Archipelago N.Y.: Flynn (8 page)

By now, the cable car
was hanging only by a thread. The overhead wire couldn’t hold the weight of the
car for much longer… It gave a terrible screeching sound, louder than the
screams coming from inside. Flynn stood up and looked around in frustration.
There was nothing he could do! Groups of people had gathered on the surrounding
rooftops, waiting for the inevitable... There was one final snap, the
suspension cable broke, and the car went tumbling down toward the water… Flynn fell
to his knees and covered his ears with his hands, blocking out the sound of the
cable car as it plunged into the canal…

He had seen plenty
of lives being lost over the years, but today’s events had been too close to
home… It could have been him. Trying to slow down his breathing and calm his
pounding heart, Flynn counted his blessings… He was alive and nothing else
mattered! It was the Archipelago’s way of thinking… a philosophy that kept you
getting up in the morning and making it through the day. Feeling exceptionally
lucky, Flynn headed in the direction of the nearest bridge, his mind already
preoccupied with what he had to do next.

Madison Ray sat at
the very top of her Pigeon Tower. There were five towers to the farm built on
the rooftop of the Rays’ Lower East Side building. Hers was the tallest among
them, a good sixty feet tall. It was a conical structure, made from old water
tanks and pieces of junk, but it was exceptionally sturdy, able to withstand
the strongest gusts of the Archipelago’s easterly winds. Small, round pigeon
holes covered the tower from top to bottom. Slowly, Madison wrapped her head in
a long scarf, making sure she had covered her face well… especially her nose
and mouth… One of the many hazards of her job was breathing in the dangerous
dust from all the bird droppings. Right now, Madison had to concentrate on her
task for the day, which was to scrub clean all the pigeon poles sticking out of
the tower walls.

As usual, she
would start from the top and gradually make her way down. When finished, she
had to scoop all the dried droppings into buckets and send them off across to
the Brooklyn floating warehouses. There, the pigeon droppings were stored and
later used to soften seal skins for shoes and clothing. The stench of the
pigeon towers had stopped bothering Madison years ago. For as long as she could
remember, she had been helping her mom and dad with their pigeon farm. Like the
other farms scattered around the Lower Side rooftops, theirs was used to raise
pigeons for squab, the only decent bird meat available on the Archipelago. The
meat that came from seagulls was hard to chew and didn’t taste that good. The
farm also produced pigeon eggs, a delicacy that went straight to the Upper
Side… but Madison always managed to hide some of the eggs for her family or to
trade them on the Black Market.

Madison’s own
tower was different from the rest on the farm. Her pigeons were not bred for food.
Her pigeons were special! They were homing pigeons, trained by Madison to be couriers.
After the Flood, people had gone back to using birds to deliver their messages,
and it was the quickest way of communicating around the Archipelago. Most of
her carrier pigeons went on to service the Government, but she had kept two
pairs for her own personal use, and she often did favors for people on the
Lower Side. When someone needed to send an urgent word to Dr. Omar at the
Infirmary, Madison was the person they would seek out. She liked that part of
the job, but wished she could avoid the bird slaughtering and the plucking of
feathers…Unfortunately, she had no choice… Madison was almost sixteen now, and
ready to take on a bigger role in the family’s trade. It was her duty.

But deep in her
heart Madison knew she didn’t belong here. Not on a pigeon farm and so high up
in the sky… Madison took in the vastness of the ocean all around her. Her eyes
followed the tiny dots of vessels sailing between the Brooklyn Bridge towers. Of
course, only the tower tops were visible, several feet above the waterline,
giving them the appearance of two perfectly symmetrical islands. How long was
it since she had last swum in those waters? When was the last time she had gone
diving with Tony and Flynn, helping them scavenge and dream of winning the
Trials? It had been more than a year… Furious at herself for thinking of the
past, Madison rolled up her sleeves and began scrubbing.

Madison had just
finished cleaning the first pole and was swinging her leg over the next one when
she heard a voice say, “Hello there!” Startled, Madison spun around, almost
losing her balance. A boy sat perched on a pole a few feet away, grinning at
her. It took Madison a few seconds before she realized who he was… “Flynn Perry,
you idiot!” she cried, the scarf over her mouth, muffling her angry voice. “Don’t
creep up on me like that! I almost fell!”

“Boy, it stinks up
here!” Flynn scrunched up his nose in disgust. “I should’ve worn a gas mask.”

“Why did you bother
coming, then?” Madison’s eyes flashed between the folds of her scarf. She
started scrubbing again, trying to ignore her unexpected visitor… trying to
recover from the shock of seeing Flynn there... only an arm’s reach away.

Flynn rummaged in
his satchel and took out a soda can. “Here, I brought you something,” he said.

Madison's hand
shot out and snatched the can. “I’ll drink it later… when I take my gear off,”
she mumbled and put the can in one of her egg baskets. “Thanks...”

“You’re welcome,”
Flynn replied.

“So… what brings
you up here? What do you want?” Madison asked, trying to keep her voice steady.

“Nothing… Well …
Tony’s sick!”

“I know.”

“He says you might
be, you know ... interested in ...”

"Scavv’ying?/Scavenging?"

“Yeah... Be my
Crew Mate at the Trials.”

“I’ll have to
think about it…Maybe I will, maybe I won’t,” Madison replied and went back to
scrubbing.

