by Ally Blue
Mo didn’t think it would, really. But as long as he had Armin with him, he couldn’t help hoping. He smiled his thanks, and wove his fingers through Armin’s.
The sub’s general com squealed, making everyone jump. “Doctor Youssouf? This is Ngalo. Please come in.”
Youssouf’s gaze turned steely. “This is Youssouf. What’s happened to Captain Escalano?”
A heavy sigh on the other end made the com crackle with static. “I’m sorry, Doctor, but she died about an hour ago.”
Shock rippled through the cramped space. Mo glanced at Armin. He was frowning hard, his forehead creased. Thinking, always thinking. Using that impressive brain to untangle all the knots in this crazy problem. It made Mo feel warm inside, never mind that this was the wrong time and place for those sorts of feelings.
Youssouf shook her head, her movements sharp, angry. “No. I talked to a security guard just about that time. Jankow, his name was. He said she was sleeping.” She didn’t even try to hide her suspicion. Ngalo must’ve heard it in her voice.
“She was, then, as far as he knew. Now, she’s dead. She began showing symptoms and deteriorated so quickly there was absolutely nothing we could do.” She paused. It seemed intended to convey frustration. Only it didn’t. Mo listened harder, curious. “I know it’s very strange. But this contagion has escalated alarmingly fast here. I believe we have it under control now, but it’s been difficult, and we’ve lost a lot of people.” Another pause. It felt almost, but not quite, sincerely grief-stricken. Fascinated, Mo removed his arm from Armin’s shoulders to lean forward with his elbows on his knees. “I’m going to activate the guide lights for you. They’ll lead you from the sub bay to the med bay, since I have no one available to escort you. I’m very sorry about that, by the way. I’m sure the captain would’ve done things differently. But most of our personnel are either dead or ill, and those of us who are left are making do as best we can.”
To Mo’s relief, Youssouf’s expression didn’t soften one bit. It didn't come through when she spoke, though. “I’m sure you are, Doctor. Guide lights would be much appreciated. My crew and I will be at the med bay as soon as we can.” She cut a thoughtful glance at the men and women huddled together with shoulders hunched and eyes downcast, some still with towels over their heads and others having thrown them aside. “In the meantime, is there anywhere I can safely isolate about a dozen people?”
She didn’t explain any further, and Ngalo didn’t ask. Which only made Mo more suspicious. “Of course. Our engineer’s lounge should do for now. I’ll put on red guide lights for your isolation patients and whoever you send with them, to lead them there. The lights to the med bay will be white.” Another pause. This time, Mo swore it felt triumphant. “I’ll give you green lights as well, to lead the rest of your personnel to the nearest crew quarters area. They can bed down and get some rest, if they like.”
“That’s fine. Thanks. We’ll see you shortly. Youssouf out.” She cut the connection and faced the crowd of terrified people, all of them murmuring among themselves. “Shut up and listen. None of you are leaving this sub. You got that?”
Everyone here had worked under Youssouf long enough to know better than to question her when she spoke in that iron tone. But these weren’t ordinary circumstances, and a few—particularly among the uninfected—wanted off the sub more than they feared their boss’s anger. They called out questions—Why not? What’s going on? Who’s gonna stop us?—until Youssouf stepped forward, unholstered her weapon, and bellowed, “Enough! Next asshole who speaks is gonna get shot in the fucking knee!”
Everyone went quiet so fast Mo’s ears rang. He did his best not to smile. A lot of people wouldn’t be able to get away with that. Youssouf did because her people knew she meant it.
She swept her glare around the space like a spotlight. “All right. If you idiots are done with your bitching, I’ll explain the plan to you.”
No one spoke. Mo glanced over his shoulder at Armin, who stared back as if looking through him.
Worried, Mo leaned back and touched his thigh. “Hey. You okay?”
Armin started. His eyes focused, and his lips curved into a distracted half smile. “Yes, fine. What—”
Youssouf cut him off. “I’m leading a small squad to the med bay. Jem, Ling, and Mo, you’re with me. Armed, safeties off, eyes and ears open. You see someone changed, you shoot. Got it?” She didn’t wait for any of them to answer, but pointed to Rashmi. “You’re in charge of security here until we get back. Mandala’s executive officer until then. You’ll answer to her. Understand?”
