Warriors

TWENTY-FIVE

The next morning, the islands had come alive with activity. News of Colonel Forge’s promotion to general had spread fast, and most Cazadores seemed thrilled that one of their own was again in charge of the military.

Civilians across the rigs had started their day helping with the war effort. Rumors about the machines had also spread, and every soul understood what was at stake. It had taken a shared threat to bring everyone together—a threat that had already wiped out most of humanity and destroyed the world.

Michael watched it all proudly, with confidence and optimism. Everyone was playing a role in preparing for what could very well be the final battle in a war that had lasted over two and a half centuries.

An army of shipwrights and mechanics had arrived to get Renegade and Shadow ready for battle. Every bullet, bomb, and missile across the islands was inventoried while prisoners at the Shark’s Cage and civilians on other rigs redoubled their efforts repairing damaged ordnance, casting lead bullets, and reloading spent brass.

At the trading post, animals were being slaughtered and preserved for the journey to Aruba. Food, ammunition, and spare parts were being ferried out to Discovery. Even the people from the bunker in Rio were helping.

On the capitol tower, a group had gathered at dawn to patch jumpsuits and parachutes. The people who had lived underground for centuries had many skills that were coming in handy.

Like most of the Hell Divers, Michael had spent much of the night diving through the clouds to train for the Africa mission. This would be his last time in the sky—a promise he had made to Layla and wasn’t going to break.

After wrapping up twelve training jumps, the divers had been assigned to help a team of Cazador scuba divers with the last of the underwater sensors to detect submarines. These were already in place at strategic locations along the border of light and dark, but the teams installed more around the capitol tower and the Hive, just in case.

When the sensors were all in the water, the divers returned to the capitol tower for a few hours of rest before more training. Finally, Michael took them to the Sky Arena, where they were given breakfast and water.

He was there with them now, standing in front of Mac and Felipe. A rusted metal rack of swords and spears was nearby. Pedro stood with his arms folded over his chest, dreads hanging over his back. He was here at X’s request, although Michael wasn’t quite sure why.

Michael handed a bottle of water to Sofia, who passed it down to the other divers. The casual onlooker wouldn’t have known a greenhorn from a veteran. They all looked exhausted.

Sofia, Lena, Ted, Hector, Edgar, Arlo, Magnolia, and Rodger were all here, but barely. Some were almost staggering.

Arlo sat down and then leaned back with his hands behind his head. “Let me know when you’re ready,” he said. “I’m going to take a quick nap.”

“X should be here soon,” Michael said.

He looked up at the surrounding seats, picturing the crowds that had watched when X and Rodger first fought here.

So much had changed since then.

Some of the other divers started to sit down, too, but Michael remained standing next to Magnolia and Rodger.

“I know you’re all tired,” he said, “but suck it up. What you’re about to learn could very well be the difference between life and death once we reach Africa.”

“I ain’t fucking going to Africa,” Rodger muttered.

Michael wasn’t in the mood to argue, and he didn’t want to upset Rodger further so soon after he buried his parents.

“That’s going to be decided by King Xavier,” he said. “Regardless of where you go, there or Aruba, you need this training.”

Rodger grumbled, and Magnolia elbowed him in the ribs.

The sound of boots on the stands commanded his attention, and Michael brought a hand up to shield his eyes from the sun. Ton and Victor walked with X down the stairwell splitting the stands. Miles trotted after them but stopped at the railing.

Arlo and the other divers got to their feet.

“Stay, boy,” X said.

The dog paced and whined after X and his guards climbed down to the sand. The king carried the double-headed spear that had belonged to his most trusted guard, Rhino.

“Sorry I’m late,” X said.

“Welcome, King Xavier,” Mac said. He bowed slightly and twirled a cutlass in his only hand. “This afternoon, you’re getting a crash course on how to wield that spear.”

“What the hell do we need those for when we have machine guns and blasters?” Arlo asked.

Mac looked at the diver as one might respond to a slow child. Then he said, “Guns don’t always work in the wastes, and a sword doesn’t run out of ammo.”

He swung the cutlass at Arlo’s neck, the blade stopping less than an inch from his Adam’s apple.

“In the time it would take to aim a gun, I would have just lopped your head off,” Mac said.

Arlo swallowed, looking shaken.

“Everyone, grab a weapon,” he said. “Your training starts now.”

The divers walked over to the rack of weapons and chose from the blades and spears. Pedro joined the divers and grabbed a double-edged sword.

“Hope you got a plan on how to teach me to use this with one arm,” X said, raising his spear awkwardly in the air.

“Oh, I’ll show you a few tricks,” Mac said.

Michael didn’t like the idea of X trying to fight Horn with the weapon, but he knew better than to try to talk him out of it. Once X had his mind made up, he rarely entertained alternatives without a fight. But also, Michael wanted to see how Mac would train X on the weapon.

