The Full-Moon Whaling Chronicles by Jason Guriel

Author:Jason Guriel [Guriel, Jason]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Biblioasis
Published: 2023-06-21T00:00:00+00:00

12.

Kaye stood beside the water wheel that gazed

On Rabbit Strait, the bonsai ocean glazed

With sunlight. Lux had kept the model running,

But he’d left the sky’s sun up, a stunning

Cosmic shift the model’s wolves had failed

To notice.

Ichiro, beside her, hailed

The junk, a tiny point above the harbour,

Moving quickly — basically, a shard her

Smarteyes couldn’t parse. They’d analyze

Incoming targets, popups in her eyes

Explaining shit, but always lagged a little

After zubering, her vision stippled

With stray pixels. Ichiro had clapped her

Back, though, pointing out the white junk.

Chapter

Twelve, unfolding down below, returned

The plot to town. The heroes had adjourned

And headed home. Next moon, they’d sail to Kelly

Bay. But in the tavern, Machiavelli-

Like, a one-eared, livid wolf was plotting

With a pair who specialized in robbing

Boats. The pirates planned to intercept

His daughter’s sloop.

They’d all donned “pelts,” except

For Kaye. “The tank’s cold,” Ichiro had warned.

“I’m good.” She’d gone with wiseweave sweats, adorned

With Nike’s swoosh. The rest — two modellers,

The businessman, and Lux wore cosplay furs.

A grumpy Scottish tailor in the Wood

Had cut the jackets. Mink supplied each hood

Its collar. Kaye knew no one who could buy

Such clothing.

Lux had had to draw an eyelid

Down. The booth had made a ding, its glass

Relaxing. One by one, the party passed

Inside and vanished, swirling down the drain

And out the water wheel. The whirling grains,

Which seconds earlier had lost their grip,

Became their bodies — smaller ones. (The drip

Of wonky teleporters could take hours,

Though, two shoes disgorging legs like flowers.

Topline teleporting built a body

From the ground up, feet first. But a shoddy

Booth placed hapless patrons’ atom swarms

An inch above the surface, fully formed.

You always knew your bonsai booth was shit

When you re-formed — and fell a little bit.)

The junk was starting its descent: an ivory,

Mohawked ship the modellers had wisely

Left unpainted, thus alluding to

Some Universal Build — pre-paint, post-glue.

She’d never been inside a bonsai model.

Bouncing, Kaye tried out the springy, novel

Pixieclay. The ground was filmed with green

Shreds — grass, in theory — with a glossy sheen

That looked a little off. She gazed up at

The sky: the underside of Lux’s vat,

Inside a rich man’s compound. Clouds were drifting,

Wind produced by hidden fanblades lifting

Brittle leaves (which never had been soft

To start with) into scarlet schools, aloft

And turning, of one mind. You had no clue

That staff of Ichiro’s were staring through

The ozone’s curving shell to monitor

The jaunt and also give the modellers

A hand if shit went down (or Ichiro

Required drinks).

Kaye turned to Lux. “But so,

Like, how exactly does a hardwood floor

Hold up this tank?”

“It doesn’t. There’s a core

Of dense titanium below the Wood,

A couple miles deep.” He coughed. “They stood

The manse on top of it. The core”— he motioned —

“Comes up through the manse, right? So, the ocean,

Town, it all sits on the core. The story

Is they piped titanium through Mori

Tower. Filled it in.”

The junk had “landed”—

Floating overhead. Its hull was branded

With a claw that Kaye thought pretty swish,

Hatori’s corporate logo. Ivory fish

Fins, creased like folded fans, were jutting from

The lower hull. As if a see-through thumb

Had pressed the hull, a patch went concave, popped,

And yawned to form a mouth.

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