by Kat Falls
“So where do we start looking?” Gemma asked.
“Here.” I nodded at the boats.
“Okay, you go in one and I’ll go in another. But you keep your eyes peeled for Gabion in case this was all a setup.”
He was the least of my worries. Boarding the closest boat, I ducked past the mosquito netting and saw three women inside the makeshift tent, sitting behind piles of clothes made from feathered bird pelts. The moment they saw me their eyes narrowed. Probably because of my shine. “Hi,” I said, trying for a polite smile.
Their reply, resounding silence. I plowed on. “I’m trying to track down a township. Drift. Have you seen—”
“We don’t do business with you people!” shouted the oldest woman, though I was within feet of her. Either she was hard of hearing and hadn’t understood me … or she really hated pioneers.
“I’m not here to do business.” I raised my voice, hoping it was a hearing issue. “I’m trying to find—”
“Get out!” she shrieked. “We don’t buy from pioneers. Never will!”
“Okay, got it,” I said, backing out fast.
Gemma jumped onto the barrel walkway an instant after me. “Any luck?” I asked.
“That was weird,” she said, looking disturbed.
“And you don’t even have a shine.”
“The guy was normal—well, for a surf—until I asked if he’d seen Drift. Then he told me to get off his boat or he’d throw me into the lagoon.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “Weird.”
“No. The weird part was that he was terrified.”
“You wouldn’t think that was strange if you got a look at the surfs from Drift.”
“Ty, he was scared of me. Like I was going to hurt him.”
“What? No. It’s just ’cause you mentioned Drift.”
She shrugged, having no explanation, but wasn’t buying mine.
Thinking about it, I wondered if the old surf woman could have been shouting at me out of fear, not anger. She’d known that I was a pioneer. Could the surfs be afraid of us? Then I glanced at Gemma with her bounty of freckles, ponytail, and borrowed diveskin that was so oversized, she looked like a kid playing dress-up. I’d seen scarier seagull chicks.
Not ready to give up, Gemma and I boarded a dozen other boats where surfs from different townships sold a wide variety of goods. Carved beads of shell, clay, and halibut vertebrae; clothes handmade from cured fish skins; awls and needles of bone; walrus stomach gear bags and bladder water pouches; and whale sinew, split and combed into fine thread. As different as their crafts were, the surfs’ reactions were nearly identical upon seeing my shine or hearing any mention of Drift—fear flashed across their faces and we were told to disembark pronto.
“Okay,” I said finally, though there was nothing okay about any of it. “Whatever Gabion wanted me to see, I don’t think it’s here. Let’s move on to the main building.”
The sun had just slipped past the horizon when we entered the market building by way of another cable bridge. Tarps were strung up between the exposed girders, sectioning off the stalls. They reminded me of the fish vendor tents that circled the Trade Station’s promenade, except that those were colorful and inviting, while these tattered sailcloths and fishing nets were just sad.
After walking through one level of the open building, my fear of running into Gabion had dried up completely. There were plenty of people in the market. And not just surfs. The booths were operated by fishing companies, dry goods vendors, and other businesses. What astounded me most were the prices.
“They’re charging triple for sea lettuce here what we negotiated with Drift’s sachem,” I said, stopping by a girder to look at the darkening sky. “And about ten times more than what the ’wealth says it’s worth.”
Gemma stayed farther back from the edge. “That makes no sense. Why would a market with the poorest customers have the most expensive goods?”
“Because the surfs have nowhere else to buy things,” I guessed. “They either pay these prices or they go without.”
“Why can’t they go to the coast to buy things like the settlers?”
I figured out that one easily. “Because the townships aren’t allowed to get close to the coast except near Rip Tide.” I looked around at the windblown stalls. “This really is the only place they can shop.”
Gemma inched a little closer to the girder to look out over the lagoon. “Those don’t belong to surfs.” She pointed at a marina’s worth of boats in the distance, moored outside of the rubble wall where it was interrupted by a stadium. All small yachts and sailboats.
