by Ally Blue
Agreement all around. Jem nodded once. “All right. Let’s move out.”
Jem shoved the crash cart aside, and they all followed her into the hall. Someone pushed the cart back into position behind them, and Mo felt as cut off as if the bay door had actually closed.
Here, in the flickering dark of the corridor, the silence felt thick and breathless. Like something watched them from around a metaphysical corner.
Goose bumps rose up and down Mo’s arms. He crept along behind Armin, eyes and ears wide open, turning this way and that in an attempt to look in every direction at once. All his senses seemed magnified—their footsteps loud as cannons, the smell of sweat from four unwashed bodies ripe and choking, his skin packed with too many nerve endings. His clothes scratched like sandpaper. Even the air burned. He traced the outline of the switchblade in his pocket and felt better, though he wished he hadn’t left his gun in his quarters.
The strange sensations faded once they got inside the lab. Mo told himself it was a lingering side effect from the overdose of spider venom. He wasn’t sure he believed it, but he was too tired—and, frankly, too fucking scared—to consider the possible alternative.
Something solid landed on his shoulder. He whirled around, heart thumping, thinking of Daisy.
Armin stood there, his hand still raised and a worried crease between his eyes. “Mo, are you all right?”
“Fine. You just startled me, is all. I was thinking.” He forced a smile and clasped his shaking hands together. “So. What’re we doing?”
Armin gave Mo a swift once-over. His frown deepened. “Actually, Mandala and I wondered if you would mind going over the video from the walker’s helmet while she and I search the suit and helmet for DNA?”
“Oh. Sure, I can do that.” Mo unclenched his hands and rubbed his palms on his thighs. The tremors had calmed down some, thankfully. Maybe Armin wouldn’t notice.
Across the room, Dr. Jhut already had her gloves and mask on and the helmet in her hands. “I’ll upload the video. You go ahead and bring up the interface.”
Mo crossed to the nearest computer terminal and brought up the 3-D. “Computer. Display video uploaded from unknown walker.”
“Yes, Maximo Rees.” The terminal blinked red. Red. Green. “You will see such thingssss, Mo. Such. Things.”
Mo shut his eyes. It wasn’t Daisy. She’s dead.
But the mermaids were alive. And something had used Daisy to communicate with him.
Oh my, aren’t you a clever one? Almost ready to choose your fate.
Choose his fate? He had no clue what that meant, but he didn’t much like the pictures the voice in his head showed him. Death or change, it said. There is nothing else, once you open your eyes. Once you know.
Uneasy, sweat cold on his neck, he shoved the disturbing presence out of his head and opened his eyes again. The 3-D showed a blurry, yellowish still of a moon pool room.
His mouth went dry. “Armin?”
“Yes?” Armin started toward him, still pulling on his iso suit. “What is it?
“Is this the moon pool on the Varredura Longa?” Mo pointed.
Armin stopped, one glove on and one still hanging from his fingers. “It’s difficult to be certain, but it looks like it.” He edged closer, as if the image scared him. Maybe it did. “Start the video.”
“Computer, start video. One hundred and fifty percent magnification.”
“Yes, Maximo Rees. Starting video with specified magnification.”
The display expanded and began moving. The blurriness resolved into dim, blood-splattered clarity. Mo thought he saw a curled hand with a finger missing before the visual panned away.
Armin’s breath ran out in a long oh, hissing into his mask. “That’s definitely the Varredura Longa.”
“Dear God.” Dr. Jhut wandered over, her forehead creased in fierce thought. “This must be Klaudia. No one else that we know of left the pod after the slaughter.”
“You’re right.” Armin rubbed a hand over his face. “But how did she end up in Richards Deep?”
“Computer. Pause.” Mo glanced at the two scientists as the 3-D froze. “How do you know it’s her? You already said it could’ve been anyone that took the suit. How do you know it’s Dr. Longenesse?”
No one answered.
Scientists. Christ. “You guys want to wait and watch this after you’ve done your thing with the suit?” Mo turned from Armin to Dr. Jhut and back again. “It doesn’t matter to me. Whatever you want.”
