The Luminous Dead

by Caitlin Starling

  “Close,” Em said. “Your sensors aren’t picking up any movements from the rock besides vibrations. Nothing’s fractured yet. But it’s close. Can you move everything to the center of the room? There’s a bolt, just behind the boxes, you should be able to unhook them.”

  The second to last thing she wanted to do was move, but the last thing she wanted was to die, so she hauled herself up. She pushed her hands behind the boxes, her knuckles vibrating where they brushed the stone. There. She unclipped the boxes from their anchor and grabbed the handles, heaving them back across the uneven floor. Her shoulders screamed in pain. She shut it out. The vibrations of the boxes dragging over stone replaced the Tunneler’s call, radiating up through her arms, into her gut.

  When she reached the middle of the floor, she dropped the boxes and sank to her knees, panting. “There,” she whispered, her arms gone momentarily numb. She held her breath, waiting for feeling to return, hoping all the thrumming would be gone.

  It wasn’t.

  “I opened my helmet,” Gyre said, staring up at the ceiling, watching for the first sign of its crumbling. “At Camp Four, and just now. That must be it.”

  You don’t know that. Nobody knows that. Em would say that, would try to convince her it would be fine.

  Em grunted. “That’s almost certainly it. I shouldn’t have let you.”

  Gyre bit back a sob. “What do we do? I can’t get in the sump, I can’t leave, I’m too tired—”

  “You should do your best to be totally still,” Em said. “I’ll do another systems check of your suit, make sure something else isn’t venting strangely after everything it’s been through. Can you sleep?”

  “Not without help.”

  “Do you want it?”

  She shuddered. “If you sedate me, and the ceiling starts coming down, I won’t be able to get out in time.”

  “I can control your suit, if that happens. It might injure you if I move it wrong, though. It’s—it’s a risk.”

  “Is it my choice?” Gyre asked.

  Em looked away, biting her lip. Then her shoulders sagged. “Yes. It’s your choice.”

  But it really wasn’t a choice. Gyre wanted to get out, and she also wanted to sleep. She wasn’t willing to bargain away one or the other, not anymore. “In case of an emergency, that’s fine,” she said.

  “All right. Are you comfortable?”

  She laughed bitterly, but shifted in her suit and locked parts of it until she wasn’t horribly uncomfortable. “Yeah,” she said, letting her head fall back the few millimeters into the gel cushion inside her helmet. “Go ahead.”

  She just had to pretend Em was tucking her into a warm, soft bed. Just had to pretend it was all going to be okay.

  “Administering sedative. I’ll see you in the morning, Gyre.”

  Please, let that be true.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  The Tunneler was still close when she opened her eyes again.

  She’d been out for ten hours. She checked, remembering with sickened dread the lost time she hadn’t noticed when she’d last slept at Camp Six. The readout said ten hours, one dose of sedative; Em had been honest this time.

  She would have felt relieved, except that she could still feel the vibrations in her chest. She didn’t think they were stronger or weaker, and as she squinted and looked around the cavern, she didn’t see any sign of structural collapse.

  It was as if the ten hours hadn’t happened at all.

  “Em?”

  “I’m here.” Em yawned. “I’m here.”

  “You haven’t slept.”

  “I was keeping an eye on you.”

  Warmth bloomed in her chest, pushing back the dread for a moment’s relief. Em had sat vigil. Em had made sure she was safe.

  But Em couldn’t make the Tunneler leave.

  “It’s still here,” Gyre said, and unlocked her suit. Gingerly, she rolled onto her stomach and pushed herself up onto her knees. Her body was sore, but the kind of sore that meant healing. The kind of stiff that meant ten hours really had passed. She hissed through her teeth as she rocked her hips back, trying to loosen her legs up.

  Em’s video turned on. She looked horrible—drawn, worn-out, almost disoriented. “Yes,” she said, her voice not as clipped and controlled as usual, “but it must be circling. I haven’t been able to pinpoint its location, but the vibrations do change minutely, in a cycle.”

  “What’s it waiting for?”

