War Surf

by M M Buckner

  “The hatch.” Liam pointed toward the ladder well. “It’s Geraldine.”

  As a safety precaution, Juani had welded the safety hatch shut, just in case Liam’s explosion caused another blowout. Now Geraldine was pounding the hatch with her hammer and shouting.

  Liam and I raced for the well and got stuck pushing simultaneously through the bulkhead door. Together we rushed up the ladder and started tugging at the welded lever, while Juani went to find a crowbar. We could hear Geraldine yelling down from Deck Three, but nobody could make out what she was trying to say.

  18

  UNIVERSAL DONOR

  “In the name of Hypocrites, doctors have invented the most exquisite form of torture ever known to man: survival.”

  -LUIS BUNUEL

  “Kaioko!” Geraldine bellowed, when we finally got the hatch open. “She—she—she—” “Be calm.” Liam guided the overwrought girl down the ladder a few rungs. “What about Kaioko?”

  Geraldine’s face streamed with tears, and her heavy hair rayed around her head in tight damp coils. “Kaioko want to go into the garden.”

  Why this should excite so much alarm, I couldn’t say, but Geraldine’s words detonated an uproar. The juves raced up the ladder like a band of wild children pursuing a pied piper. Liam squeezed into the safety lock with Geraldine—he didn’t even stop to take off the thruster. Meanwhile, Juani and Sheeba hung on the ladder, waiting their turn. All this pandemonium erupted because Kaioko wanted to pick veggies? Ye golden idols—what had happened to our plan to board the gunship?

  “What about Vlad?” I very reasonably asked from halfway down the ladder. “Who cares why one little girl gets a yen for broccoli? Our friend Vlad’s been arrested.”

  But Juani was already climbing into the safety lock, and Sheeba merely shrugged and followed him in.

  Left alone, I sat on the ladder and stared at my scuffed white helmet. The gray suit I wore was too antiquated to mate with this helmet’s newer design. True, the old suit functioned well enough, and I still had Geraldine’s helmet clipped to my belt. I could slip outside again. No one was there to stop me. But what would I do, space-dive to the gunship with no thruster? I’d already experimented with that little ploy. The distance was too far, Heaven was spinning too fast, and if my aim was off by just a fraction of a degree, I would miss the ship and drift into eternity.

  I spun the helmet idly around and around, recalling the way Sheeba’s eyes softened when she looked at Liam. When he talked, she leaned toward him as if his baritone voice created a freaking gravitational pull. My strong vibrant Shee, how could she trail after that punk like some moony satellite. She was obsessed with the Reel, that’s all. But if I told her, she wouldn’t believe me.

  Maybe she would believe the other Agonists, though. With their help, surely I could break her free of this zone trance. Grunzie, Verinne, Kat, Win, the thought of their affectionate faces turned me sappy and foolish. Stress, I told myself, batting the tears away. Lack of sleep. Molto freaking hunger. I could deal with another ten-liter can of Chili Diablo.

  By now, my friends would have discovered their mistake in capturing the medic. Naturally they would interrogate him with psychotropics, but some employees resisted that kind of therapy. Even under chemicals, Vlad might not tell them anything.

  So what would the Agonists do next? They would line up another surf, of course, but first they would have to send out their gear for maintenance and cleaning. Then they’d argue about strategy, place new wagers, and generally fart around getting ready. Two hours minimum. After that, they’d come back. Wouldn’t they? I kept spinning the white helmet between my hands, trying to think of a way to reach them.

  One more time, I dropped the white helmet over my head, chinned the sat phone and called Grunze. “No service,” the mechanical voice reminded me. Provendia was still scrambling my signal.

  The disconnect infuriated me. Sure, I’d signed the order to jam Heaven’s Net link, but who decided to kill the ship-to-ship channel? It must have been the gunship captain. What if the Heavenians wanted to give themselves up? They couldn’t surrender if they couldn’t hail the gunship. It was inexcusable arrogance on the part of the gunship captain. Not to mention the inconvenience to me.

  And men I screamed. “A hundred and fifty-two hours!” The words roared in my helmet like thunder. I’d just noticed the clock. I’d set my helmet clock at zero when this surf began. Graven gods, I’d been trapped in this orbiting coffin for over six Earth days.

