A Mutiny of Marauders Read online

  A Mutiny of Marauders

  Hollow Island Book 2

  Daniel Coleman

  Contents

  One of the few good things…

  1. Box Wall

  2. Point for You

  3. Tru Thief

  4. A Massacre

  5. Konketsu

  6. Laughing at the Rain

  7. Bombard a Drab Mob

  8. Fearless Cacophony

  9. A Light in the Darkness

  10. Gate Crasher

  Epilogue

  Also by Daniel Coleman

  About the Author

  One of the few good things…

  “One of the few good things about modern times: if you die horribly on television, you will not have died in vain. You will have entertained us.”

  - Kurt Vonnegut, “Cold Turkey”, www.inthesetimes.com, May 2004

  1

  Box Wall

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  - HollowIslandWiki.com>>

  Nash gawked at the sheer number of people as he and Livi wound their way through the crowd. Troy Fest was in full swing and Nash hadn’t seen so many people since immigrating almost two weeks earlier. The huge gathering took place in a sort of amphitheater in the round—a central floor area that was basically a stage, surrounded in all directions by a gently sloping grassy bowl.

  Part of the crowd was intent on the action in the center of the amphitheater, but most were spread in groups eating, chatting, or watching the various street-performers who were spread throughout the event. As Nash led Livi toward the center, they passed a violinist, a magician doing a card trick, and two separate dancers whose entire repertoires seemed to be composed of one move: the robot.

  It reminded Nash of a Fourth of July celebration back home, except for torchlight replacing stadium LEDs, old-fashioned clothes instead of brand-name labels, and the distinct odor of lamp oil smoke instead of sweet-smelling vape clouds.

  A Sprite cut right in front of Nash and any sensation of being on the outside was shot. How he missed seeing the girl approach was a mystery; she was so pink she actually glowed. Her bubblegum hair and clothes were the same translucent shade. Paler pink dots highlighted the skin of her neck, upper arms, and calves. Glittery tattoos of fairies, butterflies, and elves caught his attention, but her figure as she strutted away was hard to ignore. She was like a walking Barbie doll. He wondered how many ribs and organs had to be removed to give her a waist that he could probably reach around with two hands.

  A sweet and sultry smell trailed her, making Nash’s pulse rise. It took an effort of will to keep his feet planted and not follow in her wake.

  Just as her bio appeared in the bottom corner of Nash’s titanium eye, Livi stepped up next to him, also watching the Sprite.

  “Like what you see?” she asked.

  Nash jolted and looked at Livi, seeing an accusing smirk on her face. With the familiarity they’d developed, it felt like they’d known each other for months, not days.

  “What’s not to like?” he responded with a bounce of his eyebrows, poking back. It was a constant battle to not let her see how much she got under his skin. Honestly, the Sprite’s modification was way too much for him. She barely looked human at this point.

  As he started leading Livi through the crowd again, the smell of smoke and unwashed clothes replaced the enthralling scent.

  Not all Sprites looked like that bubblegum girl. Nash had seen a handful in his time on Hollow Island of various shapes and colors, but he’d yet to see the color he’d been watching for—purple. If his sister had gotten her wish of becoming a Sprite, Nash was certain she’d be purple, so he always kept his eye out.

  About thirty meters away from the center stage, Nash came to a stop. Livi stepped up next to him.

  Two men faced off over a wide, low vat of water. Their countenances were dire; obviously neither wanted to face the consequences of losing this contest, whatever it was. They were both light-skinned with dark hair and could have been brothers, except when Nash scanned them, they had different last names and family details.

  “Go!” cried the announcer, and the men dunked their head into the tub.

  They thrashed and splashed, keeping both hands firmly behind their back. Nash found himself holding his breath, and let it out. Any second one of them would break and raise his head to catch his breath.

  The contest and the stakes were mysteries to Nash since he’d arrived after the rules had been covered. For some reason he couldn’t get away from the image of piranhas or electric eels in the water with those men.

  The crowd closest to the action was keeping still, growing quieter. The announcer and her assistants on stage were leaning in.

  Nash was holding his breath again, and forced himself to say, “They’re going to drown.”

  “Good,” said Livi. “Anyone who doesn’t have the sense to—”

  One of the contestants, the man on Nash’s left, brought his head up, sending a line of water spraying from his hair in a wide arc. Clutched in his teeth was a … fleshy pig’s foot? The other man brought his head up, shaking like a dog and sprinkling water over most of the stage. In his teeth was a picture-perfect red apple.

  The announcer signaled to the man with the apple. She called, “We have a winner!”

  Everyone in the crowd who was paying attention reacted as if the man had won a joust instead of a strange bobbing contest.

  Nash had to admit, he was highly entertained, and he cheered along with the rest of the crowd. The spectacle was no holodais of high definition 3-D holographic images. It was just good, clean entertainment of a simpler class than you could find outside of Hollow Island. Take away electricity and you set entertainment standards and expectations back a couple hundred years.

  Spitting the pig’s foot onto the ground, the loser slapped the winner on the shoulder, then walked off into the waiting jeers of his friends.

