by G R Matthews
My clothes, I rolled up and shoved in the locker. In only my skin tight undergarment, I padded into the airlock and began to dress. The same ritual as always, the same order. I wasn’t dead yet so I knew they worked. If they didn’t I would be dead and at that point I’d have some stiff words to say to my corpse and whoever, or whatever, I met on the other side.
The helmet snapped into place, the system booted up and I connected the tubes. A command issued and I felt the change, the air being forced out, down one tube, and the Oxyquid entering via another, climbing up my legs. On a bright note, I couldn’t see any leaks.
“I still hate this bit,” I muttered.
Chapter 13
“Good day’s work,” Elena said, over the evening meal.
“I’ve never seen a Fish-Suit used before,” Jordon said, his mouth full of some green leaves. A seaweed salad maybe. Youngsters always seemed to watch their diet more than us older folks. We knew our body would betray us and begin to build fat no matter what we did, so why bother? I kept it down to a minimum, but my metabolism wasn’t what it used to be. “What’s it like?”
Rake turned his head to Jordon. “Drowning.”
“You’ve used one?” I asked him.
“Yeah, I started the course during my service. I could never get past breathing in the stuff.” He shook his head and stabbed his fork into the slab of reformed fish he was eating.
“Takes a bit of getting used to,” I said. “It’s not for everyone.”
“Is it really like drowning?” Jordon asked.
“I suppose it is.” Of course it bloody is you little sod, I thought. “Only difference is you know, at least you hope, when you do it the first few times that you are not going to. The Oxyquid will keep you alive.”
“What was it like? The first time, for you I mean.” Jordon was staring wide-eyed at me.
“Fucking awful,” I replied. Rake snorted.
“If it is so bad, why do it?” The boy asked.
“I don’t like being beaten by things and once you do it a few times you kinda get used to it. I mean, it’s still bloody scary and you still gag and panic, but it’s known and controllable.” I took a bite of my meal and chewed thoughtfully. Why did I still do it? “And it is still a reasonably rare skill that is in demand. Like today, I can go places your subs can’t and work on things that robotic arms just are not capable of doing.”
“You didn’t do much today,” Rake said.
“Nothing wrong with the supports on the north. But then, we knew that. The reports I read on the way in say the problem seemed to be confined to the southern ones. All we did today was confirm those reports,” I said without any anger. It was nice to be part of a crew again, even on the outside. I could cope with a bit of bad temper and bluster easily enough.
“So,” Elena began, “tomorrow you’ll go down and scan the southern struts and we’ll all hang in the water column waiting for you again?”
“Don’t forget helping me to move from support to support.” I gave her a smile and followed it up with a compliment. “Your subs are faster than my suit so the lifts are very welcome. I couldn’t get it done without you.”
We ate in silence for a moment, chewing the over cooked fish and washing it down with water. This was a dry base, no alcohol anywhere except, maybe, in the medical bay. If things got desperate, I might be tempted by a midnight raid.
“Tell me about Keller,” I said. “Has he been here since the start?”
I saw Jordon take a deep breath, ready to launch into a story. Rake shook his head and the air whistled out of the boy’s mouth without any accompanying words. I looked between the two of them. Elena just kept her head down and carried on eating.
“What’s the story?” I directed the question at Rake.
Rake stared back at me. “No story.”
“Tell him,” Elena said without looking up.
Jordon took another preparatory breath but Rake cut him off. “Keller wasn’t here at the start of the build. He’s only been with us a month or two. Hollins was our first foreman. He oversaw much of the build. Team was bigger then, as you’d expect. Anyway, the build went smoothly and most of the others moved on to the next job. We stayed behind, taken on to maintain the base and do... other jobs... they needed doing.”
I heard the pause in the middle of that last sentence, but I didn’t want to push that just yet. “What happened?”
“About a two months ago there was an incident on the base. The company investigated and though nothing was ever proved a lot of the suspicion fell on Hollins. It got so much that he couldn’t take the looks and rumours anymore. He put in for a transfer and it was done in double-quick time. Couple of days after he left we heard there had been accident and his sub had gone down. Everyone was killed.”
Elena speared another piece of fish with her fork, but she didn’t raise it to her mouth. Jordon sat back in his seat and left his food alone. Rake didn’t spare them a glance as he continued.
“A lot of folks thought he got what he deserved, but we don’t reckon he did anything at all. Then Keller turned up and took over. The company didn’t trust one of us to step up. We think it’s because we defended Hollins.”
“Life’s a bitch sometimes,” I said into the silence. “Keller all right then?”
“He hasn’t done much to settle in yet. Keeps himself to himself a lot.”
“Nothing wrong with that.” A small pang of guilt ran through me along with a bigger dose of empathy. Then I remembered the image of Keller fiddling with my suit this morning. “A good boss?”
“He knows his stuff,” Rake admitted.
“What had, if you don’t mind telling me, Hollins been accused of?” It had to be more than a simple theft or a fight. Construction crews were generally a tough bunch. A little dishonesty, a degree of freedom with other people’s money and the odd punch up were expected. They were usually dealt with by the crew themselves, their own little police force.
