by Nick Cutter
Clayton folded his hands complacently, smiling at them both. Smiles always sat badly on his face: too often he appeared to be snarling. Luke thought his brother looked haggard. Exhaustion was etched into the flesh around his eye sockets.
Something’s happened to everyone down here. And it’s still happening.
But what? It refused to be pinpointed, no more than a dark speck in Luke’s brain, growing steadily and gathering weight.
“Why are you here again, anyway?” Clayton asked Luke icily. “Why you, precisely? I mean, of all people.”
“Like I said, they called me. The government. They thought you might . . .”
. . . Lucas come home we need you come home . . .
“. . . need me here. Need something from me.”
“I can tell you that you’re not needed here,” Clayton said simply.
A sheet of anger draped over Luke as he was ripped back through time, a younger brother knocking on the door of his big brother’s basement lab. He was holding a small gift—a glass of chocolate milk—and in return only hoped for a glimpse of Clayton’s sorcery or, far better, an invitation to help out. But inevitably the door would open a crack, his offering hurriedly snatched away and the door slammed shut in his face.
You’re not needed.
Luke was furious that his brother would still treat him so shabbily. That fury crystallized into anger at himself—why did Clayton’s predictable scorn still wound him? He wasn’t here for his rat-shit brother. He was here for the people up in the real world, the ones who had human feelings and needed the help Clayton might be able to provide.
“You don’t know what you need anymore, Clay,” Luke said. “You ever consider that—that you might be in over your head? Oh, no, not the legendary Clayton Nelson. Not Cute Clay, onetime pinup boy of bubblegum magazines from coast to coast—”
Luke swooned. The lab tilted under his feet, the lights streaking across his vision.
“You’re dead on your feet, Luke,” Al told him. “You need to get some sleep.”
When had Luke last slept? An eternity ago. He’d powered through on fear and adrenaline. But now the fatigue hit him like a hammer blow. The Nelson Brothers’ Death Match—the same battle they’d been engaged in off and on for their entire lives—could wait.
“Yeah. Maybe just an hour or two,” he said. “Recharge the batteries.”
Al took his hand—her grip was strong and calming. “I’ll take you somewhere you can rest.”
Luke grabbed his bag. Clayton watched in stony silence as Al led Luke down the tunnel marked Access 2. LB padded behind Luke, her head darting side to side alertly.
“How are you feeling?” Luke asked Alice. They’d been inside the station only a few hours, but oh God it felt much longer.
“I’ll manage.” But Luke could hear the fatigue in her voice.
Flee, Luke thought. Jet. Blow this Popsicle stand. Use your feet to beat the street . . .
Don’t be a worm, Lucas, his mother spoke up. You could as soon outrun your own skin. What are you, scared? A little fraidy-cat?
They came to a hatch that opened into a cramped bunk room. A cot, a stack of journals, a heap of dirty clothes. LB sniffed around the cot, chuffed dubiously, and curled up on the floor.
“It was Dr. Westlake’s,” Alice said. “Will it do?”
Luke thought: Whyever not? The last body to lie on this cot now lies in a vault.
“Yes,” he said, tamping down his revulsion. “Thank you.”
“Sleep. Then we’ll put our heads together and figure things out.”
Luke stowed his bag and sat on the bunk. LB leapt up, prodding Luke with her snout and eventually settling over his thighs. He shooed her off; she went reluctantly, her eyes shining wetly up at him.
The floor under the bunk was scattered with Westlake’s research. A laptop lay atop one pile. The silver casing was sticky with dark matter. He scraped at it with his fingernail; it peeled away in a long ebony curl. It reminded him of the half-set coating on a toffee apple, so sticky it could rip the fillings out of molars.
He sniffed it. Ugh. A sweet decay, like the pool of mystery juice at the bottom of an amusement park trash bin.
Clayton’s voice drifted through his mind: Westlake was working with certain toxic compounds . . .
Luke opened Westlake’s laptop. Files were clustered at the bottommost left-hand corner of the desktop. Luke used the trackpad to spread them out.
