The Indigo Thief (22 page)

“But he knows they have to do something. They’ve gotten too big, stolen too much. They’re no longer just a freckle on Chancellor Hackner’s face, but a mole. And moles turn into cancer.”

“What about Bugsy?” I asked. “What was Vern getting at with Bugsy?”

Sparky leaned his head into his hand as Tim yawned, crawled over his shoulder, and seated himself on his lap. “Bugsy joined us three months ago. He was a year younger than you. He wore this pair of brown glasses all the time—called them his spectacles, thought they made him seem more distinguished. And he was always waking up early to watch the sunrise, before going back to sleep. His parents died in a car crash—the Feds told him it was suicide, but he knew better. He met Mila on one of her raids a couple months after their death. He’d been living with an aunt on one of the Suburban Islands, but he’d begged Mila to take him. Said he had to get away from it all.”

People passed on the platform behind us, jumping from boat to boat as they headed to their own lofts for the night. Sadie had told us that the Caravites went to bed earlier than most in the Federation; she said they didn’t want to have to waste the energy on lights after dark. Better to rise and fall with the sun instead.

Sparky stood. “It’s getting late.”

“Did Bugsy ever come on the Caravan?”

Sparky nodded. “Affirmative.”

“And did he have to polish the plates?”

“The first and only time he came, he did. Polished them all by himself, and Captain Vern had a fit. He didn’t want Phoenix taking in any more kids. He thought the Lost Boys were big enough.” Sparky glanced in both directions and then whispered. “I think he figured if we got too big, Phoenix would start the war himself. Vern liked us at the size we were.”

“And then I came along,” I finished.

“Affirmative. You came along, KB. Like clockwork, Bugsy was out and you were in.”

“Tick, tock,” I said, smiling weakly, but feeling sick to my stomach.

We headed back toward the pastry shops—we’d been set up in bunks above them. I was surprised to see Sparky heading for his loft.

“I thought you didn’t sleep? Not with all your Cafetamines…”

He shrugged. “Yeah, but sometimes it’s nice to close my eyes and lie down. Gives the mind a minute to slow down.”

There wasn’t room for us all to bunk together. At least that’s what they told us. I guessed Vern just didn’t want us congregating—probably saw it as scheming in his very midst. So they put us in separate boat lofts, in separate bunks, two by two. Sparky was with Dove, Kindred was with Mila, and I got stuck with Bertha.

She slept with a red mask plastered across her eyes, and her snoring was so loud that, at some points, I could have sworn she’d swallowed a chainsaw.

I wrapped a pillow around my ears, which dulled the snoring to a quiet roar, but it remained a roar nonetheless. At last I gave up on the possibility of sleep, and crawled from my bed and down the stairs.

The cabin’s sole light was cast by a waxing moon’s white tendrils, peeking out from behind a curtain of black clouds. The boat’s wooden floors creaked as I stepped, but the sound was lost beneath the thunder of Bertha’s snores.

I hopped from boat to boat—it was lucky the Caravites left their doors unlocked—jumping through the bakery and then the bazaar. Farther ahead, I saw a stout cylinder standing like a tower—the Captain’s quarters, I guessed, and the Caravan’s locomotive engine of sorts. I wondered if that was where Phoenix slept. It made sense when I thought about it. There, Vern could keep a closer eye on him.

I continued to leap from boat to boat, and as I moved up the line, the rooms grew stranger, the halls wider, the ceilings higher. Wood paneling now ran along the walls. As on the rear boats, the halls here were lined with doors, but these boats lacked windows: there were no pastries or garments on display.

I stopped to examine a door dressed with a beautiful velvet tapestry.
Veritas vos liberabit,
it declared in gold. I ran my fingers along its letters, and the velvet fabric felt soft beneath my fingers like peach fuzz.

I opened the door, and wandered into a library lined with mahogany shelves too similar to Madam Revleon’s to be a coincidence. Now that I thought about it, the tapestry, too, had seemed familiar—a twin. A lone chair had been pulled from an old desk’s grip, and a narrow slit in the wall—it could hardly be called a window—let in the soft glow of moonlight. My eyes flashed to books sprawled across the desk on their spines. It was beginning to feel like an unattended library was a prerequisite for plotting conspiracies. I grabbed a book from the desk and held it in the thin beam of moonlight.

