“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” said Bastion, as he squeezed himself into the fish costume. “I can’t even move in here. You might as well have thrown me in the sack this came in.”

  “The sack isn’t watertight,” said Roy. “The fish suit should be, so long as you try to act like a fish.”

  “How do I do that?”

  “Swish the tail around a little, see if you can make the lips move.”

  “Fine. You sure you’ve got the antique diving suit figured out? I can see quite a few holes in it. You’ll be relying on magic to not drown too.”

  “It should work. My costume and the setting both have the right Aesthetic, and I’ll be diving for real, so there’s perfect Alignment as well. That’s all three aspects of theme magic right there. If this thing looked any better, I could probably walk on the ocean floor forever without coming up for air.”

  “You’d better not try that. I don’t think I could take being stuck in a fish suit for more than a few minutes.”

  Jumping from the docks would have risked being cut to ribbons by scrap metal and shipwrecks, so they’d walked along the shoreline, where orange groves had overtaken office buildings.

  A sign for “Atlantis Tours” said that a submarine used to surface here, but either it had rusted up on the ocean floor or someone else had already made off with it. Either way, it wasn’t there now, so there was no sense in waiting around at the jetty for a vessel that would never arrive.

  Instead, they headed out onto the beach. Roy stepped slowly into the ocean, with Bastion hopping along at his side, a rope looped around his torso. He was relieved that his feet stayed dry. This was working.

  As he waded deeper, the water resisted his movements, and each slow step felt like pushing against a heavy, invisible force. When his head finally dipped below the surface, the sounds of birdsong and distant ships fell silent, replaced with low echoes, the groaning of his own copper suit, and the rhythmic thuds of his footsteps in the sand.

  He’d only had a rough direction to go on, but from here, he immediately saw where to go. There were only two light sources on the seabed: a burger-shaped sign, still glowing over seaweed-coated sections of wall, and a dazzling spotlight, spinning its beam around like a lighthouse.

  Roy dragged Bastion down with the rope and set off toward the spinning lightbeam.

  He quickly left the ruins behind. The ground switched from soft sand to jagged coral, which Roy had to carefully balance his way along.

  As he went deeper, he felt colder, even through his suit, and the joints started creaking more. He had to remind himself that theming wasn’t infallible.

  Descending the steep slopes felt like walking in slow motion, with the occasional freeze-frame. He’d jump, then strike a pose as he drifted down, before bouncing forward again.

  After a while, less sunlight filtered through from above, and the reds and yellows of the coral became muted, leaving everything green and blue tinged, until there was only darkness whenever the spotlight swung away from him.

  His sense of time was distorted down here, with only the rhythms of the light and his own deep breaths to track it by.

  Roy looked back every so often to make sure Bastion was still attached to the rope. He had no way of communicating with him, and just had to hope Bastion had enough air in there. He wasn’t sure if the fish costume would provide him with it or if it would make it so that he wouldn’t need to breathe underwater. Possibly it would do neither.

  At this point, he realized that he hadn’t really thought this through, though Bastion was still swishing the tail around, so it was probably OK.

  After walking for a long time in a trance-like state, the underwater building finally came into view. A curved modular habitat of steel and seaweed, raised from the seabed on stubby little struts, flashing whenever the light passed over it.

  The remains of a rusty ladder reached most of the way down, bent at a sharp angle.

  Roy leapt for it, gripped it with both hands, and started climbing, hoping it wouldn’t snap off under his weight.

  He found a door with a wheel set into it, also rusted, and spun it counterclockwise.

  It moved easily enough; Roy had no lack of strength. You didn’t need money to build yourself, just determination, coyote meat, and heavy junk. He remembered that during one of those first junkyard workouts, he’d asked his dad if he’d be as strong as him someday. It had seemed impossible. Now he was probably even stronger.

  The door clicked. He swung it open, stepped inside a water-filled room, and started reeling in Bastion, hand over hand. Bastion writhed erratically on the end of the line, pulled from side to side by the currents. At least there were lights inside so Roy could see what he was doing.

  He heaved, stepped back, and heaved again, like this was a tug of war. Bastion slammed against the door before Roy finally managed to pull him through it.

  Then he heaved the door shut and examined the interior. The hum of machinery reverberated through the walls. That was promising. It suggested not only a way further in, but that this place was interesting enough for it to keep working.

