La Valiente nods to Julita and Miguel. “You may go,” she tells them with a small smile. “As you can see, I’m in no danger from our visitors.”
Julita and Miguel leave the tent. After a long moment, Ree moves back and sniffs. Silent tears flow down her cheeks. I’ve seen Ree angry dozens of times, but I’ve never seen her cry.
“What happened to you, Tia?”
“A crossbow bolt paralyzed me when Los Coyotes broke a truce and attacked us in the night. My fighters carried me to safety, and I lived. But I don’t want to talk about me. I want to talk about you and the wonderful thing that has happened to you.”
I draw in a breath. This woman must know about Ree’s Neptune transformation.
“So, what is it like, living in the sea? Is it very beautiful down there?” she asks, a wistful note in her voice.
Ree wipes her tears away with her hands. “It’s beautiful up north, but the sea is a dangerous place. Stronger predators prey on weaker ones all the time.”
“Then perhaps it is not so different from here,” La Valiente says, looking disappointed. “But I forget my manners. Please introduce me to your companion.”
Ree introduces me, her aunt holds out her hand, and I shake it. Her grip is firm, and her brown eyes are warm and curious. “Any friend of Ree’s is welcome here,” she says, and I thank her.
“Tia, we must go back to the water soon,” Ree tells her, “but I have to ask you something first. Your divers found us when we were trying to search a wreck for bins and tanks,” and she explains why we’ve returned to the Southern Sector.
“Ty Rath agreed to help you grow this c-plankton?” La Valiente asks, her eyebrows raised.
“His people are going to help us set up and guard the warehouses where we will grow it.”
“I know Rath. He’s one of the most brilliant men I have ever met. And the people who engineered you must be brilliant, too. I will put the word out that you may salvage our wrecks and Julita and Miguel will guide you around them. But how will you staff these warehouses?”
Ree and I exchange glances. “That’s a problem we’re still trying to solve,” I confess. “We need a lot of people because my father and his helper staff want to set up three different growing units around the LA basin, in case one or two of them are found and destroyed by the government.”
“We probably have many here who would be willing to help you cultivate this c-plankton. Our scrounger friends are not fighters, but they are resourceful and hard-working, and they care very much about our planet.”
“I will have to ask my father, but I think he might be happy to have your people’s help.”
“You should be careful as you work our wrecks,” La Valiente warns us. “Just last week, we had a strange incident where one of our divers was savaged by a shark.”
“What was so strange about it?” I ask, foreboding sweeping over me.
“He claimed the shark had human features and arms. Normally I’d ignore such a wild tale, but Pedro is a sensible sort.”
“He may have been attacked by a mutate that is part human and part shark,” Ree says and explains about the shredders that Ran Kuron created.
“Can you tell us where this attack happened?” I ask La Valiente.
“Down in the Redondo Canyon at a wreck two miles off shore.”
Ree and I exchange sober looks. If a shredder is near here, then Ran Kuron probably is, too.
~~~
On La Valiente’s orders, Julita provides us with a chart of the wrecks the Chicas Duras control. In the weeks that follow, she and Miguel often meet us at those wrecks and show us where we might find the kind of bins and vats we need. In exchange, we tell them when we come across cargo we think their community could use or sell. Both Julita and Miguel know that we’ve been genetically engineered to live in the sea, and neither seem much fazed by that. They mostly seem jealous that we can work the wrecks so much longer than they can without worrying about getting the bends or running out of oxygen.
Our days soon fall into a pattern. In the mornings, we search our newest wreck looking for anything our shore team could use to hold seawater. If sinks, tubs or vats need to be cut free, Sunny lights up his work space while Penn detaches them with the salvage saws the Rathenistas found for us.
Then our strongest team members, Ocho, Dai and Shadow, or “the Grunts” as they start calling themselves, come and muscle the vats and barrels up to the top of the wreck. When he’s not helping the Grunts, Tobin stays busy taking care of the many scrapes and cuts we get working on these old ships. And all the while, the dolphins keep a careful eye out for the Marine Guard, shredders and Kuron’s sub.
