Archipelago N.Y.: Flynn (5 page)

“You owe me two
rides for this,” said Flynn, handing over the can. He stepped inside the cage and
held on to its bars.

Dino shoved the
can inside a small cubby hole, spat on his hands and grabbed the crank. The
muscles on his arms bulged as he started working the winch. The platform jerked.
The cage lifted off the ground and slowly started to rise, taking Flynn up, two
feet at a time. He could hear a lot of grunting and swearing coming from below.

“Gettin heavy,
boy!” Dino shouted.

“More like you're
running out of steam!” Flynn yelled back.

“Shut ya mouth!”
Dino's voice was fading as the elevator rose more quickly now.

Flynn took a deep
breath and closed his eyes. The air was fresh up here, cooler and cleaner than
anywhere else on the Archipelago… The ocean breeze gently ruffled his hair and,
for the first time that day, Flynn allowed himself to relax a little. When he
opened his eyes again, he turned to look at the other towers around him. With
their meager lights flickering in the darkening sky, they resembled giant
trees, planted on the rooftops and playing host to hundreds of fireflies.

The elevator
slowed down and finally stopped. Flynn stepped onto the walkway encircling the
tower, peered down and whistled. The cage began its noisy descent. The floor
shook and creaked under Flynn's feet as he headed toward the Perrys’ apartment.
It was almost like the whole structure had come alive. It swayed and rattled
with the wind, shuddered and groaned under the weight and movement of its
inhabitants. But that didn't bother Flynn one little bit… To him walking on a
plank, hundreds of feet high in the sky, seemed like the most natural thing in
the world… He didn't know any different.

Flynn rounded the
corner and stopped before the window of his apartment. He could see two shadows
through the dirty plastic sheet covering the square hole in the wall. One was
definitely his father’s, but Flynn couldn’t make out who their visitor was. He
put his ear against the thin wall and listened to the voices inside.

“…I’m telling you
Alan, this place is falling apart...” the visitor was saying, “These buildings
won’t be standing tall for much longer. Trust me! Their foundations are
crumbling… The water pressure… the corrosion…they’re doing their destructive
work slowly, but surely! And then the supplies we all rely on …how much more do
you think is left down there? We can’t scavenge the ocean bed forever, you
know!”

“So?” Now, Flynn
heard his father speak. “Clearly, there’s nothing we can do about it, is
there?”

“Oh, but there is!
And I’m not the only one who thinks that... There’re others, you know…”

“Others?” Alan
Perry’s voice had fallen to a loud whisper. “Surely not more foolish talk of an
uprising! You know what happened last time… Mullins and the rest of them are
all gone!”

“Not that, Alan,
not that!”

“What then?”

“I’m talking
about… a way out of this place!”

“Escape from the
Archipelago? Where could you go?”

“Dry Land!” said
the man and then there was a long pause.

“You're joking,
right!” Flynn heard his father laugh hoarsely. “Where’s that? The Hudson
Highlands… the Catskill Mountains… It’s just a bunch of contaminated lifeless
rocks, you know that.”

“Farther west,
Alan…. Much farther,” the man replied. “Here, hold the end of that wire, we’re
almost done.”

“There's no vessel
on the Archipelago that can go that far...wherever this Dry Land is!”

“Ah, I won’t be so
sure, Alan!”

“And even if you
get that far…what about the Flood Virus?”

“There’s healthy
land out there, I’m sure!”

“It’s just a
dream, Walter!” Alan Perry said, sounding annoyed. “We’re just wasting time
talking about it! Better see to that stove here.”

Both men went
quiet for a while, busy with what they were doing. Flynn cleared his throat to let
them know he was at the door and called out: “Hi, Dad! I’m back!” He then pulled
the door flap aside and walked in.

The Perrys’
apartment was nothing more than a small room, crammed full of stuff, and with
shelves and racks taking up all of the space along its four walls. All the
racks were cobbled together from pieces of pipe and wood. The shelves and the
sturdy filing cabinet were remnants of the office furniture that had survived
the pillaging of their building after the Flood. Every shelf was piled high
with junk, collected over many years. There were rusty cans, tins and glass
jars filled with bits and pieces, as well as an assortment of broken electrical
goods. There was even a lifeless computer sitting proudly in one corner. “You
never know! We may need it for something one day,” Flynn's dad liked to say,
every time he brought home a pocketful of nails and screws or some object of no
apparent value. Flynn had followed his example… he had kept all kinds of
non-descript treasures from his dives, adding them to Alan Perry’s collection…
and a lot of them had come in handy, one way or another. Of course, they weren’t
the only ones hoarding stuff. The Lower Side was home to an extremely thrifty
community, where every salvaged item could be used again to fix something
broken… or to build something new. The main problem was that the Perry
household was running out of storage and respectively, living space… But father
and son kept their inventory growing, anyway.

A recent addition
to their home was the “dining table” that Alan Perry had built from his hoard
of junk. He had used dilapidated wooden crates, thrown a piece of plaster board
over them and covered it all with a surprisingly intact plastic sheet. Flynn
had found a couple of chairs, with their backs and a couple of legs missing,
but his father had fixed those in no time. By the window were Flynn's pride and
joy… two rubber air-mattresses he had scavenged from a submerged warehouse.
Next to the sleeping area was the kitchen counter where all the cooking was
done. And finally, at the back of the room was the only luxury they could
afford… their toilet. Most of the residents in their tower didn’t have the room
for it, but the Perrys had enough space for a tiny curtained-off cubicle… This
provided privacy for the household’s designated slop bucket.

