Patchwork

by Elle E. Ire

  Well, it was already battered. They can bill me.

  For this thing, “racer” is a misnomer. I’m chugging in the direction of the screaming and the octosharks we saw earlier. The racer is only carrying my weight, rather than the two passengers it’s designed for, but I’m crawling across the waves. It seems to take forever before I round the peninsula and spot Locher on his racer, bobbing on the churned-up current, still shouting his head off, his feet drawn up onto the seat with the rest of him.

  A glance toward the shore shows a lot of activity there too. I can’t see the beach where Kelly and I first heard the screams—it’s around the bend—but there’s an emergency response team assembling on the narrow stretch of sand on this side of the peninsula. They’ve got comms out, and they’re gesticulating and shouting to one another, probably calling in a rescue craft, but there’s no sign of it yet.

  Why isn’t he already dead? I wonder, half to myself, half to VC1. There’s a dorsal fin in the water right in front of Locher’s racer, so the octosharks are definitely inside the perimeter barrier. I already know they can raise themselves high enough to snatch him right off his seat—or at least tear off a leg or two.

  Perhaps a better question would be, why doesn’t he flee? One human on a two-person racer should be faster than an octoshark, even a small one.

  Small? I look again. Okay, yeah, the fin protruding above the water does seem smaller than some of the others that Kelly and I saw. And as I close the gap, the dark shadow swimming between us might be only five feet of gnashing teeth rather than seven or eight feet in length, though the water may cause some distortion of the actual size.

  I open my mouth to tell Locher to make a run for it, but he’s still screaming for help.

  “Calm the fuck down!” I shout instead.

  The fin in the water does the fishy equivalent of pacing, back and forth, back and forth in front of David’s racer. He closes his mouth and stares at me. “That’s your idea of a rescue vehicle? You couldn’t bring something with sides?”

  “I could’ve just left you here,” I say, putting a hand on my hip.

  He shuts his mouth.

  “Why aren’t you running for shore?” I ask, tracking the octoshark’s movements and drawing the laser pistol from my lap.

  “They won’t let me!” Snark time over, he’s getting hysterical again. Then his words register.

  “They?” I ease my battered craft to his starboard side and groan. Yeah, I’d been wondering where the other sharks were. A second one, also small by octo standards, is doing the same thing as the first, only at the stern of Locher’s racer. It swims lazily back and forth in eerie counterpoint to the one up front.

  Locher demonstrates his position by attempting to move the vehicle toward the left. The octosharks adjust course to keep him boxed between them, not attacking, but not letting him get more than a foot toward shore.

  At least they aren’t interested in me yet.

  “You have a gun. Shoot them!” Locher shouts.

  “I can’t shoot them both at the same time. Shooting one might make the other one attack you.” Or me for that matter.

  What are they doing? Why haven’t they eaten him already?

  According to the somewhat limited research available, they are determining dominance. This is exemplary of why they do not swim in groups. Food is often scarce, and they will fight over what is available.

  And where are the rest of them? There were a lot more than two. Not that I’m complaining, but I like to know where my enemies are.

  I do not possess that information.

  After several more seconds of fish pacing, the one at the stern decides to go after the one in front. It tears forward, tail and heads working the water into a white froth.

  “Go, Locher!” I call across the water. “This is your chance.”

  For a few vital seconds, he’s a deer in headlights. Then he revs the engine. His racer moves forward, but he’s too late. Instead of the sharks doing battle with each other as I hoped they would, one chases the other off and circles back toward his racer, this time with its eight heads above the surface, closing in for the kill.

  “Shit,” I mutter. I aim at the nearest head and fire. It explodes in a shower of blood and bits of bone or cartilage or whatever makes up octoshark skulls.

  The thing keeps coming.

  Um. A disturbing thought occurs. Do these things have, like, eight separate brains? In other words, will I have to shoot it eight times to bring it down?

  One brain, VC1 assures me. Located at the juncture of the eight heads with the body.

