by Korn, Tracy
I grip the armrests of my chair to stop myself from sliding out as Myra topples into Vox, and they both fall to the ground. Ms. Reynolt manages to get a grip on the back of my chair to steady herself before we all turn to look at the front of the ship. Arco is pulling back on a lever, and Denison is talking over his shoulder.
"Steady—it's all right. They can be sticky coming out, just keep it steady. Mr. Tether, we need more pull on your outside"
"But it's—"
"Just pull in, you're rowing a boat—just like rowing a boat, remember?" he coaches. "Mr. Hart, more hydraulics when you feel that left tug."
Arco doesn't acknowledge him, but seconds later, we start to straighten out. "Off as she goes, well done, Mr. Hart," Denison claps Arco's shoulder, and something small and warm explodes in my chest. "Mr. Ling, let's bring it around now so we don't rotate again."
"Aye, sir," Avis says, and lets his half moon control wheel drift slowly from him. The craft begins moving smoothly forward, and aside from a blinking red light about a hundred feet directly in front of us, it looks like we're facing the open sea.
"Take her out," Denison says, but we don't move. Arco looks up at him, hesitant. "Push on to the gate, son."
Myra and Vox have picked themselves up off the floor and returned to their own chairs while Ms. Reynolt has moved to a stowed seat that she's pulled out from the side wall. Dr. Denison lifts the inside of his wrist to his chin.
"What's the depth, Cal?" he says into the inside of the panel strapped to his forearm.
"We're cleared for 6,000 meters," Mr. Stryker's voice comes through the device, and I flinch. 6,000 meters? That's 1,000 meters beyond our sea shelf.
"Do we have those Stingrays ready to go?" Denison asks.
"Give me 10."
"What's a stingray? I mean, I know what a stingray is, but why are they getting them ready?" I ask Ms. Reynolt. She smiles, and I suddenly feel a little silly when I realize they're not talking about the animal.
"They're two-passenger vessels…looks like Dr. Denison wants to take you all on a little outing this afternoon."
"We're going outside the Leviathan? In the ocean? In our own little ships at 6,000 meters down?" I stammer, but she just smiles again.
"I understand your anxiety, Jazwyn, but you're perfectly safe. You may experience a bit of nausea as your nanites stabilize your oxygen levels, but it will pass. I find holding my breath at the onset helps give them a little head start with turning over the cells."
"But what about the ships? We don't know how to drive anything."
"No need to worry. Anyone can operate the Stingrays, besides, you'll either be in with one of the staff members at first, or with one of the Navigators."
Talking has taken my attention away from the fact that we've been inching forward this whole time, and had we not suddenly stopped again, I probably wouldn't have even noticed. We're at the exterior gate, and Denison, now sitting next to Arco in a smaller chair that extends from an arm at the base of the pilot's, waves Arco forward with one hand.
"Just push on, the gate will see you coming."
Arco inches us forward toward the red, blinking light that turns green when he's close enough, and the tall, clear window panel it's attached to slides open. Once we're inside and stopped behind the red center light of another panel, the one we've just cleared closes behind us.
"We're sealed in here?" I ask out loud, but to no one in particular.
"This is the normalization chamber," Ms. Reynolt says, and I hear a roar start all around us.
"What's that?" Myra's voice pitches.
"Water. In a second, the other panel will open, and we'll be able to jettison. Without this step, the force of the water rushing in would crush us against the back gate panel," Ms. Reynolt explains in a voice that could just as easily be reading a child's bedtime story. I swallow hard and try not to panic as the water level rises over the front windows of the ship. After a few more minutes, the red center light in front of us begins to flicker green.
"Push on," Denison says, but we still don't move. "Mr. Hart, as you've seen, it will clear as you approach."
"But it's the ocean past this point," Arco says. "We're at 5,000 meters. Doesn't that say 5,000 meters?" he says, pointing to something on his console.
Denison laughs. "And we'll need to drop another thousand before you'll have somewhere to park. Push on," he says, waving Arco ahead.
