Scavenger: Evolution: (Sand Divers, Book One)

by Timothy C. Ward

  Rush growled in frustration.

  What if he was too angry to even get it up?

  He thought of his first night with Star. He'd had the opposite problem. What if I don’t even make it in?

  Worse than that, what if it wasn’t as good? What if Star’s love was all he’d ever get? Lying with anyone else would be dreams of water on the open desert compared to what he’d shared with her. He’d be in a much worse place afterward if that were true. A corpse unburied only to be snapped in half and reburied with its head facing its crack.

  He took out one of the ladies’ towels and a fresh bar of soap, almost laughing at how ineffectual it would be to wash what he needed cleaned. He might as well use oil.

  The force of hot water pushed sand down his chest and off his arms. He'd gotten skinny since his days as divemaster. He opened his mouth, spit and dipped his head to let the hot pressure massage his scalp. His shower took three turns-length, and he still felt dirty when he gave up and shut the cool water off. As he wiped the clean towel over his skin, his invisible enemy whispered that its grip was still too strong.

  No shower or vagina could change who he was or what he’d have to live with. The direction he wanted was not where he was headed.

  He folded the towel around his waist, walked out to River’s closed door and knocked.

  "Hello?"

  "It's Rush."

  "I’m not ready." Something set down on her makeup stand inside. Another swiped up. She was in a hurry. Or nervous.

  "Do you mind if I come in and talk before?" He sounded childish, but she seemed like the only one he could talk to in the world.

  He knew she wasn’t.

  "No, Rush, I don’t think that’s a good idea."

  Another wall formed between him and peace. Another wave of rejection put him on his back. He felt almost able to cry.

  "Your appointment is at eleven," she added, her tone strongly distant and different from the intimacy he’d imagined they’d share.

  "Okay."

  His heart beat like the footsteps of a charging coyote. He walked back to the bathroom, sure everyone below was watching. He shut the door and sat on the toilet, angry with his time to think. He’d been so close. He didn’t know if he had the strength to get up and do it again. To do anything, for that matter.

  He hadn't always been this pathetic. Memories came to mind of Star’s smile when their home was a harbor of joy, when she had him feel their baby kick for the first time. Him holding her hand the moment their home welcomed a third heartbeat. He'd been weakened by the insertion of life into his world, but also eager to embrace it.

  The moment played out of Fish's voice entering the room, his emergence sudden and wet. His desperate first grip on Rush’s finger. The long, gasping cry for air as Rush searched for the knife to cut the cord. Frantic nerves. Blood spray warmed his face. His wife’s legs parted, spilling red and blue-grey rope onto the cloth under her. Her sacrifice in all its vulnerability. Life given. For him. For them. Their family.

  He hadn't thought about this for so long. He couldn't. Wouldn't. But now he felt like he had to, like one last goodbye.

  "Oh, Fish." A wall broke and poured him out into the realm of light and life. His last chance to embrace it or lose it. "I miss you so much." He snorted and choked through his breaths. "I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry."

  He dared glance into the memory of Star’s weeping. Of her reaching out to hold her baby for the first time. Her baby.

  She had held him as tight as his little body could handle, bleeding between her legs and caring only for the love at her breast.

  She loved you so much….

  I've been so stupid.

  It didn't matter whose fault it was. They both loved him. Fisher's death was no one's fault. Just chance. Bad luck.

  He was one among millions in the war between blood and life and sand and death.

  Rush had entered the sand to retrieve his son, and forgot to bring his life back with him. He’d let the sand take that from him, too.

  I gave up. Survive or die.

  Not only had he accepted death, but he'd let it cover his wife as well. She needed me to remind her of life and I turned my back to let her die as well.

  He unwrapped his towel to wipe his snot and dab his eyes. Then he stood and put on his clothes.

  He was ready to live and fight to keep it.

  River opened the door and stood in the crack, showing off her curves and thin black lacing.

  He kept walking.

  "Rush?"

  Her voice meant nothing to him.

  Rose watched him walk down the stairs. His steps infinitely lighter.

  "Is something wrong?" she asked.

