by Paul Aertker
“I can see the beach,” he said, calculating. “So that’s about three kilometers away. It’s less than two miles.”
“To swim?” Alister said.
“We have fins and BCs filled with air,” Jackknife said. “We can do this.”
“Not Cesar,” Nalini said. “He’s only got a life jacket, no fins.”
“We’ll share,” said Kerala.
A second later, Cesar and the New Resistance kids began the long, slow game of kick, paddle, paddle back to the shore.
After a while of swimming another buzzing sound drifted in the air. Lucas stopped and looked up, thinking it was another plane. The noise skipped across the surface of the water as nine Jet Skis came into view.
“They’re back,” Nalini said. “I don’t like these Curukian girls.”
“Let’s get underwater,” Jackknife said.
“We can share air,” Astrid said. “Quick.”
Lucas flutter-kicked again and rose up.
“Wait,” he said. “They’re not girls.”
Within thirty seconds the Jet Skis had encircled them.
All nine were shirtless Curukians wearing black cut-off jeans.
“Lucas,” said the boy in the center. “Do you remember me?”
The motors rumbled as the Jet Skis rocked in the water, and the air smelled of fuel.
Lucas saw the scar on the boy’s neck. He was the kid who’d dropped Gini off in the back parking lot of the Globe Hotel Las Vegas earlier in the summer.
“My name’s Mike,” the boy continued, “and, Lucas, you made us a promise and you kept it.”
Lucas nodded cautiously. He decided he could possibly get a ride from these guys if he played nice.
“I always keep a promise,” Lucas said.
“That’s why we’re here,” said Mike. “We need a safe place to go to.”
Astrid slapped her palm on the water. “We’re not really in a position to help out right now,” she said, “if you didn’t happen to notice.”
“The Good Company is broke, and everyone is trying get away from Ms. Günerro,” Mike said. “We’ll help you, if you help us.”
“How exactly are you supposed to help us?” Astrid asked.
“We have Jet Skis, if you didn’t happen to notice,” Mike said, “and you have about two kilometers to swim back to shore.”
“How did you know we were out here?” Kerala asked.
“We’ve been watching you all day,” Mike said, pointing at the eight other boys on Jet Skis.
There was a pause for a second.
“Hop on,” Mike said, “and we’ll take you back to your van.”
It was clear Mike was being honest, at least for the moment. The kids climbed aboard the Jet Skis, and the Curukians escorted Cesar and the New Resistance team back to shore in less than fifteen minutes.
It was noon when they got to the beach. The bow of Cesar’s boat had been plowed into the middle of a kid’s sand castle, and one of the tires on Cesar’s van had been slashed.
THICKER THAN BLOOD
Cesar Vantes circled his van three times, and then he hugged it and cried.
“I love this van,” he said in four languages.
“Someone must not like you guys today,” Mike said.
“I think we have a pretty good idea who that might be,” Nalini said.
The New Resistance kids stood under a palm tree, their shorty wet suits still dripping water onto their sandy feet.
Astrid’s eyebrows crinkled like she was confused or unhappy. She set her mask and fins in a pile at the base of the tree. After a minute of staring, she folded her arms and spoke to the boys who had just brought them in by Jet Ski.
“So, Mike,” she said skeptically. “How do we know you’re not working with the Curukian girls who just tried to ... um ... kill us?”
Lucas nodded. He liked the tone Astrid was using. He was probably too trusting of people sometimes.
Cesar opened the back of the van and took out a jack.
“We’re all Curukians,” Mike said. “Or at least we used to be. We’re not brainwashed anymore, but we need help getting out of the Good Company. That’s why we need a safe place.”
“What about these guys?” Kerala asked. “They don’t speak?”
“Not English or Spanish or Catalan,” Mike said. “All these guys are from Papua.”
“Papua?” Travis said. “Indonesia or New Guinea?”
“Indonesia,” Mike said. “They broke free earlier this year and trekked across Asia and Europe. We’ve been trying to get your attention all summer long to help us.”
