Chapter 3

Oswald was trying to forget that Kestrel had referred to patrollers as ‘things’ as he watched her disappear deeper under the pier, into the shadows. It didn’t take long. She took just a few nimble strides before she was gone from view. It reminded him of a chipmunk or rabbit scurrying into some underbrush—he knew this was her turf, this was where she was from, what she knew. But he noticed something strange, he noticed that it still felt like she was there, right in front of him, and he held onto that feeling until it faded away, until she got too far away.

Somehow he knew, like he was seeing the emotions on her face, that she was feeling excited, and a little scared, and then excited again. He wasn’t sure what it meant, but he knew it was her. He ‘sensed’ her, that was the best word he could put to what he was feeling, and he had no idea how. He just knew it didn’t seem like a thing people could or should be able to do. Oh, he thought, he had sensed something from the vacationers earlier, too. He sensed they sucked.

So, that was something else he knew, but didn’t understand, about himself. Add it to the list.

But, back in the world of other people, of things outside his own brain, he knew that Kestrel was afraid he was going to leave while she was gone. But that hadn’t taken anything extraordinary to pick up, no sensing necessary.

But, what she didn’t know, was that he was feeling very lazy. Plus, he had nowhere to go. Her fears were unfounded.

And there was a big part of him that wanted her to come back, and as quickly as possible. Something was telling him to get to know more about her, to find out everything there was to know about Kestrel. One part of him was telling the rest of him that it was very important that he wait for her. He didn’t understand that either.

Then he got bored.

He looked around for something to do, some way to pass the time until she got back. He looked at the wood holding up a world above him, he looked at the ground those long poles were buried in. “Roots,” he said. He tried to look out at the world beyond this little pseudo-cave he was in, but it was too bright and a little too filled with imagined patrollers and vacationers to really want to look there.

He paced back and forth, between the poles and pylons that were down there. He thrust his hands into his pockets and looked at the footprints his bare feet were making in the cool sand as he went in little lazy circles. The sand felt nice here. He liked that.

He looked around on the ground for more enlightening, disintegrating litter, but he couldn’t find any. “Trash can tell you a lot,” he said to himself, like it was some kind of brilliant insight. He just wished he had a camera following him, he would have looked directly into the lens when he said that and raised a knowing eyebrow. He was feeling like a real curious adventurer now, or at least doing his very best impression of one.

With not much to look at and nothing to eat or throw or read, he started paying more attention to the sounds around him. He could hear the waves from the sea. He liked those noises. Those noises were the same as he remembered them being. He could hear people above him laughing and having fun, and that felt familiar, too. Fun wasn’t different here.

But it wasn’t all fun up there. He could pick out the voices of the people working, the voices of people who were serving the ones laughing and having fun. They were the same as he remembered too. There was something perfunctory about them, something practiced and hollow and worn down from repetitive use, like ruts in a road or the discolored part of a statue that a million hands could reach.

He could hear strange things, too, things that were different than he remembered—rumbles and beeps and sliding mechanical sounds. Maybe those were the rides. He hoped those were the rides. He pictured shiny bumper cars and shiny Ferris wheels and shiny roller coasters. He could only picture the things he knew, but shiny.

Then he heard some loud voices, they were laughing and shouting and mimicking each other. Teens. It didn’t take long to spot them, either. They were kicking sand at each other and wearing the same shiny clothes as each other and as the vacationers from earlier and they were coming right toward him.

There were three of them altogether—a tall redheaded guy with broad shoulders and the loudest voice of all of them. Then there was a redheaded girl who figured to be his sister (due to a similar face and size and build, plus the red hair of course). And lastly, there was a little guy with a face like a possum and a really bad blonde and blue haircut. Oswald liked him least of all.

He looked over them and a strange little list burst its way into his mind. The redheaded guy was left handed, so Oswald would have to work away from any big left crosses, and the girl would be stronger than she looked, and almost definitely had some kind of weapon. And the little possum one would run away and scream for help as soon as anything went sideways.

Then he thought that that was all absolutely bonkers to think, and he wasn’t sure why he had thought it or how he had known it or what good any of that information would do.

He didn’t want to fight any teens, even if he somehow knew he’d kick their asses. Which he did know and would absolutely do. But he really didn’t want to. Mostly. Unless he had to, then he wouldn’t mind. But being annoying isn’t a reason to get your ass kicked.

So he watched as they passed by, and he found himself trying to reach out to them, trying to sense them. It felt like being broken down on the side of the road and screaming at cars passing by without any of them slowing down. He wasn’t picking anything up.

He knew they were there—in his senses—but there was no identity or ideas or emotion to them. Just angry, horny blobs drifting by. They were too far away, they were too distracted, they were too self-centered. Whatever he could sense of them drifted by like shadows behind frosted glass.

