The Hallowed Cure, page 13
“We’re getting a call,” Saul said. “Would you like me to put it through? It’s coming from our opposition, and keeping Lindsay talking may buy us time.”
Our opposition. As in the sub about to shoot a torpedo at us.
Sure. Why not take Lindsay’s call?
With luck, I could bullshit her long enough to get us out of range of Riley’s big fuck-off bomb. She’d assured me I shouldn’t detonate it until Saul gave the okay. He knew the blast radius.
A moment later, Lindsay’s angry voice flooded our submarine.
“Riven! You insufferable ass!”
I resisted the urge to chuckle. “Did I break something?”
“You just cut a hole in my submarine! We had an accord. We agreed to work together until we dealt with the Class Zero!”
“You abducted Skye’s parents,” I pointed out. “Which kind of fucks our accord.”
“I abducted them to bring Skye back! ” Lindsay said, then sighed.
“You know what? I’m done trying to work with you. I’m going to murder everyone you care about, starting with that Ashford bitch.
Wherever she is, she dies, and I will make it absurdly painful.”
“I’m right here, actually,” Mia said, also on the line. “And also, that’s Sergeant Ashford bitch to you, you dried up old cunt.”
“Then you’ll both die together,” Lindsay said ominously. “How nice for you.”
“You kill us, you blow up any chance to get Skye back,” I pointed out.
“And at this point, I literally do not care,” Lindsay growled. “All of you can fuck off into the sun. Goodbye.”
I really wanted to taunt Lindsay with the fact that I’d planted a bomb on her submarine. But she hadn’t mentioned it, so I’d be damned if I gave her a head’s up. She was going to shoot a torpedo at us soon, after all, and she’d more than earned her coming death.
“We clear?” I asked. “Safe distance?”
“No,” Saul said. “We’re still too close. The projected underwater shockwaves—”
“Will we survive the explosion?” I demanded.
“Possibly,” Saul agreed. “But the shockwave could heavily damage our submarine.”
“What about a torpedo, Saul?” Mia asked tartly. “Will we survive a torpedo up the ass?”
He didn’t answer. Yet he did say, “They’ve come about.”
I looked to Skye’s parents. “Hold on to something.”
“Bollocks,” Mia said.
“Here we go,” Saul added.
I squeezed the button on the remote. Literally nothing happened.
Were we out of range? Had they jammed the signal? Was the bomb not waterproof? What was taking so—
The sub bucked so hard, it slammed my head into a bulkhead. I saw stars as the world spun, because unlike Skye’s parents, I hadn’t held on to something. Worse, something cold spewed directly in my face. I realized it was a leak. A water leak. Because there was now a leak in our submarine.
Still, at least Lindsay Griffyn and her submarine were now a cloud of floating debris sinking to the bottom of the sea. That smug bitch was finally dead. I’d done it. I’d killed her.
Score another win for Team Riven.
[ 15 ]
THAT DIDN’T LOO FUN
A thin layer of water now coated the bottom of our submarine, which didn’t make sense, since I’d plugged the two nearest holes with each open hand. Yet I supposed there could be other holes, ones inside the structure which I couldn’t see. There were certainly other holes.
Saul grunted at the controls. “The controls are no longer responding.”
That didn’t sound like the worst thing. “So we just float up, right?”
“We need to eject the ballast first,” Saul said, and pressed several buttons. “Which is not, apparently, ejecting.” He glanced my way. “So we are sinking instead.”
I scowled at his implication I’d blown Lindsay’s sub too early.
“She was going to torpedo us.”
“I’ve not said a thing,” Saul said with a shrug. “Yet we are sinking, not rising, so what are we to do now? We are, in case you haven’t noticed, currently flooding.”
“How the fuck are we even sinking?” I asked angrily. “That’s not
... submarines shouldn’t sink!”
“Oh God,” Rosie whispered. “We’re all going to die down here.”
“No one’s dying,” Mia said patiently, and looked to me. “Keep those leaks plugged. I’ll see if I can figure out what’s happened with the engines, or manually eject the ballast from below.”
