Bitter Waters

by Wen Spencer

  “Thank you,” Ukiah breathed, and carefully placed the mouse as far into the drain as he could go. “Go on, find the boy.”

  He leaned his body against the pipe, and thought only of the mouse as it skittered fearfully along water into the darkness.

  . . . cold wet steel, undulating in frozen minihills, a rushing river of muddy water, a vast curving ceiling echoing back the white noise of water, something huge ahead, the growing smell of blood, the edge of a great hole, clinging to the edge, trembling with fear . . .

  Ukiah tried to send comfort and encouragement over the fraying link. He could create the mouse because he was in truth a collection of independently intelligent cells acting as a whole. Whatever method his cells used to communicate, endowing him with telepathic abilities with his mice and those closely related to him, depended much on mass. The smaller the collection of cells, like the mouse, the shorter the distance he could communicate with it.

  If he had been reduced down to hundreds of mice, none of them would venture down the terrifying drop. They would be too hard-wired by instinct to follow that course. They would flee to a safe dry place, and eat until they had energy to merge into a larger, stronger creature, hopefully human, hopefully with enough of his memories intact to return to being Ukiah. Thus, only with Ukiah’s human mind directing the mouse remotely, did it overcome its fear and carefully pick its way down the rusty cliff.

  . . . brown curly hair, a male human, a chilled cheek, closed eyes . . .

  “It’s him,” Ukiah whispered.

  “Unfortunately,” Max’s voice came over Ukiah’s headset. “The nearest manhole is way down here, around the corner, and it’s really started to pour. Damn, where’s that rescue crew?”

  Ukiah murmured an answer, trying to coax his mouse back out. It was on the edge of his influence, though, and frightened. It scurried back and forth on the imagined safety that the boy provided, hesitant to face the dark alone. Suddenly it slipped into the fast-moving water that chuted down over slick bare skin. Ukiah squeaked in surprise as the mouse was swept down through a hole between child and pipe and washed away.

  “Ukiah!” Max called over the headset. “What’s wrong?”

  Ukiah leapt to his feet and bolted toward Max. “I’ve lost my mouse! I need to get it back.”

  Max exploded into curses.

  The rain beat furiously down now, sheeting off the rest of the world so it seemed like Ukiah struggled within a pocket universe to save the boy. He rounded the corner and found his partner and Ari beside an opened manhole, shining lights into the hole.

  Max looked up, obviously torn. “Kid, the water is already deep and fast, and it’s raining harder now. We don’t have ropes, and you’re not even sure what direction to go. Just wait for the rescue crew.”

  “I’ve got to go,” Ukiah said, wishing Ari wasn’t there so he could argue with Max openly. Perhaps, it was better this way—he could never win arguments with Max. He hadn’t considered losing his mouse when he sent it into the drain—a lost mouse was much too dangerous to the world. Hex had used a single stolen mouse to create Kittanning. With a second mouse, the Ontongard leader had nearly remade Max into a clone of Ukiah. Even without the evil intentions of the Ontongard, Ukiah could not ignore that somehow, some part of the dismembered child Magic Boy, perhaps just a lone mouse, had become the Wolf Boy, and eventually himself.

  He had to get it back. He brushed past Max to the manhole, ignoring the look that spoke volumes.

  The sound of water falling out the throats of countless feeder pipes, echoed by curving concrete, combined into an unending deafening roar. Ukiah climbed down the slick metal ladder into the ink blackness. The water grabbed his foot as he went to step off the ladder, trying to jerk him under. He braced himself against the current and found his footing. The water flowed up to his knees, numbingly cold, seeming nearly solid with the force it applied on him.

  Ukiah stood a moment, waiting to adjust to the cave darkness pressing in on him. As his eyes adapted, the fist-sized disk of filthy concrete illuminated by his flashlight became a curving, grime-coated wall, a shimmer reflecting off the moving blackness that was water, and the thin paleness where the two met in a mud-tainted froth. Sound and pressure filled in what he could not see; he sensed the top of the pipe close to his head and the opposite wall just out of reach and out of sight.

