The Luminous Dead

by Caitlin Starling

  “Gyre, look at me. No matter what you think of me, I don’t want you to die. I didn’t want any of you to die.”

  Gyre paused, obeying despite herself. She looked at Em, young and twisted and proud. The blankness had fractured slightly, and Em had leaned forward, manufacturing an innocent, worried look for her. She looked like she was in pain, like she was afraid. Like she was sorry.

  If Gyre hadn’t known how good a liar she could be . . .

  The lines of Em’s face began to blur. Gyre took a step back, unsteadily, then sank down to one knee as her body quickly became leaden. She searched her display but there was no alert, no explanation as to what Em had injected her with. “What have you done?” she asked, reaching out to stabilize herself against the ground. “What are you doing to me?”

  “You need to rest,” Em said.

  She sagged, spreading out along the ground as whatever sedative Em had pumped into her system took hold of her. She felt her suit lock once she was down, her right arm pulling into a safe, restorative position.

  “You’re a fucking monster,” she managed.

  “I’m aware,” Em said, and then her face disappeared from view.

  Chapter Eight

  Gyre woke up disoriented. Her thoughts were sluggish, her vision blurred. Her mouth tasted like death and her stomach ached. She tried to move, and couldn’t. Her heart stammered in her chest. She jerked against whatever was holding her—it didn’t budge.

  The panic took over before she could think. She couldn’t even ball her hands into fists, couldn’t turn her head, and she knew—she knew—that she was being watched. She remembered eyes in the darkness, or had it been a broken suit mask?

  No, wait. That had been a dream. She’d had a nightmare about Jennie Mercer following her down, her suit locked into an unnatural shape as she staggered into the tunnel.

  Her suit.

  She nearly vomited. She drugged me.

  Again.

  Fury riding just under her skin, Gyre unlocked her suit and sat up. She pulled up her reconstruction to full draw distance, which simulated a brightly lit cavern. There were no eyes in the darkness, no ghosts there to terrify her. Her fear faded as she took stock of her state. Her right arm was feeling better, but it was stiff. She stretched it, rotating the joints, and then locked the arm of her suit with it tucked up by her chest, as if it were in a sling. The change in position seemed to help.

  Another hour to warm up, and she’d be good to climb. Climb to Camp Four, swim the dive again . . . if she pushed, she could get halfway to Camp Two before she needed to sleep again. Two days, three tops, and she’d be out.

  If she’d just turned back at Camp Two, or at Four, she’d already be back in the sun. Fuck, what had she been thinking? Get the money, that was what she’d been thinking. Find a way to blackmail or bully Em into paying her, and then leave as soon as she’d accomplished that.

  But that had been based on Em being rational. This wasn’t rational. This was madness.

  She had never been down here. She had killed twenty-seven people chasing nothing. She’d just been a voice in their ears, the promise of coming topside once more.

  Whispering them to their deaths.

  Gyre paused, then checked the feed of documents Em had shared to her suit. There were the videos, like she’d said. Gyre scrolled through them with a flick of her eyes, until she found the one with the earliest chronological date.

  It didn’t matter. She had already decided to turn back, and as soon as she was out of this cave, she’d be free of this nightmare, of Em’s ghosts.

  And yet . . .

  She wanted to see them, see normal people, see somebody who wasn’t Em. Wanted to see who could be so important that their deaths could break a little girl and rebuild her into . . . whatever her handler was.

  She activated the first video.

  Four people sat around a small campfire. Gyre frowned at the open flame, before she remembered Em saying that their team had been one of the first. This must have been back when they were treating these expeditions like recreational spelunking on other planets. They all were wearing topside clothing, heavy enough to ward off the pervasive chill, a few with harnesses still on. Their packs sat nearby. They were laughing.

  It was a strange sound to hear, down in the caves. It made her heart ache, her skin itch. One week down, and she was already coming close to tears over hearing laughter, over seeing faces. Other cavers talked about this, but she had been so sure she wouldn’t care.

