Cut Off (11 page)

Given the alternative was getting shot on the shore instead, he dashed over the rocks and splashed into the channel. It was welcomingly warm and smelled pleasantly briny. Once he was up to his thighs, he dived in, thrashing after Sebastian, whose tentacles whipped the water like propellers, pushing him ahead at a rapid clip.

Behind him, something cannonballed into the water. Ness' blood ran cold. He rolled on his back and unholstered his pistol, which was designed to be waterproof but generated painfully hot steam when wet. A face burst from the water, black hair plastered and streaming, eyes bulging with panic.

"What are you doing?" Ness hissed.

Sprite wiped saltwater from his face. "Running from the machine guns?"

"They're after me and Sebastian, fool. They don't give a shit about you." He reoriented himself toward the sub and swam on. He'd lost ground on Sebastian, who was already climbing up the submerged hull of the sub and fiddling with the hatch on the tower. Ness redoubled his stroke.

When he was twenty feet from the sub, the waves in front of him burst like fireworks of water, accompanied by the roar of gunfire. Ness filled his lungs and plunged under the surface. Bullets whirred into the water trailing conical flurries of bubbles. He swam deeper, ears popping, then leveled out and continued toward the dark outline of the sub. As his lungs began to burn, he reached it, fingers trailing its smooth surface, and kicked toward the surface. As he broke into the warm air, a blinding flare streaked from the sub. He scrambled up the side and rolled onto the exposed platform.

On shore, the mini-rocket bloomed and thundered, throwing rocks into the air. Ness got to the open hatch.

Below him, Sprite threw himself onto the top of the sub, chest heaving. "You can't leave me here to die!"

Ness hesitated. Another spray of gunfire rolled in from the trees beside the shore. Ness moved to close the hatch, but Sprite was upon him, dripping and manic, forcing his way inside the entrance, which was wide enough to accommodate the aliens' expansive limbs. Ness shoved him down to clear the way, then pulled down the hatch. Air hissed and his ears popped again.

A ramp spiraled down into the cramped interior. Sebastian waited at its base, tentacles curled in concern. A second alien stood beside him. The others didn't assign themselves names, or at least didn't deign to tell Ness what they called themselves. Instead, he thought of them as the Collective. The one before him had white mottling on its gray skin. Privately, he thought of it as Number Three.

It strode toward Sprite, who shrieked and pressed himself against the tangle of struts and panels behind him. Number Three raised four tentacles, encircling them in the space around Sprite, then whirled on Sebastian and exchanged a rapid series of gestures.

It turned to Ness, producing a square pad and motioning above its screen. White letters appeared on its black face: "COME WITH"

Ness glanced at Sebastian, who started forward. Number Three barred his way with a pincer, gestured again, and held the pad up to Ness: "ALONE."

7

Lewis stepped back from the counter, scratching the line of hair that ran down his belly. "Bullshit."

"I saw it with my own eyes. Enough weed to keep the entire West Coast blazed."

"What's a girl like you know about marijuana farms?"

"I went to Berkeley," Tristan shrugged. "It looked like they had some other stuff mixed in, too. Coffee bushes. Coca plants."

"Now I know you didn't learn
that
at Berkeley."

"I took the leaves to the Kahului library. Once I was reasonably certain what I was looking at, I tried one." She smirked. "Could have run all the way home."

"You said 'they.'" He narrowed his eyes. "Who's they?"

"Whoever planted it is gone. Best guess, they set it up after the Panhandler, then the invasion hit and they fled or died."

"Show me."

"Show you what?" Tristan laughed. "I went up there with my brother three weeks ago. We were meaning to go camping. Saw it with our own eyes. Why do you think I wanted to keep the shack out of sight?" She cranked her eyebrows together. "Believe whatever you want. But if you or any of your people step foot on my land again, I will bury you in it."

She turned to go.

"Hang on." He made to move around the counter, then remembered his nudity and hung behind the safety of the travertine. "Why are you telling me this? What exactly are you proposing?"