  Trying to ignore how little space was left between the flat plain of water and the top arch of the pipe, Ukiah concentrated on finding the boy and his mouse. Kyle had been west of the manhole, but this culvert ran north to south. Ukiah replayed the last moments of contact with his mouse. It had rushed away from him, heading south, not east toward this culvert. Nor could he sense his mouse now, or glean anything of the boy. Ukiah decided to follow the flow of water and see if there was a main junction pipe. Letting go of the ladder, he waded with the current, fighting to stay upright. The cement floor, unseen under the water, sloped with the steep hillside, which would make getting back hard. His flashlight danced through the cave darkness as he staggered forward.

  Fifty feet down, the pipe ended, spilling its water down into a ten-foot-tall main junction pipe running east to west. The water was deeper, over his knees and creeping toward his hips. Much deeper and he’d lose his footing against the current completely. And he still wasn’t sure if he was going the right direction. He played his flashlight down the left-hand wall of the pipe, looking for something that led back north to Kyle.

  Max said something to him over the headset, the thunder of water drowning out his words.

  “What?” He cupped his free hand over his ear, trying to keep the water’s roar out.

  “Which way are you going?”

  “I went south. I’m going east now. First left!” Ukiah shouted and spotted a likely feeder, forty feet down. While only four feet in diameter, the pipe was still wide enough for him to travel without getting stuck. “I’m going to head north now. Hopefully it will take me back to Kyle!”

  He overshot the feeder, shoved past the opening by the rushing water. Gripping the lip of the pipe, he hauled himself back and up into the pipe. He had to squat, duck-walking against the water, but luckily it only came to his shins. Fast-food drinking cups and empty pop bottles floated past him, washed out of gutters and into the storm drain. He came to a small dam made from a wedged tree branch and a Kentucky Fried Chicken box.

  Perched on top was his mouse.

  “Oh, thank God,” he breathed. He picked up the tiny bundle of shivering wet fur and, unzipping his coat, tucked it into his shirt pocket. He broke up the tree branch, clearing it out of his way, letting the water float the debris away.

  “Come on, Ukiah!” Max called over the headset. “It’s turning into a downpour out here! You’ve got to get out!”

  “I’m almost there!” He worked his way past the smaller pipes feeding into his, sniffing for the blood trace he picked up earlier. There!

  His luck held. Kyle’s pipe was little more than an elbow, doing an abrupt right angle into the drainpipe Ukiah crouched in. While only about a foot across, it should have been wide enough for the four-year-old to wriggle through. Ukiah worked his hands up between the boy and pipe. While Kyle’s front was pressed tight to the pipe, there seemed plenty of room in the back. Why was the boy stuck?

  Wedged tight against the center of the boy’s back was a ball. Irregularities in the pipe kept the ball from descending, and the boy lacked any way to push the ball up, as his hands were trapped to his side.

  “Ukiah!” Max was shouting.

  “I almost have him, Max.” Ukiah pushed the ball up and out of the pipe, and the boy slid down into his arms in a gush of water like a baby being born. Alive. Unconscious. Ice cold. “Got him!”

  “What?” Max shouted.

  Ukiah didn’t bother to answer. He waddled awkwardly down the pipe, carrying the limp boy. At the mouth lip, he halted with a groan of despair. The water level had risen dramatically in the junction pipe; most likely the rush
ing water would come up to his chest now. Just dropping down into the flow would be like stepping out in front of a speeding car; he doubted he could keep his feet when it hit him. If he lost hold of the boy in this torrent, he wouldn’t be able to get him back.

  “Max! Where are the rescue crews?” He cupped his microphone to keep the water’s roar out. “Max, I’m going to need someone on ropes.”

  “Hold on!”

  He waited in the vast, dark wet roaring. Two lights appeared in the feeder upstream and picked him out. “I see them!”

  The lights separated, one coming on while the other stayed, anchoring ropes. The first rescue worker came fast, carried on the rush of water like a piece of debris. Ukiah caught Max’s scent as the first light slammed against his pipe, revealing that it belonged to his partner.

  “What are you doing?” Ukiah shouted at him.

