Diego and the Rangers of the Vastlantic

by Armand Baltazar

  “Sparring,” Gaston said, stepping in front of them with two sets of boxing gloves. “We will learn how to punch and how to be punched.”

  “Don’t we want to not be punched?” Petey asked.

  “That is preferable,” Gaston said, “but not always possible. Sometimes you must absorb a blow in order to deliver your own. Paige and I will demonstrate.”

  “You sure you’re up for that?” Paige said, taking the gloves with a smile.

  “More than sure, belle.”

  Paige slipped on the gloves and adopted a sparring position: knees bent, gloves up to protect her face. She and Gaston danced around the square drawn in the sand, ducking, feinting, trading blows. Some of the hits sounded hard enough that Diego imagined he would have been flat on his back, but both combatants shook it off.

  “Nice,” Gaston said. “As you can see, the key is to maintain your balance and composure. Lose your cool, and you’ll end up KO’d. Now, who will fight first?”

  “Ribera and Emerson,” the captain ordered, pointing at them both.

  “What?” Diego said.

  “You’re joking,” Lucy said, pursing her lips.

  But Diego didn’t want to risk earning the captain’s wrath, so he took the gloves and slipped them on. Lucy did the same.

  Gaston demonstrated a defensive position, with their hands protecting their faces.

  “Now, move,” he said. “And look for a weakness.”

  Diego’s hands felt clammy in the gloves. He started to move on his toes, and though it was the last thing he wanted to do, he gathered up the nerve to look Lucy in the eye.

  She glared at him from behind her gloves, moving left and right. She dipped toward him, then darted back. “Come on, Ribera, or did you already take your best shot last night?”

  “Knock him out cold, Luce!” Paige called.

  “Look, about what I said,” Diego said, moving in a circle with her.

  Lucy’s eyes narrowed.

  “I think we need to talk about this.”

  Lucy didn’t respond. She kept darting around, gloves high, her brow sheened with sweat.

  Finally, Diego stopped and dropped his hands. “Come on already, Lucy, would you say someth—”

  Diego stumbled down to his knee, his whole face throbbing.

  Lucy’s shadow fell over him. “I win,” she said, and dropped the gloves beside him. “Not so much of a coward after all.”

  “Yeah, girl!” Paige shouted.

  “Oh, petit frère,” Gaston said, clucking his teeth. “Rule number one, never drop your guard.”

  Diego pushed himself up. Petey grabbed his arm. “You okay, buddy?”

  “Yeah,” Diego said. He turned to say something to Lucy, but she was sitting next to Ajax, with both Paige and Gaston tending to her.

  “Let her cool off,” the captain said. “But then you will fix this problem.”

  “Yes, sir,” Diego said.

  That night, they ate at one end of a long, empty table in the cavernous dining hall. Aside from exchanging a few comments with Petey, Diego was mostly quiet, unable to keep himself from listening to Lucy, Paige, and Gaston as they laughed their way through dinner.

  When the meal was finished, Petey and Gaston stayed to help Paige clean up the kitchen. Diego waited until Lucy was leaving the dining hall, then followed her.

  “Hey,” he called. “Lucy, can we talk?”

  Lucy slowed but didn’t stop walking. “Not really,” she said over her shoulder.

  “Captain’s orders,” Diego said.

  “Oh, please.”

  “I’m serious. He said we have to straighten out our problem.”

  “Ha,” Lucy said. “We don’t have a problem. We have you being an insufferable cad.”

  She walked away again, so Diego grabbed her hand.

  “Come on, can we . . . can we please talk about this outside?”

  Lucy looked at him coldly, then at their hands. She pulled hers away, but slowly, so that her fingers slid across his palm. Diego flinched at the sensation.

  “Fine,” she said.

  They walked out onto the balcony. Diego kept going, down the steps to the beach.

  “Where are you going?” Lucy asked.

  “Away from everybody. I don’t want Gaston or Paige coming by.” In truth, that was only part of the reason.

  Lucy huffed, but then she joined him.

