Generation Z (Book 6): The Queen Unchained

by Meredith, Peter

  “It could be something mathy,” Veronica said with a curl to her lips, as if math was a disease and something to avoid at all costs.

  Deanna felt her own lip curling, hoping Veronica was wrong. The password could be one of those incomprehensible formulas where letters meant numbers and there were squiggly lines, Greek signs and other gibberish that only eggheads could understand. “Maybe it’s even a math problem,” Deanna said, in horror.

  The three women stood in silence until Deberha shook her head. “Naw, it couldn’t be. I had a computer back before. It was the one with the apple on it. The password wasn’t a question. It was just a word or one of those symbols on the keyboard. It was supposed to be something only you would know.”

  “Yeah, but the problem is, Jillybean knows a lot. Even when she was a kid, she seemed to know everything. What I really wanted to know is if either of you knew how to get around the password.”

  “Like hack into it?” Veronica asked. “Sorry, the only thing I used my computer for was email and Facebook. I once dated a guy who said he was a hacker.”

  Deanna stared down at the keyboard, remembering the laptop she had carted around from class to class. It had a Free Tibet bumper sticker slapped across it, which in hindsight was the ultimate in virtue signaling. Other than buying the bumper sticker, she hadn’t done a thing to help Tibet. In fact, she wasn’t sure exactly where Tibet was or who had enslaved it, but damn it if that bumper sticker didn’t just scream: I CARE!

  She wished she could go back and slap her nineteen-year-old self. She’d had a wonderful childhood and her future had seemed so bright that she had not bothered to learn anything of any real use.

  “What about a work-around?” she asked. “I remember that if you hit a few keys at once, it would do things.”

  Deberha leaned over Deanna’s shoulder. “Yeah, you could hit control-alt-delete and it would do something. Try it, Dee.”

  Nothing happened. Veronica gave the mouse a shake. “Maybe it’s not that kind of computer. Hey, you know what? My sister used to write her password on a piece of paper and tape it under her keyboard. That hacker-guy said that was a no-no, but she did it anyway.”

  “There’s no way Jillybean would do that,” Deanna said. “She’s too smart.” Smart or not, Deanna was desperate and she turned over the keyboard and, as expected, found nothing. Deberha looked on the computer tower itself and drew back with a laugh.

  “Maybe she isn’t too smart.” She pointed at a small piece of paper that read: Black, this is Mink—Duzklphghv. “Quick, type that in, Dee.”

  There was only space for twelve letter. “It’s not working. Read off those last jumble of letters.” It did not work either. Deanna peeled off the paper and sat back staring at it. “Duzklphghv. Is that Russian?” The other two could only shrug. “What about Black, this is Mink? Is that a code? It’s kind of familiar. Was that a movie or a song from way back before?”

  Neither woman had heard of a song like that. Deberha got comfortable on one of the stations, while Veronica pulled over a chair, repeating to herself, “Black, this is Mink.” After about the seventh time of saying this she asked, “Hey, are minks black. You know, the animal, naturally, I mean?”

  No one knew.

  They settled back into a deep silence that was broken only by one of them saying, “Hmm,” or mumbling, “Black, this is Mink.” Deanna felt the answer to the riddle was just beyond her grasp, but the more she tried to match Russian words with black minks, the more it seemed to slip away from her. She decided that she would try to meditate and let everything go in the hope that the answer would simply present itself.

  She was more than halfway asleep when a warbling cry from down the corridor made her jump. “Governor?”

  Veronica spazzed at the cry, while Deberha leapt off the table and comically scrambled for her holstered gun, which she never actually managed to free. The zombies were going crazy again and over their ruckus, the man yelled again, louder this time.

  “Hold on!” Deanna cried, snatching the little scrap of paper from the computer. There were two men at the door; both were armed with old M16s, which they held in sweat-slicked palms.

  “Commander French told me to tell you that there are more Corsairs,” the older of the two said, sneaking a peek past Deanna. His name was Joe Collins, and just at that moment, he was far more afraid of the zombies in the school than of any Corsair. He had heard the rumors about how gigantic the zombies were, and judging by the noise they were making, he guessed correctly that in this case the rumors were spot on. His M16 felt like a little plastic toy and he hoped his relief didn’t show when Deanna started wrapping the chain through the door handles and locked the school tight.

