Apocalyptic Pirates 5, page 4
“You don’t want trouble, but you’ve got guns,” a man standing next to her said. He had the same heavy accent as the woman, and they rolled their r’s in the same way.
“You’ve got spears,” I pointed out. “And you know this isn’t exactly the safest part of the world right now.
“Spears aren’t going to bring those monsters out of the forest,” he sneered.
“I didn’t notice you attempting to keep things at a low volume five seconds ago,” Shannon retorted.
“What do you expect when a horde of intruders burst in here with loaded weapons?” he snapped back.
“Look, please,” I tried to make my voice authoritative while still keeping it under a shout. “We don’t want to cause any difficulty here. We’re just trying to get through the Canal.”
“Sure you are,” the man sneered.
“Shut up, Simon,” the woman snapped at him, and she dropped the tip of her spear down until it touched the ground.
Shannon and I slowly lowered our guns, and after a moment of hesitation, the rest of the group followed suit and lowered their weapons. Simon scowled and muttered something under his breath, but even he sat down on a nearby desk and let his spear hang loosely in his hands.
“Thank you,” I said. “Do you know how we can–”
“Are you the Good Pirates?” the woman interrupted.
I paused and weighed up our options. We hadn’t heard any sound of trouble from outside, and if these guys didn’t have guns, then it seemed like the yacht was safe enough. These people didn’t look like they had the weaponry, numbers, or inclination to storm the yacht and try to capture it. And if they had seen our videos and hated them, I had a feeling they would be trying a lot harder to kill us right now.
I glanced at Shannon. She gave me the tiniest shrug to indicate that this was my call.
“Yeah,” I said finally and looked back at the woman. “We are.”
“Váyala vida.” The woman’s glare vanished, and she stared at us in open-mouthed amazement.
“I take it that’s a good thing?” I guessed.
The woman grabbed Simon’s hand and dragged him back. The whole group retreated to the other side of the room and began a whispered conversation in excited Spanish.
“I hope this is a good thing,” I murmured to Shannon.
“Me, too.” She grimaced. “Those spears look like they’ll be pretty damn effective.”
“We have our knives,” I reminded her. “And there’s plenty of ways to use a gun without actually firing it.”
“I’d rather not have to club my way out of here.” Shannon furrowed her brow in apprehension.
“Me, neither,” I muttered. “But I’d rather do that than see them overpower us and storm the yacht. I’ll go down shooting before I let that happen.”
“I really hope it doesn’t come to that,” Shannon whispered.
“Yeah, let’s keep hoping.” I took a deep breath as the group of people finished their conversation and came toward us again.
The woman in front moved her hand, and I flinched, ready to draw my knife. But instead she stuck out her hand to shake mine.
“I’m Rosa,” she said. “I recognized your voice from the videos.”
“Oh, right, okay.” I shook her hand and found it was warm and tough, and she held my gaze with a steadiness in her dark brown eyes that put me a little more at ease.
She had short, dark brown curls cut in a rough, pageboy haircut that reminded me of a look my mom had rocked a decade ago.
“If you’ve watched our videos, then you know we’re not here for any trouble,” I told her. “We’re just passing through.”
“Yeah, yeah, I get you.” She nodded vehemently. “You’re traveling, right? You need to get through the Canal?”
“Yeah,” I replied. “Can you help us?”
There was some muttering from other members of the group. Some of them looked worried, and others looked anxiously at Rosa and murmured something that I couldn’t catch.
“We don’t want trouble,” Simon said. He wore a faded red bandana around his neck, and his fingernails were chewed down to the quick.
I winced internally at the sight of his ragged, bleeding cuticles. Living out here surrounded by dragons on all sides must be like being on the front line. No wonder he was stressed and hostile.
“There won’t be any trouble.” I tried to make my voice as gentle and unthreatening as I could. “The only reason we came in here with firearms is because we need to get our boat through the locks, and we didn’t know what kind of dangers we’d run into when we got here. The dragons are everywhere, and we’ve seen them make nests in all kinds of places.”
Simon grunted, but he seemed to be a little more convinced by my argument.
“We’ve seen all kinds of boats coming through the Canal,” Rosa explained. “Not all of them are friendly.”
“No, I get that.” I nodded. “We’ve had some narrow escapes ourselves. But I promise you that we’re not here to do anything except make it through the Canal in one piece.”
Rosa half-turned around and looked at the other members of her group. She murmured something quickly in Spanish. After a brief pause, everyone in the group nodded.
“Okay.” Rosa turned back to me. “We’ll help you get through the locks.”
Some of the tension left my shoulders, and relief sighed through my body.
“Thank you,” I said with a warm smile. “We really appreciate you helping us out.”
“Hey, it’s no worries.” Rosa shrugged as she returned my smile. “We all used to work here, so we’re just doing our jobs.”
“Still,” I insisted. “Thank you.”
“Yeah, thank you,” Shannon echoed.
“Let’s get you started then, hey?” Rosa went to one of the monitors and tapped some buttons on the keyboard.
I went to stand behind her so I could look over her shoulder. I’d hoped that maybe if I watched her close enough, I could figure out how to work the system, and we would be set up for the rest of the locks on the Canal.