  “I don’t know.” Em sighed. “How are you feeling?”

  “Stiff,” Gyre said, standing. She stretched her arms over her head, then flinched and brought them back down as a muscle spasmed below one rib, set off by the tremors coming from the ground. “Fuck, let’s just get out of here.”

  “If you’re in the sump and it passes too close—”

  “If I’m here and it passes too close, I’m screwed.”

  “We could wait it out. It doesn’t seem to be above you, just under. The chance of a cavern collapse is low.”

  Gyre grimaced.

  “At least sit and eat,” Em said. Yawned again.

  “And wait for you to get a nap?”

  “It would be appreciated,” Em admitted with a bleak smile. She glanced momentarily at the camera, then back to her screen, falling silent. Staring. Her jaw was tense, her brow slightly furrowed.

  Something about the set of her shoulders looked . . . guilty.

  “What’s wrong?” Gyre asked, patting at her suit reflexively. “Did you find something while I slept? Is there something wrong with my suit that needs fixing?” Was this going to be the spores all over again?

  “I . . . I want you to wait at Camp Six,” Em said.

  A non-answer.

  Panic rose in Gyre’s throat. The feeling was well practiced now, but horrible all the same. “I want to climb out. Tell me what’s wrong.”

  “You’ll hate me.”

  “Is there something wrong with my suit?” she demanded. “Or with me? What’s going on?”

  “You’re at Camp Six,” Em said, as if that explained it all. She wrapped her arms tightly around her middle, refusing to look at the camera.

  It didn’t click at first, but then she turned and looked at the sump entrance. No. Not after all this. Not after she’d cared so much if Gyre lived or died. She couldn’t.

  And yet . . .

  This was Em. It had always been Em.

  “You want me to go back in,” Gyre whispered.

  Em nodded. “I’m sorry,” she said. “But I couldn’t forgive myself if we didn’t try. Just one last time. You’re there, and once the Tunneler goes away—I trust you. I want to finish this with you.”

  Her words twisted between Gyre’s ribs, prying them apart. Leave it to Em to pair her best instincts with her most heinous.

  “What happened to, ‘If I’d lost you, I don’t know that I could have gone on’?” Gyre snapped. Em’s tone had been so soft, so small, but the violence of her words pierced into her like a thousand red-hot needles. She was going to come apart at the seams.

  After everything Gyre had gone through . . . No. No, Em couldn’t mean it.

  But of course she did. Because this was Em.

  Em flinched. “They’re both true,” she whispered. “But we’re so close. We’re so close, and we have the supplies, and now we might know which direction to go—”

  Gyre couldn’t believe this. She couldn’t conceive of this. A few days ago, maybe, maybe she would have been able to imagine Em being so selfish, so horrible, but here, now—after everything Gyre had suffered through, after everything Em had suffered through—

  She felt sick again. Her hands rose to the base of her helmet, and she stood there, breathing hard, trying to fight down the nausea. She couldn’t open her faceplate again, couldn’t risk it, but what she really wanted was to rip off her helmet, tear out her hair, and scream until the cave did collapse on her.

  “Just one more try, after you rest,” Em said. “Just one more.
I know you can do it.”

  “Fuck you,” Gyre whispered.

  “I know it’s not fair,” Em said. “But please, if you do it, I’ll give you anything. I’ll give you everything. I can’t just leave, not now that we’re this close. I thought I’d never see Camp Six again, and it was hard enough, turning away, but now that we’re here, now that you’re there—”

  “Shut up!”

  Em did.

  “You said you understood why I was running that recording. Did you? Did you really?”

  “You wanted proof of what was happening.” Em swallowed. “I assume to blackmail me into—something. More money.”

  “Screw your money! I was recording to stop this,” Gyre hissed. “To make sure there wasn’t going to be another me, ever again. And then I thought, well, I’m at Camp Six, I might as well try, the most effective way to stop her is to finish this, but that was a mistake. I almost died.

  “And I thought . . . I thought you got it, then. That you couldn’t do it again, even if I didn’t fix everything for you. That you couldn’t bear this anymore. I thought I didn’t need the recording, because you’d stop on your own.

