Down

by Ally Blue

  “Anything for you, Mo.”

  The utterly unexpected rasp of Armin’s low, rough whisper coming from the walker’s computer startled Mo badly. He tried to turn, got his feet tangled together, lost his balance, and fell sideways. He hit the ooze on the seabed harder than he would’ve expected with the water to slow him down. His teeth dug into the inside of his cheek.

  Yvonne called over the com, asking him if he was all right. Marcell, predictably, snickered from his spot at com central in the go-cart. Mo let it all float through his consciousness and out again without paying much attention—because the mermaid fish was right there, not five meters from his face, hovering like a ghost in the margins of the light.

  He froze, his gaze locked onto the creature’s luminous greenish-white eyes. Christ, it was something else, weirdly beautiful with its long, translucent, fingerlike fins and the small, flat scales that seemed to absorb the light. Its body was sleek as a shark’s, grayish-white, at least two meters long, with a short dorsal fin and a flat tail like a whale’s. Its gill slits opened and closed, opened and closed, pumping water through its respiratory system.

  A blue-black spark shone deep in the mermaid’s unblinking eyes. It stared directly at Mo as if it could beam its strange, fishy thoughts straight into his brain with the force of its gaze. His stomach knotted in a churning chaos of nerves and awe.

  “Walker One.” He kept his voice low, though he had no idea whether a mermaid could pick up voices from inside a walker, or what they’d do with it if they could hear it. No point in taking chances. “Outside camera, record.”

  “Recording, Mo.”

  This time, he didn’t answer. Instead he held as still as he could, hardly daring to blink in case the mermaid decided to swim away in the fraction of a second his eyes were closed. This encounter was bound to be brief, and he didn’t want to miss any of it.

  His heart thudded seven, eight, nine hard, rapid beats while he and the rare animal stared at one another. Then the wide, lipless mouth opened, revealing rows of too-long, pointed metal teeth identical to Armin’s from Mo’s nightmare.

  A shocked oh escaped Mo’s throat before he could stop himself. His arm jerked, raising a plume of silt. The mermaid flipped its tail and glided off into the darkness.

  “Fucking shit.” Mo shut his eyes and told himself to calm down. Fuck. “Walker One. Camera, stop recording.”

  “Recording halted, Mo.”

  He breathed in and out, steady breaths, willing his heartbeat to slow. Now that the whole thing was over, a wave of pure giddy joy washed over him. He’d just been face-to-face with probably the rarest animal on the planet. For the second time in his life, and this encounter was so much closer than the last. How many people could say that? He laughed out loud.

  “Mo?” Yvonne’s boots approached as she spoke. “What’s going on? Do you need to go to sick bay?”

  “No. I’m fine.” Mo clambered to his feet, grinning. “It’s not every day we see a mermaid fish, you know. It’s damn exciting.” He kept the part about the nightmare teeth to himself. She already thought he got too wound up about “science shit” as she put it, when he ought to be concentrating on his job. If he told her about the fucking teeth, she’d drag him to Dr. Palto herself.

  She grinned back at him, because everybody got excited about seeing mermaids. “Well. At least we both got some footage. Poole’ll jizz his shorts.”

  The whole team let out a collective groan over the com network. “Didn’t need that visual, Yvie,” Dom growled from where he and Rashmi were walking the vents to the south.

  Jem broke in for the first time in the walk. “Finish it up, guys, and let’s get home. I got a wicked fucking headache.”

  Grumbles and scattered laughter came over the coms before everyone settled into tying up the loose ends of the shift’s work. Mo was glad. He didn’t feel like telling anyone what he thought he’d seen.

  He should’ve known that wasn’t going to wash with Jem.

  Back in the BathyTech airlock after the postwalk tests were run, Jem stopped him with a hand on his arm before he could get away. He gave her his best blank face. “What’s up?”

  “You’re taking the next shift off.”

  Damn it. “I don’t need—”

  “Don’t argue with me, Rees, I’m not in the mood.” Jem rubbed one temple. Her features were tight, the corners of her mouth downturned. “You’re smart enough to know you can’t be out here if your head’s not right, and I’ve worked with you long enough to know when it’s not.”

