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Hina casts a doubtful gaze at the small inn in the town; at first glance Drake would agree that it’s not to her tastes. The ruffled pastel-purple curtains are a little too precious, and the sign on the front is emphasizing the word “Authentic” too much for it not to be a tourist trap. This isn’t a resort island, but it’s a step or two away from that, known for its beaches, scenic mountains, and the quiet towns sprinkled along the shoreline like their shore leave days in the schedule.
“I got us a room in the back,” Smoker says. “There’s a balcony.”
“And you didn’t overpay?” says Hina.
“No,” says Smoker “Come on.”
“Well, if you made the reservation,” says Hawkins, “we ought to go inside.”
He pushes the door open with his foot; a wind chime sounds. Hina gives Smoker an unimpressed look, pressing her hand to the small of Hawkins’s back, creasing his linen shirt, as she follows him in.
“Hina thinks the ceilings will be too low.”
Drake has to duck beneath the door frame, but the ceiling clears his head well enough inside. The receptionist behind the desk is already searching through her records.
“Do you have a reservation?”
Hawkins looks at Smoker, bringing up the rear behind Drake. Smoker lets go of the door; the chime rings again as he stuffs his hands into the pockets of his shorts. Of all of them, he seems the most ill-at-ease in his civilian clothes, though perhaps it’s a reflection of Drake’s surprise at seeing him in a mostly-buttoned shirt.
“Yeah, sure, smoking room for four, two nights, Smoker…”
Drake takes the wait as an excuse to look around. The lobby is quite plain, decorated with a few stiff-looking chairs and a painting of a conch shell on the wall to the left of the desk. Hawkins has set his suitcase down between his feet and has conjured up his deck of cards. With one hand still at Hawkins’s back, Hina is adjusting the strap on her dress with the other. Drake walks over to join them and Hina glances up.
“What do you think?”
Drake shrugs. “We’ll see when we get to the room.”
“80%,” Hawkins says. “The chances are good.”
“Chances of what?” says Drake.
Hawkins draws himself up, clearly pleased he’d been asked. “That we’ll all be in agreement about the room.”
That could go either way, but before Hina or Drake can speak, Smoker’s pressing a spare key into Hina’s hand.
“Come on. Second floor, back on the left, 206.”
The staircase is narrow, but the ceilings on the second floor are as high as the first. Hina turns her key in the lock; it doesn’t stick—Hawkins might see that as a good omen, but Drake has no need for such things (and they’re close to finding out, anyway).
The room is large, a gauzy white curtain trailing to the floor in front of what must be glass doors to the balcony, flooding the room in a soft light. The bed is wide, large enough for all of them; Smoker sits at the head, rolling up his sleeves and inspecting the ashtray on the nightstand before he stubs out the ends of his cigars. Drake grabs Smoker’s suitcase; Smoker pats his ass as Drake turns to pick up his own and take them over to the stand where Hawkins and Hina have set theirs. Hina throws back the curtain, revealing an alley and an undeveloped lot full of tall grass leading to the other side of the block. She unlocks and opens the door, stepping out, her hair pushed back by the wind, the door casting shadows on her thighs like dark tattoos. Both Smoker, fresh uncut cigars in his mouth, and Hawkins, hand on the bureau, are watching her; Drake wants to make some kind of noise so she’ll turn around and see.
And then Drake hears a sound like cracking thunder, anticipation spiking up in his haki—a fruit user? It’s a crash like a bridge falling, like cannonballs crushing a ship, catching a room of gunpowder; the ground shakes, and Drake has never felt an earthquake but it can’t be that.
“Accidents don’t exist,” says Hawkins.
Out of uniform as they are, Hina had been recognized by the hotel receptionist, and as there are no on-duty Marines on this island and the local law enforcement’s hands are full, they aren’t in a position to say no. A rock slide is not a crime, indeed, not under Marine jurisdiction the way a tsunami or volcano would be—and in most cases, Drake would be hard-pressed to not believe it an accident.
“I like the way you think,” says Smoker. “Doesn’t matter, though; there’s no way in hell all the rocks fell on one little farmhouse.”
“Hina doubts that one who could control a rock slide with this level of precision would use it on this,” says Hina.
“Test drive,” says Smoker. “Or maybe it was random.”
“Doubtful,” says Drake. “What would be the motive?”
“It’s a nice patch of farmland,” says Hawkins. “By the way, were any civilians inside?”
When Hawkins speaks these words, a flash of motion catches Drake’s eye. A red-faced woman clad in overalls, perhaps a farmer, is now looking over at them; she seems to have been in conversation with a police officer.
