Beyond Binary Read online

  ∞

  Jack Rackham, 1691-1720

  The ship, like an itch, like a void, rode toward us all morning. Look away! Touch wood and spit! Ask the kraken for a reprieve, but still she grew larger. She sailed three times or more the size of our Revenge. Black sails like the fear of night whipped through the air. Golden Chinese characters stood scrawled upon her starboard.

  I wanted her. I wanted our crew to stand on her bow and let the wind run ragged. I wanted that ship like I’d never wanted anything in my life.

  An arm snaked around my waist and pulled me backwards. Anne whispered in my ear, “It’s an old ship. Like ours, Jack. Think for a moment, okay?”

  I turned to her and winked gallantly.

  “Have you been in the rum already?” Anne asked.

  “Maybe.”

  “Lay off until we meet them, okay?”

  I nodded. Her words reeled me in. Pirate thoughts were seductive, and once I started thinking with them, like a song or a rhythm, it was hard to think any other way. “Sure,” I said. “Sorry.”

  Anne punched my arm with force enough to raise a welt. She wandered off toward Mary who stood watching the horizon with a lovely frown.

  We waited until we knew she headed straight toward us, and was not perhaps some themed cruise ship or fishermen’s boat. We rowed out to Rackham’s Revenge. If this storm on the water wished for battle, it would be at sea or nowhere else. But perhaps they were friends, not foe.

  I buttoned a calico coat over my striped undershirt as I took the helm. I swayed with the sea swells and inhaled the sweaty musk of sea wind.

  “Raise the sails, aft and fore!” The words fell like paper from my mouth, like old words written by dead men.

  We sailed like an arrow aimed at her portside. Another bout of ship lust rippled through me, but this time I tamped it down like tobacco in the pipe. I mellowed it to a slow burn.

  “Tighten the sails!” I ordered.

  The distance between us narrowed. A figure rose and stood broad legged on the ship-bow. A billowing red silk coat whipped around him. He pointed at me.

  A mighty voice rose from the shrouded ship, using a powerful bullhorn.

  “We come to join you,” a voice said with a heavy accent, and then repeated the words in Chinese.

  “They’re here for our treasure!” I yelled. “Or maybe not,” another me added. I raised my bottle, but then remembered I had promised not to drink.

  Suddenly, the wind fell from our sails and we lay dead in the water.

  “No!” I yelled. “Damn the skies!” But it was not the winds of fate who failed me, but our crew who lowered the sails and readied the jolly boat. I glared at the yellow-bellies, but before I could order them back, Anne looked at me with eyes to wither my turnips.

  “Relax,” she hissed. “Mellow out.”

  Only when I saw the red captain walk to his small boat did I run to our jolly and let myself be lowered to the water.

  Anne, Mary, Dred, and I rowed to them. Bits of white foam hit my face. Their small boat measured twice the length of ours. If I couldn’t take their entire ship, perhaps I could steal their jolly?

  Stop, I told myself, but the inner pirate looked through my eyes with a stubborn lust.

  Our crew threw ropes across the water, and we drew our boats together. The red captain stepped forward and straddled both boats. I stared at her t-shirt, sure I was mistaken, but no! The captain of this magnificent ship was a woman?

  I sighed. So what? No big deal, I told myself. She bore a shaved head with a scar that wound around her skull.

  “Captain Jack,” I muttered and managed a half-bow.

  “Captain Ching,” she said and nodded her head.

  “Captain Shmaptain,” Anne said.

  “Would you like some tea?” Captain Ching asked in careful English. I was prepared for fisticuffs or swordplay. But tea?

  “Uh. Sure.”

  She took a glass flask from the folds of her coat and passed it to me. It was tar black and smelled like wood chips. As I swung it to my mouth, I heard the clink of something within. Then the liquid touched my lips and a demonic desire flushed through me. The tea was mixed with bone-rum!

  “Oh,” I said, unmanned by this strange change of circumstance. Anne grabbed the bottle and drank, then passed it to the others.

