Everyone's Island

by Kris Schnee

  Garrett squinted and focused on it, though he could hardly see the details. The little thing was kicking up a wake, and there were a bunch of guys sitting in it, wearing ski masks.

  He lowered the spyglass. A second later he was racing down the ladder and into his office. He grabbed the nearest computer, fumbled it and yelled, "Emergency!"

  Zephyr was the first responder. "Alarm?"

  "Yes! We're under attack by --"

  An incredible slamming noise came from outside, rattling things. Garrett said, "That!"

  Castor's speakers blared an alarm. "Waking Tess. What do we do?"

  Garrett had plans for hurricanes, equipment failures, and medical crises, but not an attack by people with explosives. He hadn't thought anyone would bother. Time to improvise. He said, "Scan the sensors for threats. Put out a distress call and get people sheltered in Dockside. If they've got dive knives or guns, now's a good time for them."

  "Aye aye!"

  Garrett peeked out from the room and gasped. A section of the deck was burning, with a hole in the concrete and a solar panel. The attackers' boat was out of sight. Had they gone? No; he heard the motor and voices screaming while the siren blared. "Where's Eaton?"

  "Unknown. His room is 4B."

  That was on the South Tower side -- Garrett started running -- while the obvious place to board would be North Tower. Dockside. Damn. He called out, "Zephyr, shelter somewhere that's not Dockside!" But he wasn't wearing a headset. Never mind; he'd get Eaton first.

  Eaton was stepping out of his room with a backpack over his shoulder. "Captain! Robbers?"

  "How did you know?"

  "People and money, minus law and order. I thought this'd be a good time to visit."

  Garrett saw Eaton as an experienced fighter who'd survived unknown horrors. "What do we do? There's a boatload of armed men coming. Help!"

  Eaton grabbed Garrett's shoulders. "Deep breath."

  Garrett forced himself to calm down a little. "Should we surrender and hope they leave us alive?"

  "Bad bet. You're the boss; you can join your people in getting robbed, or you can fight." Eaton put down the backpack and unzipped it.

  Guns.

  Garrett sucked in a breath. "But it's been years since I've used one." Clay pigeons, with his father. He couldn't shoot a man!

  "I brought these on the hunch you might want them. I'm here to help with more than your fields, but I won't die for nothing. If you won't raise a gun to defend yourself, I'm going to escape on my own. Hurry and decide."

  "Decide?" said Garrett, staring at the black malice of the pistols. Machines designed for death, a perversion of engineering's purpose.

  Eaton said, "The question is: will you pledge your life for this place?"

  Garrett shivered, feeling he was floating above Castor and looking down on all they'd done. To run away and let others die was unthinkable even if -- he gulped -- staying might mean his own death. The possibility didn't feel real, anyway.

  His voice was small but his hands grabbed a gun. "I'll do it."

  Then he and Eaton were running armed through concrete halls, hearing shouts and banging from below. Garrett said, "I told people to shelter in Dockside, but that's where the enemy will probably enter."

  "A boat at the docks, by the stairs?" Garrett nodded and Eaton said, "Up, then."

  Garrett followed him up the stairs. "Why?"

  "I saw you have ropes up top. We'll go up, down and around. Instead of walking downstairs from inside the building we'll take the enemy from behind, same place where they entered."

  They reached the moonlight again, skirted the hole in the deck, and found rope. Eaton lashed one end to a post, threw the rest over, and waved Garrett on. With a nod, Garrett grabbed the rope and kicked off his shoes. He tried not to think about what he was doing. In his hands the rope shuddered like a snake but he kept going downward in a rhythm, watching the wall nearby. Then he was in the water and Eaton was coming down too. Garrett felt the waves sloshing weirdly along the sensors of his legs, enough to distract him from the fear. Eaton arrived and said, "We swim quietly, with our hands only, and come up by the dock. These guns should work even wet. I'll judge when to open fire, depending on whether we're seen."

  "Open fire?" said Garrett, incredulous. "Can't we disarm them?"

  "Maybe. Ready?"

