I landed hard on my back. Grit blanketed my lips and eyes. My neck ached, and there was a lump on my skull. Sula lay beside me, one arm cradling my head. I tried to sit up, but she stopped me. "Stay put," she ordered.
We had fallen two floors. Bullets ricocheted above us like angry sand hornets. Below us all was silent.
"Who's shooting?" I whispered.
"Stop talking," she hissed.
The alarms continued to sound. Emergency lights cast a yellow glow, while strobes flashed intermittently. While we lay in the semidarkness, hidden behind the broken wall, six black-booted men thumped past us in stairwell. I folded myself into Sula, burying my head in her ribs. Stray wisps of blond hair brushed my face. Her sea-soap smell was in my mouth. My head rose on the sharp intake of her breath. Then the men passed.
We waited behind the wall until Sula was certain it was safe. In the sea room the men had probably found the clogged screens and were working to clean them. We could only hope the distraction served its purpose. While Bluewater guards rushed to contain the damage, Ulysses and Will gained precious minutes to get to the presentation room. But the gunfire meant something had gone wrong. Bluewater should have been hunting for Sula and me below, not Will and Ulysses above.
Sula pushed me into the dusty hall and then onto the staircase. The walls were blown away, but the stairs were intact. We stepped over broken glass, plaster chunks, even a dead body-a guard, face down. We did not slow.
The octagon fortress was not nearly as tall as it was wide. I realized now that it covered the sea floor and was barely visible from the shoreline. Anyone searching for two escaped fugitives would have a lot of ground to cover. They would naturally start near the water, where the sea room was located and the skimmer was docked: the most logical place to escape. The roof was the last place they would think to look.
That's why the two guards on the roof were more surprised than we were to see a young girl and a woman in a wet suit. Their hesitation was the only advantage Sula needed. She swiftly killed one man with her harpoon and knocked the other unconscious with a blow to the back of his head.
"Did you have to kill him?" I protested.
Sula retrieved her weapon. "What would you like me to do? Give him a kiss?"
"Why can't you use the destabilizer? Or the taser?"
"In the time it takes to knock him out, his friend pulls a gun on me-and you."
I didn't say anything, but it seemed to me that Sula preferred to kill people, as if she were harboring a grudge she could never pay back. "What did they do to you here?" I asked.
"What didn't they do?"
"But you're alive."
Sula stopped cleaning the harpoon and regarded me for a minute. Then she slowly pulled her wet suit away from her shoulder to reveal an ugly scar that ran beneath her collarbone and across her entire chest. It was purple and red, knotted and lumpy. It looked as if the skin had been ripped rather than cut. It had obviously bled for a long time and never been stitched or cared for properly. Whoever had injured her had wanted it to hurt.
The wet suit snapped angrily as it fell back into place.
"They called it a lesson," she said. "But they should have found a better student."
I looked away, out to the flat gray expanse of the sea. Bluewater operated in a lawless vacuum. Governments-even the worst of them-had to answer to the people. History had proved that even the most brutal dictatorships collapsed. Wasn't that what we'd learned in school, that Illinowa had to answer to its citizens? But to whom did Bluewater answer?
We were adjacent to the runway but sheltered behind the emergency stairwell. We could see two jets and three helicopters. A platoon of soldiers guarded the planes, but they seemed distracted and bored. They were not yet missing their two dead comrades. Alarms still rang on the lower floors, although no one had fired a shot for a while. There was no sign of Ulysses or Will.
"Where are they?" I asked.
"They'll come."
I wished I felt as confident as Sula. I told myself that Ulysses would protect Will. The pirate king had survived many scraps and scrapes, but surely nothing compared to infiltrating Bluewater's global headquarters. He had his wits and Nasri's gun and a shot of adrenaline that was wearing off. I hoped it would be enough.
Then they appeared. Ulysses looked gray and weathered, while Will was flushed and breathing hard. But they were alone.
"Where's Kai?" I cried.
"Everyone fled when the shooting started," Ulysses answered.
"Why didn't you hold your fire?" Sula asked.
Ulysses growled at her. "It wasn't our shooting. Their cozy little meeting broke up in gunfire."
Sula's eyebrows dipped and knitted as she tried to register this information. "Who was shooting?"
Ulysses explained that before they had reached the presentation room, they'd heard a loud argument and then gunshots.
"Put a damper on the rest of the gathering," he concluded.
"We might have gotten in too," said Will. "But everyone scattered."
"What could they be fighting about?" I asked.
"What they always fight about," said Ulysses. "The future and who'll control it."
"It's bedlam now," said Sula.
"This'll suit our purposes," said Ulysses. "When everyone's running, they have to run somewhere."
"It's the direction I'm worried about," said Sula.
"Patience."
I didn't know how Ulysses could urge patience when things had gone so disastrously wrong. If the politicians were shooting at each other, Kai and his father were trapped. And when the shooting stopped, surely someone would spirit them away, making rescue impossible.
