Two cups remained.
“Lipton,” said Kosugi. “Pre-brewed. Hot. With hibiscus and ginger.”
“Is that a joke?”
“Madam, I remind you that you are neither in China nor a bull. I’m not fragile but I’m also disinterested in clumsy blows.”
“Motion, then, to reset the tone. The Thoom will withdraw entirely from Japan if you withdraw from us.”
“Why would I want you to leave? You come to accuse with no information or proof. You come to bargain with nothing to give. You’ve yet to say hello. If nothing else, I want the Thoom here as the sideshow attraction so thoroughly represented by your behavior.”
“I apologize.”
“And I,” said Kosugi, “do not yet accept. Is it correct you managed to clone Milo Jetstream? With stolen Nonrich technology?”
“We’re no longer able to do so. One of his operatives—”
“Kicked. Your. Ass. And cleaned. You. Out.” He relished saying it. “One. I believe they call him ‘The Mad Buddha.’ All of us have spies within all our organizations. Mine just happen to be effective. One frightful operative working in darkness with the strengths and recuperative abilities of a vampire. May I pull up some footage?”
“Point made.”
“Give me a reason beyond the promise of safety I made that I shouldn’t kill everyone currently without tea.”
The long internal monologue of fuuuuuck going through Madam’s head prevented an immediate response. Her corpus, however, galvanized, leaning her forward to take a cup, the carafe, and a moment to silently pour herself a serving, set it before her, and lean back. When she met his eyes again, she made sure to do so with a slightly defiant, slightly conciliatory raise of a pencil-thin auburn eyebrow.
“Motion,” she said again, “to reset the tone.”
Kosugi waved a circle to encompass the space. “The room is yours.”
She first took a sip, pushed her chair back for room to cross her legs, closed her eyes, steepled her fingers in her lap, and said, “I won’t even ask why the sudden escalation. Since it’s coming from multiple fronts, I can only assume someone sensed a weakness,” opening her eyes only at the very end. “I assure you we are not. I can also assure you that whatever stake you think you have in this is false. There’s no aggression between us.”
“Beyond scuttling two of my freighters last year.”
“That was business, nothing but operations of the day. Not,” she said, emphasizing it with a raised, artfully manicured finger, “aggression.”
“What of Nonrich?”
“Sworn enemies. Never heard you swear against me, though. I’m asking you directly to sit this one out while I restore order. Can you be gracious?”
“It’s been known to happen. It happens quicker with suitable incentives to consider.”
She retrieved her cup and blew on it to raise a few wisps and tendrils. She took a sip, set the cup down, and asked, “Have you ever been to Atlantis? I know people.”
When she left, Kosugi’s left-hand man—who clearly had a question—was allowed to speak. “Boss, was that strategy?” he asked of Madam Cynthia’s performance. “Because it wasn’t very good.”
“No. That was America.”
10.5 Heroes
“Not everybody knows about this place?” the Hellbilly asked Guerris while Shig Empa grilled vegetable-fruit kabobs. The Hellbilly knew when he was being babysat. As the Hellbilly had spent all morning fishing, sleeping, and wondering whether or not a swim in unsure waters was advisable, he did not care.
“That’s more for Shigetei than me…but I’d say, based on how ignorant most out-Blankers are, no.”
“Damn, son.”
“I meant that strictly literally,” Guerris assured.
“Y’all ready for when they do?”
“Of course.”
“You’re the chillest motherfucker I’ve ever seen.”
“I don’t know that one.” Guerris angled a shout over his shoulder. “Shig, ‘the chillest motherfucker’—is that good?”
“That’s good,” Shig shouted back.
Guerris nodded at the Hellbilly. “Thank you.”
“The machine told me it’s tethered to a section of its soul in a box at the bottom of the ocean. Your Pacific.” That was Po.
“I verify this.” That was Tash-Bon-Nay.
“Wait, what?” That was Yvonne.
“Milo’s always binding pieces of himself all over the planet, it happens,” said Neon.
“I amplified the connection,” said Po. “Cruel in not otherwise. It yearned.”
