Inside Flatbed, Coffey could hear the shuffling of somebody's feet against the deck. So you caught up. Too bad. Nothing you can do. Soft-hearted, weepy-eyed, you'd love to sit back and wait till these sea monsters come out of the water and start blasting their way through America's cities. Well it isn't going to happen. I know my duty, even when there's nobody to tell it to me. Only why wasn't he doing it? Why was he still sitting here? I'm sitting here, I'm telling myself to do it, go, now. Only nothing's happening. The connection's broken. Body's not doing what the brain says.
Coffey shook his head, shook it violently, spraying sweat and saltwater around the inside of the cabin. I'm inside Flatbed and there's a button here that turns on Big Geek's engine. There it is. That's the one. Push it.
He found it. He gripped the lever. His thumb found the button. He pushed. All done very slowly, but he did it.
Bud finished tying the line onto Big Geek just as the ROV's thrusters came on. Big Geek was straining against the grip of the arm. No time to lose - how long was this line, anyway? How fast could Big Geek go? Bud kicked away, paying out line behind him.
Coffey opened up the grippers on the end of the arm, and Big Geek shot away. Bud had the answer to his question. Pretty damn fast. And no hesitation, either. Hippy did a good job of reprogramming the little sucker. It went out and then turned downward. Coffey watched it, satisfied. Until he saw the nylon rope zipping by, tied onto Big Geek. Immediately he knew what that meant. There was a way they could ruin it all.
He slewed Flatbed around, looking for the source of the line. Bud had the end of it already wrapped around the nearest of Deepcore's heavy steel-pipe skids. Coffey swung out Flatbed's arm, straight forward, and drove directly at the spot where Bud was trying to tie a knot. A moment later the line went taut - down in the canyon, Big Geek was straining against his leash, trying to get away. Fine, thought Coffey. Make it hard for Brigman. Keep him busy, hold him there, hold him still, I've got him.
Bud had the knot partly done, enough to hold for a while, when Flatbed got there, arm extended like the lance of a charging knight. Not very sporting. Bud ducked down, pushed away from the skid just before Flatbed smashed into it, destroying the arm and breaking off both manipulators. Debris and silt sprayed out, but Bud was out and alive.
Unfortunately, despite the damage, so was Flatbed. Bud watched Coffey pull away from the skid. He could even see him inside the bubble, sweating in his shirtsleeves. He was crazy - he looked like a wild animal, crouching over the controls, waiting to pounce.
Inside Flatbed, the collision had smashed Coffey around more than a little. Dazed him for a moment. In the impact, the back of his head had struck the boom box One Night kept in there. The cassette started playing. A woman's voice, singing. "I been kicked by the wind. . . ." Coffey didn't want to hear it, didn't want anybody shouting in his ear. Shut up! Stop yelling at me! He jammed his elbow into it, smashed the plastic case. It shut up.
Bud swam clear of the collision, moving diagonally down the wall of the canyon, trying to stay on Flatbed's blind side. Down below him he could see Big Geek, writhing around on the end of the rope, remembering only that it was commanded to go downward, trying desperately to please. Bud knew his knot wouldn't hold unless he could get back up there. Already he could see that Big Geek was making progress, jerking the line inches at a time. How many inches till the end of the rope passed out of the knot?
At the moment, though, Bud's biggest concern was Coffey. He had pulled Flatbed clear of the debris, and now he was drifting downward, facing the wall, Flatbed's lights playing across the surface. Bud was in a pretty bad position here. Completely exposed on the face of the cliff, nowhere to go. He tried to scramble across the rock wall, tried to dodge, but he was too slow compared to Flatbed's thrusters. Coffey had already proved he didn't mind smashing himself into things in order to kill Bud. I'm a bug on the wall and here comes the swatter.
Coffey had him. Right there in the lights, he could take him out, get rid of this liability once and for all. Had his head in sight, coming right up the stairs, and all I have to do is take this big old cinder block and -
Right at that moment a blinding light stabbed at him through the window. He winced - what was it? One of those NTIs? Too late he realized it was Cab One, and it was coming right at him. Full throttle. No time to dodge.
