Cut Off (6 page)

She made her way to Front Street, where the ocean washed the rocks not twenty feet from the road, and walked through the multitude of downtown shops until she came to Sands, a two-story restaurant decked out with wooden siding and Polynesian/Age of Sail carvings suggestive of a century and a half ago ("Established 1993"). Out front, a freshly carved sign rebranded the building as "Heiau of Lahaina." Tristan gazed up at the balcony.

"You're the girl from the mountain," a man said from inside the open doors. He stepped outside, smiling shyly. He was a year or three older than Alden, with dark hair that hung to his chin and a very worn Smashing Pumpkins t-shirt.

"You're the boy who left the letter," she said.

His eyebrows twitched as if he might take offense at her descriptor, then he regained his smile. "I'm Tom. How should I announce you?"

"Loudly." She laughed once. "My name is Tristan."

"Nice to meet you, Tristan. Be right back."

He popped inside the restaurant. The scuff of his feet retreated into the gloom. Tristan scanned the roofs and balconies of the surrounding shops. If she was being watched, her observer was doing a good job.

After a minute, Tom jogged outside and gestured her in. "Right this way."

She followed him through the lobby/bar. The walls were decorated with black and white photos of native Hawaiians in elaborate feathered costumes. Sunlight glowed ahead; the back doors were open to a patio overlooking the sea.

A man met her at the doors. He was in his mid-forties with stark blue eyes and a blond widow's peak as foreboding as the two mountains. "Thank you for coming, Tristan. I'm Robin." His eyes ticked to the rifle on her shoulder. "May I ask you for your weapons?"

"Sure," she said. "The answer is no. I'm going home. Don't waste my time again."

"Please." He blinked, smiling blandly to cover his surprise. "This isn't a hostile soiree."

"Then there should be no need for me to use them."

His smile became pinched. "Why don't you come back and meet the others?"

The patio was decorated with an array of potted flowers, unlit torches, and person-sized wooden moai. At a rattan table, Robin introduced Tristan to Lewis, a thirtysomething man whose sleeveless shirt displayed the contours and veins of his muscled arms, and Fiona, a lean woman whose blond hair was cut in layers, the first proper hairstyle she'd seen in years. She looked like the housewife of an upwardly mobile professional, but there was a light in her eye that spoke to more. All three were white. Tanned, like Tristan, but without the tough, crinkled skin that came with a lifetime of being a person of European descent transplanted to the tropics.

Tristan seated herself, keeping one eye on Lewis. If things became hostile, he would be first to act.

Robin dropped into a chair and scooted into the shade of the umbrella. "Welcome to the Guardians of Lahaina. I know, it's a cheesy name. But it helps remind us why we're here."

Tristan smiled politely. "Are you self-appointed?"

Robin gave her a bland smile. "Who would appoint us? We decided to take responsibility for ourselves."

"Admirable. Now tell me why you have the authority to stop me from salvaging what I need from a place no one owns."

"But it
is
owned," Fiona said. "By the citizens of Lahaina."

Tristan met her eyes. "All four of you?"

"More like twenty." Robin gestured toward the city. "In time, we may have families. Take in more survivors. Lahaina will grow. But one thing's for certain: the bounty of the old world will only shrink. If you take, the town deserves compensation."

"Am I a resident of Lahaina?"

The three exchanged looks. Robin was first to speak. "Do you consider yourself a resident?"

"I didn't know we were dividing ourselves into tribes."

Lewis gave her a no-nonsense look. "This isn't about taking sides. It's about safety. And doing what's right."

Robin tented his hands. "That's why we're not banning you from taking what you need. All we ask is that if you intend to take anything within the new city limits—defined by Leialii on the north and Puamana on the south—that you seek approval. If your request is approved, a tax will be levied appropriate to the value of the items."

"A tax," Tristan said.

Fiona leaned forward and extended her arm across the table, as if meaning to touch her. "Think of it like...a membership fee. To the Guardians of Lahaina, who watch over you. Is that so unreasonable?"

"Depends on what you want me to pay."

"First," Robin said, "let's go over what was taken."