  We sailed back to Isla d’Oro and followed the Chinese women as they ran to where they pried a boulder from a hill and found their own hidden cache of bone-rum.

  They told us the story of how their collective, the Wōkòu, had found an old bottle on the beach with a message inside. A message I myself had written. A day later they discovered a bottle of rum in Ching’s government apartment. When they drank it they left behind their work of creating autonomous cyberspaces inside the great firewall of China and sailed here, much as we had done. They all wore cropped hair and glasses of a style most geekishly becoming.

  We stood around like shy dogfish wanting to play with each other. Then Madwell showed one girl the software he was working on. She pushed him aside, pointed at a line of code, and corrected it.

  All awkwardness fell away like foam on the surf. We gathered around monitors and spoke the true language we had in common. It cleaved my heart to the tenderest cut to see such ease and solidarity.

  The next day another ship appeared on the horizon. And another. Ships flowed toward us like migrating auks, bringing flocks of geeks from across over the world.

  The Marauders, the Corsairs, the Buccaneers, the Infidels, the Pieras Noblas, and dozens more sailed in. Each had received my message. Each found their own cache of bone-rum upon the island, and brought with them necessary skills we needed for our mission.

  The Germans were big bratwurst-bellied men who’d welded together shipping crates to make their ship. The French were thin cross-dressers who’d never held down jobs and brought huge rounds of stinky cheeses with them. The Cubans were fierce and rowed in on houseboats. The Indians brought a treasury of spices. All of them understood, without quarrel or bickering, why they were called to Isla d’Oro. The rum was nothing in comparison to the real treasure we would steal.

  Every night the captains joined me in gathering up the empty rum bottles, stuffing notes inside, and throwing them out to sea. Our message was simple: Join us.

  Ships kept coming. They lay moored and silhouetted against the setting sun. I stared at them as I sat with another man’s sad memories lodged within me. There’d been battles fought and lost, sunken boats, and a life much too short and violent. I settled my gaze on the horizon and wondered if this present story would also end with keelhauls and hangings.

  ∞

  Sam Flowers, present day

  Falling like flying. Air like freedom. Splash. Hard water turned warm as it wrapped around me. I sank and then surprised myself by thrashing upward, desperate for life. My head broke through into air. I treaded water and watched the thousand-light cruise ship churn away from me. What a shocker—I even suck at suicide.

  Ah hell. Oh shit. I should have stayed on that boat. I should have taken pills instead.

  I floated in the salty water and stared up at the big fat stars. Why am I here? Why is it all so empty? Bull kelp rose like a submerged sea raft beneath me. It carried me along in a sea current like a magic carpet full of sand flies. The night passed and the sun rose and burned me.

  My life played before me like a plotless French movie: no girlfriend, boring office job, stringy hair.

  You meant nothing. You were worthless.

  Is that you God? Because you sound kind of mean. You sound just like I expected.

  I gulped down salt water and cried. I picked sea leeches off my balls and stared at them. Dolphins came by and poked me with their stubby heads. They made stupid dolphin sounds as they took bull kelp into their mouths and swam.

  “I’m not one of those dolphin lovers,” I told them.

  They swam on with their secret dolphin schemes.

  My head turned into a rotten
watermelon. My arms swelled like kielbasas. My nipples were ripe cherries. “When do I get to die?”

  Aah-awk? said the dolphins.

  I drank sea martinis and chatted with all the girls I’d never kissed. They had big breasts like flesh marshmallows. They were covered in glittery fish scales. When did all the girls become mermaids? The mermaids became pirates who rose up around me. They wore sea-gray clothes and grayer skin. They glared at me with watery gray eyes.

  “Captain Calico Jack,” one said and tipped his barnacled hat toward me. “Awrk?” he added.

  “Fuck off,” I said.

  “Anne Bonny,” another said. She spat flotsam at me.

  “Mary Read.” This one pointed a pistol at me and fired salt water.

  “Skurve.”

  “Madwell.”

  “Dred.”

  Thirteen in all, they spoke to me like they were real. I laughed at them and tried to drown.

  ∞

  “Wake him up. He needs to drink water.”

