Dark Life: Rip Tide (5 page)

“Did that look safe to you?” Gemma asked. “That didn’t look safe.”

“See another way to get aboard?”

“No,” she said, sounding grumpy.

I sped the Slicky toward the coast, where I spotted clusters of vehicles moored at the base of the cliff. The docks were no more than long iron girders jutting into the waves. After locking down the Slicky’s control panel, I cracked the hatch in her side and winced. All of Rip Tide probably felt like this—like the inside of a space heater cranked to the max. I hitched the Slicky to a cleat, put on a low-brim hat for coverage, and tied a bandana
around my neck like the people who lived on houseboats did. Of course, the floaters were trying to block the UV rays. Me, I just wanted to keep people from staring at my skin.

Gemma hiked up her sari and we walked the length of the narrow girder with our arms out for balance. We passed a wide assortment of vehicles: a sub with a chain of living-pods bobbing behind it, houseboats piled high with the floaters’ possessions, and plenty of multilevel barges. The odd part was that people were sitting atop the glass-domed living-pods and flopped on the jerry-rigged barges as if staking out claims, all vying for the best view of the oil rig. Clearly settling in for a chunk of time, which I didn’t understand since it had to be 110 degrees out.

From behind us came the rolling whip of an unfurling sail. I turned to see men on a trimaran tie off the center sail so that it faced the crowd. Then the crew dropped not one but three anchors—serious overkill for such a lightweight racer. They must’ve really wanted the boat to hold its position.

“They’re going to broadcast the match,” Gemma guessed, pointing at the sail where a glowing square appeared, projected from the trimaran’s deck. Applause erupted from the crowd lounging on the docked boats. “I hope that doesn’t mean there’s no more room on the town.”

I didn’t know what it meant because I’d never seen anything like it. But now that we were onshore I spotted the airship again, pulling at its mooring line at the top of old drilling tower. A banner hung from its passenger compartment, advertising the boxing match.

Ahead of me, Gemma mounted the stairs cut into the cliff, maneuvering past the often ripe-smelling people sprawled on the steps. More floaters, I guessed, going by their faded plain tunics and loose-fitting pants. A few glanced up as I passed and did double takes upon spotting my shine. But considering how many people were packed onto the steps, I was getting off easy. The bandana and hat were working.

At the top of the cliff, we joined the long line of people waiting to board the cable car. They were mostly Topsiders from the stack-cities wearing windblown layers of gauze. Had I thought Gemma’s sari was fancy? Clearly I hadn’t grasped the heights to which fancy could soar. Every item on their bodies was embroidered with silver and gold or decorated with doodads such as tassels, crystals, mirrors, and metal studs. All the sparkling and glinting reminded me of the light shows put on by deep-sea creatures, though those were far more beautiful.

I met Gemma’s gaze and saw how the turquoise fabric draped over her shoulder, unadorned, turned her blue eyes into tide pools.

“You look nice.”

The words were out before I’d thought them through. I tensed. “Nice” was bland. I should have come up with something better. But then the smile she gave me in return was so dazzling that I couldn’t remember why I hadn’t told her she looked nice back at the docking-ring.

As another group of people packed into the cable car, I recognized Benton Tupper at the front of the line. I pointed him out to Gemma. “He’s Benthic Territory’s representative,” I said, noting that he was not wearing his official blue Assembly robes but some sort of striped muumuu, which made him look like a market stall. “He should be too busy for boxing matches—busy getting us statehood. Or at least a vote in the Assembly.”

Gemma was less interested in Tupper than the cable car itself. On our side of the barrier rope, a guy with a padlocked box sold tickets. On the other, a man with an iron hook at the end of a pole had snagged the cable car by its doorframe and was now struggling to hold it steady.

“Do you think inspectors come out regularly to test this setup?” She eyed the open cable car warily. “Because it looks like it was built by a monkey with heatstroke.”

