Unbreakable

by Will McIntosh

  Celia was still laughing. “Max said he was going to kill you. He must have been lying, just to hurt me.”

  “No. He found me.”

  Celia gasped. “What happened?”

  “Beaners pulled his arm off.”

  Celia started to laugh again, but Anand shook his head. “I’m serious. Beaners pulled his arm off.”

  She stopped laughing.

  “I did,” Beaners said. “Right off. It felt great.”

  Celia climbed out of the wide, ragged hole Anand and Beaners had dug, onto the field at Telco Stadium. Of course. She should have known this was where they’d bury her. She surveyed the empty seats, her gaze resting on the spot in the staircase where she had stumbled on the backpack.

  “Dominion went bankrupt,” Celia said.

  Anand didn’t look surprised. “Good.”

  “What does that mean for us?” Beaners asked.

  “I have no idea.” Celia headed for the exit, walking as if she were ninety years old. “Let’s get out of here. I need a shower.”

  They were on the steps when they heard the thump of a helicopter. Celia picked up her pace a little, following the sound.

  The copter had set down beside the reservoir. It was human-sized, but not one of the long, angry-looking combat models that had spit out soldiers shooting gas canisters. This was a roundish one, a giant flying gourd.

  Nearby, seven humans towered over a hundred Record Villagers. Celia recognized Calysta Delacruz among them.

  Chapter 30

  “I owe you an apology.” Calysta threaded her way through the crowd, raised her hand to shake, then changed her mind and tried to give Celia a hug, which didn’t work out all that well because of the height difference. “I was cursing your back as you went off to storm the castle, but you were right.”

  Celia had a headache, and she could barely stand the stench of herself. “What happened? How did Dominion fall so fast?”

  Calysta poked her tongue against her cheek. “When they put you in that coffin, people were watching by the billions. That thing you said about how they must be on fire if they felt things more powerfully than you?” She shook her head in disbelief. “Brilliant. We capitalized on your pop rating. We convinced your fans to boycott every Dominion show except yours. And to donate money to the cause, of course. When Dominion filed for bankruptcy, one of our marketing strategists came up with a fantastic idea: establish a fund to buy Dominion. We raised over six hundred million dollars in the first twenty-four hours.”

  “Wait. You bought Dominion?”

  Calysta grinned. “For something like nine cents on the dollar.”

  Record Villagers had pressed close to hear the conversation. Now a rumble went through the crowd, as people passed the information along.

  “So you own us?” Anand said.

  Calysta made a face. “Of course we don’t own you. The fund was a trust. You own yourselves.” She spread her arms. “And this, if you want it.”

  An even louder rumble ran through the crowd. They sounded both excited and alarmed. Celia didn’t blame them; they were free, but it was a big, scary world out there.

  “What do you want, Celia?” Calysta asked.

  It was a good question. “Right now? A shower.”

  Everyone burst out laughing.

  Celia wrapped her arm around Anand’s waist and started to walk. The crowd burst into cheers.

  Celia paused, pulled Anand back with her, toward Beaners. She wrapped her free arm around Beaners, and the three of them headed off.

  “Wait.” Calysta hurried toward them carrying a cardboard box. Chocolate bars. She offered it to Beaners. “From your fans.”

  Grinning, Beaners accepted the box. “Now we’re talking. Tell my fans thank you. And to keep them coming.”

  They headed toward the arena.

  “You hear that? I have fans,” Beaners said.

  “Let me grab a quick shower, then we can talk.”

  “Sounds good,” Anand said, leaning into her.

  No more record-breaking, that was the only thing she could rule out for sure. Other than that, she was open.

  Chapter 31

  Celia flipped the red breaker switch. The journalists and camera people towering around her turned to watch the sky over the blue-gray water. She didn’t love that they were kicking this venture off with a live feed to the outside, since the whole point was for Dominion to become a place for people to unplug, a place where you do instead of watch, but there was no getting around it if they wanted to spread the word.

  “There!” someone shouted.

  Celia spotted it—a lone seagull gliding toward the beach. It landed in the surf, poked its beak at the sand like it was no big deal as the crowd of Dominioners and humans burst into applause.

  Celia signaled to Lorena, who swung open the lid on a wooden crate, releasing a flurry of multicolored butterflies tracing crazy loops in the crisp spring air. The applause grew louder.

  Beaners was next, releasing madly flapping bats that headed straight for the trees to wait out the daylight.

  Anand swung open the gate on the big inflatable pen set in a field a hundred yards from the gathering, and Irish hares, pine marten, pygmy shrews, hedgehogs, and more rushed out in an anxious stampede. Less cute animals would be released later, when the ceremonies were finished.

  The journalist Calysta had hand-picked approached Celia for the follow-up interview, trailed by her camerawoman. They led Celia to a pair of folding chairs, one big, one small, set up on the beach.

  “I understand the early meetings were rocky, when you were debating what to do with Dominion,” the journalist, Blenda Burt, said after the introductions were out of the way.

  “Yes. How do you get clowns, Slaughtertowners, Romancetowners, Dominion City residents, and all the rest to agree on anything, let alone something like this?”

  “But eventually you were able to get everyone behind one idea?”

  “A majority, anyway.” Celia spotted Anand, heading off with a group led by the human agricultural specialist who was going to train them to grow some of their own food. The crops would be huge, of course, which made the task of becoming more self-sufficient easier.

