by Billy Dering
Kid tensed as he listened to the conversation.
“We assure you, Sir, we did not touch the side of the generator.”
“Someone did. Maybe you did so unintentionally,” the soldier said. “Maybe,” he repeated.
The generator adjustment and cycling seemed to take forever, so Kid crawled out and took a peek from behind the engines. He ducked back as he saw a soldier coming up the center walkway, heading in their direction. Kid pointed and used his fingers to warn Jess. The soldier was now close enough that they could hear his footsteps. Kid’s heart was racing. They had no weapons, and nothing to defend themselves with. The elder was now almost even with their position.
A soldier called out from the bank of generators, “Elder-110, we are done, Sir!”
Kid and Jess were holding their breath, ready to spring
The footsteps of this Elder-110 stopped. He turned and walked back to the generators. Moments later, they heard the door close as the soldiers departed.
When the 9:00 p.m. beep sounded, Kid said with concerned assurance, “That was close. It’s just a matter of time until we are discovered down here.”
He emptied his backpack on the floor and slung the line with tow hook over his shoulder and across his chest. He felt like he was wearing the bandolier of a Wild West gunslinger.
Jess asked, “Do we really need that? It might be more trouble than it is worth.”
Kid went to lay down the line and then hesitated. He had a feeling in his gut so he kept it. “You never know. We would’ve never been able to scale the anchor chain links and get into the ship without it. If it hinders me, I’ll drop it.”
They sprinted to the storage cabinet, took screwdrivers, wrenches, pliers, and hacksaws and put them in their backpacks. “Wait, could they raise anchor and move the ships closer to shore?” Kid asked.
Jess thought for a second. “Even if they raise anchor, with the shallow depth of the continental shelf just off of the shoreline, I don’t think they could move in closer. At least not much.”
Kid said, “Could they get close enough to swim ashore without dying of hypothermia first?”
“No. Not even close. Why?”
“You’ll see,” Kid noted.
“So where are we going now?”
Kid rummaged through his backpack and pulled out a heavy wrench. Smacking it against his palm a couple of times, he said, “To take out the night watchman.”
Ascending the ladder amidships, they crawled along the floor of the engineer’s room. The bridge next door was dark and empty. “There is no night watchman up here tonight,” Kid noted.
“Go figure,” Jess quipped. “At least not on this ship.”
“Follow me and keep your eyes open.” Kid took off.
They descended the spiral staircase in the engineer’s room until they reached the main deck and found a door to the outside. Unsure if he would trigger an alarm, Kid winced as he depressed the horizontal push bar. He heard nothing more than a click, and the low whistle of the wind. Already shivering from nervousness and the cold outside air, his breath was expelled in short, cloudy bursts as they went outside. While he ran along the deck rail, he whispered, “It doesn’t look like any boats have been raised to the deck, so we are going with our first plan option. Cut them all free, except for one.”
Reaching the first davit, Kid checked his watch. The time was fast approaching 11:00 p.m. They each opened their backpack and pulled out a hacksaw. The heavy nylon drop line was exposed at the elbow where the telescopic davit arm connected to its base, so they inserted their blades and started sawing. Although the cutting took more effort than expected, they were able to sever the line, and they watched as it reeled out of the telescopic arm and fell to the water below. Now free of the davit’s hold, the boat drifted slowly away from the large ship and was soon swallowed by the darkness.
For the next hour, Kid and Jess ran from davit to davit, cutting nylon lines. Soon all of the remaining boats attached to the middle boat were cut free, save one. “That boat has our name on it,” Kid pointed at the last davit.
Both he and Jess were panting, so they took a moment to catch their breath. “Time?” Jess huffed.
“Midnight. That means we have six hours,” Kid answered.
“Can we get everything done in that time?”
“Do we have a choice? You know what you need to do?”
Jess nodded. “That’s what worries me about only having six hours. I’ll meet you back here,” he said as he hunched low and took off for the rope bridge to the northernmost ship.