“Oh, chum,” I muttered—not because of the unsafe cable car. Now that we’d made it to the front of the line, I recognized the burly, snub-nosed man selling tickets. Ratter—still in his purple frock coat and goggles with the lenses flipped up. The man who’d offended Captain
Revas with his chewing-weed. I hadn’t forgotten his reaction when I’d announced that Nomad was my salvage: He’d glared at me with bloodshot eyes. But in case I needed reminding, he gave me a repeat performance now with extra malice—enough to make my skin crawl.

With his beady eyes fixed on me, Ratter spat out a hunk of chewing-weed, leaving a line of green spittle down his unshaven chin. “You’re that pioneer kid that thinks he’s got a claim to Nomad.”

“Good to see you, too.” I held up the tickets. No way was I going to let him intimidate me. Nor would I take the time to set him straight about salvage rights.

Ignoring the tickets, he looked me over. “What’s wrong with you?”

“What?”

“Your skin don’t look right,” he pronounced. “We don’t let sick folk on Rip Tide. Mayor Fife’s orders.” With that, he pulled a hunk of dried seaweed from a pocket of his frock coat.

“He’s fine.” Gemma snatched the tickets from my hand and shoved them at Ratter. “Healthier than you by a long shot.”

After picking off the lint, Ratter popped the weed into his mouth and chewed like he was thinking hard. Finally
he said, “No minors allowed without an adult.” He must have really taxed his brain to come up with that one.

“We’re with two adults,” Gemma countered. She hooked her thumb at the two men behind us in line. Bare chested and streaked with orange zinc-paste from their faces on down, they could only be fishermen off the same boat. “We’re even taking them to lunch before the match.”

It sounded like a fair trade to me, but one of the fishermen said, “Don’t know ’em from a codfish.”

“What’s the holdup, Ratter?” yelled the guy with the gaff hook as he slipped a few feet toward the edge of the cliff. “I can take two more!”

“I got Dark Life here that’s giving me trouble.”

Well, that sure clarified the issue. “You have a problem with pioneers?” I demanded.

“I have a problem with you,” he spat. “Now step outta line. ’Cause you’re not getting onto Rip Tide.”

I started to argue, but Gemma dragged me to one side.

“Girl,
you
can go if you want,” he offered with a smile that showed off his moldy-looking teeth.

“Maybe,” she told him, and then turned to me. “What’s your representative’s name?”

“Benton Tupper.” Guessing her plan, I looked for him. At the Trade Station, Tupper’s yellow and purple striped muumuu would have stood out like a beacon among the
settlers’ sleek diveskins and the simply clothed floaters, but not on a cable car filled with Topsiders. “There,” I said, finally spying Tupper’s wispy head above the rest.

“Representative Benton Tupper!” she shouted at the top of her lungs.

He whirled, spotted us, and ducked behind a large woman trailing about twenty veils.

Gemma cupped her hands around her mouth. “We have important Assembly business to discuss with you!”

Tupper stayed down, and I couldn’t blame him since I found myself backing away from her as people turned to look.

“Benton Tupper,” she hollered, “Commonwealth of States representative for Benthic Territory, please show yourself! “

That did the trick. Tupper popped up, making shushing gestures at her. Then he saw that absolutely everyone in line and on the cable car was staring at him. Realizing that it was a lost cause, he waved feebly at us.

Gemma traipsed over to Ratter, who glared at me like I was a plague-carrying rodent. “That’s Ty’s Uncle Benton,” she said in her cheeriest voice. “He’s in the Assembly. He’s very important.”

Scowling, Ratter jerked his head to indicate that we could board.

The guy with the gaff slid forward another foot;
now there was a gap between the cliff and the cable car. Gemma hesitated, eyeing that gap, only to have him shove her aboard. The instant I followed, he slammed the door, freed his hook, and launched the cable car with a kick of a lever.

