Ocean: War of Independence (4 page)

Men on the rig saw the attackers coming on Gwyneth’s side—a huge floating mass of blubber and flesh on the surface of the ocean—and they shouted in confusion to one another, not sure what to do. Alarms sounded.

Gwyneth drew near the rig, and from her perch she shouted: “You have ten minutes to evacuate this platform, before we destroy it.”

Two of the men had handguns drawn, but they didn’t fire them or even point them. It was obvious that they could do little with small-caliber weapons against so many creatures, and they didn’t even know about the additional animals she had underwater. A mad scramble ensued on the rig’s platform, and they lowered small power boats into the water, boarded them, and sped off.

Using the huge mass of marine life arrayed around and beneath her on this side, Gwyneth pressed the noses of the largest whales against one side of the rig, while using others underwater to help tilt it in the desired direction. Finally, it broke loose from the seabed and tipped over, dangling wires, tubes, and torn steel.

While swimming along the coast to get here, Gwyneth had come up with an additional idea, and she hoped it worked. With the tall rig on its side, she ordered various marine animals to prevent it from the sinking. Underwater, the bubblefish sealed the wellhead quickly, containing any leak and then driving a dense mass of their bodies down into the wellhole, a mass that hardened and sealed the hole permanently.

Keeping the oil derrick afloat, Gwyneth and J.D.—both on blue whales—pushed it toward a beach on the coast. At the shoreline, the animals gave the rig a final hard push, and shoved it all the way to a highway that ran along the coast.

“That should get their attention,” J.D. Watts said to her, from his perch on the other whale.

“Now let’s do a little cleanup,” she said. “When we were on the sea bottom, I saw a lot of junk, including what looks like an old fishing boat with barnacles all over it. I think we should raise the wreck and send it ashore, along with the other garbage down there.”

J.D. smiled. “I like the way you think.”

He encircled the sunken boat with bubblefish, and they created a membrane around it, which they then filled with air—thus raising the wreck to the surface of the sea. A pod of mottled gray and white orca whales (unusual in their coloration) pushed the hulk ashore and rammed it up on the beach. Gwyneth and her companions followed that up with a pile of tangled fishing nets, lines, and gear, along with a bent shark cage, a block and tackle (connected to a bent davit), a rusted old automobile motor, anchors and anchor chains, a refrigerator, hunks of concrete, truck tires, and a pile of broken tombstones—dumping all of it on the shore.

“The ocean is not a garbage dump,” Gwyneth said. And she transmitted this message to Kimo, along with a report on the oil derrick.…

By the following morning, Kimo had received the satisfying message from Gwyneth, reporting on what she had done, and telling him she was standing by for further instructions. He had already heard another version of her activities reported back to him by one of the Sea Warriors, who had gone ashore on the Big Island of Hawaii, and seen it on a television news program.

Kimo liked the idea she’d come up with, of cleaning garbage off the seabed and tossing it ashore. He liked the concept so much, in fact, that he thought he might expand it in the Hawaiian Islands and elsewhere.

But first, he had something else in mind, something bigger he wanted to clean up first—and it was like a pustule on the surface of the sea. He recalled hearing about a huge mass of floating plastic and other garbage circling in the North Pacific Ocean, covering more than five thousand square kilometers of ocean surface. It was known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

He dispatched Dirk Avondale to take as many dolphins to the region as he could round up, to see if he could push the floating junk toward the mainland of the United States, and spread it on the beaches there.

Dirk left immediately, expressing his eagerness to complete the task.

After slamming an eight-foot, mini-tidal wave into the cliff of the uninhabited island, Alicia continued to practice with this type of wave and with others that she could generate. Kimo was with her now, watching intently as she raised an even higher wall of water, this one at least twelve feet tall. It was wider than the previous one as well, too, at least fifty feet instead of twenty-five.

