Hell Divers

by Nicholas Sansbury Smith

  “Yes. That’s the one we’re looking for.”

  “I never made it inside that one. Couldn’t crack the access codes.”

  X jerked his chin toward Murph and Magnolia. “That’s why I brought them.”

  “If I couldn’t hack the system, I doubt they can.”

  Murph patted his vest. “I brought something along that can hack anything.”

  Weaver shrugged and continued rocking.

  “If you couldn’t get in, then maybe the Sirens couldn’t, either,” Katrina said.

  “Yeah,” X said. “That’s our best shot.” He stood and put a hand on Weaver’s shoulder. “Will you take us there?”

  Weaver tore off another bite of jerky and chewed furiously. “I suppose I could sit around here and wait to die. But I’ve been trying to die for days now. Not exactly working out the way I thought it would.”

  X couldn’t help but grin. In many ways, the man reminded him of himself: too stubborn to die, try though he might. He had to like the guy, even if he was a bit crazy.

  “All right,” X said. “Gather round and relax for a few minutes. Weaver’s going to show us where we’re going. Then we move out.”

  The divers crowded around the candle as Weaver and X planned. Murph, Katrina, and Magnolia waited in silence, their frightened eyes tracking the shadows and flickering light inside the small room.

  It wasn’t long before the lonely, maddening wails of the Sirens began again, drawing closer. And somewhere four miles above, the Hive waited for X and his team to pull off a mission that seemed more and more in need of a miracle.

  * * * * *

  Captain Ash kept her hand on the armor of the Militia soldier in front of her as they inched through the tight passage. They moved at a frustratingly slow rate, but it was the only way into the farm besides the front entrance. The corridor opened up behind the livestock pen. If they could get in undetected, they could take out Travis or whoever else had the assault rifle.

  The second strike team would still be waiting outside the first-floor entrance to the farm. The distraction might give her sharpshooter a chance—and without the risk of firing a bullet. Each of the soldiers carried a crossbow. The arrows would slice through flesh but would never make it through the wall to the gas bladders. Her main concern was the danger, to both the ship and the hostages, posed by return fire.

  “In position, Captain,” Jenkins said.

  Despite her confidence in the soldier, Ash’s heart was racing out of control. She craned her neck around the soldier in front of her. Light seeped under the warped hatch cover at the opposite end of the tunnel. The team awaited her final orders.

  “One shot, one kill,” Ash said. “The target is whoever has the gun.”

  “Roger,” Jenkins replied. “Montoya is the best sniper we got.”

  Ash nodded. “You’re clear to fire as soon as you have a clean shot.”

  Jordan’s voice suddenly crackled over a private channel. “Captain … Captain, do you copy?”

  “Copy,” Ash responded.

  “Captain, stand down. I repeat, stand down.”

  “What? Why?”

  “The hatch to gas bladder twenty-one has opened. Someone’s gone inside!”

  Ash squirmed to get a better view of the hatch leading into the farm. Jenkins clutched the wheel handle, preparing to twist it.

  “Captain, I think someone’s trying to patch the bladder,” Jordan said.

  Tin, Ash thought. It had to be him.

  “Jenkins, stand down,” she said, almost shouting.

  TWENTY-TWO

  Tin thought he heard a scream. He stopped to listen, but the noise didn’t repeat. A drip of perspiration ran down his face, and he mopped his forehead with his sleeve. He had examined most of the gas bladder with his flashlight but found nothing. No hole, no puncture.

  “Where the hell is it!” Tin yelled, finally venting his frustration.

  He scrambled to the other side of the large, cylindrical room and wondered if Captain Ash had been lying after all. Maybe the bladder had been offline for some time. Maybe there wasn’t a hole at all.

  No, Tin thought. You can’t think like that. Ash was a good person, and she had always been straight with him in the past. He wouldn’t let her down.

