Page 29 of Factory Thief

Maybe it was that conversation that gave me my lifelong soft spot for underdogs. Jack certainly fits the bill as an underdog, all right. Despite being a slab of meat who can batter his way through obstacles like a blunt instrument, he lacks any of my specialized training or knowledge.

He doesn’t even know how to fight, not really; I saw that while we were in Sandpiper Cove. Jack gets by pretty good on natural athletic ability and size, but that’s not the secret of his success. It’s that stubborn attitude, that refusal to surrender even though he knows the effort is doomed.

Jack is like the defenders of the Alamo, but instead of standing against Santa Anna’s armies, he stands against the Xtera Pharmaceuticals Corporation. The company looks to losehundred of millions of dollars, maybe enough to lose solvency.

Nothing, and I mean nothing, fights harder to stay alive than a multinational corporation. Nothing. I pick my targets carefully and only steal from individuals, not from corporate property. I’m not an idiot. Picking a fight with Xtera would probably be the last thing on my mind, ever.

Not for perpetual underdog Jack, though. He blunders about as if the fact he’s doing the right thing will protect him, somehow. As I look at his sleeping form, I realize it’s my job to protect him so the world doesn’t lose that spark of goodness he carries around with him.

He stirs, a smile spreading across his face. We snuggle for some time, as the calls of gulls carry above the rolling tide. It’s almost like thunder at this time of day, reverberating off the cliffs. It makes the four-foot breakers sound like gigantic swells.

All good things must come to an end, and biological needs like circulation outweigh our desire to remain in a snuggling huddle. Jack and I do a lot of grinning and blushing this morning, and a lot of touching and caressing.

We finish off the leftover beef jerky before facing our next adversary, the Pacific Ocean.

“We’re going to have to swim to that shore,” I say, pointing at a lesser, climbable grade across a rocky cove. “It’s not far, but it’s rough.”

He looks down into the churning surf and turns white. “I’m not the world’s greatest swimmer, Victoria. I don’t know if I can make that.”

“You’re going to have to.” I gesture at the water, heaving itself into a fizzling froth before sinking down several feet. Bared, glistening rock awaited our first false move, intent to shear the flesh from our bones. “It’s not as bad as it looks. If you go with the flow of the tide, it will kind of carry you across.”

“All right,” Jack says, watching a piece of floating driftwood cross, propelled through the ebbing and flowing ocean by the deeper current. “So I just bob along like a cork if nothing else.”

“Right. Just be careful near the walls—and make sure you keep your shoes on. The bottom might be rough going, otherwise.”

Ready to pick our way down into the churning morass of green and white, the water sucks further out than I have yet seen. The ocean’s retreat exposes ten feet of rock we’ve yet to get so much of a glimpse of. The exposed starfish clinging to the side seems pink and vulnerable to my eyes.

“What’s going on?” Jack asks. “Should we go for it, now, while the water’s shallow?”

“Jack, back to the cave,” I cry, tugging his hand as the monster swell races toward us. There must be an underwater cave around here, which periodically creates the right conditions for a goliath such as this one. At thirty-feet high, it’s far from the world record, but it’s more than enough to smash us to bits against the rocks.

We rush for the relative safety of the cave. Our feet kick up gouts of sand. The bend of the beach protects us, as well. I don’t see the wave hit behind us, but I hear it. A moment later a hissing rush of ankle-deep water inundates us, and I slow my stride.

“It’s okay now,” I say, leading him back. “Those only happen every so often. We should be able to make it to the other side.”

“Should be?” He freezes in his tracks. “Victoria, I’m not sure I like this plan.”

“It’s this or nothing. We have no other way up. Look, we stood there watching that cove for over fifteen minutes. We know we have at least that long between monster rogues to get across, and it shouldn’t even take us half of that.”

“I don’t know…”

“The sooner we get back to dry land, the sooner we can get your flash drive and expose Xtera before they have a chance to hurt someone else with their bogus cancer drugs.”

That does it. I’ve appealed to his underdog nature. We move out toward the cove again.

All the way up to a mere ten feet from the top of the cliff, everything which had been dry before is now soaked and dripping with ocean water. That gives me hope even as it reminds me of the awesome power of the ocean. It means the rogues are infrequent enough the cliff face has time to dry.

“Come on, let’s go,” I say. I tug him into the water and we bob across the churning cove. Our feet slip along the rocky bottom at times, kick and twist at others as we navigate the tricky crossing.

When we approach the beach, the undertow sucks at our ankles and makes progress laborious and slow. A sense of urgency climbs in my belly as I realize just how tantalizingly close we are to safety.

We’re about ten feet from standing on dry sand when the undertow grows so brutal our feet suck into the sand until we’re mired in place. As we struggle to free ourselves, Jack looks behind him and gapes.

“Vic!”

I follow his gaze and see another rogue coming in. This wave is even larger than the last. Flecks of foam driven by the wind create a momentary sprinkle on the shore.

We fight our way out of the sand and trudge heavily up the slope. My legs feel like molten lead, burning hot with pain and nearly impossible to move. Somehow, we stagger up the beach in time to avoid being dashed against the rocks.

---