With her eyes open she visualized the wave in motion, and saw it picking up speed, rushing away from her toward the cliff, slamming harder into it than before—with more velocity and mass. This time the entire cliff-face, at least seventy feet in height, cracked, a jagged line that ran from the top to the bottom, and a large section of the whole thing crumbled and fell, like the edge of an iceberg falling off. At the base of the cliff, the water dissipated around the rubble of dirt and rock.

“Your waves can create a lot of damage on the shore,” Kimo said, “and might even seem like a rogue wave when it strikes ships and oil derricks.”

“It’s still not a full-fledged tidal wave,” Alicia said, “but I feel like I can improve on it. Maybe we’ll have one soon.”

“It’s already big enough for us to add to our repertoire of weapons and threats,” Kimo said. “I’ll keep it in the bank until the next round. First, let’s see if our latest efforts have had any effect on the stubborn American president.”

***

Chapter 4

Kimo, Alicia, and other hybrids swam in warm, shallow water, just off the remote islet north of the main islands, where the Sea Warriors maintained their clandestine headquarters. The sun was rising over the Hawaiian archipelago as it did on any typical day, but Kimo knew this was not going to be an ordinary day. None were since he’d decided to target Hawaiian tourist beaches in a protest demonstration to show his unhappiness at the way humans treated the ocean. It had been an event that escalated from the outset, and with the latest developments, the conflict seemed destined to involve the entire planet.

So be it
, he thought as he dove underwater and beheld the spectacular sight of a still-vibrant coral reef colony. He watched small, colorful fish flitting about energetically, saw a stingray burrowing into the sandy seabed, and a green turtle swimming toward the surface.
Momentous change cannot occur without conflict.

The target of the Sea Warriors was the biggest polluting nation in the history of mankind—the United States of America—a self-absorbed country that was like a huge, ravenous beast that sucked up most of the resources in the world and then regurgitated what it didn’t want, with much of it ending up in the ocean.

Focusing first on the powerful U.S. was risky, but if they could be forced to capitulate, other industrialized nations would fall into line more easily. The evening before, Alicia had recommended a Declaration of Ocean Independence to him, a severe document that would prevent humans from rampantly exploiting the seas anymore, the basis of a new international law that would make the ocean off-limits to mankind, except for any medical or other worthy uses that could be derived from those waters, under the strict control of dedicated Sea Warriors.

A school of longnose butterflyfish surrounded Kimo for a moment, saying hello in their shy and silent way, and then darting away. Looking back, he saw Alicia swimming in the same direction as he was. Curiously, despite additional physical changes in some of the Sea Warriors, both he and Alicia still looked entirely human, with their hybrid transformations mostly concealed. In his own case, since he had looked human for his entire life, he suspected there would be no further changes, other than the normal aging he had already noticed. With Alicia, however, and others such as Monique Gatsby and Professor Greco, he wasn’t nearly as certain. Unlike Kimo, all of them were recent converts.

Alicia caught up with him, and they shared an underwater kiss, and a long hug. As they parted, Kimo felt the lingering sweetness of the kiss.

Side by side, they swam above a whitetip reef shark that was swimming close to the seabed, searching for worms and crustaceans to eat. Kimo smiled to himself. Even though all the creatures of the ocean were allied for a common purpose, they still understood the natural ways of things, the hierarchy of food chains involving predator and prey, and the timeless cycles of life and death that made the seas a sustainable habitat for so many different species.

Then he faced Alicia and projected his thoughts to her through the water: “I want you to join Gwyneth. Your power with waves is a valuable additional weapon for us to use against business operations and wealthy homeowners on the west coast. While you’re on your way, I’m going to issue a specific warning through the press, and when you get there, I want you to slam waves into docks and other structures around Santa Barbara, causing as much damage as you can. Do it exactly three times, because that is what I will specify in my warning. I’m only telling them we will strike somewhere on the coast between San Francisco and Los Angeles, but watch out for a U.S. Navy presence in the water. They will be looking for you.”

