Watermind (34 page)

“Why we let that man rule us?” he muttered. “Skinny old
deyò.
”

Max reached into the water and heaved at the anchor. Its fins cut his hands. It was stuck. With another extravagant curse, he squatted in the reeking Mississippi foam and heaved with all his weight till the anchor uprooted a hundred-pound block of limestone.

He staggered up and held the anchor against his chest, dripping gouts of slick green algae down the front of his wet blue jeans. Muscles shuddering, he raised the anchor over his head and flung it into the jetboat, which quickly swung into the current and glided downstream. Max lunged for the gunwale and hauled himself aboard. Damn Sacony's orders. He revved up his engine and charged through an inlet into the flooded field.

 

Friday, March 18

4:08
PM

 

The vaporous heat at Manchac Point dulled the hum of insects. Floating duckweed covered the water like a furry green blanket. And beneath that stillness, cacophony raged. Scottish contras clashed with bosanova. Ozark bluegrass infused Spanish flamenco, and Nashville rockabilly dissolved in Cuban cha-cha-chá. Bongos, banjos, sitars, and saxophones, the dissonant rhythms stirred unexpected harmonies and freakish syncopations. Erratic compression
waves assaulted the ears of catfish. Damselflies took wing. Alone with the equipment in the
Chausseur
's galley, Max and CJ sat holding hands.

“What did he tell you to say?” she asked.

Max pulled her close and kissed her. Their skin stuck together where they touched, then parted with a soft tacky whisper. Max grinned at the traces of mud in CJ's hair. The girl never took enough time in the shower. He drew a bandana from his pocket, wetted it in his mouth and dabbed at her dirt-rimmed ear. “Sacony said talk you around so you help catch
djab dile.
Fool man don' know yet, nobody talk Ceegie around anything.”

She closed her eyes and let him clean her ear with his spit. His touch relaxed her, and for a moment at least, she felt safe. Her colloid had not approached the flooded field, but neither had it run away as she'd hoped, despite the horrible barrage of music. Perhaps the rushing river current had carried off the worst of the noise. In any case, the glittering emulsion continued to hug the warm concrete revetment on the far bank.

“And what did Roman threaten if you fail?” She tilted her other ear so he could clean it.

Max smiled and kissed her nose. “He set me free to pursue my music career.”

His dusky face loomed close. Was he handsome? She watched his amber-gold eyes narrow with concentration as he scrubbed a patch of mud in her hairline. His nose seemed larger than she remembered. His breath smelled of chewing gum. Could this be the father of her child?

No. There is no child. No child.

“We'll have to pretend you brought me around.” She squeezed his arm.

“Girl, this job ain' my only hope. You do what your
lespir
say. Only”—he dampened the bandana with his tongue—“maybe that
nomm
right this one time. Two men dead, Ceegie. They
dead
.”

She flinched, but he caught the back of her neck and
steadied her. Gently, he continued cleaning. As he massaged the bandana over her temple, he hummed softly. The new tune he'd composed for Marie still needed more sharpness in the bridge, more
piquant.
Almost unconsciously, he worked at the melody line. CJ closed her eyes and listened.

When he felt her relax, he spoke again. “Sacony remind me of Popa Coon hemmed in by a pack of dogs. He lie, fight nasty, sneak around. I dis the old
deyò.
But he ain' lazy. He got
espíritu.
”

She caught his bandana in her fist and jerked it away. “I can't believe you're siding with him.”

“No sides,
lamie.
” Max bit his lip. The last thing he wanted was to upset her. Every time they met, he could see her deciding whether she still cared for him. Maybe today, that decision would not go in his favor. But there came times when a man had to plunge in. He considered his next words carefully.

“
Djab dile,
he like a wild
éléphant.
Natural and blameless, minding his business, tromping along to the water hole.”

“Yes,” she whispered.

“But he tromping where people live.
Éléphant
and people don' mix. They hurt each other. Tha's natural, too.”

“It doesn't have to be a war.” She pushed back from the table and stood up, knowing he was right and furious that she couldn't change what was “natural.”

