Cally let out a shuddering breath. “What the hell is the point of this visor when I can’t see shit anyway?”
Another chuckle. “Hold the button on the top of your joystick.”
She did as he said, and multiple beams shot out like car headlights, illuminating his suit floating in the ocean before her, his equipment basket clamped in the jaws of one robotic arm. “Thanks, that helps. Let’s get on with this. Joystick down to descend, right?”
“Don’t rush, little rabbit. Check your neutral buoyancy first.”
“Littlewhat?”
“Uh, scratch that. Military hangover, sorry. You’re doing good. If your line is steady in the center of your HUD, we’re ready to go.” He paused, then spoke again. “Actually, you’re not just doing good, you’re doing great. First time out, and recovering from an entry like that? Impressive, Cally.”
It sounded half true and half necessary encouragement, but she chose to take it at face value. “Is that you saying we’re up to twelve percent survival chance?”
“Hell, maybe even thirteen. Let’s go get Antoine.”
Seventeen
It felt like a dream, a nightmare. A surreal descent ever deeper into a bottomless pit.
If she’d thought it was dark before, as they passed the first hundred feet, Cally realized there had been an ambient glow, however dim, but it receded like a lid closing.
No matter how she tried to steady her breathing and control her rising panic, her brain didn’t care. Every instinct screamed that this waswrong, wrong, wrong.They were already too deep to survive if their suits developed problems. No way to get out, no way to swim to the surface. The pressure would kill them first.
And still they sank.
Every breath echoed in the helmet, harsh and short, making her feel like she was hyperventilating. Her mouth was dry. Her heart pounded in her chest, harder than she’d ever known.
Even Brent had fallen quiet. The lights of his suit were Cally’s only tether to reality, and maybe hers were to him. She watched them constantly, for there was nothing else to see, save the ticker on her HUD as they passed five hundred feet. He loomed like an alien, a glowing figure in bulky metal, floating like a ghost.
Press down on the joystick. Check the HUD. Let the gyros do their thing. That was easy enough.
It was the psychology of it, the wrongness of it. Claustrophobia from the suit meeting agoraphobia from the massive expanse of nothingness that surrounded them on all sides. No movement, no life.
“Will there be sharks?” she asked, as much to hear her own voice as anything.
“Unlikely,” Brent replied, his voice a tinny crackle in her ears. “Jellyfish maybe. Nothing can touch us anyway.”
Another hundred feet ticked by on the edge of her HUD.
“It’s so slow. It’s taking ages.”
“Mission time is ten minutes. We’re making good progress.”
Ten minutes?Her eyes flicked to the clock: 08:42. Useless information when she couldn’t remember what time they’d started.
It felt like they’d been sinking forever.
“Can you sense him at this range?” Brent asked.
“I can sense him at any range.” Cally focused on her bond, and it pulled down beneath her feet, but off at an angle.
“Try focusing on him. It might help you anchor.”
He was right; it did. Not just the bond either, but the reason they were here. If it was this much hell for Cally after only ten minutes, how would it be for Antoine, after weeks of this, breathing water?
A question she’d asked herself so many times, and it never failed to raise a shudder.
“Slightly more…” She checked the compass. “East. Call it eighty degrees.”