Rake sat back in his chair and cast looks around the mess hall. All the tables around us were empty. Everyone else, and there were not many in, sat at least three tables away. It was like a buffer zone or maybe, more likely, an exclusion zone.
“Hollins was friendly with one of the science techs. She was a pretty little thing and seemed as taken with him as he was with her.” I could have stopped him there. I could guess where this was going. Some men push things too far, too fast and some don’t like the word “no”. I didn’t stop him. “Well, one morning, she turned up for work in a complete state. Black eyes, cut lips and bruises on her arms. She claimed she’d been raped.”
“By Hollins?”
“Yeah.”
“Did he?”
There was a flash of anger in Rake’s eyes and I could sense the other two pull back a little.
“No, he didn’t,” and the anger drained out of his eyes as quickly as it had risen. “He was besotted with her. He was talking about getting married and having kids. Listen to me, we’ve been around the block a few times and I am telling you, he wasn’t that kind of man.”
“You can never tell. It takes all sorts.” I raised my hand in an apology as I spoke.
“Yeah, it does. But I’ll guarantee he wasn’t one of them.”
There wasn’t anything I could add to that so I sat in silence alongside the rest of them. I wanted to ask them more about Keller. I needed to know why he was fiddling with my suit. Now wasn’t the best time. I could tell that from the story and their faces, but I wasn’t going to have another chance.
“How conscientious is Keller?” I said. “I mean, does he check everyone’s equipment before you go out?”
It was Elena who responded. “He’s the foreman. Safety is his look out.”
“I saw him, this morning, fiddling with my Fish-Suit,” I said. It was as close to an accusation as I was willing to go right now.
“Just checking it, probably,” Jordon said. “Make sure it’s safe.”
Rake shook his head.
“You don’t touch another man’s suit. Just ain’t done, Jordon.”
I nodded and then turned to the boy. “Your subs are big things. Takes a lot of specialists and mechanics to keep them running. Fixing, checking, fuelling, all that kind of stuff. There are all sorts of computers running checks before you even launch. Fish-Suit isn’t that way.”
“Why?”
“Being in that suit means you are pretty much on your own. When I was being trained, the first things I had to know how to do was fix it. From the boots to the helmet, there is nothing that, given access to the spare parts, I can’t fix. Each suit develops over time to fit the user. Actually, it’s probably the other way round. We modify them, bit by bit, to our own specs. There is not a ton of difference, but the way the suit is set up, the UI, the command patterns are as indicative as DNA.”
“But you could have someone check it for you. Kind of a double-check,” he said.
“I could, but I would then check afterwards. Just to be sure. The training teaches you to rely on yourself. It was important.” It was. I can remember it being drummed into me time and time again by the instructors.
I thought he had finished because there was a long pause before he asked the question.
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why did you have to rely on yourselves? This morning we ferried you around and if something had gone wrong we would have had you on board or back in the city in a flash.” Jordon had an innocent look on his face as he spoke and it took me a moment to realise that he was young enough to have never known about the wars. I was old enough, just. My training had been completed in the waning years of the conflict when there wasn’t really much actual fighting. The company politicians were involved by then. Arguing about borders, resources and reparations. However, it was Rake who answered for me.
“Lad, the Fish-Suit was one of the Special Forces during the Corp Wars. They don’t give off much electromagnetic radiation and they are quiet to move about in, if the user chooses. They were the sabotage units. Not much use in a fight, but they’d go in and wreck the enemies capability before the battle even started. More civilians died to them than were collateral damage in any battle,” he said. “There was a time when they weren’t liked by any side.”
“Made it hard to get work when I left the service,” I agreed with him. “But more and more the Corporations got to see the usefulness of the suits for construction and maintenance of the cities. They are really quite simple devices.”
“You think Keller might have done something to your suit?” Jordon asked without guile. The joy of youth.
“I don’t think he did anything,” I said even though I didn’t believe my own words. “I just get worried when folks play with my suit. It breaks the rules and makes me nervous.”
“What makes you nervous?” Keller’s voice sounded behind me.
Chapter 14
The weight of the others’ gazes fell on me. It was clear that I was going to get no help from any of them.
“Excuse me?” I said, which bought me a few more seconds of thinking time.
“I asked, what was making you nervous?” Keller said. There was a tone in his voice that hinted he had either heard everything, unlikely as no one else at the table had given a hint that he was there, or he didn’t like me. The latter was probably true, but there was an itch, born of long experience, that suggested I had been set up.
“I have to go check my sub for tomorrow.” Rake stood up and nodded to everyone, edging out of his seat.
“Me too¸” Jordon said in a hurry.
I half-turned to get my first look at Keller’s face. He raised a hand to stop the two men.
“No need,” he said. “It’s just me and Hayes tomorrow. All we’ve been doing is ferrying him about and I can do that easily enough. You three have the day off.”
“Thanks, Boss.” Jordon said.
“Yeah,” Keller said. Rake nodded and left, Jordon followed him, but Elena hadn’t moved from her seat. She was staring down at the last of food on her plate. “You all right, Elena?”
