Rip Tide

by Kat Falls

  Gemma traipsed over to Ratter, who glared at me like I was a plague-carrying rodent. “That’s Ty’s Uncle Benton,” she said in her cheeriest voice. “He’s in the Assembly. He’s very important.”

  Scowling, Ratter jerked his head to indicate that we could board.

  The guy with the gaff slid forward another foot; now there was a gap between the cliff and the cable car. Gemma hesitated, eyeing that gap, only to have him shove her aboard. The instant I followed, he slammed the door, freed his hook, and launched the cable car with a kick of a lever.

  We sailed into the air, whizzing along the steel cable at breakneck speed. Tupper shot me a reproachful look, which wrung not one drop of guilt from me. “Thanks,” I said to Gemma as she leaned over the side to look down. She straightened instantly, clearly not liking what she saw.

  “You’re John Townson’s boy,” Tupper said. “First child born in the territory, yes?”

  I nodded, though I wasn’t only the first kid born in the territory, but the first person ever born subsea. “My name is Ty,” I told him. “I won’t tell anyone that I saw you here.”

  Relaxing, Tupper waved aside my assurance. “So what if I enjoy the occasional bare-knuckle match? My fellow reps are too uptight to know what they’re missing. A couple of surfs going at it, no rules. It’s a thrill like nothing else. Not even dogfighting comes close.”

  My brows rose in surprise. I’d never seen this side of our representative.

  “I heard about your parents,” Tupper said abruptly.

  “You did?” News traveled fast. I wondered if Captain Revas had been the one to report it.

  “Yes, bad business that—taking people captive.” He shook his head as if dismayed by the surfs’ lack of manners.

  “Can you help me get them back?”

  “Me?”

  “Yes. Order the Seaguard to send out more skimmers to search for them.”

  Tupper’s smile was wry. “Spoken like a true frontier boy.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “That I don’t expect you to know where I fall in the Commonwealth’s chain of command. The answer is nowhere. But don’t worry. The Seaguard will get them back. They always do.”

  Always do? Before I could ask what he meant, Gemma grabbed my hand so tightly I winced. Leaning out, I saw the oil platform ahead, coming up fast. The original drilling tower now served as a lighthouse and was flanked by a crane nearly as tall. People bustled along on every level, visible because a half wall enclosed each deck. All except for the fifth level, where a wide section of the wall had been knocked out to serve as a landing dock, and we were zooming right for it.

  “Oh, relax,” Tupper told Gemma. “Even if the cable does snap, the fall won’t kill you. Well,” he amended, “being dashed against the rocks might, but there’s no point in focusing on that, now is there?”

  She didn’t reply. Maybe she didn’t know he was speaking to her since she’d pulled the veil from her head and was using it to cover her eyes.

  With a muffled bang, the cable car slammed into the padded opening of the oil rig. As we lurched in unison, another man with a gaff caught the car, only to get dragged several feet before it finally stopped.

  “Hop down,” he ordered. “And don’t stumble or you’ll cushion the next guy’s fall.” I glanced over the side to see that the car hung several feet above the steel deck. “Jump!” he yelled. “I can’t hold her for more’n a minute.”

  The doors on the far end of the car burst open and people clattered out. From the laughter and chatter, it seemed that the ride and jump were part of the pleasure for the mainlanders. Guess their moving walkways and shuttle trains didn’t require much from them.

  We were the last off. The man with the hook swung the car around a support girder and held it still on the other side. There, another crowd waited—a few surfs, but mostly locals, looking truculent.

  “If you don’t have a ticket for the match, you must vacate Rip Tide before the next gong,” the gaff man yelled. “Or you will be making your exit with a splash.”

  There was grumbling as the crowd stepped onto the mounting block and pulled themselves into the cable car. But none protested outright at being forced from the town.

  One surf, not much older than me, was hoisted up by his friends, crutches and all. He was wearing pants with one leg cut off above the knee—only he didn’t have a knee or any part of his left leg from there on down. And he hadn’t been born that way. Clearly his leg had been amputated … by something with teeth.

