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Chapter 1: Coin Flip
The fling of the Captain’s coin left me wavering as it soared toward the shabby ceiling. Metal clanged when it bounced off the rusty chandelier. The gentle push against the branched frame made the flames of the dying candles flicker.
The aged, liquor-shot eyes lost the spinning gold piece, while the few innocent twinkling eyes glued to every turn. The bartender no longer dried mugs but wiped the sweat from his temples with his dirty rag.
Captain Vex snatched the falling coin and slammed it on the creaking round table. An eerie silence pervaded the bay bar like a pulsing beat.
“Sure you wanna risk it, ay?” The Captain’s voice croaked of rum.
With a stretch of my arms, I folded my hands. The cracks of my bones mingled with my prosthesis' wooden creaks.
“I have made up my mind. I won't delay my goal any longer . . . the answers to my parents' connection to Jade Mint and, more importantly, why they left me for it.”
I adjusted my hat and eyed him with my non-patched eye. “Do you know what lets you overcome a fear?” I lowered my voice in hopes of sounding more masculine.
The Captain swirled the last bit of saliva-mixed rum in his fourth bottle of the night. The urge to smack the dried drool off his mouth itched me since the discussion began.
“Hercu, even if you get out of here alive,” he scoffed. “One of your snarky ‘wisdoms’ will get you killed someday.”
I frowned and waited for him to ask for the answer. I felt the piston mechanisms inside my self-made arm. The rough textured metal rods were worn. With a firm jerk, the case snapped back into place.
“Ay, tell us your stupid line already, lad.” His face drew long shadows in the dim light.
“A bigger fear,” I said curtly and checked the cartridge in my shoulder. “The Jade Mint won’t last long.”
The room grew quiet. Some crew members gasped like they had an idea, then froze and yielded. Mike, who sat beside me and the Captain, made a fist. His pale, green-tinted eyes gazed from his fist over to his other hand. He narrowed his eyes to sharp slits and grabbed his fist. Eyes widened, and jaw dropped. The realization struck him. Then he went back to smoking.
“That I even once doubted about severing threads to this—bunch . . .”
With reinforced resolve, I grabbed my faithful short cutlass under the table and nodded towards the table. “Your coin, ay.”
Captain Vex sucked the liquid out of the bottle and threw it over his shoulder. One of the new kids, a lanky one, caught it awkwardly.
It bugged me that the children related so well with my past self. It got me into many fights with the elderly crew members.
“It pains to lose such an asset to the crew, but I keep my word.” The Captain raised his hand from the coin, his wrinkles barely distinguishable from his scars. As if a sun had swapped sizes with earth, the unblemished coin’s surface glittered in the dancing candlelight of our flat world.
A bright smirk cracked on his already dry lips. “That’s your head, Hercu.” He held his palm open as if to receive something he had just bought.
My rehearsed sigh came across as a tad too dramatic. It wasn’t the first 50-50 I lost—I checked my grappling hook—and it wouldn’t be the last.
The whole bar burst up in laughter. Emptied mugs hit the tables. Others still gulped their liquor, spilling half the content on their filthy shirts.
“We’ll miss you, Hercu.” The grandfather figure of the crew quipped and bumped his mug with that of his neighbor.
The children laughed, too. With tears in their eyes, they trembled. One of them, Lisa, grabbed my artificial arm. “What’ll happen to us if you’re gone?” Her eyes darted to one of the older scumbags in a corner. My heart twinged at the thought of him, how this greasy rat always licked his lips at Lisa’s sight.
“How about one last duel before you jump off the plank?” Birney bellowed with sarcasm as he noticed my stare.
I scowled, pressing my teeth together to stay controlled.
Over and over again, I had been through this. Every night, I contemplated whether to leave the children or not. I convinced myself that there was simply no right or wrong answer. Now that the coin had fallen, the only thing that mattered was whether the old farts were drunk enough or not.
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I leaned closer and whispered to the girl. “Get out. Maybe the turmoil is enough.”
She pulled the other children away, but a foot made her trip. A pair of hands grabbed the other children in a tight grip. The Captain teasingly narrowed his gaze on me. My knuckles turned white as I clutched my mug tightly.
My breath caught out of control. Against my attempts to calm it, my overwhelming heartbeat quivered against me.
“Of course.” I clicked my tongue. “Rainfall.” I tried to focus on the ceiling, on the soft, muffled sound of endless raindrops.
I breathed out through my nose. “I'll pick you up on the offer, Birney!” I raised my mug, took a long sip, and exaggeratedly moaned in bliss.
“The moment we part ways . . .”
I slammed the mug on the table’s candle and rose from my seat, throwing my chair to the floor. I swiftly threw my cutlass at the Captain’s face. His eyes flashed a faint green. He caught the point right in front of his nose. With both hands on the table, I spun and kicked against the pommel, ramming the blade into his skull. He slumped to the ground.