“Please. If you’re investigators—my son—he’s trapped inside; I’d only left him for a minute—my wife went into town to go shopping—”
“We need tools,” says the law enforcement officer. “We’ve put in a request with the G-1 base—you’re all Marines, aren’t you—”
“We don’t need tools,” says Smoker. “We’ll get the kid out. Come on.”
That’s Smoker’s insane-plan voice, like back in training when he was about to need Hina to bail him out.
“What’s the plan?” says Drake.
“Well,” says Smoker. “I figure all our powers can come in handy here, right? I’ll go in and find the kid; I can guide Hawkins and Hina in behind me to build up some sort of protection for him. Then you start smashing and clearing the rocks.”
“This will cause property damage,” says Hina. “But Hina doesn’t know when the local base will get here.”
“Yeah, can’t just leave the kid when we can do something about it,” says Smoker.
Hawkins has pulled out the cards again.
“Ninety-eight percent chance that the child is alive. I can calculate for when the reinforcements—”
“Don’t,” says Smoker. “We’re doing this; that’s irrelevant.”
“What about our odds of success?”
“Keep ‘em to yourself,” says Smoker. “For now. Depends on how we have to go in and approach the thing.”
And then he’s dissipated, a haze that hangs and then plunges into the pile of rocks, funneled as if by an invisible gust of wind.
“What are the odds of another rock slide?” says Drake.
“Seven percent within the hour,” says Hawkins.
“Are there any bandits up on these mountains?” Hina asks.
Neither the mother nor the officer answers. That’s a yes-but-we-don’t-admit-it-to-tourists. Would bandits cause a rock slide to crush a farmhouse? Were they hoping the farmer would be inside and that they could forcibly seize the land? This close to town, wouldn’t people notice? And what would a bandit do with a plot of land? Hawkins continues to shuffle his deck, draw, and repeat; Drake’s never seen him keep at it in such rapid succession, but he supposes their battles at sea, and even back in Wano, did not deal with a situation so delicate as this. He shrugs his hair over his shoulder; it catches the sunlight, gleams like corn silk. His jaw is sharper than the ritual knife in his pocket that Drake had felt through his pants when they’d been pressed together on the boat on the way over—that feels like a lifetime ago.
“You’re not complaining?” Drake says, touching Hawkins’s arm.
“The three of you would do it without me,” says Hawkins. “Someone has to make the calculations.”
Drake glances at Hina. She’s looking at Hawkins, sunglasses down on her nose, as if it’s helping her gaze penetrate below the surface, under his skin and into the way the blood is running through his veins. How long is it taking Smoker? Is he talking to the kid, trying to assess the situation? Drake swallows; two percent isn’t much, but Hawkins has survived in spite of ninety-nine percent odds of death. They’ll meet the reverse eventually. But if that were the case, Smoker would be out already, right?
Hawkins sighs, staring at the sky.
“Yes?” says Hina.
“I was thinking. It might be feasible to transfer the child’s pain—but there’s no fitting vessel. Livestock wouldn’t work, and a human wouldn’t be able to take it.”
“You can’t let the rocks fall on him,” Drake hisses, hoping the mother doesn’t hear him.
She doesn’t; she’s been joined by a person whom Drake assumes is her wife, whose arms are wrapped around her, eyes dry but face pained.
“No. I told you it’s a bad idea,” says Hawkins.
The wind shifts, the smell of barbecue and old cigars creeping in—Smoker. He materializes halfway, lower body still a cloud of smoke.
“We’re going to try and get your kid out. It might take a while—”
“Is he okay?” The farmer wipes her eyes.
“He’s shaken up, but physically fine. Hid under a table, so it should be pretty simple to wrap it up.”
Smoker turns to Hina and Hawkins. “You ready? Can you extend yourselves that far with your fruits?”
“Yes,” Hawkins says.
“Do not doubt Hina.”
“Okay,” says Smoker. “I’ll guide you in, and then I’ll come back out and give Drake the signal.”
They walk over toward the pile of rubble; Drake trails after them, the parents and the police officer—joined by several other officers and onlookers—following behind. What a spectacle this is turning out to be.
“Okay,” says Smoker, stopping in front of a large piece of rock.
Hina raises her hand, extending a thin iron bar; Smoker grabs hold of it with his left hand. Hawkins’s left sleeve rises, draping itself over the strand of straw he extends like the arm of a scarecrow, and then beyond that—a strand of spun straw that keeps going, wrapping around the knuckle of Smoker’s right thumb. Smoker pulls, and they give; Smoker dissipates, and straw and iron follow him in.
Drake has often wondered how other fruits work—with his, there’s not much to it, not much room for creativity or anything beyond what his body can grow to. He can’t sprout miniature allosauruses to follow him around; he can’t shoot his claws or scales like porcupine quills. An unending body, stretching itself out of flesh and into a material through crevices and cracks, thin as wire from necessity—he can’t do that with his tail.