  I learned from the gaff man that I should look on the sundeck for Fife, who was both mayor of Rip Tide and the Commonwealth’s surfeit agent in charge of distributing government rations to the surf population. Fife had probably gotten the job as surf agent because Rip Tide was off coast, which meant the townships could be kept away from the mainland harbors.

  Gemma and I left the landing bay and entered the stream of fluttering caftans and veils. I checked that my hat was pulled low and bandana tugged high on my neck. It was nerve-wracking—knowing that I was headed into a town filled with surfs who disliked subsea settlers, maybe even hated us. I’d have to keep up my guard.

  An enormous hole took up the center of the town, cut through all seven decks, which made sense since it had once been the drill well. Now a bustling walkway circled it on each level. Rip Tide was certainly no hermetically sealed stack-city. Stores, saloons, gambling halls, and family dwellings had been constructed between the decks. But with both the interior and exterior walkways open to the elements, every inch of the ancient oil rig was slimed, rusted, rotted, and wet.

  Not counting my stay in a stack-city when I was nine, Rip Tide was the biggest town I’d ever strolled through. There was so much to see, I was both overwhelmed and curious. But I didn’t have time to give in to either feeling. Finding Fife was going to be no easy task. Not when Rip Tide was bursting at the bolts with loud, pushy boxing fans. Hundreds of feet tromped across the metal decks above, while shouts and laughter rebounded off the hard surfaces. And the stifling heat just made it all worse.

  “What’s the matter?” Gemma asked, stopping in the middle of the human river with a look of concern.

  She could talk here? With all the jostling and chattering, I couldn’t even breathe. I tugged her off the walkway and into the wide opening of a livery stable that rented mantaboards, Jet Skis, and other small vehicles by the hour. “Give me a minute.”

  “Oh, right,” she said with sudden understanding. “The crowd.”

  I felt foolish needing time to acclimate, but breathing was kind of a necessity. I took off my bandana and used it to wipe the sweat from my face. Cold seawater would have felt better.

  “When we get away from the landing dock, it should thin out,” she assured me.

  Wishing I was standing at the edge of Coldsleep Canyon with nothing but whale song in my ears, I gestured her forward. “Okay. You lead.”

  Smiling, she said, “Just give a shout if you want to stop again,” and took off, elbowing her way through the throng effortlessly, forcing me to keep up or risk losing her. I trailed in her wake, trying to ignore the press of bodies, only to do a double take as a tough-looking girl cut past us. Her clothes left her torso exposed and revealed a long semicircle of scars.

  Gemma dropped back to walk beside me. “That was from a bite, wasn’t it?”

  “No question,” I confirmed. I wanted to speed up and get a better look at the girl’s skin but figured that would come off as rude. It was just that I had seen my share of shark bites on fish, dolphins, humans. Dead and alive. From the tooth marks and width of the chomp, I could usually tell not only what kind of shark took the bite, but estimate the beast’s size. Yet, in the glimpse that I’d gotten, something about the girl’s scar seemed odd.

  Gemma jabbed my arm. “You said sharks don’t attack people very often.”

  “I didn’t say never.”

  “Okay. But have you noticed that several people here are mi
ssing big chunks of their bodies? That’s more than ‘not very often.’”

  “Yeah,” I admitted. “I noticed.”

  “Know what else is strange? They’re showing off the damage. As if getting bitten by a shark is something to be proud of.”

  That part surprised me. But now that she mentioned it, I figured she was right. The surfs did seem to dress in ways that drew attention to their scars.

  I shrugged, as baffled as she was.

  Ahead of us, a sign posted above the stairwell read: TODAY: SURFS ALLOWED USE OF SUNDECK ONLY.

  “What does that mean?” I asked Gemma. “They can’t walk around anywhere else on Rip Tide?”

  “Don’t know.” She waved me toward the stairs. “You go ahead. I’m going to find out where the boxers hang out before the match.”

  “I don’t think we should separate,” I said, trying to keep a lid on my panic. “I’ll never find you in this—”

  “Go look for Mayor Fife on the sundeck. I’ll find you,” she promised, then spun on her heel and shot out of sight.

  I felt a stab of resentment toward Shade for taking her away from me already. Having little choice, I headed for the stairwell, but my nerves were frayed from the noise and heat. The thought of strolling onto the top deck and adding glaring sunlight into the mix made me feel shaky and sick. I slipped into the shady nook under the stairs to get a grip on myself. If I came off like some crazed nervous wreck, no way would Mayor Fife tell me how to find Drift.