“Since when do you know how to fix submarines?” I demanded.
“I know absolutely nothing about how to fix submarines,” Mia said calmly. “Yet someone needs to remain at the controls, and someone
needs to plug that leak, so I suppose I’ll learn quickly. There’s a maintenance section below us. There must be a manual release for the ballast there, and with luck, it’s brightly colored. A neon yellow would be best.”
The palms of my hands were starting to ache, from cold or suction or something worse. Still, I had a job to do. I might as well let Mia do hers. She squeezed past me, then motioned to Skye’s parents.
“Please move,” Mia said calmly. “There’s an access panel below you. I need to get inside.”
Skye’s parents pressed themselves against the wall. Mia grabbed the panel on the floor, which was now under a small layer of water, and grimaced as it refused to open. She pulled with one cybernetic arm. A brief whirring sounded before the panel popped up in her hand, yet instead of flooding out, more water flooded in. So the entire bottom of the sub must be flooded.
Mia tossed it aside. “That’s certainly not closing again.” She glanced my way and smiled, her sky-blue eyes calm and confident.
“Be right back.”
She dived down, through the panel, into the understructure of the submarine, which was currently underwater. Which meant she’d basically gone underwater. That wasn’t great.
“What’s happening?” Andrew whispered. “Won’t she drown?”
“Hallowed can hold our breath a real long time,” I assured Skye’s parents.
Yet I ground my teeth as I spoke. Yes, we could hold our breath for over ten minutes, but that didn’t make it hurt any less. It just meant our constant passive regeneration kept our lungs and brain tissue from degrading as fast as a human’s.
Mia was going to be in a whole lot of pain real soon.
Minutes ticked by as the water slowly rose. The water was up past my boots now, and I was started to worry. How much air did we have in this tiny tin can? I was a moment from heading down there myself when a muffled thump sounded. Our submarine kicked me in the ass.
“Ballast ejected,” Saul said, with a faint of hope. “We’re rising.”
I waited, desperate, until Mia finally came into sight. The moment her head broke the water’s surface, she gasped for breath like she’d been drowning, which, to be fair, she’d been doing for the last few minutes.
Veins were visible on her face and her eyes looked bloodshot.
The worst of it was already fading by the time she stumbled past Skye’s parents, coughing up seawater. I couldn’t hug her, or comfort her, or even grip her hand, since my aching palms were still plugging two additional holes in our submarine.
“You okay?” I asked instead.
Mia coughed again, spit out water, and blinked rapidly. “Do I look okay?”
“You’re amazing,” I told her.
She managed a half-smile in response. “Does that mean we’re dating again?”
I shrugged and gave up. “If we live.”
Fuck caring about how badly I’d hurt Mia once I died. It was time to be selfish. I was going to be absolutely selfish at last, because I loved this woman, and I was tried of being heroic.
“Then we live,” Mia said confidently, and looked to Skye’s parents. “We live,” she repeated, for their benefit. Then she looked to Saul. “Can we radio Perez and let him know we’ve succeeded?”
“The radio isn’t responding,” Saul said. “Given all that’s happened, I think we’ve lost power to the submarine. Perhaps its cels were damaged when the concussion hit. Unless we can replace them, we’ll be dependent on the tides to take us back to Dios. We may already be drifting away.”
“Right,” Mia said. “I suppose we’ll use my cels then.”
Mia sat back against the wall. She gripped the wet, gleaming metal below her right shoulder with one gleaming silver hand. And as I stared in disbelief, she twisted, twisted again, and pulled.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
With a small, odd pop, Mia’s entire metal arm popped off, leaving only a very shallow stump below her shoulder. “Acquiring replacement cels.”
I stared as water rose and our submarine did too. “From your arms?”
“The cels inside may be able to power the submarine,” Mia explained patiently. “Power cels are universal, and as they are the only source of power remaining to us, we have no other options.”
She glanced past me. “Saul, I’ll need you to remove the cels or plug the leaks. You choose.”