Kid ran toward the rope bridge to the southernmost vessel. Crawling on the unstable wood planks between the ships, it seemed like even breathing was making the bridge sway. Once across, he peered up. The bridge high above the main deck was dark. This ship had no night watchman. Going from davit to davit, he cut all of the nylon ropes with his hacksaw, which took much longer as a one-man operation. By the last davit, his hand, arm, and shoulder fatigue had become a raging inferno. After all eight boats were cut free on the southernmost ship, he made his way back across the rope bridge.
Sitting in the shadows against the deck rail of the middle ship, Kid restlessly waited for Jess. As he was catching his breath, he wondered what he was sitting on, so he got down on one knee and examined his makeshift stool. Pulling it away from the deck rail, he noted it was a rolled-up rope ladder with narrow wood steps. Based on the circumference of the roll, he assumed it was pretty long.
As he eyed the ladder, Kid’s brain sent a warning. Adjusting his eyes, he realized that something in the background of his visual field had triggered this alarm. Studying the northernmost ship, his eyes were traveling upward when suddenly his breathing stopped. He noticed that the light was on in the bridge. “Watchman!” he whispered as he sprinted across the deck, and made his way over the rope bridge.
He reached the bow of the ship and saw Jess standing on the deck, staring at the bridge above. Kid froze as he spotted the watchman using the shadows to sneak up on his friend. At the last second, Jess must have sensed a presence because he dropped and rolled behind the base of the davit with spider-like quickness. Kid saw the roll. Unfortunately, so did the watchman.
Running the short distance along the deck rail, Kid pulled the coiled line with the tow hook from his shoulder. The circumference was close to that of a hula-hoop, which he hoped was enough. The watchman pulled a walkie-talkie from his belt and started after Jess. No! He’s going to blow our cover! Kid burst forward and slam-dunked the circle of line over the watchman’s head and upper body. The walkie-talkie was knocked free and skittered across the deck. Kid held the line tight with both hands as the watchman struggled to free his pinned arms.
Jess sprang from the shadows of the davit base and bowled over the bound adversary, who landed on top of Kid.
Using a chokehold, Kid held with full pressure until the watchman passed out.
Grabbing the line, Jess tied up the limp body, which had a uniform indicating, Elder-187. Finding a large outdoor storage bin, he slung the watchman over his shoulder and threw him inside. Using the laces from the enemy’s boot, he tied the latch to keep the top of the bin down. “That was close. He almost reported in.”
Nodding, Kid said, “Hopefully that was an initial call, and not a status update.”
After making sure all of the boats were cut free, they made their way across the rope bridge back to the middle ship. Looking over the rail, the one boat they left for themselves was in the water ten feet away from the anchor chain on the port side.
“We need to move the boat over, so it is under the hawsepipe opening,” Kid said.
“And I should get down there and strip the ignition wires,” Jess said. “Unless they were nice enough to leave the key. Every second will count later.”
Kid held up a finger, ran along the deck rail, and returned with the rolled-up rope ladder he had been sitting on. “We’re in luck.” He attached it to the deck rail and let it fall to the boat below. “When you�
��re ready down there, hold the ladder tight and give me a signal. I’ll cut the davit lines up here, and then pull you over to the anchor chain.”
Nimbly climbing down the long, unsteady ladder, Jess dropped into the boat. Pointing to a key in the ignition, he gave Kid a thumbs up.
On deck, Kid pulled out his hacksaw. He made sure Jess was holding the ladder below and then cut the nylon davit lines. Now free, only Jess’s grip on the hanging ladder prevented the boat from floating away. Unfastening the ladder above, Kid held it tight and strained as he walked along the rail. It felt like he was dragging a stalled locomotive. He stopped when he was right above the hawsepipe opening and anchor chain. This would make for a quick escape later. He refastened the rope ladder to the deck rail while Jess tied the boat to an anchor link with a severed piece of nylon line.
Jess ascended the rope ladder while Kid descended it. They met at the familiar port side hawsepipe and both wriggled through the opening and around the mammoth chain links.