At the controls of Cab One, Lindsey slammed the thrusters full lock and her submersible slewed sideways, slamming its starboard side into Flatbed's cab. She knew the collision was coming and braced herself. Coffey wasn't ready, wasn't braced. He got bounced around pretty bad; he fought to control his vehicle, but he was so disoriented himself that he didn't know what he was doing. Nothing responded right. Then he realized that the two submersibles were locked together in a tangle of crashbars, spinning around each other. Lindsey knew that, she was controlling it. Just as he realized what was wrong, Lindsey forced Flatbed to smash stern-first into the cliff.
An electrical fire broke out in Flatbed's cabin. Coffey grabbed the fire extinguisher and sprayed across the flames. Fire went out, but so did Flatbed's lights. He was hanging in the water, untangled from Cab One now, but without controls, drifting slowly along the wall under Deepcore.
Lindsey looked up and saw that Coffey was disabled. Time to go for Bud, bring him inside. She cruised over, hovered above him. "Get in," she said over the UQC. There was nothing more he could do outside alone, a fragile diver.
She heard the lockout hatch open and then the splashing as Bud came up into Cab One. She opened the hatch leading into the back compartment. "Are you OK?"
He gave her the OK sign, answered, "Yeah."
She backed Cab One away from the cliff, maneuvering carefully, searching for Big Geek. She spotted the ROV, started toward it. Then, course set, she looked back through the hatch. Bud had his helmet and pack off. "You owe me, Virgil," she said.
"We'll negotiate later." He came forward, leaned through the hatch. "You see Big Geek?"
"Yeah, right out in front. Straight ahead."
The ROV looked helpless, dangling on the end of the line. Then, suddenly, he didn't look so helpless. He was moving. The knot must have given way back at the skid.
The line was sliding by. "Oh my God!" she cried. "Get after him! Get after him!"
No point in chasing Big Geek. Instead she moved Cab One's arm out in front. It was nothing compared to the arm on Flatbed, but it would do the job, if she could just get the gripper in place.
There. She had the nylon rope sliding through the grippers.
"Hold it really steady," said Bud.
She clamped down. The grippers held. The line stopped moving. Big Geek was once more dancing around on the end of a string.
Then Cab One got smashed from behind like some giant dropkicked them. Lindsey was thrown against a wall; Bud ended up on his butt in the back of the Cab. They got bounced around some more as Flatbed brushed past them, rolling them over their port pontoon. That was bad, that was dangerous, but the worst was the last thing Lindsey saw before she got thrown away from the window: Cab One's arm opening. Big Geek breaking free, heading for the bottom.
It was over. Coffey had won.
Trouble was, Coffey was crazy with HPNS and more than one blow to the head. They had no way of knowing whether he'd consider victory grounds enough for quitting. "Where is he? Bud, do you see him?"
Bud struggled to get to the dome on top. "I'll take a look."
Flatbed was really moving, coming right at them. Trust Coffey to know how to get everything running again inside a submersible. He probably trained with similar craft in the Navy till he knew how to build one out of grass and coconut shells, just in case he needed one on a desert island. "He's coming up fast. Step on it."
"Shhhhh-it, " said Lindsey. The thrusters had stopped during the collision. Were they damaged? No, she must have kicked the throttle full back. She got them going. They moved.
Bud stayed in the back, watching Flatbed through the dome. "Go to the r
ight," he said. "Swing to the right."
Coffey was on them, tight. Lindsey was the best pilot Bud had ever seen in a submersible, and here was Coffey, sticking with her. Partly that was because Flatbed had more powerful thrusters. But he was also matching her, move for move, as she dodged around Deepcore, swinging under and around the twisted steel. Partly, though, it was because of the HPNS. The pressure was making the synapses in his brain fire too fast. Made him crazy but it gave him great reflexes.
"Now he's swinging around on your right. Hard left, baby."
She could barely hear what he was saying, she was concentrating so tightly on picking her way through the obstacle course. "What side?"
"Left, left, left."
"Hold on."
They skirted Deepcore. If the guys inside were watching, they were getting a hell of a show. Ben-Hur's chariot race, Luke Skywalker at the Death Star, watch us go.