  “But you’re never going to stop, are you?”

  Em didn’t respond.

  “I’m not going back down there, Em. Ever. Even ignoring the Tunneler, what happens if I’m swept back to that tunnel? What happens if I’m taken somewhere else? And if I get through, what then? What if I can’t get out?” The nausea wasn’t receding. She felt rotten, stabbed and left with a festering wound.

  She’d wanted so badly for Em to finally be on her side.

  “If you want it so much, come down here yourself,” she said. “Die for it yourself.”

  “I don’t want you to die. I won’t let you.” Em leaned forward, then looked at the camera again and reached for it. Grasped it, from the blurry shadow that covered the edge of the feed. “You are the strongest, bravest woman I know. I know you can do this, and come out alive. I wouldn’t ask you if I didn’t believe that.”

  “Fuck, listen to yourself, Em! It’s like you’re two different people, one who gives a shit about all of us, and one who can’t stop looking back at something that isn’t even your fault!”

  “I—”

  “If you can’t decide which one you want to be . . .” Gyre trailed off, bile tickling at the back of her throat. Then she saw the case by her ankle. Realized the power she still held. If words wouldn’t work on Em, if even Gyre’s near-death hadn’t been enough to make her choose, then maybe what she needed was for Gyre to choose for her.

  “Then I’ll tell you who you are.”

  Gyre moved quickly. She crouched and flipped the case open and pulled out the remaining batteries. Took one out of the foam and set it aside.

  And then she smashed the rest into the ground.

  Em shouted as Gyre stood and brought her booted foot down on the batteries over and over again, until they were only twisted fragments of broken glass, distorted polymer and metal, all wreathed in goo that quickly lost its charge as it was exposed to the air.

  She waited for retaliation.

  None came.

  “No more,” Gyre said. “No more, after me. You’ll kill us. You’ll kill yourself. Yesterday, you thought you’d lost me forever, but you didn’t. You were given a chance to make amends for my death, straight to my face. So live it. Commit. You couldn’t stand the thought of me dying, so don’t you dare ever put anybody else where I am right now.”

  Em stared down at her lap, unresponsive.

  “Or,” Gyre spat, “I suppose you can spend a year or two trying to restock this point so you can kill the next me. Doesn’t sound so great, though, does it?”

  “No,” she whispered.

  “Doesn’t sound like you, either.” Gyre swallowed. “Not anymore.”

  “If you need those batteries—”

  “I have two fresh ones in my suit and saved a third. If I can’t get to Three on that, maybe I deserve to—”

  “Don’t even joke about that,” Em snapped, but at the last word her voice broke. She sagged in her seat, then looked away and pressed a hand to her face to cover what looked like tears. She was a quiet crier, not ugly and heaving like Gyre, but her face was twisted into brutal pain. Pain, and exhaustion. Gyre hadn’t seen it before, but she could see it now. Bloodshot eyes, dark bags, a trembling in her shoulders . . . how long had it been since Em had slept?

  She couldn’t be thinking straight. Gyre swallowed, wanting to say something. But did Em deserve that? The benefit of the doubt, the trust that she hadn’t really meant it?

  Em twitched again, then looked up, her expression hurt. Tired. “Fine. No more. I’m . . . I’m done. I give up.”

  Gyre should have felt vindicated as she checked her suit over and prepared to leave Camp Six. But she didn’t. She felt only sick. Betrayed. Angry. Angry that Em wasn’t understanding, angry that Em was surrendering instead of being freed.

  Angry that after all this, Gyre wanted desperately for Em to have been a better person.

  “It’s not giving up,” Gyre said finally. “You’re not giving up. You’re moving forward. You’re succeeding where your mother failed.”

  “Shut up,” Em said. “Don’t talk about my mother like that.”

  “Oh, come on! Be angry! Be pissed! You can love her and hate her at the same time, believe me!”

  “I don’t want to!”

  “So what, then? Where does that leave us?”

