Ship Breaker (3 page)

He came free, gasping relief.

In another year, he’d be too big for this work and Sloth would take his niche for sure. He might be small for his age, but eventually everyone got too big for light crew.

Nailer squirmed back down the duct, rolling the wire ahead of him. The loudest sound was his own rasping breath in the filter mask. He paused and reached ahead for the loosened wire, confirming that it was still there, still leading him out to the light.

Don’t panic. You took this wire down yourself. You just need to keep following it—

A scuttling noise echoed behind him.

Nailer froze, skin crawling. A rat, probably. But it sounded big. Unbidden, another image intruded. Jackson Boy. Nailer could imagine the dead crew boy’s ghost in the ducts with him, creeping through the darkness. Stalking him. Reaching for his ankles with dry bone fingers.

Nailer fought down panic. It was just superstition. Paranoia was for Moon Girl, not for him. But the fear was in him now. He started shoving his scavenged wire aside, suddenly desperate for clean air and light. He’d crawl out, renew his LED paint, and then come back when he could see what was what. Screw Sloth and Bapi. He needed air.

Nailer started squeezing around his tangled bundle of copper. The duct creaked dangerously as he squirmed past, protesting the collected weight of himself and the wire. Stupid to gather so much. Should have cut it in sections and let Pima and Sloth spool it out. But he’d been hurrying, and now, of all things, he’d collected too much. Nailer clawed forward, jamming the wire aside. Felt a flush of triumph as he kicked the last tangling wires off his legs.

The duct groaned loudly and shuddered under him.

Nailer froze.

All around, the duct pinged and creaked. It sank slightly, tilting. The whole thing was on the verge of collapse. Nailer’s frantic activity and extra weight had weakened it.

Nailer spread out his weight and lay still, heart pounding. Trying to sense the duct’s intentions. The metal went quiet. Nailer waited, listening. Finally, he eased forward, delicately shifting his weight.

Metal shrieked. The duct dropped out from under him. Nailer scrabbled for handholds as his world gave way. His fingers seized scavenged wire. For a second it held, suspending him above an infinite pit. Then the wire tore loose. He plummeted.

I don’t want to be a Jackson Boy I don’t want to be a Jackson Boy I don’t—

He hit liquid, warm and viscous. Blackness swallowed him with barely a ripple.

S
WIM YOU BASTARD
swim you bastard swim you bastard…

Swim!

Nailer sank like a stone through warm reeking liquid. It was like trying to swim through thick air instead of water. No matter how hard he fought, the warmth gave way under him, sucking him deeper.

Why can’t I swim?

He was a good swimmer. Had never worried about drowning in the ocean, even in heavy surf. But now he kept sinking. His hand tangled in something solid—the copper wire. He grabbed for it, hoping it was still connected to the ducts above.

It slithered through his fingers, slick and slimy.

Oil!

Nailer fought off panic. It was impossible to swim in oil. It just swallowed you like quicksand. He clawed again for the copper and looped the wiring around his hand to counteract its slickness. His sinking stopped. He began hauling himself back up out of the muck. His lungs screamed for air. Hand over hand, he dragged himself higher. He fought the urge to breathe, to give up and fill his lungs with oil. It would be so easy—

He came out of the oil like a whale surfacing, oil sheeting off his face. He opened his mouth to breathe.

Nothing. Just a strange pressure on his face.

The mask!

Nailer tore it off, gasping. Sucked air. Petroleum vapors burned his lungs, but he could breathe. He used the mask’s clean interior to scrape at his eyes, clearing oil away. He opened them to an intense stinging and burning. Tears filled his eyes. He blinked rapidly.

Blackness all around. Pitch blackness.

He was in some kind of oil reservoir, maybe a leaked pool, or some secondary storage chamber, or… He had no idea where he was in the ship. If he was really unlucky, he was in one of the main oil reservoirs. He finished wiping his eyes and tossed away the now useless mask. The fumes were dizzying. He forced himself to breathe shallowly as he clung to the wire. His skin burned with its petroleum coating. Hammers rang faintly in the distance—workers banging away at the ship, all unaware of his emergency.