"He's coming up behind you. Go to the right!"
Great idea, Bud. I go to the right and we end up inside trimodule-B.
She got past Deepcore and swung right. Now they were out, away from Deepcore, moving along the slope. It wasn't the best place to be. In the open, Flatbed's superior power was bound to tell and sure enough, it only took about ten seconds for Coffey to get in position to ram them from behind. They rattled around inside Cab One.
Somehow Lindsey managed to keep Cab One trim and moving. "You all right?" she asked.
"Yeah," said Bud. "The son of a bitch."
Coffey wasn't through. He got them again. And again. Lindsey was skimming along the bottom as low as possible. The one advantage she had was experience. She could dodge around better than he could. If they didn't have Deepcore to provide obstacles, she'd use the rocks on the ocean bottom.
Lindsey at least had something to hold on to. Bud was rattling around in back like dice in a cup. "People pay for shit like this at carnivals," he said.
As if in answer, Lindsey bashed into a sloping rock on the seafloor. It knocked them upward; she had them under control instantly, but it was the worst jolt of all for Bud, because he could see that Coffey was too far back at the moment to hit them, so he wasn't expecting it. Could've bit his tongue off, his jaw got slammed shut so fast. "Jesus Christ, lady," he said.
She didn't appreciate the criticism. "Bud, if you think you can do any better, you're welcome up here."
It was definitely not a tempting offer. Besides, now Coffey was close enough. From the back. Bang! Then from the side. Bang! Then from the top, smashing them down onto the seafloor. Bang!
Lindsey was really getting pissed off. She was past fear now, running on pure adrenaline. The killer instinct. The cornered bear. "Is he right on us?"
"Yeah," said Bud, "he is right on your ass."
She rose up, fast, then smashed deliberately into a rock outcropping. It rained down a small avalanche of silt and rock, right into Coffey's path. It blinded him; he ran into the rock, hung there, couldn't see, didn't know which way was out.
Lindsey rose up, cut to the right, and smashed down on top of Flatbed as it finally emerged from the silt cloud. She forced him down, slamming him into another rock, tearing off Flatbed's port pontoon. Coffey was good at the chase, but he wasn't good at recovering when his vehicle was out of control. Lindsey kept after him, ramming him from behind. The collisions were nowhere near as hard on Flatbed as they had been on Cab One, but Coffey couldn't handle it when they took him by surprise. He was disoriented. He flailed around with his hands, but for whole seconds he couldn't remember what the controls did. His thrusters weren't working right even when he had the controls.
Flatbed hit the bottom, hooked on a rock, spun around just as Lindsey came in with Cab One for another collision. They tangled, slid together down the slope. And now Lindsey could see that they were on the edge of the cliff again. Sliding, sliding they stopped. Flatbed mostly over the edge, Cab One completely on. Nose to nose. They could see right into Flatbed's cabin. Coffey was lying up against the side of the cabin, his face streaked with blood from a cut on his head. His eyes were open, but he wasn't there.
No, he was. He raised himself up, just a little, enough to turn his head, to look at them.
Bud leaned forward through the hatch, looked out the window with Lindsey: Flatbed's weight was too much. It began to pull away from Cab One. Slide backward. Did Coffey even realize what was happening? There was nothing they could do. Just watch as Flatbed broke free and began to drop, faster and faster, down into the abyss.
Coffey knew something was wrong. He shouldn't be falling like this. The controls should be responding, things should happen when he moved the joystick, when he flipped the switches. He was depending on something and it just let him go. Shouldn't have done that. Should never depend on anything or anybody. Always let you take the fall. Never count on anybody. Monk, you bastard. They got past you, Schoenick. You, Mom, you married him and I was never shit to you again after that, well it doesn't matter because I saved you anyway. I sent the warhead down there and they'll never get it back, it's down there and it'll blow those monsters to hell and so even though you dumped on me, every motherfucking one of you, I saved your lives, every breath you take from now on is a gift from me because you would have been dead if I hadn't done it and I did it all for you.
