A Story By Dylan “Clockwork” Thomas
Frank was vaguely wondering what to do with the largest pile of plastic their nets had pulled up yet. It was all vaguely microplastics and shredded trash, nothing you could really work with. Maybe if you had plenty of it you could melt it down into bricks but they didn’t really have the energy to spare right then. Heaped up against piles of welding equipment, aquariums, algae vats, and other junk that simply had ‘Do Not Touch’ signs thrown on the front of it, the mass of microplastics was starting to get too big again.
“Do we have any of those massive bags leftover?” Frank asked.
“Err, how big do you need?” Dirk asked between massive scoops of his shovel.
“Maybe, sleeping bag sized?” Frank pondered. “Maybe man sized, maybe bigger.”
“Nah all I’ve got are all those little shopping bags,” Dirk stated. “Maybe you could fit a guy’s head in there, but I doubt it’d go up to your shoulders.”
“Worth a shot.”
“What’ch you thinking about making anyways?” Dirk asked. “A handy dandy portable suicide kit?”
“Well honestly I was wondering about beanbags.”
“We have no beans,” Dirk stated. " Eat your microplastic infested fish like the rest of us.
“I meant we could make bean bag chairs,” Frank clarified. “It’s something to stuff all this plastic into.”
“Oh yea that’s kinda smart,” Dirk pondered. “Selling people’s trash right back to them for two easy payments of $19.95. But if you call now I’ll double the offer and give you two big-ass trash bags of your own crap back to you for free.”
Ok I see-”
“But that’s not all,” Dirk mocked. “Because if you call now we’ll quintuple the offer and give you enough trash bags to build a trash fort.”
“Alright alright I see-”
“BUT THAT’S NOT ALL,” Dirk pitched. “BECAUSE IF YOU CALL NOW WE’LL DECUPLE THE OFFER AND YOU’LL-”
“Can either of you morons get to work, I’d like to clear this platform this century if you don’t mind.” Muttered Jazz.
“Yea fine,” Dirk grumbled.
“Right on it,” Frank sighed.
They pulled up another net and got to work sorting what goes where. Fish big enough to eat go in one pile, fish too small go right back in the ocean or an aquarium if the marine biologists thought they were useful. The plastic went in its own heap that towered over all the others, and any useful scrap was tossed to the mechanics or architects.
“Ok I think this patch looks good, tell Nicole she should be clear,” Frank hollered.
“Yea she’s-”
A massive splash interrupted her.
“Already prepped to go.”
Frank looked out over the cay. The rusted remnants of a cargo ship had crashed into it and was busy flattening the whole of the reefs like a massive iron smoothing out the ocean floor. A few of the crewmembers of the ship were already on the little island out there seeing if there were any coconuts or breadfruit to eat. And of course, to make contact if anyone was living there. They all considered it abit rude to begin doing a massive oceanic engineering project in other people’s backyards without a heads up. While the environmentalists poked over the beach, the engineers and scavs crawled all over the abandoned cargo ship like ticks. Looking at and stripping down anything they could use and things the fish would prefer to keep out of the ocean.
“Want me to ask the scavs if there are any plastic bags onboard?” Dirk asked, eyeballing the old wreck. “There could be anything in there.”
“No it’s not a big deal, I’ll think of something else.”
“Alright, personally I hope we can find some tablets in there,” Drik stated. “I think the seafoam just about killed my battery.”
“Order a replacement, don’t junk it,” Frank objected.
“What am I going to put on the shipping address?” Dirk rebutted. “Oh yea just leave it at nameless island six hundred and twenty and toss it on the most Bob Cassilly looking ship you can find.”
“Well, just do your best.”
“Will do,” Dirk cackled. “Hey you think I could get them to just toss it in the ocean? I could put the Great Pacific Garbage Patch on the shipping instructions and we could pick it up in a month or two.”
“Not the dumbest idea you’ve had today,” Frank yawned.
“Ha ha ha,” Dirk mocked. “Alright, when was the last time you got some sleep?”
“How does it count if we cross the international date line a few times,” Frank pondered.
“Go to bed.”
“There’s stuff happening,” Frank objected. “I have to be there for it.”
“There’s gonna be a lot of stuff happening,” Dirk chided. “There was stuff happening all last week and there will be more stuff happening this week.”
“I’m just going to go sit down for a few hours.”
“Bed!”
“Look… just radio me if anything important happens alright.”
“Rodger rodger.”
Frank clamored up to where the captain’s office was. He wound up sleeping there most of the time since somebody left a couch there. It was amazing what you could find floating in the ocean. Before he headed to bed he checked the radio and heard over the chatter that there weren’t any shipping containers in the small cargo ship left. Somewhat bad news as far as their bank accounts were concerned, but faintly good news as that meant they could get to work faster. Frank watered one of the garden boxes left in front of the main window and tried to visualize what the little cargo ship would be. As soon as anything the fish would complain about was off of it, they would anchor it to the seafloor and begin welding it in place. Then the biologists would sweep in and start seeding coral all over the superstructure of the wreck. Maybe if a bit of the ship was left above water eventually a little palm would grow out of it making a tiny Farside island out of the ship.