  He opened his mouth to say "No, not anymore," but then he remembered the dead guy still in the corner and the deal he’d made with Warren. He landed off the last step and looked at Rose. "I quit."

  Sad jealousy leaked from her gaze as she watched him walk away. He wasn’t the only one trapped in that building. Bright sunlight and a fresh coat of sand met his face in his new challenge.

  A challenge he met with hope and life.

  Until he saw that Warren’s sarfer was gone.

  Star was not at home. He could tell with one look into their tent the size of Rose’s bar. How he could live with another person in so small a home and grow so far apart, he had no—no, he knew how. He’d given up. Without him there for her, her initial attempts at reconciliation had been like speaking to the dead.

  Now that I’m here, where are you?

  "Please tell me you’re here for a skin."

  Rush turned to Warren standing outside, his goggles and ker back on, scraping dirt from under his nails with his knife.

  It's a dive knife. Why does he have a dive knife? If he can dive, why does he need me?

  Warren shook his head. "You underestimated me. I've had your wife since you left for work." He stepped closer and lifted the blade's tip to Rush’s nostril. "You were always going to plant those bombs, it was only a matter of if I could convince you to do it again. This isn't the only town in my plans. We could have been a team. But you chose a girl."

  He reached out an open palm. "I’ll take my copper back. You won’t be needing it."

  Had Rush been holding anything, it would’ve dropped. Anger unleashed within. He dove, hands outstretched. Warren turned sideways and swiped his arm across his body. He deflected Rush’s arms and elbowed him in the back, dropping Rush hard. Burning-hot sand smacked his face, sticking to the sweat as he lifted up for air.

  Warren knelt and stuck the tip of his knife up under Rush’s neck. "That bomb is going off. The question is whether you’ll have the strength afterwards to find where I’ve taken her. If you kill me, or don’t do as I say, those odds, well let’s say they’re not in your favor."

  "Where is she?"

  "Would you like to speak to her?" A radio’s rubber antenna stuck out into Rush’s view. Warren clicked it on and pulled it back. "Make her scream."

  "No! I’ll do it. Just tell me where she is."

  "In time." Warren nicked skin off Rush’s neck with his blade. "Stand up."

  Rush obeyed, the open burn on his neck filling slowly with specks of sand. A half dozen tents down, a man glanced at Rush, up to Warren, and then pushed his wife and two kids to move on, their belongings tucked in sacks thrown over their backs. Rush wanted to scream at the man for ignoring him, but the truth was, he’d probably have done the same. At least that man was concerned for his family.

  The knife poked his back. "Walk."

  He didn’t think Warren would escort him through an area where he’d taken Star, but even that was just a hunch. They walked through the market, a near ghost town of folded-up tents and closed shops. No one to ask for help. Warren gave Rush distance to get up onto the sarfer, then climbed up himself, started it up, opened its sail, and took off.

  They sailed the long way west around the dune, and then wound their way back to the eastern edge, docking
close to the top, but hidden from the scouts on the wall.

  Warren dropped the sail and turned off the sarfer’s engine. "Move." Knife back out, he walked Rush to the bow. "Open it."

  Rush opened a hatch to the dive suit, pack and visor set in the space next to the crate of bombs.

  Warren looked down at Rush, the shade in his goggles too dark to see through. He would carry out his threat if Rush didn’t perform.

  "You’ll bury the bombs at peaks and valleys along the wall, spread out enough to reach the end. Then you’ll swim back up here. I’ll set them off, and if everything goes smoothly, I’ll tell you where to find your wife."

  "So she's out of range?"

  He doubted it, and his stare reflected in Warren's goggles didn't ease his mind. What leverage did he have to keep her safe?

  After a moment of Rush’s hesitation, Warren reached for his radio.

  Rush undressed quickly, catching a whiff of River’s perfume off his sleeve. He was almost glad to put a dive suit back on. The bottomless fear of coffining under the sand's weight spilled a chill through his blood. Swimming along the great wall would be more exercise than he’d had in years.

  Had he already let the thousands below him die?