  She cared.

  There was one woman and three men. They ranged in age from a boy maybe Gyre’s age to a man that she guessed was in his late forties, and they all looked excited. Tired, after a long day’s climb, but excited. It was strange, seeing the cave lit only by the fire and a few headlamps still on and propped nearby, but if she had to guess, they were at Camp Two. She could see the talus pile behind the older guy.

  “No, what I’m saying is that—what if there’s, like, an entire underground city down here? Wouldn’t that be cool?” said the youngest of them, the one who couldn’t have been more than a year or two older than Gyre. He had long dark hair pulled back into a low braid, and his skin was a dark russet from a combination of heritage and long sun exposure.

  “Yeah, and what if there’s buried treasure?” replied the woman, who Gyre judged to be in her mid-thirties or so, with broad cheekbones and a wicked grin. When she turned, Gyre thought she could see a tattoo peeking out above the neck of her shirt and curling up behind her ear, along her shaved scalp, but maybe that was a comm cord. Em’s mother?

  Then a voice very similar to Em’s came from directly behind the camera. “That would be the find of a century. Not the treasure—a city. We haven’t found traces of another sentient race in—”

  “And what if there are traps?” the kid cut in. “Like those old movies—traps to keep grave robbers out!”

  “So now it’s a tomb?” the older guy said, and shook his head, reaching out with a gloved hand to pull a can out of the fire. Real food—her mouth watered.

  “I mean, if it’s a city, they have to have dead people too, right?”

  “Unless it’s full of enlightened immortals,” almost-Em supplied. The third man, who hadn’t spoken yet, cracked a smile as she continued speaking. “If we’re going to go full drama vid.”

  “I like buried treasure more,” said the man with the can. He was tall, stringy, with close-cropped dirt-brown hair.

  “Ore’s buried treasure enough,” the third man said. He had a smooth voice with a rich, lilting accent. He smiled again, his teeth flashing against his nearly black skin. “With what we’ve found so far, we’re going to be rich.”

  The camera shifted, Em’s mother turning it around to face herself. She looked like she was in her mid-twenties, maybe the same age Em was now, and looked eager and happy, foreign expressions on her daughter’s face. She was pale-skinned, her blond hair curling gently against her cheeks, and her green eyes glittered. She had the same small notch in her chin as her daughter. “You hear that? Laurent says we’re all going to be rich.”

  “We’re the dream team!” the kid shouted. “And when we find our ancient city—”

  He was cut off by a low rumble. The woman’s expression froze, her gaze going past the camera. “Is that—”

  “It’s too early in the season for rain,” Laurent said, and Gyre could hear some of the others standing up.

  “A drill? Maybe another company is trying to horn in—” the kid started.

  “Doesn’t make sense, Halian,” the stringy man snapped. “What are they going to do, destabilize the caves and then hope they can still get the ore out safely? I—”

  “Both of you, shut up,” the woman with the shaved head said. Em’s mother’s expression had changed to alert trepidation, her lips slightly parted, the camera forgotten.

  The low rumble had stopped, but it took another minute of pained silence before she murmured, “Maybe it’s nothing.”


  “Yeah,” Halian said. “Yeah. Nothing.”

  One of the other men grunted.

  Em’s mother looked back at the camera at last, and managed a small smile. “Dream team, signing off.”

  The video ended.

  Chapter Nine

  Gyre realized she had one hand resting lightly on her throat, and slowly lowered it. Her heart was hammering in her chest. That rumble—it must have been a Tunneler. She eyed the rest of the videos warily.

  Em’s seen these.

  It wasn’t enough to change anything. But it did make everything click, a heavy weight settling into her bones. Now Gyre could begin to see how a girl could grow up in the shadow of this, knowing the tragedy so intimately that she was warped into a monster, determined to finish what her mother had started by any means necessary. If Em had grown up watching these videos, knowing that her mom had gotten out but her dad hadn’t—

  Gyre could see it. She’d thought her obsession with chasing her own mother was bad enough. This . . . this would have been all-consuming.