We sailed into the air, whizzing along the steel cable at breakneck speed. Tupper shot me a reproachful look, which wrung not one drop of guilt from me. “Thanks,” I said to Gemma as she leaned over the side to look down. She straightened instantly, clearly not liking what she saw.

“You’re John Townson’s boy,” Tupper said. “First child born in the territory, yes?”

I nodded, though I wasn’t only the first kid born in the territory, but the first person ever born subsea. “My name is Ty,” I told him. “I won’t tell anyone that I saw you here.”

Relaxing, Tupper waved aside my assurance. “So what if I enjoy the occasional bare-knuckle match? My fellow reps are too uptight to know what they’re missing. A couple of surfs going at it, no rules. It’s a thrill like nothing else. Not even dogfighting comes close.”

My brows rose in surprise. I’d never seen this side of our representative.

“I heard about your parents,” Tupper said abruptly.

“You did?” News traveled fast. I wondered if Captain Revas had been the one to report it.

“Yes, bad business that—taking people captive.” He shook his head as if dismayed by the surfs’ lack of manners.

“Can you help me get them back?”

“Me?”

“Yes. Order the Seaguard to send out more skimmers to search for them.”

Tupper’s smile was wry. “Spoken like a true frontier boy.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“That I don’t expect you to know where I fall in the Commonwealth’s chain of command. The answer is nowhere. But don’t worry. The Seaguard will get them back. They always do.”

Always do?
Before I could ask what he meant, Gemma grabbed my hand so tightly I winced. Leaning out, I saw the oil platform ahead, coming up fast. The original drilling tower now served as a lighthouse and was flanked by a crane nearly as tall. People bustled along on every level, visible because a half wall enclosed each deck. All except for the fifth level, where a wide section of the wall had been knocked out to serve as a landing dock, and we were zooming right for it.

“Oh, relax,” Tupper told Gemma. “Even if the cable does snap, the fall won’t kill you. Well,” he amended, “being dashed against the rocks might, but there’s no point in focusing on that, now is there?”

She didn’t reply. Maybe she didn’t know he was speaking to her since she’d pulled the veil from her head and was using it to cover her eyes.

With a muffled bang, the cable car slammed into the padded opening of the oil rig. As we lurched in unison, another man with a gaff caught the car, only to get dragged several feet before it finally stopped.

“Hop down,” he ordered. “And don’t stumble or you’ll cushion the next guy’s fall.” I glanced over the side to see that the car hung several feet above the steel deck. “Jump!” he yelled. “I can’t hold her for more’n a minute.”

The doors on the far end of the car burst open and people clattered out. From the laughter and chatter, it seemed that the ride and jump were part of the pleasure for the mainlanders. Guess their moving walkways and shuttle trains didn’t require much from them.

We were the last off. The man with the hook swung the car around a support girder and held it still on the other side. There, another crowd waited—a few surfs, but mostly locals, looking truculent.

“If you don’t have a ticket for the match, you must vacate Rip Tide before the next gong,” the gaff man yelled. “Or you will be making your exit with a splash.”

There was grumbling as the crowd stepped onto the mounting block and pulled themselves into the cable
car. But none protested outright at being forced from the town.

One surf, not much older than me, was hoisted up by his friends, crutches and all. He was wearing pants with one leg cut off above the knee—only he didn’t have a knee or any part of his left leg from there on down. And he hadn’t been born that way. Clearly his leg had been amputated … by something with teeth.

I learned from the gaff man that I should look on the sundeck for Fife, who was both mayor of Rip Tide and the Commonwealth’s surfeit agent in charge of distributing government rations to the surf population. Fife had probably gotten the job as surf agent because Rip Tide was off coast, which meant the townships could be kept away from the mainland harbors.

Gemma and I left the landing bay and entered the stream of fluttering caftans and veils. I checked that my hat was pulled low and bandana tugged high on my neck. It was nerve-wracking—knowing that I was headed into a town filled with surfs who disliked subsea settlers, maybe even hated us. I’d have to keep up my guard.