Rashmi nodded. “Roger that.”
“Good man.” Youssouf looked around. “Understand this, people. I want every single one of you alive and well. That’s why I want you here. I don’t know what’s happening on this ship. Maybe exactly what Dr. Ngalo said. Maybe not. If not, I want to be ready to run if we have to.”
Youssouf stepped close to Mandala to speak low and urgently in her ear. Jem strolled over and handed Mo a Triton semiautomatic. “Your weapon, soldier.”
“Thanks, Big Mama.” He gave it a quick once-over. It was nice, one of the newer models. Life was looking up.
Until Armin peered at him with troubled eyes and downturned mouth, put his arms around him, and rested their foreheads together. “You’re infected. You should be staying here with us.” He didn’t say with me out loud, but Mo heard it in his angry, wounded tone. “Why is she making you go?”
“Because I’ll kill people if I have to. I won’t hesitate. She needs that right now.” Youssouf hadn’t said, of course, but Mo knew. She didn’t hire people without a full background check. “Don’t worry. I’ll be back. We all will.”
The furrow that dug between Armin’s eyes scolded Mo for promising things he might not be able to deliver. But Armin only nodded and squeezed Mo’s hand, because he was human, and humans—weak, sentimental creatures that they were—needed something to hang on to. Even if it was a lie.
Though Mo fully intended to make good on his word.
He cupped Armin’s face in his free hand and kissed him. “See you soon, Doc.”
“Soon.” Armin dropped his arms and rose to his feet. “Be careful.”
“Always.” With one last, lingering look at Armin, Mo pointed his weapon at the ceiling and joined Youssouf beside the sub’s exit. “I’m ready when you are, boss.”
“All right, then. Let’s move out.” Youssouf drew her weapon. “Follow the white lights, boys and girls.”
Jem took point without being asked. She opened the hatch, swept her gaze and her gun both in a wide arch around the sub bay, and barked, “Clear.” She moved into the bay and jogged toward the corridor lined with tiny white lights along the floor.
The rest of the group followed, with Ling bringing up the rear.
Mo cast a backward glance as he crossed the bay. Armin was watching him, dark eyes focused somewhere in another universe. Then Rashmi shut the door, putting a slab of thick gray metal between Mo and the man who’d become uncomfortably important to him.
It felt like the worst sort of metaphor.
Ignoring the unfocused dread prodding at the back of his brain, Mo turned his attention to the job at hand.
No sooner had the hatch shut behind Mo and the rest of the group than Ashlyn’s voice crept into Armin’s head like a thief. He’s gone, Doctor. Gone. He’s not coming back. He’s going to die. They’re going to rip his organs from him and feast on them. They’re going to take his eyes, those beautiful eyes, and eat them, suck out the juice like grapes.
Armin squashed the mental images that sprung up in spite of his best efforts not to listen. It wasn’t Ashlyn whispering to him anyway. Couldn’t possibly be Ashlyn, never mind how the voice sounded in his mind. She’d always been standoffish, but she’d never been cruel.
Between his ears, the thing pretending to be Dr. Ashlyn Timms laughed at him. You’ve no idea what plans we have, my friend. Such great plans. We will change this little world
of yours.
A vision of vast black seas exploded behind Armin’s eyes—oceans spanning entire worlds, deep and crushing, cold as space. In that endless void swam things whose shape and substance defied description, whose thoughts cut like razor wire and left his psyche slashed and bleeding.
The vision vanished in the space of a heartbeat, but it took no longer than that to imprint on Armin’s soul. He sat there shaking inside, stunned to the marrow. Was this what they were faced with?
Yes, my friend. Our universe is so much richer than this one. So much wider, and darker. When you are one of us, you will see.
If it weren’t for the events of the past ten days, he’d have believed himself delusional. As it was, he feared something far worse. Was this the beginning of the change? Would the world look different to him when his eyes began to glow? Would he develop a taste for blood and death when his teeth became wicked spikes?
