by Ally Blue
Mo winced. “Ouch.”
“Don’t misunderstand me. I certainly don’t wish such a thing on either of you. And I’m not certain that you will, if you haven’t done it already. At least, it seems that everyone else who changed did so in a fairly short time.” Mandala pushed away from the wall where she’d been leaning. Her face was thoughtful, her dark eyes sad. “But we can’t very well ignore the practicalities of the situation, can we?”
Armin glanced at Mo, who smiled and shrugged. “She’s right.”
“I know.” Armin yawned. God, how long since he’d slept? “Well. If that’s settled, then, I think we ought to get on with it.”
“Damn right. We’ve flapped our gums too long already.” Jem crossed to the office door. “Let’s go.”
She strode out into the med bay without looking back. Youssouf planted her palms on the chair arms and pushed herself up as if doing so took all her energy. “Come on. No point in putting it off.”
“Agreed.” Mandala started for the door. “I’ll finish up the analysis of the brain growths.”
Armin followed Mo’s broad back through the broken doors and into the sinister, flickering gloom of the hallway.
Luckily for everyone, BathyTech’s walkers employed the latest in mapping technology created specifically for use at extreme depths. Mo’s impromptu earlier walk had produced an impressively detailed 3-D readout of the seafloor.
Mo leaned forward and tapped the screen to the northwest of the chasm with the hand not absently kneading Armin’s thigh. “This chasm can’t be too far off from the areas of Richards Deep that we already know. Look. The place where we found that weird rock is just over here.”
Armin stared at the digital readout of the newly discovered chasm, the place where they’d found the object, and the ominous blank space between them. Anything might be there. For the first time in his career, he dreaded what he might find.
The go-cart’s com spat static, followed by Jemima’s voice. “Coming up on our parking space, guys. Get ready to walk.”
“Roger that, Big Mama.” Mo rose. “C’mon. Let’s get suited up.”
Armin eyed the partial map as he followed Mo to the rack of walker suits. “It looks as though we’re still a fair way from the chasm.”
“I know. You saw how long the video was. I’m pretty sure that’s ’cause I couldn’t get the cart any closer.” Mo stopped beside the suits and watched Armin with a solemn expression. “It’s a long walk, Armin. And what’s at the end isn’t like anything you’ve ever seen. There’s no shame in backing out if you’re not up to it. I can retrieve the body on my own.”
If someone else had said it, Armin might have taken offense. As it was, he’d learned enough about Mo to know he was speaking from concern for Armin’s well-being and for the success of their current mission.
“I’ll be fine.” He stripped off his shirt and tossed it into the open locker beside his suit.
Mo kept his gaze locked on him while they both undressed and pulled on their walkers. It reminded Armin of the first time they’d walked together. Only a few days ago, but it felt like another life. A sense of loss he couldn’t quite define stabbed him in the gut.
Before he could get his helmet on, Mo stopped him with a hand on his arm. Armin looked at him. “What is it?”
Mo leaned in and planted a soft kiss on his mouth. “I’m sorry all this shit happened. But I’m not sorry I met you.”
Armin’s heart turned over. He smiled. “I’m not sorry either.” He stole a kiss of his own, light and quick, then stepped back. “Are you ready?”
“Ready.”
They both put on their helmets. Armin started the flow of Mist and breathed deep until the wet, heavy gas filled his lungs.
The walk to the chasm took just over two hours. A long time, but not nearly as long as Armin had expected, given the length of the video from Mo’s walker cam. For the first time, he wondered if time itself had actually changed somehow when Mo came out here before. It sounded like a ridiculous idea, but so did the hypothesis of an infectious disease being passed on via glowing eyes. And the concept of warped time wasn’t entirely unprecedented, even if no one had applied it to these particular circumstances before.
They stopped a few meters short of the underwater gorge. Reluctance weighed on Armin, bowing his shoulders and binding his feet to the seabed. Nervous sweat prickled his armpits.
“Look at it.”
Mo sounded reverent. Excited. Armin turned toward him. The helmet lights glittered in Mo’s eyes. Armin’s pulse jumped. Was that a purplish spark he saw hiding there?