  Mo sighed, because she was right. “Fine.”

  “If I don’t think you’re back to normal when you come back, I’m taking you off duty for longer.” Jem studied Mo’s face like she was trying to see inside his brain. “I’m not trying to punish you, Mo. I hope you know that.”

  “Yeah, I know.” Mo forced a smile. “I’ll see you in a couple of days, then.”

  “Yeah. See you.” She turned and went to the wall terminal to record her shift report.

  Mo headed out of the go-cart bay and into the hallway, turning over the events of the past few hours in his mind. He wondered if he ought to talk to Armin. The encounter with the mermaid fish had rattled him, in spite of the thrill of it all, and he knew Armin would listen without judging.

  On the other hand, mermaids did have impressive teeth, like lots of the fish that lived at depth. Or at least, the one he’d seen in the Mariana Trench had. He assumed they all did. The angle of the light had probably made this one’s teeth look unusually long and given them a metallic sheen. The human tendency to connect one thing to another had supplied the mental link to the image from his dream. As for the strange black squiggle . . .

  He tried to look without looking. It was gone.

  Maybe he really should use his unexpected time off to get his eyes checked.

  He considered whether to go to The Beach or head to his quarters. The idea of being alone right now made him feel cold inside, so he headed for the bar instead.

  His usual shortcut took him past sick bay. As he passed, the door slid open and Hannah walked right into him.

  Her features twisted in anger for a second, then smoothed out again. “Oh. Hi, Mo. Sorry, I wasn’t looking where I was going.”

  “No problem.” He took in her abnormally pasty complexion and the sheen of perspiration on her upper lip—not to mention the fact that she’d just come out of sick bay—and touched her elbow, worried. “You okay? You need me to help you back to your quarters?”

  “Naw, I’m fine. My eyes have been bothering me a little, is all.” She gave him a smile several watts dimmer than her usual. “I think some of the lab equipment’s off-kilter a little. But hey, the equipment’s an upside problem now.” She grasped Mo’s hand and gave it a quick squeeze, then let go. “See you later, Mo.”

  “Okay.”

  He watched her go with a frown, uneasy. People had eye problems sometimes. It didn’t mean anything. Not even when it happened at the same time as other people’s hallucinations.

  Nodding to himself as if that would help make it true, he resumed his trip to the bar. Hopefully the noise and bustle of all those people would help loosen the knot of apprehension winding tight in his stomach.

  By the end of their second day in the lab, the only thing Armin felt certain of when it came to the object from Richards Deep was that it was utterly unlike anything he’d studied in all his years as a scientist. It stubbornly refused to register properly on any of the equipment, behaving more like some sort of enormous subatomic particle than a rock roughly the size of a shot put.

  He did his best to keep his elation to himself, even though every new finding added another confirmation to the theories that had made him a pariah in some scientific circles and a cult hero in others. It didn’t matter how many times he’d proven himself in equations, or in a lab setting. This find would prove him right in a real-world setting, and that was everything.

  Mandala led the way out of the lab as
she, Armin, Ashlyn, and Neil finally left after twelve hours with very little to show for it. “It’s as though the object isn’t even solid. Only we know it is, because you and Carlo have both handled it, Armin. And, yes, I know you predicted this. That doesn’t help us figure out what to actually do with it.” Sighing, she pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes. “I’m going to lie down. My head is killing me.”

  Armin laid a hand on Mandala’s shoulder. “Are you all right? Would you like for me to bring you some dinner?”

  “No, that’s fine. I’m not hungry at the moment. Perhaps I’ll get something later on.” She lowered her hands and patted his cheek. “It’s kind of you to offer, though. Thank you.”

  “Well, I’m starved. I’m headed for the cafeteria.” Neil raised his eyebrows at Armin and Ashlyn. “What about you guys?”

  Ashlyn nodded. “Me too.”

  Armin’s stomach growled. As usual, he hadn’t even thought of food while working. “I could definitely eat.”

  “I’ll see you all in the morning, then.” Mandala gave them a wan smile, then headed down the hall toward her quarters.

