Chapter Seventeen
Seventeen
It felt like a dream, a nightmare. A surreal descent ever deeper into a bottomless pit.
If she’d thought it was dark before, as they passed the first hundred feet, Cally realized there had been an ambient glow, however dim, but it receded like a lid closing.
No matter how she tried to steady her breathing and control her rising panic, her brain didn’t care.
Every instinct screamed that this was wrong, wrong, wrong.
They were already too deep to survive if their suits developed problems. No way to get out, no way to swim to the surface. The pressure would kill them first.
And still they sank.
Every breath echoed in the helmet, harsh and short, making her feel like she was hyperventilating. Her mouth was dry. Her heart pounded in her chest, harder than she’d ever known.
Even Brent had fallen quiet. The lights of his suit were Cally’s only tether to reality, and maybe hers were to him.
She watched them constantly, for there was nothing else to see, save the ticker on her HUD as they passed five hundred feet.
He loomed like an alien, a glowing figure in bulky metal, floating like a ghost.
Press down on the joystick. Check the HUD. Let the gyros do their thing. That was easy enough.
It was the psychology of it, the wrongness of it. Claustrophobia from the suit meeting agoraphobia from the massive expanse of nothingness that surrounded them on all sides. No movement, no life.
“Will there be sharks?” she asked, as much to hear her own voice as anything.
“Unlikely,” Brent replied, his voice a tinny crackle in her ears. “Jellyfish maybe. Nothing can touch us anyway.”
Another hundred feet ticked by on the edge of her HUD.
“It’s so slow. It’s taking ages.”
“Mission time is ten minutes. We’re making good progress.”
Ten minutes? Her eyes flicked to the clock: 08:42. Useless information when she couldn’t remember what time they’d started.
It felt like they’d been sinking forever.
“Can you sense him at this range?” Brent asked.
“I can sense him at any range.” Cally focused on her bond, and it pulled down beneath her feet, but off at an angle.
“Try focusing on him. It might help you anchor.”
He was right; it did. Not just the bond either, but the reason they were here. If it was this much hell for Cally after only ten minutes, how would it be for Antoine, after weeks of this, breathing water?
A question she’d asked herself so many times, and it never failed to raise a shudder.
“Slightly more…” She checked the compass. “East. Call it eighty degrees.”
“All right. Rotate the joystick until you’re happy, then nudge it forward. Slow movements, remember.”
She did as he said, and immediately the reassuring figure of his suit slid from before her visor to one side. He was her only point of reference, and she had to fight down her panic as he disappeared.
It was irrational, and she knew it was. You’re stronger than this, Cally. Get a grip.
Brent drifted back before her in moments, their orientation reestablished. “Good. On track now?”
“Yes.”
“Great. So, just to make you aware, I do have a bit of a problem.”
Cally clenched her jaw. “Define ‘bit’.”
“My HUD is flickering. I don’t know how old these suits are, or how well they’ve been maintained.”
“That’s not a comfort.”
“Well, no. But it’s also not a major issue. I may just need you to check my attitude from time to time.”
“Your attitude leans negative, though occasionally you can be nice. I haven’t forgotten the ‘little rabbit’ comment.”
There was a pause before Brent spoke again. “I meant my orientation in 3-D space.”
“Yeah, I know.”
Another pause. “You’re still taking it seriously, right?”
“Trust me, I’ve never taken anything more seriously in my life. But humor is a defense mechanism.”
“Only if it’s funny.”
Cally ignored that one, choosing to focus on the bond as the depth gauge passed 900 feet. “These things are rated to a thousand, right?”
“Yes, in theory.”
“What do you mean, ‘in theory’?”
“Well, they probably won’t implode as soon as you hit 1,001, but the deeper we go the more we might get problems. One of my thrusters is sticky.”
“Jesus, Brent. What the hell does that mean? Are you all right?”
“Yeah, yeah. It’s just down a bit on power, sluggish to respond. Probably worn propellers or motor bearings. It’s not life threatening.”
“We can’t have much farther to go.” The bond still pulled from directly beneath.
“Let me check.” He tilted forward, his lights pointing down. Cally paused her descent, keeping herself level with him. “Nothing yet. There’s still open water beneath us.”
“We’re already at 950 feet.”
“Some places are deeper than others.”
That wasn’t comforting. Come on, Antoine. Where are you? “My bond says we’re right above him.”
“You can’t sense distance, right?”
