by Weston Ochse
“Whoa, Little Bird,” came a fatherly voice. Ivanov had opened up a hatch in the decking and was stepping out. “That’s a good way to get yourself killed. Don’t you know that it’s suicidal to take a catch away from a wild animal?”
Kavika felt relief wash through him. “Uncle Evil,” he said, using the name for the man he first learned on his father’s knee. “I wouldn’t exactly call your men wild animals.”
“First of all, realize that they are my men, which means I know them better than anyone. Second, never forget that an animal can walk on two legs as easily as four.”
“I won’t forget. Thanks, Uncle.” He embraced the man who had been his father’s best friend. “I thought you’d gone below.”
“And miss this? Not for the world. It’s not often my men are able to catch a shark with the net meant for birds. At least not with those—”
“Violation! You are violators, all of you! You’ll be lucky if I don’t turn you over to the Corpers!”
Ivanov turned and rested a tired gaze on Kavika before he addressed Spike.
“Water Dogs should stay in the water. What are you doing out here, sniffing in corners that aren’t yours?”
Spike had lost her heels somewhere in her struggle to keep up. Strands of hair had fallen across her forehead, one covering her left eye. Her chest heaved, and she rested both hands on her hips. “It’s my business that you have a net.”
“We use it to catch birds.” Ivanov winked at his men.
“Looks like you used it to catch a shark.”
Ivanov shrugged. “If the shark is going to pretend to be a bird, how can I help this?”
Two Water Dogs swam to the edge of the sub and pulled themselves up to stand beside Spike. Each held hand gaffs with hooks long enough to rip out a lung. They were heeled, but looked ready to attack if Spike were to flex so much as a finger.
Ivanov saw this too and held up his hands. “Okay, okay. We don’t really need any trouble, do we?”
“We are not giving her back,” said the biggest Russian.
Ivanov spun and spat a long stream of Russian at the man. Kavika couldn’t understand the words, but there was no doubt what they meant. Then Ivanov pointed. He had to do it twice, but Kavika gave the men credit. They didn’t make the old man do it a third time. They left, grumbling and dragging their now-empty net with them.
Ivanov turned back, the world’s greatest fake smile playing across his face. He held out his hands. “There. You see? No problem.”
Kavika heard a foot slap against the metal deck. “Hey.” The shark was on her feet. Bruised and battered, the fire still burning in her eyes.
He dove for her, but missed her ankle by an inch. He crashed hard to the deck, his elbow and chin taking his weight, pain singing from the dense metal of the submarine.
She glanced back once, a slight grin tugging at one corner of her lips. Then she was off and running, a brown-skinned shark with breasts swinging free.
Kavika leaped to his feet and shook his head. “Damn—see you later, Uncle Evil!”
Then he was on the chase again.
Far above, he heard Pali Boy laughter.
Kavika got as far as the old nudist charter when he gave up. There was no sign of the girl. Above him, several Pali Boys continued to laugh. He could always ask them. They knew. But to ask would be to acknowledge defeat, and he wasn’t prepared to do that yet.
So he loped back to the submarine. Spike was still there, arguing with Ivanov not only about his ownership of a net, but about the propriety of having one. To the old man’s credit, he stood and listened. He could have gone back aboard his sub and closed the hatch and there was nothing anyone could do. After all, the city’s entire power came from the nuclear batteries aboard the submarine.
Kavika appreciated the old man’s patience. He and Spike were his two favorite people in the world. To have them against each other would split his heart.
“Hey Uncle!” Kavika shouted as he approached. “Why don’t you just admit you catch fish with that net and be done with it?”
“Where would be the fun in that, Little Bird?”
Spike gave both of them the stinkeye, then shook her head and cursed in Tagalog. She bent and strapped her heels back on.
Ivanov smelled of diesel and cigars; Kavika had always found it comforting. He’d broken his ankle the year after his father died, and blood poisoning ended up threatening his foot, making more than one midwife want to amputate. But it was Ivanov who had taken Kavika into the submarine’s med unit and had sat with him, making sure the foot was elevated, arranging for medicine from Los Tiburones, and ensuring that his mother and sister were fed. Kavika never consciously remembered that time except in brief lightning-flashes, but the smell of diesel and cigars had made him feel safe and cared-for ever since then.