  It didn’t matter. It didn’t justify the deaths. Understanding Em didn’t mean she wanted to help her, wanted to risk her life for her. And beyond that pointless understanding, the videos didn’t change anything. They weren’t proof Em had breached the contract. They weren’t proof she’d broken any laws. It wasn’t a way to get out and take the money anyway. It was just . . . tragedy. So what if she felt pain for the other woman? Caring about the emotional damage of some alienated millionaire wasn’t what she’d signed up for.

  “You’re awake,” Em said, and her voice was enough to bring her anger roaring back to full flame.

  “You drugged me.”

  “I did. You were behaving erratically.”

  Gyre clenched her jaw hard enough that she could hear her teeth creak. Erratically?

  “I wanted to give you some time to think. And,” Em said, quickly, before Gyre could get a word in, “I have something to offer you.”

  “I won’t believe anything that comes out of your mouth,” Gyre said, and stood up. Her head spun, and she reached out and braced herself against the wall.

  “I have an amendment to your contract,” Em said. “Please sit down and hear me out. And I suggest a nutritional canister.”

  “Fuck your suggestions.” Even if it was a good one. All she could think about was what Em had just said. An amendment. A way out? Gyre sat down slowly, scowling. “Keep talking.”

  Em’s voice was level and measured as she said, “It memorializes my previous offer, that I will use my personal resources to locate your mother. And that if you continue on to Camp Five, I will also relinquish my rights to sue you for falsifying your professional background, and I will not provide negative references to future potential employers. In the event the cache at Camp Five is also missing and it is unsafe for you to continue, the expedition will end and I will pull you out per the terms of your employment agreement.”

  Gyre’s chest burned and she realized she’d stopped breathing. “And why should I trust that the amendment will be valid? I don’t imagine you’re going to summon a witness.”

  “No,” Em admitted, having the decency to sound embarrassed. “You’re correct. But I have something better.”

  Gyre’s brows rose. “Better.”

  “Yes. I’ve loaded the amendment into your suit, and I’m currently recording this conversation both from your suit and from my desk. The two feeds are being uploaded and stored in a black box—neither of us can get in to hear them until the date specified in the amendment, and they cannot be copied or altered. It is legally admissible evidence. If I try to nullify the contract, you’ll have my words to use against me.”

  Gyre was shaking. There has to be a catch. But the only catch was that Em could be lying about the recording. Yet, as she watched, Em began displaying the upload feed, as well as specifications for the black box. Gyre wrapped her arms around herself, but the suit’s resistance was hard and the movement didn’t give her any comfort.

  This was it.

  “All I have to do,” Gyre said slowly, “is get to Camp Five.”

  It wasn’t a way out, but it was the start of one. Freedom. All she had to do was finish this one descent, and then she could leave. She might not get any money—Em had been careful to make no promises—but she’d be free to try again on a more normal expedition, only a little worse for wear.

  But this was Em. Em closed her eyes and inhaled deeply before saying, “Yes. Just one more day. And then you can turn back. Or . . . or you can go on.”

  Not happening. With that recording ready to protect her from Em’s retaliation, there was no reason to stay.

  With that recording—

  Gyre sat up straighter, then slouched again, trying not to look too alert. She hoped Em was too busy waiting for a response to notice her heart rate jump again as she realized, If I can keep the recording running, I’ll have her.

  She fought down the urge to fiddle with her interface. She’d need to wait until Em was asleep, away from her desk. But then . . . then, if she could figure out how to turn it on . . .

  Gyre thought of the team in the video, Jennie’s broken suit, Adrian Purcell at Camp Two. Not only could she blackmail Em into paying her, she could get vengeance for all of them.

  “What about sedation? I want it off the table.”

  “No,” Em said. “You’re down here, you’re my responsibility.”

  Gyre hissed through her teeth. She wanted Em out of her body, now. But it wasn’t worth losing the opportunity over, and she put aside that particular grievance for later.

