by Karen Bao
“Now I wonder if that . . . peaceful silence that’s always about you . . . just meant whatever I wanted it to mean,” Wes mutters. “It turns out you’re not so silent. After that stunt talking to Lazarus, how can any reasonable person trust you?”
The hurt in his voice makes me want to take back everything that happened that night.
He sighs. “Phaet, say something. Please. Don’t make me do all the talking when you know I’m not so good at it.”
I wish I could do as he’s asked. There’s so much to say, but none of it seems adequate to repair the trust I’ve broken. The friendship that I feel drifting away, like debris into the deep sea.
10
ABOUT FIFTEEN DEGREES NORTH OF OUR destination, the ocean seems to tremble. According to our radar screen, the floating city of Recoleta—Battery Bay’s ally—is five kilometers north of us and quickly approaching.
Panic hangs heavy in the air.
“Could they have detected us?” I ask. “We may have gotten too close.”
“Hopefully not.” Wes looks straight ahead, his jaw set; he hasn’t met my eyes for days. “In the grand scheme of things, this little submarine isn’t that important.” He points to the satellite-generated map above our heads. “See New Joudo—the Pacifian sidekick—swooping in from the south?”
The water trembles again, shaking our vessel. What looks like a radially symmetrical tuna fish zips by, just missing us. Alarms screech in my head. What was that? Back in Militia weapons training, we learned about Earthbound weapons; the underwater ones were called . . . torpedoes, I think.
Wes exhales, relieved that we weren’t hit. “My question is, what are they fighting over?”
Well, what do the Earthbound usually fight over? “Metals? Minerals? Combustible detritus?”
“There are significant oil deposits near the mouth of the Cuanza River.” Wes takes us away on full throttle. “Not sure how much is left, though.”
These cities are fighting over congealed rot from the Carboniferous. On some level, it’s amusing that these powerful Earthbound nations live off dead matter, but in the moment, the humor feels hollow.
Wes curses. A swarm of needlelike objects is following the torpedo. Pipefish bombs—tiny, hydrodynamic explosives. Their susceptibility to currents and eddies means they have poor accuracy, but enough of them at once can do serious damage. Wes dodges the projectiles to the best of his ability, taking the submarine on a swinging, unpredictable path. I wish I could help, maybe even steer, instead of sitting uselessly—
Wait. The submarine’s controls might be different from those of the spaceships I know so well, but that doesn’t mean the principles of battle have changed. Location still means everything.
Squinting, I make out the Recoletan submarine that fired the pipefish bombs. Its outline is blurry in the orange-tinted water, but it grows clearer with every second. It’s squat and compact, with a cone-shaped nose and an arm dangling in front of it like an anglerfish’s lure. I imagine the crew uses the arm to grasp their prey after disabling it.
My eyes dart to the speedometer. “Wes. Get us out of here.”
“If we try to flee, they might think we’re the enemy!”
I reach over him and pull a lever that I’ve learned will take us farther down. “Then we have to move to deeper water.”
Tap-tap-tap. The submarine shudders. I wonder if it was all in my head—but then I hear a series of pings and the horrible hissing sound of water spraying into the cabin. We’ve been hit.
“The pressure gauge is going berserk!” Wes calls out. “All this water above us—the cabin could cave in.”
Pathetic Earthbound contraption! I want to pound the dashboard of this fossil of a submarine, but instead I pull the lever in the other direction, taking us upward. Can’t even take a few pipefish bombs to the hull. Not like the Militia ships’ self-repairing carbon fiber, which knits back together even after being clobbered by a hailstorm of small asteroids.
The hissing quiets as we ascend and stops when we break the surface. The sky is orange with early morning light and opaque with smoke. Triangular black planes glide overhead, sowing explosives across the water. Flames bloom from the boats and one-man scooters that they hit.
Wes takes us farther out to sea at top speed, aiming toward an area where there’s no chance of being cornered by the two cities and caught in the crossfire.