"I'm
proposing
that you stop fucking up my business. I haven't finalized my plans yet—whether to distribute here, strike up trade with the other islands, or what. Might even make a trip to the mainland and see whether the colonies at San Diego and L.A. have their own supply." She tipped her head. "Whatever I decide, it would help to have an in with the government here. It's going to be a lot of work, too. Make a decision and let me know."

She walked from the house, mind racing. When she had conceived the lie, she'd been all but certain he'd jump at the chance to get his hands on an unattended field of drugs. If not for personal use, then certainly as a source of profit. More and more, his combination of arrogance and entitlement struck her as the type of thing she'd seen in the trust fund kids at school, in King Dashing, and those who'd taken charge at Hanford. Those traits made them dangerous—there was little they wouldn't do in pursuit of their interests—but it made them exploitable, too.

She was reasonably sure, then, that Lewis would venture to Haleakala. The key lay in making sure he never made it back. If she could pull that off, he would be neutralized, the aggression of the Guardians of Lahaina would be diminished, and there would be no direct ties of his disappearance to Tristan.

She headed back through the houses to the downtown. Sands had reopened and Tom was inside, halfway up a ladder with his back to the door, arms stretched up to fiddle with a candleholder he was fitting to the wall. His black t-shirt rode up, showing a gap of skin pale by island standards.

"Boo," she said.

"Holy shit." He grabbed the top of the ladder to keep from falling. "You about killed me, Tristan. And all for nothing. They're not here at the moment."

"Good. Because I came to see you." She meant the words as lightly suggestive, but as soon as she spoke them, she was struck by a vision of the scene on the rug in the pink house as reenacted by Tom and herself. Rattled, she pushed the image aside and plowed ahead. "What was it that prompted you to write to me?"

Tom climbed down the ladder and drifted across the lobby, glancing around. "Like I said, he said something funny. I asked him if he'd heard what had happened to you, and he shrugged and said, 'That's what liars get.' He sounded
way
too happy about it. I was like, what the hell?" He laughed some. "I mean, not out loud. Dude has anger problems."

"I can believe it."

"What did he mean by that?"

"I think it means he has a problem with women, too." She considered the skinny, well-meaning boy in front of her and was tempted to ask whether he had a contingency plan in case anything bad ever went down. But that would only invite scrutiny from him, and besides, if he hadn't made preparations for himself, that only proved there was nothing to be done for him. He was watching her; she gave him a close-lipped smile. "He weirds me out, you know? If he says or does anything else, no matter how innocuous it seems, can you let me know?"

"Totally." He flinched toward her, as if he might try a hug. "Hey, you know, if you ever want to hang out, let me know. Aren't many people our age around here. Or on that mountain of yours, I would imagine."

"I've got a lot of rebuilding to do," she said, gazing toward her far-off home. "But once things calm down, I'll come by."

He had the wherewithal to say no more, gesturing to his ladder and climbing back up it to see to the candleholder. Tristan exited and headed north past the hotels and the cemetery, with its red dirt and white stones, and hiked up to the house. She found Alden at the Fallback Shack, where he'd pulled loose the broken plywood and piled it to the side. He'd found the tubs and gathered whatever supplies hadn't been ruined, too.

"I think things are about to quiet down," she said. "But stay on your toes for a while longer. And if you go into town...be careful of those people. They're weird. I think they're all having sex with each other."

He swung up his head. "Really?"

"Oh my god, your face right now," she laughed. "Don't get too excited. I think it's only the old people."

"
How
old?"

"Old enough to predate the internet. Try wrapping your head around that one." She knocked on a post and found it was firm. Maybe it wouldn't be that hard to restore the place. "Hey, will you be okay by yourself for a few days?"

He toweled sweat from under his arms. "Going somewhere?"

"I want to find a good boat. Too many people know about this place."

"You mean, one?"

"Like I said. Too many." She turned to go, then stopped. "If a guy named Tom comes around, or you see the flag on the mail box is up, drop whatever you're doing and come find me. I'll either be at the dock at Hanakao'o or at the boat launch. The one by the mall. Got it?"

"Sure," Alden said. "Let me know when you plan to tell me what the hell's going on around here."

"Soon," she promised.

