The Indigo Thief (9 page)

The old man stood, catching his breath. “You scared the bloody hell out of me.”

“Can’t say getting stabbed by a giant hook did me a lot of good, either.”

He nodded. “I can see that.”

My breathing slowed to wheezes. “You should probably get a bandage or a towel or, uh, something.”

“It’d have to be a hell of a bandage,” he muttered. He moved his fingers along my shoulder, examining the hook’s entry and exit points. “Old Jimmy never fails to do the trick.”

“Old Jimmy?”

He poked at the hook in my shoulder, and I winced.

“Old Jimmy sliced the head straight off a shark once,” he said. “Like a little bloody guillotine.”

He pressed his weight against my back, then in one swift motion, yanked out the hook.

I screamed.

The old man joined me. “Ah!” he sang. “Isn’t it great to be alive?”

“I’ll let you know, if I still am in a few minutes.” The spots in my vision melted together. A storm of white gathered from all directions. I took a deep breath.

The man doused my back with rubbing alcohol. “Bollocks,” he said. “Old Churchill will have you up to snuff in no time, miss. Can’t let a beautiful woman like you die on me.”

I’d forgotten I was still wearing the wig. Most of the makeup had surely washed off in the water, but the wig was still stuck to my head like glue—good old Nancy Perkins.

The man draped several cloths over my wound. “Right as rain,” he said. He glanced at my legs. “God, you’re hairy.”

“Because I’m a man,” I said. I pointed to the wig. “It’s a disguise.” Churchill stared at me blankly. “I swear I can explain.”

“You’re a strange creature,” he said. “Over the years, however, I’ve found that if we are to truly understand one another, we must not think of ourselves as a species apart from the rest. We must think of ourselves as ugly monkeys.” He smiled. “Really ugly monkeys with guns and knives and hooks and all sorts of shit. Then everything makes sense.”

He seated himself in a red lawn chair, and began reattaching Old Jimmy to his line. “How about a cup of tea?”

“Thanks,” I said, still breathing heavily. “I’d like that.”

“Oh, I wasn’t offering
you
one,” he said. “I was asking you to make
me
one. I
did
just save your life. Pulled the hook from your shoulder and all that.”

“
You
were the one who put it there! You should’ve just left me to the sharks.”

“Probably would’ve if I hadn’t needed Old Jimmy back.”

“You’re insane. You’re absolutely crazy and insane.”

His eyes flashed. “You think I’m a lunatic? Just some crazy bloke on a boat? I’ll have you know I have incredible wit and lightning-fast reflexes.” He snatched something from the air and held it between two fingers. “Lightning-fast reflexes,” he said again. “I just caught a fly. Out. Of. Thin. Air. Look at the fly!”

“I’m not looking at the fly.”

“LOOK AT THE BLOODY FLY!”

I squinted hard at his hand, but didn’t see anything. “You didn’t really catch one, did you?”

“Of course I didn’t! The buggers are damn near impossible to catch, and look at me—I’m ancient. I’d be lucky to catch regular bowel movements at my age.”

I stared at him for a while. He jabbed a finger into his ear, and then wiped the wax he found on his pants.

I sucked in a breath. “So who are you, then?”

“Churchill,” he said. “Churchill Wingnut. And don’t you say a word about me being a wing nut, you bugger. The great Wingnut Clan joined the Caravan generations ago. We were one of the last families to flee the fallen English empire.”

“The Caravan?”

He gave me a look. “You can’t be serious.”

“Never heard of it,” I said. “Is it a neighborhood in the Suburban Islands?”

He scoffed. “It might as well be Manhattan, if you really don’t know.”

“Manhattan?”

“Christ, you’re dense,” he said. “The Caravan is a bunch of bloody boats that circle the Federation and send old buggers like me out into Federal waters to fish for food. Tuna, turtles, and, it seems, the occasional tourist.” He cackled at his own joke.

“So it’s like a boat club? You all have yachts or something?”

“It’s practically another nation, my boy! A world unto itself!”

“But the Hawaiian Federation is supposed to be the last—”

“
Sovereign nation
. I’ve heard the rubbish before, and I’m sure I’ll hear it again.”

“Does it—the Caravan—have anything to do with the Lost Boys?” The question slipped before I’d had time to think. I prayed Churchill was too mad to recognize me.

His voice grew grave. “What do you know about the Lost Boys?”