“Hold. Take a quick breather,” Kid huffed. He ran through the checklist in his mind as he crouched on the platform at the top of the companionway.
“We’re all set now. Once we get the girls and launch in the last boat, they have nothing to chase us with,” Jess noted.
“Yes, but remember, these are only the pre-fight preparations. The first-round bell hasn’t even rung yet,” Kid reminded him, as he grimaced while rubbing his bruised shin.
Chapter 20
December 30, 2044
Friday, Before Dawn
New Jersey coast, Utopia Project
Ship Number One
Four days after the event
As Kid crouched on the metal grate platform, his heavy breathing subsided. He rubbed his hands together, relieved that there was no longer a cold wind blowing against his body.
Jess asked, “Assuming we do make it out of here alive and get back to the mainland, where should we go?”
“Somewhere they can’t find us. Somewhere hidden away.”
“Back in the day, that would have been a no-brainer. Where did we always go to hide out?”
“Ironside,” Kid guessed without hesitation, referring to their cabin in the woods. “And I’ve been thinking about that place lately, remembering the first time Sara and I went there together.”
Jess nodded. “Do we have enough supplies to last a while out there?”
“Enough to keep us going until we re-group. Even if they found a way to get to shore they would never find us in the middle of the woods. Then again, we’ll have a hard time getting there through the snow in the trails.”
“Not if we stop by Logan’s and borrow Queen Anne.”
“The infamous Queen Anne,” Kid repeated. Everybody in town knew Logan Murphy’s four-wheel drive truck, which was named after his longtime girlfriend. The vehicle was an ancient extended cab pickup truck with a monster lift, but it was infamous because it had conquered all of the deepest quagmires in the woods. “We don’t need that exact vehicle, but his house is on that road where we used to pick up the trails,” Kid added. Logan lived at the end of a lagoon extension in Forked River where the water met the woods. At the end of the block, a dirt road went into the vast forest and connected to the trail system leading to Ironside cabin.
“And I always did want to take that thing for a drive, but Logan would never let me. Don’t know why.” Jess started walking down the companionway to the ship’s bottom.
“He’s obviously seen you drive,” Kid muttered as he followed him.
The time was 3:00 a.m. They only had three hours to get the girls out before the 6:00 a.m. wake-up tone. Running back to the tool cabinet, Kid grabbed a couple of cordless drills. Pressing the buttons on the handles, both seemed to be fully charged. He used the chuck to fasten a metal drill bit in each. “We’ll both need one of these.”
Jess took the drill and raised an eyebrow. “We will?”
“Yes. You’ll see. We’re going to make a short cut.”
Climbing the ladder amidships, Kid’s muscles were sore all over from the flurry of recent physical activity. His arms ached as he pushed open the first hatch. Continuing to climb up in the shaft and counting the ladder rungs, he used his fingertips to find the indent in the metal he had made with his key the night before. Pulling out the cordless drill, Kid whispered, “We just need to make an opening in the back of the closet on the girls’ floor.”
In the dim light of the shaft, Jess gazed up and nodded his head. “A trap door. That’ll save us climbing down all of those levels.”
“Like you said, every second will count,” Kid affirmed as he held onto the ladder.
“We still have to make it to the closet. Even that is a long way from the girls’ rooms.”
“I’m hoping we make it up the hall before anyone knows what’s happening.”
Jess looked concerned. “Are you kidding? The girls’ doors are probably alarmed, and that’s a long hallway.”
Kid knew Jess had a point. They both pondered for a moment.
“Wait. Check it out.” Jess pulled some dimes and quarters out of his pocket and held them up in his hand.
“And?”
“This is how we can keep the other doors on the hall from opening,” Jess said confidently. “The old pennying trick.”
“Pennying?” He thought for a second. “You mean like we used to do on my college hall?”
Seeming flustered that he even had to explain it, Jess rolled his eyes. “Where do you think I learned it?”
“That’s right,” Kid recalled. “You were there the night they scorched Richard’s khakis.”
