Book Eight, Chapter 76: Boats

Our best move probably would have been to exit the boat and make an escape on the docks. There was no way that they could maneuver through the labyrinth of boats to catch us, and once we got on land, we would be home free.

That’s probably why they blew up the docks near Anna’s boat as their first move.

Anna was quick to react. As soon as the explosion rang out, she was at the helm with the engines fired and moving forward to start the chase scene. She didn’t even have to unhitch the boat from the dock because there really wasn’t enough of it left to worry about.

Strangely, our experience on the river had calmed my nerves in preparation for this. After all, speedboats with mercenaries or cultists, whatever they might be, were quite the threat, but they were no infinite waterfall.

Suddenly, I understood why Anna was allowed so many weapons. They lined the walls of the inside of her boat. It was because we needed all of them.

Unfortunately, bullets did nothing. I knew that for a fact because as soon as the chase started, I grabbed a rifle off the wall, ran up above deck, and found a nice place to shoot at the four boats following us.

Despite my Hustle, none of my bullets hit. That wasn’t altogether surprising. This was an action scene, but not the kind that you would typically find in a horror movie. It made sense that there would be a trope that would play down the power of guns, or else the chase would be over pretty quickly.

Anna was motoring us through the water, winding around docks and trying to stay away from the speedboats, which was, unintuitively, easier than it might have seemed. On a straightaway, there was no way we could possibly outrun those sleek machines, but rapidly turning corners wasn’t their thing, and Carousel had them running all sorts of maneuvers so that it could gather footage.

“If we go to open ocean, we’re goners,” Camden told Anna as he got a feel for the grenade launcher in his hands. He had been eying it since we got on her boat.

“I’m on it,” she said. “Focus on them. I know what I’m doing.”

That wasn’t just her character speaking, I suspected.

Luckily, the setting for this chase contained all of the usual suspects for boat chases. There were a variety of docks, lots of spectators, machinery, working boats, and many barges. We could weave in and out and try to keep the other craft between us and the speedboats. If someone were watching the chase in person, they would think it was the silliest run possible because our pursuers never missed an opportunity to do an exaggerated turn or to jump up over choppy water to get airborne.

Meanwhile, Anna’s boat wasn’t exactly huge or slow, but it wasn’t going to be able to maneuver like theirs could.

I didn’t know how long we had before Carousel would start taking the chase seriously, but we needed to get prepared for when it was time to start taking out enemy craft.

While my gun was no good for killing anyone. It was quite good for making their gunmen duck down and stop shooting, so for a while, that was my responsibility, along with Cassie, who was getting some great mileage out of her Soul Read trope. We were creating a great defense.

The gunmen were hesitant to fire because we might hit them when they peeked up at us. The boat pilots would occasionally duck down to stay out of sight and almost crash into other boats on the water.

It was all typical boat chase stuff; we caught on pretty quickly.

Meanwhile, Antoine was prepping to do an Adventurer stunt, something perhaps like we had seen Bones Ibarra do, but he hadn’t gotten the opportunity yet. Outright shooting the enemy wouldn’t work, obviously, and the prospect of jumping over into an enemy’s boat must have been terrifying, but he found a way as soon as one of the boats decided to make a proper pursuit and come up alongside us so that they could shoot freely.

He took out his grappling hook, pointed toward the shipyard in the distance, and casually said, “I think we might be able to find some cover over there,” as he threw the grappling hook to the nearby boat and somehow managed to not only thread it through the steering wheel, but have it wrap around a couple of times and then lock its spikes snug. He tugged on it as the goon driving struggled to keep the boat straight.

Then he quickly wrapped the end of the rope around one of the cleats on the side of Anna’s boat.

“Turn right,” he said.

Anna quickly obeyed. As the boats parted ways, the grappling hook held firm against the steering wheel of the speedboat, and there was a loud popping sound as the whole steering wheel came off.

Without the ability to steer, the speedboat kept going fast because slowing down wouldn’t have been as dramatic. The goons on board panicked and started jumping into the water before the speedboat hit the docks in front of us, ramped up over them until it was flying through the air, and somehow exploded before hitting anything, creating a huge fireball.

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Antoine pulled in the steering wheel, untangled his grappling hook with ease, and then gave it a quick kiss.

That was one boat down, three to go.

Camden was the next to show off what he had prepared in our little chase. He pointed for Anna to get close to a nearby construction area where a new dock was being built.

While he had picked a grenade launcher, if he pointed it back at one of the boats to try to take them out, it might do just as well as the bullets had, so he had to do something else.

He didn’t shoot the grenade launcher at a boat. Instead, he shot it at a crane. It was one of those large ones that had to be constructed before it could be used. He took aim, waited for his moment, and fired at the scaffolding around the crane.

He had enough Hustle to make that shot, and as soon as the explosion occurred, the crane started to tilt and lean down toward the water, falling so fast it almost hit us.

Two of the boats chasing us managed to avoid it, but one didn’t. The crane fell smack dab in the middle of it, splitting it in half. We kept going, two boats pursuing, not a bullet doing any good at all.

“We have anything else?” Antoine asked as he looked back at us.

“There are no more explosives,” Camden said.

“How much artillery did you expect me to have?” Anna asked as she steered the boat aggressively.

The boats behind us were easily able to keep up with us, and more than that, they were herding us into a kill box, a dead end in the shipyards. No matter which direction we went, there was no outlet that I could see. The whole area was blocked off by a shallow sea wall.

A large crowd had gathered up on the land, along with photographers and a bunch of businesspeople. It was easy to see why they were there. A humongous ship was all set to be launched for the first time. A woman in a white blazer was smacking it on the side with a bottle of champagne, which burst and sent suds pouring down onto the ground below.

“Turn there,” I said.

Anna was skeptical, but she didn’t have a better option, so she turned the boat, pointing it toward the small waterway right next to the place where the ship would take its maiden voyage.

“There’s nowhere to go this way,” Antoine said.

“I know that,” I said. “Full speed ahead.”

“What, are you nuts?” Roxy screamed. “It’s a dead end.”