“Milo is flesh and blood, not a teleportation machine. Just the one soul?” said Desiree.
Po nodded.
“How are you speaking to it?” asked Keita.
“Sub-ethereally.”
“Please don’t build anything else onto it, at least not yet,” said Desiree. “All right. We thought we had all the pieces of this sucker. We do not.”
“Oh, fuck,” said Neon, knowing what was about to happen.
“Girl, you’re ’bout to get your hair wet,” said Desiree. “Extra conditioner on board for everybody.”
“Underwater?” said Neon.
“Underwater,” said Desiree. “Everybody prep. Next stop, Pacific Ocean. Po, let Keita know what we’re looking for. Tash, can I speak to you alone?”
Apart from the group, Desiree asked Tash point-blank if she’d like to come.
“I have not been as conversant with the machine.”
“But you can have it guide us to what we need.”
“If it permits.”
“Po’s too emotionally attached. I need somebody frosty,” said Desiree.
Tash considered this. “Yes, yes, I am as frosty as they come.”
“I really didn’t think Po was gonna mind-meld with the thing. Well, I didn’t think it had a mind.”
“A soul. Distinction.”
“A soul. I’m not even going to pretend I’m prepared to discuss how this machine has a soul. I’m in uncharted territory and could use your wisdom.”
“You’ve made your life charting new lands and spaces.”
“There’s a difference between teen-charter-boat-captain Desiree and teleporting-AI-with-a-soul Quicho. I need to make sure we do this right. That means we’ll need to communicate, although I have no idea what this thing’s range is.”
“Thought is not spatial.”
“You’ve tried teaching me to ‘think’ for three years and I haven’t gotten it yet.”
“Neon, perhaps?”
“Is she ready? Considering what might be going on in her head?”
“Likely not,” Tash capitulated. “I accept your offer.”
“I want to hug you so much, but I’d just wind up sticking my face in your belly button.”
Tash opened her arms wide and downward, even scrunching a bit so that Desiree wouldn’t feel totally tiny. “I would not object.”
Desiree gave her a mighty squeeze. Face turned to the side against Tash’s lower ribcage, she said, “The Pacific’s pretty damn big. Can it tell us precisely where it is?”
“I can try.”
“Got a feeling we’re gonna need Bobo.”
11
Chapter Fucking Eleven, Also Known as Bobo the Mag
“My friends,” said the captain once their Humvee was packed, the crew loaded, and the air conditioning at full blast, “the ride has gotten wetter, the height requirement hoisted upward, and the stakes just might be the future of the human race.”
“Figures,” said Yvonne.
“When ain’t it?” Neon, of course.
“Shall we ride?” said Desiree.
“You can call me Sally,” said Yvonne with a short salute, “till the stars come home.”
They rode, flew, and finally, finally made it back to the welcoming deck of the Linda Ann, whereupon the waters awaited them once again, but this time, they’d have welcome help.
“Neon?”
“Yeah?”
“You ever think we’d be sailing the Pacific with a seven-foot-tall elf doing the Winslet scene from Titanic on our prow?”
“No. No, I did not.”
“Thanks. Didn’t think so.”
“Super cool, though, innit?” said Neon.
“Very,” said Yvonne.
Tash rarely blinked. The Saharan elves had a super translucent membrane permanently over the eyes, offering protection plus constant moisture. Her dark, mottled skin somehow managed to tread between feline, lizard, and warmly human—all Saharan elves did—and her hair, plaited in three rows of tight twists, was as resplendently silver as a frosted breath.
She managed to look as though she belonged on the water.
Not yet on course for the soul box, nor even at full speed, Tash stayed by Desiree’s side for long periods of time, the two of them speaking in Elvish, which, outside of Keita, no one on board knew.
Neon and Yvonne took turns in the pilot room. Now and then, one or the other would see Tash come into view, the sun gleaming off her exo-plating where her rainbow scarves had slipped, and at her elbow Desiree’s head. But nothing for a while now.
Had the feel of sekret stuff. Neon, currently on pilot duty, loved sekret stuff.