  She immediately began marching east with Joe struggling to keep up. He was only sixteen and was still growing—growing in the oddest manner possible. Parts of him were growing at different rates. First it had been his ears and the other boys had called him Dumbo. Then it his nose. It had stuck out from his face like a shark fin. Currently it was his feet. Lately it felt like he was walking about with snowshoes on.

  “How many are there?” Deanna asked, speaking over her shoulder. “Are they heading this way? And what’s with this ‘Commander French’ business? Are you guys making fun of him again?”

  Joe didn’t know which to answer first. “Sorry. It was a joke, but I guess it’s caught on. And the Corsairs aren’t coming here, yet. The fog lifted a little and we caught them landing some men across the way in Seattle.”

  Bainbridge was so small that this short conversation was all it took before they came within sight of the wall. People were streaming to it and already the five-foot wide walkway on top was crowded with people, most of whom were nowhere near their proper battle stations.

  Feeling important, Joe went ahead of her, barking, “Make way for the Governor! Make a hole. Come on, Jonny, step aside.”

  The other members of the council were already on the wall staring out at the distant ships, which kept appearing and disappearing in the shrouds of fog. “We’ve counted twenty-two ships so far,” Wayne said, handing her a pair of binoculars. “Most were around fifty-footers, so I can’t imagine them having any more than twenty men per boat. Nothing we can’t handle.” He said this, expecting a cheer, and received only a few hopeful looks mixed in with a bunch of frightened ones.

  “And how many of their boats did you miss because of the fog?” Andrea Clary demanded in a shrill tone. She was bundled in a long quilted parka that gave her an oddly rectangular appearance. “They could have a thousand men over there by now. Is that more than we can handle?”

  “Let’s not do this here,” Deanna said softly, her smile placid and easy. “We’ll discuss tactics in chamber. Have we heard anything from the west side of the island?” It was generally thought that any attack would come from the west where the Sound was narrow, barely three hundred yards in places.

  Wayne pretended that Andrea didn’t exist. “Nothing as of a half hour ago. Let me radio Paul. Crow-one, this is War Eagle, over.”

  From that second on, Deanna stopped listening. She was suddenly transported back in time to a point eleven years earlier when she barely knew Jillybean. She had been a tiny little thing and needed two hands to hold the radio. Green, this is Pink, she had said into the radio.

  They had been preparing to break into the River King’s prison to free Sadie. Her codename was Green, Deanna’s was Black, and Jillybean’s was her favorite color: Pink.

  “Black, this is Pink,” she whispered, knowing that Jillybean had left the cryptic message for her alone. It meant that she wanted Deanna to see what was inside the computer. “But what’s the code? Who’s got a piece of paper?” It would be a simple code, one that a comparatively simple person like Deanna could figure out. “Mink for Pink. M for P.”

  Paper was found and she quickly turned away from the others. With her back to them, she wrote out the alphabet twice, one over the other so that the M sat above the P. From there she
was able to turn Duzklphghv into Archimedes. She had no idea who Archimedes was, but it sounded exactly like the kind of word Jillybean would use.

  Chapter 15

  Alcatraz Island, San Francisco Bay

  Deanna wasn’t the only one dealing with the issue of boats invading what she considered her territory.

  Like she had every morning, Jenn Lockhart watched the sun rise from atop the prison roof, her long black coat flapping in the wind, her hair streaming behind her. And like every morning she watched the boats cut across the bay in a long procession, heading for Angel Island to disgorge more soldiers. And just like Deanna, the sixteen-year-old was powerless to stop it. The major difference, of course was that the ships shouldering aside the grey waves in the bay had brilliant white sails and the soldiers wore grey armor and carried shining steel spears.

  Jenn wasn’t entirely upset that the Guardians were moving into the Bay area. They had an army of brave soldiers, while she only had a small parcel of sheep-like men, a bevy of ex-slaves from Sacramento, ex-prostitutes from Santa Clara, and the ragged leftovers from the Hilltop.