Jess was visiting him when the guys on Kid’s college hall wedged pennies between the hinge-side of the door and the doorframe of pompous Richard Allen’s room. With the door unable to be opened, the guy was trapped in his room. The pranksters proceeded to fire a volley of bottle-rockets through the gap under the door, and wound up catching Richard’s khaki’s on fire.
“Do you have any change?” Jess asked as they stood on the ladder inside the shaft.
“Yes! Remember that Quick-Fix clerk had no bills when he gave me change?” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a handful of coins. They had 18 coins, which they split between the two of them. “We’ll have to penny as many doors as we can between their rooms and the closet at the end of the hallway, if we can create this short cut. Here goes nothing,” Kid said.
Pressing the tip of the drill bit against the metal of the shaft, he gave the trigger a quick squeeze and pushed hard. The bit broke through and made a popping sound. He leaned against the shaft trying to deaden the reverberating clap.
Jess appeared alarmed by the noise, so Kid reminded him, “Don’t worry. There’s no watchman on this ship tonight. We need to punch holes in a row, very close together here.” He used his finger to trace the outline of a square. “You start on that side.”
Pulling out his cordless drill, Jess also started making holes in the metal. All it took was a quick press of the trigger and a firm push, and the bit would bust through. They continued to make holes close together in rows, leaning their bodies against the shaft to deaden the sound. Both were trying to keep their balance on the rungs of the ladder while they worked.
“Damn!” Jess snapped a short time later as he depressed the drill trigger and nothing happened. “The battery died.”
Kid hoped that his would hold out, but with one side of the square still to go, his drill also went dead. The completed rows of holes made the top and two sides, so he slammed his shoulder into the metal. Only the top left corner gave way, so he hit it again and most of the top tore free. He shouldered it harder and the metal flap tore and pushed all the way in. His inertia sent him flying into the closet over the ripped sheet of metal. The jagged edges cut his jacket, with one piece tearing through to the skin of his right arm. A loud clap, like a thunder strike, resonated up the length of the shaft.
After getting to his feet in the closet and pushing the metal
flap all the way down, Kid used pliers to turn away some of the sharp edges. He again checked his watch, partially rolling up his jacket sleeve. Blood was already flowing over his wrist as he looked at his watch-face and noted that it was 5:00 a.m. “An hour left.”
Jess climbed through the opening and followed when Kid opened the closet door. They both crouched and ran until they reached the girls’ rooms. Kid and Jess stared through the frosted glass into Maria’s room. She was awake and jumped from the bed as soon as she saw his outline appear at the window. Kid spelled out on the glass with his finger, “G E T D R E S S E D B E R E A D Y.”
Crawling up to Sara’s door, Kid tapped very lightly on the window. After a moment she got out of bed and came over. Kid spelled out, “G E T D R E S S E D B E R E A D Y ,” in big letters on the glass.
Making his way over to Heidi’s room, he tapped the window, but she didn’t move. He tried again, this time a little harder. She finally woke up and walked over. At first she stood frozen and didn’t seem to know who was there, so Kid put his face almost against the frosted glass. As soon as she recognized him, Heidi threw her hands against the window. The thrusting of her open hands made a quick, but loud, smacking sound. Suddenly, the large screen in her room popped on.
Kid dropped to the ground below the window.
Heidi swiveled around as the elder on the screen asked, “Is something the matter?”
“No. Sorry. We tapped the window with our hand while thinking.”
“Why are you not in bed?”
“We couldn’t sleep.”
“You should be sleeping, not thinking. We will send down some sleeping medication.”
“No, that’s alright. We’ll never get up tomorrow if we take anything. We’ll go back to bed now.” Heidi walked over and laid down. The interactive screen turned off.
Kid, now afraid to stand, reached up with his hand and began writing the same letters on her window as he did with the other girls.
Jess had started pennying the doors nearest the closet at the end of the hall and was working his way back toward the girls’ rooms. Kid took out his change and did the same. With how much effort he needed to wedge the coins between the doors and the frames, he was sure the pennied doors would never open. Both continued until they ran out of change with several doors left to go. “It’ll have to do,” Kid whispered.