The Silence Engine

The story of a hidden soul

"A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for."

- John A. Shedd    

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    Out from the open waters, the coast seemed calm as glass beneath a low ceiling of gray clouds. The bay stretched wide and still, reflecting little more than the faint silhouettes of houses along the horizon. Serene and unbothered, their shapes softened by the haze of distance.

It might have been any other day—quiet, uneventful. Nothing suggested that the stillness was about to break. And then, the wind arrived.

Faint at first, then growing It grew heavier, and closer. An unexpected, mechanical drum rose from beyond the distance, too steady to belong to the sea, riding the gusts. The very air seemed to pulse with the force of its approach.

The chopping blades of a helicopter.

Not a passing patrol. This one carried weight, urgency… and the sharp crackle of gunfire.

Out on the water, a sailboat charged forward with furious intent. Its double hull sliced across the turquoise surface as if the sea itself bent to its will, broncoing over small waves, landing with purpose, moving like it was alive.

Its wake didn’t ripple outward but folded back into the sea, as though the water refused to disturb its passage. Each rise and fall was purposeful, unflinching, as if the boat already knew its destination and refused to be stopped.

Suddenly, a shot cracked—a bullet slapped the water just ahead of the boat’s bow, sending up a geyser of spray. Then another. And another. A curtain of water erupted around the vessel with warning fire, like a war zone.

“Stop!” a voice thundered from the helicopter’s loudspeaker, echoing across the bay.

Two gray inflatable Zodiacs roared up on either side, Coast Guard craft knifing through the water, their outboards screaming at full throttle. Men braced at the rails, rifles raised, peppering the surface with more warning shots. Still the sailboat kept on, gliding forward with unnerving grace.

“Stop immediately!” the loudspeaker warned again. “You are in restricted waters with an unregistered vessel. Deadly force will be used if you don’t comply.”

The boat offered no flag, no name, no numbers. Its hull was bare, its sails stretched high, its color a pale shade of sand. Familiar in shape yet like nothing else afloat—one of a kind.

From the helicopter above, a man in dark sunglasses leaned into his headset. His voice cut through the chaos with finality:

“Shoot it down.”

—— ✦ ——

    Far from the open seas, beyond the canals and the mangroves, a marina rested in the shadows of a silent afternoon. Black reflections of a wooden dock and palms shimmered like molten mercury on the surface of the water. The mysterious sailboat sat quietly in a slip, rocking as if untouched, as though none of the chaos had ever happened.

Boots clicked on the planks as a short man in Coast Guard uniform approached. Officer Perez had sun-scorched skin, and behind his dark sunglasses was the weary look of a man who had carried too much responsibility for too long. He stopped in front of the sailboat.

When his hand touched the dockline, he paused. A low hum trembled faintly through the planks, steady as breath. He dismissed it as engine noise and kept walking.

From below deck, a stubby hand appeared gripping the rail, a cigar clenched between its fingers. An old, heavy sailor emerged from the galley. His hazel eyes hinted at a face that might once have been handsome—now weathered, scarred, and toothless, his mouth twisted by decades of sea and smoke.

Perez sighed. “You know you can’t keep doing this. They fired real bullets this time. If it hadn’t been for…” he stopped himself, “let’s just say a last-minute call saved your life. Otherwise, you’d be at the bottom of the bay.”

The sailor grunted, words tumbling from his mouth in a broken Dutch-French growl. Perez couldn’t make out a thing.

“I know you, Captain,” Pérez said. “Always your stories, your curses, your rescues—and I was the only one who believed you. But no one else sees it that way. Call it what you like, but to them, you stole this boat.”

“No steeeeel!” the sailor rasped, his voice like gravel.

“To them, it’s a weapon waiting to be claimed. The investigators are coming tomorrow, and when they see you—when they see what’s inside this boat—your luck runs out.”

Pérez studied him, the old man’s wrinkled face curling tighter around the stub of his cigar. Finally, he gave up. “Captain, you’re a legend, and I kept you safe today. But I can’t do it forever.”

The captain turned his back, tugging at the bowlines with stubborn defiance. The ropes looked older than they should—salt-bitten and frayed—yet impossibly strong, as though time had forgotten to finish its work.

—— ✦ ——

    That night, a group of young adults clambered over a chain-link fence, laughing as they ducked under sagging barbed wire at the edge of the marina. Bottles of beer and liquor clinked in their backpacks, sharp in the quiet.

“Shhhh,” one of them hissed, pointing ahead. “There it is. The crazy old man’s boat.”

Hours later, the cabin pulsed with music. Christmas lights, strung through fishing nets, glowed over walls cluttered with rods, oil cans, and produce. Vodka passed from hand to hand. A spliff burned down, traded lazily between them.

The captain found a camera, flipped it on, and awkwardly angled it for a selfie with the kids. His toothless grin flared white in the burst of light.

Then he settled back by the breaker panel, chewing the same dirty cigar stub, ignoring the party in his galley, and carrying on with a repair.  When one of the kids asked, “Man, how did you even survive that chase?” he only chuckled, offering no answer.

The music throbbed. Voices rose. Another kid lifted her phone. “Here—let me get a video!”

She twirled, swinging the lens across the cramped cabin. Near the panel, the captain raised a hand, his voice sharp and rasping above the beat:

“No audio! No signaal!”

The kids laughed it off, thinking him eccentric.

The phone kept rolling, drifting past the breaker panel where the old man worked. For a heartbeat, the camera caught a shimmer—blue, glassy, faintly pulsing behind the wires. The shadows bent strangely, as though the glow carried its own cold gravity.

The kids’ laughter filled the room, distorted as the video screen buzzed with the hum of the blue light. Then, without warning, the recording froze mid-frame.

But it’s not frozen on the phone.

Somewhere else—another room, far away—the video streamed live across a wall of monitors crowded with uniformed men. Their eyes locked on the screen.

“Pause it there,” one of them said.

The feed froze on the captain hunched at his panel. Behind him, half-hidden in shadow, the glow throbbed—not shimmer now, but a pulse, steady as a living heart. Strange. Impossible. Alive.

One of the men muttered under his breath, “We thought it was gone with the last one.”

Another man leaned forward, his finger tapping the screen. His mouth curled in a sharp, satisfied smile.

“There you are.”

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