Ship Breaker

7

THE STORM RAGED for two nights, trashing the coastline, tearing away anything that wasn’t tied down. Pima and Nailer huddled through it, watching the roar and rain and holding close as their lips turned purple and their skins pimpled with cold.

On the third day, in the morning, the skies suddenly cleared. Nailer and Pima forced their stiff limbs to move and stumbled down to the beach, joining a ragged assemblage of other survivors who were streaming toward the sands.

They broke through the last of the trees and Nailer stopped, dumbstruck.

The beach was empty. Not a sign of human habitation. Out in the blue water, the shadows of the tankers still loomed, randomly scattered like toys, but nothing else remained. The soot was gone, the oil in the waters, everything shone brightly under the blaze of morning tropic sun.

“It’s so blue,” Pima murmured. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen the water so blue.”

Nailer couldn’t speak. The beach was cleaner than he’d ever seen in his life.

“You’re alive, huh?”

Moon Girl, grinning at them. Covered with mud from whatever bolt-hole she’d found, but alive nonetheless. Behind her, Pearly and his parents were coming onto the beach, shocked expressions on their faces as they tried to register the changes.

“All in one piece.” Pima searched down the beach. “You see my mom?”

Moon Girl shook her head, her piercings glinting in the sun. “She might be over there.” She waved vaguely toward the train yard. “Lucky Strike’s giving out food to anyone who wants it. Credit for everyone until the ship breaking starts again.”

“He saved food?”

“Couple rail cars full.”

Pima tugged Nailer. “Come on.”

A crowd of people were gathered around the scavenge train, all of them waiting for Lucky Strike to dole out supplies. Pima and Nailer scanned the faces, but there was no sign of Sadna.

Lucky Strike was laughing and saying, “No worries! We got enough for everyone! No one’s starving while we wait for old Lawson & Carlson to come back from MissMet. The rust buyers might be hiding from hurricanes, but Lucky Strike’s taking care of everyone.”

Lucky Strike was grinning, his long black dreadlocks tied back, but Nailer knew he was also telling people there wouldn’t be any rioting for food. And if there was anyone people would obey, it was Lucky Strike.

Lucky Strike had been collecting real power ever since his first bit of luck freed him from heavy crew. Now he smuggled everything from antibiotics to crystal slide into Bright Sands Beach. He had deals worked with the boss men to do whatever he liked. His hand was in the gambling dens and the nailsheds and a dozen other businesses, and the money just rolled in, turning into gold nuggets that he hung glittering from the tips of his dreadlocks or else drove through his ears in thick gleaming rings. The man dripped wealth.

“Keep back!” Lucky Strike shouted. “Keep on back!” He was smiling and looked confident, but he had a line of hired goons standing behind him to back up his authority.

Nailer scanned the arrayed thugs, recognizing some of the killers that his father ran with. It seemed like Lucky Strike had collected the best of the worst for his protection. Even the half-man was there. The monster’s huge muscled form loomed over the rest of the thugs, its doglike muzzle snarling and showing its teeth to scare back the hungry people.

Pima caught the direction of Nailer’s gaze. “That’s the one my mom’s heavy crew used to pull sheet iron. Said he could lift four times what a man could.”

“What’s it doing up there?”

“Must have figured out that working muscle for Lucky Strike pays better than heavy crew.”

The half-man bared its fangs again and rumbled a warning. The crowds that had been closing in on the train cars backed off.

Lucky Strike laughed. “Well, at least you all listen to my killer dog, huh? That’s right. Everybody step back. Or my friend Tool here will teach you a lesson in manners. I mean it, everyone, give us some space. If Tool doesn’t like you, he’ll eat you raw.”

The crowd mumbled discontent, but they gave way under Tool’s gaze.

“Pima!”

Nailer and Pima turned at the shout. It was Sadna, hurrying toward them, Nailer’s father in tow. Sadna swept up to hug Pima.

Nailer’s father halted a step behind. He inclined his head. “Guess you saved my ass, Lucky Boy.”

Nailer nodded carefully. “Guess so.”

Suddenly his father laughed and grabbed him. “Damn, boy! You’re not going to hug your old man?” It hurt Nailer’s stitches and Nailer winced in the man’s grip, but he didn’t fight the embrace. His dad said, “I woke up in the middle of that damn storm and had no idea what the hell was going on. Almost killed Sadna before she explained things.”