  The Guardians also had a small, but well-trained navy of about thirty ships, while her navy consisted of the magnificent Queen’s Revenge and six wrecks that Mike Gunter had managed to salvage from the shallows. They were lying on their sides on the hill above the dock. Their black sails were in tatters and their hulls riddled with holes and gashes. Jenn wondered if they would ever float again.

  And if they could be salvaged, where would she get the crews to man them when she barely had enough people to defend the Floating Fortress, the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz itself?

  This also brought up the very sticky question of command in general. The Guardians had a competent military man in Commander Walker, while Jenn had no one she felt she could turn to beyond Mike. At sea, he was a gifted captain, but did his genius extend beyond the edges of his own ship? Could he command a tiny fleet to victory against crushing odds? No one knew, not even Mike. On the other hand, he was the first to admit that he was almost useless on land. He was brave, no one doubted that, but his commanding stature seemed to shrink on land. He became a follower and not the leader that Jenn desperately needed.

  For the most part, the few men left among the bay people were those who always managed to find ways not to be around when the fighting raged. They were the ones who had ready-made excuses to shirk actual work or who just stayed perpetually, intensively drunk. By necessity, the women picked up the slack, but only a handful had any experience actually fighting, and even fewer could sail a ship, and just one, Rebecca Haigh, had experience captaining a ship in an actual fight.

  The only person Jenn felt she could count on was herself, and that scared her right down to her toes. And it was this reason that she was outside with the wind knifing past her black, three-quarter length coat. She was looking for a sign and had been every morning and every evening since her flight southward with what felt like the entire Corsair fleet after them.

  In all that time no sign had come to her.

  Every morning and every night had been the same. She stood on the roof of the prison until her cheeks were red and her hands were numb. Every day Shaina Hale stood with her, huddled in a blanket, her teeth chattering, and every day, the slow-witted woman would ask when the Queen was returning. Every day, Jenn would have to remind her, “I’m the queen, now.”

  “You look like her,” Shaina would always say.

  Everyone said the same thing, especially when she was standing on the roof with her dark auburn hair spinning in a wild dance above her head. “I just have to act her,” she told herself. Jillybean wouldn’t be wasting her time looking for a sign. She would be plotting and planning and building bombs. She certainly wouldn’t be hiding out on a rooftop second-guessing herself.

  “Don’t get down on yourself, Jenn,” Jenn muttered. “She’s a genius at war…or she was.” She still didn’t understand why Jillybean had sacrificed herself. “And it wasn’t just her life she had sacrificed, either. It’s all of our lives.” Deep in her heart, Jenn did not think she had a chance of defeating the Corsairs when they finally came south. From her position she saw almost the entire bay and she saw just how weak they were.

  They lacked ships, real fighters, ammo and a proper leader. There was no getting around any of this.

  “We have bombs, though.”

  “A lot of them?” Shaina asked, with an extra-large shiver.

  Jenn patted her back. “Don’t be afraid of them, they won’t blow up without me saying so.” Actually, she wondered if they would blow up at all. She had plenty of bombs but no way to detonate them. Every electronics store in the bay area had been scrounged for radio-controlled devices to be used with the hundreds of torpedoes that had gone north with the Queen.

  Counting the small cache of torpedoes that had been left behind, she only had thirty-four remote detonators to use against the Corsair fleet which still had something like two-hundred ships!

  The very idea made her want to run away. They all wanted to run, and some had, mostly Santas. They snuck away at any chance they could, but they wouldn’t get far. The fires of bandit patrols could be seen in the west at night, and the Guardians had brought word that the Mexican rovers were straying far out of their usual territories. They were picking off the stragglers, while the zombies were gorging themselves on the larger groups.

  A sigh escaped Jenn as she turned to Shaina. “Can I ask a favor of you?”

  The dull eyes brightened. “You want breakfast again, your Queen-ness? Like yesterday? Only don’t burn the eggs this time, right? That was an accident. There was this bird. You know the ones with the black wings, and head, and all?”