He produced a list and read off the supplies line by line. Other than a few small items, it was quite accurate, and included the contents of their second trip. They had been watched.

"Is that an accurate summary of the materials?" he said.

"You missed three paint brushes," Tristan said. "And two paint keys."

He frowned and scratched that onto the bottom of the list. "What do you intend to use these for?"

"To build a fort."

He glanced up, frown deepening. "A...fort? Are you expecting trouble?"

Fiona slapped her hand on the table. "For God's sake, she's making fun. Miss Tristan, this meeting concerns the future of our town. Please treat it with the gravity it deserves."

"Extra storage," Tristan said, watching her. "Farm tools. Seed. That sort of thing. Why would my intentions for the materials change their value?"

Lewis laughed through his nose. "You mean, why do we deserve to give a shit?"

"Well?"

"If I were you, I'd ask exactly the same thing. So I think you've got a good guess why."

"What you'll
say
is you want to make sure I'm not putting it to use for a bad end," she said. "Mostly, you want to know how much I want this and how much you can ask for it."

He grinned, showing teeth that were stained with coffee or tea. In a few more years, he would start to lose them. "Oh, I like you."

"What is the penalty for non-compliance?"

Robin's eyes crinkled. "Wouldn't it be best if we can come to an agreement?"

"It would be best if you answered the question."

He pressed his lips together. "You would no longer be allowed to enter the town. If you were to be seen in town, you would be evicted. Peacefully. Unless you resisted."

Tristan glanced between them. Robin looked conciliatory; Fiona, calculating; Lewis, eager. She nodded. "Let's talk numbers."

They didn't ask for much. Some preserved food, a box of ammunition for a caliber she didn't use, and two dozen beeswax candles, which she'd looted en masse from the hotels. The entire meeting appeared to be more about getting her to recognize and concede to their authority than in extracting resources from her. Which was not to say she liked the outcome. She had been deeply tempted to tell them to fuck off—you're going to try to claim ownership over the entire town?—but the problem was she hadn't been able to read them.

Oh, they came off agreeably enough. Real country club. Even Lewis' aggression was white collar, as if he were a former realtor or loan officer, the kind of guy who'd knock off work and drink shots with his buddies while bragging about how he'd "raped" the latest buyer.

Tristan doubted, though. They had all gone through the same apocalypse. Making it this far had required something from each and every survivor. She thought the Guardians might carry some steel inside them. Their civilized demeanor could be nothing more than the sheath concealing a very wicked knife.

She stood to leave.

"We can pick up the goods at your convenience," Robin said.

"Don't trouble yourself," Tristan said. "I'll bring them down tomorrow morning."

She walked into the darkness of the restaurant. Near the front doors, Tom appeared beside her.

"Everything simpatico?"

"Sure." She glanced back toward the patio. "What can you tell me about them? I'm kind of on the fringes out there."

"You don't say," he smiled. "They showed up early this year. Pretty outgoing, especially for new arrivals. Made a few friends, which helped thaw relationships with the holdouts. They launched this whole Guardian thing a few weeks ago. Idea is to keep town safe and the residents on good terms."

"The others are on board with this?"

"So far," he shrugged. "The few who aren't seem content to keep their distance. Haven't heard of any trouble."

"How many people you got here, anyway?"

Tom looked up and to the side, doing numbers in his head. "Twenty...one? Helen's still holding out, last I heard. Why?"

"Just curious." She smiled at him. "Let me know if anything comes up?"

"Will do."

She headed north up the highway. At the house on the mountain, Alden was asleep on a bench in the shade. As she clunked around the kitchen, he wandered inside, bleary-eyed.

"How'd it go?" he said.

She had thought this through on the walk and had decided it was best for him to be made aware of the truth. Something could happen to her at any time. He needed to be capable of fending for himself. Food and shelter and all the rest would be no problem for him; he was strong, he had no qualms about working hard, and he'd learned how to get by on the island.

There was something naive about him, though. The flaw that had allowed him to fall under Hollister's sway at Hanford, standing watch over the human cattle working the field. She was his older sister. She needed to teach him better.