  He slammed his gloved fist into a large button. Motors whirred, and the water level started dropping as the airlock cycled. Once it was low enough, he unzipped the fish suit.

  “Aaargh! Oh fuck. Is it over? Where are we? What–ugh”. He proceeded to spend the next minute coughing up water and shivering while Roy peeled the rest of the suit off of him.

  “Seriously. Fuck that. You don’t know what it felt like. I was in the dark the whole time, listening to these weird groaning, screeching sounds, being flung around with no idea how long it would go on for, while the suit slowly filled with water. You said it would be watertight, Roy, but it wasn’t. It…It just wasn’t.”

  “Yeah. I was thinking about that. How did the whole air situation work?”

  “After a few minutes, the suit was full of water. I couldn’t breathe, but it was also like I didn’t need to. I think they used to torture people like this before the Warp. During the Great War.”

  “Exactly like this?” mused Roy. “I don’t think that would have worked.”

  Bastion looked around. “Anyway, we made it? This is the place?”

  “Yeah. Oh, wait, let me try something.” Roy pulled the water gun from the fish suit and filled it with the last of the water draining from the airlock. “You wanna try it out? It’ll make you feel better.”

  “OK, sure. I need something to take my mind off of it.” Bastion took the gun and pumped it relentlessly, taking his anger out on it until the pressure gauge maxed out in the red section of the sticker. “This thing looks ready to snap. You sure it’s usable?”

  “No. That’s why you’re testing it.”

  “Ready, aim, fire.”

  A sonic boom filled the chamber, and Roy’s ears rang for a few seconds. The recoil ripped the water gun from Bastion’s hands and sent it ricocheting against the walls before it fell to the floor. Water poured in through a hole it had punctured in the bulkhead above.

  “Holy shit,” said Bastion. “The Tank’s empty too.”

  “I guess you only get one shot with pressure that high. Still really handy to have. Powerful.”

  “Yeah. We’d better get out of here, though, before the room gets flooded.”

  “On it,” said Roy, already spinning the valve to open the interior door.

  They walked up a stairwell and into a larger room clearly used as a submarine dock. He’d been half expecting to find the sub itself in there, but alas, it was empty.

  “What do you think happened here when the Warp hit?” asked Roy.

  “Maybe they took the submarine and got out of here. Maybe sea monsters got them. This place is isolated, but if it’s as full of themed stuff as we expect, then it was one of the absolute worst places to be when reality went haywire.”

  “Sea monsters, huh?” He’d seen a sea snake from the paddle steamer. They’d had to chuck out barrels of chum to keep it occupied. Most of the passengers had run below decks, terrified, but Roy had been transfixed by it. He kept staring until it was a green dot in the distance. “Be cool to see some of those while we’re here.”

  “It’d be even cooler not to,” said Bastion.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  “It’s still new and exciting to me. I didn’t live in a big city like you. For me, it was just big coyotes. This is the first time I’ve been somewhere that had anything different. Star City was zombies, right?”

  “Fucking everywhere was zombies. Everywhere with people, at least. The power plant used to have a ton of nuclear mutants. Before it all got cleared out.”

  The thing about the themed apocalypse was that it had no problem stacking monsters all in one place and letting them fight it out. Everywhere got the generic ones, as well as the specialized ones in areas with more theming. Humanity had gotten really lucky when it came to the zombies. No one had really believed they’d stick around forever, and so they’d decomposed into dust a long time ago.

  “Seeing this place makes me think about the way things were before,” Roy said. “What life was like back then.”

  “It was better,” said Bastion. “Way better. They had new video games releasing all the time and chairs that massaged your back and, need I mention it again, floating fucking cars.”

  “No magic though.”

  “You could go halfway across the world in a single day.”

  “That doesn’t sound like an adventure to me. They had to fake that with stuff like this place. We get the real and the fake.”

  As they turned the corner, they took in the signs.

  “Looks like you get your wish about the sea monster,” said Bastion.

  There were two facades in front of them: ‘Calypso Grill’ and ‘Rage of the Sea King’. The restaurant had fiberglass rockwork, streaming waterfalls, and seashell tables, while the ride entrance was a partially collapsed arch of eroded marble.

