Winterbay

by J. Barton Mitchell

  At the front of the Wind Rift, where the giant bow curved gracefully in a mixture of wood and metal, the rest of the crew was gathered around a girl with short blond hair, lying on the icy ground on her back, staring sightlessly upward.

  Even from this distance, Mira could see that Margot’s eyes were open and unblinking—and that they were completely black. The crew stared down at her, their own eyes tainted with the same dark color, just not as fully. Not yet. They all knew they were looking at their own future. For some of them, it wasn’t that far off.

  The Tone was the Assembly’s little gift to mankind, a mind-control signal broadcast only a few hours after their invasion. Most people who heard it instantly Succumbed to alien control and began a zombielike march to the nearest Presidium, the massive alien baseships stuck like daggers into the hearts of the world’s cities. For all its power, however, the Tone was not perfect; there was one distinct group it didn’t immediately affect. Anyone under the age of twenty didn’t have the proper brain chemistry for the Tone to take hold, it seemed, but it was a short-lived reprieve. The older you got, the closer you were to the time when your eyes filled with black, and all of what you used to be slipped away as your mind was replaced with … who knew what, nothing probably.

  Mira stopped on the outskirts of the group. This wasn’t Mira’s crew, and it wasn’t her place. She’d left the equivalent of a crew back at Midnight City, forfeited her place in something like a family, but that was behind her now. Even though she planned to go back and fix what she’d broken, it would never be the same. Watching the crew of the Wind Rift say good-bye to one of their own somehow drove that point home.

  Olive stood over Margot, staring down at her like the others. One by one, her crew took their gazes from the silent, unmoving girl and looked up at their Captain. When she spoke, her voice was distant and more than a little tired.

  “I’ve had to do this seven times since I’ve run this ship, and I keep waiting for it to get easier, or to finally know what to say … but I never do. I just end up saying the same things as last time. That all we can do is try to make the most out of the time we have left. We can remember the ones we’ve lost. We can make the silence left by every one of them inspire us a little more. To work harder. To live more fully. I think if we don’t do that … there’s no point to any of it. I guess that’s the only revenge we get.”

  The Captain let what she’d said sink in, and then took a weary step back. “The winds take us where they will … not the other way around. Let her up.”

  As Olive spoke the last word, the kids holding Margot released her, and everyone watched as she almost instantly started to rise.

  Mira hated watching the Succumbed. Their movement, slow and laborious, was purely functional, animation without any of the life inherent in the walk of someone whose mind and thoughts and memories were still their own, the movement you took for granted until it was gone. It was like watching some sort of mechanical version of a person, and the difference between that and how they used to be made the pain all the worse.

  “Winds guide her…” Olive stated.

  After a moment, the crew softly echoed the sentiment. So did Mira.

  They watched as what had once been Margot slowly began to walk east, carving trails through the patches of snow that dotted the ground. They watched until she became nothing but a shadow in the afternoon haze that disappeared within a grove of spruce trees, and when she was gone, one by one, they tore themselves away and got back to readying the Wind Rift for sail.

  As Mira headed back toward the ship, she rubbed her arms, trying to push away the chill in the air. Spring was coming. It should be getting warmer. Somehow it didn’t feel that way.

  Instead, the air felt full of ice.

  Lines

  The Wind Rift rumbled eastward along the rocky ground of what used to be northern Illinois. The sun had almost finished its arc of the sky and was aiming to bury itself in the horizon in less than an hour. When that happened, the Landship would probably stop. Traveling by moonlight wasn’t unheard-of, but the farther east a crew went, the more obstacles and uneven ground they encountered, things that could result in far worse than a broken wheel cap.

  Mira had only traveled on a Landship three other times, and she always marveled at how smooth the ride was. It wasn’t like sailing over a lake by any means, but it was definitely much less rough than you’d expect from a giant craft rumbling over rocky ground. Of course, that had a lot to do with the Subsumer artifacts attached to its massive frame, which absorbed most of the ship’s bouncing and rocking.