Would the desire to learn all the secrets the voice in his head promised—the desire he kept shoving aside, because it felt so wrong—finally overcome his fear?
He rubbed his arms. God, he was cold. Funny, how BathyTech 3 had never seemed as dank and chilly as this ridiculous submersible did even though the sub currently sat on the ocean’s surface, during the middle of spring, not far from the equator.
“Armin? Armin. Are you all right?”
It took him a moment to realize this voice was Mandala, speaking to him in the more conventional manner, in the here and now. He forced a smile. “Yes, I’m fine. Just thinking.”
“Hm. If you say so.” She took the seat beside him. “I don’t like one bit of this. I wish we were well on our way to land. But we must take care of things here first. Otherwise it’s all useless, really.”
“Yes. I suppose it is.” Armin imagined the mermaid contagion spreading beyond the Peregrine, to the South American mainland and beyond. Millions could die.
Unless it evolved. Unless it found a way to produce mermaids who could live out of the water.
In that scenario, Armin foresaw the end of everything.
We will change this little world of yours.
He lowered his voice to a whisper. “I’m hearing things, Mandala. I hear Ashlyn in my head.”
Mandala, consummate scientist that she was, studied him with a keen eye and a neutral expression. “Is that your only symptom?”
Who do you think we are, Doctor?
Because he had the feeling the two voices weren’t actually different, he answered, “So far, yes.”
“And what has she said?”
He raised an eyebrow at his colleague and friend. “She didn’t say anything. It must be my imagination.”
“I suppose.” Her eyes had a thoughtful shine.
“You suppose?”
She sighed. “Armin. When you hear the voice you identify as Ashlyn, what does that voice say?”
He leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling. “That we’re foolish to believe we’re going to get out of this alive. That the mermaids have great plans for the world. That . . .” He breathed in. Out. He sounded weak and shaky, and he hated it. “That they are going to kill Mo and feast on his organs.”
Silence fell. Around them, their fellow submersible prisoners talked in low, fearful voices. To Armin, they sounded like the damned praying for redemption from a false god.
He’d begun to believe she wasn’t going to answer by the time she spoke up. “I’m no psychiatrist. But to me, this doesn’t sound as if you’re changing. It sounds like someone who’s been through a great deal and is suffering a severe stress reaction, in which your subconscious is reciting your worst fears.”
Armin smiled. “I’m not sure I believe that. But I choose to accept it because I like it much better than the alternative.”
“Good.” Mandala cut him a sly sidelong grin. “Believe everything I say. I’m smarter than you.”
This time, Armin laughed out loud. “That you are.” He grasped her hand. “Thank you.”
“Anytime.”
A brain like hers would taste so sweeeeeeet, breathed Ashlyn in his mind. If only she accepted. But a seed cannot grow in barren soil.
He held on to Mandala’s hand. He didn’t know what that meant. But if the mermaids thought they were getting Mandala—or Mo, or anyone else he cared about—they were wrong. He’d stop them if it was the last thing he did.
I was here, you know, the impossible Ashlyn taunted. I hid right here in this sub, after I left medical. I thought I’d be safe here. But I wasn’t. They had me anyway. They had me all along, from the moment I saw the egg.
Armin’s breath froze. The egg? God, that must be . . .
Oh yes, yes indeed. I was right, you see. The egg holds the seeds. Seeds of darkest light. They enter through the doorways of the eyes, and grow. Ashlyn sighed in his mind, a long, gurgling, horrific sound. The choice was already there. Death or change. There is no other way, once the seed takes root.
Christ. Armin clung to Mandala’s hand like a lifeline. She was right. This was nothing but his guilt talking. He blamed himself for what happened to Ashlyn, and this was the punishment his subconscious mind devised for him.
It must be. The alternative was too terrible to bear.
Ashlyn’s new voice laughed at him, a rough, vicious rasp with all the humanity hollowed out of it. Poor, deluded Armin. We’ll have you too. You’re ours already. You just haven’t accepted it yet. But you will.
A shriek from across the sub startled Ashlyn out of Armin’s head. Grateful, he blinked and focused on the commotion.