After night falls, we contact Cam, and he or some of his fellow smugglers arrive in quiet boats to winch our finds aboard and deliver them to Rath’s people. They, in turn, smuggle the equipment to three different warehouse locations around LA. I love the nights Cam and his crew help us, for Robry and I can often steal a few minutes to talk with him. It takes weeks for his bruises to fade, and he walks stiffly for a time, but I’m so relieved that Cam wasn’t permanently injured that night he contacted Rath for us.
In the precious minutes we have together, Cam tells us more about his life as a smuggler, and we tell him more about Safety Harbor. He’s fascinated by our lives in the sea, but I also sense a sadness in him as he watches us talk.
“You both have changed so much in a year,” he says once, and I think the same about him. The kind, open boy I knew is gone and has been replaced by someone much harder, more bitter and more reserved.
Cam also gives us updates on the progress of the c-plankton nurseries. He seems bemused by the variety of people working together to set them up. The first one, in Torrance, is already growing c-plankton and is staffed in large part by scroungers from La Valiente’s community.
“Those scrounger folk are amazing at adapting and making stuff,” Cam says, shaking his head. “Their engineer installed the oddest looking biomass generator I’ve ever seen, but it powers a whole warehouse full of grow lights and seawater pumps.”
We celebrate the day Thom, Rad and Rohan return to us.
:The folks in Carly Sue’s sickbay were relieved to say goodbye to our sparkhead,: Ree says with a wicked grin.
:Treating me was a bit of a challenge,: Rad confesses sheepishly.
:During Rad’s shoulder surgery, Doc Iharu had to give him extra anesthesia to put him under muy deep,: Ree explains. :Under light sedation, he shocked anyone who tried to touch him, and he fried one of the monitors. Then, after his surgery, whenever he was woozy and someone touched him, they got a zap.:
:It got to the point that no one but Rohan would work on me,: Rad says, :and he wore rubber gloves.:
:It was an electrifying experience,: Rohan says with a smile. :Our med staff would prefer that you not get hurt again, but if you do, at least we know to use insulated gloves around you next time.:
Thom comes in for his share of teasing, too, particularly from the Grunts who have missed his muscle power.
:Some people will go and get themselves shot with a crossbow just to get out of the real work,: Ocho kids him.
Even while we salvage wrecks, I keep an eye on Shadow, Ocho, Rad, Sunny and Dai. I still don’t want to believe that any of them could be communicating with Wasp and Kuron, but through Julita and Miguel we continue to hear stories from many of the salvage gangs of strange “man sharks” attacking divers. I have an awful feeling that Kuron is in the area, and that one of our friends from Atlantea has told him that we’re here.
A month after we first contacted Cam and Ty Rath, all three plankton nurseries are up and functioning. I worry about James as he travels constantly between the three locations, ready to help if the Western Collective discovers them. We continue to salvage wrecks because now we need to find containers to hold the plankton when it is ready to be shipped out to sea. La Valiente reached out to the leaders she trusts in other salvage gangs. We’ve been allowed to work their wrecks, too, in exchange for letting them know when we find valuable cargo they can use.
There are definitely times we all get homesick for Safety Harbor, and times we get tired of breathing polluted seawater that burns our eyes and lungs and gives us skin sores. But the fact that the c-plankton is growing gives us hope. It’s growing so rapidly, in fact, that Dad thinks the first shipment will be ready to send out to sea in another month, but that poses a new problem. Where are we going to get a freighter big enough to carry thousands of bins, boxes and barrels of seawater full of c-plankton?
One night I ask Cam if he’s heard how we’re going to transport the c-plankton out to sea, and he sends me a wicked smile.
“Clearly there’s only one solution. We’ll have to steal a freighter.”