As we move, Recoleta and New Joudo approach from either side. Matched in military strength, they are comparable in beauty too. The former is an oblong city, larger than Tourmaline. Its rectangular buildings have façades painted peach, rose, and yellow. Great granite columns and semicircular arches support heavy roofs. I can just make out narrow canals between the structures; today, though, the waterways are empty.
Twisting, I look toward New Joudo, a roughly squarish city. Every building seems to be topped with blue, green, and silver structures shaped like tulip bulbs, each of which supports a thin golden cross. From this distance, the bulbs sparkle like reptile scales.
The cities’ foundations were laid on land millennia ago, long before the rising tide forced them to float out to sea. They weren’t predesigned for efficiency, like the bases. They rose and expanded organically, changed as their people did. It seems unjust for the earthwide scuffle to endanger their beauty and their history, but any one individual—especially one in a damaged submarine—lacks the ability to protect them. From here, I can only watch their devastation.
I look longingly at the two cities even as we speed out of the crossfire and into the open ocean.
* * *
“You were right about the fact that something could happen to us, or to them.”
A salty night breeze blows Wes’s sweaty hair back. Because of the damage from the pipefish bombs, we have no choice but to float at the ocean’s surface, and the submarine’s hull received the full brunt of the sun’s radiance during the day. The result was a greenhouse effect in miniature, as the interior warmed to unbearable temperatures. We’d activate the cooling system if it wouldn’t waste precious fuel. Sitting atop our vessel, on a ridge near the hatch, is the next best option.
I raise an eyebrow at him, needing context for his words.
“This war is real. One of those cities could’ve blown us up back there. I’d have died, and my parents’ last memories of me would have been . . . less than pleasant. My sister’s, too. And yours, if you’d survived.”
I nod in sympathy. Wes focuses his eyes on some invisible path through the ocean, refusing to look my way.
“If I could tell all of you I was sorry, I would.”
In the blank quiet after his words, I hear an invitation. To end our stalemate. “Then let’s make up while we’re both here,” I blurt, full of hope. “I’m sorry. About that night, and Lazarus, and the secrets.”
Wes sits up straighter, seeming to embrace the peace offering. “You only called him to ask after Cygnus, yes?”
I nod.
“It’s impossible to imagine a better sister than you.” Wes looks at me with an admiration that I perhaps don’t deserve. “Explains why I never really stopped trusting you—you’re so good to people you care about.”
If only you knew that you’re one of them, I think, my flushed cheeks hidden in the dark.
“Now I regret even more the way things ended with my family,” he concludes, changing the subject, to both my relief and my disappointment.
The ocean’s swells bump us up, float us down, make splashing noises against the hull. A breeze rolls in, carrying the sharp, salty smell of life and its inevitable decay.
“Why didn’t you think that through before you spoke, back on Saint Oda?” I say.
“Not everyone’s got a checkpoint between their brain and their mouth like you,” he says, shrugging. “I thought I did, but it broke down that day. Maybe after three years of living away f
rom my parents, I got used to making choices without their judgment.”
I imagine Wes as a little boy, then an adolescent, unable to escape from his mother’s razor-edged words, his father’s suspicious eyes, his sister’s secrets.
“Why can’t we choose our family the way we choose our friends?” Wes asks without warning. “We can’t get away from blood relatives until we’ve ‘grown up’—and not even then. I didn’t choose to be born to parents who wanted their son to save the world.”
The corners of my mouth pull down in a frown.
“What did your parents do to you?” I ask.
“Took me out of school when I was ten so I could prepare for my mission. Mother gave me endless lessons on God and God’s preferences and God’s plans. Father drilled me for two hours a day—in addition to the three I spent with the other spies-to-be. I never doubted them. I thought my mission would save Saint Oda, and the Lunars too. Save you all from your ‘hateful ways.’”
“Sounds like very underage Militia training.”
“If I’d had a choice, I would’ve picked different parents, ones who let me be. A sister who knew how to forget, if not forgive.” At last, he turns. “But you—you were the first to know me, outside of my family and the other Sanctuarists. My first real friend. I picked you, Phaet.”