Max dreaded the anger in her eyes, but he had to finish what he'd started. “We coming up on Plaquemine. Lotta people live there, and they blameless, too. We got to put
djab dile
in a cage, else somebody get hurt.”

Hot blood mottled her cheeks. “They'll destroy him. You know that.”

“Get you a little piece to keep alive. This might be your las' chance.”

Her fingernails ripped through the bandana in her fist. When she saw what she'd done, she dropped it on the
table. “I know you need money, but I never dreamed you would grovel to Roman Sacony.”

They stared at each other. CJ was the first to drop her eyes. “Tell your bossman you brought me around.”

When she was gone, Max lay his head on the table and gazed sideways out the porthole at the white empty sky.

 

Friday, March 18

5:00
PM

 

News about the Watermind repeated at the bottom of every hour on Channel 17, thanks to Hal Butler. Hal had scooped the story to the local Baton Rouge station in exchange for his brand-new assignment as roving TV reporter. He'd had enough of his windowless office. Print was dead. Blogs were for amateurs. Hal was going mainstream.

He slouched in a deck chair on the station's sleek aluminum pontoon boat and sipped a rum mojito. While his cameraman shot telescopic footage of the ray guns aimed at Manchac Point, he cracked his knuckles, swelled out his chest and watched himself on a small battery-powered TV.

The taped segment showed him interviewing a black man in a Devil Rays cap. His screen was too small to read the text at the bottom, which would have identified the man as Merton Voinché, a recently retired Quimicron employee.

“These secret experiments in Devil's Swamp,” Hal mouthed his own words as his TV mirror image spoke them aloud, “is that where Quimicron invented the Watermind?”

“Man, I signed the disclose pledge. I cain' say nothin' about that evil water.” Merton made bug eyes at the
camera. He was standing outside the Pickle Barrel bar, weaving slightly and showing off for his drinking buddies who crowded behind. “Yeah, all that poison they been dumpin', they done stir up
Baron Samedi
. I cain' tell you about that. They sue my a—” Channel 17 bleeped the last word.

With touching sympathy, Hal asked Merton if Quimicron had threatened him.

“Hell yes.” Merton turned to his friends and laughed, and the camera caught a fuzzy close-up of his ear. “We ain' suppose to speak about how that Mexican boy froze. Or how that water done eat through solid steel. So you just better turn them cameras off. You ain' getting nothing outta my mouth.”

Rapid fade. Hal rubbed his palms together as the scene switched to a new location, the deck of a yacht where Hal stood interviewing the Quimicron CEO. Roman Sacony, in person. Hal salivated at his own gorgeous image standing
mano a mano
with the billionaire. Bold dreams required bold actions. Hal had snuck aboard with a camcorder and caught Sacony unawares.

Sacony didn't try to hide. When Hal's camera closed in for a tight shot, his black eyes didn't even blink. He looked like an aging Latin soccer player. “We think the chemical reaction began spontaneously,” he said, “from an unstable mix of pollutants that washed onto our property from upriver. We detected it quite by chance, and we're assisting the authorities to neutralize it.”

Hal grinned at the shaky footage and thought, You're lying out your blowhole.

“The emulsion is very cold, and it may be corrosive,” Sacony spoke straight into the camera, “so we're advising people to stay away from this area.”

Hal rubbed his damp lips. On screen, his strikingly telegenic image asked another brilliant question, which he silently recited, cherishing each pregnant phrase. “Admit it, Sacony. You invented this water-based artificial intelligence in a joint venture with the CIA. Am I right?”

Sacony's expression was like no smile Hal had ever seen, a tense, almost painful grimace. He shoved the camera away, then covered the lens with his hand.

“Yes!” Hal bounced in his deck chair. “Gotcha, buddy. That's a money shot.”

The segment cut to a floor cleaner ad, and Hal felt ecstatic. Powerful drama! He really had a knack for interviews. His fingers itched for his razor blade, mirror, and coke, but regrettably, he'd left those vital articles behind in Baton Rouge.