“Probably came from the coast,” I agreed. A glow emanated from the open-topped stadium. “Something’s going on there.”
“And they’re going to it.” She pointed down at the flotilla of scrap boats. Now loaded with surfs, the boats cut silently toward the stadium. “Could be another boxing match.”
A click went off in my brain. “Gabion didn’t just say go to Hardluck Ruins. He said go tonight. Whatever it is that he wants me to see—it’s in the stadium.”
Only one hanging walkway headed that way, and its entrance was one floor down. I took Gemma’s hand. “Let’s see what’s going on in there.”
We climbed down another rope ladder and started toward the hanging bridge. But as we passed a stall that took up nearly half of the floor, I paused. Not only was it ten times bigger and fancier than any other stall we’d seen, it was bursting with customers.
I slipped in by the fluttering tarp and saw baskets and buckets of seafood but also tables heaped with other goods—bolts of fabric, tools, even engine parts. In the back, a thickset man in an apron threw a skipjack onto the chopping block, and using a fillet knife, he separated the fish’s flesh from its bones with one slice.
“What are you looking at?” Gemma asked from behind me.
“Nothing.” Curiosity satisfied, I turned to go and noticed the trough by my knees. The seaweed piled into it was freshly harvested. The filmy fronds ran from brownish green to purple-black. As the son of subsea farmers, I knew seaweed. This was laver. Good boiled or pickled in vinegar. Good baked into bread. More important, it didn’t grow naturally on this side of the Atlantic. A lot of settlers had fields of laver on their homesteads, but none had planted as many acres as my family. Now, looking at the three long, overflowing troughs of it, I knew beyond any doubt this was the seaweed that Pa and I had harvested two days ago.
“Who runs this stall?” I demanded.
Setting aside his knife, the sweaty man stepped from behind the chopping block. Too well fed to be a surf. “What do you want?”
“Where did you get this seaweed?”
“What’s it to you?”
“It’s fresh. Meaning it didn’t grow on the other side of the Atlantic. So where’s it from?”
“Come here and I’ll tell you.” He snatched up his knife and started for me.
“Run!” Gemma cried, taking off for the hanging bridge with me on her heels.
“Heading for a dead end, boy,” the man yelled. “Only way back is the bridge, and I’ll be waiting right here to give you that answer.”
CHAPTER
TWENTY-TWO
We clattered along the hanging bridge toward the pair of lampposts at the other end. Satisfied that we weren’t being pursued, we paused to watch the surfs tether their boats under the bridge and climb a dangling ladder to a ledge that ran under what were once upper-story windows in the stadium.
When the surfs scrambled through a large window without glass, Gemma and I hurried across the bridge to catch up. But before we’d reached the end, a man’s voice brought us up short. “Well, look who it is.” A husky figure moved out of the shadows on the ledge into the glow of the lamps. Lockbox in hand, Ratter radiated delight. You’d think he’d just won a lifetime supply of chewing-weed.
I paused before reaching him to consider who was more dangerous: Ratter or the seaweed thief with a fillet knife? A toss-up, I thought.
“Here for the show?” Ratter asked.
Last night, I’d broken an outlaw out of jail and helped Ratter into an eel pool. Yet now he grinned like we were old friends. Not suspicious at all … provided I was brain-dead.
“What kind of show?” Gemma slipped in front of me as if she could hide me from Ratter’s view.
“You want to know,” he taunted, “gotta pay to get in.”
“Those surfs didn’t pay,” she pointed out.
“Because they’re not here to watch. They’re the main attraction.”
I knew then that this had to be where the surfs got their scars. Easing past Gemma, I strode to the end of the bridge. “At least tell us what kind of animal it is,” I said, trying to seem nonchalant. “It’s not a shark, but it’s big. Must have a three-foot jaw at least. And a bite like I’ve never seen.”
“Been paying attention, have you, pioneer?” he mocked.
