The Pieces of My Self

68 - Devil's Bargain

ZEKE

The Gulf of Mexico, 22 June 2174, 5 am

The rain had stopped. Storm clouds were retreating over the Gulf, and the sky was beginning to lighten. The wind had slowed to 25 knots, with gusts to 35. The Melatha chugged along, fighting white-capped waves, while Zeke steered to compensate for the damaged foil. He throttled down to match the speed of the waves and avoid broaching. Usher stood behind him, securely gripping the hardtop pillar, keeping watch.

Grady climbed into the nav chair. "Can I steer?"

"Not now, kid. I've got my hands full." Zeke rubbed his eyes from stress and lack of sleep, but his body still felt the injuries from the night before.

The boy touched the helm. "Where are we going?"

"It's a place where Usher can work more of his magic. It's a wind catcher—a power and data Island, a PADI."

Grady's continuous drill of questions—about his mother, the soldiers, the beasts living in the Dome, and a variety of other topics—distracted Zeke.

The boy's questions were separated by bouts of silence, laughter, and tears. He understood Grady was running on adrenaline, his mind racing, trying to make sense of the chaos he had witnessed. No child should ever see such things. Still, Zeke needed space to concentrate.

"Why don't you go below and see if Amara's okay."

Grady was defiant. "I want to stay here."

"That's an order, sailor. Amara's hurting. You can't see it on the outside, but inside, she's torn up. She's your sister, and she needs you."

Grady reluctantly climbed out of the cockpit and made his way on wobbly sea legs to the hatch. Before he closed it, he stopped to look skyward, watching gulls hovering, wings outstretched and motionless as they glided into the wind.

Usher moved near the helm when the boy was gone and pointed at the horizon.

Zeke could see the glint of an island of metal—one of hundreds—combining wind generation, cloud computing, and thermal regulation.

"Got it," Zeke said, making a course correction. "Tell me, Henri, why come here? Other PADIs are closer to the Dome."

After he spoke, he realized his mistake. The robot had been speaking in Lillian's voice, and here he was, summoning the memory traces of a dead man—the ghost of Henri J. Knightly. "Sorry, I'm a bit confused."

The avatar ignored the ambiguity and responded in Henri's voice.

"Don't you remember, Zeke? This was the first one we built."

He searched his memory. "It was a long time ago."

"I remember it was a day like this one. Four-to-six-foot seas. You could smell the salt air. One ship towed the thing in place. We had a lot at stake. Twenty megawatts could meet a quarter of the needs of the floating city. Maybe more. Had a hell of a time testing the data and network pieces."

"It wasn't nostalgia that made you come here?"

"This is a funnel point. It takes power and cloud data from the other PADIs and sends it to Yemaya for distribution. We are upstream from where LESA taps the grids for intelligence. From here, we can control everything."

Zeke thought of the implications. Control everything?

His eyes shifted to a moving speck in the water. "Is that the Redemption coming in at 10 o'clock?"

"Yes. Martin will beat us there."

Zeke's eyes and hands steered toward the metal island, but his mind went in a different direction. He had made a Devil's bargain. Eliminating Mangalotte required unleashing the fully assembled cryptid on Loumissala's data and power grids. But the Devil had three faces, and it troubled him. Lillian Fray, Henri Knightly, and Artois Mangalotte were deeply flawed and now intertwined. He wasn't a psychologist, but he prided himself on reading people.