Mort(e) decided to keep his jokes to himself. Castor had agreed to help, as did most of his friends. Let him wear his silly armor.
The church music began exactly at nine, precise enough to set a watch to it. For perhaps the hundredth time that morning, Mort(e) ran his palms over his flak jacket, checking the pockets for ammunition, his field knife, a map. He lifted the rifle, a Russian-made Nikonov with the wooden stock painted black.
A whistle sounded, changing to a higher pitch before lowering. It came from his spotter, a beaver named Blythe, Castor’s niece, who was camped out in the hotel. Mort(e) parted the tarp with his telescope and peered outside. Blythe’s signal meant that the convoy had left the hideout building and would turn the corner any second now, on their way to the checkpoint. After that, they would proceed along the highway ramp and onto the bridge, making them the first vehicles to cross since the beavers reinforced the structure—on schedule, Castor would always point out.
The first vehicle appeared: a motorcycle with a human rider, wearing a black leather jacket and a helmet with a tinted face shield. No weapons were visible, though his coat could easily conceal them. Next came two heavy trash trucks, each painted a bright green, like giant metal turtles. Taking the rear was a maroon SUV with a driver and a passenger in the front seat.
Oh, you figured this’d be easy, Mort(e) thought. A nice bright Sunday for you to slip through.
Mort(e) imagined these people sitting around in some bar or basement or restaurant, the way humans often did, slouching, their feet resting on the tabletop, expecting the world to hand itself over to them. Every human Mort(e) killed must have felt this way before running into him. Every one wore the same terrified expression when they realized their time had run out. For all their maneuvering, all their confidence, their entire plan depended on transporting their stolen goods across a narrow bridge where anything could happen. All their skills and talents, reduced to simple, unavoidable laws of physics and geometry.
Mort(e) could not keep from tilting the telescope upward, toward Liberty One Tower, where the Vesuvius had been docked for the last few days. From here, he could see the damage to the engine. Rumors had flown around Hosanna all week about what happened. Another fish-head attack. More sabotage from the Sons of Adam. A mutiny. Everything was on the table. The gossip that interested him the most involved the Vesuvius taking damage in a rescue mission to save the al-Rihla, somewhere out at sea.
If there had been such a mission, it had clearly failed. The al-Rihla was lost. When the news reached the pub, a few beavers raised their glasses to the ship. Castor told them to shut up. After that, Mort(e) became more focused than ever on the task at hand. Everything depended on stopping the convoy. The certainty of it, the finality, felt clean to him somehow, like a sharp knife withdrawn from a wound before it could bleed.
His mouth watered, and the taste of salt and brine returned. This always happened when he dwelt too much on the al-Rihla. Another vision began, like a flip-book starting at the beginning. Mort(e) lowered the telescope and allowed the hallucination to wash over him. He floated in water. He breathed through gills. He sensed movement, currents, the songs of the fish that rattled his skull. It was his third vision that morning alone. They had become more frequent in the last few days as he prepared for this confrontation, this revelation. For all he knew, the Sarcops chose this method to communicate with him. And they wanted him to complete this mission. They made that point clear. If he failed, they would haunt him until he died screaming on Marquez’s operating table.
The hallucination ended. He swigged some water from his canteen and sloshed it around in his mouth before spitting it out. Mort(e) took the goddamn pills this morning, so these daydreams should have stopped for now. He remembered Marquez telling him to set an alarm, or to have the beavers remind him, anything to stay on the regimen. “The pills will keep the visions at bay,” Marquez told him. At bay. Nice, Doc. Real funny.
“Mort(e),” Castor said. “You’re mumbling again.”
Mort(e) raised the telescope to find the convoy at the checkpoint. Three human soldiers exited their cinderblock pillbox, holding out their hands to get the convoy to stop. While one of the soldiers pulled a spiked chain across the road, another spoke to the driver, and the third inspected the underside of the vehicles with a mirror attached to a pole. Mort(e) knew these men. Every morning, they waved to the beavers as they entered the construction site, though they always gave Mort(e) a funny look.
