by Beth Revis
I never imagined Akilah made her home in a place like this, huddled under the shadow of the bridge of the city where I made my home. Even though I knew that the Foqra District was where the poorer people lived, I never really realized just where it was. Or what it was.
A floating city, made of boats.
Massive pillars of steel and concrete, wrapped in rubberized wires and pipes, extending from the dark ceiling down to the water. The sewer system, I realize. And electricity, and freshwater. The light is dimmer here, hiding the squalor of the Foqra District in shadows. On the other side of the docking station, the touristy section is clean and sunny, thanks to the solar glass embedded in the roof. No solar glass here. If the lower city is perpetually sunny, the Foqra District is perpetually in dim twilight, the only light coming from fires in the boats or random beams of sunlight that have crept through the darkness.
I squint at the dark ceiling, bumpy with exposed pipes and wire. The map program labels what’s on the other side of the bridge. Central Gardens, it says near the point where the advertisement wall at the back of the docking station is. My eyes skim forward, to one of the support pillars nearest us. Reverie Mental Spa. The word flashes across my eyes. On the other side of that ceiling is my home.
I never knew this was below my feet.
My boat knocks into another one, and my attention is brought slamming back to the water level, where the thousands of boats are clustered around the pipes and pillars. There are actually thin clear spaces in the water, designed to let boats go through. The auto-boat veers into one of these narrow waterways so quickly that it sends the nearby boats thumping and clattering against each other, the people inside the boats shouting at me.
My eyes fall to the pillar that leads directly up to the upper city, probably close to where Reverie is. One of the nearby luzzu boats flashes green. Not really—the map program synced with my eye bots make it appear as if a green light silhouettes one specific boat.
“MISSING PERSON!” a voice booms, both loud and oddly muffled. My head swivels to the source of the sound—the wall hiding the Foqra District from the touristy part of the lower city, the wall behind the docking station full of advertisements. “ELLA SHEPHERD, DAUGHTER OF RENOWNED SCIENTISTS PHILIP SHEPHERD AND FOUNDER OF REVERIE, ROSE SHEPHERD, KIDNAPPED TODAY LESS THAN THIRTY MINUTES AGO.”
Kidnapped? Hardly. But the fact that this government-issued alert is announcing this lie makes me question even more how much of the terrorism I’ve supposedly been fighting comes directly from them.
“LIFTS CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE.”
They know I’m here, in the lower city. Closing the lifts keeps me on the water. Makes me easier to find.
Red and blue lights start flashing near where I entered the pathway into the Foqra District. The police boats have caught up to me.
My heart is banging inside my chest as I stand. I glance back behind me, once. My mother—no, the thing that looks like my mother—is standing in the prow of the boat, pointing right at me.
I turn my back on her, toward the boat illuminated in green with the map program in my eyes. I can hear the thing that looks like my mother shout as I leap from my boat with a thud on the wooden floor of the other luzzu, worn and beaten, with peeling paint and spots of cracked wood. An older woman with a crook in her spine throws a dirty shawl over my head and shoulders.
“You’re with Jack, yeah?” the woman says in a raspy voice. She looks over my shoulder to the police boats winding their way through the pathways.
Before I can answer, the closest police boat is on us. A loud boom echoes across the water, and for a moment, I see nothing but small, glittering, crystal-like substances flying from the wide-mouthed gun at the prow of the police boat.
The old woman collapses. Her body convulses, bucking against the wooden floor of the boat in loud, sickening thuds. Her side is littered with the crystals—taze stuns. Electricity is pouring into her, incapacitating her.
“Get her!” one of the policemen on the other boat shouts.
“Run!” the old lady gasps through the pain.
I don’t pause—I just leap onto the next boat, racing across the wooden planks to the next and the next.
The map program in my eyes points me to the left, deeper into the Foqra District. Behind me, I hear the sirens drawing closer, and I dare one more look over my shoulder—a look that makes me almost trip and fall out of the boat. A young man grabs my arm and steadies me, but at the same time pushes me toward the next boat. “Don’t hesitate,” he says urgently. “Never hesitate.”
