Read Point Apocalypse for Free Online

Oakum pointed behind my back.
    I turned around. Wladas and the Chinese were rocking on the waves a few meters away. Neither of them spoke. I didn't like it. The neurotech lay on his back, arms wide apart, staring into the sky.
    I sat down with my back to the machine gun, lowered the paddle into the water and pulled violently. Oakum on the other side countered, trying to make sure the raft didn't turn. We soon reached the two heads bobbing in the water. I glanced over my shoulder. Several large bubbles billowed up: all that remained from the ferry boat. A few more bodies resurfaced.
    Wladas was pale - unconscious, by the looks of it. With the boy's help I dragged him on board. The Chinese climbed in with ease.
    "Is he alive?" the captain asked as I bent over the neurotech. "I don't need no stiffs here."
    Wladas coughed. I turned his head to one side and water spasmodically gushed out of his mouth.
    "You're in luck," the crane operator grinned. "If it wasn't for..."
    His stare met with mine, and the gun's barrel pointed at my chest.
    "Now," the captain said. "Don't even think of rioting. I'd rather have a chat with you before we reach the shore. I don't care about your names or sentences. But if you can tell me what's going on back on Earth... Having said that, any of you got sea legs?"
    I shook my head and glanced at the Chinese. He sat straight, hands on his knees, smiling and looking much like a votive statue.
    "What's wrong with him?" Georgie pointed his gun at him. "What's there to smile at, Chink?"
    "He doesn't understand you," I said.
    " He will when I shoot him!"
    "Shut up, Georgie," the captain shrugged. "Give me a chance to talk to the people."
    He sat up as if nothing had happened and went on.
    "Any mechanics among you? My engineer's dead. I need someone to replace him."
    Once again I shook my head. The Chinese kept on smiling.
    "Shame," the captain scratched his tattooed shoulder and squinted at the boy. "I'm afraid, it'll have to be Oakum."
    The kid's eyes lit up. He spread his shoulders and stuck his chin out.
    I didn't like the way he spoke. Asking about the Earth and new engineers so matter-of-factly as if nobody had just died during the sinking. Okay, they were only deportees, but they were still human. Lots of them, turning into fish food even as we spoke. He didn't seem to care. Death must have become mundane here on Pangea, to the point where no one cared about the dead.
    "Quit glaring," the captain lowered his hands. "Think about those who've survived. About yourself and your future. You can't bring the dead back to life."
    "You can't," Georgie butted in.
    "Ferries sink all the time," the captain went on, like an old grunt telling war stories to rookies. "Last year, one just disappeared. Like that," he clapped his hands. "A bolt of lightning, and it was gone. Had to be Pangean devils."
    Wladas finally caught his breath. He lay on his side wheezing and clutching at his throat. The Chinese sat with his back straight, smiling.
    " So! No new Civil war out there, apparently?" the captain asked.
    " Apparently not," I picked up the paddle and straddled the float.
    "How about Siberia?" the crane operator perked up. "They haven't sold it to those slant-eyed clones, have they?"
    "In your dreams."
    "Good," Georgie grinned. "They've pissed away the rest."
    " How many times have I told you?" the captain jumped up. "What do you want with that radioactive waste pit? Siberia! It won't change just because you ask!"
    The crane operator sulked. Clutching his gun, he looked at the Chinese. His knuckles turned white.
    "Georgie is a Siberian, see," the captain said. "A Baikal conflict volunteer. So he's one of our old-timers."
    A Baikal conflict veteran. I see. I hadn't even been born when this Georgie was fighting for Siberia's independence against the Chinese clone settlers, razing their Irkutsk settlements to the ground. No one knew for sure but apparently, Siberian independence was the real cause behind the Civil war in