But from the way Rosa’s fingers flew over the keyboard and expertly tapped in key combinations, I wasn’t sure that was going to be possible.
Rosa looked over her shoulder and saw me watching her.
“You know,” she said. “These aren’t the only locks in the Canal. There are the Miraflores Locks at the other end that you’ll have to pass through.”
“Yeah, I was trying to research about them online.” I rubbed the back of my neck and sighed. “I’ve got to say, I’m not looking forward to that. Do you know if there are any more people like you at the Miraflores Locks? Former workers who got left behind and who could help us through?”
“Sure.” Rosa nodded, and my heart leaped. “We’ve been trying to keep in regular contact with the other lock control houses, and as far as I know, there are still workers at every station. They’re in a similar position to us here.”
“Do you think they’ll be willing to help us get through the locks when we reach them?” I asked hopefully.
“Sure.” Rosa nodded again. “I’ll radio through to them and let them know to look out for you.”
“Thank you,” I said. “That’s going to help us out so much.”
“You’re welcome.” Rosa flashed me a grin. “Can’t have the Good Pirates running aground, can we?”
She tapped in a few more key commands, and then she glanced up at the group who were waiting by the door.
“Simon?” she said. “Can you take the guys back to their boat and help them through? It’s all set to begin. You got your radio?”
Simon nodded, patted the walkie-talkie hanging from his belt, and gestured for us to follow him.
“Thank you,” Shannon called again to Rosa as we followed the worker out of the room.
Simon clumped down the metal stairs and led us out of the control house. Even though the air conditioning hadn’t been working inside, its thick walls had managed to keep the control house relatively cool, and going back outside was like walking into an oven.
“Phew.” Shannon wiped her forehead with the back of her hand. “I really feel like I’m in the jungle now.”
Simon said nothing in response and just walked on ahead of us back the way we’d come.
Shannon raised her eyebrows at his back, and I shrugged before jogging to catch up with him.
“You guys used to work here, then?” I asked as I reached Simon’s side and lengthened my stride to match his.
“Yeah,” he grunted. “Got cut off here when the meteorites landed. Tons of them fell here, and the dragons hatched and made themselves homes in the jungle almost at once. So we never had a chance to leave.”
“That must have been tough,” I said. “Do you have family on the outside?”
“Why?” Simon’s head snapped around, and he looked at me with a fierce expression on his face. “Why do you want to know about that?”
“Just that I know that must be hard.” I kept my voice as even as possible. “My family is in Hawaii. That’s where we’re heading. We’re making good progress, but it’s really hard not being able to see my daughter. So I just mean to say that I get it.”
Simon was silent for a moment. He trudged on with his head lowered, and I didn’t think he was going to say anything in response. But then he spoke in a low voice.
“I have a son. In the city.” He jerked his head toward the shore, and I guessed he must mean Panama City. “He’s supposed to be with my cousin, but I don’t know for sure.”
“I’m sorry,” I told him, and I hoped that he heard the sincerity in my voice. “That must be very hard.”
“Yeah.” He walked on for a few more steps, and then he said in a low voice, “It hurts my heart not being able to see him.”
“It’s like a physical pain,” I agreed. “It’s kind of like having a toothache where you’re always conscious of it, and if you ever manage to forget it for one second, it just slams back into you and it’s even more painful than it was before.”
“Yeah, you got it, alright.” The muscles in Simon’s jaw jumped.
“What’s your son’s name?” I asked.
“Pedro,” he replied after a long pause.
“My daughter is Sam,” I said. “Samantha.”
“Hm.” He grunted.
We were almost at the yacht by now, and then I heard Dia’s voice call my name.
“Drew!” She leaned over the rail and waved to me. Ally and Letty popped up beside her.
“We’re all good,” I called up to them. “We found some people who are going to help us through the lock. This is Simon. He’s going to guide us.”
Simon was staring up at the three women with a slightly shell-shocked look on his face. He looked back at Shannon, and then at me, and he raised his eyebrows in wonderment.
“I know,” I told him.
“What?” Shannon asked. “What do you know?”
“Nothing,” I said with a smile. “Let’s get on board.”
Simon, Shannon, and I all climbed on deck, and Simon took a quick step back as Ally, Letty, and Dia enveloped me and Shannon in a group hug.
“Hey, calm down,” I said with a chuckle. “We haven’t been gone that long.”
“Ally was worried you’d been eaten by a crocodile,” Dia said.
“I was not!” the redhead protested. “You thought they’d been shot by a Mad Max biker gang.”
“I was sure you were both safe,” Letty said, but the tight grip of her embrace hinted otherwise.
“We are both safe,” I assured her. “And we’ve got our passage through the locks sorted. We found some of the employees who used to work here, and they’re back in the control house where they can work the locks.”
“Oh, perfect!” Ally said.
Simon was already heading into the cockpit, and Ally and I followed him. I’d thought he might need a second to familiarize himself with the setup, but Simon seemed right at home with the yacht’s controls. He flipped a few switches, pulled in the sail, hauled up the anchor, and started the engine all with a few presses of the buttons.