  I ripped off Geraldine’s old gray glove and checked my thumbnail. Sure enough, I’d missed more telomerase infusions. Without the Net, my bioNEMs couldn’t receive orders to synthesize the rejuvenating enzymes. If I didn’t get those treatments soon, my handsome face would pucker. Already, I could envision tiny pockets forming around my eyes and crumpling inward like deflating airbags.

  Not just my skin would degrade. Without those enzymes, my internal tissues would lose elasticity as well—and at my age, it would happen fast. Once, when I was vacationing in Greenland, I accidentally went off-Net and missed four remote telomerase appointments in a row—gruesome. What if Sheeba saw me that way? We had to get home before that happened.

  There was only one option. I had to space-dive outside Provendia’s Net blockade and call for help. Damned Liam. Why couldn’t he leave my thruster behind?

  Okay, without the thruster, I could free-dive beyond the blockade, then call for help on my sat phone. But this white helmet wouldn’t mate to my old gray suit. How could I use the phone in hard vacuum? Maybe I could…

  a. rewire the advanced quantum electronics into Geraldine’s ancient ratty helmet, or b. seal my new helmet to the old gray suit with duct tape, or c. just carry the thing into space and yell at it through my visor.

  Freaking hell.

  “Hi, Nass.”

  Sheeba waved at me from the safety hatch above. A dark olive Sheeba, regal as a queen. Her hair glistened like a skullcap of short black fringe tipped in gold, and her amazing water-colored eyes bewitched me. I dropped my helmet.

  “Hi, Shee. You came back.”

  Her eyebrows creased. She was worried about me. At least old Nasir still occupied some small place in her heart. As she moved down the ladder, the sway of her hips in the gray uniform made my capillaries dilate. Her shining eyes brimmed with moisture. She was crying.

  “Kaioko’s in sick-ward. Gee found her curled on the floor. She won’t speak.” Sheeba squeezed beside me on the ladder, draped her arms around my neck and hung her head.

  I welcomed her with kisses. “What happened? They said Kaioko was going to the garden.”

  Sheeba sniffled. “That’s just a phrase they use.”

  “You mean—she has the malady?”

  “Why do you call it a malady? Do you know anything about this, Nasir?”

  “Not a thing, I swear.” Which was entirely true, in a way. I kissed Sheeba’s fingers. They tasted of antimicrobial soap. “We have to get out of here, darling. Anyone can see something’s killing off these workers.”

  “Be one with the zone, Nass.”

  “That’s just surfer slang. It doesn’t mean dying. The war surfer’s first rule is to exit the zone alive.”

  “I thought the rule was to live the moment. Nobody lives forever.”

  Ah Shee. Innocent babe in a wicked wide world. I drew her close and patted her shoulder and tried to think back to my own early decades. Had I ever been that green?

  Sheeba squirmed away. “I hate those jerkwad execs, who own this place. Liam won’t tell me much, but I’m getting him to loosen up. Do you know these people had to teach themselves to read?”

  “That’s appalling,” I said.

  “They’ve had no dental care.”

  “Mega-inexcusable.”

  “And doesn’t the WTO have a law against child labor?”

  “You don’t mean they did that, too?”

  Sheeba nodded meaningfully. “Nass, I am totally blissed with how you care and wan
t to help these people. I feel the same way.”

  “Ah.” I simulated a smile.

  “My medical knowledge is really lame, but I’ll do whatever I can. With all your karmic reiterations, you—”

  “Did they forget about Vlad?” I preferred not to dredge up my multiplex soul.

  “No, Liam’s drawing out a plan.” Sheeba got up and paced, cracking her lovely knuckles with a disturbing sound. “We absolutely have to get Vlad back. He was working on the cure.”

  “Shee, for once be logical. That untrained prote will never find a cure. We have to evacuate.”

  “Liam says his people won’t leave. I already asked him.” She took a scrap of cloth from her pocket and blew her nose. “Anyway, the commies won’t let them go.”

  Commies? I had to draw several hard breaths before I could respond. “Darling, that’s an atrocious slur word. The local exec may have muddled his duties, but in general, Com executives are admirable managers.”