“I’m sure I can improve on the height and power,” she said, over the molecular transmission. “It’s only a matter of time, and practice. Make sure they take your warning seriously, though, and evacuate everyone. I don’t want to hurt anybody.”

“I’ll make sure. They already know I do not issue idle threats. I’ll arrange for a jetfish pod to take you to the coast, so you won’t be observed crossing the Pacific. After you slam Santa Barbara three times, I want you to await my further instructions.”

“Anything else?” She smiled.

“Nothing you need to do. I’ve also sent some of my Sea Warriors with pods of blue whales—three of the newer members who have shown abilities with large marine animals. They have instructions to interfere with container ships traveling between the United States and the Far East, and force them to turn back. To start with, we’re sending out three pods. It’s a beginning.”

“You’re becoming quite the military commander,” she said, with a gentle smile.

“I’m the most experienced Sea Warrior, so I’ve taken on the responsibility of leadership. I promise you, though, if I falter or if anyone shows better leadership skills, I’m ready to step aside. This is about the welfare of the ocean, not about me.”

“We all understand that,” she said. “We are not about being selfish; that’s one of the biggest things wrong with human beings.”

“None of us are fully human any longer,” he said.

“I hear something coming in,” Alicia said.

He heard it, too, a molecular communication coming in from Mattie Bickel, a Sea Warrior he’d assigned to go ashore in Honolulu to obtain current news. Now, having re-immersed herself in the ocean near Diamond Head, she was reporting that the government of the United States was intensifying its efforts to find and arrest all hybrid Sea Warriors. To accomplish that, the right-wing president had declared a state of national emergency and the imposition of martial law, until all of the “dangerous fugitives” were caught or killed.

In Honolulu, people were being forced to go through military checkpoints, where they were examined for evidence of hybrid bodies, such as the gills that all transformed, front-line Sea Warriors were known to have. Mattie had narrowly escaped the checkpoint, and had made it back into the water. She also said that some of the president’s opponents wanted to criticize these severe methods for their own political advantage, but were nervous about what he might do to them in response.

When she finished, Kimo shook his head in dismay. The right-wing American president had found an excuse to broaden police powers. Kimo had heard that fascists did that historically, taking advantage of an emergency or perceived injustice to advance their own interests.

During the current presidency, Kimo had also come to an opinion that was commonly held in progressive politics, that the President of the United States, Fillmore Vanness, was a right-wing corporate lackey, promoting business and allied military interests while putting on the false appearance of being a common man, feigning concern about the economy, the middle class, the environment, and anything else that would garner the most votes for himself and his cronies.

Kimo supposed that Vanness was like almost every other president in supporting big business over the average citizen, because of corporate influence on the political structure. Big companies did it in myriad ways, through lobbying and campaign-finance donations and personal friendships, getting the ear of the leader of the free world in ways that the average person could not even begin to imagine.

And it was because of a corporate-tainted political structure, Kimo had come to believe, that most environmental-protection measures were only window dressing, and really did not delve deeply enough into the various issues to make any real and lasting difference. He realized after living and working in the ocean for so long, that it was a dumping ground like no other. At least people could see and smell dirty air, and could see trash dumped on the ground. When it came to the seas, however, they were so vast and deep that they concealed much of the junk and industrial waste that had been left in them, either intentionally or carelessly, or through accidents. Nowadays, for companies and individuals who polluted the water, it was like sweeping dirt under the proverbial rug, putting it where it would not be seen easily. Centuries and centuries of trash were under the water and immersed in it.

With all that in mind, Kimo had been delighted at the initiative Gwyneth McDevitt and J.D. Watts had taken on the California coast, tossing the oil rig, a boat wreck, and other trash back onto the land, where people could not avoid having to look at it. For a moment he considered doing something like that in the Hawaiian Islands, because wrecked boats and other trash were in the water, and could be brought ashore. But Hawaii was so incredibly beautiful that he didn’t have the heart to litter it. Hawaii had been the home of his family for generations, and he didn’t want to dishonor the sacred land that had nurtured them. Maybe he would consult with Ealani, to see if she could come up with another solution.