The ship moves forward slowly, and the tall, clear wall begins to slide away. We start advancing more slowly still—so slowly that I wonder for a second if we're actually moving at all, but Ms. Reynolt explains that this is just due to the initial push of outside water coming in to fill the last pockets of air in the chamber. "Let's go around the block. Watch your levels like we did in the simulator this morning. Less rotation, Mr. Ling. Sync with the left rig," Denison commands, and almost immediately we begin to move forward at a noticeable clip. "Check your debris field here before you pull the cork. We'll drop about a meter per second then."
My heart starts pounding at that. "How did they learn to drive this thing in one day?" I ask Ms. Reynolt under my breath.
"As your abilities in understanding yourself and others have been building, Jazwyn, so have theirs. Just look what you've been able to accomplish in a short while. Navigation and complex systems operation is in their blood. Their physical training may only amount to test runs in simulators and a few around-the-blocks, as we like to call these little outings, but they are already familiar with how it should feel down here," she explains, though, I'm still not satisfied. I want to know what's actually making this ship function—what does the engine look like, where are the controls that let us see into the core, and more importantly, do Avis, Pitt, Ellis, and Joss feel as unsure about operating this thing as Arco seems to?
"Can I go downstairs?" I ask. "I want to see how everything works."
"Wait until we clear threshold, then we'll be on auto-descent and there will be less chance of abrupt movement."
"Threshold?"
"It will be any second now. Just listen for the bell. We need to get out far enough from the port gate before we can scan for debris—jutting rocks, anything that would interrupt our trajectory. That point is called threshold," she says patiently, just as a low-toned bell sounds. She looks ahead toward the front of the ship and nods, then looks back at me. "And there it is. You can head downstairs now if you like."
I look around my seat for a belt release so I can unclip the safety restraint, which I don't remember ever putting on in the first place. "How do I get out of this thing?" I ask, a little embarrassed.
"Just stand up—it will read your neural command and release. Remember, it's designed to work with you." I look at her in disbelief as I contemplate how ridiculous I'll look trying to stand up, but not be able to. She gives me another nod, and I try it. The belt disappears, almost seeming to disintegrate, and I look again at Ms. Reynolt, surprised. "You see? We'll join you downstairs as soon as we anchor. It shouldn't be long," she says with a smile. I nod, then slip away from the chair before it decides I need to sit back down. Myra sees my chair vacant and skitters over to talk to Ms. Reynolt as I pass Vox and try to open a channel to her.
I'm going to the core to find Dez and the others. I think, and soon hear her steps behind my own.
CHAPTER 35
Launch
The spiral staircase is narrow and winds down about 20 feet. When we reach the bottom, everything is chrome colored in the corridor that wraps around two opposite corners at the far end. I look around, but don't see Pitt or Dez, not to mention Mr. Stryker or Dame Mahgi.
"Where did they go?" I ask Vox, not really expecting an answer, but she has one.
"This way," she says walking ahead, then, veering right.
"How do you know they're that way?"
"I just do. Stow it and come on," she says, grabbing my sleeve and pulling me up to her pace. Around the corner is another short flight of stairs that leads down to a room wi
th hundreds of flat file drawers, but no piston systems or engine blocks like I expected. It's a little warmer down here, and the light has a yellow cast as opposed to the blue cast of the upper deck. Just beyond the flat files I see Pitt standing with Mr. Stryker at the other end of the room, and then look around for Dez and Dame Mahgi, but I don't see them.
"Let's find Dez and Mahgi," I say.
Who cares where those two are? They won't be able to tell you what you want to know about what this ship can do. Vox's rudeness is even worse when it happens in my own head.
We start walking quietly toward Pitt and Mr. Stryker, and Vox suddenly stands bolt upright and turns around to face me.
"What?" I ask, surprised.
"Are you two going to be part of the core crew?" Dez says from behind me with a smile, and I nearly jump straight into Vox.
"Uh, no—but Myra is. She's going to be your nurse I guess, something like that. She's still upstairs, though. We just came to…see..." I stutter.
"We came to see what makes this ridiculous ark work," Vox says, flipping her hair out of her eyes. Dame Mahgi walks up behind Dez and raises an inky eyebrow, then looks at me.