“Yeah, we noticed the surfs with missing limbs. So, impress us. What is it?”
Ratter’s beady eyes glittered in the torchlight. “You know, let’s call this your lucky night. No charge. You can go see ’em for yourself.” He hefted the lockbox into his arms, climbed through the window, and hopped down with a clatter. When he straightened, he stood level with our waists now that he was inside the stadium. “What are you waiting for? Show’s about to start.”
Curiosity drew me forward, but Gemma caught up and slipped her hand into mine. “You know this is a bad idea, right?”
“Stay out here,” I whispered. “I just want to see what’s happening in there and then I’ll come right back.”
“Nice try.” She turned to Ratter, who was peering up at us. “Is this one of Mayor Fife’s events?”
“His favorite,” Ratter said as if divulging a secret. “But he don’t want people knowing it’s his operation, so he don’t come around much. Leaves it to me to run, though I ain’t no big show-off like him.”
So when I’d asked Fife for the coordinates to Hardluck Ruins, I’d unknowingly gone to the right person … or possibly the worst person, depending on what we found in the stadium. Gemma and I exchanged a look that confirmed our determination to press forward despite the risk. We climbed through the window and dropped into a dark corridor.
“As I heard it,” Ratter said from beside us, “Mayor Fife warned you to keep away.” I spun to see him snatch a harpoon gun from the rubble-strewn floor. “You should have listened to the man,” Ratter said, and aimed the gun at me.
After taking our dive belts and patting us down, Ratter forced us through an archway and into the night air, which buzzed with the noise of a thousand spectators. The stadium was flooded but more intact than any other building in Hardluck Ruins. Only the upper part of one section had collapsed. A razor-wire fence stretched across the rubble, spanning the breach. Beyond the gap lay the ocean. Too bad we didn’t have a boat.
Until Gemma and I came up with a plan, we had no choice but to let Ratter march us down the steep stairs toward what had once been the playing field, which was now under water, along with over half of the stands. In the dim stadium lights, it looked as if Topsiders filled the rows above the waterline, except for the section Ratter had herded us into. The rows around us were packed with surfs, who seemed startled and suspicious at our presence—as if Gemma and I were going to add a new, unpleasant complication to the event. From what I could tell, the surfs sat in clusters based on their townships, like cheering sections, though I had an uneasy feeling that there wouldn’t be any reason to cheer at this event.
When we’d almost reached the razor wire that encircled the flooded playing field, Ratter pushed Gemma into a seat at the end of the row. I moved to take the one beside her, but he stopped me. “Not you,” he said with gleeful malice. “You’re on the other side with the rest of the heroes.”
“Other side?”
That’s when I looked past the razor wire and saw the men and women—at least thirty of them and all surfs—standing on the seats of the last row above the water. Judging by their clothes, no two were from the same township. Some were grizzled and battle scarred, others young and fierce. All carried knives and had tridents or harpoons lashed to their backs.
Gemma scrambled to her feet. “Ty’s not going out there.”
“Don’t worry about him.” Ratter shoved me toward a platform that straddled the fence. “He beat Gabion in the ring. What can a saltie do to him?”
“A what?” I asked.
He jabbed the harpoon’s tip into my ribs. “Get climbing.”
I couldn’t exactly outrun a fired harpoon, so making a break for it was out. I glanced at the surfs studiously ignoring us. No doubt they’d had other dealings with Ratter and knew better than to interfere.
“Finished thinking it over?” Ratter asked. “Figured out that the only place you’re going is over that fence?”
“At least tell me what I have to do,” I insisted as he pushed me along the bottom aisle toward the slanting ladder that led up to the platform. If I got him talking, maybe I’d buy time to figure out how to get away.
“Not much. Just bag yourself a saltie. Be the savior of your township.”
“I don’t have a township,” I said, refusing to put a foot on the ladder.
“You got Nomad,” he snapped.
“Is that why you’re doing this?” I demanded. “Because Nomad was my salvage?”