  The main dinner rush in the cafeteria seemed to be over, but several people still sat singly or in small groups around the room, talking and eating. There was no line at the self-service food bar. Armin and his team loaded their trays, found a spot in the corner, and dug in.

  The three of them ate in a heavy silence. Armin knew his fellow scientists must be mentally sifting through the day’s findings and trying to slot them into a working model of the universe. He couldn’t help feeling a bit ahead of the curve, in spite of the difficulties inherent in working with such an unusual find. Mandala was right—the fact that he’d predicted the existence of an object like this one did not make the reality of studying it any easier.

  “Wow, this is a real happy party, huh?”

  Startled, Armin blinked himself out of his thoughts and lifted his gaze from the remaining peas he’d been pushing around his plate to the man standing on the other side of the table grinning at him. “Hello, Mo. We just got finished in the lab. I suppose our minds are still on the work.”

  Mo let out a loud pfft, which made Neil snicker. Mo ignored him. “You science types’re always working. You ought to let your hair down once in a while.”

  Ashlyn set her fork down on her empty plate and watched Mo with obvious amusement. “Mr. Rees, have you been drinking?”

  “Maybe a few.” Mo favored her with a wink and a rakish smile that made Armin feel hot inside. “Jem made me take next shift off, so why the hell not, right?”

  “Amen, brother.” Neil leaned back in his plastic chair with a deep sigh. “I could go for a beer myself, if I wasn’t so tired. Maybe another night.”

  “Doc, you let me know when you want to go drinking, and I’ll take you to The Beach for that beer.” Mo gave Neil a friendly slap on the back. “Armin, you think we could talk for a minute?”

  Instinct—plus the way Mo fidgeted—told Armin that the request was related somehow to Jemima ordering Mo to take tomorrow off. He hid his sudden vague anxiety behind a casual smile. “Of course. Would you like to sit down?”

  Mo’s gaze cut left, then right. Quick and nervous. “Um. Actually, if we could talk in private, that would be great.” He widened his eyes at Ashlyn and Neil. “No offense to you guys.”

  “None taken.” Ashlyn pushed back her chair, stood, and picked up her tray, still half-smiling as though she found Mo entertaining. “I think I’m going to go back to my room and read for a while. I’ll see you guys tomorrow.”

  “Wait up, I’ll walk with you.” Neil jumped up, grabbed his own tray, and hurried after her.

  Mo watched them for a moment, then shook his head, blinked, and focused on Armin’s face with an intensity that bordered on frightening. “Look, this might seem kind of weird, but . . .” He cast a sharp, hunted glance over his shoulder, as if he’d heard someone sneaking up on him. His pupils were wide and black, his body tense. “I know a place we can talk where no one’ll overhear us. Would that be okay? I don’t . . .” He chewed his thumbnail, something Armin hadn’t seen him do before. “I don’t feel comfortable talking here.”

  What was there to say? Armin stood. “Of course. Let’s go.”

  He took his tray to the recycler, then followed Mo out of the cafeteria and down the hallway to a juncture he’d noticed before, but never paid much attention to. Mo turned left off the main corridor down the narrower side passage. It was deserted. They walked along for a few minutes, past closed doors and secondary halls with lights dimmed for the “night” shift.

  He was beginning to wonder just where they were going when Mo finally pushed open a doorway on the right, marked simply: Aquarium. The obvious question died on his lips when he trailed Mo inside and saw what BathyTech 3’s idea of an aquarium was.

  “My God.” Armin paced to the center of the circular room, staring in awe at the GlasSteel dome that arched over the whole space. A strip of low lights running around the baseboard provided the only illumination, bathing the floor in a soft golden glow and leaving the endless blackness of the deep as the room’s focus. A jellyfish drifted past overhead like a lost star, and Armin laughed. “This is incredible. Why did I not know about it before now?”

  “I guess we’ve both been a little busy.” Mo tilted his head back and peered upward with a smile full of memories. “Not many people come here just to hang out, I guess. Poole’s biology staff use it to study the wildlife, of course. Most of the other miners aren’t really interested after the novelty wears off. But it’s my favorite spot in the pod.” His gaze dropped to meet Armin’s. “You never know what you’ll see out there.”