Now Kimo was looking forward to hearing from Dirk Avondale about the results of his mission to push the floating plastics and other debris onto the mainland of the United States, ejecting it from the sea.

As he and Alicia were swimming back toward their remote islet headquarters, Mattie Bickel came back on the molecular connection, transmitting her thoughts hesitantly, reluctantly: “Please tell Alicia that her grandfather has been seriously injured by a gunshot wound to the head, and is in the hospital. I heard it on the local Hawaiian news. They say he’s recovering, that he just came out of a coma.”

Looking over at Alicia, Kimo saw that she had heard. She looked shocked, transmitted her own response to Mattie: “Which hospital?”

“The one in Wanaao Town. I’m not sure why they didn’t fly him to Honolulu, but expensive specialists are reportedly with him, and he has a chance of recovering.”

Mattie closed the connection, and Alicia sent her own message to Kimo: “I must go to him. Is a jetfish pod available for me? It would be faster than swimming or riding a wave.”

“Not yet. It will be a couple of hours more before the jetfish could arrive, and the conglomeration process would take a while after that.”

“I can get there faster on my own,” she said. “But if you can have that pod ready for me as soon as possible, waiting for me by the Wanaao Town dock, I’ll take it to the West Coast, as you instructed. First, though, I
must
see my grandfather.”

He nodded sadly, and watched as she returned to the grotto to pick up a waterproof pack with a change of clothes in it, which would enable her to go ashore more easily.

A short while later, he saw her generate a wave to carry her south to Loa’kai Island faster than she could swim.

For more than two days, Jeff had been staying with Ealani Pohaku, but not through any force or threat, because he had told her he would leave her alone if she wished, and go away. To his surprise she had graciously invited him to stay, and had shown him every kindness. Sometimes when she thought he was not looking he’d seen her performing healing rituals, and he’d heard his own name mentioned. Ealani had also helped him conceal the Jeep where no one would find it.

All the anger he’d felt against her family had dissipated after he’d gotten a chance to know this remarkable woman, and after he’d seen that his grandfather was alive and likely to recover. Jeff’s reasons for hating the Pohakus had been confused anyway, he’d come to realize when he listened to Ealani telling him the story of her family. The Pohakus were just a native Hawaiian family trying to cope with the intrusion of western civilization, an invasion that disrupted native land-use practices and changed their centuries-old way of life.

Ealani Pohaku had put it best, in asserting the situation was not the fault of her family, and not the fault of Jeff’s grandfather, either. “We have all been caught in a clash of cultures,” she’d said the night before, as they sat on her screened porch and drank mango tea. “We are all victims of circumstance, Jeff.”

It was late morning now, and Jeff was preparing to go and see his grandfather again, to ensure that the old man was continuing to improve. Ealani would take him there, leading him along back trails where the police were not likely to see him.

When they emerged from a trail and were within view of the hospital, however, Jeff was shocked to see his sister walking across the grounds not far from him, heading for the central of three hospital buildings, none of which were large. She wore shorts, sandals, and a khaki blouse, and carried a small backpack.

“Alicia!” he called out, motioning to her. “Over here!”

She saw him and hurried over. “Is Grandfather all right?” she asked, appearing uneasy when Jeff hugged her.

“He came out of a coma two days ago.”

“I heard that, but he’s still OK?”

“I’m just going to check on him myself.”

“You must both be careful,” Ealani said, urging them back into the cover of the jungle. “The police are looking for you.”

“For
both
of us?” Alicia said, looking at Jeff. “But my brother is not a Sea Warrior.”

Jeff told her briefly, tearfully, about the man he had killed on the boat—in self-defense, he assured her—and about his own role in their grandfather’s nearly fatal injury.

“I will go ahead and make sure the way is clear,” Ealani said. “Wait here, and watch for my signal.”