  He played the beam over the smooth surface of the bulkheads, then stood on tiptoes and examined the overhead. Another hatch covered the pipe that delivered helium to the compartment. Engineering would have drained it as soon as the leak showed up in the system. Helium was precious and difficult to acquire on the surface. The Hive had several tanks in reserve, but they couldn’t afford to waste it on an unchecked leak.

  After a quick scan, he dropped back to the floor. The hatch that led to the engineering compartment a few decks below was sealed. He had tried it just to be sure.

  He wasn’t even sure how long he had been in here, but his body was starting to feel weird. His actions were growing sluggish. He licked his dry lips, cringing at the salty taste.

  The curved bulkhead was hot to the touch, and he had avoided contact after burning his forearm earlier. Now he had no choice—he had to find the leak. He reached out and ran his fingers along the metal. His skin sizzled, and he jumped back, dropping the flashlight. It bounced on the floor with a loud click and was suddenly much dimmer.

  “No!” Tin whispered. He fell to both knees and scooped the light up, tapping the end as the beam weakened.

  He waved the fading light over the bulkhead and then overhead. “Come on,” he said. “Where are you?” His voice trailed off with the last of the glow from his flashlight. The darkness pressed in on him, and with it came a wave of fear. The same helplessness he had felt when his father died returned. He was alone now, and terrified. Worse, he had failed the Hive.

  * * * * *

  The suffocating darkness closed in. Even with night-vision optics, X was beginning to feel smothered. He watched a snow whirlwind scudding across the landscape. The snowflakes fluttering down to earth were beautiful. One could almost forget they were radioactive.

  The divers fought against the full brunt of the wind. Sporadic lightning flashes lit up the industrial area. They were close now. X could see the quarries where people had once excavated the sand, stone, and gravel to build the networks of roads that connected their megacities—roads like the one they traveled now.

  The area seemed empty of Sirens. So far, he hadn’t heard a single screech. Maybe they knew something he didn’t. The only sound was the low rumble of thunder, and then a voice that X had avoided far too long.

  “Xavier,” Katrina said over a private comm channel. He could tell by her tone that this wasn’t about the mission.

  “Yeah?”

  “Can I ask you something?

  “I guess so.”

  “What went wrong between us?”

  The question stung, but it wasn’t unexpected. When the prospect of death loomed large, such questions became important. He had heard it a dozen times from other divers when things went badly on the surface. In those moments, the answers mattered, and X owed her one.

  “When Rhonda got sick …” X reconsidered his words and started again. “The Hive. Life. This,” he said, gesturing at the blasted landscape. “It’s all broken. Every loss has taught me, getting that close to people results in one thing.”

  “Heartbreak,” she said, looking over at him. “We all know what it feels like. You’re not the only one, you know.”

  She was right. But it had taken a child to teach him that lesson. Tin had shown him what true resiliency and vulnerability meant, and that opening your heart to someone was worth the risk.

  Even if you lost them. Especially if you lost them.

  “What’s the point of living if you push everyone away?” she asked.

  “I’ve been working on that.”

&nb
sp; “Tin?”

  X nodded but didn’t speak for a moment. He stopped in the middle of the empty street to wait for Magnolia and Murph to pass, then held out a hand to Katrina. “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “I know.”

  Her armored fingers curled around his for a moment, and he imagined the warmth of her skin. She smiled behind her visor. “You owe me dinner when we get home.”

  “Deal,” X said, as if he believed it was actually possible.

  “Almost there,” Weaver shouted. “Keep up. What are you two doing back there?”

  X and Katrina shared a chuckle, like two teens caught smooching, and trotted to catch up with the others. He was glad to have something pleasant to think about in this flat, featureless maze of ruined foundations and half-buried vehicles. The constant snowfall and eerie light from the electrical storms made the whole place look like a black-and-white photograph. They used up another half hour trekking to the outer edge of the zone.

  “Radiation here’s insane,” Murph said. “I’m not sure our suits can protect us at this level.”