“So what gives, Uncle Evil?”
“Actually, the boys were out on the deck repairing the net.” He pulled out a cigar and began preparing it. “We might occasionally use it for fish, but only out of sheer desperation when the Water Dogs fail to pay us for the energy they use.”
“Hey!” Spike protested. “We’re never late.”
“Keep your wig on, sweetie. Your boys are always late. Everyone is late. They take the power for granted because it’s always on.” He paused to light the cigar and puff out several clouds of rich tobacco smoke. “Anyway, my boys were on the deck when the girl, bosoms flying everywhere, bounded onto my boat like it was a sidewalk in downtown Moscow and she was some escaped stripper from the Circ de Soleil. Didn’t take much. One minute she was running, the next she was caught, twisted and held.”
“Do you know her?” Kavika asked.
“Her? No. Do I know the Sharks? Sure. I deal with some of them occasionally, but never with her.”
“Any chance of finding out who she is?”
“Why do you want to know? Looking for a date? I wouldn’t trust a Shark if I were you.”
Kavika told him about Akamu and the botched blood rape. He also told him about his conversation with old Donnie Wu and the proclamation made by Kaja, ending with the discovery of the young Tiburón skulking around the morgue ship.
“Knowing why she was there could help us figure out what Akamu was doing.”
Ivanov stared at Kavika for a long minute. Occasionally he’d glance at Spike. When he spoke next, his mouth formed the words as if they tasted bad. “Listen. I can’t help you there. I don’t know her and I don’t know what, if anything, she and your Pali Boy were involved in. Remember, there’s still very little proof they were even tied together. For all you know she could have been stealing from the Water Dogs, or perhaps trying to collect a debt.”
Spike rose on her toes to argue, but Ivanov wouldn’t let her. “But be that as it may, I do have some ideas about the Boxers, probably the same ones who killed Akamu. You do want to get back at them, don’t you?”
Kavika hesitated. The Boxers were part of the circle of possibility for a cure for Minimata Disease. They had always been a necessary evil. Still, it was their only chance, especially if Ivanov was right about the living dead girl knowing Akamu.
“Friend of mine had the same problem,” continued Ivanov, “only his kids were monkey-backed.”
“I don’t know what’s worse,” Spike said. “Getting monkey-backed or getting dead.”
“Dead is always worse, sweetie.” To Kavika he said, “His name is Pak. He’s one of the People of the Sun.”
Both Kavika and Spike exchanged a worried look. But before they could say anything, Ivanov hastened to add, “Don’t believe everything you hear. Pak’s a good man. He’s a father who loves his children. Everything else is in the wind.”
CHAPTER SIX
“A BLIZZARD OF black” is what his father had called them. Birds.
So many of them.
Always circling.
Waiting.
Hungry.
Sometimes resting in the upper reaches of the rigging, but always waitin
g. Always there. Pali Boys avoided them. They carried disease. They marked their rookeries and protected them with their sharp claws and beaks. And the way they looked at you, with their heads cocked sideways, it was as if they were reading you from the inside out. The sky was only truly free of them when the wind was up.
What’s a blizzard, papa?
When the rain turns so cold it’s the color of a cloud.
How can it be that cold? Like an ice chest? Like the ice the Corpers sometimes give us?
Like the whole world is an ice chest. Like the look in the eyes of the birds if you get too close.
Kavika dragged his gaze away from the circle of birds and let the webs of his memory drift in the breeze. Ever-present, the birds were thicker above the ships the People of the Sun called home. The demarcation from general public to their territory was marked by red-painted railings. If he were a bird, he could probably see the shape of it.
They stood just on the other side of the line.
“Where’d you go?” Spike asked.
“Thinking about my father.”
“I wish I could have met him.”
Kavika lifted his chin. “He never liked birds. Said that they were bringers of everything bad.”