  Mira stood at the bow, watching the ground race by below. Landships had their helm at the front, as opposed to nautical ships. It was a necessary adjustment; steering a large craft on land required a very clear line of sight, and since she’d been on board, Mira had seen the Wind Rift navigate around tractors, sudden tree groves, lines of old telephone poles and wires, and small ponds hidden behind overgrown grass. A boy named Casper, the ship’s helmsman, was behind the wheel, which, as was the Landship tradition, came from an old nautical ship.

  “Is forty her top speed?” Mira asked.

  “Oh, no.” Casper smiled. “Get yourself a nice flat stretch, like in the Barren, a fully charged Chinook, the Wind Rift can do eighty easy. Some can do even faster, just depends on how they’re built.”

  “How often do you go that fast?”

  “More than I’d like to,” Casper replied, this time with much less mirth. “Menagerie don’t use Landships, they chase you with dune buggies and gyrocopters.”

  “But you still outrun them?” It was something Mira had always wondered about. How did the Wind Traders elude the pirates that stalked them? Speed alone wouldn’t be enough.

  “Got our own set of tricks,” Casper answered, the smile returning. “Every Landship does. Since I’ve been at the helm, the Menagerie have tried to board us nine times. They ain’t succeeded yet.”

  Olive’s voice interrupted them from below. Mira saw her climbing up the polished wood stairs that led down to the main deck. “I’ll take the wheel, Casper. Need to clear my head.”

  “Captain.”

  Casper stepped away and disappeared down the stairs. Olive replaced him, her hands sliding familiarly around the wheel, feeling the ground rumble right up the ship’s giant axles through the Subsumers.

  Mira watched Olive exhale a long slow breath, her eyes scanning the ground ahead, looking for hidden obstacles in the tall grass. It probably would clear a person’s head, taking the helm, assuming all that responsibility. Mira had a similar release of her own. Whenever she needed to get her mind off something, she made artifact combinations. Complicated ones, three and four tiers, over and over. It let her focus, by necessity taking away a bevy of thoughts that she otherwise probably would rather not face. Mira had been making a lot of artifacts lately.

  “Thinking about Margot?” Mira asked softly.

  “I wish that was all of it, but the truth is there’s a lot riding on this run.” Mira could sense that whatever the ship’s current contract was, it was weighing on her. “We’re going east, past the Mississippi.”

  “I didn’t think Landships could go that far. Ground isn’t right or something. Not flat enough.”

  “It’s true. You can paint yourself into a corner there pretty quick, but it’s not impossible. More about pathfinding than on this side.”

  “Whatever it is, it’s worth it?”

  Olive glanced away from the horizon long enough to give Mira a disappointed look. “Of course it is.”

  Landship Captains were known for gambling and taking risks—it came with the territory—but Olive had always been more prudent than most. The figure Casper had mentioned before, about the Menagerie trying to board the Wind Rift nine times, was a low number by Landship standards, and a testament to Olive’s tendency to think things through before committing.

  “You know, I could really use you,” Olive continued. “You’re quick on your feet, g
ood with artifacts. You’d be real handy out there. I know you got problems, things you’re running from, but that far east I doubt they’ll find you.”

  Mira wasn’t so sure about that. There were people after her now, powerful ones, and they’d hunt her wherever she went. Their reach was long. “I can’t, but it’s definitely tempting.”

  “Winterbay isn’t a fan of Freebooters, you know,” Olive told her. “Artifacts are banned there.”

  “Guess it’s good I’m not bringing any,” Mira answered.

  “Even without artifacts, it’s dangerous. Big place with lots of people. If I were you I’d stick to the wilds, the out-of-the way spots, small trading depots along the Mississippi, that kind of thing.”

  Olive was right, of course. Winterbay was one of the biggest cities in North America. If word had spread that people were looking for her, places like Winterbay would be where they looked first.

  “What is it you need?” Olive asked. “Maybe I can help.”