The cover read: “
The Megalodon: a Magnificent, Marvelous, Malevolent Mutation of the Great White
”
by Bill & Mary Bradbury
. Dad’s name had been crossed out with black ink, and Mom’s had been circled in red.

My heart grew tight in my chest, and I leaned against the desk, my head woozy. They’d done something to Mom. They’d circled her name.

Where was I? Who were the Caravites? And what had they done to Mom?

She could be on the boat, I told myself. She could be staying here, on this very boat. The Feds had Charlie—that much I knew for sure—but the Caravites could have Mom. They could’ve gotten to her before the Feds did. That could explain why Phoenix was so eager to have me think her dead: he didn’t want me to find her.

I returned to the hallway, and began opening other doors. Behind one I found a room filled with filing cabinets, behind another I found a public restroom. I opened door after door, and they fluttered on their frames like the heart that beat in my chest.

Then I saw a soft white light, eerily similar to the Daisies in Club 49, slipping from behind a door at the hall’s end. Entering the room, I saw a lone bulb lighting stacks of square packages. I grabbed a package, gently peeled back its wrapper, and found a plastic bubble filled with fluid. I held it up to the bulb; inside the bubble was a small, thin, curved piece of plastic with a blue iris printed on it.

I covered my mouth to stop the screams that swelled in my throat. What
was
this? Who
were
these people? What were they trying to do?

The floors creaked—someone was in the hall. I slid shut the door and pressed an ear against it. It looked ornate, but its wood was thin, built light to lessen the weight of a fast ship.

“I’m not going to argue with you,” said a voice I recognized as Vern’s. “There’s certainly no denying there’s a chance—but that’s all it is, a chance and nothing more.”

“It’s not a
chance
,” Phoenix’s voice echoed back, “it’s a window—”

“Well, we’ve got plenty of those around here, if that’s what you’re looking for.”

“—of
opportunity
,” Phoenix finished.

“I think I’m looking for more of a door, really.”

“Could you just
listen
to me for a second, Vern?”

“I’m listening, and I’ve been listening all night, damn it! I’ve heard about your plan. I know all about the virus. But you know what? I still don’t think it’s going to work. It’s already over, Phoenix. Trust me when I tell you that. There was never going to be a war. That’s a good thing: war fractures the soul.”

“There are some causes worth fighting for—until we are beautifully broken.”

“You’re a fool.”

“Just one more raid, Vern. Just give me—give
us
, the Lost Boys—another chance. That’s all I’m asking. Just help with one more, and then that’s it. I’m out of your hair forever, gone. All it takes is help with one more raid. That’s all.”

“That’s
all
?” Vern sneered. “Help with one more raid, and
that’s all
? You and I both know that won’t be enough.”

“You don’t think we can do it?”

“Oh, I think you can do it, all right. You’ll do it and get one of yourselves killed. Like you did with Bugsy.”

“Damn it, Vern. I told you to quit bringing him up. You know we all cared about the kid. We just weren’t ready. They knew we were coming.”

“And they won’t know this time?”

“It won’t matter if they know this time. I’ll be on the ground. This time they won’t have a chance.”

“You’ve got a lot of confidence in yourself.”

“I could say the same thing about you.”

“And the new boy? Dr. Bradbury’s son? A
great
addition. Far smarter than Bugsy… or is he? Do you plan to bring him with you?” He paused. I guessed Phoenix nodded. “Then you’re a fool. Look what happened to Bugsy, and he had three months to prepare—”

“Bugsy wasn’t right. You and I both know that. Something was wrong with his head… he just wasn’t right.”

“And this kid is?”

“He jumped into the mouth of a megalodon.”

“So he’s crazy, too? Or just a fool? God, you really know how to pick ’em, Phoenix.”

“You know who his mother is. The kid’s not stupid.”

“Well, you’re operating under the assumption he’s anything like her, and I don’t operate under assumptions. I operate under facts. Dr. Bradbury’s research is what could save our cause, not another raid.”

“But the raid won’t hurt. So you’ll help us then?”

“On one condition.”

“Of course there’s one condition.”

“Kill the boy.”

My stomach did somersaults in my chest. It was getting harder to breathe. I could’ve used a Cotton Candy Cocktail.

“I—I can’t do that.”

