by G R Matthews
Conversing via the text system, beyond the questions and responses I'd already set up, was uninspiring much of the time. On a job most conversation revolved around not getting crushed by some piece of equipment and making sure the welds held. How our ancestors had survived the social media years, as they'd come to be known, was beyond me.
Clips and history docs showed folks obsessed with the little squares of tech in their hands, thumbs constantly twitching and eyes flicking across the tiny screens. How they formed and maintained illusory, virtual relationships across those little devices and valued them more than those with people they actually met had confused psychologists, sociologists, and anthropologists for years. There were still groups out there, in academia, studying the phenomena.
Silence and disconnection was not to be sniffed at, let alone sneezed over. In the boxes you couldn't get away from people. There were no open fields or deep forests in which to disappear for some time alone. A Fish-Suit was the closest you could get. If needed, a Fish-Suit had power and oxygen for forty-eight hours, but it would take a determined user to push them that far.
WAYPOINT ALPHA.
The message flashed up on my HUD and it must on Norah's.
TIME CHECK, I sent.
10:38, came the reply with the seconds counting down as I watched.
CONFIRMED. GO SILENT.
The hum of my motors drifted away into the deep and my feet settled into the sand, mud and remains of algae which formed the plains upon which the city rested. I let the time count down for a few minutes, getting used to the moans, groans and creaks of the sea all around us. The ocean is all noise and currents. Hearing and touch were the most valued senses down in the dark. Our suits took it all in and using some exceedingly complicated algorithms converted those sensations into something we could use to avoid trouble.
As the time ticked down to seven minutes, until the exercise was due to begin, I sent Norah message. START MOVING.
TOO SOON, came her reply.
I sighed, more a gurgle and half-cough in the QxyQuid. DON'T CARE. MOVE.
Edging a little power into my exoskeleton, just enough to keep the chest compressors going and a bit more for the leg actuators, I started moving down the first route marked on my HUD. The currents detected by the HUD, little deflections from the hills and shallow valleys, kept the map constantly updating.
There was a little tug on the cable which linked Norah to me. She was following and learning the first rule of combat. There are no rules. You do what you it takes, when you can, when you need to, just to survive and come out in one piece.
This exercise called for a careful insertion into enemy territory. In this case a factory on the outskirts of the city complex, and planting explosives, empty boxes, on the hull for remote detonation. That the people we were attacking were our own made not one milligram of a difference. They would be out to find us and we didn't want to be found. If that meant bending the rules a little, so be it.
I watched the countdown do its thing in the corner of my HUD and brought up the detection map of the area, overlaying circles which indicated the predicted range of the microphones, sonar, and magnetic devices embedded all around the city. As they flashed into existence it was clear that there was no way to reach our target without passing through those radii and there were likely many more than we knew about.
A Fish-Suit is designed to be stealthy. It contained little actual metal, made little noise apart from the propellers and we'd mostly be walking anyway. Mingling with the moans and groans of the ocean, hiding our movements within them would cover our tracks pretty well.
All in all, this should be an easy first mission. A way to bond the team, test out the suits, and build some confidence.
Which only goes to prove one thing. I'm an idiot.
CHAPTER TWELVE
After the countdown finished, we started to move even more slowly. No one in a Fish-Suit did things quickly, not if they had a choice.
My suit's sensors began to pick up the active searches for us. The subtle pings of the smaller sonars which washed through the suits, striking and passing through the gel and our bodies without a pause. I knew the larger sonar turrets were out there, but they would hide themselves relying on the smaller ones to home in on their prey before coming to life. Once they did, the pings would be louder, more powerful and we'd feel them all through our bones.
SENSOR. 11 O'CLOCK.
The message came from Norah and the moment later my map of circles and squiggles updated to indicates its position. I altered our course slightly to give the sensor a little more distance. It is all about the margins and the noise, I'd been taught. At the bottom of the ocean life and death separated by a breath.
A circle on my HUD flashed red and a series of beeps sounded in my ear. I stopped and felt Norah do the same. The suits shared information and what they were telling us was bad news. Possible detection.
MICROPHONE, I sent to Norah.
SOUND LEVELS EXCEEDED?
POSSIBLE, I replied.
Detecting the fact that a microphone could hear us moving was a black art practised by only the wisest, oldest and beardiest of all artificial intelligences. Our suits had none of that so it was really guesswork and overcautious warning.
I dialled the power to the exoskeleton down a notch and preceded forward, careful and slow, kicking up as little sediment as I could. In the faint beams of light from my helmet lamp, I saw the dull, sandy brown silt billow up and hide my boots. The red circle pulsed a little more calmly and after a few more minutes it faded back to comforting green.
My legs ached so I reset the power levels and forged ahead. Norah followed, the little thin cable joining us together like Siamese twins, sharing information rather than blood, sweat or air. We still had a way to go and the density of sensors decreased a little the closer we got to the target.