  How the fuck did something like this even evolve?

  It did not. It was a product of the terraforming process, an unforeseen result of the chemicals added to this world’s oceans to make them less acidic so watercraft would not be damaged.

  So, human interference strikes again.

  Fuck. I take aim and blow up another shark head, but the body’s moving too fast, and the heads themselves block any shot I might take at the juncture point. The thing hesitates for a moment, remaining six heads waving on their short necks, then makes for Locher again.

  His racer has made some progress toward shore, but it’s not moving as fast as it should be. Something’s clearly wrong with it. The engine cadence is way off, and the shark will overtake him in seconds.

  Behind me the rumble of a much larger watercraft’s engine tells me more help approaches, but it won’t reach us before the shark eats David Locher. Shaking my head at my own stupidity, I lean forward to rotate my handlebars, intending to place my racer between David’s and the gaping maws.

  My racer’s engine sputters and dies.

  The octoshark impacts Locher’s racer at full speed, throwing him headfirst into the water. His scream fades into a gurgle as he disappears beneath the surface.

  I have just enough time to consider what an idiot I am before I grip my pistol and dive in after him.

  Though Infinity Bay’s waters are clear to a depth of twenty feet, the churning of both the shark and Locher’s escape attempts cuts visibility to nil. I swim toward the thickest of the froth, hoping I come into contact with tails or fin or human before chomping teeth.

  Fortune is with me, and I encounter David before the shark. He’s punching and kicking and reaching for the surface while the six remaining sets of jaws seek to clamp down on his flesh. Even as I watch, his air gives out, bubbles leaving his lips in a desperate, pitiful trail.

  I fire my laser into the shadowy, squirming mass of gray fish flesh, no particular target in mind, anything I can do to slow the thing down. Another head bursts, darkening the water with the black-red of its blood and making visibility even worse, but it doesn’t emerge from the maroon cloud for several seconds, giving Locher a chance to break for the surface.

  Now that I’m clear on where Locher and the shark are, I can fire with impunity, and I do so, unloading blast after blast into the octoshark. Chunks of the beast float past me, and still it comes, but it’s sluggish now, and I’ve got it where I want it.

  In my peripheral vision, Locher’s legs disappear, and I assume he’s either climbed back on one of the racers whose bottoms are bobbing above me, or he’s been pulled aboard the rescue vessel, which has hopefully arrived.

  About this time it occurs to me to wonder how I’m not needing more air. My lungs burn a bit, but I’ve been under for over a minute and I’m not desperate.

  I am able to maximize the oxygen in your circulatory system to extend the time between necessary breaths. You have about one minute longer before you will require additional air.

  Nice!

  Three more blind shots and I must hit the critical spot. The fins cease moving; the shark floats for a moment, then slowly rotates onto its back and sinks away from me. I make for the surface and daylight and air, casting one quick glance toward the not-too-distant barrier that’s supposed to separate the dangerous parts of the ocean from the resort swimming areas.

  What
I see almost knocks the last of the breath from my lungs.

  There’s a gaping hole in the barrier. Stuck right in the middle of it is a much larger octoshark, flailing and straining and getting shocked by whatever repellent field the barrier is charged with, but it’s good and stuck and not going anywhere, which explains why there aren’t more of them on this side. Behind it, through the deterrent metal mesh, are about ten more of them waiting to get their chance at the breach. The edges of the hole are coated in some thick purplish slimy substance that glistens with an odd internal glow, and even while it’s getting shocked, the stuck shark takes bites at the substance with its many heads of teeth.

  What the actual fuck?

  It is a bioluminescent algae that grows at great depths on the ocean floor. It contains properties pleasantly narcotic to them, enough so that it would overcome their aversion to the pain of the electrified barrier. Think catnip to cats, except stronger, and octosharks ingest the algae orally.

  So I’m dealing with vicious, stoned octosharks?

  Indeed. It might explain some of their unusual behavior. However, the algae should not be here.

