by G R Matthews
The cable appeared out of the darkness. As thick as my suited arm and wrapped with layers of protective shielding. These were designed to resist the pressure of the ocean, the nibbling of crustaceans and the determined attack of anything bigger. I'd severed quite a few during missions in the last war. Explosives, in the right place, would wreck them beyond use.
A repair crew, bringing a fresh section could make good the cable in about two hours of work, but in that time a determined attack could do a lot of damage. It was also a good time to lay an explosive on a repair sub which would be returning to the city. War is dirty, vicious, uncaring, unkind and blood-thirsty. A game played with lives and the score measured in blood spilled. I didn't like having a spot at the table, not now and not back then.
Following the cable towards the city, not the direct route, we stumbled across a data port. These were dotted along the cable to allow sections to be removed, replaced and for work crews to keep in contact with the main city. I stopped and pulled Norah down next to the cable, placing her hand on it.
With mine free, I withdrew our own thin cable from her chest port and attached it to the data cluster below us. My suit and data port had a quick handshake and I had access to the City-Web. Being back in the military had its bonuses and the City-Web routed me straight to the Navy Data centre.
"Ensign Weathers here," a voice said in my ear. "How can I help?"
I was forced to type back, much slower than speech and I hadn't finished my first sentence when the voice spoke again.
"Hello? Is anyone there?"
LT HAYES. SOS. My reply would have been spoken by some robotic voice or appeared on his screen.
"Confirm identity," the Ensign replied in a business-like tone.
HAYES, C. LTJG. I typed sent and included my suits greeting card, a small packet of information which confirmed my identity. The fact that this was already displayed on my caller ID was a nonsense only the navy could truly think up, use and revel in.
"Nature of emergency?"
SUIT FAILURE. AIRLOCK. STY MED TEAM. I sent back, added an attachment to indicate the airlock I was aiming for and disconnected the cable before he could ask more stupid questions.
I turned to grab Norah and she was gone.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
I found her less than a minute later by following the tracks in the mud and sand.
Face down, her arms and legs were thrashing around. She wasn't trying to stand, there was no indication of purpose or even a conscious mind behind her actions. Pushing power into the exoskeleton, I turned her over and looked into her face.
Her eyes were wide, darting left and right, looking at nothing and everything. Her mouth was open and I could see she was gulping in the QxyQuid. Her chest inflated and deflated with rapidity. She was suffocating and drowning. The QxyQuid contained in her suit had run out of oxygen and no amount of pushing it around would help. Norah was dying.
I slid my arms under her thrashing form, using the power of the exoskeleton to hold her steady and to keep her in place. Shunting more power into my suit's motors for the first time, I heard the whir and hum of the propellers turning. A kick in the back and I was up and off the seafloor, a dying girl in my arms and less than a kilometre to safety. A few minutes of flight time only, if she had a few minutes.
Shaking my head, I turned away from that thought, and focused on holding her steady and holding to my course. Every little incremental movement on the map brought me closer to the city and Norah to safety. It was an age, a decade of travel, a lifetime of worry and a millennium of guilt until the smooth wall of the closest box came into view.
Reversing the motors, hearing them scream in my ear and feeling the suit shudder as I bled speed as fast as I could, I still hit the wall with a thump. The airlock was to the east and I turned, gunning the motors once more until the blinking lights, health and safety's greatest accomplishment to date, promised salvation. Punching the controls on the outside, I willed the doors to part faster. They stubbornly refused to do so.
As soon as the gap was large enough, I forced my way in dragging Norah's now still body in behind me. She sank to the floor and I stumbled over to the controls, stabbing the button to close the outer doors and expel the water.
With nothing else to do, no way of taking action that wouldn't kill her, I sank down next to her body and held her hand. I squeezed in a rhythm, trying to impart a reassurance and calm I didn't feel.
Slowly, so fucking slowly, the water sank down from the ceiling. When it passed a level I could, with the full strength of my electronic muscles, hold her head above water, I stripped the helmet from her head. QxyQuid splattered onto the water and I threw her helmet into the corner where it bobbed for a moment before filling with water and sinking.
She didn't move. Not a twitch of her eyes or a cough from her lungs. Her skin was pale and her lips were tinged with blue. The water continued its glacial progress down towards the floor. I pulled in her close and squeezed her tightly. Clear QxyQuid dribbled out of her mouth. It all needed to come up, to be expelled and replaced by life giving air.
I flicked the controls in my gloves, commanding the suit to start the process of expelling my own QxyQuid and it refused. If I could have shouted and screamed, I would have. Instead I staggered, still holding Norah, to the proper station, dragging an QxyQuid pipe from the wall and connecting, one handed, to my suit. This time the suit complied and I felt the QxyQuid being drawn from the suit.
By now the water was at my knees and I let Norah float on the surface as I fumbled at the latch on my helmet. It followed hers into the corner and I tried to breathe. The QxyQuid burned its way up my throat and out of my mouth. It streamed like acid from my nose, splattering on the receding water. This was worse than suiting up and would normally see me on my knees heaving and chucking up for a good half a minute.