“Watch and learn,” Mac said.

He stepped into a white ring painted in the dirt and raised a blunted cutlass to Felipe. The younger Barracuda got into a fighting stance with a short sword. Sweat beaded on his bald pate and trickled down the crab tattoo.

Mac let out a cry as he swung first. The blades clanged.

For an old man with only two natural limbs, Mac was fast. Felipe was a strong fighter, too, and he didn’t seem to be going easy on the veteran. They traded blows for several minutes, staying within the border of the white line.

“Don’t watch your opponent’s eyes,” Mac said to the spectators. “He can use them to fake you out. You can get a better read on his next move by watching his chest.”

Felipe, who didn’t know much English, wasn’t prepared when Mac flitted his eyes to the left and jabbed with his right. Mac turned the dulled blade aside at the last moment, smacking Felipe in the back with the flat.

Wincing, Felipe hopped away.

“Wow,” Arlo said. “That was sick.”

Edgar twirled his sword. He was still bruised and injured but looked more determined than ever. “Let me try,” he said.

The former militia soldier wasn’t just an expert with a sniper rifle. In the militia he had been an artist with a baton. He wasn’t bad with a sword, either. At least, that was what Michael thought until Mac had the Hell Diver on his back, with a blade to his chest, within four strokes.

“Damn,” Arlo said. “You just got worked, homes!”

“Sick? Worked? Homes? What the hell does that shit even mean?” Sofia asked.

“Just stuff I heard in old-world movies and songs,” Arlo said.

Sofia stepped up next, and to everyone’s surprise, she swung her sword so hard that it made Mac take a step back with his prosthetic leg.

He hit back, but Sofia lunged, forcing him to sidestep the blow.

“Whoa,” X said. “Take it easy, Sofia.”

But she only hit harder. Mac parried the blows with his cutlass, not striking back, letting her expend energy.

“Damn,” Arlo said. He looked to Lena. “You got hidden moves like that?”

“I know a few tricks,” she replied.

He winked at her, and Lena rolled her eyes.

“Guys, less talking, more watching,” Michael said.

“She’s got skills,” Arlo said.

“You’re right for once,” Ted said after taking a slug from his flask.

Sofia grunted louder, hitting harder, feet moving nimbly.

“Careful,” X warned them.

But Mac didn’t seem to be easing up any more than she was, and the bloodlust in her eyes made Michael a little uneasy.

A scream pierced the morning as Sofia charged Mac. She swung hard, sparks flying when Mac’s sword deflected the blow.

Felipe stepped closer, clearly worried about his commander.

“You’re good, but not that good,” Mac said. He swung at her, but she swung harder, almost knocking his sword out of his grip. She smacked him in the face with her elbow.

Stumbling backward, he dragged his forearm across his lips, smearing blood. His eyes glared with rage.

They both raised their swords at the same time, but Michael strode into the middle of the ring and reached out with his metal arm, catching her sword blade. Felipe stepped in front of Mac.

“Enough!” X said.

The king’s raised voice seemed to calm Mac down, but Sofia just yanked on her sword. Michael’s robotic fingers held the blade like a vise.

“Calm down,” he said.

“Fuck you.”

“Hey!” Magnolia said. “Sofia, you need to check yourself.”

“You can fuck off, too,” Sofia said. She finally let go of her sword and stormed off, over the railing and up the stairs.

Magnolia walked after her, but X shook his head.

“Give her time,” he said.

Blood dripped off Mac’s chin. He held up his hand and spat a tooth into his palm.

“Oh, it’s just wood,” he said, and chuckled.

X laughed, too, but the jocularity vanished with the whistling wind.

Michael dropped Sofia’s sword, point first into the soil.

“Tell me again how we’re supposed to use swords on the machines,” Arlo said. “I don’t think I caught that part of the training.”

“You’re not,” X said. “They’re for human enemies.”

“And why is Pedro here?” Ted asked.

Hearing his name, Pedro walked over.

“He’s going with you to Africa,” X said. “He’s humbly volunteered to join the crew and share his knowledge of the machines.”

Michael wasn’t surprised to hear this and once again appreciated the man’s courage.

“Either way, I think I prefer my submachine gun and blaster,” Arlo said.

They had bigger problems than weaponry to worry about. Michael wondered whether X was thinking the same thing. How could a team of emotionally and physically broken-down Hell Divers fight the machines on the machines’ turf?

They weren’t ready, but would they ever be?

While the sun sank into the sea to end another day, Cazadores and sky people worked together preparing for war.

X was still in the Sky Arena, working with Mac and Felipe. He wanted to hear Imulah translate the book about the Outrider, but there would be plenty of time for that on the journey to the not-so-abandoned Cazador colony on Aruba.