  CHAPTER

  TEN

  Standing in the shadows beneath the stairs, I tried to catch my breath. I kept my back to the wall and looked out at the bustling walkway. Steady dripping from the deck above splashed onto everyone equally, though the Topsiders hid under their parasols. After a moment, I realized that from this vantage point, the crowd didn’t seem like such an indistinguishable mass. In fact, it was interesting to see how many different sorts of people went by—from fancy stack-city dwellers to seafloor ooze-diggers. And I’d thought the Trade Station attracted a wide variety. I’d been kidding myself.

  Once I felt calmer, the sound of so many people talking at once didn’t seem like such an assault on my eardrums. And if I concentrated, I could even hear individual voices as people passed. Snippets of conversation—mostly side betting on the upcoming match. I found that I could tell the swabbies and tide-runners by their slang. Even easier to identify: the mainlanders. With their elaborate sentences stuffed with extra words, I didn’t even need to see the speakers. Though I had to admit people-watching was more interesting than I would have ever guessed. Especially because the mainlanders with their filmy clothes and zinc-painted faces—some made up to look like animals and birds, others more fantastical—gave me the feeling of being awake in a dream.

  And then there were the surfs. Their sun-baked skin was easy to spot, though none who passed were as leathery as the surfs on Drift. Their clothing came in a wide variety and apparently depended on their township’s trade. I saw salmon-skin ponchos, woven seaweed hats, and dresses of burlap and old fishing nets. But I didn’t know enough about surf culture to pick out the mollusk farmers from the bio-fuel harvesters. Several stared at me as they headed up the stairs to the sundeck. Probably because my skin stood out in the shadows. Still, with their sun blisters, elaborate tattoos, and missing limbs—a shine should be no big deal.

  Now that I had my nerves under control again, it was time to find Mayor Fife. But when I stepped from my nook, I saw a familiar striped muumuu disappear into the next shop. The sign in front read: SHAVES, SLATHER, AND ART.

  Upon pushing through the swinging doors, I was relieved to see that the place wasn’t too crowded. A few customers reclined in the chairs while attendants in white jackets painted their exposed skin using brushes and putty knives. Dozens of photographs on the wall displayed a variety of painted body parts—each design more intricate than the last.

  I spotted Tupper in the back, seated next to a woman who was having yellow flowers painstakingly dabbed onto her bare arms. Heading for him, I passed another customer who was lying facedown on a padded table. His back glistened with a freshly painted seascape that was about as beautiful as I’d ever seen.

  “Will that last?” I asked the attendant as he studied his artist’s pallet.

  “I’ll spray it with a sweat-proof coating, but it’s ephemeral beauty. Long lived as a rose.”

  Right. And ten times more expensive. Though when I heard Tupper tell his attendant, “Just a slather of white,” I felt a twinge of disappointment. With so many colors and designs to choose from, solid white seemed a little dull.

  The attendant seemed disappointed as well. “Only white?”

  “I’m a traditionalist.” As Tupper settled back in the chair, he spotted me and waved me closer. “Looking for me, I assume.”

  I glanced at the attendant and lowered my voice. “You said something before…. Have other people been kidnapped by surfs?”

  “Oh, yes. Seems like more every year. Even happened to the Pennsylvania rep.” Chuckling, Tupper closed his eyes. “I think it was Rawscale. Surfs snatched him right off his yacht. Demanded an unbelievable amount in ransom. Wouldn’t even negotiate with his family.”

  “But they got him back eventually.”

  “Well, no, actually that one ended badly,” Tupper said as the attendant smeared white zinc-paste over his balding pate. “But I’m sure nothing so gruesome will happen to your parents. They know better than to get huffy with savages.”

  “Drift hasn’t asked for a ransom. At least I don’t think so.”

  “No?” He frowned without opening his eyes. “Well, I’m sure they’ll get around to it.”

  I shot a look at the attendant, who was now brushing goop across Tupper’s lids and down his nose. The man seemed like he couldn’t care less about our discussion. “What if ransom isn’t the point?” I asked Tupper.