Norah didn't have that long. Even now I could see personnel crowding the other side of the airlock, waiting for it to cycle so they could enter. I crawled over to her, taking great, hacking gulps of air and coughing up every last dreg of the gel which had kept me alive in the depths.
Wrapping my arms, now devoid of exoskeleton assistance, around her waist, just below her ribs, I pulled her against me. Compressing her lower ribs and diaphragm as much as I dared, I forced the liquid up and out of her lungs. Relaxing the pressure for a moment, I waited to see if she would take a breath. She didn't.
I squeezed again, a sudden jerk of pressure, feeling her buck against me, and more QxyQuid flew from her mouth. Two more times I repeated the move and QxyQuid dribbled from her blue lips.
Dropping her to the floor, I took a gulp of air and pressed my lips to hers. A kiss of life, breathing into her mouth and forcing the air into her lungs. Leaning away, I let the air wheeze past her lips before breathing for her three more times.
There was no reaction, no coughing, no movement of ribs, eyes, fingers. She wasn't breathing. Norah was dead.
"Fuck it."
I stripped the top half of the suit off of her. It was difficult and my fingers fumbled at the catches and straps. Casting a panicked glance at the inner door to the airlock, I saw the personnel dancing from foot to foot. The last of the water was draining away. Any moment now.
Placing the heel of my palm against her chest, I put my other hand on top and pushed down in five rapid motions. I stopped, counted to ten, and did it again. And again. Nothing.
Five quick breaths into her open mouth, ignoring the blue lips, closed eyes and pallid skin. Nothing.
Five compressions of her chest. Rest. Five more. Nothing.
More breaths. More life-giving air being forced into lungs. Still nothing.
Hands grabbed my shoulders, trying to pull me away, but I shrugged them off. The hands grabbed me again. More of them, but I fought. There was no way I was giving up. She would not die.
"Hayes," the voice barked at me. All command and demanding to be obeyed. "Let the doctors work."
The word ‘docto
rs’ snapped me out of my stubborn desire and I let the hands carry me back out of the way. I saw them cluster around her, medical bags opening and equipment beeping. They spoke in a language I couldn't understand.
Another hand, not threatening or demanding, took hold of my arm. "Hayes, let's talk outside. Let them work."
I turned and saw Anderson's face, the concern and worry masked by his rank. "I'm staying."
He didn't argue. "What happened?"
"Her suit failed," I replied, not taking my eyes from the doctors and the unmoving figure of Norah. They had stripped the hood away and her pink hair was laying limp on the floor of the airlock.
"There will be an investigation," he said.
"You better fucking believe it," I answered.
"Sir," he added, more out of reflex than command and there was no anger in his voice.
"Suit's don't fail," I said, to myself and anyone else listening. "There are too many redundant systems. Too many safeties for that to happen. Batteries. Back-ups. Emergency systems."
"We will find out what went wrong."
"And I'll be waiting for the bastard with a heavy metal pipe when you do," I said, my fear spilling out as rage.
"You'll have to get in the queue," I heard him whisper.
A stretcher was rushed into the room and doctors lifted Norah's lifeless body onto it. Wires and tubes connected her to the portable equipment but nothing moved on the screens. Flat lines and silence.
"I want to know as soon as you do," Anderson said as one of the doctors passed him by. He received a nod in return. "They'll do their best."
"I know," I said, but I was afraid it wouldn't be enough. The what-ifs started to circle my mind like sharks around a whale's carcass.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
"What did the Navy do to her suit?" I turned on Anderson as soon as the medics and doctors had wheeled Norah's body out of the room. Tubes linked her to machines and there were beeps, whines and murmurs from the equipment.
"Nothing," he snapped back.
I stomped over to the chest piece lifting it upright. Water dripped from the outside and the last of the QxyQuid from the inside. The helmet was a few steps away and I retrieved it. Norah still wore the leg pieces and boots. Unlike mine, this one was pristine and new. No scratches, dents and tiny modifications dotted its surface. It looked like it had come straight out of the box.
"They don't go wrong," I said, poking at the control panel on the left forearm. It was still dead. "They're designed to have more redundancies than a bankrupt corporation. One thing goes wrong and another bit takes over. This suit just died."
"She has not been qualified long," Anderson said.
"It wasn't her fault," I snapped back. "A first-time user couldn't render a suit dead no matter what they did. It just isn't possible. And she was qualified, she knew exactly how to use the suit. I'll give the Navy some credit, they wouldn't send someone out into the world if they had any doubts about their ability."
"So what do you think happened?"
"I don't know," I admitted, sitting back on the wet floor. "Something is defective about this suit. Maybe a technician put it together wrong?"
"She checked the suit?"
"Of course she did." We all did, it was drilled into us, "but that doesn't mean something wasn't wrong just that the diagnostics didn't find it."
"Which leaves us where?"
I looked over my shoulder at him and saw the worry on his face. "I don't know, but I'll tell you this, it shouldn't have happened."
He nodded before raising his eyes to mine. "There will be a full investigation."
"In here she is your responsibility," I said, clambering to my feet. "Out there she was mine and we both failed. I want to see the report."