For all their smiling and promises to do their jobs, the soldiers at the checkpoint let the trucks through without checking what was inside. Their papers were in order, Mort(e) supposed. How nice. The soldiers hurried to remove the chains and barbed wire. The lead officer tipped his cap as the convoy rolled past.
Castor gave the next signal by slapping his tail on the floor three times. Mort(e) stepped off the elevator and onto a platform that jutted out from the dam. Below him, the corkscrew turbines churned the river into white foam. When he poked his head over the top, he saw two more pairs of eyes across the way: Kerdigan and Von, both Castor’s nephews. Kerdigan had already named his kid after Castor, and Von promised to do the same. Together, they climbed behind a stack of logs which concealed them from the road.
As Mort(e) expected, the convoy stopped at the edge. Though the city had assured them that the bridge would hold their weight, few humans seemed capable of trusting a rickety structure made of logs, built by animals they once hunted. Animals they almost drove to extinction by turning them into hats. Fucking hats.
The motorcycle went first. The truck followed until its wheel rolled over a seam in the wooden planks, sending a creaking noise through the entire bridge. The driver shouted to his comrades. They argued for a bit, with one of them asking if they should proceed. The bridge was designed to make noise, Castor often said. When it stops creaking, that’s when you run.
Satisfied for the time being, the drivers continued. Finally, Mort(e) thought. A phantom cloud of water bubbles gurgled near his ear. He twitched his head, and the noise stopped. To be safe, he sipped from his canteen again and rinsed out the salt water that wasn’t there.
The trucks ambled along between the lampposts lining the sides of the dam. As soon as the last truck passed the fourth post near the center, the music started. A loudspeaker attached to the side of the dam blasted a recording of the beavers’ most obnoxious song—even Castor admitted he hated it. An old female beaver sang it, sounding much like that ornery hag Nikaya. The drivers, alarmed at the distraction, slowed their vehicles once again. And when they did, the fifth lamppost tipped over and crashed right in front of the lead motorcycle, barely missing it. In a panic, the driver tried to reverse it with his feet. Before the rear truck could back away, the lamppost behind it tumbled over, sealing in the convoy. As if to drive the point home, the post had cracked in the middle, with a long shard pointing right at the humans.
There was no need for a signal at that point. Once the crashing stopped, Mort(e) and the beavers emerged from their hiding spot, rifles raised, screaming over the music. Mort(e) grabbed the cyclist by his leather collar and yanked him off the bike. The man landed hard on his ass, and the visor on his helmet snapped open. A beaver pinned him there by pointing a rifle in his face.
Mort(e) positioned himself at the driver’s side of the first truck. “Get out! Put your palms on the window! Palms on the glass, now!” The beavers surrounding the second truck did the same. Mort(e) made sure to pick the younger ones for this job, the ones with something to prove in the big city.
The humans obeyed and stepped out—willingly, it seemed. Mort(e) recognized them and rattled off their nicknames as they emerged. Slinky drove the lead truck, with the Jerk next to him. In the early morning light, Slinky had a pallid complexion, though his skinny frame was all muscle. The Jerk’s bald head glistened. He spat the unlit cigarette out of his mouth as the beavers forced him to put his hands on the side
of the truck and spread his legs out. In the second truck, the Waddler and Bozo stepped out, followed by Meat. By process of elimination, that left Dum-Dum as the cyclist. The humans wore bluish-gray sanitation uniforms, crisp and clean, still creased with folds. They hadn’t even tried to make their disguises authentic.
With the humans neutralized, a beaver entered each truck and tried to open the compactor. Kerdigan took the front vehicle, Von the rear. Whatever was inside, the beavers would extract it and slide it down the ramp and into the water, where two rafts awaited to ferry the cargo away from the city. The humans could go to Tranquility if they wanted, but Mort(e) suspected they would simply walk away. The few honest Tranquility agents would ask too many questions. The crooked agents would probably kill these poor bastards to cover their tracks.
“This is quite the stickup,” the Jerk said.
Mort(e) slammed the butt of his rifle into the back of the man’s knee. He crumpled to the ground. Mort(e) figured that he might have to make an example of one of these men. Might as well be the Jerk.