  “Getting you out of here!” Max shouted back. “Come on!”

  Max steadied him as he climbed down into the current. The water smashed into him, and then tried pulling him down and carrying him away. Together they worked their way back to Ari, standing anchor for the rope. The policeman was tied off with a second rope, leading back to the ladder.

  Brilliant light and water streamed down through the open manhole. Hands reached down for the boy, and Ukiah blindly passed the small limp body upward.

  “Go on,” Max shouted.

  Ukiah ducked his head, lost between cave black and brilliance. “I can’t see!”

  “Go on, Ari!” Max waved the cop ahead, and then guided Ukiah’s hand to the ladder. “Can you make it alone?” Ukiah nodded. “I’ll go first and act as your eyes.”

  Max climbed up, and was there, a steadying hand and voice, when Ukiah scrambled out of the manhole. Rescue No. 1, the heavy rescue truck from the Shadyside station, Engine No. 14 of the Oakland fire station, and another squad car had filled the street while Ukiah was in the storm drains. The night was full of flashing lights, blaring radios, moving bodies, shouting voices, and restraining hands.

  Ukiah covered his eyes as they shifted painfully back to human normal, trying to block out some of the confusion around him. At least the earlier cloudburst had ended, and the rain had tapered down to a fine drizzle.

  “He’s fine.” Max fended off an attempt to get him onto a gurney. “Just give him a moment.”

  A compromise of him sitting on the fire engine’s bumper was reached, and a woman pushed away his hand, commanding, “Let me see. Do you have something in your eyes?”

  “The light hurts.” He blinked open his eyes, squinting against the glare. “I got used to the dark.”

  “Then you probably don’t want me to do this.” She shone a penlight into his eyes and watched them dilate. Behind her, the ambulance pulled away, whisking Kyle off to Children’s Hospital. “You really should leave this stuff to us,” she chided. “Good work, though. It’s great to have finally found one of the missing kids.”

  A few minutes later she announced him completely fit. By then, word of the rescue had reached the media, and four TV news reporters from the local channels arrived, followed by cameramen and more bright lights.

  “Mr. Oregon, how did you find the little boy?”

  “We’re told he’s been taken to Children’s Hospital. How badly was he hurt?”

  “Were there any signs of the other four missing children?”

  “No. He just went after a lost ball,” Ukiah told them, following Max as his partner cleared a path to the Cherokee. “He climbed down into the storm drain and got stuck. This wasn’t connected to the kidnappings.”

  “How did you find him? The police searched the neighborhood for hours. People here say you’ve only been on the case for less than an hour.”

  “Did you follow his scent, Wolf Boy?”

  “No more questions.” Max unlocked the Cherokee remotely, and opened the passenger door for Ukiah. “We’ve had a rough day and we’re heading home now.”

  The reporters chased Max around the Cherokee as he threw the damp climbing ropes into the back and then got into the driver’s seat, repeating the same questions while he shook his head and said, “No comment.”

  Max and Ukiah were silent until they turned the first corner, leaving the chaos behind them.

  “Did you get your mouse?”

  “Yeah.” Ukiah took the mouse out of his pocket and found a power bar to feed to it. “Where did you get the ropes?”

  “Bought them off a neighbor. Rock climber. I paid the little shit twice what they were worth.”

  “So you paid him all the money in the world?”

  Max looked at him, surprised, and then grinned. “I suppose that is what they were worth to us.”

  Their offices were in Shadyside, a small, affluent neighborhood filled with boutiques and mansions. Max had bought the house when he was happily married, planning to fill it with antique furniture and spoiled children. His wife died in a car accident, changing those plans, and the mansion was now the office for Bennett Detective Agency. To Ukiah, it was a second home, complete with his own bedroom.

  The mansion had a carriage house converted into a detached four-car garage. Max parked the Cherokee in the second bay, between Ukiah’s motorcycle and Max’s Hummer. “Go ahead and get cleaned up. We’ll deal with the equipment tomorrow. Don’t forget your mouse.”

