by Erik Hyrkas
Chapter 9. Max
Miranda and I followed John cautiously through the forest and to the top of a fern-covered hill. As we topped the rise, I realized we were on a rocky cliff. A hundred feet below us was a lake with red rock cliffs around it on all sides. Tightly packed trees stood sentinel along the top of the rock face. The water was calm and dark, but I wondered what lurked below the surface. I had heard of amphibious aliens visiting Earth before, and I wasn’t so sure I was ready for that challenge, partly because I was afraid of water. Well, not water so much as drowning.
John pointed down to the lake. “This is the easiest way to get to the water from this side.”
Nothing about the descent looked easy. Jagged rocks stuck out of the water next to shore, but there didn’t appear to be a way to get down the cliff face without the proper gear anyway. If I used my graviton bars, I could climb down like I was crossing monkey bars. However, I didn’t think I could carry two people on my back while swinging from point to point without the risk of us all falling onto the rocks.
“Oh! Well, maybe we should go around then,” Miranda said.
“The other side will have tourists and would require either a long swim or a boat to get back here. I believe if the creature we are hunting came out of the lake then it came out from this side. This is the easiest way in or out of the lake without going all the way around.”
I looked down at the water. I wasn’t afraid of heights, but the thought of swimming was terrifying. “Yeah, maybe Miranda is right. Maybe we should go around and get a boat or something.”
“No, the sheriff is right,” Miranda said. “If Tyler is still alive, we can’t waste a few hours trying to get back to this spot if it’s the most likely starting point.”
“Maybe you should go first, and I’ll keep an eye out for the creature up here. You know, in case it isn’t in the water,” I suggested.
Miranda put her hand on my shoulder. “Are you worried about jumping from this height?”
“No, but maybe you could give me a couple of quick pointers on swimming.”
“It’s amazing your kind survived at all,” John said.
“Wait, you don’t know how to swim?” Miranda asked.
“It isn’t technically required in agent training.” Not if you are willing to put in extra credit work at night anyway, I thought.
“I had to do it,” Miranda said.
I felt warm. “Well... Commander Addison had me do...alternate training exercises.”
“Wasn’t she sent to a remote post on Alpha-Centauri Prime for inappropriate sexual behavior with a cadet?”
I didn’t look at her. “All right, let’s get this show on the road,” I said.
I pulled my rebreather apparatus off my belt and put it in my mouth. With two quick steps, I leapt off the cliff, waving my arms and kicking my legs as I tried to control my descent, but falling in control is an oxymoron. A hundred feet goes by very fast when you are thinking about how you don’t really want to hit the water.
I smashed into the lake with enough force to push my testis into my throat and dislocate a shoulder. Through sheer force of will, I kept the rebreather in my mouth. If I could simply stay conscious and keep breathing, the rest I could survive. I went under about ten feet initially, but then an undercurrent grabbed me and sucked me down. I flailed in an attempt to resist as another body hit the water above me. I struggled with all my might, but I was pulled into darkness.
I began to panic as ragged stone pummeled me from all sides and I tumbled through the darkness. I was being pulled into an underwater tunnel and being battered by the rugged walls. I could make out a green light from somewhere near me, possibly a glow stick. Miranda must be nearby, I thought, and I tried to remain calm even as terror tore at my brain. Swimming might be horrifying, but being tossed around uncontrollably in an underwater cavern was the limit of my endurance.
I crashed against stone, shattering ribs and possibly some of my vertebrae. Miranda collided into me, but I absorbed the shock of her impact. I nearly lost my rebreather. She held up her wrist, which had a thin green glow stick wrapped around it, and I could see a cavern above us. The water of the tunnel we had been sucked into was black and impenetrable.
The pain of the battering overwhelmed me and pinned me to the stone. If I lost the rebreather, I knew I would die, and panic gnawed at me anew. I wanted to grab hold of Miranda, but I had heard about frantic people who drowned their would-be rescuers and I couldn’t risk doing that to her. It took all my willpower to let her go. Then she was out of the water, and I could only see the green light faintly somewhere above me. Below, behind, and to either side of me was cold slimy rock. I could feel the burning heat of my ribs rebuilding themselves and my spine healing. My dislocated shoulder already felt better. I realized I hadn’t cracked any vertebrae after all but that I probably had a bad bruise that would be gone in seconds. Everybody thinks it is so great to be able to heal fast, but they don’t know how much it hurts. I suddenly became aware of how cold the water was and could tell that, if I stayed in it too long, the temperature alone would be a problem. I wasn’t immune to hypothermia.