“I wonder if I could bury some treasure there,” Frank mumbled. “I need to find an antique style chest first, then what would I fill it with? Beanie Babies maybe?”
Frank leaned back on the couch and tried to turn his brain off. There was always so much to do, and one way or another he was always involved.
“I need to see if I can fish a facemask out of the ocean,” he pondered while trying to find a comfortable spot.
“Hey uh Frank,” The main radio in the room blared.
“That’s weird that one usually isn’t used,” Frank pondered while picking up the microphone. “Go ahead what’s up.”
“Well I don’t want to alarm you or anything but we have some people currently boarding the ship.”
“That’s weird I don’t see any other boats around the wreck,” Frank responded, peering out the window.”
“Uhh, wrong ship.”
“Oh who’s here?”
“Well they look like-”
At that moment four people with guns entered the room all shouting and pointing their weapons at Frank. He responded by saying nothing, setting the radio mic down, and wishing he was much more awake. The tallest of the armed people shouted at him in a few different languages before settling on fairly decent english.
“This again?” Frank mumbled, eyeing their guns.
“Where is your cargo and weapons?” She blustered.
“Cargo is in the hold,” Frank stated. “Weapons… I mean we have some harpoon guns and flares, but I think that’s about it. I think maybe Dirk still has that old fishing crossbow.”
“Take me to the cargo!”
“Alright yeah sure, just don’t shoot anyone.”
Frank started leading the crew down the stairs to the bilge of the ship. While they passed he noticed a few of the armed gunmen pocketing random tomatoes and fruit out of the planters that seemed to litter the top half of the ship. He wondered about asking if they wanted some plastic shopping bags to collect things before realizing how ridiculous that sounded.
“I feel like I should be taking this more seriously, am I just that sleep deprived?” he wondered.
They walked down further flights of stairs and the gunmen met up with more of their group down there.
“Ship is secure, nobody seems to be resisting.”
“Excellent work Franz.”
“Have you located their captain?” Franz asked.
“Right here,” She said, gesturing towards Frank.
“Uhh, I’m not the captain.”
“I asked four different people and they all told me to talk to you,” the woman with the large gun stated.
“They all said that?”
“Well two of them said you're the quartermaster,” she rambled. “Another two said you were… the ship’s dad?”
“...”
“Where is your captain?”
“We don’t have one, we’re a direct democracy,” Frank stated. “Ranked tier voting on all major issues. Everything else the department heads can sort out themselves.”
“And you are?”
“I just know where everything is,” Frank stated. “On a ship this big it’s kinda a big job.”
“Alright walk with us,” she insisted. “Take us to your cargo.”
“Sure.”
Frank led them down the halls of the old ship. Past piles of junk, makeshift workshops, the galley, algae tanks, hammocks, and anything else that the ship needed to continue functioning. Frank led them further to where the lighting was dim and the outer hull was visible. It was a tangled mess of patchwork jobs and quick welds. Somewhere in the background you could always hear a pump whirring away, trying to get rid of those few drops of seawater that would creep their way inside.
“Ok where are the valuables!”
“Fish and aquariums are towards the bow, fuel tank is towards the stern but it’s pretty empty. Tools are all over the place and I’m not sure what you actually need.”
“Aquariums?”
Frank sighed, “Yea I know it’s not exactly valuable. Honestly the coral we usually just pick up off the reefs that fragment, the fish we’ll usually scoop up into an IBC tank whenever the biologists get lucky.”
“Goddamnit,” she cursed under her breath before turning to the rest of her team. “Search the place, find anything valuable and report back to me.”
There was a flurry of nodding and affirmations in about four different languages and the rest of the brigands fanned out. The leader kept next to Frank at the stairs, weapon drawn. Frank just sat on the stairs and tried to keep his eyes open.
“Sorry we don’t have anything,” Frank mumbled.
“It happens,” she reiterated. “What about the ship, what’s it worth?”
“It’s registered to a nonprofit in Guam,” Frank yawned. “Not worth much anyways, we got the ship for less than scrapping costs at auction.”
She shot him a look.
“Many things are possible when you just do one dollar bids,” Frank stated. “And hire a team of burley guys to stare at people who try to make real bids,” Frank thought.
“Think we could ransom a few of you?”
“Worth a shot, might get a whole forty dollars for someone like me.”
“I like those odds,” the pirate commented. “What the hell are you guys doing out here anyways?”