  “Let’s sign the amendment, then.” The words were out of her mouth before she could second-guess herself. “Camp Five it is.”

  Em laughed weakly in relief. Gyre read through the amendment, which was written in plain language so that she felt comfortable giving her assent and hearing Em do the same. The document left her view, and she made to stand up again.

  “Eat,” Em said, reiterating her previous suggestion.

  “I want to conserve what I have.” Her hand went instinctively to the compartment where her remaining rations were stored, while her gaze flicked to her battery readout. Em had knocked her out for over ten hours, leaving her that much closer to swapping to her one backup.

  “It should only be one more push to Camp Five.”

  “And if that cache is gone?”

  “You’ll still have enough food to get back to Camp Three at normal activity levels. I’ll try again with somebody else once I’ve restocked everything.”

  Gyre scowled but said nothing. What could she say? Em clearly didn’t care that Gyre objected to the mission. Try again. The thought of Em sending another parade of people down here to die turned her stomach. She’d have to get the recording up and running before she got to Five, then.

  “Your arm isn’t incapacitated. How is it feeling?”

  “Stiff. Guessing it’s bruised. I’ll be able to climb today.”

  Em answered with silence again.

  Gyre crouched down and set up her feeding. She held herself up on her knees, her left hand braced against the wall, and turned to look down the tunnel.

  “Did you do any scans on it? Down there, I mean?”

  “Some. I am, of course, limited by where your suit is. Everything seems settled. The Tunneler passed a while ago. You were safe.”

  Gyre sucked on her straw in an attempt to ease the rough cracking of her throat. “Anything interesting happen while I was out?”

  “I made you a roast dinner,” Em deadpanned.

  Gyre snorted. “Fuck you.”

  “I’m . . . I am sorry, about the sedation,” Em said. “I really did think it was in your best interest.”

  “To shut me up?”

  “No, to make you sleep. You didn’t, at Camp Four. If you’d fallen again trying to climb out—”

  “You swore to me. You agreed.”

  “I know. And I broke my word.”

  “Wel
l, I know better than to take you at it, now, don’t I?”

  Em said nothing.

  “You can’t control everything. Not my mind, not my decisions.”

  “I know,” Em said. “I know.” But it didn’t mean she wouldn’t do it again.

  Gyre hated this. She hated this part, this vulnerability. Knowing that she couldn’t trust Em. But that had been true from day one.

  She just needed to keep going.

  Em cleared her throat, then said, “My suggestion is that you reach Camp Five today and rest there, take a day to think about if you want to keep going. If you do, then you head back here with a portion of the cache. The ascender should make that relatively easy, just a few hours to get up. Then you can stage the gear hauling between Camp Three, here, and Five as anticipated.”

  “And after that, if I do keep going”—if I need the time to catch you in more of your lies, she thought—“Camp Six is the last?”

  “It is.”

  “How many of your cavers made it that far?” She knew the answer from the dossiers. Five. Did Em still remember?

  “Five,” she said. “It’s the last sump that’s been the biggest problem.”

  “That’s the one that those—what, three or four died in?”

  It was three.

  “Yes. That’s the one. It’s claimed three of mine.” Em’s voice trembled on the last word, then firmed up again as she continued, “The one before it is substantially more straightforward.”

  She’d remembered. She couldn’t remember the names, but she could remember the numbers. She wasn’t a complete monster.

  Just very close.

  “The rest turned back,” Em noted quietly. “They didn’t all die.”

  Gyre bit down her response; she needed Em to lower her guard, not keep fighting her. She stared down the tunnel as she waited for the feeding to finish, wriggling her hips every so often as if it would help the cramping, crawling sensation in her gut. When Em’s parents had come down here, they’d been able to eat real food, scratch their itches, massage their cramped muscles. They’d been able to sit around a campfire together, reach out and touch one another. She was jealous until she reflected on her fall the day before. That could have broken Laurent’s arm, without the protective carapace around it, and it certainly wouldn’t have healed as quickly as it had.