His hands started to slide off the wire. Nailer grabbed desperately for a better handhold, hooking his arm through the tangles. Overhead, the duct creaked alarmingly. A tingle of fear ran through him. A few strands of wire that stretched to that high overhead duct were all that kept him from drowning. But the safety was temporary. Soon the duct would give way and he’d sink again, his lungs filling with oil, thrashing and gurgling—

Calm down, you idiot.

Nailer considered trying to swim again, but discarded the idea. It was just his mind playing tricks, fantasizing that the liquid all around was actually water. But oil was different. It didn’t support a body, no matter how much you wished. It just swallowed you up. Nailer had seen a man on heavy crew drown that way. He’d thrashed briefly in the oil, shouting and panicked, then slipped under, long before anyone could throw him a rope.

Don’t panic. Think.

Nailer reached out, fingers straining into the blackness. Reaching for anything: a wall, some bit of floating junk, anything to tell him where he was. His hand found nothing but air and mucky oil. His movements made the duct creak overhead. The wire sank slightly as something gave way. Nailer held his breath, expecting to go under, but the wire stopped sinking.

“Pima!” he shouted.

His voice echoed back fast, bouncing all around.

Nailer clutched the wire, surprised. Judging from the sound, he wasn’t in as big a space as he’d thought. There were walls nearby. “Pima!”

Again the fast echo.

This wasn’t some giant oil tank. It was much, much smaller. Heartened by the impression of walls, Nailer reached out again. But this time, instead of using a hand, he stretched out into the darkness with this toes.

After two tries, rough metal met his skin. A wall of some sort, and something else… Nailer sucked in a grateful breath. A thin pipe running along its breadth. It was only a centimeter in diameter, but still, it had to be better than a tangle of copper dangling from a failing duct.

Without waiting to reconsider, Nailer lunged for the wall.

As he moved, the ducting overhead shrieked and gave way. Nailer sank, thrashing and scrabbling for the thin pipe. His slick hands touched the wall, slipped off. Caught. He dragged himself up against the wall, clinging by his fingertips. They trembled with the strain. The oil didn’t give him any float at all. Already he was tiring. He couldn’t support himself for long.

Quickly, Nailer slid along the wall, seeking better handholds. If he was lucky, maybe there was a ladder. He reached a bend in the pipe. It turned sharply downward and disappeared into the oil.

Nailer stifled a sob of frustration. He was going to die.

Don’t panic.

If he started crying he was screwed. He needed to think, not bawl like a baby, but already his mind felt drunk and scattered. The fumes were overwhelming. Nailer could see how this would end. He’d hang on for a little longer, inhaling more and more of the poisonous air, clinging like a bug to the wall, but eventually he’d get too tired and high, and he’d slip off.

How could he die in such a stupid way? This wasn’t even a storage tank. Just some room full of pooled waste oil. It was a joke, really. Lucky Strike had found an oil pocket on a ship and bought his way free. Nailer had found one and it was going to kill him.

I’m going to drown in goddamn money.

Nailer almost laughed at the thought. No one knew exactly how much oil Lucky Strike had found and smuggled out. The man had done it slow, over time. Sneaking it out bucket by bucket until he had enough to buy out his indenture and burn off his work tattoos. But he’d had enough left over to set himself up as a labor broker selling slots into the very heavy crews that he’d escaped. Just a little oil had done so much for Lucky Strike, and Nailer was up to his neck in the damn stuff.

“Nailer?”

The voice was faint, far away.

“Sloth!” Nailer’s voice cracked with relief. “I’m here! Down here! I fell through!” He kicked in his excitement and the oil rippled around him.

A bit of green light illuminated the gloom above. Sloth’s scavenge features peered through the duct hole, an LED smear on her forehead.

“Damn. You screwed big-time, Nailer?” she asked.

“Yeah. Big-time screwed.” He grinned weakly.

“Pima sent me in for you.”

“Tell her I need rope.”

A long pause. “Bapi won’t do it.”