  Garrett started swimming. With his face in the water he pushed ahead with sweeps of his arms, moving efficiently. He felt caught between worlds: the deck that loomed over him, the lapping waves studded with kelp fronds, and the underworld of cables and cylinders. There was the Hidden Pirate Cave; here were schools of his people's fish. To flee would mean losing a piece of himself.

  Eaton grabbed his arm and pointed. A black boat was lashed to a post and unattended; the Dockside door was open. "Okay?" Eaton signaled. "Go."

  Garrett heard voices in Dockside as he crept up to the pier and pulled himself to where he wouldn't be seen. The waves made it hard to tell but it sounded like whimpering, like a crowd too scared to act. They needed a leader. Fortunately Eaton was here.

  "Down on the ground!" a man yelled. People screamed. Eaton glanced around the doorway so fast Garrett didn't think it possible to see anything, but Eaton used one hand to mime a gun to his head. Then signaling: "Three, two, one --"

  Garrett and Eaton sprang through the door with pistols drawn. Eaton yelled, "Freeze!" There were lots of masked men, and everybody else was on the floor with their hands on their heads. Boxes and tables lay everywhere. The gun trembled in Garrett's hands; he was afraid of it. They were outnumbered in gunmen. Someone sobbed.

  There was music somewhere by the stairs, in the back of the room. Trumpets. Several of the enemy turned to look -- and a flock of plastic birds swarmed at them, blasting the notes of a cavalry charge.

  People shouted and someone swung towards Garrett, raising a rifle. Terrified, Garrett yelped and made the gun kick once, twice. The rifleman spun as if offended, then dropped where he stood. The birds flapped at the enemy's faces and shots went off into the ceiling, hurting Garrett's ears. Eaton kicked somebody. Garrett was crouching behind a box, trying not to die as he shot a man coming up behind Eaton. Garrett stood up but tripped. His leg wouldn't move right. Now people were getting up, some of them, making it dangerous to shoot hastily. He saw Phillip grab a pipe and swing it like a saber, shouting to the Pilgrims to fight. Garrett lost track of him when something smacked him on the back and knocked him to the floor. If he stayed down maybe nobody would hurt him.

  Tasting blood, he sprang up to tackle a man, but missed and fell. His leg -- the right one was a mess of loose wires, a dead thing. As he was getting up a man leveled a gun at him --

  But Phillip slammed that pipe against the man's neck. Phillip had blood on his wetsuit and fire in his eyes, saying, "My place is here!"

  Then with a boom, something made one side of Phillip's face vanish. He toppled, staring at Garrett with his remaining eye.

  Garrett yelled and had clubbed the shooter half to death by the time he noticed no one else was fighting.

  A hand touched his shoulder and Garrett wheeled to attack again, but it was only Eaton. Garrett surveyed Dockside: a shattered mess with four masked gunmen disarmed on their knees, another bleeding where Garrett had left him, and a sixth flat on his face with a piece missing from his chest. He saw Tess cowering in a corner, a damaged Zephyr guarding a seventh enemy, Martin clutching one arm and Leda whimpering by the stairs, with her and Tess tended by birds. I caused all this. I wasn't smart enough to prevent it. I should've known we'd be attacked. Dozens of people looked up from the floor, terrified, or hugged the walls or peeked down the stairs or held heavy things over the gunmen's heads.

  Garrett was standing there idiotically, so he staggered forward to face the prisoners. His left arm felt slick. "Who are you? Why are you here?" They glared at him through balaclavas. No way was he going to put up with that. He grabbed the top of one mask and yanked, taking some hair with it. Garett sho
uted in the man's face. "Answer me, damn it!"

  The man flinched. "Easy pickings, he said. Must be loaded, he said. You people are dirt poor for Americans." There was a sack of jewelry nearby.

  "Who said?"

  The man jerked his head to his left, to a man who cursed him for it. Garrett tore off this guy's mask too and revealed a man with a thick neck and scruffy hair. "Your bright idea?" said Garrett.

  "You're a bunch of bigoted polluting drug-dealers getting what you deserve. You're a criminal yourself. You can't do anything to me."

  Garrett slammed his fist into the man's ribs. It felt good to have power over them.

  The man gasped and said, "There's nothing you can do. We've got friends; we'll go free and come back to finish the job."