She recapped the meeting, including each question she'd asked and why. "Still don't know much about them. Frankly, I trust them less than I do the aliens."

"How do you figure
that
?"

"The aliens seem content to do their own thing. People? They always want something from you."

His face struggled with ambivalent emotions. "They haven't shown us anything yet, right? So I guess we wait and see."

They got up to go put in a couple hours at the Fallback Shack. In the morning, she loaded the agreed-upon goods into the basket of her bike and rode down to Sands. Tom met her with a smile. He had no news to impart.

The next few days passed in peace, but the minor dust-up with the Guardians deepened her convictions the shack was a good idea. In fact, once it was done, she thought she would see about finding a new boat and fixing it into shape. Molokai and Lanai looked less than ten miles away, and Molokai in particular looked green enough to live on. She had the vague idea it had once been a leper colony and had never had much of a population. Unless survivors had migrated to it, it ought to be almost uninhabited.

At the site, they strung the fencing between the posts, wove leaves into the links, painted the shack with blobs of green. Together, they dug out a corner of the hut for storage, reinforcing the sides with leftover plywood. At the house, they packed up tubs, set them in a wagon, and hauled it all up to the shack. Food, water, spices, a few guns, medical supplies, survival grab-bags with things like scissors, Swiss army knives, sewing kits, compasses, cooking gear.

As work on the Fallback Shack drew to a close, Alden suggested they find a nearby tree with a good view of the slope and fit it out with ropes and handholds. While she continued the fence-weaving, which was taking forever, he left to scout that out.

"Found a good one," he reported an hour later. "Can I work on it tomorrow? Or do you need me here?"

She wiped her hands on her hips. The fence was three-quarters woven with leaves. The shack still needed a door (she'd decided to affix a real one), but she wouldn't be able to get to that for another day. Besides that, everything was in place, sound and secure.

"Sure," she said. "But once the crow's nest is done, you better find us some eye patches and peg legs."

Her work was far from perfect, but it stood on its own. It felt good to have built such a thing herself. As good as it felt to be able to run for miles and miles at a stretch. She ought to do more projects like this, just to learn how. To be able to do so if circumstances ever demanded it of her.

She would get the chance much sooner than she liked. The next day, when they came to the site, they found it ruined: portions of fence pulled down, plywood pried up and snapped into pieces, the tubs yanked open and scattered across the woods.

4

Ness went numb with shock and terror. How had they found Sebastian? Cornered and captured him without Sebastian sending word to him? He rose halfway from his seat, reaching for his gun. A second light hit the chained alien and he saw that its motions were all wrong: it had a sinuous, compact walk. Head was the wrong shape, too. More like a baby carrot than an egg. Ness let out a shaky breath and reseated himself.

"Thought that would get your attention," Sprite grinned. "Ever seen one before?"

"Now and then." Ness reached for his beer. "How did they get their hands on
that
?"

"Beats me. As in, I'm sure the staff would beat me within an inch of my life if I tried to find out. All I can tell you is they've had that thing for four months, it's fought five matches, and it's undefeated."

"So why would anyone bet on the human?"

"Because until now, the human has never been given anything nastier than a knife—and they're not done yet."

From what little Ness could gather, the action at the betting booth was primarily going to the alien. A second spotlight shined from above, silencing the crowd. Every face at the booth turned to watch as a second man was led to the arena. He too bore a sword.

"Interesting, eh?" Sprite said.

The hollers at the booth doubled, men gesturing toward themselves and the ring, reversing bets. Ness examined the alien with a clinical eye. They were so different from the human physiology it was easy to write them off as identical drones, perhaps even clones, but despite integrating some artificial processes into their reproduction, there were variances between individuals. As this one was put inside the fence and prompted to display itself as the human fighter had done, Ness locked in on its hammer-pods.

That was Sebastian's term, "hammer-pod." The limb resembled a typical tentacle, but rather than terminating in a prehensile tip, the last eight to fifteen inches of the arm were a dense, rock-hard club of chitin. Sebastian had opined the limb had originated as a way to bash open stubborn crustaceans and shellfish. In their modern era, it found use in any number of professions where a tough, hard tool was useful.