After putting on her taped-up helmet, she returned to the back hatch, stopping first to check on the monkey, who was snoring peacefully.
Ada slung her backpack and opened the hatch. Wind and rain blasted her, and she quickly closed it behind her.
A torrent of electricity flashed through the clouds. The strikes lit up more than just the boat; they showed her a storm front that appeared as a wall of clouds rolling over the water. Cloud towers that looked almost like scrapers rose out of the mass, moving as if they were a floating city. From what she could tell, the boat was heading right for it, or rather, the mass was heading right for the boat.
Grabbing her backpack, she crouched near a hatch. Rain pummeled her as she twisted the screwdriver. Another wave crashed into the hull, splashing her with water. Thunder boomed, rattling the twin hulls.
With the hatch open, she shined her flashlight into the battery compartment. A thick, powdery rime of corrosion blossomed up from both the battery’s poles. Her heart sank. This could be a lost cause.
Still, she had to try.
In the pause between thunderclaps, in the whistling wind she heard a familiar crying sound, followed by pounding on metal. Jo-Jo was awake again, alone, and probably scared to death.
Ada worked faster, scrabbling in the tool kit for the wrench to fit the battery clamps. The battery was old, and while some of them had a theoretically infinite life span, its connections hadn’t been cleaned in a century or more.
Her gut told her the sky people needed her.
She wasn’t sure why she felt so strong about this. It felt almost like a sixth sense. It was no mistake that she found the note from X when she did. Her heart told her the king needed someone like her, who could make tough choices to save their people.
Holding two screwdrivers by their insulated grips, she placed the tip of each on a battery pole and bumped the shafts together. She was rewarded with a pop and a spark.
Her spirits lifted instantly. The old storage cell still had some juice. If she could clean the poles and cable clamps, she just might be able to get some of that juice to the GPS monitor. What she needed now was something alkaline to clean them with.
When she returned to the cabin, the baby monkey jumped onto her, latching around her waist. It held on as she moved over to the little refrigerator. Praying that it had what she needed, she opened the door and groaned. The shelves inside were bare.
As she swung the door shut, something caught her eye. Opening the door again, she reached to the back of the bottom shelf and pulled out a small yellowish cardboard box.
Yes! She had heard about this old-world trick of keeping an open box of baking soda in the fridge.
Putting a few ounces of water in a pan, she dumped half the box in and stirred it with a wooden spoon. Then, grabbing a dishrag from the counter, she calmed Jo-Jo and went outside again. She must get this done before the storm arrived.
Soon, she had loosened the nut on each battery clamp and got the cables free. Then she wet the dishrag with the baking soda–water slurry in the pan and rubbed both clamps and both poles of the battery. They fizzed and foamed, and when she wiped them off, they were gleaming and free of corrosion. She reconnected the cables and tightened down the clamps, then closed the battery compartment and went back inside.
With bated breath, she flipped the toggle switch powering the GPS monitor . . .
Ada let out a whoop so loud, Jo-Jo started whimpering again. There on the monitor was a map of the Caribbean.
After soothing the nervous monkey, she brought up her current location. They were way off course, sailing south when they should be going east. Then she typed in the direction she wanted to go, and the destination—what had been the British Virgin Islands.
The monitor on the control panel brought up a map that showed a line through the water. Not a line—a road to the Vanguard Islands. Again, she thanked all the gods that the machines hadn’t been able to shoot down the solar-powered positioning satellites, without which she would be forever lost on a dark ocean.
Ada held both fists in the air and gave a slightly more subdued whoop this time. The monkey just looked up at her.
“We’re headed home, Jo-Jo!” she said. “And I think you’re going to love it there.”
Magnolia had revenge on her mind, and a light hangover from last night’s celebration of Michael and Layla. The wine had helped numb the pain of her burns but combining it with the medicine was a bad idea.
At least she could hear better. The nanotech gel was a miracle drug, even if it made her sick after a few carafes of wine. The burns were already healing nicely.
She forced herself out of bed and into the kitchen, where she brewed a cup of Cazador coffee. A gust of cool air blew through the window as she pushed the shutters open.
The warmth of the sun on her face helped her feel a little better.
That was good. Today was not a good day to be in pain. She had a hundred things to do before they departed on their mission to find and destroy the skinwalkers and the machines.
She sipped a steaming mug of coffee at the open window as the sun rose. The shimmering orange ball continued to amaze her every time she woke to watch it rise. It was hard to imagine that the entire world had once witnessed this magic every day. Somehow, she was one of the very few privileged to see it now.
And that was why she couldn’t stop fighting.
“Mags,” Rodger mumbled.
He sat up in her bed, a hand to his head.
“I can’t find my glasses,” he said. “Do you know where…”
He stood and staggered.
“Gah… I don’t feel so good.”
“You drank too much,” she said. “We both did.”
“And I ate too much.” His hand went to his belly. Then he looked at her, squinting without his glasses. Realization crossed his face, and his eyes went wide.
“Did we…” He looked down at the crinkled sheets.
Magnolia just smiled.
“Oh, my, my,” he mumbled to himself. His eyes flitted back to hers. “We finally…”
She burst out laughing.
Rodger stared for a moment, then felt about in the sheets until he found his glasses. He put them on and straightened his back, looking like a schoolchild with an important question.
“Was it…”
“It was great, Rodgeman,” she said. “You’re more agile than you look, that’s for sure.”
A grin broke across his face.
“I… I remember… most of it,” he said.
She let his imagination run, but she wasn’t about to give him a round two. They had much to do today.
“Here,” she said, handing him the cup. “Drink up and get your clothes on. We need to get to the marina.”
As he dressed, the solemn look returned. Their lovemaking hadn’t helped his aching heart, but she had at least gotten him to smile and forget about revenge for a while.
Twenty minutes later Magnolia tossed Rodger an apple, and they took the elevator cage down to the already bustling docks. Cazadores and sky people worked together loading boats that ferried supplies to Renegade and Shadow, anchored in the distance.
She still hadn’t talked to X about where she and Rodger were going, but she had a feeling the king would want her in the air. As much as she wanted to finish off Carmela Moreto, she would do what was for the greater good.
They would find out soon.
X stood at the end of the pier with Ton and Victor. Miles crouched at his side, barking at the water. The dog turned when Magnolia and Rodger approached.