  The winner pulled the apple out of his mouth and held it up in the air like a trophy. A man in a servant’s sash dropped some coins into his hand.

  “Bobbing for apples,” said Nash. “Not what I expected.”

  “You were thinking piranhas, weren’t you?”

  Nash bit back the denial, but couldn’t hide a guilty grin. It’d been a few days since he’d experienced the gut-wrenching nausea that had been engineered to happen whenever he lied. He hoped it would be a few years until he experienced it again.

  “This is one of those rare occasions that isn’t for the eyes and outside,” said Livi. “It’s for the people of Troy. No one has to get eaten by Wares or shot with Holy Barbs to entertain us Islanders.”

  Nash chuckled, not missing the shot she’d taken at him. “Yeah it’s weird that a Ranger would shoot you after you elbowed him in the face and tried to escape custody. Weird, but highly entertaining.”

  She was right, people were having a great time. The ambiance of Troy Fest was as natural as Nash had felt on Hollow Island, a city having some good clean fun. Even the Reaper seemed to have been forgotten.

  “The real travesty is red delicious apples,” said Livi with a sour tone. “I’d rather eat the pig’s foot.”

  The last apple that came to mind when Nash thought of Livi’s homeland of Brazil was the red delicious. It didn’t seem … exotic enough for that country. Though it made sense that not everything from Brazil could be as exotic and classy as Livi.

  He asked, “What’s wrong with red delicious?”

  “Other than it being trash?” asked Livi. “It’s flavorless, the skin is bitter, the texture is mush. I know we live in a technologically-backwa
rd world, but does that really mean we have to eat apples that should have been forced into extinction as soon as any other apple option was available? Red delicious is as useless to the apple world as a peephole in a glass door.”

  The tirade about apples seemed strange coming from someone with the poise and fine dress of Livi. The dress she wore tonight was long sleeved, form fitting at the top, then wide and flowing at the bottom. It was silver, with intricate black embroidery on the chest and arms. She liked to keep the stitches from the Ware injuries to her forearms and shoulders hidden. Her long black hair ran past her shoulders in curls that looked effortless, but Nash knew exactly how long she spent to look like that. As attractive as he found her in the black leather Vamp garb, she had the beauty and grace of a vintage movie queen when she dressed like this.

  “Apples,” said Nash, realizing he was staring at her again. “Who would’ve guessed that would be your rant tonight?”

  “My first rant,” said Livi with a playful lift to one corner of her mouth. “I reserve the right to rant further.”

  And Nash would listen. She could read the phonebook, or shoot, rant about her surprising apple prejudice, and he’d devour every word of her sexy Brazilian accent. It wasn’t just the physical appeal, though. Livi was so clever and funny in her unique way that she reminded him of someone in the hollows or on a screen. It seemed impossible for a real, live person to have as much going for her as Livi did. There was good reason she was one of the most famous Hollow Island personalities.

  “Have you been to Troy Fest before?” he asked.

  “Never been to Troy,” answered Livi.

  “Just because you’re stuck on the Hot side of the island doesn’t mean you can’t get out and see things,” said Nash. “I’ve travelled as much in two weeks as you have in five years.”

  Livi raised her eyebrows and said, “Point for you.”

  Neither of them kept track of points in the obvious game, but if they did, Nash was pretty sure he was losing.

  The announcer, a woman dressed like a circus ringleader, wore a long red coat with thin chains as decorations, a tiny top hat, and white-striped black pants that flared at the bottom. Chains, similar to the ones on her jacket, held slits in the sides of the pants together below her knees. She raised her arms in the middle of the stage again. “Two more contestants! Who will come up and compete in another competition of manliness? A contest of might, of masculinity, of macho-ism!”

  Her voice carried to Nash with perfect volume and most likely another fifty meters beyond, yet she spoke with no microphone or voice enhancing device. Her endowment must be some sort of volume-producing vocal cords. Nash read through her bio, but as normal, it didn’t say anything specific about her endowment.

  “So that’s what we’re doing,” said Livi in a bored voice. “Manliness.”

  Two men stepped to the center from different parts of the crowd. After taking their names and introducing them, the announcer drew something from a large bowl and called out, “Arm wrestling!”

  While they went through the contest, Nash listened as Livi asked questions of a couple of young women standing nearby. Apparently Troy Fest was held every other Saturday in Troy. It was sponsored by King Homer, the ruler of the Hot side of Hollow Island, the half of the island where high-level Jennies were allowed. Every Troy Fest featured performers such as dancers, singers, musicians, and magicians. The special events this week included free beer which was offered to encourage participants to volunteer for the Manly Man Competitions, the other feature of this particular Troy Fest.

  Another young woman ran up to the pair and said, “I heard Adam was here tonight.” Nash recognized the name; Adam was the first Hollow Island immigrant, and because of that, a celebrity. They ran off to look for him, leaving Nash and Livi to watch the silly competitions.

  Bloody knuckles was the next event, followed by something called mumblety-peg, a knife throwing game that required each contestant to sink a knife into the ground near their own feet. Like the other events, it didn’t seem particularly dangerous, or like something that would require liquid courage.