They exchanged an almost-look. Some kind of scientific telepathy, no doubt, because they seemed to reach the same conclusion at the same time.
“It would be wonderful if we had that sort of time to spare, but we don’t.” Armin caressed the back of Mo’s neck with his ungloved hand. “Go ahead and watch the video yourself. You have a good eye and a sharp mind. You’ll do just as well as either of us would in catching anomalies.”
“Better, most likely. He has far more experience with walker cams and videos than we do.” Dr. Jhut cocked her head sideways and peered at the display like she wanted to jump inside it. “Mr. Rees, if you could mark any bits that you think we need to particularly study, that would be most helpful.”
“Sure thing, Doc.” Mo waved a hand at the both of them. “You two go on and get busy on that suit. I’ll take care of this video. No problem.”
Relief flooded Armin’s face. “Thank you. Truly.” He bent and planted a kiss on Mo’s mouth.
It was a surprise, but a nice one. Mo opened up and let it go deep for a few long seconds before ending it. He grinned up at Armin as they pulled apart. “That’ll keep me working for a while.”
Armin walked away with sad eyes and a faint smile, and a sweet warmth spread outward from Mo’s chest. If he could spare Armin a little bit of heartache by watching the damn video, he’d do it.
He was starting to think there wasn’t much he wouldn’t do for Armin.
All right. Time to focus. “Computer. Resume play.”
On the 3-D, the unknown person lurched toward the moon pool and plunged in. Mo caught a brief glimpse of a body on the floor—its face a red mask, eye sockets black and empty—before the inky dark of the deep ocean blotted out everything else.
He expected the person in the suit to turn on the helmet lights. Or at least the suit’s wrist lights. Instead, whoever it was plodded along in perfect darkness, breathing hard and fast and occasionally muttering, like she was talking to someone only she could hear.
The person on the display giggled, said, “Yes, yes, of course,” and panted as if breathing had become incredibly difficult.
Mo marked the vid with a keystroke. Yep. Definitely a she. More confirmation for Dr. Jhut’s theory that this was Dr. Longenesse.
The pained breathing continued for a good forty minutes, interspersed with occasional bursts of speech in French and German. Mostly single words, though a couple of times she blurted out entire phrases. None of it made any sense to Mo, even though he spoke both languages fluently, but he transcribed all of it for later review. Maybe Armin would understand what the hell she was talking about.
The darkness eased so gradually he didn’t notice it at first. He only realized there was light coming from somewhere outside the unknown woman’s suit when it struck him like a brick to the skull that he could see the faint slope of the seabed a few meters ahead of her feet.
“Computer. Increase magnification to two hundred percent.” He spoke barely above a whisper, in case the woman on the vid said something important.
“Yes, Maximo Rees.” The computer answered in a tone matching his. “She’s almost there. Wait until you seeeeeee.”
Christ. Mo ground his teeth, ignored the thing whispering in his head and marked the video, because damned if the light wasn’t getting stronger.
If you could call it a light. It looked more like the not-light in the heart of Richards Deep. The darker-than-dark blackness that somehow illuminated its surroundings like a million wate
rproof candles.
“Of course it’s the same.” Mo laughed, very softly so Armin and Dr. Jhut, several meters away on the other side of the room, wouldn’t hear. He sounded more than a little hysterical, but he didn’t care because this was fucking huge. “Come on, baby,” he whispered. “Come on. Show me.”
She did, unsurprisingly. He’d seen her future, so he knew she would. Still, watching her step over the edge of the slope, fall through the dizzy, chaotic whirl of whatever doorway led from there to here, and come out the other side into Richards Deep felt like witnessing history. Because it was.
He stared, captivated, while she shot upward through the canyon he’d gazed down into not that long ago. How, he had no clue. Walkers didn’t have any source of independent propulsion. But there she was, rocketing through the water, past walls that reflected the bizarre negative glow, past the vague shapes of mermaids, to land on the narrow ledge at the top with a thump that jarred the video.