  “Don’t worry,” Weaver said. “We’re going around the worst of it. This way.”

  X examined his HUD. The nav system displayed a route that went directly through the radioactive zone. He was glad they had found Weaver to guide them.

  A single gray structure stood alone on the bleak landscape ahead. It was missing its roof and every single window, but the walls were still intact.

  As they ran the quarter mile to the shelter, the wind beat against them every step of the way, threatening to push them into the craters to the west. The outlines of the other divers disappeared as they entered the building. X was the last one in. He paused in the entrance and scanned the snowy plain behind them. Though nothing appeared to be following them, he heard a weak scratching that didn’t sound like the wind.

  “You good, X?” Murph asked. He was waiting inside with the other divers.

  “Yeah. Thought I heard something, is all.”

  By the time X joined them, Weaver was already moving up the stairs. He tested a step halfway up with his boot, then motioned the divers to follow. The metal groaned under the team’s weight, and lightning surged above the missing roof. The light guided them to a second-floor hallway. Weaver continued into a room overlooking a scarred, barren field.

  “What the hell is that?” Magnolia said over the comm as she approached one of the windows.

  X slung his rifle over his shoulder and looked through the binos. The earth was pockmarked with craters, some as much as a thousand feet in diameter, and inside each dark hole moved a sea of flesh.

  “Holy shit!” Murph breathed. “Are those … ?”

  “Sirens,” Katrina said. “But what are they doing?”

  X scoped the nearest hole. Hundreds of the creatures were digging in the dirt. “I don’t give a shit what they’re doing,” he said. “We need to keep moving.”

  He zoomed in on a cluster of towers beyond the pits. A few stood much taller than the others. The buildings had withstood the years of relentless wind and snow. He didn’t need a sign to tell him this was the ITC campus.

  “There are so many of them,” Katrina said.

  X twisted to face Weaver. “Why the hell did you bring us here?”

  “I thought you should see,” Weaver said. “Thought you should understand.”

  “You wasted ten minutes,” X snapped. He unslung the rifle and grabbed it by the stock. “We don’t have time for sightseeing.”

  Weaver shrugged. “So you don’t want to know what they’re digging for?”

  X shook his head. “Not really.”

  Katrina tapped him on the shoulder. “Maybe you should listen.”

  “Fine. What, Weaver? What are those mutant fucks digging for?”

  Weaver pointed to the nearest hole. “Same thing we’re here for.”

  X walked back to the window and took a closer look with his binos. What he saw didn’t make any sense. The creatures were eating the dirt and then spitting it back out.

  “Power,” Weaver said. “Not the same we’re after, but I think they feed off radioactive material.”

  “And us,” Magnolia added.

  “All the more reason to keep moving,” X said. He didn’t know what the Sirens were or where they had come from, but one thing was clear: the bombs dropped by his ancestors hadn’t just destroyed the Old World—they had created a new one and populated it with monsters.

  * * * * *

  The image of Tin crawling through the tunnel in gas bladder twenty-one was etched on Captain Ash’s brain. She ran back to the bridge as fast as her bulky armor would let her. If the boy really was inside, perhaps they wouldn’t need to raid the farm at all. She just needed to give him a chance to fix the bladder. Maybe no one else had to die.

  She hurried past the two guards standing outside the bridge. The place was buzzing with activity when she arrived. Jordan stepped away from the oak wheel at the bottom of the room and saluted.

  “Welcome back, Captain,” he said. “That was quick. I think I just had the shortest command as captain in the history of the ship.”

  Ash grinned. She couldn’t recall Jordan ever cracking a joke before. Unclasping her body armor as she walked down the stairs to her chair, she set the pieces neatly on the floor.

  “Have we confirmed that it’s Tin inside the bladder?” she asked.

  “Tin?”

  “Who else would it be?”

  Jordan shook his head, “I don’t know.”