“What do you mean?” Astrid asked “Our attention?”
“We first met Lucas in the parking lot at the Globe Hotel in Las Vegas,” Mike said. “Then Hervé tried to tell you in Paris and in Rome that brainwashing doesn’t work, or at least not for that long.” He paused. “You know Hervé Piveyfinaus, right?”
“Yeah,” Astrid said. “He shows up everywhere.”
“He’s here,” Mike said.
“Here?” Travis asked. “In Barcelona?”
“Yes,” Mike said. “Hervé is organizing all the boys worldwide who want to leave the Good Company.”
“How? Terry asked.
“With this new group of Curukian girls,” Mike explained, “everyone has forgotten about the boys. And now the boys are waking up and thinking for themselves for the first time, and we know what we want.”
“Let me get this straight,” Alister asked. “So now there are Good Company kids, ex-Curukians, all over the world who want to start over? Is that what you’re saying?”
“Yes. Exactly.”
Cesar closed the back doors of his van, slid the jack under the chassis, and began pumping the handle.
“What about you?” Kerala asked. “Do you have a home to go back to?”
Mike said, “You know the expression ‘blood is thicker than water’?”
“It means,” Nalini said, “that family, your blood, is more important than others.”
“Right,” Mike said. “Well, I have no family, and Ms. Günerro has pretty much ruined my whole childhood. So I had to start over. For me friends are my blood, my family.”
“I have no family either,” said Kerala, looking at the New Resistance kids. “But I have great friends.”
“Sometimes all you need is a friend,” said Mike.
Nalini opened the back of the van and grabbed the crate of shoes and T-shirts. Standing there on the sidewalk, the kids stripped off their wet suits.
In a matter of minutes, they were dressed in their flag swimsuits, white T-shirts, and tennis shoes.
Lucas thought they looked like a perfectly nerdy tourist group with matching uniforms.
“And you want us to help?” Nalini asked. “Is that right?”
“Yes,” Mike said. “All of us.”
“What about these Curukian girls?” Astrid asked. “Who are they?”
“Sometimes I don’t even think they’re human,” Mike said. “But Ms. Günerro and Ms. T call them the newest and most beautiful weapon in the Good Company arsenal.”
“What do you call them?” Terry asked.
“I don’t call them,” Mike said. “I run from them.”
Mike then said something in Indonesian to the other boys, and they grumbled and nodded.
While the ex-Curukians talked, Jackknife crawled into the van and brought out a tray of bocadillo sandwiches, and everyone ate. After a minute Mike broke the silence.
He asked, “So, Lucas, you must not have told the Curukian girls what the message meant?”
“I didn’t know the answer,” Lucas said. “It’s a riddle.”
Astrid asked, “Why do you ask, Mike?”
“Well,” Mike said, “Ms. Günerro said that if you didn’t know what it meant, then your mother was a liar and she was trying to trick everyone about a treasure.”
Lucas wanted to punch something. He hated it when someone said something bad about his mother.
“I don’t understand,” Travis asked. “There is or there isn’t some valuable treasure somewhere? Which is it?”
Mike looked around nervously. “All I know,” he said, “is that if Lucas didn’t know about the priceless treasure, then Ms. Günerro was going to plan B.”
“What’s plan B?” Travis asked.
“Ms. Günerro and her partner now plan to steal a painting that they think is more valuable than priceless.”
“What partner?” Travis asked. “She’s not married.”
Mike said, “Some super-rich guy named Ching Ching in Southeast Asia who sent Ms. Günerro a note with secret instructions.”
“How do you know all of this?” Astrid asked.
Mike said, “The boy who does room service at the Good Hotel Barcelona, Andrés, took a picture of a note he delivered to Ms. Günerro this morning.”
“What was the message?” Lucas asked.
“I couldn’t understand it,” Mike said. “But Hervé thinks there is a connection between Ching Ching’s note and Lucas’s mother’s message.”
“Is there?” Lucas asked.