Mandala was already over there, her arm around a young man who looked one more scare away from catatonia. The woman beside him was talking fast, one hand gesturing wildly, the other holding something Armin couldn’t quite see.
He stood. Took a few steps forward. And turned away, shaking his head, when he saw the soiled gauze bandages dangling from the woman’s fingers.
It couldn’t be. It simply. Could. Not. Be.
He sat down again and stared at the wall directly ahead of him, muttering no no no no no under his breath. If he didn’t see, didn’t hear, then maybe reality would change.
Don’t fight it, Armin. Let us in. You can’t even imagine what you’ll learn once you change.
Ashlyn’s plea was gentle this time, soft and sweet as a lover’s. It made her easier to resist. Armin hardened his soul against her, against the change, and felt her anger pummel the primitive centers of his brain.
From the corner of his eye, he saw Mandala approaching him, her mouth downturned and her face troubled. Fear closed around his throat like a noose. He didn’t want to hear about the concrete proof that Ashlyn had hidden in this sub. That she’d removed her bandages at some point, then vanished all over again. If his psychosis was clairvoyant, he’d rather not know.
Before she reached him, a loud clang hit the sub’s hatch. The handle moved and started to turn.
Everyone stilled. Every voice went quiet. Not only was it too early for Youssouf and the others to be back, but they would have commed first, or at least announced their presence from the outside. In fact, only those who meant harm would try to come in without announcing themselves first.
Rashmi, stationed at the hatch, engaged the lock, then aimed his weapon at it. “Doc?”
“Don’t open it,” she said. “Not until we know it’s our people.”
Armin felt the tension level in the sub diminish a bit. Mandala had never acted as a captain, but she possessed a calm authority that tended to put people at ease.
Mandala approached the hatch, shoulders straight and head high. She hit the com link to the outside. “This is Dr. Mandala Jhut, acting captain of this submersible. Announce yourself, please. What is your name and your intention?”
Silence. No one spoke, to answer Mandala’s question or otherwise.
After several long minutes, Mandala turned away. “Well. Whoever it was, it seems as though they’ve gone. Perhaps they thought the sub was empty, and the
y’d loot it for supplies.” She shook her head. “Despicable behavior. I shall certainly report it when we reach civilization.”
The handle rattled again. Rashmi aimed his weapon. The hatch vibrated under two hard blows, then flew entirely off its hinges and landed on him. The thick metal slab flung his hands to either side, open and twitching. His gun clattered harmlessly away. Blood and worse things leaked in sluggish rivulets across the sub’s floor, staining the shoes of those too shocked to move their feet.
In the stunned quiet following Rashmi’s death, Armin looked up, into the sub’s open hatchway, to see what had come for them.
Peregrine’s passageways looked like those on BathyTech 3. The lights flickered yellow, dim and sickly, casting no shadows and illuminating nothing. The ladders weren’t any better, most of them either barely lit or pitch-dark.
Mo couldn’t think of a worse omen. Not that he believed in that sort of shit.
Youssouf stopped them a few meters short of the med bay. “Okay, people. I don’t know what’s in there, but I’m betting it’s not good. Be ready for anything. Including exactly what Dr. Ngalo said. Got it?”
Affirmatives all around. Mo drew a deep breath and smelled blood. He made sure the safety on his weapon was off.
They approached the med bay in an armed huddle. Youssouf hit the outside com. “Youssouf to Ngalo. We’re outside. Let us in.”
Nothing. Mo aimed from the hip, ready to hit the first threatening thing he saw between Youssouf and Jem. He felt better when he saw Jem doing the same thing.
Mo was ready to say fuck it, take the sub to the mainland, and appeal to the Chilean government to make the damn ship disappear when the doctor finally answered. “Ngalo here. Thank God you’re here. Please come in.”
The monitor beside the hatch went from yellow to green. Youssouf glanced behind her—surveying the troops—then swung open the hatch.
Mo caught a glimpse of shining blue-black eyes and rapier teeth before Jem’s shot caught what used to be Doctor Ngalo smack between the eyes.