  When the mumblety-peg ended, the announcer called for more volunteers.

  “Here’s your chance, Nash,” said Livi. “Go show everyone you’re a champion. Look, I bet that guy would let you borrow his hat, so you can show the whole world what a hero you are.” She nodded toward a man wearing a white cowboy hat.

  Nash regretted ever telling her what John Wayne had diagnosed as Nash’s hero persona. It was tough to resist Livi’s suggestion. Not only was she a beautiful woman, she was his partner in the hunt for the Reaper and he wanted to impress her.

  “I’d rather eat.” He flagged down a food vendor and asked for a turkey leg.

  The vendor said, “Five cents, sir.”

  Nash shoved the huge drumstick in his mouth and raised his eyebrows at Livi.

  She handed over the coins, and when the vendor continued on, she glared at Nash and said, “Go ahead and keep eating an obnoxious amount of food. Your gut will give out long before my purse does.”

  Grease dripped down Nash’s chin. He smiled, wiping it away, and tore more meat from the turkey leg. It was smoky and rich, and best of all, free … for him. Getting Livi to agree to pay for all the food in their partnership had been a stroke of genius. Not that money was tight. Ever since the fight with the Wares, his ratings had been huge. People on the outside were watching him, and that translated to money in his new coin purse, which held dozens of kilos already.

  A Legionnaire stepped out of the ranks of his buddies and walked toward the center of the stage. For a moment, Nash wondered if he was doing some official business, but when he reached the announcer he turned and faced outward with both arms in the air. The man was Nash’s height, but thicker in the shoulders and chest. He had light brown skin and dark brown hair held back in a ponytail.

  “We have a contestant!” called the announcer. “Is there another Jennie willing to face this leathery legionnaire?”

  “Do it,” said Livi. “Step up. Isn’t that your motto?”

  “It’s ‘stand up’,” said Nash, “if we’re being technical. And I don’t see how doing a whittling contest or seeing who can pee the furthest helps us get any closer to our objective.”

  “Because everything we do has to fit into the steps outlined in our very detailed plan?”

  Nash wanted to remind her that they didn’t have a plan, other than to go out every night in the city the Grim Reaper had attacked the night before and hope to get lucky enough to run into the murdering psychopath. But he didn’t want to earn another point in the obvious game so soon. If they were lucky tonight, the Reaper would try something here at the popular event and dozens of Jennies would come out of the woodwork to stop him.

  Livi went on. “Live life. Have some fun. Look around you, that’s what tonight is about. People are having a blast. Remember you asked why anyone would immigrate if they were just going to be an unmodified plebe?”

  “Plebe is your word, not mine,” objected Nash.

  “Doesn’t matter,” said Livi. “Look around, thousands of plebes having the time of their life.”

  It was easy to see how great times such as the festival would outweigh negative aspects of living on the island—such as a serial killer travelling town to town killing someone every night.

  “Are there no manly men among us?” boomed the announcer’s voice. “No studly sons of guns, no burly boyfriends, or hard-as-nails husbands who want to prove their pluck against our potentate’s pugilist?”

  Nash was tempted, but he wanted to get a better lay of the land before volunteering.

  Livi asked, “I can’t take the alliteration. If you don’t step up I’m going to. Now, are you here to live or to watch other people live?”

  Put that way, it was hard to argue with—not the alliteration part, which he found entertaining, but the living life to the fullest part. When would he be back in Troy on festival night?


  From watching the Ranger Channel, Nash knew there was a professional rivalry between Legionnaires and Rangers. Rangers acted like Legionnaires were simply Ranger-wannabees who didn’t make the cut, so they went into indentured servitude for twenty-five months as Legionnaires. If Nash was going to compete tonight, a Legionnaire was the perfect opponent.

  The riskiest competition he’d seen so far had been the bloody knuckles contest that had only lasted three rounds before a knuckle had bled. It wouldn’t be the end of the world if he went up there and lost an arm wrestling match. And it wouldn’t hurt to impress Livi. Not that he ever had a chance with someone like her, but he was a man and something inside of him wanted her to see him succeed.

  “If I do this, you owe me one,” said Nash.

  Livi studied him, and he couldn’t tell if she was trying to decide whether he would actually do it, or trying to come up with something snarky to say. That playful smile was capable of anything.

  “Deal,” she said. “Within reason. If you dare me to kiss you or something immature like that, I’m going to pull out your fingernails one by one.”

  Nash winked. “Don’t give me any ideas. Besides, I wouldn’t dare you to do something you want to do anyway.” He turned and walked away, muttering, “Crepi il lupo,” before she could see the redness flaring on his cheeks. Livi’s throaty laugh followed him.

  From the crowd around him, he heard the word “Ranger” spread outward in a circle, followed by scattered cheers. Suddenly, it seemed like way more people were paying attention to the center of the amphitheater than anywhere else.

  Nash rested his gaze on the Legionnaire and let his mechanical eye do its thing. After three seconds, a bio popped up in the lower right field of Nash’s vision.