Blood Ocean (14 page)

Wu shook his head. “Not here. Not now. Suffice to say that your father had a motto that he lived by: ‘Never give up.’”

Kavika sighed and looked at the deck. He’d expected more.

“I want you to think about that,” his Uncle said. “There’s more to it than you think.”

Kavika swallowed back his disappointment. “Let’s go,” he said.

Then they crossed the red line into People of the Sun territory. Like always, it was eerily deserted. No birds rested on any of the wires. A strange smell permeated the air.

They’d crossed two ships and were preparing to board a third when three men emerged from a cabin. Kavika recognized Pak, but he didn’t know the other two. They were Korean, but they stood a full head taller than Pak, and were well-muscled.

“I brought him,” Wu said sharply.

The three men bowed. Pak could barely meet their gaze. The other men stared at their feet.

“Sorry to be in the middle of this,” Pak said. He shook his head. “I don’t know why they asked me.” His hands shook with worry.

“Let’s get this over with.”

“Fine. Come.” Pak turned and beckoned for them to follow.

Wu started to go, then realized that the other two were going to bring up the rear. Wu stopped. “They can go first.”

The two Korean men exchanged glances.

“Seriously,” Wu said firmly. “They go first.”

Pak said something harsh in Korean. The two men bowed, then ran ahead. Pak turned and smiled at Wu as if to ask permission to proceed.

Wu nodded and soon they were marching single file across the ship and onto another. This one had walls built upon the wide flat deck, to partition different spaces. Kavika remembered it from when he’d been here before. He also remembered Pak’s twin daughters, both monkey-backed.

This time they traveled farther into the maze than before, turning left and right and left. A shack rested at each turn. Occupants peered at them from cloth-covered doorways as they passed.

They turned a final corner and into a space about ten by ten meters. Six Koreans, including the two they’d met earlier, stood in an arc around a figure tied to the wall.

Shock captured Kavika for a moment as he beheld Spike. Completely naked, her skin had been clean shaven from head to crotch to feet. Her face was a montage of black and blue. A dozen wounds bled from her chest and thighs. Several looked as if they could have been bite marks. Her manhood hung apologetically between her legs for the world to see.

“Pele fuck!”

He rushed to her and began trying to free her.

“Why the hell didn’t you take her down?” Wu demanded.

“They made us keep her here. They wouldn’t let us.”

Her hands had been stapled to the wood with immense pieces of metal. Kavika tried to peel one free, but he was afraid of the damage he’d do. She barely moved, groaning softly when he touched her.

Kavika whirled. “For the love of Pele, someone help me.”

Then he saw it for what it was. Instead of fear and loathing, the eyes of the Koreans sparkled with desire. Not the desire of a man for a woman, or even a man for a man. One of them had forgotten to wipe his mouth. Sharpened teeth dripped blood down his chin. These men had the desire a man had for a bird, or a fish, or any other sort of food.

“Uncle!”

“What? Oh—I see.” Wu quickly snaked an arm around Pak’s throat and spun the man around, pressing it deep beneath the man’s chin. Pak’s arms waved feebly.

“This is not going to go as planned,” Wu told the six cannibals. “You can take your lunatic appetites somewhere else.”

“She’s ours. You are ours, too,” said one of the Koreans, in barely intelligible English.

“I don’t think so,” Wu sneered. “One flex of my arm and Pak is dead.” He released his hold enough for a pitiful scream to escape from Pak’s mouth. “Haven’t you all ever heard of tofu?”

It was a standoff. Everyone waited for someone else to make the first move. “Kavika,” Wu said quietly. “You need to get her down.
Fast.
”

Kavika spun back to Spike, but he didn’t know what to do. But he felt the urgency. Her left hand seemed less tightly pinned than her right. He placed a hand on either side of the bloody staple and tested the tightness. There was about an inch of give. It would have to do. With a great heave he jerked back as hard as he could on her hand. Her hand came free... almost. Her eyes shot open and she screamed raggedly. He jerked it again, pulling it out the rest of the way. Blood poured from the wound. It needed a tourniquet but he didn’t have the time to tie it off.