Mo swiveled sideways and flashed him a grin, and the tightness in his shoulders eased a little. No. No purple in Mo’s eyes. No blue. No glow. Just Mo’s usual warm brown irises surrounding perfectly normal black pupils.
You’re imagining things. Relax, before you get yourself and Mo both hurt.
In his enthusiasm for the adventure, Mo apparently didn’t notice Armin’s minor crisis. “Isn’t it incredible?” Mo trudged toward the jagged rift, which spewed a weird, glowing darkness into the water. “I can’t believe I was so afraid before. What was wrong with me?”
Logically, Armin agreed. He saw no valid scientific reason to fear this place. The readings for any sort of dangerous radiation were flat, and really, what else could hurt them here?
But this wasn’t a place for logic. Instinct ruled here. And every instinct he had screamed at him to run.
Because he was a scientist, not an animal, he ignored his primitive inner voice and followed Mo.
Standing at the edge was far more confusing than lingering safely down the path from it. The strange, blurry spot at the bottom twisted the eye like a black light, only worse. It tugged at his mind when he stared at it. He got the oddest feeling that it was trying to pull him in. Hook him like a fish and swallow him whole.
He didn’t look anymore. Especially after Mo extended the guideline from the closest suitable spot he could find to where they needed to be, and they adjusted their walkers’ buoyancy to cross the chasm. The alien space churned black and bottomless below their feet.
Standing on the other side was a relief, even though the ledge was narrow and sloped slightly toward the pit. Armin steadied himself with a hand on the wall and told himself that half of this mission was now behind him. They only had to cross the strange ravine one more time.
Mo started toward the body, which lay a few meters away from where they’d crossed. “Walker One to cart, come in.”
“Cart here. You there?”
“Yep. We’re across the chasm and getting ready to retrieve. I’ll com you again when we’ve got the body.”
“Roger that. Out.”
Mo cut the connection with Jemima. When he reached the body, he stepped carefully around it and knelt at the head. “Wait. Armin, there’s nobody in here.”
“What?”
“The suit’s empty. Come see.”
Armin closed the last few steps to the body and knelt as well, much less gracefully than Mo. He saw clearly now that the helmet was empty and separated from the suit. One side of the suit—the one they hadn’t been able to see on video—was torn open. Armin laid a hand on one leg. It went flat, water jetting out of the rip in the side.
“What in the world happened?” he wondered out loud.
“That’s the big question, isn’t it?” Mo opened the cargo pocket in the side of his suit’s leg and took out a large specimen bag. “Well, I guess we won’t need the hover stretcher after all. We’ll just put it in here. Help me, would you?”
“Of course.” Armin took the legs of the suit and started to fold them in toward the middle. Then he saw the badge on the chest, and forgot how to breathe. “Oh. Oh Christ.”
“Armin?” Mo reached over and touched him with the clumsy walker glove that allowed no human warmth to bleed through. “Are you okay? What’s wrong?”
Unable to speak, Armin pointed to the two simple words on the front of the suit. T
wo words that changed everything.
Varredura Longa.
It was strange, Mo thought, how something as simple as the wrong name on a uniform could shift the whole universe off-kilter. He stared at the ordinary walker suit and wondered how it came to be so extraordinarily out of place.
The possibilities were fascinating. Exhilarating. He couldn’t hold back a laugh.
It figured that would kick Armin out of his silence. He stared at Mo like he’d killed a basketful of kittens. “What in God’s name could you possibly find funny about this?”
“Not funny. Exciting.” Mo rolled his eyes at Armin’s scandalized stare. “Come on, Doc. This walker ought to be somewhere in the ocean off Antarctica. Instead, it’s on the other side of the damn world, in a part of the Peru–Chile Trench where no one’s ever been before. Don’t you want to know how it got here? Don’t you want to know why it’s empty?”
Armin’s face came to life, going from stunned to angry in a heartbeat. “Of course I do. But I don’t find this remotely exciting. It’s horrific. And . . . and sad.” He blinked several times in a row and turned to look out over the chasm. “This might have been someone I knew. If I’d only gotten there sooner.”