"You want to see the reactor?" Mahgi asks, genuinely stunned, as if such a thought would be the most idiotic thing we could possibly hope to do in five lifetimes, let alone our completely insignificant one.
"Y-yes?" I say, and she closes her mouth, which she'd left hanging open. Astonished, she walks resolutely over to Pitt and Stryker with Dez, Vox, and me in tow.
"Cal, I don't think they're permitted—" Dami Mahgi says to Mr. Stryker, annoyance brimming in her voice. Stryker smiles and takes her hand to calm her indignation. "It's fine. It's just a wet run, and we'll be anchoring in a few minutes anyway," Mr. Stryker says, waving us over to him. Pitt stands behind him around a circular guard wall about the size of the one around the globe fountain back at school in Seaboard North, but there's a faint green, glowing light emanating from inside this one. We walk up to join them and peer over the edge.
Inside the well walls, it looks like a miniature rotating planet with storms erupting all over it: tiny rips of lightning, rolling clouds that seem to scatter over the black sphere in variations of white to mottled gray.
"It's like a little planet in there," Dez says, apparently seeing it for the first time too. "I thought the medical bay was amazing, but this…"
"It is amazing, and yes, basically it is a little planet, Miss Spaulding," Mr. Stryker answers with a smile that says he's genuinely excited about explaining this. "It's made of iron and nickel, just like our own planet's inner core."
I raise my eyes from the little spinning sphere to Vox at this, but she's already turned her attention back to Mr. Stryker.
"How is that thing not killing everyone with radiation?" she asks, a scowl spreading across her face.
"The NIFE?" Stryker laughs. "It's not toxic like that—it just produces hydrogen, which we collect and repurpose to fuel the rest of the ship."
"So it's not a weapon? It's just a battery?" she asks, disappointment in her voice. "What's happening with the clouds? How does it even have clouds?" she adds.
"Those are the result of water vapor condensation, possibly even ice crystals—we pull water in from the sea to keep it constantly charged, and those are normal byproducts," Stryker makes a swirling gesture with his hand as he leans against the guard rail.
"So it really just runs on water?" Dez asks.
"And potassium, plus a little carbon for the iron and nickel nanocrystals to grow," Stryker adds, raising his thick, dark eyebrows and running a hand through his black, silver streaked waves.
"Why do you call it the NIFE?" I ask, since it seems like an odd name for a battery.
"Because Ni is the chemical name for Nickel, and Fe is for Iron," Avis adds, walking up behind us with Myra. I look behind him for Joss and Arco in the hopes we can start asking more questions about how this ship can gather images through to the other side of the planet like Arco had mentioned earlier, but I don't see them. I look back down into the well at the black ball and the clouds of condensation as a rip of miniature lightning streaks around it. It really could be a little planet if you just let yourself think so.
"Isn't it dangerous for lightning to be so close to it?" Myra asks, smiling stupidly at Pitt.
"It's not flammable. The static just means the vapor is getting heavy enough to fall, just like when it rains topside," Stryker explains, then angles his head toward a door about 10 feet away. "Would you like to see the moon pool? We should be anchoring any minute, and the others will be joining us."
"Oh! Come and see these little ships!" Myra says, suddenly. "Pitt was telling me about the Stingrays that are just through there."
Before I know it, she's pulling me through the doorway, then through a small corridor that opens up into a large, round room with metal finish everywhere, which is very cold in comparison to the core room. The air is damp and heavy with the smell of sea spray, and I can instantly feel it pressing in on me. A large, open square pool with a shallow lip surrounding it takes up the center of the room, and inside, dark green water laps against the interior wall. The sudden cool, heavy air, and the motion of that water make my head start to swim, and the room begins to rotate around me. I take a few steps toward the bench I see along the perimeter to try and regain my equilibrium, but before I know it the walls close in, and the room takes one final spin before everything goes black.
***
"She's OK," I hear a voice, and find myself squinting against a harsh light. "Can you hear me, Jazz? You just passed out for a few minutes." I blink a few times, and see that it's Dez and Fraya leaning over me. "It was just the nanite adjustment, but you're OK."
"Fraya?" I whisper, confused as to how she got on our ship when she's part of Jax's crew.
