"So you're going?"

  "I'm going."

  "I'll come," 2Face said angrily.

  "Listen, if you don't want to –"

  "I'm coming!"

  "Fine. Whatever."

  Jobs felt a little better as he led the way up the wet rope ladder, struggling to keep his footing as the swells tossed the ship. He couldn't think about Mo'Steel's death when he was fighting to prevent his own.

  The first platform was the size of a living room and featured a wooden deck. Shy Hwang, who could cite all sorts of statistics about the ship once called the Constitution, had told Jobs this was called a fighting top.

  Breathless, Jobs paused. This was his first climb into the rigging. From the deck, the height had looked terrifying. The reality was much, much worse. Jobs would have liked to sit and break down into great blubbering sobs, but he simply didn't have the time.

  Jobs helped pull Tate up beside him. The deck was already more than a hundred feet below them.

  "Keep going," Tate said. "If I stop now, I may never go any farther."

  Tate had spent her time on the Constitution doing what she could to help belowdecks. Jobs knew she was scared. But he also knew he needed all the help he could get with the mast.

  "Okay Just try not to look down." Jobs started up toward the next platform. He kept his eyes on the ladder, doing his best to ignore their exaggerated side-to-side motion.

  What if Tate or one of the others fell climbing up here? It would be Jobs's fault. What if Edward fell?

  Don't think about that. Jobs told himself. Just don't.

  He moved up the ladder, carefully avoiding the spots where Blue Meanie fire had torn holes.

  Hand. Hand.

  Foot. Foot.

  Up and up.

  And side to side to side. The higher they climbed, the more exaggerated the movement of the ship below them. They were climbing toward the end of the pendulum.

  At the extreme edge of each roll, the deck below them disappeared and they hung out over the open ocean. Jobs imagined himself falling through the air and hitting the water. From this height, it would be as solid and bone-crushing as concrete.

  It was dizzying, terrifying.

  Jobs felt his shoulders tightening, knees weakening, heart pounding against his ribs. He had only one thought in his mind: Mo'Steel would have loved this.

  CHAPTER 3

  "ONE, TWO, THREE – PULL!"

  Jobs stood on the swaying upper fighting top and examined the mast construction. Or tried to. He acted by the height, by the ship's movement. It was hard to see in the moonlight. And the Blue Meanie fire had shredded some of the old pine masts.

  Still, he was impressed.

  Almost impressed enough to forget his fear.

  This ship had been an exact replica of the one constructed before there were computers, hydraulic lifts, wind tunnels, or power tools. She'd been put together by a bunch of guys with saws and hammers and handmade nails.

  And she was beautiful.

  Jobs loved the simplicity of her construction. It was as elegant as an algebraic formula. So solid, so obvious, so straightforward. One good look enough to tell him how it was built and why.

  The mast sections overlapped for a good eight or ten feet. The lower section dead-ended into a wooden cap piece shaped like a squarish cough drop. The cap piece was approximately three feet square and supported the upper mast.

  One by one, the others gathered until the platform was crowded. Everyone was clinging to the mast, the rope ladder, or one another and talking about how they could lift the mast – if they could do it.

  "Can you see how it's put together?" 2Face called.

  "The lower piece is jointed into this cap piece," Jobs said. "That's not going to move. I need to get higher to see how the top mast fits in."

  Jobs climbed a few more feet up the rope ladder and looked down through the mess of rigging.

  The upper mast sat In a round hole in the cap piece. It was held in place by a roller, cleats, nails, copper sheathing, and who knows what else. Their first job would be removing all that stuff. Then they were going to have to hoist the whole mast up the entire length of the doubling, attach ropes, and lower it to the deck without ruining the rigging. And they'd have to do it while the ship continued to roll wildly. The job required a lot of muscle power. And brains.

  Woolly.

  Shy Hwang said this ship had carried a crew of hundreds of men. Maybe hoisting the mast wouldn't have been too hard with twenty or thirty hands. Jobs had six.

  Definitely woolly.

  Ignoring his misgivings, Jobs got busy with the pliers, pulling out dozens of nails, cleats, and sheathing until the mast seemed to be loose in the cap. Tate helped him.

  When they were finished, Jobs explained his plan to the others: Attach ropes to the upper mast section near the cap piece, get up above the mast on the rope ladder, and pull it up. Then retie the rope for better balance and lower the mast to the deck.

  Nobody else had a better idea, so Jobs secured the rope and tossed one end to 2Face. "2Face, DCaf, and Anamull, take this and climb the starboard ladder Don't pull until I tell you."

  "No," 2Face said.

  "What do you mean no?" Jobs asked.

  "I mean I'm not working with Yago's killers."

  "I'm not a killer," Anamull said with a leer. "I'm a lover."

  "You tried to feed me to the baby," 2Face said. "I'm not working with you."

  "Tell you what," Jobs said. "Roger Dodger, why don't you work with D-Caf and Anamull? 2Face, you're with me, Tate, and Edward. Wait for my signal!"