  Eaton said, "That was a dumb thing to say." Garrett was surprised to have Eaton intrude on the focused little world of him and the prisoners. "What do you want done with them, Fox?"

  Hearing Eaton, hearing a sane voice, made Garrett start to doubt himself and tremble. "We have to send them back for trial, don't we?" The prisoners grinned. Garrett wheeled on them. "Who put you up to this?"

  "You idiots were sitting out here advertising yourselves. You think you're tough? You're dead men, all of you."

  Martin said, "They've got to go back, don't they, Eaton?"

  "I do fighting. The captain has the final say."

  It felt like everyone's gaze had converged on him like lasers, heating him up. Damn these outsiders! There was blood on his face and feet, and these men were already plotting to come back for more. "You're pirates!" he said, his voice shaking. "You came here to put me and my people in danger, and you didn't care an ounce for what we're trying to do! For the hundred people who came here and all the people who believe in us, I won't let you destroy our colony!" He aimed his shaking gun at the leader's heart.

  The man said, "You wouldn't." Then less certainly: "You can't!"

  Garrett bared his teeth and pulled the trigger, twice. The gun kicked up in his hands. He stepped back as the prisoner slumped. There was blood all over his hand and he was staring at something that couldn't possibly have been human. Scum. None of it was real.

  The others were staring in disbelief when Eaton stepped up and executed the next in line. The prisoners tried to get up but people were clubbing them back down. Garrett aimed and fired, Eaton aimed and fired, Garrett put the barrel against a pirate's ear and fired.

  The gun fell from his hands; it didn't belong there. He slumped to one knee with the spell of his concentration broken and the magnitude of what he'd done hitting him. Everyone was staring. It was self-defense. I had to. There was no choice; can't you see? I had to!

  No. He'd made a choice, all right.

  Though shaken and hurt, Garrett made himself stand. There was work to do and people needed him. "I choose to live!" he called out. "If you're with me, let's tend the wounded and start fixing things!"

  There would be hell to pay, but that could come later.

  Author's Note: some of Duke's words to Leda are lifted from the 1741 sermon "Sinners In the Hands of an Angry God," by Connecticut preacher Jonathan Edwards.

  PART THREE

  1. Garrett

  Eight dead. Seven pirates and Phillip lay on the Dockside floor, with several people wounded. Garrett had thought that "wailing and gnashing of teeth" was just an expression, but the Pilgrims who clustered around Phillip's body proved him wrong. A cloth lay over what was left of his face. Everywhere there were moans and sobs so that Garrett put his hands to his ears and heard himself crying too, in time for the pain in his left arm to kick in.

  "Hold still," hissed Eaton, and sprayed clotting foam onto Garrett's arm.

  It burned where the bullet had torn through. He murmured, "I deserved this."

  "No. You did okay for coming from a generation that doesn't know how to fight. Now get off your ass and work."

  Garrett stood, bracing himself against a box. His right leg was dead, a block of metal and plastic, and he could hardly walk with it. Eaton saw him staring at the thing and said, "Would've been an artery wound. You'd probably be dead if you were a full human."

  "I'm human," said Garrett. "I'm not a machine. Nobody's puppet."

  He wavered on his feet from adrenaline aftershock and blood loss, and from the fact that he was ruined. He was a murderer. In the minutes after the battle he'd said brave things he didn't mean and could hardly hear from the ringing in his ears. He'd spouted something about how Castor would remain open no matter what, then hurried to put out a lingering fire from the explosion and get people regrouped with their families.

  Eaten tended him with the first-aid kit. People had swarmed away and Garrett couldn't blame them for running off -- but then most of them returned from their rooms and boats, running across the water to bring emergency gear. It was like watching an immune system at a wound site: nobody had to tell people what needed doing; they just did it. Even in the brawl it had been like that. A hundred people with several dozen knives between them trumped seven goons with guns, once they stood up.

  Tess cowered in a corner with one of her birds on her shoulder. Garrett knelt carefully. "Hey, Tess. We're alive."