But patience wasn't necessary. The emergency doors on the far edge of the roof burst open, and a handful of guards emerged, leading a man who was nearly a head taller than any of them and a boy who was paler and thinner since the last time I saw him. My chest tightened.
"Hello," Ulysses whispered. He crouched low and thrust out an arm to prevent Sula from rising. "We have guests."
With all the shooting below, I could see now that the roof was the most logical escape route for Torq and his men. The guards were on high alert, and they moved cautiously, with guns extended and fingers on the triggers. Kai and his father were not cuffed or bound, but Torq grasped the father's wrist in his hand. Next to Kai's father, Torq didn't look quite so tall, but he still outweighed the man by twenty kilos. Torq's brown hairless body was shining like a genetically modified fruit-built to withstand drought, disease, and predators.
"There's fifteen rounds in that chamber," said Sula, nodding at Ulysses's gun, "and I can take two before they even start shooting."
"The gun's half-empty," Ulysses responded. "And there's a dozen guards on the roof besides the men with baldy."
Sula scratched a tooth with the tip of one finger. "Once they're on that jet, there's no way to catch them."
"They won't get on the jet."
I crawled to Will's side and whispered in his ear. "Kai looks just like his father."
It was true: Driesen Smith was a more elongated version of the boy. Both were tall with blond hair and had the same way of standing, as if nothing were important, even as their lives were in the hands of corporate criminals. But Driesen glanced surreptitiously about the roof, and I could tell he was deciding whether there might still be an escape. A driller didn't survive for long without being skilled at seizing opportunity where others wouldn't dare.
They were probably less than a hundred meters away, yet the distance was nearly insurmountable. I wanted to wave to Kai, to tell him we had come to save him, but he was barely visible behind a phalanx of soldiers. A few steps, a quick dash, and I could pull Kai away, but I would never make it half that distance alive.
As my stomach churned and the air filled with the crackling static of communicators, an idea came to me. It was simple, really-not dangerous at all-but I had to convince Ulysses and Sula to let me try.
"I'm going to get him," I said.
"Don't be crazy," said Will.
"I can do it. I'll take the destabilizer."
Sula shook her head. "No. If anyone takes it, I will."
"They'll shoot you before you get close enough," I said. "They know you're armed. I'm the only one who can get inside and use it."
I knew I was right, and I knew the others knew it as well. But Will refused to hear me. "I'll do it," he said. "They won't shoot me."
"You're too old. They'll think you're a soldier, and they won't let you get near."
In normal circumstances Will might have been flattered to be considered a soldier. But the only way to walk unarmed into the midst of Bluewater's elite security force was to appear harmless and nonthreatening. I was the only one with that chance.
"We can intercept them at the plane," Will offered.
"It'll be too late by then."
He turned to Ulysses. "Don't let her do it."
"I want to," I insisted. "Kai is my friend. It was my idea to come after him in the first place. Besides, I'll be fine."
Ulysses frowned, but his eyes betrayed him. "She's the only one who can slip past unchallenged," he agreed. "It's our best chance." Will wanted to argue, but the decision was already made. "If there's any sign of trouble," said Ulysses, "dive to the floor, and don't come up until the shooting stops."
Sula handed me the destabilizer. It was no larger than a bottle cap, and she strapped it to my wrist like a timepiece. She explained that when I pushed two small protruding buttons at the same time, it would generate a shock wave that would knock down anyone within a ten-meter radius. "But make sure you stand straight and have both feet on the ground, or it will take you with it," she added.
I ran my fingers over its smooth black surface. I was amazed that such a small device had so much power. But there was only enough charge for one shock wave, so I would have just one chance. Sula gripped my arm as if she was going to say something more, but all she said was, "Hurry now."
I hugged Ulysses and Will. Will gave me one last chance to change my mind, then made me promise I wouldn't take any foolish risks.
"At least none you wouldn't," I said. Despite himself, he grinned back at me.
I stole one last look at the destabilizer, memorizing the location of the buttons, then I stepped from the hiding place out into the open. The guards turned to me in surprise, as if they had just seen a phantom.
"Kai!" I waved.
Sights raised, the guns bristled at me. I held my breath.
"Vera?" Kai's face was as confused as the men's around him.
The gun of the leading guard lowered slightly, and the man peered at me over his barrel. "Identify yourself!" he called.
"I'm a friend of Kai's," I said.
"The pirate's daughter." Torq pushed to the front of the group, his brown head glistening in the sun. "But where is your father? He can't have gotten far."
"You have him in your prison."
"He's gone. But I think you know that." He turned to the nearest guard. "Search her."
One of the guards swiftly approached and checked me for weapons, but he was young and nervous, and I could tell he felt uncomfortable running his hands over my body. He didn't even think to inspect the timepiece on my wrist. The other guards lowered their guns. I'm sure they didn't think I posed any threat. Torq signaled to two of them, and they escorted me back inside their circle.
"Hi, Kai," I said, as if we were meeting on the road after school again.
"Hi, Vera."
We grinned at each other like idiots. I couldn't have been happier if someone had handed me a real orange with a glass of fresh water.
