io9 is proud to current fiction from LIGHTSPEED MAGAZINE. Once a month, we function a narrative from LIGHTSPEED’s present difficulty. This month’s choice is “Last Stand of the E. 12th St. Pirates” by L.D. Lewis. You can learn the story beneath or listen to the podcast on LIGHTSPEED’s web site. Enjoy!
Last Stand of the E. twelfth St. Pirates
STAND BACK DOORS CLOSING.
Dee heard the musical bing-bong of the departure warning between tune transitions in her headphones, and watched because the heads of staff in line forward of her lolled again within the common why, God gesture of commuters in every single place.
There was just one freight automotive down the wall into the Flood District, and it was shared by all bulk service suppliers who got here bearing presents: upkeep staff, photo voltaic installers, grocery and bundle supply, and the like. A bing-bong meant one other fifteen-minute wait.
Dee thrummed her fingers alongside the deal with of her hand cart and flicked by way of her manifest for the tenth time. Watertight bins containing every week’s value of snail mail for eighteen blocks of residents stacked to her chin. Bobby, her companion, stood behind her with one other cart between them. She glanced again to seek out his mouth was shifting rapidly, the way in which it did when he was complaining. He’d solely been on this route a bit over a 12 months in comparison with her ten, so his model of morning banter was nonetheless fuming over protocol.
G/O Media could get a fee
Dee shrugged her sympathies and turned again round. She was simply pleased they made it in earlier than Amazon.
The flooded a part of the town stretched into the ocean beneath them. Rooftops introduced largely as rows of photo voltaic panels much less spectacular on dreary, overcast days like this. The solely dwelling inexperienced was on prime of the buildings west of seventeenth—since tree-lined streets may now not denote monied neighborhoods. The flood waters stopped receding the summer time of 2025. There was no nice disaster. Storm frequency had merely outpaced the plans developed to stop it. We’d been promised a cinematic destiny, drowned by a remaining wave, inevitable and large enough to call. The actuality—that we may very well be undone by three inches of standing water in locations no water must be—had largely registered as an affront after which turned a possibility. Rather than power resettlement on the residents who couldn’t or wouldn’t evacuate, the district had develop into an experiment in the best way to preserve infrastructure, a functioning society on prime of an encroaching sea.
Dee and Bobby managed to squeeze into the following freight automotive wedged between a plucky greengrocer from a dry a part of the town and an exhausted-looking FedEx driver together with his personal cart of heavy deliverables. The descent to the business docks was fast, accompanied by a collection of pneumatic hisses and nice AI-voiced reminders to verify sidearms for performance and report any safety issues to the dock supervisor.
DOORS OPENING. STEP BACK TO ALLOW USERS TO EXIT BEFORE BOARDING.
The docks buzzed as personnel loaded and unloaded small firm cargo vessels. Chatter mingled whereas Dee and Bobby carved a path to their slip the place a pair of federal-blue USPS boats have been anchored. Dee climbed aboard and lowered the ramp for Bobby to load their cargo. He was a burly younger man with a neat beard and a joke for each event. Dee regarded him largely as a nephew who performed an excessive amount of, however she was all the time pleased to let him do the lifting whereas she strapped the whole lot down.
“Morning, Andi,” Bobby known as behind her.
Dee turned from her tangle of 550 twine to see a stern-looking girl approaching the slip in a salt-spattered windbreaker and glasses it should have been inconceivable to really see out of. She was the dock supervisor and checked manifest paperwork for gadgets requiring insurance coverage. Too many and the supply workforce would wish added manpower for secured transport.
“It is that,” Andi replied, punching the display screen of her pill. “Any precious cargo?”
“Packages all standard.” Dee grunted, climbing again over the circumstances of mail to greet her on the dock.
“Anything going up past 17th?” Andi requested.
“Always.”
“Might want to get that done first.”
Dee was about to ask why when a helicopter handed loudly overhead. Andi pointed up at it.
“New builds getting shipments today.”
Shit, Dee thought. It was her flip to be exasperated. “Amazon?”
“Mm-hmm. They’re not playing with the pirates this time either. I’d clear out before dark. Hardware check.”
Bobby shifted his posture to level to the pistol holstered on his hip. The factor made Dee itch.
“What does that mean? ‘They’re not playing with the pirates this time?’” Dee requested.
“The Fed’s done letting any old thing happen here. They’re trying to bring in new money to keep the program going, so if an opportunity presents itself to clean up, private security’s got the green light to do it. There’s a briefing about it Monday. Check your docket.” Andi gave her a pointed look that mentioned they’d been warned and handed Dee a stylus to signal the pill earlier than taking off.