  Roy didn’t like looking at the derelict restaurant. It reminded him of the food court at Sunny-Vale Mall. The same metal chairs. The same dried-up palms. The same cardboard soda cups, though the ones at the mall had been amalgamated into crawling piles of garbage that oozed across the tiles, consuming frogs from the fountain, stray cats, and…other things.

  “Which first?” asked Bastion, but Roy’s eyes were already fixed on the ride entrance. “We’re going on the ride, aren’t we?”

  “You know we are, Bastion.”

  They ducked under railings and turned corner after corner designed to hide the length of the line. Water dripped from the ceilings and streamed down the sloped walls into puddles. The damp areas had started to rot.

  “It’s a shame,” said Roy.

  “What is?”

  “This place won’t last forever.” Theme magic was fighting against decay, holding back thousands of tons of water from getting in, but it was a fight the ride would eventually lose.

  “We’ll have looted all the valuables anyway,” said Bastion.

  They passed a final waiting area with dividers to separate groups into twos. Three smaller wooden boats were alongside them. “All aboard,” said Roy.

  Roy pushed the restaurant and the food court out of his mind. He wanted to focus on enjoying this.

  “I’ll look around for the ride machinery so we can get the boat going.” Bastion walked around to a control panel near the front.

  Roy jumped in the boat before Bastion could get there, and it immediately started moving on its own.

  “Oh shit. Roy, wait up.”

  “It’s too late. I’ve already started sailing,” he laughed and waved on his way past.

  Bastion ran at full speed past the rails and leaped onto the boat just before it left the staging area behind. “Theme magic, you never know exactly how it’ll work.”

  “There are patterns,” said Roy. “I’m sure we’ll learn them eventually.”

  The water they sailed through was filthy, and there was a musty smell to the cold, damp air, but Roy was too excited to care.

  “Here we go,” Roy said. “Our first real theme park ride. Are you ready to experience the greatest part of a lost world?”

  As he spoke, they passed through a miniature waterfall, drenching Bastion, plastering his hair to his face, and filling both of their boots with water.

  “Sure,” he said, deadpan.

  In the next room, blue velvet curtains hung from the walls in horizontal bands. A faint blue light glowed through them, and Jaunty music began playing.

  Roy jumped up and down in his seat. “Hot dog. Hot diggity dog.”

  Bastion just stared at him.

  Then the curtains rose, revealing glass walls to either side. Water jets foamed, bubbles sparkling under bright spotlights. When they cleared, they revealed an ocean landscape of mechanical mermaids.

  They flapped their tails and broke into song. “We’re dancing in the sea. It’s the greatest place to be.”

  Roy sang along, “Oh, we’re dancing in the sea. It’s fun for you and me. Come on, Bastion, join in with me.”

  “I’m alright, thanks. Though I do like the look of those seashell bikinis.”

  In the next section, the mermaids were joined by mermen, and divers wearing suits exactly like Roy’s. As the divers walked the ocean floor, mermen sprang out in ambush from seaweed and rock formations.

  They fought with tridents and harpoons. Explosive jets tore up the landscape, and by the end several of the animatronics had been run through, their exposed wires sparking into the water. A prop submarine imploded above them while two more dove deeper to escape the battle.

  “Whoa,” said Bastion. “I didn’t expect this to be so intense.” He was smiling as wide as Roy now.

  Finally, they reached an open tunnel. There were no automatons here. Instead, air tubes bubbled out of the building. Slow, ominous music played as the speakers told the tale of divers trying to find the Sea King’s cavern for a final confrontation.

  “Those air tubes must have been for human performers,” said Bastion. “I bet it was a crazy experience back then.”

  “It’s crazy now. Those things in the last room looked like they were actually fighting each other. Oh, look.”

  Roy pointed at the real sea creatures surrounding the tunnel. Crabs scuttled in formation along the sands. A small turtle swam close to the glass, with a miniature palm tree growing from its back. Swordfish with actual swords on their heads darted around above them.

  “Is this what you wanted, Roy?” Bastion asked.

  “Kind of. I like the turtle. You can imagine a tiny civilization living on its back, and those swords on the swordfish are great. One of them is definitely a Claymore. I always wanted one of those, greatswords like that really let you control your space, you know?”

  He felt calm then, listening to the slow music, watching the fish. It was relaxing, until glow-in-the-dark sharks started appearing over the tunnel.

