The Apocalypse Ocean by Tobias S. Buckell, Pablo Defendini Read Free Book Online

been the underbelly of Harbortown. To be a great leader requires more than intimidation and direct control, it requires people to trust you just as much when you’re not standing right in front of them. That takes something else. Besides, what she has: it’s not that special a talent.”
    “Do you have it?”
    “Yes. Different technology, not biological, but same result. Free will’s a bitch. Kay can only manipulate you. Underneath, we still move our own lives forward. You understand? We fought the entire war over that, back when the alien Satrapy ruled everything in the Forty-Eight worlds. Before human independence.”
    Only someone as powerful as she was, Tiago thought, could believe that about free will.
    He chose not to say that.
    But then, she could probably see him thinking that anyway.
    Nashara reached into her coat and pulled out a fat looking gun. She pointed it at Tiago. “Kay’s coming back inside. It’s time to put you inside that prison wagon.”
    She waved the gun in the direction of the door.
    Back to business.

Chapter Eight

     
    So here he was, back in one of these wagons.
    The last time he’d been packed in with bleeding, bruised, exhausted rioters, hardly able to breathe. He’d been terrified, but sure someone would understand there’d been a mistake.
    He knew better now.
    At least, he thought, it had stopped raining. The sirens had gone quiet and he’d gotten into the wagon without protection.
    The wagon jerked forward with a belch of compressed air from the drivetrain underneath. Tiago looked around at the grimy, and of course, rain-scarred, faces.
    For a moment he panicked when he didn’t see any clean, carefully tailored figures. He was going to have to go all the way to Dekkan. Then he looked a bit closer at the youngest face. Dirty, disheveled, but not rain-scarred. And the matted hair could be, if cleaned and brushed once more, well cut.
    Tiago shuffled around on the benches, kneeing a few others to get them to move.
    “Hey,” he said. “Hey you.”
    The boy had been shrinking into the back corner of the wagon as best he could. Trying to be invisible. He pretended to ignore Tiago.
    “I’m talking to you,” Tiago snapped, trying to break the little shell of silence the boy had up for whatever protection he could muster. “What’s your name?”
    Tiago saw suspicion and fear flicker in his eyes as he finally looked at Tiago.
    “They already stole my clothes. I do not have anything else for you to take,” the boy said miserably.
    Tiago was cheered. Oh, this was looking more and more likely.
    “You’re not from around here, are you?” Tiago asked, a little bit more gently. “It’s okay; I don’t need your clothes. I just want to know your name.”
    The wagon clattered along the road, hitting potholes hard enough to jolt Tiago’s spine.
    Finally, he heard what he’d been hoping for. “My name is Juneas. My friends just call me June.”
    Tiago smiled, and palmed the small sliver of a tracking device. He pressed it until it glowed, and then turned to June. “Good to meet you, June,” Tiago said. He grabbed June’s hand firmly, and sunk the tracker into the palm of June’s hand.
    “Hey … ow! What the …”
    Tiago shoved June back against the wall and put a hand over his mouth. “You listen to me,” he hissed into his ear. “We are getting you out of here. So keep calm. Do not freak out. Stay right next to me and you’ll be okay. Make a sound, freak out, and I’ll crack your head open. Get it?”
    June nodded, and Tiago took his hand off his mouth. The boy looked terrified.
    Tiago felt guilty, for a moment. But the truth was, he was really, really relieved they weren’t going to Dekkan.
    “Don’t pull it out,” he told June. The boy was looking at the palm of his hand. “I know it hurts. But just leave it alone.”
    How long before something would happen? Tiago was wound up and ready to explode here.
    The wagon finally slowed, brakes squealing. Tiago heard the