Dee chewed her lip, watching boats drift from their moors into the lapping waters of South Street. She’d lived right here as soon as, and dealing her route was rather a lot like coming again house. She knew these individuals. And she knew the pirates. No one had cared about theft when this place was the brand new wild west, when legal guidelines concerning rights and property and enforcement have been fluid whereas the brand new techniques have been put in place. She hated the way in which the posh new builds have been taking precedence over the unique residents, the way in which new cash introduced new surveillance and new penalties for individuals who couldn’t afford to pay them. If they may afford that, they may have afforded to depart.
Well, Dee thought, similar because it ever was.
“We doing the west end first, then?” Bobby interrupted her ideas.
“No, we’ve got people’s medications and stuff here that can’t wait. We’ll just be quick about it.” She paused in her preparations to take inventory of Bobby stress-free towards the facet of the boat, thumbs hooked in his belt loops like a lazy cop absently drawing consideration to his sidearm.
“Keep your hand off that thing,” she instructed him. “You’re not shooting anybody over here. You deliver the damn mail.”
Bobby chuckled. “Hey, if it comes down to me or them—”
“It’ll be you if I have to repeat myself.” Dee snapped again.
“Alright, Miss Lady, calm down.” He raised his arms in give up however the impish smirk was nonetheless there. Dee threatened to kill him at the least as soon as every week however it was normally after lunch.
“I am calm. Just don’t make me toss your big behind overboard. I know you can’t swim,” Dee replied, chuckling on the visible in her thoughts as she began the engine.
“Shit, I can dog-paddle.” He winked.
Dee barked her laughter this time as Bobby nudged them away from the dock. She nodded on the captain of a shiny lime grocery-bearing Shipt boat drifting by forward of them as they cleared the block.
“Leave and go where?” June Watterson scoffed. She was one of many authentic residents of the Flood District, right here by way of each inch of the transformation as a result of her getting older mom wouldn’t go away. Their third-story residence was now successfully the bottom flooring. She stood within the doorway, darkish pores and skin illuminated by LEDs within the mesh-grated walkway that served as a sidewalk. They had the identical dialog each time Dee stopped by. Things had gotten higher however would inevitably worsen. Either method, when it got here to evacuating, you’d should have someplace to go first.
“You know I don’t know,” Dee all the time responded, handing over the month’s payments and a carton of medicines.
“Did you notice air traffic is picking up here?”
“Saw a chopper earlier. Dock manager said something about increased security coming in.”
“About time. I—”
“What you mean ‘about time?’” The elder Mrs. Watterson known as angrily from inside. “You know they’re not coming to be any help to us. All they’re coming to do is harass these kids.”
June rolled her eyes and Dee tried to not snigger.
“How are you doing, Mrs. Watterson?” she known as, glimpsing the small girl shucking newly delivered peas at their eating room desk.
“I’m fine, baby, how are you? They doing things the same way on the other side of the wall?” Mrs. Watterson replied, a lot of the venom gone out of her tone.
“Nothing’s changed.” Dee replied.
“Nothing ever does.” Mrs. Watterson mentioned.
Dee checked her watch and glanced at Bobby down within the boat, tapping away at his telephone display screen. It was nearing midday they usually have been shifting a bit slower than she’d hoped.
“Ladies, I have to get going. We’re supposed to clear out by nightfall,” she mentioned.
“Take care, baby. We’ll see you next week,” Mrs. Watterson known as.
Dee hesitated earlier than taking over a conspiratorial tone as she turned again to June. “Hey I don’t know if Jay’s been around lately but… the security that’s coming in? They’re coming for pirates. There’s an Amazon shipment coming in tonight on the west side and they’re ready if he hits it.”
June’s lips tightened and alarm sparked briefly in her eyes earlier than sputtering out into one thing like resignation. Then she nodded. Jay was her nephew. Dee had recognized him as a toddler, however he’d come of age on the low seas of the Flood District. With no streets to run and minimal sources to remain idle arms, he’d made fairly a reputation for himself because the twelfth Street Robin Hood.
“That boy…” June sighed. “I’ll make some calls. But you’ll probably see him out there before we do.”
“I’ll tell him to come home if I do.”
Dee gave her a fast hug earlier than shifting on down the block, pulling up her hood as a gradual rain started to fall. The buildings have been shorter, their first two tales hidden beneath murky water crusted with neon algal blooms. Retractable bridges related buildings throughout street-canals, able to be taken up a degree ought to the water rise once more. The streets have been no wider now than that they had been when automobiles used them, and it was a cautious dance attempting to navigate all of them on the similar time. Bobby adopted beneath her within the boat.
