from the wrong people,” Lynx said. “I was sent to fetch her back.”

  “So you’re a bounty hunter too?” Kara spat. “You really are a jack of all trades.”

  “Hey, it wasn’t easy,” Lynx protested. “I’ve been tracking her for weeks. I thought the trail had gone cold a couple times, but you’d be amazed what secrets people part with if you mention you work for The Five.”

  “What’s The Five?” Joe asked, but Lynx ignored him.

  Nate tightened the straps on his life jacket, peering down into the murky water. “I’d rather take my chances back in the ocean than rely on this … outlaw one second longer.”

  “Don’t be crazy,” Lynx said. “You can’t just jump overboard.”

  “Why not?” Kara asked, glancing at the pistol on Lynx’s belt. “Would you shoot us?”

  “Probably not,” Lynx admitted. “But you won’t get far. Look.”

  Joe heard a high-pitched drone, coming closer. Scanning the ocean he spotted a black speck, then another. A pair of jetskis, riding low and fast through the oily sea.

  “It’s like I said,” Lynx told Kara. “You’re famous. People will want to meet you. But you won’t be hurt, I swear. Not unless you make trouble.”

  “Shut up now,” Kara said, and turned her back.

  The jetskis circled the Ursula, engines clattering. Joe studied their passengers – a boy and a girl, both close to Kara’s age. The girl had a pierced lip and orange stripes in her hair, bright against her dark-brown scalp. The boy had a tangle of curls like a mane down his back and his gloves were capped with silver claws, gripping the handlebars of his ski.

  They cut their engines and the striped girl raised a hand. “Morning, Lynx. We were starting to wonder when you’d be back.”

  “Who are your new friends?” the boy asked. “Ain’t you going to introduce us?”

  Lynx gestured at Kara. “Use your eyes. It’s the girl from the clip, the one The Five couldn’t get enough of, remember?”