“One down,” he called over his shoulder.

He locked eyes with Spike. She stared into his for a moment with a totality of fear that saw through him, then she succumbed once more to unconsciousness. He had to get her other hand free. No telling what damage they’d done to her insides, to her mind.

“Kavika!”

He twisted and saw a dozen Boxers descending from bungees into their midst. He turned madly to Spike, then realized that he didn’t have the time to free her. He spun back as Wu snapped Pak’s neck, then engaged the first two Boxers. Wu was a whirlwind of low kicks and wrist locks.

Kavika waded in, swinging and connecting with the fucking cannibal who’d taken a bite out of Spike. He followed up a punch to his face with a kick to the crotch. When the man bent over, Kavika brought his knee up and lifted him off the ground. The cannibal hit the floor, his eyes open and unfocused.

Then Kavika was on the defense. Two Koreans and a Boxer had him trapped. Beyond him, Wu was in a similar situation. Just when things seemed desperate... they got worse. One of the Boxers produced a knife. One moment he held it, the next it was sheathed in Wu’s chest ten feet away.

“Uncle!”

Wu turned to face him, his face pale. “Run!”

Kavika screamed with rage.

He was struck on the back, then the knee. He went down, but he never took his eyes off his Uncle.

The Boxer who’d thrown the knife stepped forward. Wu had fallen to his knees, held in place by two Boxers. The thrower placed a foot on Wu’s chest and yanked his knife free, splattering those around them with blood, and stepped close to cut off Wu’s head. More blood gushed down Wu’s chest and covered the Boxer’s fist as he cut. When he came to the spine, he had to bear down, grabbing Wu’s hair with his other hand and yanking the head back and forth. The head eventually came free from the body with a wet sound.

Kavika cried out and tried to surge to his feet, but he was struck once, twice, then a dozen times.

He managed to crane his neck enough to look back at Spike once more, before he was bowled under by the blows. And for the third time in as many days, Kavika embraced the darkness.

CHAPTER TWELVE

H
E WAS CRACKED.

He was broken.

He couldn’t speak.

He could hardly think. Thoughts were born and died before they could coalesce into something intelligible.

Straps ran across his head, chest and abdomen.

A weight hung from his back, pulling him down, down, down.

Then the world exploded into a confetti cataclysm of white and dark, until finally only the dark remained.

T
HE WORLD WAS
smeared and crooked.

He couldn’t see it right.

Footsteps.

Feet came into view.

The smell of food.

Hungry.

Hungry.

Hungry.

S
OMEONE PULLED BACK
his eyelids.

A man in a suit. His hands smelled like fish.

Corper.

Kavika fought his aching lethargy with every ounce of energy he had. He wanted to ravage the man. He wanted to maim him. Images of Wu’s head rolling on the deck flooded him. A murder for murder. He wanted to surge forward and eviscerate the man, but all he could muster was a sad cracked groan.

“L
OOKS LIKE HE’S
waking up.”

“Keep monitoring him. I’ll return tomorrow.”

T
HE SULLIED EARTH
turned.

He saw a sky made of black and white squares.

A smooth hand touched his face.

He wanted to scream.

He wanted to bite the finger.

Leavemealoneleavemealoneleavemealonegree-gree.

“T
HEY’RE BOTH DOING
fine.”

“Vitals?”

“As expected. Maybe a day or so, then they’ll be ready for release.”

“Keep monitoring.”

D
ADDY
?

Yes, son.

Why do the Corpers hate us so?

Because we know the secret to—

What secret daddy?

The secret to food fucking shit poke me in the eye scratch my ear pick my hair dominate dominate dominate

You’re not my daddy?

And you ain’t my fucking son.

K
AVIKA FINALLY AWOKE
with some semblance of control. His dreams had left his mind fried. That, and whatever drugs he’d been on, made him a mute shadow of himself. He found it hard to concentrate. Sometimes his eyesight would fade out and be replaced by a crazy dream vision.