She knew the captain’s footfalls up the short set of steps into the pilot room.
“Still steady and true,” she said without turning.
“Let her play by herself for a minute. Deck meeting in ten.”
“Aye.”
At the deck meeting: Desiree, Tash, Yvonne, Keita, and Neon. Still in the hold: Sharon and Compoté. Tash kept wanting to release them but agreed to abide by Desiree’s constraint “though it be exceedingly difficult.” (Translated from the Elvish.)
“This one’s off the books,” said Desiree to the assembled. “Even our books. No one knows about where we’re going but me and Keita. We keep it that way, agreed?”
Unanimous and immediate agreement.
“I have a bad feeling about this underwater excursion awaiting us, so I’m calling in a big favor,” she continued. “Something of an expert.”
Oh, hell yeah, thought Neon. Another superpower. She loved this. “Who?” she asked, trying to imagine the name of power. “Mythros the Invincible? Daggett? Jedi Pope?”
“You’ve been studying,” said Desiree.
“Hightop the Faded,” said Yvonne.
“Honey, be seated,” Desiree told Yvonne. “We need a shifter. We need a daredevil. We need an escape artist.”
“Well, fuckbits, you already know who it is, girl; stop leading,” said Yvonne.
“Bobo,” said Desiree.
“Bobo,” Keita repeated, eyes sparkling behind her red-rimmed glasses, “the motherloving Giant Red Pacific Octopus.” The scientist caught Desiree’s eye, plans already forming. “Shit, yeah.”
“Hold all questions,” Desiree said, “till we reach destination.”
The destination didn’t have a name. It was near no shipping lanes, cruise lines, or rugged world sailing. To find it meant you knew about it and had a solid need to be there.
Choppy waters bobbed the platform up and down. A large grey slab of a structure, it looked like a titan’s bathroom tile dropped on the world, never to know grout or complete pattern again. It was windowless and nearly featureless. Stout prongs sprouted at each of the four corners. Had the ocean been calm, the structure would never have been noticed.
Desiree guided the Linda Ann to within fifty meters. “Drop skiff. Neon, you’re with us. Yvonne, keep her at station.”
The skiff dropped, magnetizing to the hull. Desiree, Keita, and Neon clambered down, de-magged, and sliced their way to the ocean-faring tile. Rungs, masts, and other protuberances—all painted the same gunmetal grey as the structure—detailed themselves at the skiff’s approach. The tile was actually quite sizeable. Neon estimated a good fifty by seventy-five meters, with an above-water height that could easily accommodate Tash.
The skiff pulled alongside a docking point to magnetize across the arch of a recessed hatch, which opened with a breathy clang. Steadied by handrails, the three stepped out and into the teetering tile.
Biddle Beenz stood right there. Almost directly in front of them. So closely, had they backed up en masse, they’d have fallen back into the skiff.
Beside this grinning person: a cephalopod on a skateboard.
Biddle threw their arms wide. “We haven’t seen you in a hideous amount of time!”
Desiree stepped into those arms. The hug, being full and unhurried, stretched warmth that encircled Keita and Neon, one of whom knew without doubt her hug was coming and the other feeling the definite likelihood.
The old friends parted. “What have you been up to?” said Biddle.
“The usual.”
Biddle turned bright eyes toward Keita. “Dr. LaFleur. Always a pleasure.”
Hug number two.
“We have not met,” Biddle said afterward to Neon. “We welcome you.”
“Many thanks.” Their hug was followed by an introduction of the skateboarding ’pod.
“Jules. Current”—they frowned for the term—“unpaid intern?”
The tiny cephalopod on its tiny skateboard—which, to be fair to its dignity, was a hovering slip of clear polycarbon—slapped suckers to the floor and pulled off, curiosity obviously satisfied.
“Wait…she’s from Atlantis,” said Neon. There were markers, tonal differences in speech.
“They’ve been out-Blank for thirty-five years. Alone,” said Desiree.
“They, thank you,” Neon corrected.