  He blew sand off his respirator, bit down and sucked in a huff of air. He fit the visor on his forehead, lining the band on his temple. A diver with a working suit and visor is a threat to any man with a knife, though not as much on a sarfer, and not at all until he turned the suit on. But it made him wonder, how much does this stranger know about divers?

  With his visor placed and his suit on, he could bury the whole ship, but not fast enough to do it before Warren called on his radio.

  "You’re out of time, get moving." He held his knife up between them.

  The sun lit small notches on the knife’s black hilt. Justice Stone’s knife, notched after every viper he’d hunted. That's where he'd seen the cover!

  He backed to the bow’s edge, slow enough to hide his revelation on where Star could be.

  "Before you try something stupid..." Warren reached into his cloak, unclipped his radio and lifted it to his mouth. "Take a finger, your choice."

  "No!"

  Warren jabbed his knife to silence him, far enough back to make grabbing and heaving him over the sarfer nearly impossible.

  "Rush!" Star shouted. "Buck—agh!" The sound of a slap across skin silenced her. Buck. Stone’s prize viper, mounted on the wall over his office door. Star, my clever wife. I’ve missed you. I will rescue you.

  Rush side glanced at the Springston flag flying from the court house roof in the middle of town. Close enough to get buried for sure.

  He isn't going to let either of us live.

  Warren held the mic button. "Whatever happened to her gag, put it back in. Then take the finger."

  "No! Stop. Okay, I’m going."

  "What is Buck?" Warren didn’t radio back for the captor not to take a finger.

  "I don’t know. Tell him to stop. I’m going!"

  Warren slowly lifted the mic to his mouth, took a breath, and then turned it toward Rush.

  His wife’s muffled scream pierced the wind and carried for too many seconds.

  Fresh wounds opened in his chest. The alcohol in his stomach gargled and burned up into his throat. He threw up on Warren’s deck.

  The stranger laughed. "You better hurry. Don’t want her to bleed out before you find her."

  Rush lifted the bag cradling the bombs, cinched it and put it in the upper compartment of his pack slung over his shoulders. He punched the dive button on his suit, powering on seismic waves of electromagnetic energy, and stared at his enemy. Warren exuded confidence in a battle won, but he hadn’t asked around enough if he thought Rush would be that easy to bury. Rush lowered the visor, changing blue sky to a violet horizon, the symbol of air and life in abundance. He imagined a tunnel in the sand between the sarfer and the wall, softened it through the delivered EM waves and dove overboard.

  The surface splashed open into the mock presence of water. He focused on mentally pushing the sand away and letting the ceiling’s weight guide him into its depth. Blue and purple objects grew into orange in the distance. He kicked toward the northern bottom of the wall. The pressure of pushback squeezed his sides, the sand’s tight embrace that tested divers’ courage. He breathed through, thinking of Star’s missing digit and her need for him to get there. Fast.

  "Each of those bombs have locator beacons," Warren said, his voice vibrating under Rush’s earlobes. "Drop that first one ten meters in from the northern edge, then swim up and form peaks and valleys fifty meters apart."

  Rush neared the first location, an orange wall burning into red as he closed in. There was nothing he could do. He’d have to place the bomb and pray for an answer to keep everyone safe. He smoothed the sand wide and above to allow his arm to reach back into his pack and retrieve the first bomb. His power dropped to ninety-one percent and his air, a good ninety-five.

  Focus. Breathe. Repeat. His old divemaster mantra came to mind, reminding him of the good days.

  He dropped the bomb and kicked off the wall, letting the sand bury what he couldn’t believe he’d let go. He was now as much a monster as the man directing him.

  Go back and get it, he told himself. Then swim as far as you can before he blows you up. Maybe he won’t.

  If he did, Warren would remove another of his wife’s fingers—maybe worse—and possibly still blow him up before he got far. The wall would still fall enough to kill plenty, then he’d be dead, his wife would have lost whatever else, and no one would come to rescue her.

  He couldn’t bear the thought.

  Tears blurred his view of a sloping pile of debris burning from orange to red. He growled, pushing the sand up and out of his way, kicking hard to make it over the ridge of red. I’m too close.