He’s not useless in this situation; clearing the rocks is crucial. They’ll have to clear the people, though. Hina and Hawkins are both concentrating, Hina’s face set like the figurehead on a ship, Hawkins’s hardened, the line of his mouth like the craggy peak of the mountain above.
“Hey,” Drake says to the officer who seems to be in charge. “You should move everyone away from the rocks. It’ll be dangerous.”
He glances up to the top of the mountain again. 7% isn’t nothing for another rock slide, but he’s not sure what he’s going to see. The culprit, shaking their fist? Maybe it was an accident. Maybe it wasn’t, but what will come of all of this? What will happen to the farmers and their son, if their land is targeted?
“We’re there,” Hina says.
Drake looks behind him; the people have continued moving back, though the child’s parents are reluctant. Understandable. He prepares himself to transform, moving to the far side of Hawkins. Smoker reappears much faster this time, just his head.
“Go,” he says.
Drake’s legs begin to lengthen and firm up; his tail sprouts; his jaw grows heavy with teeth. His field of vision changes and he inhales the air, sharper and more pungent now, livestock and fertilizer and sod, mountain air, smoke, metal, traces of Hawkins’s incense and Hina’s cigarettes clinging to them. His arms shrink; his hips spread; he plants his feet on the ground and turns , swiping the rocks with his tail.
“To the left,” Smoker says, and Drake follows.
If, in this form, Drake’s arms were longer, better for lifting—no matter, his tail is good enough, efficient enough to lift, crack, shift, swipe. He smacks the straw, the iron, keeping to the trail, to Smoker’s words. And then, he bats aside a rock and his tail pokes into a hole, and behind that a solid iron bar, much thicker than the ones he’s been hitting already. Drake lumbers forward, out of the rocks. The pile doesn’t crumble behind him; he turns around.
The hole is large enough to reveal what’s inside, a cocoon of iron spokes wrapped in straw that must hold the child inside, about the size of a large footlocker. Smoker materializes; the opening Drake had tunneled is large enough for him to stand. He picks up the cage and hoists it forward in his arms; Drake is already turning back into human form to help him with the load. All that metal is fucking heavy, but the two of them carry it forward and out, and then the metal and straw fall away.
The child is young, perhaps six at the oldest; his body is scrunched as if to hide any weak spots, and it’s obvious from his face that he’s been crying. Drake isn’t sure if they should set him down and let him walk or not, but with a shout, his mothers are rushing forward. At the sound of their voices, the child’s posture loosens and he begins to cry, holding his arms out to be received.
The bystanders are applauding; Hina looks as if she wants to sit down and chug an entire beer; Hawkins has returned to browsing his cards. Smoker pats Drake’s shoulder and then leans against him, exhaling. Through the crowd, a person in a white coat steps forward—Drake has never been more glad to see Momonga.
“Sorry I’m late,” he says. “This is my jurisdiction right now, so I’ll take over. What’s the deal?”
“Rock slide,” says Drake. “Fell on a farmhouse. Kid was inside, but we got him out. One of the parents said it might be bandits.”
Momonga exhales through his teeth. “Thank you, though. I know you’re supposed to be off-duty right now, but we were all back at base…”
“No one expects these things,” says Drake.
Hawkins coughs, not that he’d been expecting it, either. The cards aren’t going to give him the odds he doesn’t think to ask for, or at least Drake is pretty sure that’s how it works.
“Hina assumes you’ll want a report.”
“Yes,” says Momonga. “Can you get it to me by the end of the week?”
“Today,” says Hina. “If you’ve got the forms.”
Momonga’s eyes flicker over all of them; they must look out of place in their civilian clothes in the middle of all of this.
“Captain Mei is in the harbor in town. She’ll have them for you.”
“Great,” says Smoker. “We get overtime for this, right?”
“Yes,” Hina and Hawkins say in unison.
“Including the report,” Hawkins says, as they set off for the town.
Drake turns back to get another glance at the scene, the scattered rocks that look now like a broken meteorite, the son clinging to his parents. Hina slips her hand around his, as much as it’ll fit like that.
“Don’t dawdle,” she says. “Hina needs a drink, but first, we must finish our work.”
“Yes,” says Drake. “You’re right.”
Ahead of them, Smoker’s and Hawkins’s voices are carried away by the breeze, words coming back in snatches about handbooks and money—more about the overtime policy, no doubt. Hina, still holding onto Drake’s hand, lights a cigarette; she stuffs the pack back into the front of her dress. Drake feels himself flush, but no more than that; Hina tweaks his nose.
“Let’s catch up,” says Drake, wrapping his hand tighter around Hina’s.
They have ample time to make this a real vacation.