Aleutia

Chapter 6 - Act I - INGRESSION

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Chapter 6 - Aleutia

Paysha

Every second is precious now and I no longer trust my melon since it came back to life – its last images were too abnormal, too confusing. My helmet’s spots are my only visual aid as I tear into the box with my scabbard knife, the cardboard fragmenting into an expanding cloud which I’m unable to disperse. Then, from the centre of it, still shrouded in bubble-wrap, floats the artefact. Its features remain indistinct through the opaque layers of plastic. Mottled patches of green and grey, like a distorted reflection of its watery surroundings. The pattern impossibly shifts into a swirling rainbow, just as Markus had described, before swiftly transitioning into an achromatic void. But there’s no other light source – and we’re underwater. Its behaviour is inexplicable. Maybe I’m hallucinating. I check my regulator, but it’s still supplying an adequate mix.

I grab the eccentric lozenge by its wrapping and spin it towards me to stuff it into my scavenge bag. Its inertia matches its solid, metallic appearance, but contradicts its buoyancy. It’s like a cannonball impersonating a rubber ball.

But I’ve done it. I’ve found it. All my tortuous efforts have finally paid off. Screw you, Lewey. This enigma is worth far more than what your greedy little paws can afford. Once its damned secrets are unlocked, it’ll be my golden ticket out of here and a means to what I desperately seek: more life.

‘Out of here’, Pash, not scratching your head over your strange find. My computer nags me more urgently, its small screen pulsating red with the overdue minutes since I should have called the dive. Strapping the precious cargo to my thigh, I follow the glowing Gretel breadcrumbs back through the Aleutia’s risk-laden carcass, reversing the spooler’s ratchet to reel in the lightstring’s slack.

Safely back into the cavernous moonpool chamber, I re-invert to turn down into up, still neutrally buoyant. The potential for death continues to loom all around me. An unwanted voice intrudes: ‘If you gets in a hurry, Pash, you gonna make a mistake. Them’s the dead ones – simple as that.’ Yeah, it’s dead simple for some people.

I kick my legs hard to reach the moonpool’s external rim, my regulator’s dial now below the three hundred mark. Shit. As my diminishing exhalations bubble into the watery blackness, the computer can’t glow any redder or buzz any harder. If I value a breathing body, I need to reach topside as soon as possible. It means taking another risk no diver should: aggressively out-gassing, with no decompression stops. ‘No pains, no gain.’

I jettison my belt weights, my body instantly buoyed up as they drop from sight. Breathing faster on little of nothing, I kick hard, chasing my jellyfish of expelled air towards the surface, the spooler clicking faster. As I ascend as hastily as my decision through the murky water column, a sagging tail of dotted light spools into me like a deep-sea denizen. Unseen objects, remnants of our lost City, brush past me. The consequences of my rashness will only be felt after breaching the surface with a body full of nitrogen and a head full of remorse. For now, I can only focus on exhaling expanded gases from my aching lungs, the melon transducing the bubbles’ sonar reflections into pure white, my dark-adapted eyes squinting in the pixelated brightness.

Something’s wrong with the lightstring. Instead of slanting upwards, illuminating my way home, it’s falling like a tangle of discarded fishing tackle. I watch aghast as its attached fireflies sink into the darkness below me, sequentially extinguished as they drop towards the Aleutia. The last one winks out, sporting a short tail of frayed wires.

The hover-tethered end has been severed – accidentally or deliberately, I can’t tell. My mask prevents me from shouting in frustration, but a tight chain of rising bubbles encapsulates my angry expletives. I’m like a dog owner with an empty leash. My real hound better be okay and it’s just a simple mechanical problem – human interference would be a different matter. But I can’t jettison my bag’s contents no matter what’s up there. Not after what I’ve been through. Shit, shit, shit.

My fairy godmother stirs again, sympathetic adrenaline rousing her from slumber. My stomach clenches as she rises out of my subconscious. Soon she’ll surface onto my cortex, ready to mutate into a barely controllable banshee. My exhaled bubbles grow larger at the thought. Don’t let her take over, Paysha. Stay calm. Breathe…and again. Good. You can do this, I repeat to myself, again and again.

The melon remains useless as I accelerate upwards like a human cork, unsure of which direction to take except chasing my bubbles. It can’t keep up, its screens a flickering jumble of multi-coloured pixels. My wrist computer continues to emit visual distress signals for anomalous pressures and durations. But there’s no time for calculating residual gases or their impact. All the technology strapped to me won’t perform that most basic of functions: breathing.

At last, a glimmer of natural light percolates through the Stink’s soup. The lightstring didn’t suffer mechanical failure. My hover’s attracted attention and I have company up top. Another, larger craft is starboard of mine. Bloody hell. Not here, not now.

There’s another, smaller, shadow – its movement backlit by the increasing brightness. It has to be Py, even if he knows he’s not allowed in the foul water. It’s those bloody jackers Tom warned me about - they’ve thrown him in.

Another surge of adrenaline quells my limb pain and sharpens my wits. I instinctively check my trusty diving knife is still in its leg sheath. It’s never been used in anger, but I’m in a take-no-prisoners mood. There’s too much at stake and my banshee is ready, willing and utterly capable. Join the party, I tell her. The more help the better – dive calculators and nitrogen bubbles be damned.