Between the mild rain and the lighted pathways, the sounds and smells of small however pleased properties, this place on the sting of the world may very well be quaint. If solely it may final.
She stepped into an residence constructing close to the highest of 14th Street and knocked on a Mr. Carver’s door. She as soon as lived within the two-story constructing subsequent door however it was gone. She’d watched over time because the water line crept up and swallowed it. Even the rooftop now disappeared beneath the vibrating floor of the water.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Carver,” she mentioned cheerily when he opened the door. A wave of lemon and freshly labored timber adopted behind him.
“Miss Dee! I could hardly tell it’s been a week already,” he mentioned, rolling his wheelchair backward so she had house to place his packages within the hallway. The flat was an open, sprawling house with broad home windows that after might need fetched a reasonably penny. Music radiated from someplace inside and a row of good-looking wood chairs he’d constructed himself lined one of many partitions.
“Does seem like time’s speeding up, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah, I don’t know if it’s a good thing or a bad thing, though. You remember that big old oak out back?” he requested.
“Mm-hmm.”
“I don’t think I ever had much use for clocks but I could tell time of day by that thing’s shadows.” He mentioned wistfully, gazing out of one of many home windows the place there was now solely an expanse of grey water. “I miss it. I miss trees.”
“There’s still trees on the dry side. You thought about moving over? I have a friend who could get you a good deal on workshop space.”
“Far enough away from the wall? You know it’s only a matter of time before that side looks like this side. I can’t afford to keep moving.”
Out within the hallway, music blared out of an open door a second earlier than being muffled once more behind it. Dee leaned again out of the doorway to squint at a younger man headed towards the exit.
“Jay?” she known as. He circled.
“Mr. Carver, I have to head out, but I’ll see you next week, okay?” she mentioned rapidly.
“Alright now, be safe.” Mr. Carver waved her off and she or he closed his door behind her.
“What’s up Miss Dee?” Jay smiled broadly and hugged her. He’d been a brief, bobble-headed eight year-old as soon as, however had grown right into a good-looking, athletic younger man with a simple confidence and a boisterous intelligence. She may see him as a pacesetter of an excellent many issues in one other time and place. Here, although, he was only a pirate.
“Nothing at all. You still being a menace?” Dee requested him.
“Never that,” he replied modestly, pulling out his telephone and responding to messages buzzing on it.
Dee studied him. “I just saw June and your grandma. They haven’t seen you lately?”
“Nah, I’ve been busy. But I’ll make sure I drop by soon so they don’t worry.”
“Busy with what? Are you still taking things that don’t belong to you?”
Jay hesitated earlier than placing his telephone away, taking over the relaxed posture of somebody who’d obtained various lectures he was ready to face and take respectfully, even when he didn’t intend to soak up any of it. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Jay, they’re protecting that shipment tonight. This… game you’ve been playing all these years, they’re ending it now. Cops are paying attention. Private security is paying attention. What you’re doing is bad for business and they will take you down for it. That’s how the story always goes. Think about your future.”
“The future?” Jay scoffed. “Where?”
Dee sighed. He was proper. There was no utilizing the long run towards children as of late. Not when the whole lot gave the impression to be winding down.
“You’re right, that was stupid. I meant—”
“Miss Dee, that wall has everybody thinking what’s going on over here won’t come for them.” He pointed a instantly indignant finger towards the doorway and the wall past it. “But it will. That’s the only future. Anybody moving here by choice has missed the point. The only game on this side of town is taking what you can get and whatever money you can get for it to get yourself and your people as far away from the edge of the world as possible.”
“If you try and take that shipment tonight, there’s a high chance you and all your ‘people’ will die. Violently. What would that do to June?” Dee pleaded.
He shook his head and Dee felt unusually like she’d let him down. “Like I said, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I’ll bet.” She didn’t know what else she may say.
His telephone buzzed once more and his consideration diverted as he typed his responses. Dee didn’t doubt it was concerning the evening’s plans.
“Look, I gotta go,” he mentioned, backing away towards the door. “I’ll tell Aunt June I’ll stop by next week. You should come for dinner or something.”
