The Gift

"Kaharon will be sixteen this birthday," thought Shandon to himself, "that means I have to get her a real gift, not just some ref from the floats."

Shandon surveyed the Flotilla laid out before him from where he was perched. He was up on the West Point, a revamped metal buoy that went straight up into a spire, one of the four cardinal points that were the tallest structures on the Floatilla. The Points never stayed in the position of their namesake because the Flotilla was always slowly spinning in the center of the mid-Atlantic flotsam patch. The spire of the buoys had been retrofitted with oak palette wood, and they were thick with years of mariners paint. Wood being a rarity on the Floats, was used primarily on the Points for the make-shift lighthouses. These served as beacons for traders to know where the docks of the crossed-shaped barge city were located, the lights color-coded to indicate the purpose of each port.

Shandon traced his path for the day, knowing there was no direct route across the Floats. He was headed to the South Point traders port to find a gift for Kaharon, a real gift for a would-be adult. Shandon was only 11, he would need to trace his route to slipped unnoticed past his mother's friends, as no one under 16 years of age was allowed to enter any of the ports without the company of a grown-up. There were three other ports on the Flotilla; West port for visiting scientists, East port for incoming foodstuffs, and the North port that served the Pickers of the Flotilla. Kaharons family owned a bakery near the East Port.

Shandon knew Kaharon loved the colored glass bottles that the pickers sometimes found as they filtered the sands of the tourist beaches for refuse off the Americas' eastern shores. Sometimes the Pickers would work the West African coast sifting the ocean for clothes and remnants of fabrics. They also traded at African Coastal cities for bales of polyester and nylon clothes, the product of skewed export deals with North American Countries. Once for the Winter Solstice, he got his mother a scarf, but that was not the kind of gift he wanted to give to Kaharon. Their friendship went back to when Kaharon watched after him as a child while his mother was working. He had to get her something good, something from a trader.

Shandon stared out onto the undulating Atlantic and meditated on the situation, that Kaharon would be old enough to join a crew now. "I'm going to join a Jade vessel!" Kaharon had told him, "they do the spice and meat run. I'm gonna walk in monsoons and eat duck every day!". The Jade fleet traveled to India and China to collect the meats for preserving, and the myriad of spices that flavored the mostly vegetarian meals of the Flotilla. The meat was cured and dried and had to be cooked thick soups that they ate all year. Livestock wasn't allowed on the Flotilla, both the stacked walk-ups and Escher-like arrangements of shipping containers didn't allow any space for the animals or processing their waste. Since Jade crew kept fowl on their boats, they were generally known as the Flotilla's best-fed residents.

Kaharon and Shandon used to make their way down to the East Port, clamoring over the stacked straight rows of containers that characterized the buildings on the Eastside of the Flotilla. The East Port was built in the third wave of settlers to the Flotilla. The first wave, the Environmentalists, had hitched their floating barges together and stacked containers across to each other at 90 degrees, connecting into overlapping square grids end to end creating what would become the Westside. The Westside barges went up five containers high, however, they were two high in the places that they needed to have inflatable joists to accommodate the massive ocean waves that came through.

The Flotilla had started when the environmentalists followed Damian Redcrow after he had sailed to the plastic continent. They were four barges all told with three containers each, pulled by refurbished fishing trolleys. The goal had been to try and clean up the plastic, it was either a protest or a happening. Nobody cared which, and nobody believed they would ever finish. Most onlookers and residents alike had thought they would have died in the storms. But the rubber joists had helped the containers stay aloft and protected them from capsizing.

The East side of the Flotilla was founded by the Entrepreneurs. These second wave of residents were branch-offs of the New Jersey waste management conglomerates. They were the grandchildren of the Empire of Waste, wanting to make a difference in the world and still impress their families by keeping up with business. They sailed out on updated barges overhauled with stacked containers fitted for pressurized rubber walkways between them, ready to link together immediately on arrival. It was the Entrepreneurs who built the first port, the East Port. They started harvesting the plastic at max speed and sorting it for PEF to be sold back to their grandparents, who would send empty containers to trade for a full one at the port. It was because of the success of the Entrepreneurs that the Flotilla was able to expand. They added the West Port to the environmentalist's section who were re-named the Scientists, and provided with modern labs, first for R&D into plastic recycling and later, into...other things.

After the success of the Entrepreneurs and the research contracts, they acquired for the Scientists, the third wave of residents arrived and moved into the Eastside. They joined because they wanted to be part of the movement of the original Environmentalists and clean up the ocean. Some stayed because they wanted to profit off of the mid-Atlantic location, others because they wanted the thrill to create a wild new reality. All were welcomed with a trust fund or a skill. They were shuttled in by Greek shipping heirs who joined the Flotilla in name alone, and as the population grew North and South ports were added.