  “The crow scared you. I remember. There won’t be a crow this time, I promise.” Jenn was about to send her off when she saw one of the sailboats cut away from the rest. It was slowly heading towards Alcatraz. She bent over her telescope, saying, “Hold on, Shaina. Can you prepare my office? You know, clean it up a bit and make sure there’s tea enough for six people. Thanks.”

  Jenn had hoped for this single boat for three days now. It was a good bet that Donna Polston was returning from her latest diplomatic mission. Was it a good sign that it had taken so long? Was it bad? Was it no sign at all? Most likely the last option was the right one. Jenn knew when she was seeing an actual sign. It almost always came with a sudden revelation, and this one did not. The boat was just a boat.

  Hiding her disappointment behind her practiced queen smile—a somewhat vacant, benign, everything’s-going-to-be okay smile, she took the stairs down into the bowels of the grey, uninviting prison. As dead as the building looked from the outside, the inside was alive with noise and jammed with people. Nobody wanted to be caught out on Treasure Island when the Corsairs came, and the Floating Fortress wasn’t much better.

  By definition, anything that floated could also be sunk, and while everyone thought it had been a huge asset during the last war, now that torpedoes were involved, it was thought that it would go right to the bottom in its first test. Jenn thought the same thing and only kept it around because Mike insisted that it was still a viable weapons platform. It was hard to tell whether this was because of his infinite faith in every waterborne craft under his command or because he had some sort of knowledge of the fortress that no one else had.

  “I hope he’s right,” Jenn said, once she was back in her office. The view here was only slightly more limited than the one from the roof. She could see the Floating Fortress perfectly, anchored midway between Alcatraz and Treasure Island. It looked like an ugly square of metal; those parts that weren’t blackened were orange with rust.

  Taking her binoculars, she scanned it, grimaced and moved on, searching the deck of the oncoming Guardian ship: a fine forty-seven foot catamaran. Donna was nowhere in sight. “It’s just cold,” Jenn muttered. “She’s there.”

  She next took in the early morning work party that was boarding the salvaged Corsair ships.
As always, Mike was already at work, his shoulder-length blonde hair streaming in the wind, his beard glinting with gold. He was cutting away a slimy stretch of old netting and tangles of seaweed from one of the boats.

  Why the hell does she still have a gol-derned propeller? She could read his lips. She also knew that he was jealous as the Guardian ship tacked upwind. With a big boat, it was a team effort to tack so flawlessly and Mike didn’t have much in the way of sailors.

  Shaina came in with her breakfast just then. “They’re not burned, see?” She pointed proudly to the undercooked eggs. The yolks were barely holding together as they jiggled precariously over a white slick of what looked like mucous.

  Eggs were too valuable of a commodity to let go to waste and puking them up would definitely be a waste. “I think you should give them one more minute on the pan and then they’ll be perfect. And maybe cook the potatoes a little longer as well. White isn’t the best color. Try for golden brown or anywhere close. Make sure you get some, too. You’re way too skinny.”

  They would come back burnt, which was better than runny in Jenn’s opinion. When Shaina left, Jenn returned to gazing at Mike. She felt she could stare at him for a week straight and not get sick of the sight. Another sigh was just escaping her when there was a knock at her door. It was Rebecca Haigh, looking pink-cheeked and vibrantly healthy. She wore a salt-stained peacoat that his the tar and grease that covered his blue jeans and gloves. There was even some of it in the ringlets of her red hair. “Your Highness?”

  Jenn waved her in and tried not to look uncomfortable as Rebecca bowed from the waist.

  “We finally finished running the cables and ropes beneath the bridge. We added six more buoys last night. I think it’s about as secure as we can get it in the time frame you presented.”

  “And the approaches to the bridge? How long will those take to…what?”

  Rebecca’s face had frozen and now her thin lips were only a line. She shook her head. “With the forces we have now,” she paused to shake her head again. “It’s impossible. That entire ridgeline to the north would need to be manned. The best we can do is offer a token resistance. Anything more would be a waste of lives. I don’t even think Jillybean would attempt to hold the bridge, though I guess there’s no knowing what she would do.”