"We'd just anchored next to you, and Dame Mahgi arranged for me to come and help Dez…hands on training!"
And Myra nearly drowned everyone in her slobbering guilt about pulling you through here in the first place, so Reynolt had Avis take her over to green's crew before you woke up and she completely killed you dead with it. I hear Vox in my head and start laughing. Fraya's smile widens as she straightens up.
"Someone is feeling better," she says, and I nod as I try to sit up.
"Please tell Myra that Ms. Reynolt told me to hold my breath too. I just forgot," I say, getting to my feet, then take a seat along a bench against the wall as Dez nods, then walks over to Dame Mahgi. Fraya sits next to me and touches my forehead.
"Clammy, but you'll live," she smiles. Dez comes over to me again, this time with Dame Mahgi, and hands me a cup of water. Dame Mahgi is already wearing a thin, black jumpsuit when she nods at me and starts making her way to the moon pool with the others when I see Ms. Reynolt come into the room, and this makes me wonder just how long I was out.
"Are you OK?" Ms. Reynolt asks.
"I'm OK," I say, and will a smile to stick to my face.
So which is worse, forgetting to hold your breath, or having everyone fuss over you like this? I hear Ms. Reynolt in my head, and am flooded with relief.
I think the latter, I answer. Please tell Myra not to feel bad. I should have remembered to hold my breath. Ms. Reynolt smiles and shakes her head at me like I'm a wet puppy.
All right, well, the others are on their way; you may want to stand before Mr. Hart sees you so green around the gills. I've played my crew swapping cards for one wet-run. She finishes the thought and smiles.
The last thing either of us needs right now is Arco worrying himself into a six-foot-two suffocation blanket, so I push up from the chair and walk slowly over to the moon pool, but then am almost immediately dizzy again.
Hold your breath. I hear Ms. Reynolt's reminder and suck in. The dizziness starts to clear just in time for me to turn and see Arco, Mr. Stryker, and Joss come in the room together, one by one sucking in breaths. Arco looks at me, his light brown eyebrows drawing together, and I force a wide smile to
offset any suspicion he might have while I slowly exhale. Latent Receiver Empath—thanks a lot, hypertech nanites. It was bad enough topside when he was just always paranoid something was wrong. He'll know it thanks to these stupid nanites, and he needs to concentrate on himself right now.
"What's wrong?" he says, letting his held breath out quickly as he makes his way over to me in a few strides.
"I'm fine, I just forgot to hold my breath and got a little queazy," I answer, but his expression doesn't change. "Just all those things in there rushing around or something," I add, making swirling motions with my hands over my head. "It's gone now for the most part."
"You're definitely green," he says, raising an eyebrow as his mouth quirks up in the corner. "Do you want some water?"
"No, I have—"
"Spaulding, where's the pooler down here?"
"The what?" Pitt answers.
"The pool— never mind. Dr. Denison, where's—"
"Just through there," Dame Mahgi says, pointing to the door we all just came through. "Just hold still for a moment, Miss Ripley," she says, taking my bracelet cuff and pressing down on its interior while also pressing into the pulse of my other wrist. In seconds, I feel a small prick like when we were aboard the relay sub, and then it feels like two lines of ice are being drawn up the inside of both my arms and up the sides of my neck. Once it reaches there, my nausea is gone. I blink a few times and swallow, surprised.
"It stopped. I don't feel sick anymore. What was that?" I ask Dame Mahgi, who still looks as irritated as she did before.
"Just a little oxygen for your nanites. It took them hours to put you right when you first arrived, remember? If you're going to be on a ship like this regularly, Miss Ripley, you'll need to upgrade those. The ones you have now are registering as baseline technics," she says, looking at her arm panel, then, grips my shoulders and studies my face. She presses her lips together into a thin, disappointed line before she talks again. "Come to the medical bay after class, and I'll have a procedure waiting for you. I will also have a chat with Nurse Karo in the med-bay to find out how this happened," she says, patting my arms and sighing before letting me go. "Well, at least you'll sleep well tonight!" And at this, she finally smiles. I wonder if it's because she thinks whatever suffering I'm going to endure after class is what I get for spying around down here in the first place.