“But then you won’t have arms!” I shouted, as Saul moved up behind me.
“Which won’t do me a bit of good if we drown in a submarine,”
Mia explained patiently. “Unless you have some intact and fully-powered cels available. Have you gotten any limbs replaced that I’m not aware of?”
“Let me past,” Saul said. “Riven, move.”
Grimacing, I pressed myself against the holes in the sub. Saul squeezed past, watching Mia with concern as she handed him her severed metal arm. “You’re certain?”
“I’m certain we have no choice,” Mia said. “You’ll need to plug the holes so Grant can replace the cels. I won’t be able to do so for obvious reasons.” She looked to Saul. “Grab my other arm, then twist 25 degrees up. You’ll hear a quiet click. I’ll instruct you from there.”
As Saul grimaced and strained, Mia talked Saul through pulling off her other arm. Seeing her metal limbs pop off reminded me of just how much she’d lost when Malcolm “Fuckup” Knox blew our stolen Hallowed gear with Mia’s limbs inside it. Yet she’d fought on stronger than ever.
Once Saul finished, we had two small, gleaming green cels about the size of two baseballs. The way they glowed assured me they were still fully powered, but given cels never ran out of power, that made sense. Also, I now knew, thanks to Caitlyn, that tiny aliens were swimming inside those little green balls. So fucked up. Did they ever get bored in there?
Saul looked to me. “It’s up to you now.”
My turn to go drown beneath the submarine. “Well, get over here.”
Saul moved over, placing his hands by mine. As I yanked my hands away, blood and water spewed, and I involuntarily sucked in my breath as I tore my palms open.
Blood flowed freely before my Hallowed regeneration kicked in, and Saul slammed his palms down on the holes. The same might happen to him soon enough.
“That didn’t look fun,” Saul said. “Hurry.”
The water was up to my knees now, and I didn’t know how much further we had to rise. We were rising slowly, so would we breach the surface fast enough? And if we did, would we all die? I briefly remembered something I’d read about pressure sickness and passing out from too much pressure changing at the same time, so maybe the slow rate we were rising was the way we were supposed to do it if we didn’t all want to explode.
Either way, I couldn’t do a damn thing to alter our rate of rising now. I glanced at Mia, sitting patiently against the side of the sub without any fucking arms. “Any tips?” I tucked the cels she’d given me into the pockets of my fatigues.
“From what I recall, the power box is directly beneath the pilot box, all the way up to the front of the understructure,” Mia said calmly. “It had a large lightning bolt on it and two small spheres I judged to be cells. I suspect you can simply pop it open and swap out whatever cels shattered in the impact. Just replace any that don’t glow.”
“Right,” I said, and went to go drown myself.
“And by the way, I love you.”
I let her words wash over me and I pushed myself into the water flooding the sub, clutching the small green cels that had once powered Mia’s arms. “Love you too.”
“About bloody time you remembered that,” she agreed softly.
I dived, opening my eyes as soon as I was under, and was rewarded with a stinging pain for my trouble. I could barely see in salt water, yet I pushed forward anyway.
Forcing myself deeper into seawater was the most terrifying thing I’d ever done, even more terrifying than fighting Mutes, but everyone was depending on me to fix the submarine. I wasn’t going to let
everyone die. Especially not Mia. Not now that we were together again.
I was going to die first, dammit.
The cramped confines of the understructure beneath the submarine actually helped with my fear of water. I was less claustrophobic than I was of ... whatever a fear of drowning was ...
yet my lungs burned as I released the last of my breath. Then, my life was just pain.
I didn’t inhale water. I knew it wouldn’t help, though it took all my concentration to keep from gasping. I pushed on blindly, racked with pain and an urgent desire to breathe, until I spotted what Mia had pointed out. A small closed box with a lightning bolt on it.
It took more effort than I’d like to wrench it open, and I finally did inhale some water as my focus on opening the box overrode my futile desire not to breathe. I supposed I could just ... spit it all back out, after. Or feel like I was drowning for a couple of hours, whatever worked.
