Ship Breaker (Ship Breaker #1)(3)

And then there was Nailer. Some people, like Pearly, knew who they were and where they came from. Pima knew her mother came up from the last of the islands across the Gulf. Pearly told everyone who would listen that he was 100 percent Indian—Hindu Marwari through and through. Even Sloth said that her people were Irish. Nailer was nothing like that. He had no idea what he was. Half of something, a quarter of something else, brown skin and black hair like his dead mother, but with weird pale blue eyes like his father.

Pearly had taken one look at Nailer’s pale eyes and claimed he was spawned by demons. But Pearly made things up all the time. He said Pima was Kali reincarnated—which was why her skin was so black, and why she was so damn mean when they were behind quota. Even so, the truth was that Nailer shared his father’s eyes and his father’s wiry build, and Richard Lopez was a demon for sure. No one could argue that. Sober, the man was scary. Drunk, he was a demon.

Nailer unwound a section of wire and squatted down on the blazing deck. He crimped the wire with his pliers and ripped off a sleeve of insulation, revealing the shining copper core.

Did it again. And again.

Pima squatted beside him with her own length of wire. “Took you long enough to bring out this load.”

Nailer shrugged. “Nothing’s close in anymore. I had to go a long way to find it.”

“That’s what you always say.”

“You want to go into the hole, you can.”

“I’ll go in,” Sloth volunteered.

Nailer gave her a dirty look. Pearly snorted. “You don’t have the sense of a half-man. You’d get lost like Jackson Boy and then we’d get no scavenge at all.”

Sloth made a sharp gesture. “Grind it, Pearly. I never get lost.”

“Even in the dark? When all the ducts look the same?” Pearly spat toward the edge of the ship. Missed and hit the rail instead. “Crews on Deep Blue III heard Jackson Boy calling out for days. Couldn’t find him, though. Little licebiter finally just dried up and died.”

“Bad way to go,” Tick-tock commented. “Thirsty. In the dark. Alone.”

“Shut up, you two,” Moon Girl said. “You want the dead to hear you calling?”

Pearly shrugged. “We’re just saying Nailer always makes quota.”

“Shit.” Sloth ran a hand through sweaty blond hair. “I’d get twenty times the scavenge Nailer gets.”

Nailer laughed. “Go on in, then. We’ll see if you come out alive.”

“You already filled the spool.”

“Tough grind for you, then.”

Pima tapped Nailer’s shoulder. “I’m serious about the scavenge. We had downtime waiting for you.”

Nailer met Pima’s eyes. “I make quota. You don’t like my work, then go in yourself.”

Pima pursed her lips, annoyed. It was an empty suggestion, and they both knew it. She’d gotten too big, and had the scabs and scars on her spine and elbows and knees to prove it. Light crew needed small bodies. Most kids got bounced off the crew by the time they hit their midteens, even if they starved themselves to keep their size down. If Pima weren’t such a good crew boss, she’d already be on the beach, hungry and begging for anything that came her way. Instead, she had another year, maybe, to bulk up enough to compete against hundreds of others for openings in heavy crew. But her time was running out, and everyone knew it.

Pima said, “You wouldn’t be so cocky if your dad wasn’t such a whip-wire. You’d be in the same position as me.”

“Well, that’s one thing I can thank him for, then.”

If his father was any indication, Nailer would never be huge. Fast, maybe, but never big. Tick-tock’s dad claimed that none of them would grow that big anyway, because of the calories they didn’t eat. Said that people up in Seascape Boston were still tall, though. Had plenty of money, and plenty of food. Never went hungry. Got fat and tall…

Nailer had felt his belly up against his spine enough times that he wondered what it would be like to have so much food. Wondered how it would feel to never wake in the middle of the night with his teeth chewing on his lips, fooling himself into thinking that he was about to eat meat. But it was a stupid fantasy. Seascape Boston sounded a little too much like Christian Heaven, or the way the Scavenge God promised a life of ease, if you could just find the right offering to burn with your body when you went to his scales.

Either way, you had to die to get there.

The work went on. Nailer stripped more wire, tossing the junk insulation over the ship’s side. The sun beat down on everyone. Their skins gleamed. Salt sweat jewels soaked their hair and dripped into their eyes. Their hands turned slick with work, and their crew tattoos shone like intricate knots on their flushed faces. For a little while they talked and joked but gradually fell silent, working the rhythm of scavenge, building piles of copper for whoever was rich enough to afford it.

“Boss man coming!”

The warning call came up from the waters below. Everyone hunkered down, looking busy, waiting to see who would appear at the rail. If it was someone else’s boss, they could relax—

Bapi.

Nailer grimaced as their crew boss clambered up over the rail, huffing. His black hair gleamed, and his potbelly made it hard for him to climb, but there was money involved, so the bastard managed.