“Do you think they brought the plague? That’s what people are saying.”
“Pele brought the plague. She was tired of the terrible things we were doing to the planet.”
Spike regarded Kavika. “Do you really believe that?”
“No, not really. But it’s as good a reason as any, I suppose. You can say it comes from the sea. Or the air. Or the rain. We’ll never know where it came from. All the scientists are dead, or up there in that Corper ship. Ain’t none of them gonna come down here and explain it.”
“It’s like wondering where the rain comes from when it’s already raining.”
“Exactly. If you’re all wet, why do you care how you got wet? Just find a way to get dry.”
Spike smiled affectionately. “You’re stalling, aren’t you?”
“Is it that obvious? I don’t know what it is, but the birds bother me. It’s like a... foreboding, I think is the word.”
“You always have those words. We never talk much in my family.”
“Maybe because you spend so much time underwater.”
She smiled sadly. “Yeah. That’s probably the reason.” Kavika stepped past the red line and was immediately met by an old Korean woman. She was whispering something to the wind. Occasionally she’d jab a misshapen finger at something in the sky. Her back was hunched painfully beneath material made from an old tarp.
Kavika and Spike followed her crooked finger to where two orange-robed Mga Taos stood in the shadow of a ship. They faced the Korean ship and stood like statues. A monkey-backed was somewhere near. They were unwilling, or unable, to cast the sort of vigil they were used to. They were forced to stand outside the line, but still vigilant.
Kavika interrupted the old woman.
“I’m looking for Mr. Pak.”
The deep wrinkles in the woman’s cheeks pushed her eyes to the center of her face, dark seeds above a small nose. Instead of answering, she leaned in close and sniffed him.
Kavika stepped back.
“What is she, a watch dog?” Spike whispered. When the old woman started to step close to Spike, the Water Dog held out a long-nailed finger and waggled it. “No, you do not sniff at me.”
The old woman paused, then stood straight. She grinned, the effort to push past her wrinkles barely won, and only for a moment.
Kavika cleared his throat. “Mr. Pak?”
The old woman nodded, turned and shuffled across the deck. Kavika and Spike exchanged glances then followed. They meandered across two more decks. They passed kids playing in the shadows, who seemed to be beating a stuffed animal with lengths of wood. As Kavika and Spike got closer, they saw it wasn’t stuffed at all, but a dead bird. Here and there older Koreans sanded peeling paint and swept the decks. The People of the Sun had always been known for their industriousness and cleanliness. Kavika wished that some of the other groups could emulate this; even his own. Hawaiians were pack rats, and there seemed to be nothing that could dissuade them from keeping, stacking, and piling everything they’ve ever had, leaving the ships looking like the aftermath of a cyclone.
They climbed from a yacht to a cargo ship whose deck was much the same as the oil tanker Kavika called home, albeit about half the size with only single-story cargo containers. Tall cranes, which had once been used to offload containers, had rusted in place. Their way twisted and turned, like a deliberate maze. At length, they arrived at a container with a tattered green cloth draped over the entrance. The old woman rattled off something in Korean, then turned and left, leaning in and quickly sniffing at Spike as she did. Spike went to kick the woman, but the spry old Korean crabbed out of the way, cackling and smacking her lips together audibly.
A man’s voice came from inside.
“Mr. Pak? I’m Kavika Kamilani. Ivanov sent me.”
The man murmured something, then ducked out of the container, letting the cloth fall back to block any view of the interior.
Pak was a small, lean man. Wiry muscles told of hard labor. His lips were the kind that seemed quick to smile, but by the dull, worn look in his eyes, he perhaps hadn’t worn a smile in a while.
“Ivanov... he’s been helpful.” Mr. Pak’s voice was soft and tired and barely held the hint of an accent.
“How do you know him?” Spike asked.
“We work together. We have... enterprises... together.” Pak looked at Spike for a moment, then his eyes narrowed as he noticed the truth of her. “This is a man,” he said, matter-of-factly.