“Reef building,” Frank stated. “It’s just a lot of picking up the fragments of coral polyps and trying to get them started somewhere else. We have loads of dropouts from marine biology schools here, a few underwater welders there. Honestly I’m pretty sure this old oil scow is going to sink soon and we’ll be a part of the reef then.”
“Is someone paying you to do this?”
“No it was one of those kickstarters that got out of hand,” Frank muttered. “Not the stupidest thing to ever get funded.”
“I saw the name of this ship is he-”
“Look everyone who donated over a dollar got to vote on the name of the ship. Honestly I think we should be happy we got the name we did.”
“It's the Stephen Colbert.”
“And the other names were way worse!” Frank shot back. “Next runner up was Stefaan Coal-Bear, then Optimus Prime, then something that triggered the profanity filter, then Shipping Wars, then I think it was some dumb meme of the week, then ‘Taiwan Is a Free and Independent Country.’ After that I think it was a recipe for pretzels.”
“Ok fair point,”
“Alright, what about you guys?”
“What about us?”
“Well what’s your name?”
She blinked before responding, “I’m Hue.”
“And your merry band of new pirates far from any port?”
“We don’t have a name.” Hue stated.
“Well that’s probably a good idea since that would make it easier for people to track you and stuff.”
“We’re here to get rich and get home,” Hue stated before thinking about it for abit. “Or at least those of us who’s villages aren’t flooded out or look like a toxic waste dump. And as for the rich part, well not starving is considered high class right now.”
“You guys are fishers aren’t you?”
“Most of us were,” Hue sighed.
“Have any luck at this whole piracy gig?”
“Did come across two sailboats,” Hue grinned. “Some rich people who had to look up youtube tutorials just to drop anchor.”
“Was this up North?”
“No, we came from the West.”
“Oh that’s a shame,” Frank rambled. “We ran into some idiots like that not too long ago. Some tech bros who owned an island and were going to build a castle on it. Wait for stuff to blow over types. I’m not even sure they were on the right island.”
“Hmm,” Hue wondered. “How did you know they were tech bros?”
“Other than the fact that we ran into their wifi network before we saw the boat?” Frank recounted. “Well there was the fact that all the plastic covers were still on everything, and they tried to pay us in cryptocurrency for building a reef on their island.”
“Did you?”
“No it was all sand, no rock,” Frank remembered. “Nothing good to build off of it, if I remember right we didn’t have any scrap to build with anyways.”
“You know I’ll keep that in mind,” Hue stated. “Out of curiosity you wouldn’t mind telling us where they were, would you?”
“Are you trying to get me to assist in piracy?”
“Yes.”
“Hmm,” Frank pondered. “Probably yes, let me think about it a little.”
“You fell into a life of crime pretty fast, you know that,” Hue pointed out. “Did you at least want to hear all my crew’s tragic backstories, where we’re from, why we’re so damn far in the open ocean away from the continents?”
“Oh, you guys seem alright,” Frank shrugged. “I did have a favor to ask though.”
“Is it called not robbing you?”
“That’s part of it, I’m not going to lie.”
“Look, the crew needs food, fuel and whatever else keeps them going.”
“We only have old biodiesel,” Frank argued. “We can hook you up with as much fish as you like, some produce too.”
“We can work with that,” Hue nodded. “Might be rough running off old trolling motors and sunny days, but it’s quiet. And quiet can be nice for our line of work.”
“I was almost hoping you’d say you’d raise a sail.”
“We’ve talked about it,” Hue remarked. “Sun’s abit more easy to rely on than wind nowadays. Maybe we’ll pick up someone who knows a thing or two about it soon. No stupid pirate flags though.”
“Aw.”
“Give us all the info you have on these targets, and we’ll help you out too.”
“How so?”
“How much scrap metal do you go through per job, would you say?”
“About all of it we have,” Frank admitted. “Usually we stop building when we run out of scrap or until we need welding junk.”
“Then we’ll toss you all of it we can find.”
“... this ship isn’t exactly made for your line of work, it barely moves as it is.”
“We’re just going to radio you where we find it.” Hue asserted. “No guarantees, no delivery, and definitely no helping to haul it up.”
“Think you could also tell us where there’s reefs that need work?”
“Ah at this new place called everywhere,” Hue shot back. “You won’t need to look far, ocean levels and acidification are killing just about everything.”
“Still could you-”
“Yea sure I know what to look for.”
“We can give you a list of site requirements,” Frank added. “It’s not complex, to plan for worst case sea level rise we’re trying to stick to sites of fifty foot depths or less for new growth. Good places to latch onto are-”
“Anything that won’t immediately decay in the water, no rubber or wood, and try to avoid plastic,'' Hue retorted to Frank's surprise. “I used to run a sort of pearl diving business. Letting tourists grab random clams and scallops in my patch and helping them crack them open. I know what to look for.”
“You ran a pick your own for pearls?”
“Until my village became another garbage patch.”