  Something haunted had crept into Mo’s eyes, and Armin knew they’d moved beyond talking about the weird, wonderful creatures one normally encountered in the deep ocean trenches.

  He stepped close, reached up, and ran his fingertips along the line of Mo’s jaw. “What have you seen?”

  For several heartbeats, Mo didn’t answer. Armin stayed silent and watched the struggle over what to say and not say play out across his features.

  Finally, Mo shook his head and turned away to face the ocean, shoulders tight and arms crossed. “What’s happening down here, Armin?”

  An invisible hand wrapped around Armin’s ribs and squeezed. “What do you mean?”

  Mo stepped closer. The aquarium’s shadows cast an artificial grimness over his features. “I know it’s none of my business. But I really want to know what you’ve found out about that rock.”

  Armin studied Mo’s carefully expressionless face. Determination glittered in his eyes, shot through with a bright thread of fear.

  Worried now, he laid a hand on Mo’s arm. “Mo, has something happened?”

  “No. Well . . .” Mo turned his head to stare out the transparent wall at the endless ocean beyond. “No, not exactly. We saw a mermaid fish today. It was pretty cool, but . . .” He trailed off again, forehead furrowed. “This one looked different.”

  The way he spoke, quiet and puzzled, made the back of Armin’s neck prickle with unease. “Different how?”

  “Like its teeth were too long, or something.” Mo let out a short laugh. “I don’t know. It’s stupid. Yvie—my walking partner—says my imagination runs away with me sometimes. I probably imagined it.”

  His frown said he didn’t really believe that. Armin had no idea where this new development fit into the picture, or if it did at all. But he knew it made him worry about Mo more, not less.

  He turned Mo to face him and slid both arms around his waist. Mo tensed, but didn’t pull away. Instead, he touched Armin’s face with his fingertips, a gentle caress that made Armin shake inside.

  “We still don’t know precisely what we’re dealing with.” Armin hated the faint tremor in his voice, but he couldn’t stop it. Not when Mo kept touching him like that, like he was something rare and precious. “So far the tests we’ve run have confirmed my theories, but tha
t hasn’t gotten us any further in how to define this thing.”

  Mo’s gaze searched his. “This is going to sound really strange. But humor me. Do you think it can cause any . . . you know, problems?”

  Armin shook his head, confused. “What sort of problems?”

  Mo studied him in silence for several long seconds. The whole time, his fingers mapped the contours of Armin’s face. The touch was profoundly intimate, and Armin thought he ought to have found it disturbing. Instead, it soothed him. Eased away some of the apprehension that had been gathering like a storm inside him lately. He spread his palms flat on Mo’s back, the better to feel his warmth and the rise and fall of his ribs with his breathing.

  “I’ve seen things,” Mo admitted finally. “Nothing spectacular. I thought I saw bugs in the go-cart bay the other day. And today I thought I saw antennae on the mining array, then I kept seeing this squiggly thing at the corner of my eye all day long.” He quirked a wry smile at Armin. “Probably I just need to get my eyes checked. I’m coming up on the big four-oh soon. Maybe that perfect vision I used to have is going away.”

  “I see no reason to believe the object would cause hallucinations, or any other physical problems.” Armin pulled Mo’s body flush against his, mapping the contours of his muscles through his shirt. “You should definitely get your eyes checked.”

  “I’ll do that.” Mo buried his fingers in Armin’s hair, then bent and kissed him, light and quick. “And if there’s nothing wrong with my eyes?”

  The disquiet that followed Armin everywhere now gave his insides a sharp tug. Maybe what Mo had seen meant nothing, even if his vision tested normal.

  “Let’s cross that bridge when we come to it.” Armin stole a kiss of his own, then another. It would be so easy to lose track of time and simply stay here all day and all night, kissing Mo. But he couldn’t. He made himself pull back. “Well. I should get back to the lab. I have a few odds and ends I'd like to wrap up before I call it a night.”

  “Okay.” Mo took both Armin’s hands in his and squeezed. His dark eyes peered deep into Armin’s. “My place or yours tonight? Because I can’t not have you.”