“I don’t know,” Mike said. “That’s why we need to work together.”
“Can you get us a copy of the note?” Travis asked.
Mike said, “Hervé already sent a copy to the new butler at the Globe Hotel.”
“Let’s go then,” Lucas said.
Alister leaned down and grabbed his briefcase and muttered something to Cesar whose feet were sticking out from under the van.
“He said he loves his van,” Alister translated, “and he’s staying with it while we go back to the hotel.”
“Sounds like we’re on our own,” Nalini said, slipping a beach bag over her shoulder.
“Which way, Map Boy?” Astrid asked.
“The easiest way,” Lucas said, “would be to catch a crosstown at that bus stop just south and west of us and then take the metro to the hotel.”
“I don’t have any money,” Terry said.
“Don’t worry,” Astrid said. “Robbie gave me a prepaid card.”
The kids said adios to Cesar and cut across the street. Mike and his group of eight ex-Curukians followed, wearing no shirts, wet cut-off jeans, and flip-flops.
Lucas looked back at Mike and the other boys. They smiled. They seemed to understand exactly what was going on. Lucas hoped he wasn’t making a mistake by trusting them.
BUSLOAD OF CURUKIANS
At the bus stop, Mike’s Indonesian friends squeezed onto a bench made for five.
Astrid, Nalini, and Kerala plopped down onto the concrete next to Jackknife. Terry and Alister leaned against the glass enclosure.
Nalini and Kerala tried speaking different languages with the boys to see if they could connect. The ex-Curukians spoke softly, and Nalini only knew a few greetings in Indonesian.
While they tried to talk, Lucas checked the bus schedule. He cupped his hand over his eyebrows to block the glare.
Mike looked over his shoulder. “Thanks,” he said.
“For what?” Lucas asked.
“Keeping your promise. And for helping us get out of the Good Company.”
“Well,” Lucas said, “we’re not out of the woods yet.”
“We’re not,” Mike said, gesturing toward the ex-Curukians leaning against the bus stop. “But my group and I are a lot closer to getting out than the others.”
“What others?”
Mike said, “There are a lot of kids in the world who are forced to live and work in places they hate.”
“Some kids have to go to schools they hate,” Lucas quipped.
“True,” Mike said. “But they wouldn’t complain if they knew how bad it was for others, like us who come from poor countries.”
An engine roared behind them.
A bus came around the corner and Lucas felt a sense of relief. They would be back at the hotel shortly. As the black bus angled into the curb, Mike grabbed Lucas’s shoulder, squeezed, and pointed at the window.
This was definitely not a scheduled stop. The air brakes squeaked, and Lucas spotted the problem. Waiting in the bus’s stairwell were eight girls with wet hair.
“Great,” Mike said. “A busload of Curukians.”
The Good Company bus idled as the front door opened.
Across the street a family loading beach gear into a Mercedes glanced over. A boy skateboarded down the opposite sidewalk as the eight girls got off the bus.
Mike barked something in Indonesian at the ex-Curukian boys. They sprang from the bench they had been sitting on and stood at attention. Blue veins in their arms swelled.
Astrid, Jackknife, Nalini, and Kerala took the boys’ seats while Alister, Travis, and Terry crawled under the bench to the other side of the glass enclosure.
From the back corner of the bus stop Lucas studied the girls. They weren’t particularly big or muscular, but there was something in the way they stood that worried him. Their ice-blue eyes spelled trouble with an attitude.
The girls stood but didn’t try to make themselves look bigger. Quite the contrary. As the bus motor idled behind them, the eight girls stepped back at an angle.
Smart move, Lucas thought.
The girls crouched ever so slightly. It was a defensive move that made the target area, their bodies, smaller.
These girls have the best weapon ever, Lucas thought. Brains.
For half a minute the Curukian girls faced off against Mike and his ex-Curukians. No one said anything. It was a staring contest.
Someone was about to get hurt. It didn’t take long for the primitive part of Lucas’s brain to remind him that these girls standing in front of the bus stop had just cut off his air supply underwater. These girls were so brainwashed that they would do anything, even kill, and not think about it. This was the real deal. No one was cracking jokes.