“Why are you helping me?” I ask, my feet pounding across the floorboards of the boat.
The man doesn’t answer me as he helps me over a pile of rope and fairly pushes me to the next boat; he just makes a low sound in the back of his throat. It’s not until I land in the next boat that I realize what the sound was: Zzn, zzn. Buzzing. The Zunzana is small, but the people still support it.
I leap into the next boat, skidding on the wet floor and crashing down. My knee burns against the rough, painted wood, and a row of scrapes blossom in blood on my palm. I turn my head as I struggle to stand and see the people who live in this boat. A girl sits on one side, holding two small kids in her arms. I’m not sure if she’s the mother or the older sister, but she looks terrified. “I’m sorry,” I feel compelled to say as I race past. She doesn’t acknowledge my words, she’s just staring at the police.
I can hear them now. Their heavy boots stomping on the wooden floorboard. The sirens slicing through the air. Shouts and calls, focusing their attention after me.
“Ella Shepherd!” a loud, deep voice shouts through an amplifier. “Stop running. You are wanted by the Unified Countries government.”
At my feet, the girl holding the children gasps, a little sound of vocalized terror. I leap from her boat to the next, the effort already making my legs strain and ache. This isn’t just a small local kidnapping—these cops aren’t trying to save me. They are trying to capture me.
I look around wildly, trying to figure out where to go to next. The next boat I need to get to is too far away to reach in one jump. I make a snap decision, crashing into the nearest boat.
A man, his mustache peppered with bits of dried food, lunges at me, grabbing my elbow and yanking me back. “Bet there’ll be a reward for ya,” he snarls, dragging me to the other side of the boat, away from the one I need to get to.
One of the little kids the girl in the other boat was holding breaks away. “Let her go!” the little boy says indignantly. His mother or sister grabs him, pulls him down, but I can still hear the kid calling to the old man who’s gripping my arm, “Let her go! She’s Jack’s friend!”
He doesn’t know me—or, at least, I think he doesn’t. But the little boy knows Jack, and that’s enough for him.
The cops are getting closer. I can see them individually now. They have more taze stun guns, but also real guns. At least the thing that looks like my mother isn’t with them. I don’t know if I could face her.
I smash my foot against the old man’s instep and break free, throwing myself across the boat and racing to the other side, leaping blindly to the next boat. I land so hard that my bones rattle inside me.
What are they going to do to me? This is the government, the side of the government I’ve never seen before, the side that makes doppelgangers and uses an entire squadron to bring in a teenager.
I look up, and it’s not until I’m scanning the boats in front of me that I realize the map program isn’t working. I stare down at the burner cuff—the screen is blank. I don’t know if I’ve somehow broken it or it’s been remotely disconnected, but it doesn’t matter. The end result is the same: I don’t have a safe route to follow any more.
I’m on my own.
forty-three
I spin around wildly, looking for someone to help me, but this boat is old and empty. I can hear the cops louder now—they’re shouting about a reward. Whoever captures me and turns me in
will get ten thousand credits.
That old man was willing to turn me in for free.
Where do I go? Where do I go?
One of the boats not too far away is yellow and black, just like the auto-boat was. I clench my teeth and hurtle toward it. Inside, a woman nods at me, urging me to the other side. She points to another boat—it’s painted in traditional red and blue and green—but there’s a small bee painted on the prow.
“Stop, Ella Shepherd!” the police shout behind me.
I keep low, running as quickly as I can. Jack’s program is completely dead, but between the Zunzana symbols and a few people willing to point to the next friendly stop, I can keep going. The boats are fewer and further between now, and some of the people in the boats I have to cross over grab at me—perhaps eager for the reward, or just wanting to get on the good side of the cops.