Three audio files. Contact 1, Contact 2, Contact 3.
Curiosity overruled exhaustion. He clicked on the first file.
13.
THE BUZZING.
That was the first thing he heard. Low and ragged, the burr of a malfunctioning servo motor—hundreds of them on the fritz at once.
Next: a voice, close to the microphone.
“Test one. Wednesday, the thirteenth of August, 5:13 p.m.”
Westlake’s voice. Keening, slightly nasal. The voice of a dead man.
“I noticed it just last night. Last night? I think so, yes, yes—time has a way of slipping through one’s fingers down here. In the wall . . . eating through it, you might say. Behind a box of equipment. This was why I missed it at first.”
The buzz settled. Westlake breathed heavily into the microphone.
“A . . . hole. This is the best means of description, though that does not adequately describe the phenomenon. A hole, after all, is a . . . an emptiness, yes? This, on the other hand . . . the phenomenon is roughly two inches in diameter. I’d measure to get its exact size but it may be unwise to draw too near. It exudes a certain disturbance.”
A hole? Luke thought. In the station? Couldn’t be. Insanity.
“Its surface is black, shimmery. I cannot discern whether it is simply lying atop the wall, or whether an exterior influence—something outside the station, in the water—has managed to eat its way through. Either way, it appears to be growing incrementally. Amazingly, it has not breached the structural integrity of the Trieste. I wouldn’t be here to transcribe this if so.”
Ambient noises: clickings, snappings.
“The bees do not seem troubled by it. In fact, they display great interest. They cluster at the edge of their containment unit facing the phenomenon, occasionally bashing their bodies against the glass. The other specimens, my lizards, display the opposite reaction: they huddle as far away from it as possible.
“I covered it with several long strips of duct tape. I have not alerted Drs. Nelson or Toy. They are occupied with their own labors and . . . this will sound foolish, and doubtlessly unprofessional, but I don’t want them interfering. Clayton most especially—if he knew about this, he would swing his hammer of divine authority.” Westlake’s voice changed. It became flinty, obsessive. “This? This is . . . mine. My discovery.”
A gulf of silence punctuated by Westlake’s breathing. Then:
“Hah, listen to me! A covetous schoolboy hoarding my packet of candy! Good God, if the ethics committee could see me now! I imagine they would . . .”
Westlake’s voice trailed off. His breathing grew heavier.
“Can you hear that? Is the microphone picking it up?”
Luke strained his ears. Nothing but that buzz and Westlake’s ragged breaths.
“Sounds emanating from the phenomenon. I hear them . . . feel them. There’s a prickling sensation over my skin. How very bizarre.”
Silence.
“Can you hear them? Can you?”
Click.
The file ended abruptly.
Dreamily, his blood racing, Luke opened the next one.
“Test two.”
The buzz again. Quite a bit louder now.
“The hole has doubled in size. Ceaselessly, the phenomenon chews into the wall. The bees—surely you can hear them?—they are compelled by it. I let one out yesterday and it flew straight toward the hole. But it banked sharply away and settled on the wall a foot above. It made a few creeping attempts to approach the phenomenon, its antennae fl
icking, but never drummed up the gumption. When it settled back on the lab equipment, I cupped it in my palms in order to return it to its hive-mates.
“The little brute stung me! These are the most docile creatures I’ve ever dealt with. They were so tame I could almost sing them to sleep. Never once have I been stung without cause. I . . . I killed it. Ground it to paste between my palms. I was in a rare rage.”
The buzz rose and fell rhythmically.
“The other specimens have expired. Every lizard, dead. They made it down here without issue, adjusting well to their new habitat. Then yesterday I awoke—I’ve been sleeping in the lab the last few nights—to discover them all unmoving. Their bodies stiff, strangely white. It was as if they’d been injected with liquefied chalk. I’ve never seen anything like this. I wondered for a moment: could they have died of fright? Surely they cannot feel emotions. The bees, however, are thriving. Their numbers seem to be increasing.”