  “Roy, get down. Before they see us.”

  They hit the deck. Roy peered over the side of the boat just long enough to watch a luminous green shark swallow the turtle whole. He ducked back down as it started banging its nose against the glass.

  Roy and Bastion kept their heads down after that until they arrived at the curved coral gates of a building that resembled a fish tank castle. They opened automatically as their boat approached, and it came to a stop in a circular antechamber, with only a waterfall in front of them.

  “Dead end?” asked Bastion.

  “No.” Roy pointed at the waterfall. “There was something like this in The Pirates of Pendor. They escaped from a kraken and got to an island that looked empty, but then a treasure room was behind the waterfall.”

  Sure enough, when he stepped through the falling water, he found a cylindrical swirling vortex surrounding a stone bridge.

  “Whoa,” said Bastion. We need to find more movies to watch if they have clues like this.”

  “Yes. We absolutely do. They used to have whole stores full of Ultra-Discs. We can try to find one as soon as we’re done here.”

  They crossed the bridge. The spiraling water roared around them, giving them both a light misting as they entered the final part of the attraction.

  The dimly lit chamber was a large glass bubble with a stage at the opposite end. The rest of the space was a viewing area filled with broken railings and crumpled automatons. More mermen and divers. A battlefield, long after the battle. These must have come alive during the Warp, while the ones they’d seen so far had waited for the boat to trigger them.

  Upon closer inspection, the mermen had all kinds of damage. Their silicone skin was torn off, their faces frozen mid-snarl. Some had been dismembered. Others were crumpled, blunt force having pancaked parts of them into funhouse mirror versions of themselves. One was completely bisected, with burn marks at the edges, its corroded motors leaking into a puddle.

  The divers were different. Their bulky suits were almost whole, and the damage was all of the same type: tridents jammed through the joints, and what looked like bite marks denting the legs. Their face plates were all cracked, so Roy couldn’t see what the mechanical men had looked like beneath their suits.

  Sludge coated the floor; the theming hadn’t been enough to keep the water out. The groaning and creaking of the glass bubble was a constant reminder of the immense weight of it above them.

  Roy carefully stepped around the broken hilt of a toy laser sword. Some kid must have dropped it right after the Warp.

  Stepping further forward, Roy gagged at the smell. Salt and garbage, with an edge of sickly sweetness. He thought of the mall again, though he couldn’t place why.

  “Something stinks in here,” he said.

  Bastion pointed at the cracks in the ceiling. “Maybe little fish fall in and start rotting.”

  “I can barely stand it.”

  “Let’s get in and out quickly then,” said Bastion.

  Luckily, it didn’t take long to find what they came here for. At the back of the stage, flanked by tall columns carved into spiraling sea serpents, was the Sea King.

  The automaton was embedded in the wall. He wore a three-pronged crown, and a long white beard flowed down to his bare chest. He was molded with muscles that didn’t actually exist anywhere in the human body, and that wasn’t the last of the inhuman features. There were Crab claws for hands, one much larger than the other, and an armored merman tail that fused with silicon flesh.

  His bigger claw held the trident, shiny and gold, covered with barnacles and seaweed, and constantly dripping with water.

  He was surrounded by piles of treasure. Gold coins, chests, and jewel-encrusted shells.

  “Score!” Bastion ran over and tried to lift a coin from the ground. “Damn, they’re all glued down. What a tease.”

  As soon as he touched it, the Sea King whirred into motion, eyes glowing blue. Sound boomed from the speakers above the stage, tinny and distorted.

  “Land dwellers who dare to enter my domain shall remain here, as fish feed.”

  He raised the trident, and the water they’d walked in through moved at its command, sealing off their exit.

  “Creatures of the deep. Serve your king once more.”

  “Oh shit.” Bastion ran back toward Roy, raising his revolver to the ceiling.

  Schools of glowing fish darted through small openings, raining down on them and flopping toward them on the floor. Scuttling crabs emerged from backstage, moving in formation, clicking their claws. Eels slithered alongside them.

  A merman twitched on the floor.

  Roy recoiled, stumbling over one of the divers. Then he realized the smell was coming from inside their suits.

  He knew that stench.

  He’d only smelled it once before, in the food court of Sunny-Vale Mall, when he lifted his father’s star-patterned cloak.

  It was the stink of rotting human flesh.