Then—there—I see it—a boat close to the end of the water, near the gray sands of a beach shadowed by the bridge city. I leap closer to it, stumbling and nearly falling. A woman—young, about my mom’s age—stands in the boat. Next to her is a boy about a decade younger than me, but tall and slender. He urges me closer to their boat, shooting frantic, worried looks at the cops behind me. I take a breath and hurtle myself over the water toward their boat. I crash into a pile of rags, then glance behind me. At least a dozen black uniformed officers, all chasing me. They’re closing the ground rapidly, like vultures swooping toward an injured rabbit.
“Quickly!” the woman in the boat tells me. I jerk around to face her just as she yanks me down. What is she thinking? There’s no way I can hide here; the cops are too close. They know where I am.
“Charlie!” the woman snaps. The boy drops to the deck beside her. She frames his face with her hands and kisses him quickly on the forehead. “Run, baby,” she says, snatching the dirty dark shawl off my head and wrapping it around him. She keeps one hand on my shoulders, pushing me down, and Charlie—dressed in my shawl—takes off at a run, leaping to a nearby boat. The cops shout at each other, and I hear a whistle blowing, cursing, yelling.
“Deep breath,” the woman tells me.
“What?” I gasp.
Her hands are under my shoulders, lifting me up, and she throws me in the water with a splash drowned out by the cacophony of the chase.
I bob up, gasping for air, and the woman, leaning over the edge of the boat, pushes me back down. “Shh,” she whispers, eyes wide. I nod and sink low into the water, clutching the side of the boat. I move as silently as I can around the boat, hoping I’m out of view of the cops.
The woman starts screaming. “That way! She went that way!” I hear her footsteps clacking on the wooden planks as she races to the opposite side of the boat, pointing to her own son, already several boats away.
I can see land nearby, a narrow strip of beach crowded with people and huts, lit up by small campfires. I could swim that. It wouldn’t be hard. But there are less boats here. I’d be too easy to spot.
The waters of the Mediterranean are gray, almost black, speckled with litter and refuse. I hang near the prow of the woman’s boat, clinging to the wood just beneath the luzzu’s painted eyes. The wood is cracked and the paint is peeling, large chunks of dingy yellow flaking off in the water.
The boat rocks so violently that I nearly lose my grip. Dirty salt water fills my mouth, and I spit it out, scrambling to hold onto the wooden planks again.
“She was here,” a deep male voice barks. Shit. It’s one of the cops.
“She jumped in, yes, she made a mess of my bed.” Those pile of rags I crash-landed into—that was her bed?
A loud smack resounds, followed by a heavy thud. The cop’s hit her so hard that the woman fell down against the boat.
“Know what I think? I think maybe you’re helping her run. Is she hiding here?” the cop growls.
I cower in the water. I sink so low beneath the surface that only my nose peeks out. I should be brave. I should help defend this woman, who sent her son running in my place to distract the cops. I should… I don’t know what I should do. But it feels wrong, hiding here, while she’s being beaten.
I close my eyes and pray I’m not discovered.
I hate myself.
I’m such a coward.
Rags and cloths spill over the side of the boat, and the woman screams. He’s dumping her belongings out. The cloth was just worthless scraps, but it was also her bed, one of the few things she owned, and he’s dumping them into the water. A water-drenched photograph of a baby—Charlie?—drifts by. My hand snakes out and I grab it. I can’t do much, but I can save that at least. The woman starts to scream, pleading with the cop to stop.
Another crack of fist meeting flesh. She stops speaking, but I can hear her silent sobs. They’re the loudest thing I’ve ever heard.
Heavy footsteps grow closer to me. He’s going to look into the water.
I take one deep, silent breath, and plunge under the surface. I hope the junk in the water is enough cover to hide my kicking legs as I force myself below the boat.
I count the seconds. One… two… three…
Ten…
Twenty…
When will it be safe for me to surface? Will I rise from the water only to be captured?
Forty…
Sixty seconds—a full minute.
My heart’s thudding, and I clutch the picture of baby Charlie in one hand, the other hand touching the bottom of the woman’s luzzu boat.
Eighty…
One hundred…
One hundred twenty—two minutes.