"Of course," he said, and I noted he had stopped demanding I call him sir.
"Thank you," I said, the words coming unnatural to my lips.
"Hayes, what the ever-fu... Hello, Sir," Liddle's voice caught in his throat and the greeting was strangled.
"Chief Liddle," Anderson nodded, accepting the NCO's salute, "I'll leave you to talk to Lieutenant Hayes."
Without another word Anderson executed a sharp parade ground turn and departed from the airlock.
"All right," Liddle said once he seemed sure that the commander was out of ear shot, "what the fuck happened?"
I gave the Chief a feral grin. "That's what we're going to find out."
For the next few minutes, Liddle helped me out of my suit, cleaned it and stored it in the compartment outside the airlock. I watched him lock the door and made him change the passcode so that only he and I knew it. The Naval-AI would register the change but we were both permitted to do it so there would be no suspicious behaviour flag.
"I'll get a trolley," Liddle said, glancing at the lone chest piece and helmet which rested on airlock floor.
"And we're just moving it to a safe location," I said, my tone and wink suggesting that might not be the sole reason.
"Of course, sir," Liddle said, his tone matching mine.
"Good. Perhaps you know of a safe, secure place we can store this half of Norah's Fish-Suit until the Commander's team need it for the investigation."
"I know just the place," Liddle answered.
"I hoped you might."
It took Liddle a minute or two to return with an equipment trolley and a blanket. Lifting the chest piece and helmet onto the trolley he covered both with the blanket.
"With all the respect due your rank, Hayes, I am not walking through the base with you in your BDSM gear and gimp mask," Liddle said.
The skin-tight underwear I wore under the Fish-suit was not flattering, not to a man my age. Few things are; the second glance from young lady and a circus hall of mirrors. Nothing else. Clothes did their best to hide the shame, guilt and years. You either accept that gravity has you in its thrall or you survive on self-delusion. My imagination wasn't up to that task. I knew what I was, what I was like. Grief was the truest mirror to your own failings. Alcohol blurred your vision for a few hours, but it was impossible to look away forever.
I pushed the hood back of my head, relishing the feel of the cool air on my skin. "Funny. I'll go and get changed. Let me know where you are."
"I'd be better looking it over without you getting in my way," Liddle said.
"What about Norah's tech?"
"Not here is he," Liddle said, waving his hand around the corridor.
"And he should be," and I should give myself a giant kick. Her tech should've been the first one on site. He should have been banging at the door, hotwiring the airlock doors, trying to break it down. In the navy the tech's status was tied to that of their Fish-Suit users. A tech could get a promotion if his Fish-Suit user did a good job. We were treated like pets at times, valuable, pedigree pets.
"Exactly," Liddle nodded, no doubt impressed by my quick thinking.
"Let's keep her team out of this for a little while."
"Genius."
"Thanks, but I'm still going to want a look at that suit. I've used them for more years than I want to remember. I've taken mine apart and put it back together thousands of times."
"I know and I'm shocked you weren't killed years ago," Liddle said with a shake of his head.
"Improvements," I countered. "Anyway, I am still going to take a look. She was my responsibility and it almost ended her life." She wouldn't have been the first, but that only made my stubborn streak wider.
"Suit yourself," Liddle said, turning away and starting to push the trolley down the empty corridor. "Check your messages in about twenty minutes."
"Right," I said to his retreating back.
First off, I needed a shower and to get changed. There would be a full investigation once the commander got his arse in gear. I'd have to write a report which detailed every action we took out there. My suits computer would be given the third degree under some bright lights and threatened with a strong magnet if it didn't comply. I'd follow it under those l
ights, but it wouldn't be the clean and quick erasure of a magnet I'd be threatened with.
Heading in the opposite direction, I avoided eye contact with the other personnel I stumbled across and I eventually found my room. Stripping off the gel-soaked skins, I stepped under the jets of the warm shower. For a moment, I just stood there, letting the clean water wash away the globules of QxyQuid and with a stream of curses started to wash my hair.
Back in the navy, back in the blue, and already it had all gone to crap. Someone was going to pay for this and I just hoped it wasn't me. The price had been too high already and my bank balance wouldn't cover the rest of the cost.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
"So," I started, "what went wrong with it?"
"Nothing mechanical," Liddle said, looking up from his inspection of the innards of Norah's suit. "Any word yet?"
I shook my head. "The ward's closed up tight. I can't get past the guards at the entrance."
"She's alive?"
"I hope so. No confirmation or news, but they wouldn't have so much security in place otherwise." I peered over his shoulder at the guts of the Fish-suit.
"Get out of my light," he snapped back. "You think that they think she was at fault?"
"I think they'll want to interview her without any of us getting in the way," I answered.
"What about you?"
"What about me?"
"Do you think they'll interview you too?"
"Of course they will," I answered. "And you and Norah's tech when they turn up."
He grunted in response and fell silent.
The small room he had secreted the suit in was barely big enough for the two of us and the table upon which the suit was spread out. A Pad rested on the smooth surface of the metal table and wires ran from it to the suit. I watched him push little sensors back and forth across the suit.