  Mira smiled. She knew the girl meant it. “That’s sweet. But you can’t. What I need … is information. I need a mark on a map, and if I don’t find it, I’m in a lot of trouble.”

  Olive looked at her again, just for a second, then shifted her eyes back in front of the ship. “First Landship I ever served on was called the Wind Strike. Ugliest thing on six wheels. Someone put her together with pieces from an old truck stop and, I kid you not, a yellow school bus. Thing looked like it was going to fall apart before it ever started moving, but the truth was, don’t ask me how, it was the fastest damn ship in the fleet then. Pissed all the other Captains off, rolling junkyard, leaving them in the dust every single time.” Olive smiled. At least a part of the memory was good. “When a Landship Captain is taken by the Tone, the First Mate gets promoted. The Captain chooses his First Mate, which means the Captain chooses his successor. The Wind Strike’s Captain was fading; he didn’t have much time left. I was in the running to be the new First Mate along with a boy named Vincent; tall kid, muscles, way stronger than me. Smart, too. I hated him.”

  Mira could imagine. It had to be a tough road, being as small and demure as Olive, rising up in such a physical world.

  “One day,” Olive continued, “Vincent and I were both on rigging duty, which meant climbing the masts. You do it with harnesses and lanyards, and as we were gearing up, I noticed one of the straps on his saddle was torn, on the inside, near the buckle. I could tell it wouldn’t hold his weight very long. A part of me knew if Vincent fell climbing the mast, he’d be penalized for not checking his gear. So … I didn’t say anything.” Mira had to strain to hear the girl over the rumbling of the ship now. “Figured he’d fall ten or twelve feet at most, get bruised, knocked out of the competition, and that would be that. He made it all the way up to the first rigging with that strap before it broke. That’s almost thirty feet. Broke a leg and a few ribs. He never walked the same way again.”

  Mira could guess the rest. “You got the position.”

  Olive nodded. “For all of a month before I resigned and left the Wind Strike. It wasn’t just the guilt, you know, it was seeing the truth of it. A real First Mate would never let someone go up on a mast with a tattered harness. I didn’t deserve that position, so I left it, joined up with the Wind Rift, and started all over.”

  “Why are you telling me this, Olive?”

  “Because wanting something really bad, being willing to do anything to get it, isn’t a good thing. You might end up doing things you’d never do otherwise, things you’d regret. People have their lines, lines they normally won’t cross, and in times like that those lines start to blur.”

  Mira sighed. She was probably right, but it didn’t matter. “I have to have this, Olive. It’s the only way I can fix things.”

  “If you have to have it, you have to have it,” Olive replied. “All I’m saying is, remember what your lines are.”

  The two girls stared at each other a moment, considering, and then Olive looked back to the wheel. She’d said what she’d wanted to, and Mira respected it.

  “Can’t take you to Winterbay,” Olive told her. “The timeline just won’t let me. I can drop you close, though, near Chicago.”

  Mira nodded. It was close enough. “I appreciate that.”

  “Winter’s almost done here, but up there it’s still kicking. Cold like that, it cuts right through you. Hope you packed long undies.”

  “I never told you?” Mira smiled. “I wear long underwear exclusively.”

  Olive smiled back. “Winds guide you, Freebooter.”

  “And you,” Mira answered back. The Wind Rift rumbled east as the sky darkened behind them, and the chill of the night began to set in. It felt even colder now than yesterday.

  Ice and Fog

  Though Mira could see ice everywhere in the moonlight, she could still sense the inevitability of spring. The waters of Lake Michigan were no longer frozen; instead they had disintegrated into an eternally stretching field of slush that parted and spread outward as the big wooden ferry was pulled through it.

  Mira looked to where the ropes on either side of the craft stretched ahead and disappeared into the morning fog. They were attached to a wheelhouse somewhere in that haze, pulling the craft slowly toward it. Winterbay lay at the other end of those ropes, a place that even in the best of times was unfriendly to her … and these were definitely not the best of times. The thought of it made Mira shiver, and she pulled her coat tighter.