Luke could hear Westlake fumbling around. A sharp click! Suddenly his voice was amplified, the sound of it much richer.
“I’ve hooked up a microphone. Hello? Hello? Good. It runs on a long cord. I’ll attempt to feed the mic into—through—the hole. This sounds absurd. How could I push a microphone through a hole eaten into the wall of an undersea station? Were I even able to do so, where would it go? That I am unable to answer as yet.”
A series of staticky raps. The mic scratching against the weave of Westlake’s clothes, Luke figured.
“I’ve hooked the microphone to a metal rod. I’ll feed it through the hole from a safe distance. In all objectivity, the hole . . . alarms me. It exerts a pull. Not on one’s body so much as the mind. I can only compare it to the sensation of some kind of, of claw I suppose, sunk into the tissues of the brain.”
More noises as the microphone, clipped to the metal rod, bumped along the laboratory floor.
“Careful now . . . careful.”
A series of harsh baps! as the mic bumped up the wall. Luke could discern the exact moment it slipped through the hole: the resonance became watery, as if the mic had slid into a deep pool. But Westlake’s voice remained clear.
“It’s in! I’ve run a secondary audio channel to record my own commentary. Both my voice and whatever the microphone picks up should be clear.”
For a very long while, nothing. Only the liquid shifting as the microphone drifted in whatever lay beyond the hole.
Then: a powerful knock. Distant, yet resonant.
“Hello?”
Westlake made a noise of his own: a chiding tsk, as if sickened at himself for thinking someone—something—might answer him.
The noise came again. That faraway knock. And again. An even, careful cadence. There was something knowing in it. Luke couldn’t say why he felt that, yet he did.
He broke out in a sweat. The clammy kind he associated with onrushing sickness—the maiden signs of the flu.
The knock. Watery but insistent. Again. Again.
“Is someone there?”
Knock.
“Who is it?”
Luke almost laughed at the inanity of Westlake’s question—but the fearful quail of the man’s voice stilled that impulse.
The silence ran thick as a current. Then: knock.
“All right. Let’s try this. When I ask a question now, you may answer by knocking. One knock for yes, two knocks for no. Will that be acceptable?”
Knock.
“You understand?”
Knock.
“Well. Good. Very good.”
The excitement in Westlake’s voice was palpable.
“Are you extraterrestrial?”
Knock . . . knock.
“So you are of this planet?”
Knock . . . knock.
“Are you friendly?”
No reply.
“Do you know what that means? Friendly?”
Knock.
“How many of you are there? Knock once for only one. Knock twice for more than one.”
Knock . . . knock.
“Do you come in peace?”
No reply.
“Do you come to share information with us? To help?”
Knock.
“Do you know what is happening to us? Of the disease we’ve come down in search of a cure for?”
Knock.
“Can you help us?”
A gulf of silence.
“Do you know what that is—the substance we’re here to study?”
Again, silence. The feathery sound of water swirling around the microphone.
When next he spoke, Westlake’s voice was tight.
“Do you wish us no harm?”
Sounds from the liquid. Rustling and shucking.
Knock . . . knock.
What the hell does that mean? Luke asked himself. No, we wish you no harm? Or no, we do wish you harm?
“I’ll ask again,” came Westlake’s voice, “can you help us? We are . . . we may be dying. Our species. Do you understand? Can you—”
A gnashing grind. The squeal of feedback.
“Jesus Chr—!”
Click.
Fear crawled over the dome of Luke’s skull. He was filled with a sense that he was hovering on the cusp of something as terrible as he’d ever known—new knowledge, facts he could live a thousand lifetimes without knowing. He could feel it pulsing against his skull, tapping at the plates of bone with an icy fingertip. He ached with the desire to hurl the laptop at the wall and smash it to pieces. But there was no way he could allow himself to do that.
Heart thudding, he opened the third and final file.
“Test number . . . immaterial. The day is . . . immaterial. Time, also immaterial.”
The buzz was incredibly loud now. Westlake’s voice drifted hazily, sounding somehow untethered from his body.