Nailer glanced worriedly at Pima’s mother, but Sadna just shrugged. “We worked it out.”

“Damn right.” His dad grinned and touched his jaw. “She hits like sledgehammer.”

For a moment Nailer worried that his father was carrying a grudge, but for once the man wasn’t sliding high. He seemed almost rational. As clean as the beach. Already, he was craning his neck to see how food was being distributed.

“Tool’s up there?” He laughed and clapped Nailer on the shoulder. “If Lucky Strike’ll hire that dog, damn sure he’ll take me. We’ll eat good tonight.” He began shoving through the crowd toward Lucky Strike’s guard detail. He didn’t look back at Sadna or Nailer or Pima at all.

Nailer breathed a sigh of relief. No hard feelings, then.

The inventory of the beach and the ship breakers continued. Rumor had it that they’d missed the heart of the storm. It had passed to their east, up Orleans Alley, roaring through the old city ruins and then tearing farther north into the sea wreckage of Orleans II. Damage all the way up through the guts of the place, people said.

Which meant that they’d been lucky at Bright Sands, and missed being flattened.

Even with a glancing blow from the storm, the damage to Bright Sands Beach was immense. They found bodies everywhere, tangled in kudzu vines of the jungle, stuck in the trees high up, floating out in the surf. Lucky Strike organized scavenge parties to take care of the dead, burning them or burying them according to their rituals, and making the place safe from disease. Names rolled in.

Bapi had gone missing, either torn apart in the storm or drowned, but gone nonetheless. No one knew if Sloth was alive or dead. Tick-tock and his entire family were found, no sign of damage on them, but all of them dead anyway.

All the scrap and rust buyers who contracted with Lawson & Carlson had fled inland to wait out the storm. With no companies like GE buying scrap for their manufacturing operations, or shipping companies like Patel Global Transit looking to buy scavenge to sell overseas, the ship-breaking yards were idle. The accountants and assayers and corporate guards who weighed and purchased the raw materials that came off the wrecks had left, and with no one around to buy their product, the ship breakers used their days cutting and renewing their shacks, scavenging the jungle, and fishing for food in the ocean. Until things got organized, people were on their own.

Pima and Nailer went scavenging for food, collecting green coconuts that had fallen, before turning to the pools and tides. Out in the distance, the outcrop point of an island was visible.

“There’s crabs out that way,” Pima said.

“Yeah? Should we go that far?”

Pima shrugged. “Better scavenge without competition, right?” She indicated the silent ships. “It’s not like anyone’s going to miss us.”

They took a hemp sack and a bucket and went seeking, working their way across the sand, out along the spit that led to the island. All around, the ocean was a glittering mirror. Breakers rolled up to the shore, white as a baby’s teeth. The black hulks of the broken ships stood out in the sun, looming monuments to a world that had fallen apart.

Far out on the horizon, a clipper ship skated the ocean, its high sail unfurled. Nailer paused in his collections and watched as it carved across the blue water. So close, and yet so far.

“You going to keep daydreaming there?” Pima asked.

“Sorry.” Nailer bent and ran his hand through another tide pool, wincing a little at the movement but still feeling better than he had in days. His bruises were almost all faded, even if his arm was still in a sling and even if there was an annoying burn of soreness in his shoulder. They continued out along the promontory. In places they could look down through clear waters and see where old houses had been built, their concrete foundations showing in the deeps.

“Check it out,” Pima said, pointing. “That one must have been a huge house.”

“If they were so rich,” Nailer asked, “why did they build where they were going to get drowned?”

“Hell if I know. Even rich people are stupid, I guess.” Pima pointed out, deeper into the bay. “Not as stupid as the ones who made the Teeth, though.”

The waters over the Teeth were calm, a light breeze rippling across them. A few black struts and chunks of construction protruded up through the waves. Beneath the surface, tall brick and steel buildings lurked, their crumbling structures hidden by the water. The people who had built the Teeth had misjudged the sea rise quite a lot. The only time any of their buildings showed was at low tide. The rest of the time, the city ruins were entirely hidden.

“You ever wonder if there’s any good scavenge down there?” Nailer asked.

“Not really. People had plenty of time to strip the easy stuff.”

“Yeah, but still, there must be some iron and steel we could recover. Stuff that wasn’t so scarce when they gave up.”