  As Olive had said, Strange Lands artifacts were banned here. For that matter, so were Freebooters. Mira had stashed her own artifacts near the shore, buried in the basement of a crumbling apartment building in a city ruin. As much as she might want to, though, she couldn’t bury who she was and leave that behind in the same way. Say the wrong thing in this place, and people would figure out pretty quick what she was.

  True to her word, Olive had gotten her to the northern outskirts of Chicago, where the giant, towering form of the Assembly Presidium baseship hung over the ruins, so tall it disappeared into a bank of swirling clouds high in the sky. She quickly said her good-byes and headed north.

  Hopefully, she’d beaten the wanted posters here, but still, it was an obvious place to start looking. No doubt bounty hunters were already on their way, not just to Winterbay but to places like Currency and Faust as well. She had a day, maybe two, before the larger population centers were no longer safe for her, which meant she’d have to finish her business before that.

  Ahead of her the haze was brightening. As it did, Mira watched a shape begin to draw itself in the thick off-white canvas of the fog. It stretched and widened as she drifted closer, more and more of it revealing itself until the breadth of it finally broke into view.

  A few months after the invasion, when the Tone had gone active and the world’s youngest were left to fend for themselves, the city’s first incarnation had been built using an unlikely resource.

  Boats.

  Dozens and dozens of them, all types and sizes. Tugs, barges, paddlewheels, ferries, tankers, every kind of boat that had once run on the great lake, and the collection grew until it was more than a hundred strong. Over time they were moored and connected together, anchored as one giant platform in the northern half of the lake, away from the two nearest Presidiums in Minneapolis and Chicago.

  That had only been the beginning. In the years that followed, more and more survivors arrived as word spread. Once there, they began to build.

  On top of the boats, at first. Making a solid base of scrap wood and sheet metal, all of it blended and shaped together to be a cohesive, roughly circular structure that stretched some two square miles and encompassed the original mass of ships.

  Then they kept going, building upward, adding levels populated with markets and houses and workshops and stores, stretching to the sky. There were towers and buildings made of wood and plastic, all repurposed from the ruins back on shore, stretching defiantly above the cold waters.

  Unique in its construct
ion, Winterbay differed from other cities in yet another way. As the ferry pushed through the fog, Mira saw it for herself: lights, gleaming and sparkling ahead of her in the night, and they were not lights like she was used to. They didn’t flash or waver in a multitude of colors. They were solid and lifeless and all tinged the same cold shade of white-blue. They were real lights, powered by electricity. Mira hadn’t seen that many in one place since the invasion.

  Most places were powered by artifacts now, items imbued with powerful properties from the dangerous place to the north called the Strange Lands. Artifacts and combinations of them were used for energy, for light, for heat, for pretty much everything that was needed or wanted, and the world revolved around them now. They were the new order.

  Everywhere but here.

  Winterbay used the giant collection of boats underneath it as more than just a foundation. Their old engines and generators were kept running and, working together, provided power for the entire city.

  That fact had come to define the place. Its residents and its governing body, the mysterious Quorum of Id, saw the city as one of the last fragments of humanity’s past, a place that kept the old memories and achievements alive. Consequently, Strange Lands artifacts were seen as vile. They were forbidden, and so were Freebooters—those, like Mira, who specialized in venturing into the Strange Lands. Here, Mira was already a criminal, even without the wanted posters. Being a Freebooter meant the death sentence in Winterbay. It was why she had never visited, and why she was so nervous now.

  The city loomed closer. It was free from the ice, but even so, it didn’t move or rock. The thick, slushy waves lapped and beat against the exterior, but the city paid it no mind. Whether because of its anchors sunk deep below or because it was so solidly built, Mira was unsure.

  She followed the ferry’s ropes with her eyes as they disappeared into holes in the wooden dock that was now apparent in front of them. On its other side, a second ferry, loaded with survivors, all kids and teens, was preparing to return to shore, its own ropes stretching back the way Mira had just come.