Inside were no less than four cels, one of which didn’t glow. The other three glowed bright green, but one dead cel was better than three. Three would have fucked us. I gripped the damaged cel, drowned a little more, and pulled. It popped out with less fanfare than I expected.
I dug into my pocket for one of Mia’s still-glowing cels, then pushed it into the socket as gently as I could. Pressure resisted, and then the power box took the cel as easily as if I’d just swapped out a battery. Which I supposed I had. I coughed water again and sucked more into my lungs, which burned.
Enough suffering. All four cels were glowing a soft green now, which told me I’d done everything I could for the submarine. I forced the box shut and clawed my way back to air.
Dots blinked in front of my eyes and my whole body felt like it was on fire, but I pushed on because anything was better than enduring this constant pain. Faint light greeted me, and then my head broke the surface once more. I vomited water like I was hopelessly sick.
I steadied myself against the back of the sub and tried not to spew anything on Skye’s parents, who had pressed themselves against the wall. The water had now flooded over half the submarine, and it was cold. So cold.
“Saul,” I rasped. “Fire it up.”
“Here goes nothing,” Saul said, and flipped a couple of underwater switches.
Nothing happened. I sighed. Then the submarine kicked forward hard enough to slam the back of my head against the wall. I cursed and vomited more water. I hated submarines.
Yet we had power again. I’d fixed it! A low thrum marked the engines whirring to life, and Saul grunted with satisfaction.
“Activating pumps,” he said. “We can’t rise faster than this without suffering the bends, but we should be able to pump out the water now. Stay frosty.”
Right. Because this water was really cold. Fuck Saul’s humor right now.
Yet the water stopped rising, and actually started to go down. I stumbled over to Mia and sat down beside her, then handed her a still glowing cel.
She smirked my way. “You okay?”
“Don’t like inhaling the sea,” I rasped. “Also, only needed one cel.”
“Keep the other one,” Mia said, and leaned against me. “I don’t need arms right now, though I would appreciate yours.”
I eased one arm around her to hold her steady as she rested her head on my shoulder. Before I could think about anything else, I kissed the top of her head, and then she looked up at me. And then I was kissing her, a lot.
She tasted salty, and I’d just thrown up, and it was actually sort of disgusting.
But it was also kind of hot too.
[ 16 ]
IS THE ALTERNATI E FLOATING OUT TO SEA AND
STAR ING?
By the time we surfaced, after being careful not to kill anyone thanks to surfacing too fast, we were a long way from Dios. We must have drifted a ways after we blew Lindsay’s submarine to splinters and lost power as a result. Yet thanks to Mia, we had power again, and Saul assured us we’d be back within sight of Dios in twenty minutes or so.
The sub’s engines whirred quietly, and now that we were floating on the surface with the pumps running, most of the water inside the sub was gone. I sat with Mia pressed against me, eyes closed, with her cybernetic right arm re-powered and reattached. Her left arm sat lifeless at our feet. I’d stopped coughing a good while ago, though my chest still ached.
As it turns out, human lungs don’t really like seawater. I was pretty sure, from the wet coughs I suffered, that a whole bunch more of it sloshing around in there. Pumping it out could wait until we were back at a hospital. Maybe even one at Cloud Nine.
For the first time, it started to sink in that my fight might actually be over. Jack Griffyn was dead. Lindsay Griffyn was dead. The only other person I knew with any interest in fucking me over was Doctor Sharpe—Left Screen—and no one had seen her for over a year.
So ... could I really be done?
The thought was so strange, I barely dared consider it. It felt like I’d been fighting every day since my parents died, when I was 10, and that I’d been fighting long before Captain Sato pulled me out of
the Stumps over two years ago. The fights had changed, of course—
first to survive, then to not starve, then to not get eaten by Mutes, then to not get all my friends killed—but fighting, whoever, had been constant.
I supposed Skye and her Mute army were still around. I could fight them if they decided they didn’t want to forgive and forget that we’d imprisoned and tortured them. If they decided they’d prefer eating the city over relaxing in Miguel Perez’s lab, I’d fight them.
