Read Rifters 2 - Maelstrom for Free Online Page B

into a fit of coughing. A squeezebulb appeared at her side. She waved it off. "Not thirsty."
    "You came from the sea. You cannot drink the sea."
    "I can. Got—" She struggled up on her elbows, turned her head; the desalinator came into view. "I've got one of those, in my chest. An implant. You know?"
    The skinny refugee nodded. "Like your eyes. Mechanical."
    Close enough . She was too weak to explain.
    She looked out to sea. Distance had bled the lifter of detail, reduced it to a vague gibbous silhouette. Wreckage dropped from its belly as she watched, raising a silent gray plume on the horizon.
    "They clean house as they always have," the Hindian remarked. "We are lucky they don't drop their garbage on us , yes?"
    Clarke weathered another cough. "How did you know my name?"
    "GA Clarke." He tapped the patch on her shoulder. "I am Amitav, by the way."
    His hand, his face: both were nearly skeletal. And yet Calvin cyclers were tireless. There should be enough for all, here on the Strip. The faces surrounding them were only lean, not starving. Not like this Amitav .
    A distant sound tugged at her concentration, a soft whine from overhead. Clarke sat up. A shadow of motion flickered through the clouds.
    " Those watch us, of course," Amitav said.
    "Who?"
    "Your people, yes? They make sure the machines are working, and they watch us. More since the wave, of course."
    The shadow tracked south, fading.
    Amitav squatted back on bony haunches and stared inland. "There is little need, of course. We are not what you would call activists here. But they watch us just the same." He stood up, brushed wet sand from his knees. "And of course you will wish to return to them. Are your people looking for you?"
    Clarke took a breath. "I—"
    And stopped.
    She followed his gaze through a tangle of brown bodies, caught glimpses of tent and shanty in the spaces between. How many thousands—millions—had made their way here over the years, driven from their homes by rising seas and spreading deserts? How many, starving, seasick, had cheered at the sight of N'Am on the horizon, only to find themselves pushed back against the ocean by walls and guards and the endless multitudes who'd gotten here first?
    And who would they blame? What do a million have-nots do, when one of the haves falls into their hands?
    Are your people looking for you?
    She lay back on the sand, not daring to speak.
    "Ah," said Amitav distantly, as though she had.
     
    * * *
     
    For days she'd been an automaton, a single-minded machine created for the sole purpose of getting back on dry land. Now that she'd made it, she didn’t dare stay.
    She retreated to the ocean floor. Not the clear black purity of the deep sea; there weren't any living chandeliers or flashlight predators to set the ocean glowing. What life there was squirmed and wriggled and scavenged through the murky green light of the conshelf. Even below the surge, viz was only a few meters.
    It was better than nothing.
    She'd long since learned to sleep with a diveskin pinning her eyes open. In the abyss it had been simple—just swim into the distance and leave Beebe’s floodlights behind, so far that even eyecaps failed. You'd drift off wrapped in a darkness more absolute than any dryback could even imagine.
    Here, though, it wasn't so easy. Here there was always light in the water; night-time only bled the color out of it. And when Clarke did fall into some restless foggy dreamworld, she found herself surrounded by sullen, vengeful throngs assembling just out of sight. They picked up whatever was at hand—rocks, gnarled clubs of driftwood, garrotes of wire and monofilament—and they closed in, smoldering and homicidal. She thrashed awake and found herself back on the ocean floor—and the mob melted into fragments of swirling shadow, fading overhead. Most were too vague to make out; once or twice she glimpsed the leading edge of something curved.
    She went ashore at night to feed, when the refugees had retreated