The force pushed me back onto the uneven wooden floor. With a skid, I got up in one motion. Ignoring my dropped hat, I threw my grappling hook at the man, detaining the children. It donged against his forehead. I pulled it back, overturning tables to extinguish more candles.
I snatched my cutlass from the Captain’s nose. “Run!” I yelled to the children and grabbed a stool to smash into the next crew member. The old crap shattered on impact.
A hassle broke out. The drunken crew’s perception caught up to what just happened.
A saber cut clean through the chair’s remains and dug into some hardwood of my prosthesis. Green steam poured out of the engine, and with a jolt, the powerful pistons inside snapped the sword in two.
“Hercu!” Lisa screamed.
I spun close to my opponent and smashed an elbow against his ear.
Lisa struggled under the weight of a fully grown man. Birney was on top of her with a bright grin.
I pulled my percussion cap pistol out of the hidden holster in my coat.
“Bastard.” The explosion in the chamber rocked against my tight grip. The bullet nailed Birney’s head to the bench behind him.
Mugs and knives flew at me. My reinforced coat blocked most of it, but it still hurt. Swords slashed at me as I meandered around tables, chairs, and bloodthirsty men. One of the children got choked while another tried to pry the man off his friend.
I threw my hook and let it sling around the chandelier. With a hard pull, it tore free, and I hurled it against the men. More candles puffed out. I pulled down my eyepatch to see better in the dark and dashed to the children. In the corner of my vision, a man with a cigar aimed his flintlock pistol at me. I leaned back so far that I lost balance and hit the ground.
Another bullet banged through the bar. The gust of wind hissed past me. A grunt for air resounded behind me, like a whisper in the hassle. Lukas’ eyes, one of the children, dulled. A hole in his stomach. He fell flat. Complaints of the glaring light echoed through the bar.
A saber plunged a board plank beside my head, but I couldn’t peel my eyes off the child twitching in his blood. Dazed eyes squinted at me, and the old geezer eventually realized he had missed. More steam screeched out of my engine. I forcefully cramped my alloyed wooden fist and struck the saber, shattering it.
I pushed up from the ground, locking eyes with the man that shot, and got going. In zig-zags, over tables and heads, pushing me ahead while pushing them down, like I sped over a river with water lilies. Then I arrived and slashed at his throat. His head tore off his neck, splattering, his cigar dropping out of his mouth and into my hand.
With a flick of my wrist, my hook flew to the bar counter and wrapped around an anchored stool. I pressed the button. The gears whirred and reeled the rope; I flew to the bar. In a low position, I landed on the bar.
Bottles and wooden mugs littered and showered the cowering bartender. Men accused their crew members as they bumped into one another and lashed out in search of me. I reached for the largest bottle and took a deep drag on the cigar. The embers flared up. I puffed greenish smoke. I beheaded the bottle, dropped the cigar inside, and tossed it into the middle of the room.
I squinted my eyes. A bright lime fire broke loose and tackled the furniture; the flames turning searing red at once.
I lunged at the last two men who had attacked the children. Flashed, they didn’t see me coming.
“Follow me!” I whispered.
The three, still breathing, children followed me to the back door. It slammed open with a kick. A downpour welcomed us, drenching us as we hurried through the dead of night.
Thick salty air and petrichor stirred my nose. An orange lantern on the house wall spent little light. In the puddles on the cobblestones, our faint reflections distorted into many tiny pulses.
“Time for us to part ways, guys.” I ruffled their wet hair. Behind them, the rain took care of the burning bar.
Eyes widened. “Hercu, you can’t”—Lisa clung to my waist—“leave.”
“Don’t worry. You remember the orphanage I told you about? Go there, and I’ll visit you. They will take care of you. Tell Anna I’ve sent you.”
Lisa pouted up to me. Due to the strong gale and rain shower, only her expression told me she cried. She reminded me of me in the past.
“Take this for the journey.” I gave them some rings. “And remember to travel only with the nuns.”
“How much I miss Anna . . . I would love to go with them, but I’m afraid I won’t want to go away anymore and won’t follow through with my plan.”
I knocked some water out of my prosthesis. The old lump had been through a lot with me; the salty water had marked it.
“Is this it? Just like that?” James asked. He was one of the first child recruits we had on board after me.
“Yes! Take care of yourselves, Lisa, James, and Darrick.” I turned to each of them, then turned to leave. Long goodbyes hurt.
“Wait! Where are you going anyway?” Lisa's face, although smudged, remained adorable; two tears sparkling like shell beads in the dark.
“Just as I had always told you . . .” I stared at the wild sea in the distance. I couldn't make out the waves, but they were calling me.
“Under The Dawn Sea.”
“No way!?” James blurted out. “How would you even get there? It’s all lies! No one can travel that deep underwater!”
I flashed a toothy grin. “What else should you live for, if not to explore what no one has . . . yet,” I stated—more than asked.