The man staggered to his feet again. His knuckles whitened as he kept his hands flat on the side of the truck. In the cab, Kerdigan fiddled with the levers. None of them seemed to work. The Jerk watched him. Von did not seem to fare any better in the second truck. Mort(e) decided to give them a few more seconds before demanding that the humans do it. To convince them, he might have to break the Jerk’s nose.
“You can still walk away,” the Jerk said. With that, he turned to Mort(e)—and his entire head had become that of a fish. A Sarcops. A bulbous skull, enormous eyes with no pupils, a wide mouth, gills gaping at his neck, brushing his collar.
Mort(e) had come too far to let another hallucination stop him. He could fight through it if he concentrated hard enough. He felt the others watching. He had told them to punish anyone who spoke, and they must have been waiting for him to follow his own rule.
Mort(e) flipped his rifle around and prepared to drive the butt into the fish-head’s face. And at that moment, an explosion at the western end of the dam clapped in his eardrum. The lampposts swayed. The blast took out the checkpoint, now a smoking ruin. Amid the rubble, Mort(e) could make out only the rings of barbed wire, bent into strange angles.
Those soldiers were paid off, Mort(e) realized. And now they would never talk.
The fish-head man turned from the truck and faced Mort(e). “There are more bombs,” he said, his voice gurgling as if underwater. “In case something like this happened.”
“Kerdigan, get out of the truck,” Mort(e) said. “Von, you too.”
The beavers were happy to obey.
Mort(e) poked the Jerk with the barrel of his rifle. “Open it.”
“Did you hear what I said? There are more bombs. Right under your precious dam.”
“Bullshit. We inspect it every day.”
“I know you do. Now tell me: how many die this time if the dam goes?”
“What’s in the truck?”
“The future.”
“Show me, and you live.”
“Let me go, and you live.”
“We can’t let you go now,” Castor said.
“Then you die. All because you couldn’t say no to this cat.”
“Don’t listen to him,” Mort(e) said. “He’s lying.”
“I’m the one who can promise you’ll survive this day, beaver,” the Jerk said. “This cat is willing to sacrifice all of you. He has nothing to live for. But I’ll wager you do.”
A nervous energy rippled through the beavers. The humans remained eerily still, awaiting instructions.
“I can smell it,” the Jerk said. “I can smell the confidence draining away.”
“Shut up,” Mort(e) said. “I beat you once. I can do it again. You think I can’t?”
“Arthur,” Castor said. It was Mort(e)’s code name for this operation. The beaver kept his rifle on the cyclist, who lay flat on his stomach, arms out.
“Let’s at least keep them here,” Mort(e) said. “Wait for Tranquility.”
“If one Tranquility agent steps on this dam, it goes,” the Jerk said. To his right, the other human turned around. Mort(e) growled and aimed at him, but the human remained unmoved. His head resembled that of a catfish, with slimy whiskers dripping onto his coat.
“We’re willing to die for this,” the Jerk said. “Are you?”
That did it. It broke Castor. Mort(e) could sense the others deflating, shrinking away.
“Let them go,” Castor said.
“They’re bluffing!” Mort(e) said.
“Stand down,” Castor told his friends. The blaring music stopped. Two of the beavers moved the fallen lamppost out of the way. The rest of them retreated to the edges of the dam to make room for the trucks.
The humans got into their vehicles. The vegetable oil exhaust fumes belched in Mort(e)’s face as the trucks passed him. Taking up the rear, the cyclist hopped onto his bike and restarted it.
Fucking beavers, Mort(e) thought. Civilians. Farmers. He saved their asses, and they didn’t have the guts to fight beside him. Mort(e) realized he may have been speaking out loud, but he didn’t care. They needed to hear it.
The motorcycle rider got his bike started on the third kick. The tire burned on the ground.
Mort(e) bolted for it.
“No!” Castor shouted.