“No, I—” Cally broke off. She could sense something different: an impression of Antoine’s proximity. Hadn’t Gabe said she’d be able to tell when she got close enough? “Maybe. We must be really close.”
“Then let’s slow it down. We don’t want to risk hitting rocks beneath us. Twenty-five feet increments, checking again.”
“Aye, captain.”
Cally felt her pulse pick up again, and in some ways it was a comfort. She must’ve got used to the darkness if her heart rate had subsided without her noticing.
“Stop, I can see rocks,” Brent said, urgency in his tone.
They let their momentum fade away, and once more he did his tilt thing. “There’s the bottom. About twenty feet.”
“Can you see Antoine?”
“Not yet. We need to get closer.”
They drifted down steadily, with rocks appearing out of the murky gloom. Cally didn’t need to focus to feel their bond; there was nothing on her mind but Antoine. He was so close.
She turned, and her lights reflected off metal.
A steel box, wrapped in chains, wedged between rocks and half-buried in silt.
Fuck. He’s in there? Seeing it was almost worse than what she’d imagined.
“Between those rocks.”
Brent’s lights swung the direction she faced. “Yes, I see it. Damn, that’s… grim.”
“What do we do?”
“The chains will make this easier. I can just clip the carabiners straight on, and the lift bags will do the rest.”
“Some luck at last.”
Hang on, Antoine. We’re here. Yet again, Cally wished she could talk to him. But if she could, would he have done to her mind what he’d done to Noah’s? With her screaming or tranquilized, they’d never have found him.
Her suit sank lower, and Brent’s voice snapped across the radio. “Don’t disturb the silt. We won’t be able to see a damn thing.”
Cally pulled her joystick, shooting up a few feet. “Sorry. How about I…” She adjusted her controls, pitching forward until she was almost horizontal above Antoine, bathing the whole area in light. “Does that help?”
“Yeah, perfect. Good thinking.”
Brent maneuvered carefully, easing his equipment basket between the rocks. Little puffs of silt rose as his jets disturbed them. Within moments, the water turned cloudy, Cally’s lights diffracting and scattering from the particles.
“Shit, this isn’t working,” Brent said after a while. “The links are too large to take the clips. I’ll have to loop them around after all.”
So much for luck.
It took longer for Brent to loop the lift bag around the end of Antoine’s box than it had to descend, and there was nothing for Cally to do but watch, every moment fraying taut nerves.
She’d only hamper if she tried to help, and she had to remind herself she’d done her bit.
She’d got them here; it was down to Brent now.
“Once you get that on, what happens?”
“Two of them,” he corrected. “One each end. Otherwise, it’ll rise lopsided and risk slipping out of the loops.”
Cally grimaced. The other end was buried in silt, and would have to be cleared. “Then what?”
“We trigger the gas. The bags fill, and up he goes. Slow to start, but he’ll accelerate.”
“Wait. You’re saying he’s going to rocket out of here?”
“That’s how pressure works. So yes, too fast for us to keep up.”
“Shit, Brent. Won’t this hurt him? What about the bends?” How did we not think of this sooner?
“The bends only happen if you’ve been breathing air under pressure. Antoine’s not been breathing for weeks, right? So no risk. Trust me, this is the easiest way.”
Cally shuddered at the reminder, unable to look away from his box. “All right.”
Brent wedged his suit against Antoine’s box then powered his thrusters, pushing it out of the silt. A cloud engulfed both him and the box. “Give me a minute. Getting this on is fiddly.”
Was Antoine aware of what was happening? Could he hear them? He was alive in there, but the sun would be up by now. Would he be asleep? That would make it easier. Please let him be asleep.
Then, from within the box, came the scrape of metal on metal.
“Did you hear that?” Brent asked.
She had. “He’s awake.” Could Antoine hear them? Was his vampiric hearing enough to catch her words, even through her suit? “Hang on, Antoine. We’re getting you out.”
“He’s feral, Cally,” Brent said, his voice flat through her speakers. “Even if he can hear you, all you’ll do is make him crazy.”
A faint thud as Antoine shifted, then another in close succession, like he was thrashing within. Cally stilled, listening, eyes prickling with tears as the muted clinks continued.
“All right, I’m done,” Brent said at last. Antoine’s box now had straps around both ends, bright orange sacks floating limply in the water. “Now we need to inflate these evenly, otherwise he’s going to tilt and risk slipping free.”
“We?”
“I mean me.”
“How are you going to manage that by yourself?”
“Well…” Brent fell quiet, but the problem was obvious.
“This is a two-person job, isn’t it?”