“Great! Then it’s
a deal,” Flynn grinned and started to climb down the tower.

“I didn't say yes,
did I?” Madison shouted after him. “I said, I'll think about it!”

“See you tomorrow
at ten,” Flynn yelled when he had reached the bottom. “You know where to find
me, right?”

Of course, Madison
knew… and her heart skipped a beat. Good thing her face was so well covered,
she thought, or Flynn would have seen her cheeks blush a bright shade of red.

Was Madison going
to join him on the
Seeker
? Up on the tower, Flynn had acted as if he was
taking it for granted that she would… But the truth was that he wasn’t at all sure.
He could only hope that she would… hope she would be able to step into Tony’s
shoes without losing precious time. True, she hadn’t trained with him and Tony
for a while, but Flynn knew she was fit and strong. Climbing up and down those
stinky pigeon towers was no small feat… And she loved being in the water.
That’s why he and Tony had noticed her in the first place. A little girl
swimming like a fish... Most girls on the Archipelago couldn’t even float… they
weren’t encouraged to go in the water, and Madison had surprised everybody with
what she could do... She had outraced all the boys with her powerful freestyle,
and she could hold her breath just as long as Tony could… Yes, Madison was a
great swimmer and an excellent backup scavvy diver, thought Flynn, as he began
to make his way home.

Flynn had now walked
out of the shadows of the Pigeon Towers, but there was no way he was going to
take the cable car… Not after what had happened earlier. He began to jog along
the bridge-way, which connected Madison's building to the one across Water
Street Canal. Might as well go through some training exercises, he thought as
he picked up speed… It was the perfect distance for his Breath Hold Practice, a
drill he had been doing almost daily for the past few years. First, he would
run slowly for an hour, while performing a sequence of breathing exercises…
Those always started with running two steps, holding his breath, followed by
ten steps of running and breathing normally… Then he would increase to four,
six, eight steps ... and keep increasing, until finally, he was holding his
breath for twenty and breathing normally for ten.

The Breath Hold
Practice was a great way to accustom a diver’s body to high levels of carbon
dioxide and low levels of oxygen… Just one of the many things Flynn had learned
from Ann Baxter on how to be a great scavenger… Suddenly, the woman’s name
brought a rush of memories into Flynn’s head...The famous Ann Baxter… the only
woman diver to ever make it among the top Free Scavengers! The woman who had
been Duncan Roth's team mate and his equal… That had been before the Rottweiler
had shot up the ranks to become Marcus Van Zandt’s right-hand man. Rumor had it
that Baxter and Roth had been more than just members of the same crew. They had
been lovers, but something had made them part ways…

It was Ann Baxter
who had become Flynn's mentor from the moment he had stepped on her raft and
demanded to be her apprentice. What had made Ann accept Flynn on the spot
remained a mystery to him … It could have been the sheer boldness of the act itself…
No one had ever dared to approach a Free Scavenger with such a request. There
was always a long line of hopefuls, waiting to be noticed, but never daring to
ask… Whatever the reason, Ann had taken Flynn under her wing, teaching him all
there was to know about free diving. And more than that… She had filled a big
void in his life. For a brief moment in time, Ann had become the mother he
never had… But Ann had disappeared on the day Flynn had turned fifteen! She had
gone on one of her regular dives and not come back… And like most free divers,
her body was never found. Ann Baxter had died doing her job…and that was it…
another casualty of life on the Archipelago. As much as Flynn didn’t want to
admit it, he missed her terribly… especially now… He wished his old teacher was
still around to see him compete in the Trials… and to see him win!

The thought of
winning the Trials helped focus Flynn back on the present… Without missing a
beat, he hopped from the bridge-way on to the ledge of the next rooftop and
headed toward the crossing over Pearl Street Canal. He kept running at an even
pace, loving every minute of every step he took. It felt like running on top of
the world, the city sprawled beneath his feet. The view was breathtaking… But
this wasn’t the best time of the day for Flynn to be going through such a
routine… There were so many pedestrians rushing back and forth on the walkways
that it was now more of an obstacle course… Luckily for Flynn, most people
stepped out of his way, letting him pass. They knew what he was doing. No one
else ran like that on the Archipelago, except for the young blood training for
the Scavenger Trials.

Flynn had reached
his tower and was only a few feet from his apartment when he felt a rush of
wind as something swooped over his head. He heard the flapping of wings and saw
a carrier pigeon land on the walkway’s railing. Glancing around, Flynn came to
an abrupt stop. Apart from a few neighbors walking in the distance, it was just
him and the bird. But was the pigeon here for Flynn or somebody else, then?
There was a red ribbon tied round one of its feet, which meant a message was
waiting to be delivered… The pigeon inched its way closer and cocked its head
to one side. A small beady eye was now staring at him. Flynn reached for the
pouch hanging round the bird’s neck, took out a tiny piece of paper and read
it.

 The note said:
I’ll
be there, M.

After ruffling its
feathers, the pigeon flapped its wings again and took off in the direction of
the Pigeon Towers. Flynn stood still, watching the bird fly away. When he could
see it no longer, Flynn shoved the note in his pocket and, with a huge smile on
his face, opened the door flap to his apartment. Yes, Madison Ray was going to
make one hell of a Crew Mate.