Right now, though, he must learn how to fight one-handed with the spear if he had any hope of killing Horn.

Mac and Felipe finished off the rest of their water, and Mac motioned for X to get back into the ring.

“Again,” Mac said.

X gripped the spear as Mac had taught him, and then jabbed it through the air at the crab tattoo on Felipe’s skull, only to have the blade knocked away by his cutlass.

“Better, but too slow,” Mac said. He spat in the dirt. “It’s a shame you lost your knife hand—makes training all the more difficult.”

“No shit,” X muttered, panting.

He tightened the thong of the leather sheath on his spearhead. Ton and Victor watched his every move.

They weren’t the only ones. Miles watched from the stands and got up when X looked in his direction.

“Almost done, boy,” he said.

Looking at his wristwatch, he realized he was running out of time to spar. The ceremony for Michael and Layla was in an hour.

“We’ll pick this up later,” X said. “Thank you for helping me out, brother.”

X went back to his room, where he left Miles with a bowl of fresh food and water. Then he headed for the solar-heated showers on the floor below. Ton and Victor pushed open the double doors, and they all entered a steamy room that smelled like a mixture of body odor and flowers.

Ted and Arlo were in the first changing area. With his back turned and his long curly locks hanging over his shoulders, Arlo looked like a woman.

“You know why soldiers buzzed their heads in old wars?” X asked him.

Arlo turned, tightening the towel around his waist. The stab wound he had suffered in Rio de Janeiro wasn’t fully healed yet, but the stitches were out.

“I don’t recall, King Xavier,” he replied.

“So an enemy couldn’t pull your head back and slit your throat,” X said, tracing a line across his own scarred neck.

Arlo flipped a lock of hair over his shoulder, flinging water on Ted.

“Hey, man, what the hell!”

“Sorry,” Arlo said. He sat on a long wooden bench. “All due respect, King Xavier, but I’m going to have a helmet on out there, right?”

“Yes, but that’s not the point.”

“I still don’t know how a sword is going to do me any good against a machine.”

“It may not,” X said. “But there are more than machines where you’re going. Remember that Siren pit you fell into on your last dive?”

Arlo swallowed hard, and Ton and Victor gave him a hard look as X hit the showers.

Feeling refreshed, X walked back to his quarters in silence. Miles followed him over to his closet, where X pulled out his best shorts and slipped into his worn leather sandals. The two white shirts hanging on hooks were wrinkled, but the one thing in his small closet wasn’t.

“What do you think, boy?” X asked Miles.

The dog moved into the closet and sniffed the bottom of the leather outfit that Imulah had given X during the first days of his reign.

To be king, you must dress like one, he had said.

“Fuck that,” X mumbled.

It was the same reply he had given back then.

He left the closet and went over to the trunk at the foot of the bed. Miles sniffed the box eagerly, expecting a treat.

X opened the lid to reveal the only possession that had survived all his journeys. While he had lost most of his original Hell Diver armor during his trek through the wastes and his imprisonment by the Cazadores, he still had the main plate of his chest armor.

He placed it on the bed. After putting on a white button-down shirt, he added the chest plate. Turning, he checked himself in the cracked mirror on the wall.

“I look good?” he said, glancing down.

Miles’s tail thumped, and X laughed.

He went to his small desk, where he had placed Imulah’s book on the Outrider colony, but it was the second book from Imulah that he was interested in tonight. A faded gold cross marked the cover.

It was as old as X felt, with pages as creased and weathered as his scarred flesh. He had never felt much in common with religions, but tonight, he was going to use a line from this ancient book for the old-world ceremony that would unite Michael and Layla.

X buckled his captain’s sword to the duty belt at his waist. For the first time in as long as he could remember, he stopped in front of the mirror and made sure he didn’t have anything in his teeth. He even ran his fingernails through the thicket of eyebrow, then used scissors to cut any errant bristles. Satisfied, he went to work trimming his beard into shape.

At last, he wiped the mirror off and stared at his reflection.

He hardly recognized the man looking back at him. A new wrinkle had formed on his forehead, and his nose looked more crooked than before. And his short hair and beard now had more salt than pepper.

“You shouldn’t even be alive,” he said.

He and Miles left the room and walked with Ton and Victor to the sun deck where el Pulpo’s wives had once lounged in the sun while servants fed them grapes.

The servants were gone, as were the cages that once held Rodger and Miles captive. The rest had been transformed into a beautiful oasis.

Electric lights hung from the branches of trees. Four tables, each covered with a white cloth and set with dishes of fruit and vegetables, had been set up along the deck.

Voices came from the other side of the garden. X walked toward them, halting behind a tree when he saw Michael and Layla holding hands under a bower strung with lights. Several people waited in the shadows.

