The Storm

“Awfully sorry,” Nigel replied. “Wish I could help, but I took the engine apart.”

“What?” Kurt shouted, overhearing.

“Why?” Joe asked.

“Kurt told me to make it look good. The cowling off, a few parts on the ground, and a befuddled look on my face seemed the best way to me.”

“I didn’t need him to make it look that good,” Kurt mumbled.

“So much for that plan,” Joe said.

All they could do now was a little bump and run with the plane, hoping to damage it or flip it without getting themselves killed in the process.

The Donzi zipped through the gap in the breakwater. The seaplane was two hundred yards ahead, turning downwind to line up for its take-off run.

Kurt held the throttle all the way forward and slashed in front of the seaplane. The pilot turned away instinctively but the aircraft remained upright.

Kurt wheeled around to port and came back. The plane was accelerating now. Kurt charged toward it, riding in its wake.

“Come on,” Kurt said, coaxing every last bit of speed out of the boat.

Skipping across the waves, he pulled out to the left, passed the plane, and then cut in front of it again.

Joe ducked and shouted a warning. The plane leapt off the water, its metal prop roaring past and the pontoon rudders clipping part of the boat as it leapfrogged them and came back down.

Kurt looked up. “Glad to see no one lost their head.”

“Let’s not try that again,” Joe said. “I have no desire to find out what a margarita feels like inside the blender.”

Kurt had actually expected the plane to turn, not leap over them. But the effort had done them some good. The plane had landed awkwardly, and the pilot had slowed it down to stabilize it. When the plane began accelerating away again, it was headed in a bad direction.

“They’re headed downwind,” Joe said. “It’ll be a lot harder for them to take off with a tailwind than heading into this breeze.”

“Harder but not impossible,” Kurt replied. He guided the speedboat with an expert touch, sweeping back in behind the plane, dropping into the trough of the wake and ramming one of the pontoons. The plane lurched and twisted as the pilot fought for control, but it was quickly back on track.

“Look out!” Joe shouted.

A spread of bullets punched a line of holes in the prow of their boat as one of the fugitives unloaded the contents of a submachine gun in their general direction. Kurt and Joe were forced to turn away, and the plane slowed and turned, pointing itself into the wind once again.

In the maintenance room, Leilani stared at the army of machines, watching in horror as they stood up and began moving forward. Three of the things attacking down below had been enough to scare her, but fifty of them was an absolute nightmare. Anger flashed through her mind, along with the distinct impression that she’d gotten more than she had bargained for.

“Do something!” she shouted to Marchetti.

“I’m trying,” Marchetti said. “Tricky little man, that Otero. If I’d have known he was this smart, I’d have paid him more.”

Leilani looked around for help. All she saw were the machines and a bank of lockers.

“What’s in the lockers?”

“Work uniforms.”

“With IDs?”

“Yes,” Marchetti said excitedly. “Exactly. Yes, go!”

Leilani raced across the floor, slid under the swinging arm of one of the robots and slammed into the lockers like a baseball player stealing home. She popped up, threw one locker door open and yanked out a work uniform. A white ID badge came with it, and she held it tight.

The approaching machines stopped and turned away from her, and then all of them zeroed in on Marchetti, who was pounding the keyboard to no avail.

“I can’t break the code!” he shouted. The machines were on him now, one of them knocked him to the ground. Another brought a powered screwdriver down toward him, the Phillips head bit spi

Leilani ran forward, pushed through the machines, and dove on top of Marchetti. Hugging him tight, she hoped the robots would see their combined heat source as one person and read the ID tag at the same time.

The drill bit spun and whined. She gripped Marchetti and closed her eyes.

Suddenly, the noise ceased. The screwdriver wound down and retracted. The other robot released Marchetti, and the small army of machines began to move away, looking for some other victim.

She watched them go, still holding Marchetti down.

As the machines filed out of the maintenance building, she looked down at him, her eyes hard and cold. She needed him to understand something.

“You owe me,” she said.

He nodded, and she eased off him. Neither of them took their eyes off the door.

A HALF MILE from the floating island, Kurt and Joe were taking direct fire from the seaplane. It was angling around, heading back downwind and accelerating. When it surged forward, Kurt dropped in behind it once again.

“Now or never, Joe.”

“I have an idea,” Joe said. He climbed forward onto the bow, grabbing the anchor.

“A friend of mine in Colorado taught me how to rope,” he shouted. He began whirling the twenty-pound anchor on its cord like a one-sided bolo.

Kurt guessed at his intentions and firewalled the throttle one last time. They began closing the gap. The gunfire returned, but Kurt swung the boat to the pilot’s side and ran it up under the seaplane.

Joe spun and released the anchor like an Olympic hammer thrower just as the plane came off the water. It flew forward and wrapped around the pontoon struts and pulled taut.

The plane’s nose came up, yanking the front end of the speedboat out of the water. The weight and drag were too much. The left wing dropped, hit the water, and the seaplane tumbled in a cartwheel, shedding pieces in all directions.

The speedboat was yanked sideways, the anchor cleat ripped free, but Kurt managed to keep the boat from flipping. He turned to port, backed off the throttle and wheeled around to see the carnage behind them.

The seaplane had come to rest with one pontoon missing, its wings bent and folded and part of the tail ripped off. It was being swamped by the water pouring in and looked to be going down.

“Yes!” Joe shouted, firing a fist pump into the air.

“We have to get you in the rodeo,” Kurt said, bringing the boat back around toward the shattered airplane.

He pulled up beside it. The plane was sinking fast, the two occupants trying desperately to get free. Matson got out first and was soon clinging to the speedboat. Otero made it over next.

They began to climb in, but each time they did Kurt bumped the throttles.

“Please,” Otero shouted, “I can’t swim well.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t live on a floating island then,” Kurt said, goosing the throttle until they dropped off the side and then chopping it again. They dog-paddled back to the boat, grabbing at the handrail.

Kurt scraped them off again.

“It was all his idea,” Otero said, trying to tread water.

“What was?” Kurt asked.

“To steal the microbots,” Otero said.

“Shut up,” Matson said.

“Who’d you give them to?” Joe asked.

The half-drowned duo latched onto the boat, and Otero clammed up once again.

“Mr. Austin,” Joe said, “I believe we have a policy against boarders and hangers-on.”

Kurt nodded and smiled. “That we do, Mr. Zavala. That we do.”

He pushed the throttle a little more this time. The two stragglers tried to hold on, but they were soon pulled free. This time Kurt continued to idle away from them.

“Wait!” Otero shouted, splashing around furiously. “I’ll tell you.”

Kurt put a hand to his ear. “Before we get too far away,” he shouted.

“His name is Ji

Kurt cut the throttle, and the boat settled.

“And where do I find this Ji