  I glance up, inches from the surface.

  It shouldn’t be there either, I thought-whisper back to VC1, taking in a thin coating of the purple stuff covering the underside of Locher’s (formerly our) wave racer.

  This was a setup, and either Locher, Kelly, or myself was the target.

  Except no one knew Kelly and I would take a wave racer out this morning, and Locher had reserved his in advance.

  Other than him being an asshole, why would someone want to kill David Locher?

  I break through the surface and suck in a lungful of air. As I predicted, the rescue boat has arrived, and I blink away the brilliant sunlight and focus on Kelly, Locher, and a number of resort staff on the deck of the much larger vessel. Kelly’s pale, but she shouts and waves to me while they all point to a ladder hanging off the side.

  I’m three rungs up when something sharp clamps down on my left calf.

  Oh. Right. There was a second shark on this side of the fence.

  Chapter 34: Kelly—Depths of Affection

  VICK IS in trouble.

  I can’t help it. I scream when Vick goes under right before my eyes. Worse, there’s fresh blood by the ladder, and my empathic sense registers a phantom pain in my left leg from an injury not my own. I know she’s strong, competent, and I’m assuming armed. It doesn’t stop my heart from racing.

  Our gathered group of rescuers stands at the boat’s side, staring into the water, watching the bubbles made by Vick’s departure spread, then fade. Two dark shapes shift and turn deep beneath the surface, but there’s too much debris—blood and shark remains—floating around to get a clear view. Then several beams of red energy flash through the depths.

  I hold my breath, imagining Vick struggling to hold hers. A minute passes, then two. “Do something!” I cry. The rescue team holds high-powered ballistic rifles at the ready, capable of propelling a bullet hard and fast enough to penetrate the water and still do damage, but they shake their heads, expressions somber.

  “We can’t fire unless the octoshark surfaces or we might hit Corren,” one says, the same one who chastised us for not making a reservation for the wave racer. It occurs to me to wonder how he knows her name, but then, she has made herself somewhat notorious to the staff here, beginning with the moment of our arrival on planet.

  “She’s insane,” another mutters.

  “She’s not insane,” says David, standing beside me radiating fading fear and building anger. “She might be murderous, but she’s not insane no matter what the rumors are. BioTech doesn’t make products that cause insanity.”

  I whirl on him. Leaning in close I say, “Are you seriously suggesting Vick might have had something to do with this attack? She risked her life—is risking it still to save yours, even after how you’ve treated her. I should have told her to leave you to the sharks.”

  I turn back toward the water, our vigil extending longer than anyone should be able to retain air without drowning, but this is Vick. She has VC1, and I still have hope.

  My own lungs burn. When one of the staff members lays a hand on my shoulder, I realize I’m hyperventilating, but I can’t get a deep breath. He tugs me gently down to the deck, where I put my head between my knees before I pass out. I don’t want to leave the railing, but if… no, when Vick surfaces, I’ll be no help to her if I’m unconscious.

  There’s a loud splash. Everyone shouts and points. The weight on my chest lifts, and I struggle to my feet and stagger to the rail just as one of Vick’s hands grabs it. I lean over and spot the rest of her, hair streaming into her face, hiding her expression, her free hand clutching her laser pistol to her side. Blood runs down her left calf, dripping into the water below, but no dark shapes come to investigate it, so the last of the sharks must be dead. Her gasping breath is harsh and wheezing.

  When she continues to hang there, too exhausted to climb the rest of the way, two crewmen grip her by her upper arms and haul her up and over the rail. They set her on her feet, but she immediately goes to her knees, coughing and spitting out seawater. I drop beside her and place one hand on her back, rubbing in gentle circles until she expels the worst of it and rolls over to sit on the deck.

  “Well,” she says, “I said I wanted to work off some excess energy.”

  I laugh, though there’s an edge of hysteria to it, and she peers at me with a frown.