  “You think he found a bottle?”

  “No.”

  “We should throw him back in the water, maybe.”

  “Are you talking about me? I feel like shit, Heaven sucks.” I spoke through a cottony mouth. Palm trees swayed above me.

  “He speaks. Hello.”

  A woman my age stood over me and nudged me with her knee.

  “Ugh. I’m still alive, aren’t I?”

  “Yep. I’m Anne. She’s Mary.” Another one stood beside her. They were tanned like popular girls who’d lain out all summer. They had legs and seemed happy. I disliked them.

  “I jumped from a cruise ship. Dolphins took me here. I wish they hadn’t. Wish I’d drowned.”

  “Fascinating,” Mary said.

  “Is he up?” A thin man came up and put his arms around both girls. I hated him instantly.

  “Hi, I’m Jack.”

  “Fascinating,” I said and sat up. A bottle lay near me. I grabbed it and drank.

  “That’s not—” Jack said.

  Rum burned my throat.

  I looked at them and saw gray-blue pirates. The image flickered away. “Freebooting lunatics,” I muttered, then wondered what freebooting meant.

  Anne brought me a water bottle and I drank, but wouldn’t let them take the rum. I stumbled to my feet with a bottle in each hand and saw hundreds of computer geeks hunched over computers wrapped up clear plastic casings. Each geek was either too thin or fat, and had an obvious disregard toward basic hygiene. Cables lay bundled and interconnected across the sand. “Christ. I’m marooned with nerds? Thanks, God.” I glared upward.

  Mary, Anne, and Jack headed toward empty monitors and keyboards.

  “Steady as she goes, mates,” a man in a pink shirt yelled.

  “Keep true! Tack hard! Apt get install Chaos! Then mutiny! Then freedom! Keep true!”

  “Activate the mock-autonomous-network!”

  “Activated!”

  “Employ the water diversion! Launch vegan!”

  People typed furiously. “You all suck brine,” I said, angered by how vibrant they all seemed. I raised the bottle. I needed water, but it was the wrong hand and I took another swig of rum.

  ∞

  I swayed and almost fell onto the wooden planks of a ship deck see-sawing back and forth.

  What?

  I looked around and saw a pirate ship with a billowing jolly roger whipping off the ship’s mast overhead. Around me a salty crew scrambled to stay upright as the ship tilted toward a huge wave. Six men put all their weight behind a cannon and pushed it to the ship’s edge. They kicked wooden wedges behind the wheels, and then ran to the next cannon. A captain held a spyglass and stood with one foot on a wooden box, staring forward. As he lowered it I saw it was Jack.

  I ran to him. “I don’t understand….”

  He snarled and thrust the spyglass into his pocket. He grabbed the helm and spun the wheel hard to the right.

  I looked across the water and saw ships flying St. George’s Cross.

  England? “We’re fighting England?”

  Jack raised his weathered rifle. He fired toward the ships. He turned and said, “A sea battle is a hard death, child. Make your peace. Ready yourself for the end!”

  We swooped down into another stomach-wrenching wave. To our left I spied another ship. She flew a ragged red flag. To our right lay another. Maybe this is death. Maybe this is me dying. I hoped, and then hoped it wasn’t.

  With the next wave I fell down hard onto the ship’s splintery deck.

  ∞

  Except I didn’t.

  My knees hit hot sand.

  “I’m hallucinating,” I said. “I’m probably dying.” No one even looked up from the computers. I stood and wandered among them as a sound like a thousand crabs scuttling over the sand ebbed and flowed as they typed away.

  A woman yelled, “The autonomous network churns trouble up from the deep!”

  “Does she slow? Does she bow under the weight?”

  “She does, but slowly! We wait! We must wait to slip in the bold and slythy kraken, hold steady!”

  “Yar, ye swashbuckling assholes,” I said. The rum was making me talk funny. I tried to drink some water, but I got rum again by accident.

  ∞

  Yelling rose all around me and I stood on the pirate ship again. A massive English galleon sailed toward us. We were a rowboat in comparison. We were mosquitoes. Other galleons followed the ships to our left and right as they sped away.