With little opportunity for covert spy-hops, I adjust my ascent to rise as close as I dare to my hover’s port side. I can only hope Py is distracting them from my unavoidable bubbles. Three more pumps with my monofin and I cork up into sparkling daylight, my whole body breaching the briny like a sub-launched missile. Like Sedna’s fallen angel, I crash onto my hover’s hull and grab a handle to haul myself in.

“Fuckin’ hell,” yells an on-board intruder, the craft tilting precariously to starboard as they leap away.

I spit out my regulator, desperate to breathe even the Stink’s foetid air. I’m blind, my helmet’s focus useless. But I can hear Py snuffling in the water. If he’s hurt, someone’s day will become extremely messy. Inhaling in great gulps, I yank my knife from its scabbard and prod it towards the voice as I pop open my helmet’s faceplate. The sunlight is blinding after the underwater gloom, but I make out two figures, both men, dressed in skins. The one on my hover is hunched in the gunnels near the rear fan; late twenties, close-cut blonde hair and implanted bulges. The other one is on their hover, fumbling with his shoulder straps. It’s Hicks, Lewey’s jaded lieutenant, responsible for enforcing Stinker tax collection by various means. He raises his hand in cursory greeting, unruffled by my sudden catapulted appearance. “Good of you to join us, sweet-cheeks,” he calls out over the loud hum of the impellers.

He’s someone I don’t want to see, despite being capable of normal conversation, and a paragon of calm compared to his boss. My anger and anxiety get the better of me. Waving my knife at them, I shout, “Why couldn’t you idiots wait until I’d surfaced instead of cutting my lights and boarding my hover? And which one of you fuckers tossed my dog in?” Goon number two makes the mistake of smirking. Still brandishing my knife, I step towards him. “Got bored waiting, so you picked on a harmless animal?” He doesn’t reply, glancing instead at the harpoon gun strapped under the bench. It’s closer to him than me. He struggles to his feet and puts on a tough-guy stance, sneering with injured pride.

“Your mutt’s fine, Anoman,” calls out Hicks. “Now put your cutlery back in the draw before you get hurt.” He’s right, this won’t work. We’ve always adopted a congenial approach to business, the alternative being messier for everyone except Lewey. The latter might relish our rare reunions, but I barely suppressed my shudders.

Py splutters around to my side of the hover and I sheathe my knife to grab his collar and haul him aboard. He might be a useless guard dog, but he’s delirious to see me. Licking any visible flesh, he’s all wet nose, warm tongue and a tail spraying salty droplets. He turns to bark indignantly at our visitors, who maintain surly working-hours expressions. “I’m okay, Py!” I say, rubbing his wet back and scratching behind his ears to help dispel our shared anxiety. He’s also had a tough day.

As Hicks manoeuvres his hover closer, I shout out, “Who’s your new friend?”

“Bosun,” says Hicks.

My father would have found this nominative coincidence amusing. “Hope you last longer than whassisname,” I call out to Bosun, as he jumps from my hover to rejoin Hicks. The hand gesture he gives in response is further evidence of minimal activity between those low-set ears.

“That was Cain,” Hicks reminds me. Yes, Cain. Worth a second glance – until he got pushed out of Lewey’s door. Or window. I forget now. Even the right look at the wrong girl can be a fatal error in Lewey-land, . Don’t say you weren’t warned, Bosun.

It had taken months of arduous diving before our uninvited kingpin had rewarded me with a refuge to call my own. Unlike most, I never succumbed to offering him or his cronies physical favours, so his continued altruism depends on a regular flow of goods. But my recent focus on Markus had made my scavenged finds as limited as my patience. Still, Hicks and I know our over-rehearsed scene: he recites a dull tax collection mantra. I then confess, with theatrical levels of patheticness, to a chronic misunderstanding of asset transfers and taxed donations. He then gives me another hassle-free pass for a few more weeks.

Hicks dashes all hope of this being a standard courtesy call: “Guv’nor wants to see you upstairs, Anoman,” he says, nodding over his shoulder towards the Spire. “Now.”

My life’s show just took an unexpected, unwelcome twist. Today’s dive was meant to aid my escape from Lewey’s regime of unfair taxes or a violent death. Instead, we’ve gone off-script with an unexpected invitation to meet with his almightiness. It hints at a far weightier issue than any taxing theatricals or my soggy dog.

I spy a brief reflected glint high within the Spire’s former observation deck, now Lewey’s commandeered lookout post. Of course he’s watching through that damned telescope. The one I scavenged and duly bartered for another month’s rent, defraying once again the forever offered – but never accepted – alternative. My little diving trip in an unexpected spot has piqued his interest. I can feel my anger at their intrusion subsiding, morphing into anxiety. But my banshee, once awake, will also feed off this emotion – and she’ll be far from wavering.

Cursing my bad luck, I glance down in reflex at my bulging scavenge bag. Hicks pretends not to notice, despite excelling in just that. “One moment while I check my packed social calendar,” I say, beaming my best fake smile as I mime swiping through an imaginary diary with my gloved finger. “Yep, I can squeeze his highness in today.” Py again barks a pointless warning and I crouch to whisper, “Don’t worry, buddy,” in his ear. As I rub his neck, my other hand unties the bag and slides it under the pilot’s bench. “We’ll get through this – same as every other time.”

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