  “Liam says—”

  “Who cares what that juvenile delinquent says? You’re executive class yourself, Shee. Remember that and be proud. You’re suffering some kind of Stockholm syndrome, bonding with your captors. Executives hold the light mat guides our economy. These protes would be nowhere without—”

  “Cut the crap, Nass.”

  I opened my mouth. Then closed it. Sheeba had never talked to me that way before.

  She sat on the deck and picked at the frayed edge of her cutoff uniform. Her lips twisted. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be rude. But here in this place, well, it’s not fun to pretend anymore.”

  “Pretend? You think—”

  “Nass.” Her water-colored eyes focused on me like a pair of clear, sparkling spotlights. “Playtime’s over. This is real.”

  I stomped away to the far side of the well, savagely chewing my lip. Okay, I admit the line about the guiding light was bullshit. Once upon a time, maybe I needed to believe that buzz. It helped Sayeed and me rally volunteers to rebuild the Asian Internet. Back in those days, we all yearned for some kind of faith. Ah, Shee, how the beliefs formed in our youth cling to us. At 248, 1 could still spout that creed by the kilo—and often did. We visionary Com leaders dedicated our careers to keeping everyone on Earth gainfully employed. Stability, that was the law we worshipped, and after surviving the Crash, peace was our graven motto. We dreamed of leading our moribund planet back to the golden age.

  But who was I kidding? We’d built another pyramid scheme, just one more feudal pecking order, where swindlers jockeyed for top place and the rewards of greed glittered. Well, didn’t our ape ancestors fling feces at each other to establish alpha dominance? I stared hard at the fungal blooms in the well—had I ever believed it was right?

  Then the irony almost made me laugh—a 248-year-old man still vacillating over right and wrong. The one truth age reveals is: There’s no absolute good. There is only what works, and that has never changed. If my Com friends were overthrown, another elite would take our place. But how could I say that to my dewy-eyed Sheeba? She would have to live another hundred years to understand.

  “So he’s planning to board the gunship?” I said, getting back to the main point Philosophical questions aside, I still meant to escape and settle my score with that punk.

  “He and Geraldine.” Sheeba got up and dusted fungus off her legs. “They’ll use your thruster to circle around and sneak in from behind.”

  Molto thin, unrealistic and massively unworkable. “That sounds great,” I said, crossing to the ladder. “When do we leave?”

  Sheeba pulled my hand off the rung, and her brown-blue-green eyes softened. Gilty gods, she melted me down. “You’re not going, Nass. Liam doesn’t want to put you at risk.”

  Is that what he said? Fuck that.

  Mercifully, those words didn’t pass through my lips. I pressed against Sheeba, and when she didn’t resist, I clung to her, inhaling her herbal spice. Wetly, I mouthed her burnished cheek. Then I tore myself away and headed up the ladder.

  “Let’s just pop up and see if they need anything.”

  Shee followed me into the safety hatch. “Maybe you can make Kaioko smile. She likes you.”

  “Excellent thought.”

  We found the ringleaders of Heaven’s miserable tribe gathered in the anteroom. They’d hidden all the kiddies on Deck Five. Juani slumped against the counter, while Geraldine hovered over Kaioko, who sat on the table with the glazed vacancy of catatonia. Only Liam sprang forward at our approach, fully on guard. Someone had raked the dismantled cyberdoc onto the floor, and he scooped up a heavy piece of its outer case as a weapon. But when he saw Sheeba, he lowered it.

  What a pathetic little group. Despite the weak gravity, they sagged and hung their heads as if their very eyelashes weighed megatons. They couldn’t hold out much longer. In the last six days, they’d had no more food or sleep than I had, and they lacked the advantage of my NEMs to rebuild their immune systems. Youth wasn’t enough. They were walking wrecks. If Provendia knew the real situation, our troops would board and end this fracas without delay. That gunship captain had to be a total mushbrain.

  Kaioko looked skeletal under the fluorescent strobe. The gray uniform hung on her like a sack. Her smooth wide face had gone dull, and her tiny eyes had lost their luster. I wanted to believe she was simply tired. Her scarf had slipped back off her forehead, and some of her burns were showing. She would be embarrassed if she knew, and I felt an urge to pull the cloth back in place for her. I whispered to Shee, “Kaioko needs a nap, that’s all.”