  “We need to figure it out. Right now! Gonzalez said he was a second away from putting an arrow in someone’s chest. Both strike teams are still on standby, but before we make our move, I need to know who’s in that maintenance tunnel. If there’s a chance Tin can fix the bladder …”

  “You’re leaving this up to a kid?” Jordan asked. He bit the inside of his lip and looked away. “I’m sorry, ma’am.”

  “Tin’s not just any random kid. He’s brilliant.”

  “Captain, even if he’s been through the technical training, actually patching a bladder is a far cry from memorizing the instructions in the technical manual. The bladders are hot inside. And they’re huge.”

  “I’ve made my decision. We give Tin—or whoever’s inside the gas bladder—a chance before I risk a battle inside the farm. Tell Jenkins to stand down and fire only if the hostages are in danger.”

  Before Jordan could reply, Ash changed the subject.

  “Have we heard anything from X or the other divers?”

  “Nothing yet.”

  She checked the mission clock. They still had seventeen hours, assuming the Hive lasted that long.

  Ash ran up to navigation. “Ensign, what’s the status of the storm?”

  Ryan’s fingers pecked at the keyboard. “She’s holding steady, Captain.”

  “What’s our altitude?”

  “Sixteen thousand feet and dropping,” Hunt replied.

  “Jordan,” Ash said. “Get over here.”

  He hurried over with his hands on his earpiece, talking as he moved. The red glow from the rotating emergency lights swirled across his path. He paused on the first step of the ramp. “Samson’s on his way here, Captain.”

  “Good,” Ash said. “I’ll meet you at your station.”

  Jordan nodded and hurried off.

  Ash glanced at the main display. “You let me know the moment that storm starts to grow.”

  “Aye, Captain. I’m keeping an eye on it.”

  Samson arrived a few minutes later and stopped on the stairway, hands on his knees, panting. His chubby face was covered in grime and sweat. The glow from the emergency lights made his glistening skin look drenched with blood.

  Ash gave him a few seconds to catch his breath before waving him over to Operations. Jordan was al
ready pulling up the Hive’s blueprints on his monitor. Hundreds of different-colored lines, depicting tunnels and pipes weaving through the compartments of the ship, emerged on the screen.

  “Show me the gas bladders,” Ash said.

  Jordan punched a button and drilled down a layer. The other tunnels and pipes vanished, replaced by a blue overlay of passages that connected to the twenty-four lozenge-shaped helium bladders. Each had two entrances: one angling from the lower engineering deck, the other crossing straight over from the farm.

  Samson pointed at the screen. “I have teams inside bladders nineteen and three. They’re working on fixing those now.” He scratched his shiny scalp. “What’s our altitude?”

  “Sixteen thousand feet and dropping,” Jordan replied.

  “How about that storm?” Samson asked. “We still at a safe distance?”

  “For now,” Ash said.

  Samson leaned over Jordan’s shoulder. “Bladder twenty-one is sealed off. Whoever went inside locked the entrance to the farm. We have no way of knowing whether it’s been patched unless we fill the bladder with helium. But if someone’s still inside …”

  “Have you tried contacting them?” Ash interrupted.

  Samson put his hands on his hips and sighed. “Those speakers are two centuries old. They haven’t even been serviced since before I was born.”

  “Try to get a message through, Jordan,” Ash ordered.

  He pulled up the control panel for bladder twenty-one.

  “Let me,” Samson insisted. “I know this system a lot better than you do.”

  Ash nodded, and the two men exchanged places. Samson’s stubby fingers typed quickly, tapping into the system. Then he scooted the mike closer to the monitor and said, “Does anyone in bladder twenty-one copy?”

  Ash twirled her wedding ring absently. She hadn’t had a chance to check in with Mark for hours. He had responsibilities just as she did, and was busy working in the water reclamation plant. If the worst happened and the ship went down, she’d be duty bound to stay here on the bridge, while Mark would be trapped belowdecks—they would never see each other again.