  Ukiah had forgotten the sleeping mouse. It was annoying that perfect recall did not mean one always remembered important things. He picked up the tiny sleeping bundle of fur, waking it. A moment of concentration reverted it to blood, and then the cells merged with the skin of his palms, making his hands feel bloated and hot.

  In the darkness between the garage and the back door, Ukiah stripped down to his boxers. After scrubbing off the storm drain stench upstairs, he dressed in jeans and a black T-shirt labeled PRIVATE DETECTIVE, BENNETT DETECTIVE AGENCY across the back and went downstairs to raid the fridge. What was in the refrigerator section, however, had sprouted mold while they were in Oregon. The smell when he opened the door was an assault on his sensitive senses. He closed the door quickly and checked the freezer. Max had it stocked with ice cream bars for Ukiah.

  “All the leftovers in the fridge are really foul,” he told Max when he ducked into Max’s library office to say good night.

  Max grunted, his attention on the answering machine. It played a series of sharp clicks followed by a time stamp; late Friday afternoon was measured off in half-hour increments. “The same person called five times and hung up after the answering machine started to record.”

  The next message was from the Volvo car dealership, complaining that the agency’s custom-ordered car had gone unclaimed for several weeks.

  By the mysterious and archaic rules of depreciation, the agency’s Buick had reached the end of its usefulness despite being in perfect working order. In early June, when Max ordered a Volvo to replace the Buick, Ukiah had only cared about its color. At that time, he had been a childlike Wolf Boy. He looked barely seventeen and could recall only eight lean years of living with humans.

  Since then his life had been massively altered. He had learned that he was a half-breed alien who aged only when wounded, had been given genetic memories of his father’s race stretching back eons, and, most recently, recovered memories of his hundred-year enforced childhood among his Native American family. He had been kidnapped, beaten, and killed, only to heal back to life, aging him body and soul. Some of the changes in him were easily seen in the mirror; in months he had aged years. Most were subtler, surprising him.

  He caught himself wondering how Max determined it was time to trade in the Buick, why he chose a Volvo to replace it, and what the agency would end up paying for the change in cars. Surely this was what moths went through after emerging from their cocoons and first considered the mysteries of flight.

  “I told Chino and Janey to call the dealership last week.” Max punched the delete button. David Chino and Moisha Janey were two part-time private investigators tha
t the agency employed. While the two worked well closely supervised, covering the agency while Max and Ukiah were in Oregon proved too much for them. “I’ll pick the Volvo up tomorrow morning.”

  A message from their accountant followed, stating simply, “I wanted to talk to you about end of quarter.”

  Another mysterious business thing Ukiah had left to Max since being raised by wolves gave him a weak understanding of all things concerning money. It bothered Ukiah that he had no real idea what “end of quarter” might mean for the company. Neither the Ontongard nor the Native American child had experience with business accounting, but he gained some depth in personality, someplace, that wanted to know. As the term “partner” implied, the agency was half his.

  The next message was from the airport, stating that they found the lost luggage after Max and Ukiah left, and would be forwarding them to the agency in the morning.

  “That reminds me . . .” Max took out his PDA and jotted a note. “We need to order new body armor to replace the stuff that got shot up in Oregon, get it express-shipped.”

  The last message was from Samuel Anne Killington, the female private investigator they had worked with in Pendleton. They had hired her to drive Kraynak’s Volkswagen van back from Oregon. Max had given her a wireless phone in case of emergencies.

  “Hey there, it’s me.” Sam’s voice was rough with exhaustion. Max had kissed her good-bye that morning at the Pendleton Airport. As their small airplane climbed and turned toward Portland, Ukiah saw her pulling out of the parking lot in Kraynak’s van, starting her trip to Pittsburgh. When she arrived in a few days, Max planned on talking her into joining the agency.

  “I made Cheyenne, Wyyyyyyoming.” She drawled the state’s name out and gave a tired laugh. “I probably could have put in another hour or two driving, but that would put me in the middle of nowhere.” A pause, as if she hoped they’d pick up. “I thought you’d be in by now. Well, I’m calling it a night and getting up at some obscene hour tomorrow. I’ll call you in the morning.”