His words fill me with slow, flickering happiness. “It was more than that,” I say. “We were like the vines I worked with in the greenhouses. Quietly looking until we found someone to grow with.”
“That . . . that’s beautiful,” he says.
I no longer feel stranded on the tiny submarine. Sitting with him like this, I could soar across the entire shimmering sea.
“But if not for your parents,” I say, “we wouldn’t know each other. You wouldn’t be able to beat back anyone who tries to harm you. You wouldn’t have seen the world—seen beyond this world. Think about it, Wes. Your family gave you everything you have.”
“And they tried to take away all you had left,” Wes points out. “Your citizenship, your safety, your life. How can you forgive them so willingly?”
Because you fought with them on my behalf, I think, and it hurt to watch.
“I missed them like mad on the Moon,” he says. “This’ll make me sound like a mummy’s boy, but almost every night, I wished someone would take care of me, or just hold me. Feeding myself, coming home to an empty apartment—it made me lonely. But when I lived with my parents again, the tiniest things about them drove me mad.”
“They are . . .” I pause, searching for an appropriate word. “Intense.”
“That’s an understatement. They make our Militia instructors look like lackadaisical dolts. Still, they mean so much to me. I’m afraid to show them how much—I’m almost worried they’ll reject me.”
I remember Mom, whom I avoided for the last month of her life, and think, not for the first time, how quickly the people close to us can be lost. “Love them while you can,” I say.
Wes raises his eyebrows as he makes the connection. “That makes me want to turn back, kiss the ground by my front door, and apologize.”
“You won’t, though,” I say. Not when we’re so close to Battery Bay and the chance, however slim, of preventing Saint Oda’s demolition. Of sending me home to rescue Cygnus.
“Exactly.” Wes’s eyes find a distant spot on the horizon; his face settles into a purposeful expression. “I have to show them that I care. Which means I can’t go back empty-handed.”
11
A FREAK SUMMER STORM TOSSES US INTO Battery Bay’s path. Although it’s midafternoon, the sky is dark and tinged with green. We ride the graphite-gray waves up and down, changing orientation every few seconds, like we’re balls being juggled. I sit in the front passenger seat in a vain effort to avoid motion sickness. Through the sideways sheets of rain, Battery Bay appears to be a conglomeration of colored lights so densely packed that they look solid. The city is far enough from us that we aren’t in danger of colliding with it, but it’s close enough to intimidate. Its enormous size makes estimating distance a challenge, even with what I know of parallax.
The submarine tilts forward, and only my seat belt keeps my body from falling onto the control panel in front of me. I retch my half-digested lunch into a seasickness bag.
Oblivious to my distress—or pretending to be—Wes submerges the submarine ten meters, trying to evade the surface turbulence. Again, we hear the hissing sound that started when the pipefish bombs punctured our hull.
“What I wouldn’t give for a self-repairing carbon fiber shell now,” Wes grumbles.
I peek at the controls. The pressure gauge has swung into the red zone, indicating that we should stop descending, lest the water column crush the craft.
“There’s no hiding.” Wes reluctantly brings us back toward the surface. “Not from the Batterers, and not from Neptune.”
“The planet?” I say, confused. Cold water touches my toes. Holding in a yelp, I pull my feet away.
“The ancient Earthbound god of the sea!” Wes replies in a mock-scary voice, his eyes widening. He hasn’t noticed the water yet. “He’s sent powerful waves to kidnap many beautiful maidens. You could be next, Phaet.”
I hope the submarine is dim enough to hide my blush. Is he teasing me as he would Emmy and Julie? I wonder. Or does he really think I’m beautiful?
The moment our vessel breaks the surface, rainwater begins to leak through the ceiling. A perfectly round drop falls on Wes’s nose, and he swears under his breath. “Neptune’s impatient today.”