  They got into place. Jobs was farthest up on the ladder with 2Face and Edward in the middle and Tate closest to the platform.

  "Everyone ready?" Jobs called. He couldn't see Anamull, Roger Dodger, and D-Caf from his position.

  "Ready!"

  "We go on three!"

  Jobs waited until the ship reached a more or less vertical position. "One, two, three — pull!" he yelled.

  Grasping the rope with one hand. Jobs pulled with the other His grip on the rope slipped, snagging his skin, rubbing his hand raw. The mast didn't budge.

  "Maybe we left a nail in there!" Tate yelled.

  "I don't think so," Jobs yelled.

  Another swell was rolling the ship toward port.

  "Wait!" 2Face yelled."Hold on until we get back on the vertical!"

  Jobs clung to the rope ladder and watched the water grow closer and closer. If he'd wanted to, he could have reached out and touched it. Then, slowly, the ship began to right itself.

  "Everyone still here?" Jobs called. "Okay, three, two, one — pull!"

  This time. Jobs balanced with his feet and pulled with both hands. He gave it everything he had. His shoulder muscles strained and he felt something pop in his neck. He could hear 2Face and Tate grunting, with effort.

  Nothing.

  Nothing.

  Nothing — and then a high-pitched squeal and the mast lurched free.

  "All right!" Jobs yelled.

  But now they were rolling toward starboard. Rolling and rolling and rolling.

  "Hold on!" someone cried.

  Jobs saw the danger too late. With the mast section loose, swinging free, nothing was supporting it except the rope they were holding. The more the ship rolled, the more weight they had to support.

  "I — I can't hold it!" Roger Dodger yelled.

  "It's okay kid, I got it!" Anamull yelled.

  Another worry fought its way into Jobs's panicky brain. The free mast's weight was pulling them even farther to the starboard. The added weight just might be enough to upset the delicate balance that kept the entire ship from tipping over Basic physics.

  "Drop it!" Jobs yelled, immediately letting the rope slip out of his fingers."Drop it, drop it, drop it! Now!"

  The mast fell toward the water, their rope trailing after it. It hit the water without making a splash and sunk immediately.

  Jobs clung to the ladder and watched as the water moved farther away He was bathed in a cold sweat.

  "Gee," 2Face said."I'm glad we did that. That was really fun, wasn't it?"

  CHAPTER 4

  "THE MOST WE CAN DO IS OFFER A PRAYER."

  Mo'Steel got up and started to yell. "Hello! Help! Whoever is out there, let us out of here!"

  Billy Weir did not move. He could wait.

  Billy felt dizzy, drunk with the sights and sounds flooding into his mind and with the reactions of his body — skin breaking out in a sweat and then cooling, heart beating faster and then more slowly, mind fitting from thought to thought like a kaleidoscope. Everything happening quickly, everything flowing together. No time to think, no time to sort real from unreal.

  "Hang on!" came a voice from outside. An adult man, Billy thought, Not an American. His voice had too much music in it. "We're going to get you out."

  The door opened off to one side and light flooded in.

  Billy stayed in the shadows.

  Mo'Steel leaped out of the door and then took a fast step back. "Whoa!" he said, shaking his head in surprise.

  Two people were at the door. A man. And another person, an extraordinary person. A person who looked like an illustration from Billy's Encyclopedia Britannica.

  Billy remembered sitting on the floor of Big Bill and Jessica's bedroom and discovering the illustrations of MAN and WOMAN in the heavy, leather-bound p-book dating back to Jessica's own childhood.

  The figures were covered with layers of transparent pages. Turn the first filmy page and you removed MAN's skin and exposed all that was underneath.

  This person standing before Billy looked like that illustration brought to life. Wherever his clothes left his flesh visible, his skin was transparent. Arms, neck, face, scalp.

  Billy saw the muscles in the monster's face tighten as he narrowed his eyes. Billy examined the veins running over and under the muscles like tree roots, the packets of yellowish fat in the monster's cheeks, the smooth grayish muscles sweeping from his forehead up over his scalp, the vulnerable pulsing of his fat jugular vein.

  This monster had never appeared in any of his dreams.

  Unless this was a dream.

  He had seen things during the war in Chechnya. Dead soldiers, Chechen and Russian both. Shattered bleached white bones. Raw hamburger flesh. But nothing like this.

  The monster saw Billy staring and gave him a hard look. His eyes were the green of late summer leaves. Burning. Undeniably human.

  "I am Alberto DiSalvo and this — this is my son, Frederico." The man's voice was twisted with emotion. Not a good one. Pain? Fear?

  "Kubrick." the monster said angrily.

  "Hey, I remember you!" Mo'Steel said. He was talking to the man, but his eyes were drawn back to the monster over and over like a moth flitting toward a light. "I'm Mo'Steel. Remember? You were hitting the snooze button right around the time the worms showed up."

  "I — I think I remember seeing you," Alberto said."Then, then, we must have fallen asleep. When I woke up, we were in some sort of, um, laboratory."