It made sense. The ring of sensors further out from the city were there to detect incoming subs. A little closer in was the second ring which detected the smaller faster, quieter personal attack submarines or torpedoes. Close to the city the sensors, microphones and sonar, would be confused by the activity of our own forces and the noise of day to day existence. You can hide in the dark or you can become invisible close up, it was the middle distance where you were vulnerable.
This time it was my HUD that lit up first.
AUTO-TURRET, I sent to Norah. She took the few steps needed to reach my side and we sank down to our haunches in the silt.
The red circle of death throbbed on the right side of the map, away from the city, but turning away and heading in closer wasn't an option yet. Small, single person submersibles would be patrolling the outskirts of the city. Though they had little chance of detecting our presence, less than the sensors that surrounded us now, they might get lucky and stumble across us in the dark. This was as much a drill for them as it was a test for us.
SMALL RIDGE TO SOUTH WEST, came Norah's message.
It was a good idea, we could drop down a little on the other side and use the ridge for cover. However, it wasn't part of our original plan and would take off our predetermined path. That wasn't a big thing, but we had carefully planned our approach and must have discounted that ridge line for a reason I couldn't recall right now. I wracked my brains and memory but nothing rose to the surface.
GOOD PLAN. LEAD, I sent back to Norah.
Sending her first would give her a chance to find our way. It would be good experience and make her feel useful. The third advantage was that it put me between the turret and her. I would be shot first and she would have a chance to escape. It was a noble thing to do, but I doubt she realised it or maybe she thought being on point was more dangerous. Which it could be.
I followed the course laid out by her movements, the clouds of sediment, the thin cable and the little symbol representing her suit on my HUD. The red circle continued to pulse, getting slower at times and faster at others. Our suit threat assessment computers trying to figure out h
ow close it was to a lock. For all I knew, it had locked on already and was ready to fire. Suit computers are good, but far from infallible.
There was a tug on the cable and it went slack. At first, I thought Norah had stopped moving and did the same, but no message came from her. I let my eyes drift to the threat map and topological features, trying to figure out how close we were to the ridge. A second later, the message came through.
CONNECTION LOST.
"Shit," I tried to say but QxyQuid makes speech impossible.
I walked forward, noticing that the cable now drifted in the current. There could be a thousand reasons why the cable had broken or detached. Nine hundred and ninety-nine of them spelled trouble.
Boosting the power to my lights, I saw the marine snow drifting down, scattering the light and making details harder to see. However, at the edge of my light beam I saw a foot and then the leg it was attached to. The toes and knees of one leg were pointed down into the sediment. Her other leg was curled up, flapping at the silt raising clouds that threatened to obscure her form completely.
In the deep ocean, in a Fish-Suit, you were on your own. If something went wrong, if you got into trouble, were injured, you had your own resources to rely on to get you out. Usually. Here, she had me and I wasn't convinced she was any better off.
Skirting her legs and arms, I knelt down next to her shoulders and turned her over onto her front. There was fear, stark, wide-eyed terror in her eyes. Her mouth moved but no sound came forth.
I patted her visor and nodded to her, trying for a reassuring look on my face. The terror on her face didn't vanish or even dim. Maybe my face isn't reassuring, it does nothing for me every morning when I'm forced to examine it in the mirror.
With one hand on her chest, pushing her down and keeping her still, I yanked the broken cable from the port on the front unit of her suit. Nothing could repair that. They were made in one unit, pristine and perfect to carry the information seamlessly from one suit to another. There was a spare in the pouch on my hip and I plugged one end into her suit, the other into mine.
Nothing came back. I ran through the diagnostic menu as quick as I could as the fear in her eyes grew. On my side, in my suit, everything was working as it should. The problem was on her side, but my computer couldn't talk to hers to find out what it was.
Divers and Fish-Suit users had developed a system of hand signals a long time ago for just such an emergency and the fact that having a data cable handy was not always possible. I raised my free hand in front of her face, the beams of my lights picking out her features through of the QxyQuid, and circled my first finger to my thumb, keeping the other three straight. The universal sign of OK.
She shook her head in return, trying to mouth the words that explained the problem. Lip reading, when you can catch a fraction of the words and string them into a plausible sentence, was something we could all do to a greater or lesser degree. Just not in the near total dark, at crushing pressures and with the beams of Fish-Suit creating false shadows across her face.
I shook my head, my whole helmet moving from side to side, to show her I really didn't have a single clue what she was trying to say. Something in the corner of my eye grabbed my attention. Moving my head back I took another look at her face, her suit and the small screen and controls on her arm. It nagged at me, tormented me for long seconds, my mind full of the fear she was facing and knowing I was the only solution, her only hope.
Fish-Suits don't go wrong. They're complicated devices but at their heart quite simple. Tried and tested, honed by years of careful engineering and experience. Almost faultless. Almost.
And every user checked every aspect of their suit before going out. It was drilled into trainees until the mere thought of taking on the depths in a suit you hadn't given a thorough going over was the stuff of nightmares. Literally. The number of times I'd woken up over the years, sweating and screaming that I hadn't checked the suit, were uncountable. Those nightmares had been replaced by sharper memories which cut slivers of my heart away every night.