“Nothing,” I said quickly. “Nothing at all.”

“Liar! You think me a fool? Tell me the truth right now or I’ll feed you to the sharks.” He grabbed Old Jimmy and sliced the air with the edge of its sharp hook.

“I’m one of them!” I said quickly. “One of the Lost Boys! Sort of…”

He pushed me in the chest. “Go to hell.” I stumbled onto the deck, and my back burned as it slapped wood. “If that were true,” he said, “Feds would be focusing their snipers on this boat right now.”

“I know Phoenix,” I said quickly. “And Mila and Bertha and Dove and Kindred and everyone else on New Texas and please don’t slice my head off with Old Jimmy.”

Churchill cocked his head. “You know New Texas?”

I nodded. “Just left there ten minutes ago.”

He clenched his jaw. “So you
are
one of them, then.” He glanced in either direction. “Get in the cabin. Quick. Before I change my mind.”

The cabin’s walls stank of rust, and its floors were stained red. A wooden desk stood parallel to a gray steering wheel. A potted bird of paradise stood wilting in the corner.

“Where are the rest of them?” asked Churchill.

Could I trust him? I guess I didn’t have much of a choice. “On their way to Newla,” I said. “They should be there by now.”

“Shit,” he muttered, “how in the bloody hell did they manage that?”

“Wet Pockets,” I said. “I had one too, but it ripped.”

“
Wet Pocket
? What the—? That’s the dumbest name I’ve ever heard. Must be Bertha’s invention. She was always terrible with names. Well, I can get you to Newla—help you join the others.”

“You can? Into the harbor? That’s where they said the Wet Pockets would drop us off.”

He shook his head. “Not the harbor. The Navy would capture me. Then torture and kill me, if they discovered I was a Caravite.”

I still wasn’t entirely sure what to make of the Caravan. It didn’t seem real. Like the Federation’s very own Narnia.

“But I do have something else that might get you there,” he said. “We’ve gotta be quick though. The others won’t be able to wait long once they’re on the mainland. And if you’re without Phoenix for too much time, you’re as good as dead.”

“That’s reassuring.”

“What can I say, it’s the truth.”

“Look, I don’t even know where I’m supposed to go.”

“They didn’t tell you?”

“They barely told me I was wearing a skirt.”

“And for good reason.” He paused. “Have you been to the city before?”

I shook my head. “No. I’m from Moku Lani.”

“Christ,” he muttered. “The bloody boondocks. Never been to Newla myself, but I’ve an idea where you ought to be going. You ever heard of the Skelewick district?”

I nodded—it was the city’s oldest district. We’d briefly gone over its history in the eighth grade.

“You’ll want to go to the Morier Mansion,” he said. “That’s where Phoenix will be, I’m sure. The Caravites have a base there. I’ve heard it’s a big house at the end of the street. You can’t miss it.”

“Do you have its address?”

“
Do I have its address?
I’ve been out at sea my whole bloody life! I wouldn’t know an address if it looked me in the eye!”

So, Churchill expected me to wander into the world’s busiest city, a wanted terrorist nonetheless, with my only direction being “a big house at the end of the street.” I was a dead man.

“How fast can you swim?” he asked.

I pointed to my back, wrapped in bandages. “Not fast enough, apparently.”

Churchill rummaged through his desk and pulled out a metallic cylinder the size of a vase. Then he pulled out a knife. “Give me your arm.”

Reluctantly, I stuck out my arm. Without a word of warning, he sliced a patch of skin from it. I yanked it back. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

“We need bait,” he said. “Thank me later.” He stuck the skin to the cylinder’s edge and motioned for me to follow him to the deck. He pushed a few buttons, and then tied the cylinder to a fishing line before tossing it into the water.

“When I pull it out,” he said, “I’m gonna need you to grab on to the shark and squeeze like hell.”

“Excuse me?”

“Three loud beeps is your signal to let go. It should place you at the south sewer’s entrance. Crawl through the pipe, then swim until you get to a fork. Take the left path—it’ll smell far worse—and swim until you find a tent pitched on an inspection platform. There’ll be a man there named Reggie. He’ll have horrible halitosis and be in a miserable mood. Tell him you’re with the Lost Boys, and he’ll help you find your way to the Morier Mansion. It’s a long shot, but it’s your best bloody bet.”