  They walked out onto the moonlit sand, the ocean calm and glassy, like a second starry sky. Diego walked with his hands in his pockets. Every now and then, one of them would stumble in the sand and their shoulders would brush against each other’s. Neither of them said anything about it.

  Diego scanned the shadows at the edge of the beach, looking for what he’d seen before.

  “I don’t feel like going any farther,” Lucy said.

  “Just a little more,” Diego said, spying the spot up ahead. “Trust me.”

  “You’re being weird,” Lucy said, but she slipped off her shoes and left them behind as they walked. She caught Diego noticing. “What? I like the sand between my toes, and my mother will never know.” She nodded to his feet. “You should try it.”

  Diego smiled. “Okay.” He kicked off his shoes and flexed his toes in the cool sand. “Yeah, that’s pretty good.”

  “Like getting a foot massage with every step,” Lucy said.

  “Now I’m picturing a beach made of hands,” Diego said.

  “Ew,” Lucy said, and pushed him gently on the shoulder. “Don’t ruin it.”

  “Sorry.” They were nearing the spot. He led her up into the shadows beneath the palms and waited for Lucy to join him. When she was into the shadows, he held out his hand. “Stop there.”

  “Stop bossing me around,” Lucy said. She looked around and noticed their familiar surroundings. “If we’re here to resume our fight, then I’m going back.”

  “You can’t move now,” Diego said. “Now hold still and close your eyes.”

  “I will not.”

  “Trust me.”

  “Why would I do that?”

  “Because I’m sorry, and there’s something here for you to see.”

  “I can’t see very well if my eyes are closed,” Lucy said, almost smiling. “Fine.”

  Diego gently placed his hands on her feet.

  “What exactly are you doing?”

  “Keep your eyes closed.” He glanced down at the sand as he let go of her. “Now, don’t move or you might hurt them. Okay . . . open your eyes.”

  In the sand at Lucy’s feet, there was a quiet, shuffling sound, and then Lucy gasped.

  In moments, so many of the tiny turtles were shuffling out of the sand that the spot looked alive. They scrambled over Lucy’s feet and around her ankles, making their way instinctively toward the sea.

  “Oh . . . they are the most adorable things ever.” Lucy knelt down, watching their little flippers churning the sand. She ran a finger over the back of one of their papery shells.

  “Now watch. Keep still,” Diego said, and he closed his eyes and spread his arms. He pictured the turtles, their little faces, their shiny eyes. . . .

  “Blimey,” Lucy whispered. All the turtles had formed a perfect ring around Lucy, gazing at her, their little heads bobbing up and down.

  “Diego, are you . . . are you doing this?”

  “Yes.” Diego opened his eyes and saw that the little beings had responded.

  “You did that . . . ,” Lucy said, “with the Maker’s Sight?”

  Diego nodded.

  “Why?”

  “I think you know why.”

  Lucy looked at him and crossed her arms expectantly.

  “I, um, I thought about what you said and why you told Paige about what happened with me and my dad . . . and I get it. And I . . . I know I shouldn’t have said that about you being a coward. I mean, I didn’t have the guts to tell my mom or Petey what happened that day with my dad. You’re not a coward, and you’re not fake. . . . You’re doing wha
t you have to do. And I don’t know what it must feel like to be in your place. So, um, I’m sorry.” With that, the turtles returned to their journey toward the water.

  Lucy sighed. “You feel alone, and sometimes . . . you feel trapped.” She nestled into an empty spot among the migrating baby turtles. “But having someone to talk to makes it feel like you’re not on your own, and that makes it tolerable. I shouldn’t have told Paige, and she shouldn’t have said what she did.”

  “Well, I was riding her pretty bad about Gaston,” Diego said.

  “Right. Well, you should know better now than to mess with that one.”

  “Lesson learned.”

  Lucy nodded, looking at the turtles. “You knew those turtles would be there, didn’t you?”

  “Redford and I spotted the mounds in the sand last night, and all day I thought about showing them to you. That you would think it was neat.”

  “So, all day you were thinking about how to apologize to me,” Lucy said. “How did you do it? I mean, with these turtles. Are you talking to them?”