An enormous hole took up the center of the town, cut through all seven decks, which made sense since it had once been the drill well. Now a bustling walkway circled it on each level. Rip Tide was certainly no
hermetically sealed stack-city. Stores, saloons, gambling halls, and family dwellings had been constructed between the decks. But with both the interior and exterior walkways open to the elements, every inch of the ancient oil rig was slimed, rusted, rotted, and wet.

Not counting my stay in a stack-city when I was nine, Rip Tide was the biggest town I’d ever strolled through. There was so much to see, I was both overwhelmed and curious. But I didn’t have time to give in to either feeling. Finding Fife was going to be no easy task. Not when Rip Tide was bursting at the bolts with loud, pushy boxing fans. Hundreds of feet tromped across the metal decks above, while shouts and laughter rebounded off the hard surfaces. And the stifling heat just made it all worse.

“What’s the matter?” Gemma asked, stopping in the middle of the human river with a look of concern.

She could talk here? With all the jostling and chattering, I couldn’t even breathe. I tugged her off the walkway and into the wide opening of a livery stable that rented mantaboards, Jet Skis, and other small vehicles by the hour. “Give me a minute.”

“Oh, right,” she said with sudden understanding. “The crowd.”

I felt foolish needing time to acclimate, but breathing was kind of a necessity. I took off my bandana and used
it to wipe the sweat from my face. Cold seawater would have felt better.

“When we get away from the landing dock, it should thin out,” she assured me.

Wishing I was standing at the edge of Coldsleep Canyon with nothing but whale song in my ears, I gestured her forward. “Okay. You lead.”

Smiling, she said, “Just give a shout if you want to stop again,” and took off, elbowing her way through the throng effortlessly, forcing me to keep up or risk losing her. I trailed in her wake, trying to ignore the press of bodies, only to do a double take as a tough-looking girl cut past us. Her clothes left her torso exposed and revealed a long semicircle of scars.

Gemma dropped back to walk beside me. “That was from a bite, wasn’t it?”

“No question,” I confirmed. I wanted to speed up and get a better look at the girl’s skin but figured that would come off as rude. It was just that I had seen my share of shark bites on fish, dolphins, humans. Dead and alive. From the tooth marks and width of the chomp, I could usually tell not only what kind of shark took the bite, but estimate the beast’s size. Yet, in the glimpse that I’d gotten, something about the girl’s scar seemed odd.

Gemma jabbed my arm. “You said sharks don’t attack people very often.”

“I didn’t say
never
.”

“Okay. But have you noticed that several people here are missing big chunks of their bodies? That’s more than ‘not very often.’”

“Yeah,” I admitted. “I noticed.”

“Know what else is strange? They’re showing off the damage. As if getting bitten by a shark is something to be proud of.”

That part surprised me. But now that she mentioned it, I figured she was right. The surfs did seem to dress in ways that drew attention to their scars.

I shrugged, as baffled as she was.

Ahead of us, a sign posted above the stairwell read:
TODAY: SURFS ALLOWED USE OF SUNDECK ONLY.

“What does that mean?” I asked Gemma. “They can’t walk around anywhere else on Rip Tide?”

“Don’t know.” She waved me toward the stairs. “You go ahead. I’m going to find out where the boxers hang out before the match.”

“I don’t think we should separate,” I said, trying to keep a lid on my panic. “I’ll never find you in this—”

“Go look for Mayor Fife on the sundeck. I’ll find you,” she promised, then spun on her heel and shot out of sight.

I felt a stab of resentment toward Shade for taking her away from me already. Having little choice, I headed for the stairwell, but my nerves were frayed from the noise
and heat. The thought of strolling onto the top deck and adding glaring sunlight into the mix made me feel shaky and sick. I slipped into the shady nook under the stairs to get a grip on myself. If I came off like some crazed nervous wreck, no way would Mayor Fife tell me how to find Drift.