His grin returned. “That, and I don’t like Dark Life.”
I saw Gemma edging past the seated surfs one row up to keep pace with us.
“But being as I’m the generous type, I’m giving you a chance that any surf would jump at,” he went on. “Only if you kill the saltie, you don’t have to share that sweet white meat with the stinking surfs back on your township. It’s all yours. Over a ton.” His laugh was ugly. “Bet you never tasted croc. That’s some good eating. ’Specially the tail.”
“ ‘Croc’ as in crocodile?” Gemma gasped from where she stood.
“Saltwater crocodiles,” he confirmed. “Big as a shark and just as hungry. Main difference, you’re no safer out of the water.”
I frowned. “There are no saltwater crocodiles in the Atlantic.”
“Maybe they swam here from down under.” His smirk widened into a sickening green smile. “Or maybe someone imported them.”
Why would anyone do something so stupid? The odds of keeping the creatures confined in this lagoon forever were worse than bad.
“Get up there,” he ordered.
“At least give me a weapon.”
Instead he aimed his harpoon gun at my chest. Seeing no other option, I climbed the ladder to the square platform above the razor wire. From that perch, I surveyed the flooded stadium. Boulders and rubble had been piled high to create mini-islands here and there.
“Keep going!” Ratter shouted. “I got a show to start.”
I stayed put, lying low on the platform. He’d have to climb the ladder to get an angle on me, and I planned to have a hold on his gun before he could pull the trigger.
Below me, Ratter snorted with laughter. “Think I’m coming up there? Look around you, stupid.”
Lifting my head the barest fraction, I saw only the rows of disinterested surfs.
“Look higher,” Ratter shouted.
I lifted my gaze to the shadowy archways above the stands and then saw the ancient box seats at the top of the stadium. A whole line of them, glass long gone. In every third one stood a dark figure hefting a harpoon launcher twice the size of Ratter’s—now all directed at me.
Reluctantly, I climbed down the ladder on the other side. Each surf moved over a chair to accommodate me.
“Even think about climbing back,” Ratter yelled to me, “and one of the croc handlers will spear you through the gut.” With that he hustled up the aisle to a booth near the top. Suddenly, the lights brightened all over the stadium, hushing the spectators. I squinted, trying to get my eyes to adjust to the light, when I heard the distinct whiz of met
al on a zip line. Glancing back at Ratter’s booth, I saw a hook baited with a decapitated tuna flying along a cable that stretched across the stadium. When the hook reached the center, a rubber ring stopped it in place. The headless tuna twisted in the breeze, dripping blood into the water below—clearly calling forth the “salties.”
All around the stadium the spectators remained silent. Waiting.
I seriously considered climbing back over the razor wire, figuring the “croc handlers” would be focused on the water. But a glance at Ratter’s booth nixed that idea. His beady eyes were locked on me and he had a clear shot at the platform. I didn’t know how good his aim was, but I decided not to chance it just yet.
Someone on the far side gave a yell, and the Topsiders leaned forward in their seats to look down into the water. I was too far away to see what they were pointing at and gasping over. Probably dark shadows, like the one I’d seen in the lagoon earlier, streaking into the flooded area through underwater passageways. I shivered and wondered how Ratter could have forced so many surfs onto this side of the wire.
A man on my right, shirtless and sunburnt, placed a knife crossways between his teeth and bit down. An inflated seal bladder dangled from the handle, though I couldn’t guess why. Then I noticed all the surfs’ weapons were adorned with the sheer brown balloons. Two more surfs chomped down on their blades, freeing up their hands, which sure wouldn’t have been my choice if Ratter had let me keep my knife.
On my left was a woman who kept her hair back with yellow mud, which had been smeared along her hairline. When she untied her trident, I caught sight of her necklace—a strip of leather studded with five-inch teeth like the one I’d pried out of the plank.
“Stay out of the water,” she told me, with her trident now in hand.