  Blenda crossed her giant legs. “How did you hit on the idea of opening the island to humans?”

  “Two things other people said stuck with me. The first was Bage, saying she envied me because I did things, while all she did was watch. I thought humans might be interested in coming to a place where it was all about doing, where you couldn’t watch, because your handstrap didn’t work.” Celia hoped that didn’t sound too much like an advertisement. Which was basically what it was.

  “Then there was the time I told Anand he could make a fortune selling his artwork, and he had absolutely no interest. He taught me that it’s not all about achieving, about suffering and survival. Some things are just beautiful for the sake of beauty.” Celia gestured around her, hoping it looked spontaneous, despite being carefully planned. “Like this island.”

  The camera woman gestured to Celia that she should stand. As planned, she and Blenda strolled toward the makeshift running track.

  “You’ve got a special surprise for us?”

  “That’s right. We brought in some volunteers to serve as guinea pigs while we work out the kinks in our various programs.”

  Molly was hard at work training Bage to break the record for most apples cut in midair with a Samurai sword in one minute.

  “And there she is. Bage Waller. As a lot of our viewers know, you two had a serious falling-out last summer. It looks as if you’ve mended fences.”

  As soon as Bage spotted the camera, she stood up straighter, swung the sword more crisply. Celia had to suppress a laugh. Bage was struggling mightily with the lack of instant connectivity. The concept of breaking a world record, yet receiving no subsequent boost in her pop rating was driving her insane.

  “We’re fine. Six of Bage’s friends are in Record Village right now, traini
ng for their own world record attempts.” A committee of Record Villagers had spent a week generating a list of records that were breakable by amateurs with no special skills. They’d come up with things such as fastest time blowing up a balloon until it pops (12.58 seconds), most eggs cracked with one hand in one minute (36), longest basketball shot (112 feet).

  “But none of these events will be televised?” Blenda asked.

  “No television. You attempt your record in front of a live audience.”

  They walked on, toward the heliport. Maurio, Brahma, and the rest of their tribe would be arriving soon. It would be good to have humans they trusted working with them.

  “I understand you have a four year backlog in bookings, and you’re not even officially open for business.”

  “Is it four years? Wonderful!” Four years and seven months, actually, but who was counting?

  Celia felt a pang of regret that Janine wasn’t here to witness this. And Max. He’d gone on and on about how strong and resourceful he thought their kind were. If only he’d believed it.

  “I’m not sure if you’re aware of this, but most of the people booking visits are coming as tourists,” Blenda said. “They want to meet you, Anand, Beaners, and see the villages where their favorite shows were produced.” Blenda tilted her head. “How does that make you feel?”

  After a moment’s hesitation, Celia said, “Everyone is welcome.” She wasn’t about to pass judgment on their ‘fans,’ at least not publicly. In the end this was still about survival. Their personal survival, first and foremost, although she hoped they’d have enough money to start making babies before long.

  Blenda smiled into the camera. “It’s remarkable, what you’ve accomplished here. We look forward to seeing what the future holds for Dominion Island.” Her tone was just a little condescending, as if she were offering encouragement to a toddler who’d learned to eat with a spoon all by herself, even if most of the food ended up on the floor. Celia suspected most humans still underestimated her people. That was fine. In fact, it was probably better that way.

  #

  Now that you’ve finished Unbreakable (assuming you’re not one of those people who flips to the back and reads the last page first), please consider leaving a review! Your honest review is incredibly important to me.

  Thanks for reading. There’s much more on the way! Join my mailing list to hear about new releases.

  Will

  Acknowledgments

  Many thanks to Joy Marchand Davis, whose feedback made this, and pretty much everything I’ve written, much better than it otherwise would have been.

  James Pugh was once again just a phone call away with some fantastic suggestion whenever I got stuck. Thanks, Jim!

  I’m grateful to my agent, Seth Fishman, for his wise counsel regarding this book, and for always having my back.

  To Sara King, who encouraged me to take a leap, and A.G. Riddle, whose message came at just the right moment.

  Sincere thanks to Karen Boehle-Johnson for her fantastic editing. May this be the first of many.

  And, as always, thanks to my wife, Alison Scott, for her support and encouragement, and to the twins for understanding that sometimes Dad has to write even though he’d rather be discussing Monster High or Five Nights at Freddy’s.

  About the Author

  Will McIntosh is a science fiction and young adult author, a Hugo award winner and a winner or finalist for twelve other awards. He has published seven novels, including DEFENDERS, which was optioned by Warner Brothers for a feature film, and LOVE MINUS EIGHTY, which was named the best science fiction book of 2013 by the American Library Association and was recently optioned for a TV series.

  Will was a psychology professor before turning to writing full-time, and still teaches 300-student Intro Psychology classes part-time at The College of William and Mary. Originally from New York, he lives in Williamsburg, Virginia with his wife and their twins.

  You can follow him on Twitter @willmcintoshSF, on his website, www.willmcintosh.net, or you can drop him a note at will9989@gmail.com. He loves to hear from readers.

  Other Titles by Will McIntosh

  Burning Midnight

  Faller

  Defenders

  Love Minus Eighty

  Hitchers

  Soft Apocalypse

  Watchdog (October, 2017)

  Coming In Autumn, 2017:

  Titanium Dawn, Book One in a startling new dystopian science fiction series!