Mike stepped forward, looking like a sergeant in the army.
He barked a one-word command in Indonesian to his eight Curukians.
The boys moved forward, and eight Curukian girls leaped at them, launching a combination of swinging kicks to the gut. The big Indonesian boys tried to swat them away, but the girls were too quick. Two girls jabbed two of the boys in the eyes, then followed up with massive elbow blows to the stomach. As the boys fell forward, the girls pinched the boys’ necks and dropped them to the ground.
Lucas and the New Resistance stayed back in the safety of the closed-in bus stop. Alister, Terry, and Travis looked ready to run.
Three of the ex-Curukian boys tried to kick the girls, but they grabbed the boys’ legs, straddled them, and spun them onto the concrete. The other boys had no chance. They were pummeled with a series of rapid-fire punches to the head, chest, and stomach. In less than fifteen seconds, the ex-Curukians lay sprawled across the curb, their feet splayed out into the street.
Mike crouched down to his friends.
“Don’t touch them,” said the girl with white hair. She seemed to be the spokesperson for the group.
“Ms. Günerro sends you a message,” she said to Mike. “She says that you’re well trained, and now is the time to switch back and double-cross your new best friend, Lucas Benes.”
Lucas and the other New Resistance kids stared at Mike.
I’m such a fool, Lucas thought. You can’t always believe people.
“Bleach, I’ve known you for a long time,” Mike said. “We trained together in Bangladesh as kids, but I’m sick and tired of people telling me who I am supposed to be.”
Bleach perched her foot on one of the boys’ chests. The other girls copied her. They shifted their cold blue eyes toward Mike.
Mike recoiled and stood near Lucas inside the bus stop enclosure.
Bleach turned her attention to Lucas. “Since you’re alive,” she said, “I guess we’ll give you one more chance.”
Lucas’s palms sweated.
Bleach continued the interrogation she had begun underwater. “What did your mother mean by ‘mo
re valuable than priceless’?”
The last time Lucas had told these girls that he didn’t know, they had tried to kill him.
Seeing how quickly the girls had wrecked the Indonesian boys, Lucas’s survival instincts decided this was not a fight moment but a time for flight.
Unfortunately, running away was not an option since they were boxed in by the glass bus stop behind them and by the Curukian girls in front.
Lucas opened his mind and immediately saw the problem. This whole time these girls had been staring at him without moving at all. Not because they thought he was a supermodel with bed-head hair. No. These girls used focus as their weapon, but it was also their weakness. It seemed that they could only concentrate on one thing at a time.
A distraction would give Lucas and friends the window of time they needed. But Lucas was at a loss for ideas. He eyed Astrid and Nalini.
Nalini seemed to read Lucas’s lost look.
“Bleach,” Nalini said. “That is your name, right?”
“It is.”
“First,” Nalini said, “I love your friends’ two-tone black-and-white hairstyle, and then yours is so bold!”
“Thank you,” Bleach said. “We take pride in our looks.”
Astrid asked, “So the other girls don’t speak?”
“Only in private,” Bleach explained. “Girls like myself with single-color hair are the only ones Ms. Günerro allows to speak in public for the group.”
“Please do tell us,” Nalini said. “Where are you all from?”
“What do you mean,” Bleach asked, “where are we from?”
“And don’t say you’re from Raffish, Curuk,” Jackknife said.
“She means,” Astrid said, “are you French or Chinese or Russian?”
“We’re none of those,” Bleach said. “We’re vegetarians.”
For the first time the Curukian girls smiled, as if proud.
The front and back doors of the bus suddenly opened. Four huge, hairy men dressed in uniforms stepped onto the sidewalk and opened the luggage doors at the bottom of the tour bus.
Lucas spotted someone inside scrambling out the other side.
The men lifted the beaten-up Indonesian boys like heavy duffel bags and tossed them into the luggage compartment.