Mo understood then. Armin still blamed himself—at least partly—for what had happened on the Varredura Longa. He still believed that if he’d dropped everything to rush straight to Antarctica when he got the call, he could’ve prevented everything that happened. The deaths. The mutilations.
The disappearances.
The memory of what Armin had told him played through Mo’s brain as clearly as if he’d seen it himself: Dr. Longenesse, the research pod’s leader, walking off into the deep with the unknown object in her arms.
“They never found the body,” he mused.
Armin drew back like he’d been stung. “What?”
“Just thinking out loud. I’ll explain when we get back.” He didn’t want to risk upsetting Armin. Not here, where their lives depended on staying calm and focused. He touched Armin’s wrist. Armin peered at him with black eyes full of caution and pain, and Mo ached for him. “We’re gonna take this suit back, and we’re gonna figure out what happened to the person who was in it. That’s the best we can do. Okay?”
Armin nodded. His skin was waxy and sallow in the weak glow of his helmet light. His eyes were dull, his normally expressive mouth a harsh line.
Mo recognized that look. He’d seen it plenty back in Dubai during those long, dark months of kill or be killed, of steal or starve. It was the look of a person pushed past his ability to cope. Eventually, Armin would come around, assimilate this new development and deal with it. Sooner rather than later, probably. Armin was strong and practical. He wouldn’t let this get to him for long.
Right now, though, they still had to make it back to BathyTech in one piece. Which meant Mo would need to keep a sharp eye on Armin. Make sure his shell-shocked state didn’t trip him up. Literally.
Mo lifted the empty helmet and tucked it into the bag. “I’ll stow the suit. You let Jem know what we found, and tell her we’re on our way back.”
Relief washed over Armin’s features. He didn’t say why, but Mo could guess. If he was in Armin’s place, he wouldn’t want to handle the damn suit either.
While Armin commed Jem, Mo carefully folded the walker that ought not to be here and slid it into the bag on top of the helmet. Down in the chasm near his feet, in the murk that shone dark-on-dark against all logic and reason, the mermaids swam in patterns.
The guideline was longer on the trip back across. Longer and flimsier, gossamer thin, stretching in Mo’s grip like spider silk.
He didn’t like it. Was there something in the water here? Something that degraded the polymers? What if it broke? Walkers were walkers, not dive gear. They were built to stay on the bottom. They didn’t have neutral buoyancy.
As if worrying about falling into a bottomless pit wasn’t bad enough, there were the whispers in Mo’s head.
Come with us, they hissed. See what we see.
Was it the mermaids? The abyss itself? Who knew? Certainly not Mo. All he knew for sure was that the voices came from outside himself. From everywhere and nowhere.
They sounded like Daisy’s ghost—dry, cracked, insubstantial.
Dead.
Wrong.
Mo steeled himself against the silent entreaties to look, to come, to see the wonders here, and watched Armin’s back instead. Armin, who was warm and real and alive, and needed Mo to make sure he stayed that way.
Armin had been there for him when he needed him. Been strong for him. Mo would not be anything less for Armin, who’d quietly come to occupy the central position in Mo’s life.
The temptation to listen to the voices tugged at Mo’s gut like a fishhook even after he and Armin stepped safely onto the solid rock ledge on the other side of the chasm. He called on every ounce of strength he possessed and ignored it.
When Armin started to turn and look, Mo stopped him. “Don’t.”
Armin’s whole body trembled like he was fighting to keep from knocking Mo aside and flinging himself into the unknown. “I hear them. They’re telling me to follow them. Down into the deep.” He met Mo’s gaze, his eyes wide and scared. “I want to.”
Mo heard Armin’s struggle as clearly as if he’d shouted. Was it wrong that knowing they were in this together made it easier to handle?
He grasped Armin’s elbow as best he could with the clumsy walker glove and led him away from the edge of the ravine. “Me too. Let’s go before we decide it’s a good idea to do it.”