  Geraldine threw me a ferocious scowl, and Sheeba laid her finger across my lips to shush me. When Liam turned away, I saw his untidy yellow braid dangling over my thruster. Here in Four’s light gravity, the thruster weighed so little, he’d probably forgotten that he still wore it.

  Geraldine shifted to turtledove mode. She flitted around Kaioko, cooing soft love notes and offering a cup of water. But Kaioko didn’t respond when Geraldine pressed the cup to her lips. As the liquid dribbled down her chin, Kaioko didn’t even turn her head away.

  “Kai-Kai, please look at me. You need water,” Geraldine pleaded.

  I felt sorry for the evil wench. “What about Vlad?” I said, but no one paid attention. It was as if they’d been hypnotized.

  Something had to be done to break this spell. I left the anteroom, cycled down to Three, jogged to the galley and jerked the bunny-face clock off the wall. Grumbling all the way, I climbed back up to Four, cycled through the lock again, and carried it into the anteroom, where the Heavenians still slumped and drooped and hung their heads just as pathetically as before. I held the bunny clock in front of Kaioko’s eyes and moved the whiskers around with my index finger.

  “Look, dear. See how the nose-hairs move. It’s very cute, isn’t it?”

  For the briefest moment, her diminutive eyes followed the movement of the whiskers. “Time,” she said.

  “Correct.” I glanced at Shee with a small thrill of triumph. “And what is time?”

  Geraldine and the others google-eyed the bunny clock as if they’d never seen it before. Liam moved closer.

  “It’s space,” Kaioko said with the faintest hint of animation.

  “And what is a year?” I winked at Geraldine and nodded at the cup she was holding. She nodded back, and while I spun the bunny’s whiskers to keep Kaioko distracted, Geraldine tried again to feed her some water.

  No luck. Kaioko sensed the water at her lips and pushed it away. “Save it. You’ll need it later.” Her brother’s very words. That echo gave me a creepy shock.

  “We need Vlad,” Shee said. “He was close to finding a cure.”

  “Of course we do.” Her words got me back on track. “Vlad’s on that gunship. Let’s go get him, chief.”

  I headed for the door, beckoning Liam to follow, but he seemed in no hurry: He took the clock in his rawboned hands and studied it with almost comical intensity.

  “Come on. They’ve got Vlad. They may be
torturing him.” I kept gesturing toward the door.

  Geraldine finally jerked around and scrutinized me. Her neglected hair hung in tangles, and in the half-zipped white space suit, her body seemed less stout than before, as if she were losing weight. But her green eyes radiated their usual contempt “Whadda you care about Vlad?”

  Nasty wench. I had just tried to help her little wife. Was there nothing I could do to win her trust?

  But Liam nodded. “Nask’s right. I gotta get Doc.” He laid the clock down on the table beside Kaioko, then zipped up his (my) space suit. “Gee, I need you,” he murmured.

  “You want me to leave Kai-Kai?” Geraldine gripped fistfuls of Kaioko’s uniform and buried her head against the girl’s chest. What drama.

  I tapped Liam’s shoulder. “I’ll go.”

  Liam drew on his gloves and checked his air gauge. ‘Too dangerous.”

  “Oh, and I suppose waiting here to die is as safe as baby fuzz,” I said.

  Juani caught hold of my arm, which I may have been waving a tad bit hysterically. His acned face conveyed a strange somberness. “We don’t die, blade. We go into the garden.”

  “Whatever euphemism you like, I refuse to sit on my thumbs and wait for it. Liam, take me with you. I can steer the thruster.”

  “That’s true, beau. Nasir’s an expert with the thruster.” Sheeba called that punk “beau” again. The private endearment used to be mine alone. I swallowed my feelings and nodded to keep her talking. She said, “Nasir used to be a plasmic athlete back on Earth.”

  Used to be? I let that pass, too. “You can count on me,” I said.

  Geraldine growled low in her throat like an animal. “Chief, you know he lies.”

  Wicked tart. I had to twist handfuls of my longjohn to keep from ripping her hair out Liam chewed the ends of his mustache the way he always did when he was trying to string together a sentence. Finally, he marched toward the ladder well. “I need to think.”

  As if he had a brain. I started to follow him, but Sheeba touched my arm and whispered confidentially, “Nass, there’s something I need to ask you.”