It was too much at once. I took a deep breath. “Could you, uh, maybe repeat that? Like one more time? I could write it down or something? It seems like a lot—”

“No time,” he interrupted. The line next to him quivered. He yanked the rod, and an eight-foot-long shark thrashed at the water’s surface. The cylinder had attached itself to the monster’s side, just below its chest.

“That’s your ride, lad,” said Churchill. “Remember: let go after the three beeps.” He pushed me from the deck. “Or you’ll blow yourself to pieces!”

“To pieces?” I yelled.

“Quick, lad! Grab the beast now! It’s just a little great white!”

I wrapped my arms around its thrashing body. Its gills pulsed frantically and its beady eyes twitched.

“Safe travels!” Churchill shouted. “May God have mercy on your SOUL!” He cackled loudly. “Just kidding! I’m an atheist.”

He sliced the line, and the cylinder moaned in the water as it fired up. The shark’s skin rubbed me like sandpaper as we throttled off through the water.

Toward Newla. Toward Phoenix. Toward Mom.

Toward Charlie.

I tightened my grip as the shark snapped its snout back and forth. The muscles in my arms burned. The cylinder—a torpedo—yanked us effortlessly through the water. I wondered why it needed to be attached to a shark at all. Probably just another crazy idea of Churchill’s—he seemed the type to go for the theatrics.

We cruised ten feet below the surface. Again I was grateful for my large lung capacity. The cylinder beeped once, twice, and then three times as we sailed through the water. I loosened my grip on the shark. It darted from my arms. The cylinder beeped several more times, then shot off the shark’s skin and burst apart at the surface.

A metal shard from the explosion drifted past me in the water. I grabbed it and shoved it in my skirt’s pocket. It was a far cry from being well armed, but it was better than nothing.

Farther ahead, I saw the rocky edge of the Hawaiian Quartile. HQ was the Federation’s largest island, and Newla was its largest city.

At the surface, I saw the remains of a partially submerged pipe, not wider than my shoulders, blown apart by the cylinder’s explosion. The device had managed to track and destroy the sewer’s entrance. The explosion’s noise, however, would undoubtedly draw the attention of the sewer’s personnel. I had to move quickly to avoid detection.

I lifted myself from the water and into the pipe. Immediately, my eyes stung—its entrance stank like tuna, eggs, and milk left in the car on the hottest day of summer. A brown liquid trickled through the pipe like melted manure. I crawled on all fours, and my hands were caked in the sludge within minutes. Things literally couldn’t get crappier.

After five minutes of fetid crawling, I reached the pipe’s end. If I moved any farther, I’d fall into open air, but I had to keep moving. I heard water rushing below.

I threw myself from the pipe’s ledge and splashed into a putrid canal. My wig was heavy, saturated with the brown sludge; I tore it off and scrubbed my face to remove the rest of the makeup.

The canal’s current pushed me through a dark, narrow cavern. A metal sluice divided the canal into two distinct forks. Its metal door split the water between the left and right paths, diverting it with precise ease. Remembering Churchill’s advice, I aimed left.

But the current’s force grew stronger at the sluice’s gate, and as I grew nearer, the left gate closed. I was pushed right, missing Churchill’s exit. There was no turning back. Forward was the only option.

There would be no Reggie, no Morier Mansion, no meeting up with the other Indigo thieves. I was on my own. But at least I’d be in Newla. The city where Charlie was likely being held prisoner. I had to find her and Mom, and save them both.

A distant rumble echoed through the sewer’s damp chambers. I stretched my arms out to the sides, and realized I could touch both sides of the canal now. It was growing narrower, and the current moved faster. The walls became sharper and steeper. Climbing out was impossible; I was at its mercy.

The canal was no longer lit by dim bulbs, but bright fluorescent tubes. My eyes burned from the sudden change in brightness. The distant rumble became a roar as the narrow channel led into a massive cavern. Floodlights glowed overhead, and the canal snaked around a thick metal column.

A man in a white biohazard suit and hood passed directly over my head on a suspended walkway. Along the walls, yellow hazard triangles warned:
“DANGEROUS CONDITIONS—KEEP PANTS ON AT ALL TIMES.”

Vats of green, yellow, and pink chemicals vibrated along the canal’s sides. A pit formed in my stomach. This was no normal sewage canal. It was a route to the treatment facility.

Overhead, a sign read: “
Newla Advanced Sewage Treatment Facility
—
NASTF
.”

They should’ve come up with a catchier acronym.