“No one’s going after rusty steel when we’ve got all these ships to gut.”

“Yeah, I guess so.” Still, it galled him to think of what wealth might lie beneath the waves.

They waded around the rich people’s ruins and continued across the spit, aiming for the green tuft of the island. The last bit of distance was a wide sand plain, revealed in low tide, and made easy walking.

They reached the island and climbed up through trees and kudzu vines and bushes, making good time, even with Nailer’s bad shoulder. They crested the island. The wide blue ocean came into view. It was almost as if they were out in the middle of the ocean now, so far off shore. With the wind coming off the water, Nailer could pretend he was actually on a deep-sea vessel, speeding toward the horizon. He stared out to the curve of the earth, to the far side of the world.

“Wish you were here,” Pima murmured.

“Yeah.”

This was as close as he would ever come to the deep ocean. If he thought about it too much, it hurt. Some people were born lucky and sailed on clipper ships.

And then there were beach rats like him and Pima.

Nailer tore his eyes from the horizon and scanned the bay. In the deep water, the shadows of the Teeth undulated. Sometimes ships caught on the Teeth if they weren’t familiar with the local coast. He’d seen a fisher hang up and sink on the old struts when it had run itself into the whole mass of towers and then been unable to win free. Some of the ship breakers had gone down, swimming for the scavenge. Depending on tide levels, the Teeth had real bite.

“Come on,” Pima said. “We don’t want to get caught out here by the tide.”

Nailer followed, working his way downslope, letting Pima help him over the rough sections.

“Your dad get drunk yet?” Pima asked suddenly.

Nailer thought back on the morning and his father’s good mood. The man sharp-eyed and laughing and ready for the day-but also jittery, the way he was when he didn’t have his crystal slide or a handful of red rippers.

“He should be good for a while yet. Lucky Strike won’t let him crack heads unless he’s clean. Probably won’t start until tonight.”

“I don’t know why you saved his ass,” Pima said. “All he does is hit you.”

Nailer shrugged. The island’s undergrowth was surprisingly thick, and he had to push it aside to keep it from whipping him in the face as he forced through. “He didn’t used to. He used to be different. Before all the drugs and before my mom died.”

“He wasn’t that great before. He’s just worse now.”

Nailer grimaced. “Yeah, well…” He shrugged, stymied by conflicted emotions. “I probably wouldn’t have made it out of the oil room if it weren’t for him. He’s the one who taught me to swim. You think I don’t owe him something for that?”

“Depends how many times a day he cracks your head.” Pima made a face. “You give him enough chances, he’s going to kill you.”

Nailer didn’t respond. If he thought about it too much, he didn’t know why he’d saved his father, either. It wasn’t like Richard Lopez made his life any easier. Probably it was because people said family was important. Pearly said it. Pima’s mom said it. Everyone said it. And Richard Lopez, whatever else he was, was the only family Nailer had left.

Still, Nailer couldn’t help wishing that he’d ended up with Sadna and Pima, and not Richard Lopez. He wondered what it would be like to live in their shack all the time, and not just when his father was sliding high. To know that he wouldn’t have to leave after a day or two and return to his father’s place. To live with people you could count on to protect your back.

The undergrowth opened. They stepped out amongst the tide pools and jagged rocks of the island’s tip. Granite intrusions poked above the water and formed a sort of breakwater that defended the island from some of the worst of the new storms. Pima started scooping up storm-stunned croakers and small redfish, throwing them into her bucket. “There’s a lot of fish. More than I thought.”

Nailer didn’t answer. He stared at the rocks beyond. Between them, something reflected like glass, glinting and white.

“Hey, Pima.” He tugged her shoulder. “Look at that.”

Pima straightened. “What the hell?”

“That’s a clipper ship, isn’t it?” He swallowed, took a step forward. Stopped. Was it a mirage? He kept expecting it to evaporate. The white boards and fluttering silk and canvas remained. “It is. It has to be. It’s a clipper.”

Pima laughed softly behind him. “No. You’re wrong, Nailer. That’s not a clipper ship at all.” Suddenly she dashed past him, sprinting for the ship. “That’s scavenge!”

Her laughter floated back to him on the wind, teasing him. Nailer shook himself from his stupor and dashed after her. A whoop of joy escaped his lips as he ran across the sand.

Ahead, the gull-white hull of the wreck gleamed in the sunlight, beckoning.