Lying in bed, he’d been able to do an inventory. It seemed as if he had both arms and legs. His chest had long since healed. But pain arched from his side in two places and from his back. Sometimes the pain was far in the background, but at others it was right up front, replacing every thought, smell and sight, as if his back had been ripped open and a weight had been placed on his spine.

The door opened. Corpers. They’d been coming in on a regular basis to check on him, which meant that he was somewhere on the Freedom Ship.

Two of them: a man and a woman. Black suits, with white shirts and black ties. The man wore round glasses, and the woman wore too much red lipstick.

“Good morning, Mr. Kamilani. I am Mr. Nakihama. I hope you’re feeling okay.”

Kavika stared blankly at them. They’d never really addressed him before. Sometimes he hadn’t even thought they were real.

“You are ready for discharge,” the man continued.

About fucking time
, he wanted to say, but for some reason his voice had completely ceased to function.

“I want to make it clear to you that you are now responsible for the property of Ishihama International. Any modifications to your new existence are strictly prohibited and will result in immediate withdrawal of said property and therefore in your immediate death.”

I’m not anyone’s fucking property—

Death?

Seeing the light of understanding flash in Kavika’s eyes, the man continued. “You are now officially part of the Minimata Project. It shows in our records that your sister has unfortunately been infected. With your help and sustainment, we’ll be able to cure her.”

His sister. With her came thoughts of love. How many times had he wished that she would receive a cure. And now to discover that he could be a part of it?

The woman helped him to a sitting position.

A tremendous weight pulled him backwards, making it impossible to sit straight. To manage, he had to lean forward at a forty-five degree angle. It was like carrying a pack, but more awkward.

“There’s nothing specifically you need to do to the monkey. Just eat and drink when you are hungry. It will take its sustenance from you. Occasionally, one of our assistants will find you to gather blood for sampling. Nothing invasive; nothing to worry about. Do you have any questions?”

Kavika had a million, but because he was unable to speak, all he could do was open his mouth and make bleating noises.

“Fine, then. We are done here. Ms. Yamasaka will escort you out.”

Then the Corper turned and left.

Ms. Yamasaka pursed her too red lips. She glared at him for a moment, then smacked him across the face with the flat of her hand. “No funny business with the monkey,” she said.

A hollow place opened inside his soul. He let it take him and gloried in the loss of sight, sound, smell and touch as he fell, forever and a day, to a land where monkeys swung from trees and not people.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

T
HEY LEFT HIM
in front of the Freedom Ship’s gangway, hunched over and broken-backed like a cripple. The metal bridge rattled back into the ship behind him as he stood there, blinking at a world that was no longer his. An old Chinese man was the only audience to his rebirth. Instead of applause, the man spit between two fingers and looked away.

Kavika took one step, then two. He wobbled under the weight of the monkey attached to his back. He wanted nothing more than to cast it into the lagoon, but it was too connected. The umbilicals might as well have been made of steel.

Hungry Hungry Hungry

He lurched forward another few steps. He felt so top heavy. He was forced to grab a nearby deck rail.

Kavika’s mind was not entirely his own. He felt the monkey’s thoughts insinuating hairy fingers of illogic into his. They tricked him into believing the thoughts were his own. With concentration, he could discern the difference, or at least he fooled himself into believing that he still managed that modicum of control. But if he relaxed his guard, his thoughts and those of the monkey were woven like an insane braid of wants, needs and desires.

Occasionally his vision would twist and he’d see something skewed, the colors all wrong. It took awhile to figure it out, but he soon realized that he was seeing through the eyes of the monkey—he was seeing behind him. With twists and colors like a kaleidoscope, the sudden jarring from his normal vision to that staggered him. He’d learned by falling down, then having to painfully climb back to his feet, that he needed to have constant support. He couldn’t trust his legs alone, but with at least one arm, it seemed as if he might be able to navigate this new, monkey-backed universe.