  “You okay?” she asks while a crewman joins us with a first aid kit and sets to work on the nasty bite that’s taken a couple of chunks out of her lower leg.

  “Fine now,” I tell her, but my voice is high-pitched and strained. “Are they all dead? How many did you fight off?”

  “Two,” she says. Vick casts a quick glance over her shoulder at David, who’s keeping his distance, giving us both sullen looks. She turns to the wave racer rental guy and fixes him with a calculating stare. “You have an octoshark infestation problem.”

  “That’s impossible,” the staffer fixing her leg says. “The barrier—”

  “Is obviously broken.” Even though she’s not responding to him, Vick never takes her eyes off the rental guy. I don’t know the reason for her fixation, but I’m not questioning it. “You’ve got a hole in the fencing and a shark stuck in the hole or you’d have a lot more sharks. Get a repair crew out here, and keep everyone out of the water, just in case it breaks its way through.”

  The apparent captain of the rescue team pulls a comm unit off his belt and steps away, barking instructions to whomever is at the other end. The medic sprays Vick’s wound with disinfectant, then sealant so it stays clean. Another staff member drapes a blanket over Vick’s shoulders.

  “They aren’t poisonous, right?” I ask when the medic stands to leave. Others scurry around us, throwing lassos at the two drifting wave racers, trying to snag them so we can tow them back to shore. No one’s taking a chance on swimming out to them.

  “No, but their mouths are dirty, so I didn’t take chances,” the medic responds to my question. He nods to both of us and heads toward the bow.

  “What’s going on?” I whisper in Vick’s ear under the pretense of giving her a light kiss on the cheek.

  Despite it being a cover, Vick blushes at the kiss anyway. It’s cute.

  She glances around, frowning at the number of crewmembers milling about close by, her gaze lingering once more on the man in charge of the various watercraft. “Let’s talk about it later, when we’re alone,” she says.

  I nod, frustrated, but I trust Vick’s instincts.

  She reaches up with one hand to rub her right temple, her other clutching the laser pistol at her side. Stretching out with my empathic sense, I feel her building headache, probably much worse than I can detect but buried under her implant’s suppressors. Without a word, I slide around to sit behind her and begin massaging the base of her neck and the back of her head with my fingers, pressing in
with my thumbs to relieve the worst of the tension there. Though she stiffens at first, after a few moments she sighs with relief, then leans back against me.

  “I know David would have died if you hadn’t gone in after him, but that was a really stupid thing you did,” I say. I don’t mean for all the fear I felt to pour through our connection, but it does before I can dampen it. “You were amazing as always, brave but stupid. That was you, all you. That wasn’t the Storm’s… brainwashing.” I don’t say “programming,” but from the way her muscles tighten again, she hears it nonetheless.

  Her shoulders slump further. “It’s my nature. I know it’s hard on you.” Twisting around to look at me, she meets my eyes. “If you ever decide it’s too much, if you realize it’s not what you want, you need to tell me.”

  The bald statement startles me. “I’m not going to block you again, if that’s what you’re worried about.” I try to keep the bitterness out of my tone but fail. She says she’s forgiven me. I don’t blame Vick if she never really did, but then I wish she’d just say so.

  She shakes her head. “That’s not it. I trust you. I do. But that doesn’t mean you want to put up with my crazy risk-taking forever, and I’m not going to change. Whether it’s me or the Storm’s doing, I can’t change. There are ways to break our bond. VC1’s been doing research. They aren’t pleasant, but it’s apparently possible.”

  She holds up a hand to forestall any argument I might make, and I definitely intend to make some.

  “Just… let me know,” she says. “Breaking the bond will break me. But the longer I go on believing in what we have, the worse it will be if you change your mind.”

  Her plaintive expression, her voice full of hurt and hope dampen my frustration with her like water on fire. A purple hue suffuses her in my empathic view—fear. She’s terrified of losing me. But there’s also guilt. If she loses me, she thinks she’ll be responsible. I need to watch what I let her read from me in the future.