“Yes, no problem. Just deciding what to do with my day off,” Elena said. I was hoping she was going to stay for the rest of conversation, but after a moment she shook her head, stood up and carried her plate to the counter. With a look over her shoulder, she waved goodnight. Just my luck, another night on my own.
“And now it’s just the two of us,” I said.
“So it seems. Now, are you going to tell me what’s making you nervous?” Keller sat in Rake’s abandoned chair directly across from me.
I had to spend all day with this man tomorrow. Through the ear buds I would be able to hear everything he said. Any response I gave would have to be typed or chosen from the UI. The day would go much smoother if we didn’t have an argument right now. A subtle lie, a half-truth, an expedient made-up story would be the best thing. I was sure of it.
“Why were you mucking about with my suit this morning?” I heard the words at the same moment Keller did. They weren’t the ones I was thinking. It was a toss up to work out who was the most surprised.
“What?” Keller looked shocked, but then I couldn’t see my own face at that moment so the coin was still spinning in the air.
“I saw you, this morning. You had the door to the suit locker open and were fucking about with it.”
“I didn’t do a damn thing,” he said.
“It’s my suit. You don’t touch it. No one does.” I could feel the anger churning in my gut.
“Let’s be clear here,” he said. “I didn’t do a thing to your suit. I know how you lot feel about them. I did my time in service too.”
“I saw you.” It was rising up my throat and I had to swallow it back down. It burned. “I came round the corner and there you were, stepping into the locker.”
“Hayes, you are out of line,” he said. “I found the door open. I was just putting things back in.”
“Bullshit.” I stood up, out of the chair and moved around to face him. He stood up too. No one likes being towered over, especially if the one doing the towering is angry and I was. “Keller, I saw everything you did. Don’t you get it? I saw you.”
“Hayes, get out of my way.” He jabbed a finger towards me to punctuate his words.
“Not until you tell me what you did.” I knew my voice was getting louder. It’s one of those things anger does to you, dulls your hearing and opens your throat. You have to shout just to hear your own words.
“I didn’t do a damn thing.” His face was red and his eyes were narrowed. “Why the hell would I want to?”
“I don’t know. Maybe you hate me.”
“Hayes, I don’t even know you.”
“Maybe you heard about me.”
“Now you’re just talking shit. Get out of the way or we are going to have a problem.”
I didn’t realise it until he said it, but I wanted to be threatened. I wanted it to be up front, out in the open. A nice, simple threat. Something I could work with. The suit was fine as far as I could tell, but I didn’t like the idea that he had touched it. It was a threat I couldn’t quantify, that I couldn’t deal with because I couldn’t see it, but the spoken word, the promise of “a problem”, now that was something I could deal with. It released the anger I had been trying choke down.
A circling right hook, full of justified rage and anger, aimed at his smug, lying jaw. I hadn’t planned it. My feet weren’t set, my hips weren’t twisting into it, my weight wasn’t fully behind the blow. I missed.
Keller swayed backwards, just a little, and my fist sailed right past, carrying me with it. I felt his hand push on my right shoulder blade as I spun past. The force of the shove sent me stumbling into the table and chairs.
It was not a graceful descent to the floor. The chairs tangled my legs, the table caught me low in the hips and over I went. I bounced, tumbled, twisted, and ended up half-beneath the table and chairs. My legs were sticking up and I was lying at an angle, face
towards the floor. I scrabbled with hands and feet to get myself upright. My ribs hurt.
Realising I was facing the wrong direction, I turned sharply to face Keller. My hands raised and ready to try again. He wasn’t there. I ducked and slid to the right expecting to get hit in the back or caught up in a bear-hug. Neither happened.
“As much fun as it is watching you fight shadows, we have a job to do tomorrow. If you have a problem with that, go and see the base commander. Take it up with him. But for the last time, I didn’t do anything to your suit. I found the door open and I just put it all back in,” he said from the mess hall doorway. “I’ll either see you outside at eight am or in the base commander’s office later. Your choice.”
He left. Just like that. No anger in his voice, but with a choice planted in my mind. A few seconds later two large men, dressed in military fatigues and with weapons drawn, raced into the mess hall.
“What happened?” the one of the right said.
“We had a report of a disturbance,” said the other.
“Nothing happened,” I replied. The table was out of alignment and the chairs were tipped over on the floor. I saw their gaze take that in. “I tripped.”
Chapter 15
The outer door opened and I walked out into the deep ocean. I sank straight away. A little thrust from the motors controlled the descent. I kept one hand on the side of the little city as I dropped, just enough to guide my path without using more of the motors.
There were no lights. You wouldn’t light up a Silent City for all to see. Light would attract all manner of beasts from the deep as well as the attention of any passing traveller. I brought up the UI and selected the view I needed. A false colour image of the city supports, struts and sea floor flickered into view, superimposed over the dark ocean. The city and seafloor maps had been combined into a three dimensional image that the suit computer could continually update as it monitored my position. It wasn’t perfect, but for getting from place to place underneath and around the city it was ideal. Once I got close to the work site I’d switch my lights on.