I would have thought my lungs would burn from holding my breath so long, but I’m okay. I can do this. I can hide.
One hundred and fifty seconds.
How long should I be able to hold my breath?
Three minutes.
Shouldn’t I need air by now? Why am I able to hold my breath this long? My heart’s still racing; I feel panicked—shouldn’t I need to breathe?
Four minutes.
The boat feels stable and quiet, but even though inside I’m panicking at the thought of being underwater so long, I stay. The longer I’m here, the further the police will be when I surface.
Five minutes.
I don’t even feel pain. I remember learning to swim as a little kid, the way I’d try to stay under longer than Akilah, the way my lungs would ache, my face would burn. But here, now—nothing.
Six minutes.
I should be dead, shouldn’t I? Six minutes under water… surely that would kill me.
Seven minutes.
Out of habit, I glance at my cuff, looking for the official time. Maybe I’m just counting down the seconds really fast, maybe it hasn’t actually been seven minutes. When I look at my cuff, though, I see what made it malfunction. A tiny taze crystal is embedded in the thin tech foil. I hold my arm out, marveling at what I see. A dozen or more taze stuns prick my flesh, studding it with crystals.
I pluck one from my arm and squeeze it between two fingers. The thing shatters underwater, emitting a brief flash of sparks.
It was working. It was working, and it was in my skin, and I didn’t feel a thing.
I look up at the bottom of the boat I’m hiding under. It has to have been at least ten minutes. Ten minutes under water, and I don’t feel a thing. I’m fine. I was hit by a dozen or more taze crystals and I didn’t even notice.
That’s… that’s not human.
forty-four
I let a full half hour slide by, then I let go of the boat, bobbing up next to it. I shiver in the cool, shadowed water. On a boat closer to the bay, an old man stands up next to the edge and pees directly into the sea. His watery eyes drift to me, but he doesn’t seem to care about a girl clinging to the side of an old luzzu.
I kick up in the water enough that my hand can slap the water-logged photograph of the baby I salvaged onto the wooden railing.
A tiny squeak of surprise comes from the boat, and a small hand clasps around my wrist. “Thank you,�
� the woman who owns the boat whispers to me. “I don’t know how you saved this, but thank you.”
“Thank you for protecting me,” I say. Her face is bruised, her lip is cut. A sodden pile of rags leaves a dark stain on the floor of her boat—the belongings she was able to salvage from the water.
“Is Charlie—?” I cannot bring myself to voice the question.
“He’ll be fine,” the woman says, but I’m not so sure of that, and I don’t think she is, either.
My skin is wrinkled and my hair is stiff with salt—and whatever else is floating in this dirty water—by the time I finally swim to the narrow, crowded beach. As I approach, a few people look up, but they don’t seem to particularly care about me or my presence. They’re caught up in their own microcosm, and even the reward offered by the police is not enough to entice them to get involved with my affairs. In the distance, at the edge of the boats, I see flashing lights, police boats, and men and women dressed in military-grade black. But they hang on the edges of the Foqra District. Even they know that this is a no-man’s land.
Houses made of trash—scrap tin and broken boards that clearly came from luzzu boats and cardboard and plastic tarps—are built right up to the water’s edge, every spare bit of space used. Despite the fact that it’s summer, there are glimmers of small campfires throughout this makeshift city.
I cough. The stench of smoke—both from old engines and from cooking—is overwhelming. It clings to me, slimy on my skin as I start to dry. I glance down at my clothes. They’re ruined, soaked through with the polluted sea water. Bits of trash stick to my body and are caught up in my hair.
But I don’t care about that. I only think about how I don’t need to breathe air, how taze stuns didn’t even make me twinge with pain.
I’m not human.
The words resound in my head with every step I take up the shore.
I’m not human.
A human couldn’t do those things. And more—I think of how, when the androids first issued their warning, I threw Rosie down to rip off her bypass panel. I shouldn’t have been strong enough for that. I threw Jack off me when he attacked as if he were nothing, injuring him despite the fact I’ve never fought anyone in my life.