  He snorted. “With surfs, money is always the point. Especially now.”

  “What’s different about now?”

  Though only a portion of his face was covered in zinc-paste, Tupper shooed the attendant aside and sat up. “Listen, Ty,” he said, emphasizing my first name as if to prove he remembered it. “You have nothing to worry about. I heard that Captain Selene Revas is on the case, and she’s the one Seaguard officer the surfs will deal with.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “They like her perfume.” His tone may as well have been an eye roll. “Who knows? Who cares? As long as they’ll negotiate with someone on our side.”

  Before today, I would have bristled at “our side.” We were all Commonwealth citizens, after all. But now, the surfs on Drift had sunk so low in my estimation, they didn’t even rank as human.

  A bell gonged in the distance.

  “Finish up, will you?” Tupper snapped at the attendant while lying back on the chair. “I haven’t placed my bet yet.”

  “That was the one-hour bell, sir. You have plenty of time. The bookies don’t close until the match starts.”

  “Thank you for your help,” I told Tupper.

  “Anytime,” he called out. “Always happy to assist my constituents….”

  When I stepped out of the slather shop, sunlight flooded my eyes, coming from the town’s open center. I crossed the walkway and looked over the railing. The drill well was filled with ocean, and a heavy-duty raft bobbed in the middle of the pool. Three floors up, the tower’s girders did nothing to block the UV rays.

  “The poor child looks lost,” said a familiar voice behind me.

  I turned to see a guy not much older than me sitting on the railing with his back to the four-story drop. His dark hair looked as if it rarely met up with a comb, and two gold teeth glistened among his pearly whites as he grinned at me. Eel. One of the outlaws in Shade’s gang.

  “Good,” his companion said coldly. “Let’s leave him lost, since he wasn’t on the sundeck like he was supposed to be.” There was no missing Pretty, who never seemed particularly
pretty to me. He just looked cruel with his sharp cheekbones and ice blue eyes. His hair was as long as ever. Loose, it hung over his shoulder like an infirmary curtain he could slip behind when needed.

  “Now, you know we can’t,” Eel said to Pretty as if I weren’t within earshot. “Not when we promised Gem o’ the ocean that we’d see if he was still down here.”

  I hated the casual way Eel said it. Like he used that phrase for Gemma all the time. Which he probably did since that’s how Shade had addressed letters to her when she was younger. I knuckled down my resentment. I didn’t have time to let outlaws get me riled.

  “Dark Life”—Pretty swung a leg over the rail to the open side with the pool far below—“keep up or stay lost, ’cause we’re not coming back for you.” With that he grasped the rungs of a ladder that ran up the length of the drill well and climbed out of sight.

  Eel shot me a grin. “Ain’t he a charmer?” He, too, swung his legs to the other side of the rail. “Come on.”

  “No,” I said, which made him glance back in surprise. “I’m not here to visit Shade or see his boxing match. I need to find Mayor Fife.”

  “We know. Probably why Shade sent for him. But if you don’t want to come …”

  I was at his side in a flash. “Gemma told you what happened?”

  “What do you think?”

  Now I saw that several ladders were mounted on the interior walls of the drill well, all climbing to the top of the tower. “Where are we going?”

  “The meat locker.” Eel leapt onto the ladder as easily as a floater stringing rigging between masts. It made me wonder where he had lived before he was sent to Seablite.

  Avoiding the workers setting up three-tiered bleachers for the match, I swung my legs over the railing and stepped onto the ladder with a smidge more caution. I didn’t share Gemma’s fear of heights, but I had no intention of amusing a pair of outlaws by taking a long spill into the pool below.

  When we reached the top deck, Eel jumped off. The sunlight beat down so hard, it took me a moment to see where he had gone. Especially since the bleachers were already in position on this deck and starting to fill up. Finally, I spotted him by a large fuel tank near the base of the crane. He waved and then disappeared through a door in its side. As I approached, I saw that someone had retrofitted the fuel tank with a hatch, probably taken from an old submarine. With a spin of the wheel, I opened it and peered into the shadowy interior. Cold air greeted me and I entered with a sense of relief. It was the closest I’d come all afternoon to the feel of the deep.