 

Friday, March 18

7:56
PM

 

A big round moon floated above the treeline, almost full. A yellow seed moon. Far from the spill of town lights, the moon's face seemed shrewder and more critical than CJ remembered. She could feel its judgmental light burning her cheeks. Alone with the sound equipment aboard the
Chausseur,
she watched LEDs blink red and green. Garbled music radiated from the water, and fury hit her in gusts. The colloid was a miracle, not a beast to be tricked and tortured. She knew she was right, very right. Yet she'd been wrong to Max.

“Forgive me,” she whispered.

But it was too late for apologies. When Max left in his jetboat, she let him go without saying a word. Though all he did was speak the truth. Two people were dead. Two human beings. Alive. Then not alive. Manuel de Silva. The helicopter pilot. The moon seemed to blur and pulse in time with her shifting thoughts. Yes, her child prodigy could be vicious.

Like me
, she thought. And a memory of crimson droplets stained a sea-green wall.

Spotlights flashed along the dark river, and whippoor-wills called across the flooded field. CJ smashed her fist against the gunwale again and again until it ached.

When Dan Meir came shuffling along and saw her huddled against the stern rail, he came at once to her side. “What's the matter, honey? Are you sick?” He patted her shoulder and asked if she needed a drink of water. “I thought you'd want to know,” he said, “the cold spot's moving.”

She sprang to her feet.

On the bridge computer, Dan showed her where the blue blot was oozing downriver, skirting the jetboats. As the slick rounded the bend, Dan, Elaine, and CJ watched the screen in taut silence. When it moved into the main current and accelerated for Plaquemine, CJ rushed out to the deck, but spotlights blinded her view. Far away, the river raced South, and she realized she was the one trapped. Marooned on this luxury yacht, she had no way to follow the colloid.

 

Friday, March 18

8:23
PM

 

On the
Pilgrim,
Roman grabbed the radio mike and called his jetboat pilots. “Aim your generators at the east bank. Wear your gas masks.”

“We haven't checked that area for pedestrians,” Ebbs thundered.

“This wasn't in your permit,” Jarmond said.

Roman pulled at his shirtfront. His heart was thudding out of rhythm. He gripped the radio mike and wheezed, “Fire at will.”

Across the water, CJ saw the boat lights go dark a split
second before she heard the thudding hiss of the pulse. Then the river strobed with fireworks, like giant flashbulbs popping underwater. “They're shooting the EM guns!”

She ran back to the bridge, knocking headlong into Peter, who was just waking from a nap. At the yacht's helm, she flipped toggle switches, trying to start up the engines, but she didn't know how the controls worked.

“We can't move. We're anchored,” Peter said.

“Give me your cell phone.” Without waiting for his answer, she tore his phone from his belt clip and keyed Max's number. Max could come in his jetboat.

Aboard the
Pilgrim,
Roman drew shallow breaths through his gas mask and watched the light show. His chest was still spasming, and he felt faint, but he moved closer to the computer screen where Ebbs and the others were waiting for the next scan. Again and again, the jetboat pilots fired their guns, and the river blinked surreally. Dead fish erupted on the surface.

Kill the
bastardo,
Roman prayed to no God at all, as every fiber of his soul yearned toward those chromatic pixels downloading from space. May it be deleted. Disappeared. Dead.

Seconds trickled by. The screen began to paint. Then, simultaneously, everyone's cell phone rang. They glanced at each other uncertainly as a dozen dissonant ring tones overlapped. Roman touched his ear loop, and the others reached for their cells. But before anyone could answer, the
Pilgrim
rose up like an airplane taking off from a runway.

Out on deck, a crewman wailed, “The
Mesippi
's boiling!”

Roman stumbled outside into a wall of searing stream. For a moment, he was blinded. Then he saw the world turned on its edge. The Coast Guard tender was sliding sideways down a tremendous white swell in the river. He caught dizzy glimpses of volatile froth and panic-stricken
crewmen. Then he realized what had happened. The colloid had released its heat.

Set free all at once, the pent-up heat in the Freon foam had exploded outward, expanding thousands of gallons of river water into a blistering white dome. Roman could only imagine the compression wave that must be ripping up and down the banks.