She headed down to the park. She didn't have high hopes for the place—the dock was just that, a single dock that might be able to berth the smallest sloops—but they wouldn't need more than a solid outrigger canoe to get them to one of the nearby islands. In the park, a narrow strip of grass and sand speckled by shade-giving trees, she found four canoes jumbled on the shore, half filled with sand. She located an oar and dug them free. One had gone rotten. Another had a hole staved in its side. The other two floated, but without outriggers, she didn't like the idea of banking on them to make the crossing.

She was beginning to favor the idea of a canoe over a sailboat, though. Less conspicuous. Easier to launch and get on their way. Would be much easier to get one, too. She knew there would be sloops at the marina, but with Robin and Fiona living right there, Tristan would have to execute a nighttime ninja extraction. Either that or broker a salvage tax. Which would invite more questions. And might provoke Lewis' curiosity.

She walked along the briny rocks on the shore, keeping an eye on the road and the houses beyond. Small black crabs scuttled from her steps. Soon enough, the mall rose ahead. Not wanting to draw attention now that she was in Lahaina limits, she forsook the bridge, sliding down the concrete bank of the canal and slogging across. After all the walking she'd done on the day, the water was a cool relief.

Two twenty-foot boats were piled against the rocks of the boat launch, battered and hulled. A dozen smaller vessels clunked against each other along one of the two docks. Seaworthy, but they were powerboats. She didn't know enough about engines to rely on one. Anyway, the batteries were probably shot.

And there it was, hidden on the other side of the dock, long and slender with a nice fat outrigger parallel to the hull. Seating with enough room for five, meaning they'd be able to carry cargo. It even had paddles stored inside. She would have to do something about the bright red paint, but aside from that, it had survived remarkably well.

She spent a full minute scanning the surroundings. Speedboats clunked against each other. The launch was protected from sight by the mall and a thicket of trees in a former park, but she didn't move until she was certain she wasn't being observed. She untied the canoe, climbed inside, and, as quietly as she was able, paddled from the tiny cove, heading back north.

She fought past the waves, skimming fifty feet from shore. The boat had some rain water in its bottom, but it almost seemed to propel itself, and within a matter of minutes she found herself up among the resorts. She beached it on the sand and dragged it into the grass. Beat the hell out of walking. Once she was able to alter its appearance, she thought she'd use it as a shuttle between the road down from the mountains and Lahaina. As she walked home, she found herself annoyed that she hadn't done something like this years ago. They'd gotten complacent. Content to survive when they could have been building. Five years here, and they had nothing to show for it besides a home and a few fields that had to be tended by hand. Some of that was from a desire to remain quiet and unseen, but much of their lack of progress was a combination of island-bewitched laziness and the unwillingness to fail at rebuilding the machines.

She had half a mind to grab the paint and head back down to give the canoe a new, less conspicuous coat, but on reaching the shack, she found herself spent. She wove some leaves into the fence while Alden cut some boards he'd scavenged and nailed them to the posts. At quitting time, she gathered up the cans of green paint, which had been left untouched by Lewis, and carried them back home.

Tristan got up late enough that Alden was already gone from the house. She loaded the wagon with painting supplies and led it downhill to where she'd stashed the canoe. She flipped the boat to empty the water, then scrubbed down the hull with hotel towels and coated the scuffed red paint with fresh green. While she waited for it to dry, she went to the waves to wash her hands, then, after a look around, stripped to her underwear for a swim.

She painted until she ran out. It was ugly as sin, with brick-red smears showing beneath the green, but all she cared about was blending with the water. Once it was dry enough to move, she dragged it into the ground floor of one of the hotel towers, and after a little thought, installed it in the corner of the former breakfast lounge. To complete the illusion that it was decor, she arranged a pair of light stands beside it.

She spent the rest of the day lugging down supplies: a few pounds of the canned food they were saving for emergencies, two jugs of distilled water, fishing gear, a 9mm with ammo, two spare first aid kits. She stashed all of this in a bin under the bed of room 117. Back at the house, Alden was gone, but the mail box flag was up. The note said it was probably nothing, but if Tristan had time, Tom might have something for her.