I frantically check the radar. We’re several kilometers from land. In this weather, we’ll never make it.
Before I can think of a way to safety, a blinding light sweeps the tiny chamber—a search beam from Battery Bay, pulsing through the pilot’s window.
I’m relieved at the prospect of shelter from the storm. But that relief fades when I remember we’re in a Tourmalinian submarine.
“Neptune will have to wait,” I say, dread pooling in my belly. “The Batterers found us first.”
* * *
“Hands behind your heads! Up, up, up!” shouts one officer as her colleagues pull us out of the submarine, now docked at an outdoor pier along the north edge of Battery Bay. She has brown skin and pale green eyes, a striking combination.
The air carries the smells of pollen, cooking oil, spent fuel, and a thousand other things I can’t identify. It must be almost 310 Kelvin out here—a few degrees warmer than Earth’s summer temperatures three centuries ago, before the anthropogenic greenhouse effect kicked in. Now, the atmosphere itself has a fever. The combination of sweat and humidity glues my Odan winter clothes to my skin.
But the steel tip of another soldier’s handgun is cool against my left temple. I try to keep my fearful shuddering to a minimum. The square-faced young man looks all too eager to use his weapon.
We’re on one of what seem to be countless balconies, having traveled upward through the system of pumps and water-lock chambers that comprise Battery Bay’s primary port. Discarded fuel canisters and outdated gadgets floated past us as we climbed, shimmering outlines appearing and fading again in the cloudy water. The refuse might’ve gotten there hundreds of years ago or yesterday—the Batterers wouldn’t know or care. The ones on board with us didn’t spare a glance at the debris.
As I stand up, I take a better look at the officer in charge. She wears a close-fitting, knobbed metal helmet that looks like solid gold. No—upon closer inspection, it’s not a helmet. It’s her hair. Annoyed, she brushes raindrops from the top of her head.
“Tourmalinian nationals captured on Dock 427,” the officer says into a tooth-sized microphone by her mouth. “We shouldn’t detain them?” Pause. “Yes, sir. Be there soon. Yes, of course, taking the greatest security measures.”
Trailed by a horde of curious onlookers, we march into a narrow glas
s tube. It’s at least a kilometer long and climate-controlled to about the same temperature as Base IV’s interior—or is my memory fooling me? I’ve been away from home for too long.
So has Cygnus.
Don’t think about that. I have to survive Battery Bay before I can help him.
I glance at our followers’ reflections in the hallway’s glass walls. One man’s shoes enable him to hover several centimeters in the air; he wears a floor-length violet gown with a high neck and minimalist design. He looks vaguely South Asian and wears his straight maroon hair in a high ponytail. Another woman, who might be of Pacific Islander descent, has black hair that flows seamlessly into her short, lacy dress; the garment appears to be made of her hair wrapped around her body.
I also hear snippets of conversation in several languages I don’t recognize. Like the Moon, Battery Bay seems like a melting pot of ethnic backgrounds, but it obviously hasn’t stamped out the cultures or traditions its citizens arrived with.
Small hovering vehicles speed by, above and below and around us, weaving through the rain and nearby buildings. Battery Bay’s architecture reminds me of the colorful geometry block sets I used in first-year Primary; I see elongated pyramids pointing to the sky, sturdy octagonal prisms, cylinders of various diameters stacked atop one another to form towers. Video advertisements play on every flat surface. One nearby building consists of a loop-the-loop through which dozens of vehicles zoom. Painted every fluorescent color imaginable, the transports have both wings that extend on either side of their cabins and wheels for land travel. I can’t see the ground—a sign near the ceiling says that we’re on the 117th floor. I unfocus my eyes to avoid looking at the petrifying drop. A button falling from this height could strike and probably kill someone at ground level.
The Batterers’ imposing architecture and widespread technology surprise me; on the Moon, I learned that the Earthbound had degraded the environment to the point of warring over resources like oil and metals. I whisper to Wes, “I thought the Batterers didn’t have the materials to make all this fancy stuff.”