Norah had checked hers, she must have done, but even so the evidence was plain to see. At least it was now that I'd noticed it. She had no power to her suit. None whatsoever. Her suit was dead and if she didn't get some power soon, she would follow it into the endless dark.
She was relying on me.
She was in an ocean of trouble.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
A Fish-Suit is a self-contained survival vessel. But it needs power, even a trickle to keep the QxyQuid circulating if nothing else. No power meant a lack of clean, life preserving gel moving in gentle currents around the suit and Norah would die. Walking, swimming, moving was enough to push the QxyQuid about, but she hadn't stood, and even that would be the bare minimum of circulation.
Without power the suit wouldn't rejuvenate the QxyQuid with its stored gasses, and the exoskeleton which aided breathing wouldn't function. The computer would be dead. No maps. No navigation. No data on the oceans and the life, some of it downright dangerous, which lived within it.
There was no way, not out in the ocean, that I could share my power with her or fix her suit. I needed to get to her to a dry, pressurised location where she could breathe easy.
I raised my hand in front of her face again and this time mimed walking with two fingers. She nodded and I smiled. There was hope.
Lifting her up, using a kick of power from my suit, I put her back on her feet. The auto-turret detection circle started pulsing, but the mission was over. On a real mission, with a real objective, critical to the outcome of the war, to the survival of our very civilisation, I would do the same damn thing. Save my comrade and take the consequences from the high brass as they came.
I took her hand in mine and we started across the seabed. The ridge, the one we'd been heading towards, dropped down into a small valley and thankfully the detection circle faded out. There were others ahead but now we were even harder to find. One suit with power and one without. Sound could give us away and there was some hope it would so a sub could be dispatched to pick us up.
Thinking about it, I could have gone and kicked over a sensor, announcing our presence and location. Sadly, they'd just think it had broken and even if, by some miracle of creative thinking, never a characteristic the Navy encouraged, they did think it was us, they would just claim it as a victory and wait for us to come in.
There was also the possibility of using my suit motors. Pick Norah up using the strength of the exoskeleton and boost us towards the city. It was a plan, a desperate one. We were far enough out and the journey would take long enough, even under the modest speed of a Fish-Suit that her QxyQuid would become stale. At that point it was close to being useless. Thick gel to choke on.
Better to walk, using the motion of her legs to pump the QxyQuid around, get it to mix, and hope.
For near an hour, by the clock on my map, we traipsed across the sea floor. Diverting around boulders, around outcrops, staying off the low hills whenever possible and all but ignoring the red pulses of possible detection which pinged left and right, almost overwhelming my map. They'd be celebrating in the electronic warfare CIC right now and ridiculing our apparent lack of skill. Either that or they thought we were a slow moving biological or just a random sensor ghost. The sensors went off more often than not during peacetime and it took a skilled operator alongside an AI to make sense of the soundscape.
My map said we'd covered about five kilometres and even with the electric muscles of the exoskeleton my legs were aching. Norah's must have been agony and she'd been doing all the prescribed actions too, exaggerating the movement of her legs, pumping her arms in and out, all to push the QxyQuid around the suit.
I stopped and turned to her, the data cable serving as a tether, keeping us together, and raised a closed fist. She halted a few steps away, just visible in the glow of my lights. For her the journey would be terrifying. No light, no map, no way to see the ground beneath her feet or even the reassuring hum o
f the suit to keep her company. Just that single, fragile line holding her to me.
Moving to stand next to her, faceplate to faceplate, I let the light of my HUD and bulbs fall onto her face. This way she could see me and I could see her. Even in the green light of my visor, I could tell her face was bone white. Both her eyes were wide, pupils dilated to their fullest in a vain attempt to draw in any stray photons. I could see the dark circles slowly narrow under the dim glare of green. She nodded in response to my questioning look and I smiled in return.
With a few flicks on the controls I enlarged the map on my screen. To her it would be backwards, but any decent Fish-Suit user would be able to make sense of it and there are no sub-par users. They tended to wash out early on or die very quickly. Norah was competent and brave, she'd be fine.
Drawing an arrow from our current position to the city, less than a kilometre away, I let the image hang on the screen for a while. Her eyes flickered across the image and I could see her reversing it in her mind, turning it the right way around.
NOT FAR, I typed on my screen, still backwards to her but the same mental gymnastics allowed her to read my message. She nodded and a small smile, more to reassure me I think, appeared on her face.
I gave her a slow pat on the shoulder and turned in the direction of the city. This time I let the cable float behind us and took hold of her hand. My map had shown a cable on the seafloor, the means by which information passed between buildings and cities, not too far away. A small detour only, but the chance to tap into it and send an emergency call would save time once we found an airlock.
We started walking again, slowly and with a regular pace, Norah pumping her free arm and making exaggerated movements with her legs to keep the QxyQuid circulating. The tactile feedback from gloves told me she was squeezing my hand tightly. I squeezed back knowing she would feel the pressure of my hand, though I was careful not to allow the exoskeleton to add too much strength.