Flynn now saw that
the second figure, standing next to his father, was that of Mr. Walter
Kowalski. He was a friend and a resident in their building. “For the Greater
Good, gentlemen!” Flynn greeted the pair with exaggerated pathos and a cheeky
grin on his face.

“Don’t be
disrespectful, son!” Alan Perry scowled then added quickly, “You know these
walls have ears!”

“Ah, the young
Perry is back,” cried Mr. Kowalski, his face suddenly animated by a toothless
smile. He was holding a piece of thick copper wire, coiled tight to form a flat
disk. Mr. Kowalski belonged to a very small group of people who everyone called
ancients. They were all well past the average retirement age of fifty-five.
That was the cut-off point if you were healthy and made it that far along in
life… If you were sick, crippled, or for any other reason unable to work and
contribute to the community, you were retired much earlier. No one knew exactly
how old Mr. Kowalski was… But everyone agreed he had to be at least seventy, if
not older. The only reason he had not been put on the Departure List was because
the man was a genius and therefore, irreplaceable... Everybody knew that Mr.
Kowalski was the most brilliant of electricians and inventors that had ever
lived on the Archipelago. He was kept around not only because he could fix
anything electrical, but because he often performed miracles with the few tools
and resources available on the city. The Government needed him, so that he
could train a new generation of electricians, pass on the torch and teach them
his tricks.

The reason the
Lower Side had working lights, stoves and energy was thanks to Mr. Kowalski.
The man had reinvented and rewired the ruined electrical system after the
Flood. He and a group of other ancients were behind the unimaginably difficult
task of restoring whatever energy sources remained… fixing the existing roof
solar panels and adding new, algae-based ones for support. And these technical
wizards were behind the building and maintenance of the two Generators, one for
the Upper Side and other for the Lower. The Archipelago owed him big time… and
the Government knew that.

Of course, Mr.
Kowalski had been offered a much nicer place to live on the Upper Side, but he
had declined. “I’ve lived on the Lower Side all my life,” he kept saying ... “So
I want to spend my last living days in the old neighborhood.” He had accepted one
perk, though. Having never married, he was supposed to share his living space
with others like him… But using his position with the Government, he had asked
for an apartment of his own. Not for himself, really… Mr. Kowalski was a frugal
man with little needs… No, he needed the space for his vast collection of tools
and spare parts, which happened to be many times the size of the one the Perrys
had amassed. And the reason his hoard was so huge was because he had a quirky fixation
on the number 3! He had to have three of everything! Three identical pieces of
wire, three stoves, three windows, three light-bulbs hanging from his ceiling
... With three screwdrivers always in his back pocket, he would circle the
building three times on his raft before entering it…. His apartment was on what
was now considered the thirty-third floor… and, of course, three doors to the
left of the elevator shaft. Yes, Mr. Kowalski was a strange man indeed…. But he
was also a very nice man. A decent and kind man, Flynn thought, and he liked him
a lot… and his amazing tool belt! As far as Flynn was concerned, Mr. Kowalski
owned the coolest tool belt on the Lower Side ... if not on the whole
Archipelago.

“Flynn!” Alan
Perry said, folding his arms across his chest. “What time do you call this?”

“Dad...”

“You should've
been home hours ago, young man!”

“Traffic was bad
... there was an accident...”

“No, no! Don't
give me any of that stuck-in-traffic stuff! I've heard it all before.” Flynn's
father had now gone red in the face. “That's it… No diving tomorrow! You're
coming with me to the Watch Tower!”

“Go easy on him,
Alan!” Mr. Kowalski said softly. “You were young once, too. He's a good lad!”

“I know Walter,”
Alan Perry said. “But ... I come back from my shift… the stove wire blows up…
Flynn’s nowhere to be found! If it wasn't for Mr. Kowalski, we might’ve had a
fire on our hands.”

Flynn shuddered at
the thought...It brought memories of not so long ago when a fire had ripped
through one of the towers across from their building. It had burned down in
minutes. Flynn still remembered the faces of the terrified occupants, their
clothes ablaze, leaping out of windows and falling in the water below. No one
had survived.

“Ah, but we fixed the
problem, didn't we, Alan!” Mr. Kowalski grinned and waved the copper wire disk.
“All we need now ...,” he said as he leaned over the kitchen counter, his
fingers dancing around the stove and doing their magic, “...is to connect this
wire… then tie a few loose ends, and ... there you are! You’ve got yourself a new
stove!”

“I don't know how
to repay you for this Walter…”

“Oh, no worries,
Alan. You owe me nothing.” Mr. Kowalski started to gather his tools. “I know
it's hard to find copper down here… Like everything else, it all goes to the
Upper Side … and nowadays, it's never enough even there!”

“Are you serious?”
Flynn's father cocked an eyebrow. “Shortages on the Upper Side? I've heard
rumors, but...”

“It's the truth,
Alan! Things don’t look good!” Mr. Kowalski sighed, lowering his voice. “The
Scavenger Crews are bringing up less and less copper…  we'll run out sooner,
rather than later… I've been saying this for a few years now, but Van Zandt
doesn't want to hear any bad news...”