Armin closed his hand around Mo’s wrist, and for a strange, confusing moment Mo didn’t know who was trying to stop who. Then Armin blinked, opened his fingers, and let his arm drift down, and the tension dissolved into the icy water. “Yes. Yes, you’re right.”
A tiny thread of disappointment wormed through Mo’s insides. Because it wasn’t nearly strong enough to overcome his relief, he adjusted the specimen bag’s buoyancy to neutral and led the way down the path to the go-cart.
Armin surprised Mo by refusing to let Youssouf send them back to isolation.
“It can’t be a coincidence that this suit came from the one other place where this same scenario may have played out before.” Armin glared at Youssouf’s collarbone, his spine stiff and his cheeks an angry red. “I need to be involved in this. I won’t be shut out.”
“Oh my God, I really don’t need this right now.” Youssouf sighed the sigh of the deeply put out. “Mo? Are you going to be a pain in my ass too?”
Mo didn’t have to think about it. Of course he had Armin’s back. “Yep. Sorry.”
“No you’re not.” She sighed again and pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes. “Fine. Fine.” She dropped her hands, rose from Palto’s worn-out desk chair—they’d gathered in his office again to talk, that being the only private spot—and dragged herself to the door like it was the hardest thing she’d ever done. “Mandala? What do you want to do with them?”
Dr. Jhut broke her frowning silence for the first time during this powwow to answer. “Well, we’ll need to go over this suit inside and out for anything containing the DNA of whoever wore it. It has Dr. Longenesse’s name on it, but under the circumstances I think we can’t afford to assume it’s actually her until we have more evidence. Anyone could have taken that suit.” She studied Armin with obvious sympathy. “I know this is probably difficult for you, Armin. But I have to say, I’m relieved to have your assistance. The two of us can get any necessary microanalysis done much more quickly together than I could alone. Plus I think we need any and all ideas brought forward regarding what we’re dealing with here. This event is completely unprecedented. I believe there’s a great deal of value in being together in the same physical space, discussing the problem face-to-face.” She glanced at Mo. “I’m including you, Mr. Rees. We need your insights as well.”
“Hey, I’m always happy to tell people what I think.” Mo did his best no
t to look directly into Dr. Jhut’s eyes, but it was tough. She didn’t seem worried about it at all. For a scientist and someone he’d found to be naturally cautious, it was out of character. Made him wonder about her. About what she believed when it came to whatever the hell was happening here.
“Very well. It’s settled, then.” Dr. Jhut pushed away from the wall and followed Youssouf out the door into the med bay. “Amara, I know you’re not happy about this. But I promise you, it won’t be a problem.”
Youssouf cut her a sour look as the group left the office in a huddle. “You’re right, I don’t like it. But I trust your judgment. Just don’t make me sorry for that.”
Dr. Jhut smiled. “You’ll have no cause to be sorry.”
“Good. And make sure they stay in the lab.” Youssouf half turned toward Mo and Armin, who were walking behind her and Dr. Jhut. “No offense meant, guys. I hope you know that. It’s my job to make sure everybody in this pod stays safe. Which is why I’m staying here and working on a way to cure this thing.”
A rare surge of affection toward his employer warmed Mo’s heart. Youssouf was a tough old cookie, ran a hell of a tight ship, but she’d rather die herself than let anything happen to her crew. The way everything was unraveling between her fingers had to be killing her.
When they got to the autopsy room door, Youssouf clapped Mo, Armin, and Dr. Jhut on their shoulders and wished them luck, then stalked off to do whatever the hell doctors did when they were trying to cure something that wasn’t even a proper disease. Mo picked up the specimen bag with the mysterious walker suit in it and followed Armin and Dr. Jhut toward the exit.
Jem fell in with them without being asked. “Because you need a bodyguard,” she said before Dr. Jhut could turn a questioning look into an actual question. “Shut up and stay behind me when we get out into the hall. Rees, you take the rear position.”
Mo resisted the urge to laugh at Armin and Mandala’s identical irritated expressions. “Aye-aye, Big Mama.”
“You shut up too.” She surveyed the group. “Everybody ready?”