  “No, not talking. It’s more like I can send them a thought, feeling, or images, and they seem to . . . act on it. It’s like hypnosis, I think. Back in New Chicago, something happened with Daphne that gave me the idea. I wasn’t totally sure it would work. But when I brought you here, I calmed my mind and started to think over and over how . . . nice it was to be near this girl,” Diego said. “And I guess they felt it and came to be near you.”

  Lucy looked away, holding back a smile, her face flushed. “This power . . . being able to send your thoughts to other animals, is that a normal part of the Sight?”

  “I don’t know. My dad never told me that it was something the Sight could do,” Diego said. “It’s no big deal.”

  “I’m not sure I believe you,” she said. “If you can do that to animals, does that mean you could do that to a person?”

  “I don’t know. I never thought about it. That would be kinda wrong, though, wouldn’t it?”

  “Yes, it would.”

  “So,” Diego said. “Am I forgiven, or what?”

  Lucy punched him in the arm. “Perhaps.”

  “Ouch!” Diego winced. She’d hit his sore shoulder. “Yeah, well, you sure don’t punch—”

  “Don’t say ‘like a girl’ or I’m leaving.”

  Diego smiled.

  “Good—oh . . .” Lucy’s brow wrinkled with concern. “Yikes, did you bump your nose when you fell this afternoon?”

  “What?” Diego felt his upper lip. His finger came away with a smear of blood. “Oh, I guess,” he said. “Maybe it’s a delayed reaction to your punch.”

  Lucy smiled. “Thought you were made of tougher stuff than that, Ribera.”

  He doubled over, put his hand over his mouth, and coughed, so hard that it brought spots to his vision. When he sat up, he could feel fresh blood trickling from his nose.

  “Diego?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Okay, come here, you.” Lucy pulled on his arm. “You are not well.”

  She turned him sideways and started to pull him backward.

  “What are you doing?” Diego asked.

  “Just relax. I’ve mended my brothers’ bloody noses plenty of times, and Mother will not tolerate the stains, so I’ve learned a thing or two.” She laid his head back in her lap and pinched his nose.

  “Does that hurt?” Lucy asked.

  “No,” Diego said, his voice high and nasally. Lucy smiled.

  “We have to hold it like this for about two minutes, and the flow should stop.”

  Diego found himself looking up at Lucy and noticing more than ever how pretty she was. The thought freaked him out because he almost told her. Her eyes sparkling in the light off the water, the moonlight catching her cinnamon freckles, the curve of her nose. But then Diego realized that he was staring up at her dumbly.

  “How many bloody noses have you fixed?” he asked.

  “Five or six,” Lucy said. “My father would never approve of your long hair,” she said, gently running a finger across his forehead to brush his hair aside. “Then again, he wouldn’t approve of Paige or Balsamic or pretty much any single thing that’s happened.”

  “He’ll approve when you rescue him,” Diego said.

  “He might pass out from shock at the sight of me,” Lucy said. “That will sure make it harder to rescue him.” She laughed for a second, but it died away. “Or he’ll get us all captured again while he’s busy lecturing me.”

  “I’ll let him know to watch out for your right hook,” Diego said.

  “Oh, will you, now?” Lucy made a fist above Diego.

  He reached up and grabbed it as if to stop her. Their hands stayed there, weightless for a moment, fingers intertwined.

  “Okay.” Lucy pulled away, releasing Diego’s nose. “The bleeding should be stopped, and we should get back.”

  Diego sat up, his heart pumping like he’d sprinted or landed an impossible trick on his gravity board.

  “Are you okay to walk back?” Lucy said, already on her feet.

  Diego stood, dizzy for a moment, but steadied. He wiped at his nose. Dry. “I’m good.”

  Lucy held out her hand. “Come on then, slowpoke.”

  Diego slid around to the other side of her and took her hand.

  As they walked, Diego glanced at his other hand, the one she’d meant to grab. He’d had it closed this whole time, since his coughing fit. After a quick look, he flicked his arm behind him and wiped his hand on his pants.

  He heard the lightest sound of something landing in the sand.