"This is not a game," said Torq. "Whatever your father's planned, it won't succeed. We'll be in the air before he or anyone else can stop us."
The circle of guards pressed more tightly around me. Torq gave them their orders, and they marched us toward three waiting helicopters.
"Where are you going?" I asked.
"Silence!" thundered Torq.
My right hand touched my left wrist. I felt strangely calm. Even though I was surrounded, I felt no fear. "It's going to be okay," I said to Kai. "We're here to rescue you."
Torq turned to me at that moment, his arm raised as if to strike. His sudden motion caused me to stumble slightly backward, so that when I pressed the buttons on the destabilizer, my left foot was barely touching the ground. I felt a blow to my solar plexus like someone had tossed a hundred-kilo bag of sand at my stomach. My vision went wobbly, the way a wi-cast lost its rectangular shape and became blobbish when the transmission was interrupted. At first I didn't even see the men crumpling around me, falling like their bones were broken. My feet went out from under me, and I collapsed too.
I was barely conscious when Ulysses lifted me to his shoulder and carried me at a full run toward the jets. This was a man with a piece of metal in his upper thigh, several cracked ribs, and contusions across his back and neck. But he ran like a pan-republic champion, hunched low and aerodynamic, his body shielding me while he emptied Nasri's gun at the phalanx of guards by the runway. At his side Sula loosed a volley of harpoons while she kept Will safely behind her.
Although outnumbered, Ulysses and Sula had the advantage of surprise, speed, and deadly accuracy. The guards were soft from a life of easy water, while Ulysses and Sula were tempered by hardship and thirst. A half-dozen men were dead or wounded before the remaining guards even knew they were being attacked. The others scattered quickly, and only a few managed to return fire before they were shot down. One guard blocked the doorway to the nearest jet, but Sula quickly felled him with a second knife she kept sheathed at her ankle. Another guard stepped from behind a walkway, but Ulysses knocked him unconscious with the butt of the gun.
All this happened in a flash. The images of violence, explosions, and scattered gunshots barely registered. Later Will filled in the missing details. I was alert enough, however, to realize that we had left Kai and his father with Torq and his men.
"Kai!" I cried.
"We're not done yet," growled Ulysses.
Torq and his men twitched on the ground, but Sula had already climbed into the cockpit of the jet and started the engines. Ulysses lay me down in the small compartment meant for the pilot's gear, and Will squeezed in next to me. Then Ulysses climbed into the copilot's seat. The plane shook violently as Sula increased the power to the engines.
"You sure you know how to fly one of these?" Ulysses asked.
Sula glared at him. "Sure you know how to fasten your seat belt?"
The ping of bullets striking the wings cut short their spat. One hit the windshield, leaving an irregular star on the glass. Ulysses pulled the safety strap across his shoulder and buckled himself into his seat.
Sula maneuvered the jet across the runway. The engines roared loudly as she increased the thrust. Outside Torq had risen unsteadily to his feet; I could see him shouting orders at his men. Sula drove the plane directly toward him, accelerating quickly as his men scrambled for their weapons. She could have mowed them down or fired a rocket into their midst, but Kai was still unconscious on the ground, and his father stood shakily over him.
The end of the runway was just one hundred meters distant. Sula braked and swung the jet around. The engines sprayed hot exhaust at Torq and his men, and they dropped to the ground to avoid the burning fuel. Sula kept the engines roaring at full blast. The inferno of gas set the roof ablaze. "Thirty seconds," she said to Ulysses.
"You better cover me." He unlatched the door.
"I'm wasting fuel," said Sula.
"I'm not kidding." He stepped from the plane onto the concrete runway. The air crinkled around him, hot and dry, all the oxygen burned out of it. There was no way he could breathe in the heat. But he hunkered low and ran for the soldiers, as if he might try to take them all at once. The men struggled to grasp their weapons. Their arms tensed and flexed as they tried to make their muscles respond in their weakened state.
Driesen Smith rose to one knee, while Kai remained unconscious. Ulysses reached the father and slung the boy over one shoulder. Driesen could barely move, so Ulysses lifted him with one arm and half-dragged, half-carried him across the runway. The guards shouted for him to stop, but they couldn't manage to squeeze off any shots. Several tried to run after him, staggering and weaving, buckling and then rising again. But Ulysses kept going, relentless and indestructible. At the door of the jet, Driesen Smith hesitated. His long blond lashes fluttered rapidly, and his jaw hung open. He seemed to be weighing the risks of jumping into a plane with a crazed pirate against staying on the ground with corporate assassins. Probable death versus certain death.
"Move it!" Ulysses yelled and tossed him in the jet like a sack of dry-crete. Then he tossed Kai on top of him.
"Careful!" I said.
"No time for careful. Fly," Ulysses commanded.
Sula didn't hesitate. She threw the engines into gear and blasted toward the edge of the runway. Bullets sang out harmlessly in the vapor trail behind us. In a moment we were airborne, with only the ocean and the sky between us and home.