“The phenomenon ate the microphone. Ate? Is there a better word than that? Something certainly yanked it through the hole. So yes, ate. It happened so fast. I was lucky to salvage the laptop.”
A sucking sound, very close. A rapid suck-uck-uck. A wet pop.
Was Westlake . . . was he sucking his thumb? Like an infant?
“There has been no further contact. Not in the prior-established manner, I should say. But the hole has grown. A great deal, I must say. The bees are now constantly agitated.
“And I . . . I hear things. Sometimes it’s things being ripped. Other times they’re noises like nothing I’ve ever heard. The buzzing of flies—this sounds quite different from the drone of the bees, somehow lower, and not only in register: it is the hum of a baser order of life. Of stupid, witless, shit-colonizing flies. Occasionally, there is also the hammer and clash of machinery. How the hell is that possible? And . . . and laughter? Yes, I do believe I heard that, too. A child’s laughter. If it were not absurd to say so, I’d tell you it was that of my own daughter, Hannah.”
Westlake loosed a tortured laugh of his own.
“This is madness, of course. It’s difficult to hear anything above the drone of the bees. I haven’t stepped outside the lab in some time. Nelson and Toy would only interfere. They wouldn’t understand. Their minds are too dense, too literal.”
Westlake’s voice turned brittle. Luke could imagine him hunched in his lab, his body grown gnomish, his posture covetous as he hoarded his dark secret.
“And I . . . I don’t want them to have it. This is all mine.”
More sucking. Luke pictured Westlake’s thumb, pink from the suction.
“I have to say this. Not long ago, when I was staring at the hole—it commands my attention, I’ll tell you that—it changed. Went opaque, is perhaps the word. Like watery milk. Behind it, or through it, I saw shapes. Indistinct but wonderful. Like dark wings fluttering. An enormous space filled with this antic fluttering.”
The tone of Westlake’s voice was off-putting—there was an uncomfortable echo of Alice’s voice in it, the way she’d sounded after she’d been caught staring at Westlake’s hatch.
“W
hatever this is that I’ve discovered . . . it, they, can be communicated with, I am sure of it. Reasoned with. They are here to help. I sense no hatred. Only curiosity.”
Curiosity. The word stuck in Luke’s brain like a quill. Somehow it seemed even more frightening than pure hatred.
“This is my final recording. I will continue to chart my progress in my journals. I am confident that what lies on the other side is beneficial. Are they the bringers of the ambrosia? If so, perhaps they will tell us how to harness its awesome power. I believe in this possibility, and I will endeavor to make it so.”
Click.
14.
LUKE’S ARMS WERE TENSED hard as marble; a concerted effort was needed to force his muscles to relax.
He had to consider the possibility that none of this had happened. That Westlake had caught a malignant case of the sea-sillies—that, or a particularly baffling indicator of the ’Gets. These files were no more than a manifestation of his creeping insanity—he’d imagined the whole goddamn thing. He’d isolated himself in his lab the same way a dying bear will crawl into the shadows of its cave; in his own sickness and delusion, Westlake had played make-believe, slave to the apparitions in his head.
What had Luke heard, really? The buzz of bees. Some scraping and scratching. A few knocks—knocks Westlake could have made himself, playing a game of call-and-answer with himself. What about the watery echo? Luke figured immersing the microphone in a glass of water would have the same effect.
Disconcerted, Luke lay down. He was so damn tired. His body was physically shutting down, a power grid starved of electricity. He’d rest briefly, and upon waking, he’d take Westlake’s laptop to Al and Clayton. They could listen to the files and decide what to make of them.
He shut his eyes and tried to conjure Abby’s face. Instead, a different scene: Abby and Luke in the bedroom of their shoebox apartment, back when they were graduate students. The heat lay thick inside the walls; that late-summer warmth did something to Abby. Set her afire. She’d sat on the bed with that beguiling smile. She pulled his sweats down, then his Fruit of the Looms with one finger, leaving them strung clumsily around his knees.