Kaharons family were from Italy, a famous restauranteurs daughter had followed an architect, and together they set up the bakery on the Eastside. Now that Kaharon was old enough to join a crew and forget about Shandon, he wanted to get her something that would help her remember him.

His mother was a researcher in the labs and a third-generation Environmentalist. She had been training him as an apprentice lab assistant, which consisted of sanitizing equipment and cleaning the lab. The scientists didn't make any money, but everything was free for them on the Flotilla. They called it International Science, a name derived from their location in the waters. The dream of science without borders, without boundaries.

Sometimes in the dead of night, when Shandon was between shifts and waiting for the steamers to cool down so he could restock the shelves, He would climb up West Point and gaze at the moon. In that gentle darkness, the sound of the ocean combined with the luminous full moon would alight the sky and shine so bright the galactic arm would almost fade into the black. On those nights, Shandon knew he didn't want to leave the Flotilla... He knew that where he was, was where he wanted to be.

Sometimes really fancy-looking people would arrive and meet with the senior scientists, people in suits and tall shoes that wore a lot of shiny and sparkly jewelry. One time a group of them stayed on the settler side and had stopped for bread at Kaharons family's bakery, afterward she spoke for weeks of all the shiny trinkets they were wearing. Shandon wasn't as impressed as he preferred the homespun plastics that were unique to the floats. Sitting there watching the undulating Atlantic, he remembered how much Kaharon had liked the shiny metal.

She could go everywhere but the labs, and she would come and call Shandon from the center gangplank, dragging him to the East Port for scraps of meat. On those days, her energy and the stories about the land that she had learned from the captains of the Jade fleet, made Shandon want to grow up as fast as he could.

His mother and her friends never left the Westside, dedicated scientists. It wasn't out of place for him to venture out of the Westside though. That morning he made his way down the alternating ladders and reaching a rope bridge, that led to the center gangplanks, he crossed over. Walking straight for what felt like fifteen minutes, he turned and climbed up to a catwalk that went over one of the massive rubber joists that dotted the whole Flotilla. On the Eastside buildings the third container of each tower were businesses, like the bakery, which were all connected by pressurized rubber walkways from stack to stack. He didn't want Kaharon to see him and find out what he was up to, so Shandon took the long way along the scaffold. He went up over and down each container apartment until he was near the South Port. He had to get into South Port to find a trader in the Splitcrow, the only tavern of the Flotilla, which doubled as an Inn. The Splitcrow was stacked four containers high, the topmost having a series of windows on one of its long sides. Luxury on the floats, the windows served for smoking access and clandestine meetings for illustrious guests.

Shandon shimmied along the wall on the brass bar that served as an elbow rest protruding out at the base of the windows. He found a window and settled down to wait until someone came to smoke. Sitting on the brass bar, with his carabiner clipped on, Shandon glanced down at his three-point harness that was standard garb on the Flotilla. Kaharon never left home without hers, but it was rare for Shandon to need his, and he hoped his mother wouldn't notice its absence in their home. After a long respite, a petite blonde woman opened a window for a secluded smoke. Not in the least perturbed to see someone sitting there, she opened the window and stood to the side, letting Shandon scuttle in rather stiffly through the window. Shandon stood up and turned around to thank her, and as he did, his eyes rested on the glinting silver heart dangling from her neck.

"Coming or going Hon?" she questioned, "because my ship is out of the dock in two days." He knew she was asking if he was looking for passage, which spoke either of her generosity or greed, as the Flotilla residents strictly shipped out from the North Port. Not to mention he was obviously underage for visiting a Port, but such a thing was not entirely uncommon.

He looked up from her necklace to meet her eyes, "Neither..., I'm here to stay, but I'm looking for a gift. How much money do you want for that?" he asked while pointing at the heart-shaped locket hanging from her neck. "Well," she said, leaning out the window ledge as she thoughtfully smoked, "Seeing as your a scientist," eyeing his white clothes, "or at least born to one... you don't have money, do you?" Shandon said nothing but blushed.

"That's what I thought," the woman said as she drew herself in from the window and closed the pane. "I came here to retrieve something for a client, and it certainly wasn't money. Money is what I get when I bring my prize back to land. If you're a scientist... you get me what I came here for, and I'll just give you the damn locket".

Shandon looked her dead in the eye, "Deal," he agreed.