The display panned sideways. Two mermaid tails flipped away, almost close enough to hit the woman’s face plate, and Mo got it.
“Jesus Christ. They carried her.” The idea was completely insane. But he knew he was right. Damn.
“Mo? Did you find something we need to come see?”
Mo stopped the video manually to answer Armin. “This whole thing is shit you need to see. But no, don’t stop what you’re doing. I’ll explain it later.” He craned his neck to look over at where Armin and Dr. Jhut were peering at the walker suit through magnifiers, lab lights blazing all around them. “Are you finding anything interesting over there?”
Armin laughed. It was a strange sound, feverish and edgy, like he wasn’t sure what to make of whatever they’d found. “Oh yes. It’s interesting, all right.”
“Finish reviewing the video,” Dr. Jhut ordered before Mo could get up and follow his curiosity to their workspace. “We’ll all share our discoveries when we’ve finished our tasks. I think we can all agree that it’s better not to interrupt ourselves.” She aimed a glare at Armin that said he’d better not argue. “I’m going to begin the analysis of the hair and skin samples. Why don’t you start on the scales?”
Scales?
Mo gazed wide-eyed from Dr. Jhut to Armin and back again. “What d’you mean, scales?”
“We found a few scales inside the suit, along with human skin and hair.” Armin shot Mo a look bright with discovery and horror. “We also found a few flakes of something we can’t immediately identify. Something completely new, I believe.”
“It could very well be skin infected with some sort of fungus. I want to perform a thorough analysis before we jump to conclusions.”
We meaning Armin, judging by the tone in Dr. Jhut’s voice. Not that Mo blamed her. He understood that they had to be sure. But Armin didn’t get this worked up over nothing. Which meant those unidentified flakes were probably more than some weird skin infection.
“Of course.” Armin arched an eyebrow at Mo. “Perhaps the video will give us a clue as to what we’re dealing with.”
Mo snickered. “Subtle, Doc.” He swiveled his chair back to face the 3-D display. “I’m on it.”
He restarted the vid. Across the lab, Dr. Jhut and Armin went back to skin, scales, and the unknown.
Over the next hour or so, it seemed like all the best stuff was happening on the other side of the lab. Or at least, it sure as shit wasn’t happening on Mo’s side. He’d been watching unrelenting blackness and listening to the occasional nonsensical ramblings. Meanwhile, Armin and Mandala seemed to uncover one fascinating discovery after another. Or so he assumed, based on their agitated whispers and the way they hurried back and forth between their two stations.
What the hell was going on over there? What were they talking about? Did he really hear Dr. Jhut say something about hybrid something?
Did that mean what he thought it meant?
Death or change, said the mermaid in his head. You can become so much more.
The 3-D jerked. A strange, cracking, hissing sound came through the speakers. An even stranger silver-black blur—barely visible in the now-familiar negative light—obscured the display for a heartbeat, then vanished into the bottom left of the frame.
What the hell?
He stopped the vid and backed it up a few seconds. Stopped it again and went back five whole minutes, just in case, because he didn’t know how long his mind had been drifting and he didn’t want to miss anything important.
Familiar hands on his shoulders told him Armin had come up behind him in stealth mode. He tilted his head backward. “Hey.”
“Hi.” Armin, minus the mask now, bent to give him an upside-down kiss. “How’s the video review going?”
“Okay.” Mo straightened up, facing the display again as Armin sat in the chair beside him. “How about the microanalysis? Did you figure out the in between stuff?”
“Possibly. But we’ll need to confirm our results.” Armin leaned forward and peered at the display as if he wasn’t sure he wanted to see what it might show him. “What have you found?”
On the surface, Armin sounded like his usual cool, scientific self. But eagerness and fear glittered like fireworks in his eyes, and Mo knew they must be on to something monumental. His pulse raced.
“Nothing definite yet. But something weird showed up just before you came over. I backed up and was about to watch it again.” Mo slid a hand over Armin’s knee. “You’re just in time, if you want to watch it with me.”
The muscles under Mo’s hand tensed. “I’d like that. Thank you.”
“Computer, resume video.”