“Not alone,” said the doctor. “Surrounded. More communication in our days than all your social media combined. Currently accepted into three hundred non-terrestrial species chats.”
“Pardon?” said Neon.
“Biddle is a communications specialist. On all the science-society rags in Atlantis.”
“This is a nexus,” said Biddle. “We tell you that because Desiree trusted you enough to bring you here. As such, it’s a zone of peace and détente. There is no hunting, preying, fighting, or otherwise annoying behavior allowed to any of the communicative species within a five-kilometer radius of this observatory.”
“Squidward’s kinda cute,” Neon said, nodding toward the slowly “skating” ’pod. At Biddle’s frown of confusion, she waved it away. “Sorry, not important.”
Biddle took off in the same direction as the skater, passing it to step onto a large disc set into the floor. Once joined by the others, the disc smoothly descended, with a ring rising from the floor for a handhold. The bottom of the Great Tile came into view, as did the fact that the tile was more an iceberg; beneath the surface—by benefit of the clear tube they descended in—was an interconnected series of branching clear tubes dotted with egress hatches, tubes that crossed horizontal, vertical, diagonal, and curved, all around a central bubble of the same grey as the tile but banded in large windows. Aquadrones zipped to and fro, sometimes singly, sometimes in groups, mimicking the organized fish darting about.
The drop shaft deposited them inside a very large box from which three tubes offered direction. Biddle proceeded left.
“Glad you wore breach suits,” said Biddle. “Everything is safe but there’s been rough water lately.”
“No worries,” said Desiree. “There’s a chance we might need to get out there. My hope is not. Any word from Bobo yet?”
“We sent the pulse as soon as you told us you needed his services. Nothing yet.”
“I feel a little dizzy,” said Neon.
Biddle immediately took her hand and walked with her. “So sorry. You’re in the middle of a huge psychic and subsonic brew right now. These underwater tubes aren’t likely helping with your equilibrium either. Just a short walk.”
It was indeed beautiful. Neon sneaked quick peeks outward in between trying to fiercely maintain her balance. They were close enough to the surface that light shone in ripples, adding life to the nothingnes
s around her: a shoal here, large fin-swish there, the bulk, she was sure, of a whale doing somersaults in the distance.
“I wanted you in here so you could acclimate,” Desiree said. “You should’ve seen Bubba Foom first time he was here.”
The belly of the complex appeared much like Shig’s office in its spare beauty, only notably wetter, as animals that could fare the environ entered via smaller tubes, flopped about a bit, and exited through others.
Or stayed. Somehow, Jules appeared moments after they’d all sat, skateboard quietly buzzing.
“Same tech as the lightdiscs,” Desiree said for Neon’s benefit.
“The UFOs,” said Neon.
On occasion, a public-works lightdisc—generally self-correcting and, as a grid, self-monitoring—would go off course and drift through the Blank, to Atlantis’s embarrassment, the mechanisms’ AIs being at times more self than correcting.
The wee cephalopod parked itself near Biddle’s slippered feet.
Desiree got to it.
“There’s something deep-water we need. We’ve an idea where it is. If Bobo agrees, he’d make this a hundred times easier for us. We have reason to believe there’s a soul trapped in a box. We don’t know the tech yet, but we got Flowerpot here and Tash.”
“That explains the chatter about ghosts we’ve heard,” said Biddle. “Thoughts from an unsourced being, cephalopods shapeshifting against their will…”
“Underwater ghost stories,” said Neon.
“There’s even talk that singularities, which are the most soulless eating machines in any waters, have changed their hunting areas.”
“One of those dumbasses rammed me,” said Desiree.
Biddle’s eyes flew wide with concern.
Desiree held up a hand. “Clipped us a while ago; we’re fine. If we can outmaneuver Leviathan, a singularity is nothing. We’re staying here till we find the soul.”
Biddle’s eyes widened even more. “We can set a feast.”
“May I ask why ‘we’?” said Neon. “Not to be rude. Empathic curiosity. I sense something.”
“We were one of the first to shift across multiverses with Fiona Carel.”
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