  Black cannon nubs pushed out from the lower decks of the English ship. A cannon boom hit the air, followed quickly by two more. Our ship rocked backwards. Clouds of smoke billowed up from below. One man laid limp and screaming on deck with stumps where his legs should be. Another man caught fire and jumped overboard.

  Jack scowled and raised his rifle. He shot once more toward the galleon.

  Boom. Wood sprayed up from the decks below.

  Boom. A cannonball lodged into our mast. A groaning wooden scream filled the air.

  Boom. Three more men dead.

  Our ship began to sink. Men staggered forward and lit one of our two cannons. A black mass zoomed toward the galleon. A hit! Then another!

  Yet still we sank. Still the galleon fired upon us without mercy. I ran to Jack. “What can I do?”

  ∞

  Nothing.

  Because I stood on a beach, delusional and disoriented. “I’m dying!” I yelled. I raised the correct bottle this time and drank water.

  A man swearing in Italian stormed toward the sea and threw his laptop into it. He yelled and cursed.

  “Cloak the feed! Fire at will!” a woman said, her head looking up from her monitor for a moment, before hunching over again.

  “She’s slowing down! She’s crippled!”

  “Hold steady! Wait until she’s three-quarters gone!”

  More rum found its way to my lips. I would have sworn my hand never raised the bottle, even as the rum slid down my throat.

  ∞

  A wave crested the edge of the pirate ship and hit me. It pushed me off the deck and into the ocean. Among the waves were dozens of men yelling and drowning.

  Boom! A cannonball punched another hole into our ship.

  Boom! Our mast tottered over.

  The galleon turned and left us to our watery death. Someone clutched my arm. It was just a kid, barely even a teenager. A wave crashed into us. When I resurfaced he was gone. With the next wave I didn’t come up but breathed salt water into my lungs. My chest convulsed, struggling to get air. There was none. I sank down into water that grew darker with every yard. I hit bottom and died. Finally, I thought as the last of me floated away. Finally, it’s over.

  ∞

  But no.

  I fell forward onto the deck of a different pirate ship. A female captain stood along the ship’s edge and watched sinking ships in the distance as we sped off, unseen. Tears ran down her face. We sailed around the edge of an island until we were ou
t of sight, and she strode toward a huge trunk sitting on deck. She knelt and opened it. I walked forward and saw dozens of scrolls piled up inside. The ship circled the island. On the far side of it we turned into an inlet full of pirate ships. We sailed into the bay to the sound of yelling and clapping.

  ∞

  I awoke to water streaming over my face. I opened my mouth and drank. When I’d had enough, I pushed the flask aside. Mary helped me upright. She smiled and I saw her pirate—like a glowing ember—lodged within her. Beside her stood Anne and Jack, tired but unscathed.

  Behind them computers lay tangled on the beach. I heard the sound of music and celebration coming from behind the palm trees.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “A battle.”

  “We shut down the internet for a couple of hours via a dummy network. Freaked everyone out,” Mary grinned. “Hell of a diversion.”

  “Before it fell, we hacked into some Cayman accounts, diverted funds, and then destroyed all records and backups. That was the hardest part, but the Moroccans and Chinese cracked it. We stole some islands,” Anne said.

  “What?”

  “Seventy-four uninhabited islands.” Jack grinned. “That’s what our old friends wanted. That’s what we want too. A home. More ships will be coming to join us.”

  “It will take them awhile to figure out what we did. By then, we might even be ready for them,” Mary said.

  “I saw a sea battle.”

  Jack nodded. “Twas fearsome and bloody. Would you like a drink?” He held up an almost empty bottle of rum.

  I wasn’t thirsty any more, but I took the bottle and drank. A piece of bone slid into my mouth. I hesitated, and then bit into it. Rope squeezed my neck as the landed lords looked on and applauded. I cursed them all with my last breath. Then the noose loosened, and I was reborn.

  ∞

  A Wild and a Wicked Youth

  Ellen Kushner

  “He’s dead, mother.”

  “Who’s dead, Richard?”