A tiny silver fracture shot partway across the front bubble. It grew. The pressure outside Flatbed was now much greater than the pressure inside. That crack in the bubble, Coffey knew what it was. It was the gate into hell.
Water sprayed into his face from a tiny gap in the metal - a gap now opened by the driving pressure outside the cabin. Coffey knew what was coming, knew now that he would never come out of this place. What hurt him most, in his madness, was that he wouldn't be alive to see the fruition of his work. He wouldn't see the blossom of light in the abyss, wouldn't feel the shockwave roll over him. Instead of dying at the moment of victory, he would die unsure of whether he had fulfilled his assignment.
A moment of lucidity. A moment of outrage at the fact that they had ordered him to do this. Why should I die for this? Why shouldn't I, just once, do what I want? No orders, no assignment, just what Hiram Coffey wants to do. And what Hiram Coffey wants right now is to live, is to hold this bubble in place, keep the water outside. What I want is to rise up out of the water, to breathe clean air under the open sky, to see other people and not have to decide whether they're my enemies, decide whether to kill them or use them. What I want is to take Mother by the shoulders and scream one last time into her face that she had no right to send me down here and then abandon me as if I never mattered at all, after everything I did for her.
He pressed his hands against the plexiglas, though he knew it was useless, because he had to act. He would not surrender. Instead he screamed his defiance and - at last - his rebellion.
Suddenly, driven by tons of pressure, a scythelike curtain of seawater burst through the slender crack in the window and slashed into him. A moment later the whole bubble imploded, and Coffey died in a bloody froth of churning water, air, and clear plastic shards, his cry unheard in the roar of the ocean's victory.
The builders watched it all in sorrow. Even the peaceful ones engaged in war. Even Lindsey, who hated the warhead more than anyone, even she could fill with the same bestial, mindless rage as any of the soldiers. Even she could charge again and again until her enemy was shattered. Even she could watch him die. And Bud, the one who seemed to be a healer, a builder of connections among people, he approved of all she did. Why? Because Coffey made them so afraid, because the fear was so unbearable, that they would do anything to destroy whatever made them feel that way.
Bud and Lindsey tried to help him, to persuade him.
But they gave up, didn't they? In the end, these people are all alike. When they're afraid, they kill. And they will always be afraid.
So the builders held back. No more interference. The one who gave breath to Catfish was sent away, sent deep, kept busy with important tasks - but work t
hat had nothing to do with the humans.
They watched Coffey fall into the chasm, but they did nothing to help him. Only after he was dead did they move swiftly in and scan his memory, to preserve him.
We can do that much, for these humans who came so far to meet us. When we leave this world, we can take the memory of these wretched fearful creatures with us. In only a very short time, our memory will be the only place where any of them remain alive.
Coffey was gone. Flatbed was gone. Big Geek was gone. But they were alive inside Cab One. Bruised, beaten up, but alive.
Bud could hear water trickling into Cab One. He pulled out of the hatch, moved back to check it out. It was coming from behind the control box for the outside umbilicals. A pretty steady flow. Not under pressure - they were equalized at this depth. But a leak in meant a leak out - they were losing breathing mix as gravity brought the water flowing in.
Lindsey looked back through the hatch. "Flooding like a son of a bitch."
"You noticed," said Bud.
"You know, you did OK back there, Virgil. I was fairly impressed."
It took him a moment to realize she was referring to his exploits with Big Geek and the rope and playing dodgeball with Flatbed's manipulator arm. "Yeah, well, not good enough. We still got to catch Big Geek." He was trying to get behind the panel. The leak had to be coming through a connector that had been knocked loose by the last impact. There wasn't any leak at all till the last crash.
Lindsey was still checking things out. Flipping switches. Nothing was happening. "Not in this thing," she said.
Bud laughed. "You totaled it, huh?"
She got the joke, laughed. "Yes, dear, I totaled the car." They might be immobile, but it shouldn't be hard for them to come out from the rig and get them. Bring her a drysuit and a pack. She tried to wake up the UQC. "Deepcore. Deepcore, this is Cab One, over." She hit the box. Nothing. "Deepcore, this is Cab One, we need assistance, over."
The Abyss Page 30