  “I don’t know,” Em whispered. Gyre focused on Em’s image, and Em looked back into the camera, chin tilted up defiantly even as her suffering was written large across her features. “All I know,” Em said, “is that I’m getting you out. I can do that, at least.”

  “Good,” Gyre said, around a sudden lump in her throat. She wanted an apology, wanted, more, that the conversation could be taken back. She wished she’d never known what Em wanted of her.

  She wished she’d never known that Em had deluded herself so far that she could believe another attempt wouldn’t kill Gyre.

  “I’m leaving for Camp Five,” Gyre said, her voice clipped, curt. “You should get some rest.”

  “I’m not leaving you,” Em said.

  Gyre rolled her eyes as she crouched and picked up the one battery she hadn’t smashed. She stashed it in one of her suit compartments, then went through the rest of them, checking how much gear she had left, reloading line, reloading bolts. “Get some fucking sleep, Em. I can’t talk to you like this.”

  I don’t know if I can ever talk to you again.

  * * *

  The video feed was closed, and Em hadn’t said a word in the hour it had taken for Gyre to finish prepping her suit and having breakfast, but Gyre was left with no illusions. It was probable—likely, even—that Em was simply sitting there, watching her, instead of actually sleeping. Losing what little remained of her sanity and her self-control.

  How quickly everything seemed to change down here, when, at the same time, nothing seemed to change at all. From the exaltation of reconnecting with Em at the waterfall to the knife in her heart from Em’s request . . . had it been even a full day?

  She almost envied the other cavers, dead without understanding what was happening to them.

  “If I’d lost you, I don’t know that I could have gone on.”

  The words hurt, but she couldn’t stop repeating them. Couldn’t stop feeling Em embracing her through the suit, couldn’t stop thinking of how Em had clawed her way to Gyre’s safety. How had it come down to this? Gyre wanted to scream, wanted to shake Em, wanted to demand that somehow, some way, she be better than she was.

  But people didn’t change, not that deeply. Isolde had broken Em, and Em would always be trapped down here, just like her parents’ corpses. Just like Jennie Mercer.

  Just like Gyre, if she didn’t get moving.

  Final check complete and spent ration canister swapped for a fresh one, Gyre headed for the banks of the sump to Camp Five. />
  “Diving,” she said.

  Em didn’t reply.

  Her chest tightened. She didn’t want to do this alone. She stared at the water, wishing Em had somebody else up there with her. Wishing she wasn’t frightened by just the dark blue sheet of unbroken water on her screen. The swim was easy. She had a line to follow. And this time, she’d have light.

  But she could also remember the ticking percentage of her battery life, the blackness, crawling forward using only touch. It hadn’t been long enough for her to forget.

  It will never be long enough.

  She held her breath and walked into the water up to her hips.

  She couldn’t feel the cold or the damp. She couldn’t feel any motion except for the relentless throb of the Tunneler, endlessly circling. She wanted, desperately, to open her helmet and splash her face with the frigid water, to feel something real, but she resisted.

  And then she felt it—a prickling between her shoulder blades, a soundless keening. She turned back, looking over her shoulder toward Camp Six. It was as if she could hear them, somehow, Hanmei and Laurent and the rest.

  She was going to abandon them. She was going to make Em abandon them.

  Swallowing against a surge of unease, she opened up her external speakers and said, “I’m sorry I can’t get you out.”

  Then she shut them down and dove beneath the surface.

  * * *

  In the full light of her reconstruction, the sump was just a huge tunnel, endless, broken by familiar outcroppings and almost-diversions. It wasn’t an old Tunneler path; the cross section wasn’t uniform, and the walls weren’t smooth. But it didn’t have the chambers of the sump below Camp Six, or the currents. She floated, kicking gently, taking hold of the line and gliding forward.

  Swim the sump, climb the Long Drop, perhaps rest at Camp Four. Keep going to Three, then Two, then One, and finally reach the surface. It was easy, from here on out. Easy, except for the throb in her chest, which seemed louder, stronger, below the surface.

  She’d reached the bell when she heard Em clear her throat.