The cyclist saw Mort(e) coming in his rearview mirror and tried to accelerate. Mort(e) swung the stock of the rifle and clocked the rider in the side of the helmet, knocking him off the saddle. With the engine still running, Mort(e) got on the bike and cranked the handle. The engine growled, jerking the motorcycle forward. He sliced through a cloud of exhaust fumes. The trucks gathered speed, with the rear vehicle surging ahead, riding alongside the other. Mort(e) swerved toward the side of the dam, where the crane jutted out over the water. The hemp cable lay coiled beside it, with its hook sticking out like the head of a snake. Slowing the bike, Mort(e) leaned over and snatched the hook. The weight of it nearly tipped the motorcycle, but he kept it steady. The cable zipped along the ground. In his rearview mirror, the stacked coil unraveled one level at a time.
Mort(e) hooked the cable to his handlebars and cranked the accelerator again, lifting the front wheel slightly. Like two giant beetles, the trash trucks barreled down the sloped ramp of the dam. The tires bounced at each seam. The bridge wobbled, but remained intact. Son of a bitch can hold ’em, Mort(e) thought.
Keeping one hand on the accelerator, Mort(e) lifted the hook, held it out to his side. He could take one of these trucks. Only one. No time to think. Just choose.
The left one.
He clamped the hook on a handle on the side of the trash compactor. The same one that garbage men would hold on to while making the rounds through some suburban neighborhood. A memory filled Mort(e)’s mind of his days as a pet, standing on his hind legs, watching the green beasts as they passed in front of his master’s house.
The cable lifted as it tightened. Mort(e) swerved to avoid it. Behind him, an awful wrenching sound began, full of cracks and splinters. The crane tore away from its base. Wood as thick as tree trunks shot out over the water like twigs. What was left of the crane scraped along the dam before snapping in half. The truck spun out of control and tipped over, slamming onto its side and skidding to a halt.
The humans exited from the door, resembling sailors coming out of a submarine hatch. The other truck braked. When Mort(e) tried to drive around the wreck, a hail of gunfire forced him to spin out and take cover behind the truck.
Mort(e) waved to the beavers. “Get down!” They already had, of course.
A pair of boots came running toward him. Mort(e) turned in time to see the cyclist sprinting, hoping to rejoin his comrades. With a speed Mort(e) had never seen in a human, the man vaulted on top of the truck and jumped off on the other side, landing wit
h a crack on the planks. Mort(e) peeked around the side, and a volley of bullets sparked against the hood. He pulled back. With the last of its passengers on board, the other truck sped off.
Mort(e) surveyed the damage. A smoke trail drifted from the pile of rubble at the checkpoint. A small island of debris floated downriver. The remnants of the crane fell into the water, pulling the cable with it.
Once again, a trickle of imaginary bubbles drifted by Mort(e)’s ear. He was too tired to wave them off.
That afternoon, Mort(e) sipped his last drink ever at the Grumpy Beaver. He simply had nowhere else to go. He never came here on a Sunday and didn’t know it could be so quiet. The few patrons left him alone in his corner, their voices conspicuously low. He could hear them slurping their Lodge City Specials through their buck teeth. The bartender slid an Archer toward him, then walked away, pretending to clean a spot at the other end of the bar. All day, sirens whirred and voices shouted as the stubborn forces of civilization sought to bandage the open wound near the river. A crew of firefighters put out the blaze at the checkpoint. Tranquility agents blocked off the crime scene and rounded up the few beavers they could find. The beavers told them nothing, insisting that they were at the temple mourning the Prophet along with everyone else.
The Archer went down smooth. It was good for warding off the sounds of the ocean and the taste of salt. The side effect: bad memories, especially of his life before Hosanna. Today, the tradeoff felt worth it.
A more recent memory landed in his mind. In the moments after the truck had tipped over, Mort(e) had retreated to the beavers to find Castor cradling his nephew Kerdigan. A stray bullet had punctured the young beaver’s lung. His mouth gasped for air. Mort(e) could do nothing, and the beavers had little interest in making him feel better about it. They hustled Kerdigan to the slide at the edge of the dam and took their wounded friend to the water, where they would ferry him to a safe place. But before they left, Castor glared at Mort(e) with a searing anger. In that moment, it seemed as if the patient beaver had finally quit the hopeless project of fixing his friend. Mort(e) knew then that he would never last here. He burned everything he touched. He drove people away. He deserved to lose the only friends he had left.
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