“You can,” said Vern, “and you will. You’ve done it before, haven’t you?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Ah, but I’m afraid you do, my friend. We both know you had a feeling that day on the Tube. There was a reason you stayed back, wasn’t there? Let Bugsy and Mila go ahead without you. You didn’t want to get caught in the crossfire, isn’t that right?”

Phoenix was silent.

“But,” Vern continued, “you had to get the shipment of Indigo, didn’t you, Phoenix? So you let Bugsy go in your place—even though you knew he wasn’t ready. That he’d probably die. But hey, no sweat off your back, if it saves the shipment. I know you too well, boy. You’ll kill for this cause, and not just the Feds. What’s another boy’s life to you? If the Feds get him, he’s dead anyway. If he dies for you, at least it’ll spare him the torture.”

Phoenix was still silent.

“We don’t know where his loyalty lies,” Vern said finally. “We don’t have the resources for another mouth to feed.”

Phoenix wouldn’t do it, would he? He’d already saved my life twice. Why go through the trouble, if he was going to kill me in the end? There had to be a reason he was keeping me alive. He couldn’t just kill me now. He’d told me about his family—no, there was no way he’d do it now. He might even think we were friends.

After a long pause, Phoenix sucked in a breath. “I’ll do it,” he said. “If you help us with the raid, then I’ll kill Kai when we’re done. I promise you he’ll be dead by the end of the mission.”

I lay awake for hours while Phoenix’s words rang in my ears. He was going to kill me. There’d be no finding Mom, no saving Charlie, not if Phoenix had his way…

There was a deafening bang, and the sharp crack of shattering glass pulled Bertha from her sleep. “Get up, Car Battery!” she shouted, slapping a pillow across my face. “Jesus, get out of bed! We’ve gotta get off this boat and back to New Texas!”

Another bang sounded, and flames flickered on the spiral staircase from the roof above. It sounded like bombs were being dropped on the rooftop gardens. The shattering sounds must be the solar panels, splintering into millions of pieces.

Bertha dragged me along the stairs as flames raged on either side of the boat—both the front and the back were on fire. She pushed open a shop’s door and stuffed her mouth with three pastries from a glass display case, urging me to do the same.

“Umph uh umph uhh umph’ll uh!” she shouted.

“What?” I asked, eyes darting around the room as I searched for an exit.

She tossed me a cinnamon roll and swallowed her pastries. “It might be the last meal you’ll get for a while. Eat up.”

She stuffed her mouth with three more pastries and pointed toward the window before grabbing a chair in the corner and smashing it against the glass. New Texas loomed not far away. We dove headfirst and swam toward the island. Around us, boats lit the sea with their roofs of fire. New Texas was trapped in a circle of flames.

Bertha pulled herself onto the shore. “You wait for the others. I’m firing up the engines.”

“But we’re surrounded.”

“Just wait for it,” she said as she ran toward the fort. “The Caravites just need a minute…”

I scanned the water for other Lost Boys, and saw someone leap from a boat’s fiery roof. Another window was smashed open, and two more shadows dove in. I wondered when Captain Vern would order the Caravan to unfurl and run.

Kindred and Mila swam to the shore, followed by Phoenix. All three hurried past me and ran toward the island’s center.

“Shit,” muttered Mila as she ran past.

“Oh, dear,” Kindred whimpered behind her. “Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear!”

There was a siren, and then the boats shot apart, forgoing their single-line formation and instead launching individually into the night. The Caravan disintegrated in front of my eyes. Its boats’ flaming roofs raced off to distant corners of the ocean, flickering like the stars we’d once had in the sky.

As the Caravan crumbled, I saw flashes of Federal boats firing bombs in the distance. Somehow they’d found us outside Federal waters, in the middle of the ocean, and it looked as if they’d brought the whole naval fleet. The mammoth ships sat like sleeping giants, stirring only with the occasional cannon’s flicker. The pastry ship where Bertha and I had slept sank in front of me. It was lucky Bertha’s snores had frightened the boat’s usual occupants into other lofts for the night.

Helicopters launched themselves from the decks of the Federal ships and raced toward us as two more shadows dove from the roof of a sinking Caravan ship. Dove and Sparky, I realized. Soon they reached the shore, clawing at the beach’s sand and aluminum cans with spread hands.

Sparky panted, Tim clutching at the side of his face with hooked claws. “Not as easy as it looks,” said Sparky, shaking his head. I pulled Tim off his face, and the sloth paddled his arms and legs in the air.