Layla looked beautiful in a white dress with flowers and a lace V-neck. Michael wore a black Hell Diver jumpsuit with the Raptor logo on the sleeves. Armor covered his chest. The ponytail was gone, shorn down to a crew cut. He had also shaved his baby face. Both were too busy talking with Imulah to even see X.

He stood there a moment, admiring the two kids. Even in their midtwenties, that was how he saw them. And they were about to start their own family now.

X drew in a breath, suddenly feeling more nervous than he did before a dive. A memory surfaced of his ninety-sixth jump, the day Michael’s father died with the rest of Team Raptor.

More memories flooded his mind: bringing Tin orange noodles while he put together a vacuum cleaner bot in their small quarters; finding the boy in the medical ward with his shiny foil hat after a storm.

He recalled the fortune cookie quote Tin had given him before the dive that left X stranded on the surface. They hadn’t seen each other for almost a decade until their reunion in Florida, when X was a half-crazed shell of his former self. Since then, they had made up for lost time, but that time was fraught with harsh reality.

Devastating dives.

The battle for the islands.

Death and suffering.

His drinking again.

All those moments had led X to tonight—to this very spot, where he was lucky enough to see Michael and Layla joined together in the sacred tradition of marriage.

Rodger and Magnolia waited hand in hand. She had buzzed her head and wore a bandage over the burn wounds on the right side of her forehead.

Rodger pushed his glasses up and smiled as X walked over.

Les stood with his wife and daughter, holding their hands. Eevi and Samson had also come. And there were the ever-present Victor and Ton, keeping to the shadows to watch for threats.

But so many were not here tonight—people they had lost who would have loved to see this union.

X led Miles over to the gathering.

“Welcome, King Xavier,” Imulah said.

X almost choked up as Michael and Layla turned to face him.

They both smiled, but there was still tension in their faces—concern over what came after their ceremony. X vowed to live in the moment and leave the worries for tomorrow.

“We are here to celebrate the union of two beautiful people tonight,” X said. “Two people I’ve had the pleasure of knowing since they were children.”

He stepped up in front of the altar, under the fronds of a palm tree.

“Layla Brower and Michael Everhart, it is my honor to oversee this ceremony. You are beautiful inside and out and have always put others before yourselves with your kind and selfless hearts.”

He let that sink in.

“Tonight is about you, and I hope you can put aside all other thoughts and focus on each other right now. For this is a night that you will never forget.”

Michael looked at Layla and smiled. Her dimpled grin widened.

“Gather around,” X said.

Everyone moved closer, and he thought back to his own wedding. He wasn’t even sure how long ago it was—probably thirty years by now. A distant memory, but one that still lived in his mind.

His wife had looked so beautiful that day, and they were so in love. Long before the diving turned him into a drunk and, at times, an asshole.

Accept your past without regrets, he reminded himself.

X opened the book. Clearing his throat, he read the passage about love.

“Love is kind. It does not envy…”

He handed the book to Imulah and moved to a tradition his people had come up with over the years.

“Layla, Michael,” X said, “tonight your hearts become one. Wherever one of you goes, the other follows, even if not in physical form.”

They placed their hands over each other’s heart.

“Repeat after me,” X said. He waited a moment. “I, Michael Everhart, promise always to put you first and take care of you as long as we live in the sky…”

Several chuckles sounded.

“Sorry,” X said. “I guess we’ll need to change some words.”

Michael and Layla both smiled even wider.

“As long as we live,” X corrected.

Michael repeated the words, and Layla did the same.

“I want to make another promise tonight in front of you all,” Michael said. He looked to X for permission.

“Go ahead,” X said.

“Layla,” Michael said, meeting her gaze once again, “I promise the mission to Africa will be my last as a Hell Diver.”

A tear rolled down her cheek. She nodded once, then twice.

“Put your hand on top of each other’s,” X said. They did, and X put his left hand on top of theirs.

“Let us all pray for their love and safety,” he said.

The small crowd bowed their heads.

X waited another beat and took his hand away.

“And with that, I present you all with Michael and Layla Everhart,” he said.

Clapping rang out, and several cheers.

Miles wagged his tail and barked.

Michael looked to X and mouthed, Thank you.

“Don’t look at me, kid—er, man,” X said, correcting himself again. “Kiss your bride!”

Michael leaned in, kissing her gently on the lips.

To no one’s surprise, Rodger did the same thing to Magnolia, and to everyone’s surprise, she didn’t slap him.

Samson walked over to the table, grumbling about being hungry, while the lovebirds embraced. X smiled and cried at the same time as he sat with the others for their banquet, just as they did before a dive.

Only tonight X wasn’t going to get plastered and make bad decisions. Tonight, he was going to be the king that his people needed before the most important missions of their lives—and perhaps the most important mission since the end of the world.