  As they trudged toward the castle, Diego thought back to the moment he’d coughed, to the splitting pain he’d felt. He still tasted the blood and felt the raw, empty space. And he wondered if he was learning the real price of the Maker’s Sight.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  An Oath Before the Storm

  Diego and his friends were drying off from their swim the next morning, and as they caught their breath, Redford and Daphne played on the beach. Redford picked up a large log and threw it twenty yards. Daphne chased after it, but only when she reached it did she seem to realize that there was no way she could pick it up. She looked around, found a stick more her size, and dropped it at Redford’s feet, tail wagging. Redford bent to pick it up but couldn’t get his giant fingers around it. Instead, he held out his hand, and Daphne sprang into it. He placed her up in her favorite perch, in his operating chair.

  “Bonjour, crew,” Gaston said, arriving behind them. “The rest of training is postponed. Captain wants you to meet him and Ajax out past the gun tower. Here’s a map.” He handed the paper to Petey, and the four looked it over.

  “That’s a few miles away,” Petey said, still breathing hard from their workout.

  “Are you expecting us to run there?” Paige asked.

  Before Gaston could answer, Redford’s hands thumped to the ground on either side of them. Diego looked up at him. “I think Red’s going to give us a lift,” he said.

  “Well, that seems like cheating,” Gaston said, “but the captain does want you there on the double.”

  Redford scooped them up and started jogging down the beach in giant, loping strides. Daphne yipped with delight from her perch.

  “This is how we should always travel,” Lucy said, the wind blowing her wet hair. She and Diego sat on one shoulder while Paige and Petey sat on the other.

  Diego shared a glance with Lucy. She gave him a slight smile that seemed to acknowledge the night before but also say that today it was back to business.

  “Okay, Redford, there’s the gun tower,” Petey said. “There should be a road over there.” He pointed up off the beach.

  Redford vaulted through dense bushes and vines and emerged on the wide road. It was a straight, two-mile strip with lights on either side.

  “This isn’t a road,” Diego said. “It’s a runway.” Up ahead, there were enormous hangar doors built into the imposing sh
eer rock walls of the Volcambrian crater.

  Redford reached it in a minute. The kids slid off by his arms.

  “What is this place?” Paige asked.

  “A hangar,” Diego said. The place seemed familiar to him, though he wasn’t sure why. He started toward the giant doors.

  “Hey, D,” Petey said. “Gaston said to wait for the captain.”

  “I know,” Diego said, but he kept walking. This runway was enormous. He could picture the giant cargo planes that might have once taken off and landed here. And those doors . . . he walked into the shadow of the crater wall, studying them and wondering what was inside. “I am waiting,” he added to Gaston, “just in here.”

  “I wouldn’t mind getting out of the sun,” Lucy said.

  Diego gripped the side of the door and pulled, but it wouldn’t budge. “Hey, Redford,” he called. “Give us a hand?”

  Redford tromped over. With a puff of steam and a grinding of gears, he pulled open the doors. Diego stepped into the shadows, Lucy right behind him.

  Inside the hangar, the air was cool and dank, with a sweet earthen smell. Lights hanging on cords from the high ceiling cast a dim glow over the cavernous space. Diego peered between rows of machines, his footfalls echoing off the dust-covered metal surfaces.

  “This place is stunning,” Lucy said.

  “There have to be hundreds of vehicles,” Petey said. “I mean, this is one heck of an arsenal.”

  Diego kept staring at a Japanese Zero. It had its original paint scheme and markings, but this one had also been altered, like the one that had attacked them. He glanced at a Minotaur robot and its disassembled weaponry at its feet. It was an Elder weapon from the Argentinian civil war.

  “Your eyes don’t deceive you.” The voice echoed through the hangar. The captain and Ajax approached.

  Diego looked back at the arsenal. “My dad built these.”

  “Your father is a brilliant engineer and inventor,” the captain said, “and he is a man of great courage but . . . he sought a different path to serve our common purpose. Before he made machines to rebuild the world, and toys for amusement, he was the master of technology that could destroy.”

  “And what about those planes that attacked us?”