A hand grabbed me by the shirt and pulled me up. I broke the surface and pulled myself onto a narrow rock ledge.
We were in a small cave, actually more of a fissure, that wasn’t much bigger than a tent. There was a roughly triangular hole in the floor through which I could see the dark water that I had been pulled from. The walls were smooth and orange, like so many of the other rocks I had seen near here. The cave had an eerie green glow from the light Miranda carried.
Miranda tugged at my shirt in an effort to lift it up. My clothes, standard issue and already dry, had traces of blood. A normal shirt probably would have had tears in it, but the Service didn’t make T-shirts from cotton.
“You’re bleeding.” She lifted my shirt higher and a look of astonishment came to her face in the green glow of the stick on her wrist. “Wow, you really do heal fast.”
I held my ribs, which I could feel reconstructing themselves. “Give me a minute or two,” I whispered.
She obviously noticed the telltale signs of reconstruction as my ribs repositioned themselves under my skin. “Does that hurt?” she asked.
I did my best not to clench my teeth. “Not at all,” I lied. I lay back down and breathed a few deep breaths. I spoke to the ring on my hand. “External testis. Nice one, dad.”
“So you were made by the Boyhen?”
“The who-what now?”
She smoothed my hair down. “The Boyhen are genetic engineering masters. Most inter-species couples aren’t genetically compatible, but the Boyhen can help them have a child. That’s what my parents did.”
“I never really talked to my parents about it. All I know is that they wanted me to be mostly human, and that’s why I have this weak body rather than my mother’s more durable form.”
“My father was my genetic template, too.”
I took my eyes off my ring and looked over at her. “Well, I’d say you’re dad was kind of hot.”
She laughed. “Just because he was my template doesn’t mean they can’t alter the gender and add in characteristics from my mother. My nervous system is more similar to my mother’s, and so are my muscles. My bones are much lighter and stronger than human bones, and I also have less blood than a normal human. Overall, I’m lighter than I would be if all human.”
“So your parents raised you then?” I asked.
“Yes, but they recently moved back to my mother’s home planet.” She sighed. “They send gal-com video messages from time to time, but you know the cost of a two-way cross galaxy communication—the out of network fees are absolutely ridiculous.” She noticed me looking back to my ring. “Is that from your parents?”
I cleared my throat and looked away from her. “So, where’s the sheriff?”
“He thought you made a good point about the creature. It might not be down here, and so he’s going to look around the
top of the cliff.”
“Very brave of him,” I said sarcastically.
Miranda tucked away her rebreather on her belt. “I know, right?”
I tried not to roll my eyes as I followed her example and put my rebreather away. Miranda pulled her microfiber towel out of a pocket and dried her hair. I was shivering, and so I decided it was a good idea and dried off my hair and exposed skin too. My clothes were designed to dry instantly, but I still felt cold.
I pulled the small bottle of blue pills from my pocket and popped two into my mouth. “Do you want any?” I held the bottle toward Miranda. “They give you a quick metabolism boost, which can help warm you up.”
“No thanks,” she said. “I feel fine. Why do you have pills like that? Are you worried about your figure?”
I chuckled. “No. They can help me heal faster, too. Good for emergencies. I suppose they could help anybody heal twice as fast, but for most people twice as fast still isn’t sufficient to survive a serious injury.”
She pulled a Bar-F from her pocket and broke it in half. “Here, eat this. You’ll need the calories.” She handed me half and ate the other.
I ate it in a bite, grateful for the food. I had been starving, despite what I had said when I refused the soup earlier. That was another risk for me. A high powered metabolism is necessary for rapid healing, but it has its drawbacks. If I don’t eat often, my body will begin to cannibalize muscle, and when it runs low on muscle, it starts to consume organs.
“It looks like we’ll go this way.” Miranda indicated a jagged opening leading into the dark. “I’ll leave the glow stick here to help us find our way back to this point, though I’m not entirely sure we can swim out of here.” She unwrapped the thin green glow stick from her wrist and placed it on the floor where it was visible from the cavern she had pointed to.
We both pulled high-powered LED flashlights from our belts. Miranda had hers pointed right into my eyes when she turned it on and nearly burned out my retinas. Two cheers for regeneration.
“Sorry,” she whispered.
“Not a problem.” I blinked the tears out of my eyes and then looked down the dark corridor.
“We should explore the cave for evidence of Tyler,” she said. “We can look for a way out at the same time.”
I wasn’t about to argue. If there was any way out of here that didn’t involve swimming, I was all for it. I thought Miranda was right about swimming out, especially for me. The strong current would smash me to pieces or simply push me back into the cave.