“I… be safe,” she blurted. He nodded and left at a jog, the door banging closed behind him.
seventeenth Street was a backyard. The buildings right here have been lined in aquatic climbing vines and the walkways have been trimmed with flowering crops accented by exterior lumination suggesting this place existed by design, not disaster. The solar had solely simply gone down when Dee began her rounds right here. She discovered the doorways painted a shiny white or cheery pastel, and the residents having fun with the out of doors house on their fenced-in rooftops. Boat slips hooked up to the backs of residences have been crammed with modest vessels that appeared luxurious in comparison with the comparatively stationary nature of the remainder of the district.
Bobby was noticeably antsy the place he waited within the boat, his head extra on a swivel now and fewer on his telephone. They’d handed lots of the different cargo vessels headed again to the docks. Dee knew nobody right here personally, and made fast work of slipping mail by way of slots or leaving packages on doorsteps as she made her method up the block. She couldn’t cease herself from peering into the darkish for indicators of Jay when a foghorn introduced the Amazon vessel being loaded within the docks. She hated once they did that. It meant everybody knew when an enormous, costly cargo was arriving and served as a warning to clear the canals of site visitors so the rattling factor may match.
Dee’s coronary heart pounded because the noise of air site visitors picked up at the hours of darkness overhead. The buzzes have been small and clipped and marked by blinking pink mild. Surveillance drones. But she remembered the helicopter and couldn’t cease herself imagining all of the issues it was meant for that have been worse than watching.
“We need to roll,” Bobby known as, watching the skies himself.
“Yeah, you’re not wrong,” Dee known as again. She was scanning a label on a bundle she was leaving when the door opened and she or he almost startled herself backward over the walkway railing.
“Oh sorry,” the person mentioned with an expert type of smile. He seemed on the bundle on the bottom and nudged it inside together with his foot. “Is this it? I was expecting more.”
“If it’s Amazon, it’s on its way,” Dee mentioned rapidly and tried to maneuver on.
“Do you always deliver mail this late? I thought I was going to have to confront someone when I opened—”
“Confront how?” Dee snapped. She knew what confront meant. It all the time meant the identical factor when some individuals mentioned it.
She should have made a face as a result of the person appeared to assume higher of the dialog and backed into his house. “No worries. Have a good night.”
Dee completed the block however observed her arms have been shaking by the point she reached the top. She may see the way forward for this place, of that man and a confrontation with a boy like Jay or any of her different buddies who lived right here. The method it will finish. The method it all the time did as a result of nothing ever modified.
Bobby stared her down as she lowered herself again into the boat. He was involved about her, about this evening, however wouldn’t press leaving any greater than he already had with out her say-so.
“Let’s head back. Last street will have to get done tomorrow,” she mentioned.
“Won’t hear me complaining. You want me to drive?”
“I got it,” she insisted and turned over the engine simply because the drone of a helicopter started to develop louder. They watched as a highlight began its dance over the rooftops and canals, in search of any signal of bother. Bobby switched on the blue mild that might point out they have been a federal vessel and never pirates or individuals with a common disdain for curfews. Dee steered them by way of the darkish water at a clip bordering recklessness, attempting to remain off probably the most direct path to the west facet in order to not intervene with the Amazon ship’s path. It meant extra facet streets and extra sharp, darkish turns. Part of her hoped it additionally meant she may bump into Jay and his crew in time to dam them.
And then it occurred. 14th and Wax. Dee almost despatched the boat barreling right into a matte-black behemoth rising stealthily from an alleyway. She drilled into reverse lengthy sufficient to neutralize her momentum after which shuddered right into a drift at fifty toes.
“Dee, what are you doing?” Bobby hissed behind her. Dee didn’t reply, however turned their highlight onto the black boat the place a dozen masks and pairs of shining eyes had began showing over the bow. She couldn’t make out which one was Jay.
“Jay, where are you?” She known as loudly over the frenzy of blood in her ears, the violent drone of the helicopter terrifyingly shut behind them. “Stop this! Go home, all of you.”
“You first, lady,” a boy’s voice replied.
“You don’t understand. This is not like the other nights. There are people… People have been authorized to kill you if you rob that ship. Jay, please.”
A low whistle went out over the boat and weapons started to appear over the bow, brandished casually and slung over their slender shoulders.
“Ain’t the only ones with guns, Dee,” mentioned Jay’s voice as he approached the entrance. It was low and critical, terrifying in its authority. If she couldn’t persuade him alone, what likelihood did she should persuade him in entrance of his buddies?
Dee heard the click off of the security change on Bobby’s gun behind her and spun.
“Bobby stand the fuck down! They’re kids!”
Bobby seethed after which reluctantly obeyed. “Dee, they’re going to shoot us or plow through us. You can’t save what don’t want to be saved,” he growled.