  A barb tore through his thigh. He spun out of the way. Pain throbbed up his leg. His quadriceps clenched, tight and burning on his next kick.

  "If you give up," Warren said, "I’ll blow your bag and sell your wife to the divers of Danvar until she’s paid off your debt for failing. The wall falls either way."

  Rush kept kicking, rising toward the bright yellow of packed sand above him. It's all in your mind. The sand moves at your will. His distance to the next drop was thirty-five meters. His leg throbbed and failed him so.

  He kicked. Sand squeezed in tighter than his welcome. Focus. He forced it back. Breathe. A cramp poked his rib like a cliff’s edge. The desert did not like being manipulated.

  Red filled his vision. Repeat. The pushback was getting worse. Focus. A vision of Star tied to a chair, bleeding and crying distracted his attention. He breathed and reached his arm back for another bomb. He strained to throw it forward and make its path fluid. The bomb barely passed a few feet from his release before the sand stopped it.

  Focus. He twisted into a narrowing cavern of his flow. The closing gap tugged his suit and pack. His hands numbed. His legs cramped. The memory of Star's scream blocked him from the focus he needed to pull out of the sand’s pushback.

  The pack was too big. The god, Colorado, was telling him to get rid of it. He'll kill me. The world pressed him tighter. He couldn't breathe. Okay. His focus cleared like sunlight through a dark cloud and the sand loosened around his arm. He pulled the bag of bombs out of his pack and flung them forward.

  "What are you doing, Rush? Don't be stupid."

  Rush turned to flee and his visor rubbed loose, leaking sand that bristled under his eyelids. He swiped a hand up and knocked his regulator. Sand filled his mouth. He swallowed its rough texture and coughed. The world again tried to swallow him, pinching his arms, legs and waist. As he further lost his grip on the suit’s EM field, pressure on his lungs made him gasp for air. Fix the visor.

  "I have a beacon on you, too, Rush. Go back and get the bombs. You have one second to turn around."

  He needed time or Warren would blow the bag. "Just got—" he coughed "—
caught."

  Breathe. You’re master of the sand. You have blood and life.

  The visor was still partly connected to his temples. He loosened the sand around his right arm—the pressure on his lungs tightened—he drove his arm up, reached his visor and pulled it back on straight. The sand formed a pocket around his face for him to spit out what he could. He pushed out around his chest and took a deep, lovely breath. Renewed and in tune with the vibration of his suit, he forced all of his mental strength into the picture of a human-sized chisel aimed below his feet, then a hammer of equal size and weight, perfectly swung to impact the head. The sand vibrated like a struck bell.

  And he dropped.

  The world rumbled and jerked in concussive blows. A force smacked his back, twisted his neck and threw him head over feet faster than he could stop.

  Star!

  The bastard had blown the charge.

  Dizziness overpowered his focus. His suit blinked off. Colors streamed into memory and left him in a sea of black. His fall slowed and a massive, unseen grip of sand squeezed him into a tightening ball.

  His right arm was across his stomach, but the dive button was above his thumb's reach. He tried to lift it, but the sand was too close, too heavy. Without his respirator in his mouth, his lungs burned for air. He could use the world's weight to press the button, but would have to move his arm away. If he failed, it would be the last time.

  Sand also blocked a downward stroke, the pressure on all sides pinching him into muscle-cramped numbness. He sucked in his gut, pushed his wrist toward the created space and shifted his arm out of the way. Colorado stomped his heel into Rush's back, pushing his chest and the dive button into the sand at his front.

  It didn't work. Nerves in his eyes stretched to the limit. Something popped and leaked between his eyelid. This was it. Colorado whispered, Good night. Like father like son.

  No! Rush fought back, an aimless spasm to prove he and Fish were stronger than sand.

  His chest vibrated in a concentric pulse of power surging into his extremities. He pictured the pouring of beer into a mug and fell into the stream. His hands free, he found his respirator, put it in his mouth and sucked in half sand, half oxygen. Coughing, he pulled it back out until his throat cleared and then sucked in a sweet lung full of air.