“You know your way around the controls,” Ally commented admiringly, and she leaned forward to peer out of the cockpit window. The angle did wonderful things for her cleavage, and I don’t think she realized just how powerful the glimpse of creamy white breasts straining against her black bra was for a guy.
“Yeah.” Simon glanced at her for a moment before turning quickly back to the controls. A faint red flush crept up the back of his neck, and I took pity on him.
“Ally,” I said, “I was thinking we could see if these guys want to trade anything. Can you go with the others and see what our supply levels are like?”
“Sure,” she replied, and hurried out of the cockpit.
Simon was gripping the ship’s wheel in a death grip, but he slowly released his hold, and to my surprise he actually gave a faint chuckle.
“The pirate’s life, huh?” he said. “Sailing on a beautiful boat surrounded by beautiful women.”
“Yeah,” I agreed with a grin. “If it wasn’t for all the dragons, this would be a pretty sweet setup.”
“Shit, fren, even with the dragons, you’ve got a good thing here.” Simon half-smiled to himself. “I don’t mean just that they’re beautiful. They were really happy to see you come back to them.”
“Yeah, they were.” I smiled with the warm, peaceful feeling that thinking about that always awoke inside me. “We love each other.”
“It’s nice to see.” He nodded slowly before pressing a button on his radio and saying something in Spanish.
It crackled, and Rosa’s response came through the other end.
“Here we go,” Simon said and pushed a button on the controls.
It was an odd experience going through the lock. It really was like going up in an elevator as we would chug forward and wait while the lock doors closed behind us and the chamber filled up with water. As the water levels rose, so did the yacht, which meant we were then able to enter the next chamber, where the process was repeated all over again.
When we left the final chamber, we came out into a large open stretch of water that stretched away into the horizon.
“That’s Gatun Lake,” Simon said. “You have to cross this to reach the next channel on the other side.”
“I’ve seen it on maps,” I said. “I tried to do as much research as I could on the Canal before we got here, but the internet has been shoddy, so I didn’t manage to go as in-depth as I would have liked.”
“You have a smartphone?” he asked in surprise.
“Yeah,” I replied. “The service is patchy pretty much all the time, but it’s good in a pinch.”
“Some of us still have our phones, but we don’t have any chargers.” Simon gave a wry chuckle. “That gets pretty frustrating. I never remembered to bring my charger to work with me.”
“We can give you a boost from our yacht chargers if we have something that’ll work for your specific phones,” I suggested. “We’d like to say thank you for helping us through the locks.”
“Thank you.” Simon’s face lit up, and I knew he must be thinking about trying to contact his cousin to ask about his son.
I made a mental note to ask Ally if we had a phone charger left over in the electronic devices we’d taken from the last hotel we’d raided so we could check if it was a match.
“So what’s the rest of the Canal like?” I nodded toward the view. “Do you know what we should be looking out for in Gatun Lake?”
“You should be okay crossing the lake,” he replied. “If you stay away from the shore, you should be able to avoid most of the dangers. But when you reach the next channel, the passageway narrows a lot, and that’s where you’ll be vulnerable.”
“We had a crocodile attack our yacht earlier,” I said. “Should we expect more of that?”
“Oh, yeah.” Simon exhaled slowly. “You need to watch out for them. Before the dragons, the crocodiles were the top predators around here, but now they’re having to share, and it’s making them even more dangerous than they were before.”
“The crocodile that attacked our boat had some pretty big wounds that looked like they’d happened recently,” I said. “I wondered if it had been trying to fight the dragons for territory.”
“Could be.” He grimaced. “I haven’t seen that happening, but I won’t be surprised if it is. All the animals are desperate. They’re either getting hunted by the dragons, or they’re running out of food because the dragons are eating everything. Apart from snakes. There are snakes all over the place now. I guess the dragons don’t like to eat them.”
“Great.” I pulled a face. “The one thing the dragons would have been useful for.”
“Snakes will keep the mice down.” He shrugged. “Trust me, you don’t want a plague of mice and rats on top of everything else.”
“No, I guess not,” I admitted, although privately I wasn’t sure Ally would agree with that.
“Watch out for the cats, too,” Simon warned. “Jaguars, cougars. They’re getting hungry and desperate just like the crocodiles.”
“Great.” I sighed. “As if the dragons weren’t enough.”
“Hey.” Simon lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “If the cats and crocs get hungry enough, they might start to take down the dragons on a bigger scale. And that would be something to see.”
“I guess so.” I sighed. “Well, anyway, thanks for the heads-up.”
“No problem.” Simon spoke a few words into his radio, and then he stood up from the controls. “Rosa is waiting for us on shore.”
“Okay.” I nodded, and we went out onto the deck.
The women were already assembled there, and they had a little pile of items on deck.
“Hey,” Shannon greeted us.
“We’ve been going through everything we have that we can trade,” Ally said and gestured to the mound of items before her.
“Great,” I replied. “Simon said Rosa is waiting for us, so I thought we’d invite her and the others on deck so they can have a look at what we’ve got.”
“Sure.” Ally nodded.