All of these thoughts came to Oswald uninvited, and all of them felt strange and foreign.

He stared after them from the very limit of the pier as they went up the stairs to the boardwalk above. He wondered what else was up there, like a little kid might. He walked back deeper into the shadows wanting to ride a ride. A shiny one. He really hoped there were rides. Now these were the thoughts Oswald liked to have, these were the thoughts that came right to him. These were the thoughts that were his. He wanted to ride rides, he was curious, he didn’t sense things. Right?

And then he heard a voice. A really weird voice.

“Unknown person. Identify yourself.”

And he could see a shadow of himself outlined in red and blue light on the ground in front of him. He spun around quickly.

“Guh, what the fuck?!” was what Oswald’s voice said, because he was very surprised.

So Oswald started punching and kept punching until the thing he was punching was on the ground. And then he punched a little more.

“Uh-oh,” said Oswald.

He punched very well, it turned out. But, he should have been able to figure that out from how agile he had been earlier, and how fast he had moved when Kestrel tried to tousle his hair.

He felt a pang of regret when he thought of that earlier moment. He knew she felt embarrassed then, he wished she hadn’t. He wished he hadn’t done a dramatic martial arts move like a total weirdo. That was the wrong kind of weird, the kind of weird she wouldn’t accept. He knew it.

But he had a bigger problem and he had to come back to the present. A problem he had made from punching.

There was a big metal shape at his feet. It was roughly man-sized. And if it had been a man, its face and head would have been smashed real bad. Its teeth would have been knocked out. But, instead, it just had a weird, flat rectangle. And that was smashed in, instead of its face and head.

From Oswald’s punching.

“Don’t sneak up on a guy like that. Jeez. Especially a guy who secretly knows how to punch real good.” And he gave it a little kick with his foot for surprising him.

He looked at his hand, he wanted to see the thing that had done all of that damage. He couldn’t believe it was just a fist—his fist. But he discovered the metal head had done some damage to him too—his hand was bloody and starting to swell already. He gave the metal lump at his feet another small kick. Blood dripped into the sand next to the metal thing.

He started to tear off a strip of fabric from the sewed hem at the bottom of his shirt to use to keep the rest of his blood inside of his hand. After tearing away a few inches, a small, metal disc slid out from the fabric and landed in the sand.

He bent down to picked up the thing that had fallen out of his shirt, reaching first with the bloody hand, thinking better of that, and then with the clean one. The thing was flat and rectangular and reflected light the way an oil slick does—in an ugly little rainbow. It had been sewn into his shirt. The one with his name on the back.

“This must be for me,” he said. Obviously.

He slipped it into his pocket and thought about how weird it was. He made a mental note to figure out the mystery of the shirt disc later. He kept tearing away the strip of his hem, wondering if more mysteries would fall out. None did, so ripped the piece of fabric off his shirt and tied off his wounded hand instead.

He started patting himself down, looking for more mysterious items. He traced his hands down his pant legs and along his sides and around his collar. Nothing. He did notice his clothes were feeling really gross though, kinda stiff and crusty, from the salt water.

“Gross,” he said.

Then he remembered his problem. The problem he had just made. He made a couple more mental notes, all about his clothing, and resigned himself to the immediate issue. He looked down and over the man-sized metal thing that had snuck up on him.

It had treads where feet would go, big triangular ones. A thick pole that looked flexible came up from the ‘feet’ and disappeared into a cone-shaped ‘body’, to continue the man comparison. It had lensed openings on its ‘chest’ and smashed ‘face’, and that was probably where the light had come from. Maybe the voice, too. It was all painted black and white.

It had four weird, spidery arms, each with its own creepy hand. Some of the hands were different from each other, but couldn’t figure out what any of them were for except for one with big ugly ‘fingers’ (that one was for grabbing), but that was as far as he got in discerning their purpose. He got the feeling he didn’t want to.

Its ‘head’ was a big, broken mess, but he could tell it had been a flat-ish rectangle with a pill-shaped opening at the front and rounded edges all over. It had a small, red cone on top. Oswald laughed because he thought it looked like a tiny little hat.

But this was going to be a problem. It already was, probably. He kept coming back to that. This would absolutely upset Kestrel. He was going to have to deal with it. Somehow. He looked back and forth between it and the ocean and stuck out his bottom lip and raised his eyebrows.

“Nah. Too far. Plus there are all these people. Maybe they wouldn’t even care? It’s just some weird robot. Maybe people put them in the ocean all the time.”

Then he thought they might mind. They’d probably mind. They’d at least definitely notice. The littering, if nothing else.

He tried to think of another way to deal with it. Another way to make sure Kestrel didn’t see it, didn’t get upset about it.

“Got it!” He sounded more enthusiastic than the plan warranted.

But he got started on it, very quickly and enthusiastically.