“Normally? Yeah.”
“So tell me what I need to do.”
“What you need is hours of training working that manipulator arm. What you don’t need is to mess with this now, and risk tearing one of these bags with your claw.”
He was right. He was also stubborn. “Can you do it alone? Yes or no.”
“Yes. Probably.”
“We get one shot at this, Brent.”
“Then I better get it right, hadn’t I?” His exosuit moved up to the first bag, the pincer claw extending to grip the valve. “Here we go.”
He twisted the first valve, then glided toward the second. The first swelled, dragging the ropes tight as the box tilted upward.
“Come on, come on,” Brent muttered, fumbling for the next valve. The second sack began to fill, but too slowly. The ropes were slipping.
“Let me help.” Cally was already maneuvering above the box.
“No, just—”
“I won’t touch the valves.”
“If you damage that bag, we’re fucked.”
“I know, damn it. Let me concentrate.” Cally angled her suit over the rising end of the box, nudged her joystick, and pressed one leg onto the box, pushing it down.
“That actually worked,” Brent said, surprise carrying through the tinny speakers.
“Is it enough for the other to catch up?”
“Who knows, but I can balance them now. Move off.”
Cally gave her thrusters another nudge, but in her hurry to move out of the box’s way, she overdid it, moving sluggishly at first, then abruptly kicked backward. A loud clang vibrated through the suit as she struck a rock behind her, and she swallowed a yelp, her heart rate spiking.
“Are you all right?”
“I’m fine, my pride isn’t.” A red light began flashing on her HUD. “Might have a problem though. Middle-left of my display—that’s a thruster, right?”
“Yeah.”
She fought to keep her voice composed. “I may have just knocked one out.”
“Shit. Okay, we can still recover this.” Brent’s tone lacked the reassurance she’d come to expect. “I’ll take a look.”
“You focus on Antoine.” The box had lifted free of the rocks, but the second bag filled faster than the first, rising more swiftly. It skewed high on one side, and would only get worse as they inflated.
“But—”
“Brent. I can do this. Focus on Antoine.”
A grumble of discontent came over the speakers, but with a burst of his thrusters, he rose up toward the lift bags. Cally watched for a moment, then turned her attention to her controls.
The thrusters didn’t respond when she turned to the left, but that wasn’t so bad.
She could rotate in circles to the right if that’s what was called for.
At least it hadn’t affected her pitch and yaw.
She followed Brent at a distance, rising up to his depth, keeping Antoine’s box in her lights.
Both bags were filling quickly, and the box rose further from the ocean floor with each passing minute.
Brent kept busy, making careful adjustments between the two bags to level out their ascent.
Until at last, the box held steady.
“That looks good,” Cally said.
“Yeah, I think we’ve got it.” Brent drew back, watching critically for a moment. “That’s it, isn’t it?”
Antoine’s steel prison continued to rise, level and steady, its pace increasing with each passing minute.
Her breath hitched, and tears pricked her eyes. He was rising. He was coming back to her.
We’ve done it. We’ve got him out. “Thank you, Brent. That’s amazing.”
“My pleasure. My HUD has failed completely, by the way. What depth do you have?”
Cally checked her screen. “725 feet.”
“Good. Let’s head up, nice and steady.”
The box surged ahead of them. “We can’t keep up with him, can we?”
“Don’t worry, the bags have sensors on them. Gabe knows to look for them.”
“Wait. Gabe is picking him up? Not Ryan?”
“Uh, yeah. Things got switched around, because Ryan used the tranqs on Noah.”
If Gabe had the chattel, was that his plan? To feed Antoine before Cally could arrive and stop him?
No, not the chattel, the human. Damn, was she thinking like a vampire?
“Gabe has been talking to you, right? You tell him it won’t work. Tell him to leave Antoine in his box until I arrive.”
“We’ll be out soon, Cally, but it’s better if Antoine has… a little bite to eat first.”
“Dammit, Brent. You get on to Gabe and you tell him, right fucking now. It won’t work, you hear? Gabe will get someone killed for no reason.”
“All right, all right, I’ll tell him.” A moment of silence. “Done.”
“And?”
“And nothing. He didn’t reply.”
“Did he get the message?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
Cally growled and pushed her thrusters to maximum, shooting up after Antoine’s box as it rose somewhere above them in the gloom of the ocean.
“Slow down, damn it,” Brent snapped, trailing in her wake. “These suits aren’t made for that kind of sustained speed.”
“Follow at your own pace then.”