Over their shoulders, the helicopter was getting nearer, clearing the way in which forward of the ship. It can be upon them in a matter of minutes. Dee blew panicked breaths from burning cheeks and seemed round them for one more reply, however none introduced itself.
“What…what can I say to make this stop?” she pleaded to the masked pirates. “It isn’t fair and I’m sorry. They should care more about you. They always should have. But dying here tonight doesn’t prove anything except… they don’t. There’s no message you can send that these people will hear if you’re sending it with their… bought bullshit in your hands. It’s a bad world. It never got to be as great as it could have been but there’s still so much I…”
Dee circled with tears scorching her cheeks. People have been standing on the walkways, illuminated of their open doorways and searching on in worry.
“Look, you won’t even survive to pawn the crap, okay?” Bobby yelled. “Maybe you find another way out. Maybe you go back to piracy when you have a better plan. But don’t do this tonight. Not like this.”
“Go home to your families and figure something else out. It’s what we’ve always done. There’s always been another way,” Dee mentioned, leaving the final phrase to the ocean breeze and chopping blades of the helicopter.
The pirates appeared to discuss with each other wordlessly for some time however Jay by no means turned his gaze from hers.
“Stand dow—” he lastly grunted, however the blaring of a ship’s horn drowned him out. The Amazon ship had turned the nook on the prime of the road, bathing all of them in harsh, white mild. The helicopter introduced up the rear and zoomed forward in a hover instantly over Dee’s boat, highlight shining on the pirate decks.
They’d barely had time to place down their weapons.
“Nononononono…” Dee stammered, waving her arms in a gesture of cease-fire. She heard Jay’s frantic shouts of “clear the deck!” behind her as she reached for the mic to her loudspeaker.
“You are in violation of—” The helicopter blared.
“There’s no trouble here! No trouble!” Dee screeched into her personal microphone. “These are just kids. They’re clearing out right now. Stand down.”
“You are in violation of—”
“STAND DOWN!” Dee bellowed.
“—We will be forced to open fire…”
“Get out of there!” Bobby screamed. Dee may barely see for staring into the lights so long as she had. But the ship’s horn roared once more because it continued its strategy, threatening to crush their boat. Who knew if the children had managed to desert ship. Around her, outraged cries rang out from the neighbors bearing witness, and the helicopter was nonetheless threatening to open hearth.
“You have ten seconds to comply,” the helicopter commanded.
Of all of the methods to die on the fringe of the world, Dee thought. Her thoughts reeled as she squinted towards the pirate ship to see the children nonetheless scrambling. There was nowhere for them to go that wasn’t into the slender strips of water or leaping onto close by rooftops. Someone’s shirt was strung from an antenna as a makeshift white flag. She and Bobby exchanged determined appears to be like that mentioned neither of them knew what to do, which method to flee, in the event that they have been even targets or in the event that they’d be leaving the children to their destiny.
“Eight…”
It was purported to be a wave.
“Five…”
We have been purported to drown or freeze to loss of life.
“Three…”
The chaos of the top was purported to be totally different.
“Two…”
Why did nothing ever change?
“One.”
About the Author
L.D. Lewis is an editor, writer, and Shirley Jackson Award-nominated author of speculative fiction. She serves as a founding creator and Project Manager for the World Fantasy and Hugo Award-winning FIYAH Literary Magazine. She additionally serves because the founding Director of FIYAHCON, Researcher for the (additionally award-winning) LeVar Burton Reads podcast, and pays the payments because the Awards Manager for the Lambda Literary Foundation. She incessantly bothers the publishing trade by authoring research concerning the remedy and experiences of racially/ethnically marginalized authors in speculative literature. She is the creator of A Ruin of Shadows (Dancing Star Press, 2018) and her printed quick fiction and poetry embody appearances in FIYAH, PodCastle, Strange Horizons, Anathema: Spec from the Margins, Lightspeed, and Neon Hemlock, amongst others. She lives in Georgia, on perpetual deadline, along with her espresso behavior and a powerful LEGO construct assortment. Tweet her @ellethevillain.
Please go to LIGHTSPEED MAGAZINE to learn extra nice science fiction and fantasy. This story first appeared within the December 2022 difficulty, which additionally options work by P H Lee, Rati Mehrotra, Alex Irvine, Nadine Tomlinson, Rich Larson, Aimee Ogden, Stewart C. Baker, and extra. You can await this month’s contents to be serialized on-line, or you should buy the entire difficulty proper now in handy book format for simply $3.99, or subscribe to the book version by way of the hyperlink beneath.
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