  She looked up with shining eyes, heaving sobs with her arms and knees pulled in. On her shoulder the bird whispered, My God we're gonna die they're gonna kill us all and throw us in the sea where the waves will eat us and we'll be all alone and they'll kill us --

  Garrett grabbed the bird in one hand and threw it aside, where it thunked onto the floor. She was still wearing the headset, hidden in her hair. "Tess, listen to me! It's over. I'm going to take that thing off now, okay?" She gulped and nodded. He reached out again and tugged the digital crown of thorns from her, setting it aside.

  She threw herself at him, burying her face against his chest and leaning on him. He wrapped his arms around her and stroked her hair. After thousands of years of civilization he felt he was re-enacting a moment that had happened millions of times.

  Why did I come here and put people in danger? To grow kelp? To feel like a big shot? He didn't know, anymore. He had no good reason to go on.

  Then Zephyr was there, his hide cracked and dented. "Captain, it's -- I can't --"

  Garrett looked more directly at him. "Are you badly damaged?"

  "No, but it's awful! They were going to --"

  "Shut up. Turn off your emotion chip or something." He didn't need anyone else out of action.

  "I don't have one. It's not that simple."

  "Then quit whining! Live up to the cold, rational stereotype for once!"

  Zephyr stared at the floor, his remaining ear drooping. "Yes, Captain. I think you need to return to your duties."

  Garrett was about to yell at him, but Zephyr was right. He squeezed Tess and told her, "Let's work."

  This time she sat there, shaking her head.

  Garrett sighed. He couldn't stay with her right now. "Pilgrims! I need one of you over here."

  A haunted young man in Pilgrim garb came over to sit with her, saying, "There are no Pilgrims anymore."

  Only now did Garrett realize that the pirates had beheaded the largest subgroup here. The Pilgrims were such mind-slaves to Phillip that without him, who knew if they could survive? It made Garrett feel empty to know someone so important to Castor, good or bad, was gone. It had to be even worse for the cultists.

  They were clustered around the body, still with a few acting on their initiative to tend the wounded. Garrett had been thinking of them as a lump of unskilled (but quickly learning) labor, a herd of sheep under Phillip's command, but here were dozens of individuals who for some reason had come here and put total faith in their prophet. Whatever personal horrors or mistakes each of them had made, to get them caught up in a cult, they'd had a peaceful and honest life under Phillip's rule. Each had made some kind of choice of how to live. He couldn't blame them for being willing to come to Castor; they'd trusted him at least indirectly, too.

  "What do we do?
" the Pilgrims asked each other.

  Garrett cleared his throat and took charge. "I need an inspection of the station and a complete headcount. Look for any hidden threats or unaddressed damage." He was fairly sure the thugs were all dead (God, he'd killed them!), so the order was busywork as much as an actual need.

  One of the Pilgrims sneered at him. "Who are you to order me around?"

  Others joined in. "Yeah, you're a damned unbeliever! A murderer! You killed Sir Phillip!"

  "I did not!" said Garrett, surprised at how angry the accusation made him. "He fought to the death to defend us all, and I'm not going to let that go to waste."

  The Pilgrims were about to protest when someone distracted them. Leda had taken Phillip's body by the shoulders and was struggling to lift him. The cloth fell from his face, exposing shredded, bloody flesh. Leda looked not at him, but at Garrett.

  Garrett seized the body's feet to bring him level. "What are you doing?"

  The Pilgrims wanted to know, too, grabbing Phillip and making conflicting threats and demands. "Unbelievers, both of you!"

  Leda said, "Listen! Not to me, but to God! Sir Phillip died for you and Castor, and you stand here arguing instead of advancing his work. Would he want you brothers and sisters to shout at each other?" For a moment the Pilgrims were shamed into silence. "I'm taking him to the bio-reactor, where I'll honor his memory by making him a permanent part of this place. He'll live forever among the very plants and fish we tend."

  Garrett stared at Leda. Dump Phillip's body in the recycler? It made practical sense to reclaim what was now just so much meat, but even he could see the offensiveness of treating a human body that way. He tried not to think about what he was holding. "Is this what you people want?" he said.

  The Pilgrims murmured among themselves. "But she's not one of us," a young man said. "She doesn't believe. Phillip cast her out."