the side of the ship, a mile behind them. A split second later a fireball gushed out of the side, then broke out of the holds, sending the massive steel hatches spinning up into the air.
Secondary explosions visibly rippled the hull, vomiting debris and surviving clouds of spheres that rose above the conflagration in slow motion.
As they stared the funnels toppled over, striking the heaving seas and breaking apart.
More explosions ripped through and, slowly, the mist boat began to settle deeper into the water.
“Jesus,” Bish muttered.
Lars didn’t say anything; he had one of his cameras held tight in his hand and was filming. A trickle of blood ran down his temple, but he didn’t seem to notice.
The cabin reeked of spilled beer.
Anika flinched as the other two mist boats in the distance exploded.
“Were the other two ships fully automated?” Roo asked.
“There was a maintenance crew,” Bish said. “They cycled between the Arctic mist boats. They might have been aboard … I don’t know.”
Chandra circled around looking for survivors as the ships burned and slowly sank.
“Roo…” Anika pointed out another gliding missile in the distance, curving through a roiling column of smoke. Another metallic shark, hunting for something.
Light abruptly split the sky as tens of thousands of mirrors scattered in the air turned their attention to one single point in space. But the missile easily danced away. The beam of light boiled water on the surface of the ocean for a moment, then faded away, leaving nothing but a wisp of steam to show it ever existed.
“Jesus.” Roo shook his head. “That’s just one hold’s worth of those floating things. It’s not quick enough to fry a missile, but whoever controls it was trying.”
Finding no more targets, the cruise missile splashed down into the ocean and sank. The floating mirrors rose above the clouds, and they were left alone circling the destruction.
Oil coated the frothy sea, as did tens of thousands of now-dead spheres. They had to keep upwind; Chandra couldn’t risk any low-floating spheres hitting his blades or getting sucked into the motor.
But no bright red suits waved for help, and no emergency boats had been launched. No rafts. Nothing.
For fifteen minutes they whirled around the mess, until Chandra shouted, “We’ll run out of fuel before Paradise Island if we don’t leave now!”
“Let’s go,” Roo told him, barely audible.
Chandra banked away, and slowly the burning ships disappeared behind the waves and horizon.
Lars turned his camera off and packed it back away. They all sat quietly, lost in their own thoughts, sobered by the sight.
25
Pleasure Island was the fourth in an arc of oil platforms on the edge of the western side of the Northwest Passage.
Brock and Borden islands perched on the western edge of the Sverdrup Basin. There was more wealth out in the basin’s oil field than in any area in Western Canada. And all of it had been left alone by the twentieth century due to an inability to cope with the choking Arctic ice.
With the oil now accessible, rigs popping up every couple weeks, people poured in from around the world to work in the industry. And all the people in that cloud of an ecosystem that served the drilling, the manufacturing, the shipping, and activity of the Sverdrup Basin needed somewhere to cut loose.
Baffin was too far. Prudhoe Bay was too far.
So Pleasure Island accreted around the remains of a shut down offshore platform: the rights to set up its bars, casinos, and other venues leased from TransOceanic, the owner of the platform.
The rig had started out looking like a small industrial city sitting on top of the usual assortment of tubular metal legs that stuck out of the water. That original city had been built up on, so that it now looked dangerously top-heavy, brimming with extensions to the sides and buildings that drooped off the rim.
They landed on a floating airstrip anchored off the back of the rig, Chandra swearing for the last four minutes of the flight, terrified that they were going to run out of fuel and have to ditch. But the helicopter coughed its way on its last fumes to the helicopter pad on the barge and Chandra leaned over his controls and kissed his instruments when they landed softly.
Roo sat with him in the cockpit, transferring money around via phone through emergency, secret, and according to him, quite shielded accounts he had access to thanks to his part-time Caribbean spy contacts, and then he shook Chandra’s hand and wished him luck.
Chandra looked somewhat relieved to be seeing the last of them, Anika thought.
Seven other helicopters were tied down around them on the pad, including one ancient and quite massive sixty-passenger Russian Mi-26 with its sagging eight-bladed rotors.
They silently walked along under the helicopter blades, and then past the sheltered docks filled with bouncing boats of all shapes and sizes. People filtered up the docks with them.
From the airstrip’s barge, a large gangplank led them to scaffolding stairs built along the side of the rig. They walked on up, the cold Arctic wind tugging at them.
Anika paused a moment as they crested the final steps. The center of the artificial island, a whole city block, was packed with drunk people. Neon flashed from every crevice of every walkway. Bulbs had been hung up, glittering from rails and pipes.
They’d turned an oil rig into Las Vegas, Anika thought. Everything blinked, or had been repainted garishly. Every nook and cranny along the outer edge of the platform had been turned into a bar, or strip club, or dance club, or store. Everywhere she turned, something was being sold.
On the third floor of what had once been an observation tower, three women yanked their tops down and threw beads out into the masses below.
As the beads struck the ground they snapped open into little squares, advertising one of the platform’s clubs with a hologram.
Roo led them through an epileptic’s worst nightmare of throbbing music from ten different sources, flashing lights, gaudy colors, and nearly naked men and women dancing in doorways with come-hither glances despite the cold air.
After the shock of the attack on the mist boats, it was a complete assault on the senses.
“It’s noon, right?” Bish asked her, somewhat stunned.
Anika looked around. “I think so.”
A burly woman with ripped forearms stumbled to her knees and retched as someone shouted, “Gina, Gina, Gina,” at her.
Roo stopped as they reached a large entryway on the other side of the rig.
Anika looked up at the giant neon sign overhead. Two large thighs spread out on either side of the door. And the letters, in glowing pink.
“Pussy Galore’s,” Anika read out loud. “Roo?”
He didn’t say anything. He walked in ahead of her, his face still tight and serious. Two large, hairy men who looked like they would be at home riding Harleys stepped in front of him. Despite the cold, they wore nothing but leather thongs and leather face masks, zippers up the back, and dog collars. No leashes though, Anika noticed. She guessed she could see where that would get in the way of a bouncer’s duties.
“Hello, Moneypenny,” Roo said to the two men. “We’re here for Violet.”
“You.” The man pointed at Anika. “And you.” His voice was muffled behind the mask as he then pointed at Roo.
“The other two aren’t on the list,” said the other bouncer, his voice also muffled.
“Guys,” Roo said. “You can’t run a strip club if you don’t let customers in.”
The two burly men did not budge. “No customers right now. Just expected guests.”
Roo started to argue, but Bish tapped his shoulder. “It’s okay, man. We need to find pipe to upload what just