“Good to know,” Frank considered. “In that case I’m going to offer you probably the best thing we have, completely open charts.”
Hue raised an eyebrow.
“I don’t just mean where occasional idiots on boats are,” Frank started. “We have all our maps online for people on shore to help us track routes. We know where the algae blooms are spawning, all the wannabe island fortresses are, our projects, where the fish are starting to come back, and maybe even where a few good pearl diving spots are.”
“Can’t imagine there are too many left.”
“No there aren’t,” Frank mused. “But there are going to be even less if we don't do our job. Plus I get the feeling you guys aren’t going to want to be doing this forever.”
Hue shot him a glance.
“Look, all I’m saying is that if we run into any unoccupied island paradises, you’d also know about them,” Frank pointed out. “Got to be easier than what you’re doing now.”
Hue eyed him for a moment then gestured for him to get up with her gun. Frank kept his hands up and did as directed.
“Walk with me,” Hue stated. “This is still a robbery, remember. I’ll think about what you said.”
“Right right.”
“Take me to wherever you’ve got some decent food squirreled away and any extra tools.”
“Galley’s one deck up, the good junk closet is nearby.”
She gestured with her gun again and Frank led the way. A few flights of stairs later and Frank wound up clearing out most of the produce fridge and a few ziplock baggies of what Dirk called his special blend that was drying in the windowsill. They met back up to where the pirates had hooked aboard on the port side near the stern. Everyone was lowering bins of things to the pirates, though there wasn’t much they wanted it seemed. Their clean water tanks were topped off, any food that wasn’t fish was loaded up, and a few guys were swapping out some of the good solar panels on their deck for a few that took a beating on the pirates vessel. Frank eyeballed their craft and was amazed they were still floating at all. It looked like an ancient fishing ship that had around twelve trolling motors lashed around it and every time there was a leak it looked to be patched with melted plastic and tape.
Frank found Dirk trying to hand over his old fishing crossbow without trying to look intimidating.
“Hey, is your old tablet backed up?”
“This is kinda an awkward time.”
“You’ve got the shortcut to our chart notes on it right?”
“We all do.”
“Hand it to them unlocked,”
“What?”
“Trust me on this,” Frank said. “You can have my laptop if you want.”
Dirk shrugged and handed him the tablet. Frank could tell his password was just 2112 then went ahead and opened the map program. Hue wasn’t hard to find as she was overseeing all the loading.
“Here you go,” Frank said, handing her the open tablet.
“This has more cracks than your boat.”
“It has the links to everything on the main page,” Frank stated. “It’s here if you want to use it, if not. Well maybe it’s worth five dollars for trade in scrap. But it also has our communications app on it. It’s through mesh networking though so it might take a while to get where it needs to go.”
“Untraceable?”
“If you believe the dude who programmed it.”
“Hmm.”
“There’s instructions if you want to add your own map markers on there.”
“That’s not what I was wondering.”
“Oh?”
“Why are you guys doing all of this?” Hue asked. “Why build reefs, why are you guys trying to help us when we’re robbing you?”
“Well what else are we meant to do?”
“You could take over one of these stupid islands yourself,” Hue pointed out. “Heck despite how run down all this is, it still must have cost a ton of money to buy this boat and all this equipment. Do you guys even get paychecks for all of this?”
“We burn money right before we make it,” Frank shrugged.
“Why any of this though?”
“It needs to be done,” Frank shrugged. “We know we can do it. What else are we going to do? Join some tech-bros and plutocrats in building island fortresses? I know people like me always wind up doing spreadsheets our whole lives. I think I could maybe do a year of that before walking into oncoming traffic. This is real, I can help.”
Hue stared at him for a while before pocketing the tablet.
“I’ll add where some good diving spots are.”
“And I’ll tell you next time we find stray cargo ships.”
Hue barked a few orders in around four different languages. The rest of the pirates rounded up and dropped whatever spoils that they hadn’t already dragged aboard. After explaining something to the person behind the helm, they began heading North.
“Where are they off to?”
“They’re either going to find themselves a home or take one,” Frank muttered. “Maybe we’ll get some scrap metal out of all this.”
“... Did you help them?”
“I did nothing illegal as far as I know,” Frank stated. “I was complying with the demands of vicious pirates.”
“I’m pretty sure some of their weapons were airsoft guns spray painted black,” Dirk admitted.
“Let’s not mention that part to anyone,” Frank muttered. “Alright, did Nicole secure that wreck yet?”
“Probably enough to have it stop moving around,” Dirk guessed. “Do you think we should have told her we were held up by pirates?”
“Good question, probably.”
“Well she’ll probably have it completely secure by nightfall then.”
“Sounds good,” Frank yawned. “ This time if anyone needs me, don't call me.”
Frank walked back up to his couch and looked over the reef to be built. He hoped one day it would be home to many across the sea.
