Mai approached the gate of the town, Myriil following close behind her. High, wooden walls surrounded it. The gate itself had a wooden portcullis. The whole thing was covered in barnacles and chunks of seaweed were thrown about, as if someone had taken apart a hundred ships and turned them into a wall without cleaning them first.

  “What’s your business here?” A burbly voice shouted at them from atop a watchtower.

  “We’re looking for our friends,” Myriil shouted back.

  “I’ll let ye in. Don’t go causing a ruckus,” the voice shouted back.

  The portcullis slowly raised, getting stuck every few seconds. Once it finally opened, Myriil and Mai were permitted through by what appeared to be fish people. They passed through empty streets before reaching a marketplace. Fish, octopus, shrimp, and more sea creatures turned people were buying and selling things, shouting advertisements, all under the midday sun. Some merchants had the intelligence to cover them and their wares underneath patterned canopies. All of them seemed to be selling seafood.

  “X!” Mai called out.

  “X!” Myriil called, following her lead.

  That caught the attention of one of the merchants. He was a shirtless orange fishman with an eye patch. He called over to them, “Hey, you two,” prompting Mai and Myriil to look toward him.

  “Yeah, you tooz. Get ova’ here. I know the guy ya lookin’ for,” the man said.

  “What do you know about X?” Myriil asked once they stood before the stall. Its canopy had red and white stripes.

  “Well if yooz is talkin’ about my boy M.V.C.H.A.E.L., then I seen him walkin’ through here earlier. He was lookin’ for somebody. If I’s is ‘memberin’ correctly, his name was Mike,” the merchant said.

  “Thank you,” Mai replied.

  “Where did he go?” Myriil asked.

  “I don’t rememba. Maybe ya can jog my memory?” the merchant replied.

  “Sly bastard. What’s your name?” Mai scowled.

  “‘Round here they calls me Frankie Fishlegs. Now, about yer friend,” Frankie said.

  Myriil pulled a gold coin out of a pouch on his belt. It gleamed in the sunlight. Frankie’s eyes widened.

  “Mr. Fishlegs, what do you know of X’s location?” Myriil asked, pushing the coin to Frankie with two fingers.

  “Oh don’t call me that, Mr. Fishlegs was my father. Now I’s heard that yer friend Mike was found wanderin’ the outskirts of town. I tells X that he’s probably been locked up. X is probably at the prison by now,” Frankie informed them.

  “Thank you for the information, Frankie,” Myriil said the fishman’s name with malice. “Now where might the prison be?”

  “You’ll know it when ya see it. Now scram, yer hoggin’ all the space in fronta my stall,” Frankie said as he made a shooing motion with his arms.

  Myriil and Mai quickly moved on from the fishman’s stall. They wandered for a while until they found themselves near the entrance of the docks.

  “Perhaps the prison is on the water,” Myriil mused quietly.

  “Why would they put it on the water? That seems like somewhere they’d want to be,” Mikayla asked.

  Myriil looked up at her, “Hmm?”

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  “Never mind,” replied Mikayla.

  With that, they began traveling across the pier. They walked past several others, glancing around occasionally, finally spotting X arguing with some kind of sharkman. Mai started running over to him, happy to have finally found one of them. Myriil followed her at a much more lax pace. The sharkman looked over and grunted. Then X turned his head and let out a sigh. This caused Mai to stop. ‘Why did he sigh? Shouldn’t he be happy we’re here?’ Mai thought. Myriil came to a stop right next to her. X and the sharkman continued their conversation under some kind of privacy bubble.

  * * *

  X sighed when he saw Mai and Myriil approaching. They managed to get here faster than he thought they would, and Secob (pronounced shey-cub, like a Sean-Jacob hybrid) wasn’t letting up. At this rate, he wouldn’t be allowed on the prison barge for hundreds of years and Mike would be dead before he could get to him.

  “I need on the ship today!” X exclaimed as he put up a soundproof barrier. Mai and Myriil didn’t need to hear any of this.

  “No can do. Access to the prison barge must be requested and approved at least three weeks before,” Secob said, unyielding.

  “Dammit!” X shouted before whispering, “You’ll regret this.”

  “What?” Secob said, confused.

  X left the sharkman standing there.

  “Mai, Myriil, he can’t help us. We’ll need something else,” X said as he walked past them.

  They began following him, Mai asking, “So where is the prison?”

  “The prison is a boat,” X replied.

  “I guess that makes sense,” Myriil replied.

  “How are we going to get on the boat?” Mai asked.

  “I have no idea,” X replied.

  “Using my blade would be impractical,” Myriil stated.

  “Actually, I might have an idea,” Mai said.

  “Spill,” X demanded.

  “I think I know someone who could help. Some rebels that I met when I first got my blade. Now that I think about it, I have no idea how they made the submarine realmwalk,” Mai said.

  X watched as she reached into the back pocket of her jeans and pulled out a small white bag. It had a black emblem of two crossed crab claws and a sword coming down from the top. She took out a tiny bit of powder and threw it into the ocean. Suddenly, dozens of fish swarmed the powder, and out of the swarm a submarine surfaced. The hatch opened, and a woman removed a contraption made of several lenses from her face.

  “Mai?” the woman asked, “Why’d you call us?”

  “Sarah! We need your help getting on a boat,” Mai shouted.

  “Really? We can totally help with that!” Sarah shouted back to Mai.

  Myriil and X stared as Mai walked over and entered the submarine. Myriil shrugged before following her, while X sighed and did the same.

  “May I connect to the interface your submarine uses so that I may locate the prison barge?” X asked.

  Sarah stopped chatting with Mai for a moment to ponder the question. “Oh, sure. What harm could come from helping a friend like Mai?” she asked rhetorically.

  X scanned the inner walls of the submarine for any wiring. He located some and shifted everything past his elbow into a bulging mass of wires, plunging his fist into the wall with a thump once he finished. His mechanical eye glowed green as he successfully connected to the ship’s electronics.

  “HOLY HELL!” Sarah screamed once she turned towards X. “I didn’t think Mr. Tin Man would do something like that!”

  “Give me one moment,” X said.

  Myriil opened his eyes from his position meditating by the hatch, which had been closed when X entered.

  “I have located the ship. Exit the docks and head northwest 300 klicks,” X stated.

  “Well, tell the crew we have our destination,” Mai told Sarah.

  “Does he do that often?” Sarah asked Mai in a whisper.

  “I HEARD THAT,” X shouted.

  Mai replied, “I have no idea, I met him like a day ago.”

  Sarah’s expression turned scared.

  “X! Why are you yelling?” Mai shouted back to him.

  “I AM CONSTANTLY HEARING THE DING OF THE RADAR IN MY EARS, IT BARELY AFFECTS MY HEARING BUT MAKES ME ALMOST UNABLE TO HEAR MY OWN VOICE. ALSO, MY SIGHT AND GENERAL AWARENESS HAVE BEEN EXTREMELY DULLED. I HAVE NO IDEA WHERE YOU ARE,” X said.

  Mai and Sarah chuckled as they kept walking down the hall. “Oh! Myriil, could you notify us if X says anything else that might be important?” Mai asked him.

  “No,” Myriil replied, getting another chuckle from Mai and Sarah.

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