  Billy felt a shudder. Not in his body — in someone's mind. He caught a flash of something that could have been Alberto's memory or Kubrick's or both mixed. Nausea, a dusty machine cutting Kubrick's skin off in ridiculous small patches, anger, a sense of satisfaction.

  Yes, Kubrick savored his father's anguish. His father had always treated him as if he were damaged — and now he was.

  Or not.

  Billy couldn't be sure. Couldn't tell if he was making this up, telling himself fairy tales.

  He watched Alberto pull Mo'Steel a few feet away. "We have to find whoever or whatever did this to my son," he whispered."Can you help us?"

  "I thought you'd never ask," Mo'Steel said. "Let's go. Come on, Billy."

  "What about Wylson?" Billy asked, speaking for the first time.

  "Who's Wylson?" Alberto asked.

  "A woman," Mo'Steel said. "One of us. She — she just died. Is there any place down here we could leave her? Maybe bury her?"

  "No." Alberto stepped forward into the darkened room while his son hung back. He knelt down next to Wylson, took her pulse, and then pursed his lips. "Yes, she's dead. But we can't bury her. There isn't a proper place. The most we can do is offer a prayer."

  Alberto stayed where he was, eyes closed, head bowed. Billy remembered the way he, Jessica, and Big Bill used to join hands and give thanks before meals in their huge tiled kitchen.

  Billy felt a wave of sadness. The same sadness that had been with him for as long as he could remember.

  Wylson was gone.

  He'd thought he could save her.

  CHAPTER 5

  "GIVE THAT BOY THE CANNED HAM!"

  Mo'Steel stepped away from the small room that had been his prison and did a slow 360-degree turn. He felt as if he were standing in the middle of Kansas. The space was vast.

  Alberto and Kubrick were watching him closely, gauging his reaction. Billy hung back, either uneasy about stepping into the open or just lost in his own thoughts.

  Here and there, Mo'Steel saw a massive metal I-beam column, but no walls were visible in any direction. The floor seemed to be made of metal covered with a gray-green coating like paint. The floor reminded Mo'Steel of a submarine hull. But the ceiling was the interesting thing. "If Guinness has a record for the universe's largest fish tank, this place has got to be in the book," Mo'Steel said.

  "It's made of a substance similar to glass, only more perfectly transparent," Alberto said.

  Mo'Steel stared up. The place reminded him of the Monterey Aquarium. He kept expecting a horn shark or a garibaldi to swim by overhead.

  Not likely. Mo'Steel felt a strange pang as he remembered that Earth and all of the little fishies in its oceans were history. He wasn't about to get weepy over a bunch of flora and fauna, but he couldn't quite get used to the idea that Earth was totally and completely gone.

  Mo'Steel noticed what looked like a block of white marble resting against the glass. He took a few steps in one direction and peered up at it, trying for a better view. "Look at that!" he said. "Billy? Is that what I think it is?"

  "The base of a statue."

  "Give that boy the canned ham! Look — there's another one over there," Mo'Steel said, pointing.

  "So?" Alberto asked impatiently.

  "So — we were up there, man! So were you, when you woke up on the ship. That's the ocean where we were sailing around in the Constitution. Those are the bases of the statues we were sailing around. I think we might be under The Thinker right now."

  "The Constitution?" Alberto asked.

  "Yes," Mo'Steel said, reminding himself that Kubrick and Alberto knew nothing of the weird environments they'd experienced and trying to slow down enough to bring them up to speed. Skipping many, many details, he told them about the Tower of Babel and the revolutionary warships the computer had created. "We're looking up at the world as we've known it," Mo'Steel finished.

  "We're in hell," Kubrick said.

  "No, we're in the basement," Mo'Steel said.

  The place had a definite basement vibe. It was slightly musty, as if it hadn't been visited in a long, long time. It even gave him the run-up-the-stairs-to-safety basement creepies. Not so squirmy he couldn't handle it, but not good, either

  "I bet there's a wet bar and a pool table around here somewhere," Mo'Steel said."Let's go check out one of those columns. Maybe we can find the stairs to the kitchen."

  "You can't just go marching around down here," Alberto said harshly.

  Mo'Steel sighed. Alberto was the kind of adult who was always ruining his fun. He looked like a panic attack waiting to happen. Eyes too jumpy, nerves too fried.

  "Don't worry, I promise to be careful," Mo'Steel said. He headed toward the closest column, but Billy caught his hand. "That one," he said, pointing off to their right.

  Mo'Steel didn't argue. Not with Billy. The dude had powers, freaky powers, and if he liked one column better than another, then fine.

  Billy and Mo'Steel led the way. Alberto and Kubrick followed closely behind — so close Mo'Steel had the uncomfortable feeling they were going to step on the heels of his shoes.

  Mo'Steel could guess what that meant. They were scared to walk across the open floor. They somehow knew or guessed that the floor was booby-trapped as thoroughly as a rice paddy in Cambodia or someplace. Mo'Steel pulled Billy into line behind him and continued.

 

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