“Why?”

Another long silence. “He wants copper. Sent me in for copper. Before the storm comes.”

“Just drop me a rope.”

“Gotta make quota.” Her glow face disappeared. “Pima sent stuff, case I found you. Case you needed help.”

Nailer grimaced. “You see a ladder anywhere?”

Another long pause as they both peered at the gloom with her phosphor green paint lighting. Nothing. No ladders. No doors. Just a rusty room filled with black murk.

“What’s wrong with you?” Sloth asked. “You broke something?”

Nailer shook his head before remembering she probably couldn’t see him well. “I’m swimming in oil. You tell Bapi I’m up to my neck in oil. Thousands of gallons. It’s worth his while to get me out. There’s a lot of oil for him here.”

Another pause.

“Yeah? A lot?”

Nailer realized with a chill that sly Sloth was calculating the advantages.

“Don’t think you can do a Lucky Strike,” he called up.

“Lucky Strike did it,” she responded.

“We’re crew,” Nailer said, trying to keep his voice from showing fear. “You tell Pima there’s oil. You tell her there’s a secret stash. If you don’t, I’ll haunt you like Jackson Boy and come back and gut you while you’re sleeping.”

Silence: Sloth, thinking.

Nailer felt a sudden wash of hatred for her. The skinny starved girl perched up there had all the power in the world to help or kill, to tell Bapi at least that there was something to be gained from Nailer’s survival, and yet there she sat.

He called up. “Sloth?”

“Shut up,” she said. “I’m thinking.”

“We’re crew,” he reminded her. “We swore blood oath.” But he knew the calculations she was making, her clever mind working the angles, sensing the great pool of wealth, the secret stash that she might pillage later, if Fates and the Rust Saint worked in her favor. He wanted to scream at her, to grab her and drag her down. Teach her what it felt like to die sucking oil.

But he couldn’t yell at her. Couldn’t piss her off. He needed her. Needed to convince her to help him survive.

“We’ll keep it secret,” he offered. “We can Lucky Strike together.”

Another pause, then she said, “You said yourself you’re swimming in it. Soon as anyone sees you, they know you found a pocket.”

He grimaced. Too damn smart. That was the problem with girls like Sloth. Too damn smart for his own good. “We’re crew,” he said again, but he suspected it was pointless. He knew her too well. Knew all of them too well. They’d all starved. They’d all talked about what they’d do if they ever found a Lucky Strike. And here Sloth had been given one. Chances like this didn’t just come along. Sloth had to make her gamble. It was her chance.

Please,
he prayed.
Please let her be good like Pima. Like Pima and her mom. Let her not be like Dad. Fates, please don’t let her be like Dad.

Sloth interrupted his whispered prayers. “Pima says I’m supposed to hook you up good. If I find you.”

“You found me.”

“Yeah. That’s for sure.” A rustling. “Here’s food and water.”

A shadow fell through the green glow of her forehead phosphor. It hit with a splash. Nailer could just see pale objects floating on the surface, starting to sink. He stretched for them, trying to keep his hand on the wall. Managed to snag a water bottle before it disappeared. Everything else was already gone. The blackness of the room closed in on him again as Sloth disappeared.

“Thanks for nothing!” he shouted after her, but she was already gone.

He had no idea if Sloth would actually report to Pima or if she’d just hurry back, dragging copper, determined to replace him and think of some way to claim the oil prize all to herself. For certain, she wouldn’t tell Bapi. Bapi would just call it light crew scavenge and keep it for himself.

That meant they had hours more copper work to prepare for the storm… and that meant he had hours to wait, even if Pima knew where he was and that he needed help.

With one slippery hand and his teeth, Nailer managed to open the plastic bottle and drink while he clung to the wall. He swished the first mouthful and spat it out, trying to clear the oil and gunk from his mouth, and then drank, hard and fast, gulping. Grateful. Unaware until the water was pouring into him how thirsty he’d been. He swallowed the rest greedily, then set the bottle floating in the blackness. If he died this would be the last thing of him on the surface.