Kavika put his hands on Spike’s shoulder. “This is a friend of mine and helping me,” Kavika said. “She might be a man by birth, but she’s a woman under the sun.”
Pak screwed his eyes together. By his expression, he was clearly having a hard time trying to figure it out, only there was nothing to figure out. Kavika decided to just come out with it. “One of our Pali Boys was blood raped. He died because of it.”
At the words blood rape Pak glanced back at the door covering, which had begun to flutter slightly in a breeze that had wound its way through the maze. “I’m sorry for your Pali friend. We see them sometimes flying over the ships. They look so happy.” Pak looked down at his hands. They were gnarled. Two fingers were missing on his left hand. “I grow things. Tobacco for Ivanov. He helps me sometimes.” A child’s voice called out from inside the container. Pak called back. When next he spoke, his gaze was aimed at the floor. “What is it you think I can do?”
Kavika kept trying to glimpse what was inside the container whenever the wind shifted the cloth, but he could only get brief flashes of movement.
“Boxers are the ones who did this to my friend. Do you know which ones they could have been? Names maybe?” As he said it, Kavika felt the doltishness of his words. Embarrassed, he wished he’d practiced what he was going to say.
“I don’t know any Boxers. Truly, I do not know why you are here.”
“I’m aware that the same... the same thing happened to your daughters. I... I’m happy they didn’t die.”
“I am not so sure,” Pak said, his voice barely audible. For a moment he seemed to wear the tragedy of the blood rapes like a second skin. “Listen, I am sorry for your friend. This blood raping”—he choked out the word—“is a terrible thing. But I cannot help you.”
Then he turned and slipped back inside his home.
Kavika felt a growing sense of frustration. He glanced at Spike, who motioned for him to keep at it. But it was clear Kavika didn’t know what he was doing. As it was, he was grabbing at cuttlefish in a desperate attempt to try and explain what happened to Akamu. Not that it mattered. The Pali Boy was still dead. Even if he was able to find the Boxers who killed him, then what? Boxers weren’t like regular people. They were beyond any law.
Spike cursed and stepped in front
of him, whipping the cloth aside. For the next ten seconds, it was as though the universe had stopped.
The interior was larger than they expected. A table and a stove took up the left corner, while a water closet with a fabric door was built in to the right corner. Chests ran the lengths of the side walls, doubling as benches and storage. Pak sat on the left side, and an older woman, who must have been his wife, sat on the right side. Each of them were spooning food into limp mouths. Twin girls sat back-to-back. Dull, sightless eyes, listless expressions and spittle-laced frowns owned each of their faces as their parents fed them.
This wasn’t what ensnared Kavika’s gaze. It was the monkeys attached to their backs. Beyond the horror of having another being attached to one’s body by tubes and wires was the terrible recognition of its sentience. The monkeys’ faces were less than a hand’s-width apart; their eyes were open and their mouths moved as if they were whispering. By Pele herself, what did they have to say to each other?
It was the whispering that bothered Kavika the most, he realized. To whisper meant that they had something to hide. To whisper spoke of intent that no animal should rightly have, as if the tubes that ran from the back of the animal heads to the top of the girls’ spines, along with all the others transferring blood and additional fluids, also carried consciousness.
“I see that you’ve discovered our tragedy,” Pak said.
“I didn’t know. I just thought—” Kavika became aware of a smell; animal musk combined with the acrid taint of antiseptic.
“Yes. First the blood rape, then this.” Mr. Pak spooned another bite into his daughter’s mouth. It looked like fish-paste and rice, but it smelled like meat.
The woman feeding the other twin said something that made Pak smile weakly. “My wife asked if there will ever be a cure for Minimata. I told her that with our daughters working on it, there just has to be.” His eyes searched Kavika’s and Spike’s for some sort of agreement. “Don’t you think so?”
Spike and Kavika nodded, but neither could find anything to say. Finally it was Kavika who spoke, uneasiness and embarrassment creeping through his curiosity and need to solve the puzzle of Akamu’s death. “We’re so very sorry to bother you and your family. Come on, Spike. Let’s leave them alone.”