“Yes, Maximo Rees.”
The computer restarted the vid without making any comments on it. Which was good, because if Armin heard the voice too, that would mean the Death Or Change squad had him in its sights as well, and the thought filled Mo with dread. Now that he’d known a life with Armin in it, he wasn’t sure he could do without.
And wasn’t it just awesome that he’d gone all needy over a man now, during a life-and-death crisis? Just his style.
The display remained unrelentingly black. The only way Mo knew it was moving was because he heard the woman breathing. Deep, gurgling breaths, heavy and pained like her Mist was getting low.
Maybe that was what had happened to her. Maybe she’d run out of Mist, ripped her way out of her suit in a panic and died.
Except that she never would’ve been able to get all the way out of her suit before being crushed by the weight of the ocean, even if she’d managed to tear her suit open in the first place, which was unlikely. Walkers were designed for toughness and flexibility. Human hands shouldn’t be able to tear them.
In his mind’s eye, mermaids deposited a woman in a walker suit on an undersea ledge and grinned at him with their long, sharp needle teeth.
He watched the blackness, listened to the increasingly labored breathing, and wondered.
A familiar fuzzy glow lit one edge of the 3-D. Mo sat up straighter. “She’s back in Richards Deep.”
Armin’s cast him a sidelong look. “Where did she go?”
Mo glanced at Armin. The color had drained from his face, but he had his Scientist mask on, hard and cool and in control. Good. He was going to need it.
Mo turned his attention back to the video. “I don’t know. It was too dark to tell.”
They watched in silence for a couple of minutes. The dark-light outlined the edges of the canyon and the crooked, sloping ledge where they’d found the walker suit. The woman in the vid stumbled. The rocks rushed up to meet her face. Mo flinched, but she didn’t hit. Instead, she floated. Floated forward, turned, landed on her back.
The whole time, she breathed like someone drowning. The vid moved in jumps and jerks.
“She’s struggling.” Armin grasped Mo’s hand hard. “Is her Mist running out, do you think? Could that be what happened to her?”
“I wondered the same thing, but—”
The weird cracking sound Mo had heard before
happened again. He still couldn’t figure out what it was. Judging by the confusion on Armin’s face, he didn’t know either. The silvery thing whipped past, and the vid quieted. Mo opened his mouth to tell the computer to halt the vid. Armin shook his head. Mo settled back and they kept watching.
Nothing else happened. They no longer heard the woman’s labored breaths. A few mermaids drifted overhead. One stopped and studied the walker, as if it found the thing interesting.
Eventually, Mo sped up the vid so they wouldn’t have to watch nothing happen in real time for the next who knew how many hours. As it happened, they only sat through half an hour of triple-speed nothing before the video ended.
“Huh.” Mo slouched in his chair, turning the whole thing over in his head. “The suit must not’ve been fully charged when she started out. The power should’ve lasted a lot longer than that.”
“You’re probably right. I expect she wasn’t in the best frame of mind.” Armin’s fingers tightened around Mo’s almost to the point of pain. Relaxed. Tightened and relaxed again. He hadn’t let go this whole time. “In any case, power and Mist in the suit are both completely drained. That almost certainly played a role in her death.”
“Where’s the body?”
Armin sucked his bottom lip into his mouth. Let it go. “I don’t know. I suppose she could’ve fallen into the ravine, even though I don’t know how that would’ve happened without the suit falling in with her.” He turned to look at Mo. “How did she get from Antarctica to Richards Deep, Mo? What did you see?”
A terrifying, exhilarating idea had been growing in Mo’s mind as they watched that last stretch of quiet video and he’d mulled over what had come before. The intense gleam in Armin’s eyes and the deliberate way he’d phrased his answer to Mo’s previous question said he might be thinking the same thing.
“There was a ravine in Antarctica too. Not deep like the one here. But it had that same weird kind of light.”
“Light, yet not light.” Armin nodded, his gaze turned inward. Thinking. Processing. “Go on.”
So he’d noticed its unnatural properties too. That made Mo feel significantly less unhinged.
