Josh Roseman - The Clockwork Russian and Other Stories

Right after I turned twenty, I ran into Mark at the dive shop and convinced him to have dinner with me. But when I told him what I was planning, he shut down.

“I don’t dive anymore,” he said.

“You’re crazy,” I told him. “You love diving.”

“I loved it.” Past tense.

“It was a one-in-a-million accident!” I snapped. “Come on, Mark. We used to… I mean…”

He shook his head. “I just… I can’t. I’m sorry, Elle.”

I slept with him that night, hoping it would change his mind, but even after that he still said no.

I left the next morning and didn’t look back. Soon after, I got my two-year degree, then gave up on school and threw myself into my work and my plan. Mom and Jason confronted me, said I was obsessed, and I moved out. I spent more hours at the dive shop and on the beach. I even started teaching swim classes. Guys hit on me and I turned them down. Girls tried to befriend me but I played the bitch card. Parents hired me to babysit or give private lessons, and I did it for the money, but I detached myself from the people.

I had one purpose: find out what happened to my dad. Nothing was going to get in my way.

I stop at the end of the line and check my computer, noting the maximum safe depth and time — depressingly short on the latter, depressingly shallow on the former — and set my watch. I won’t give up until I know the truth, but I don’t want to die down here either.

I drop over the side of the wreck and swim into the dark opening. This time, without Barry to slow me down, I’m out of my vest and inches from 113 feet in no time.

I pull out my knife. The tip grazes the silvery surface.

A blinding flash knocks me back. My regulator falls out of my mouth and I grope for it blindly, holding my breath, my eyes a wall of blue afterimages. I finally shove it in my mouth and blow, purging the seawater. My second exhalation clears it completely and I dig my teeth into the grips. My jaw is tired, lips stretched and sore, but I’m not stopping.

I take a minute to think — and to let my heart rate slow to normal — then lock the knife back in its holster. No metal: seems simple enough.

I pull open the Velcro that holds my left glove closed and tug it off. My skin is very white in the glow from the lamp. I reach for the silvery surface and, in a quick motion, push through.

There’s air on the other side. Cold, dry air. My hand starts to shake and I pull it back.

My skin looks okay. I check the sleeve of my wetsuit: no damage there. Whatever it is, it’s safe to pass through.

I close my eyes tightly, looking away as I do, and extend my entire arm through the portal.

Nothing happens. Nothing bad, anyway.

I open my eyes, then check my air and my watch. Seven minutes to the point of no return, until I have no choice but to ascend.

But I have no choice in what I’m about to do now, either.

As quickly as I can, I strip off my dive equipment. I stick my watch into a vest pocket, hook my fins to the shoulder straps, then unzip my boots and tuck them into the fins’ foot holes.

Zippers. I consider for a couple of seconds, then open my wetsuit. I have to release the regulator to wiggle completely out of it. If the air I touched is any indication, I’m going to freeze my ass off on the other side — my one-piece isn’t made for warmth — but I don’t care. Besides, the coldness of the water is already numbing my fingers. It can’t get much worse.

One more look at the computer. Five minutes. 113 feet. I’ll never get all this stuff back on in time; I’ll be lucky to get into my fins and drag my air supply back to the line. There’s coral everywhere and I know it’ll to rip me to pieces when I get out of here.

But I’ll live.

A final check: no metal anywhere. I point myself toward the silver surface of the portal and pull my mask off, pushing it into a pocket in my vest. Seawater and particles tear at my eyes.

I take five deep breaths and, on the last one, release the regulator and kick forward, through the portal, and toward my father.

I was twenty-two when I found my father. He was declared dead by the Coast Guard when I was fifteen, but I never believed it. They never found a body. I spent seven years trying to get back to where he was lost, seven years trying to find him.

And fewer than seven minutes on the other side.

I found out what happened at 113 feet the moment I swam through that silver surface and landed hard on a metal platform, shivering in icy, dry air.

“Doctor Raymond! Doctor Raymond, you’d better get out here!”

I blinked hard and tried to stand, but I was so cold that I couldn’t do more than wrap my arms around my chest.

I heard clanging, felt the metal vibrate, and then the lights above me were blocked off. Someone draped a light sheet of cloth over my body and I was instantly so warm that I almost passed out. Someone else pulled me to my feet.

“Doc…” I cleared my throat and spat out a gob of saltwater-tinged phlegm. “Doctor… Raymond?” I blinked a couple more times, but I wasn’t hallucinating.

“Hello, Eleanora.”

“Dad?” He wasn’t dead. I was staring right at him. “Dad!”

I was on him in an instant, arms around him, and he was hugging me back. But tentatively, almost as if he was afraid of me. “I missed you, Eleanora.”

I looked up at him. He seemed older than he should have been, as if more than seven years had passed. “What happened, Dad?”

Instead of answering, he looked over my head. “How long?” he called.

The answer came through a P.A. System. “Four minutes, Doctor.”

Dad nodded, then guided me to a bench. “Here. Sit.”

I did as he said, wrapping the sheet around my body. My ears and toes were freezing, but I didn’t care. He was alive. My father was alive.

“I only have a little time to explain,” he said, his arm around me.

“Explain what? Aren’t you coming back?”

He laughed. Not angry, not exasperated, just amused. “I’ve been here almost forty years. Why leave now? Besides, how would I come back?” He raised an eyebrow. “Do you have enough air in your tank to get me to the surface? I haven’t been diving in…” His voice faltered, and he smiled. “Well, it’s been a while.”

“Don’t they have tanks here?” I looked around, but didn’t recognize anything except the silver oval of the portal. “Where the hell are we, Dad?”

“Actually, Elle, the right question is ‘when are we’.”

“Damn it, Dad, stop wasting time!” I pushed his arm off and glared at him. “If I only have a few minutes, then tell me what happened!” My throat went tight, but I wouldn’t cry. There wasn’t time to cry. “Dad, please!”

He sighed. “The short version is this: about 150 years in your future, scientists discovered a way to go back in time. The system is overpowered in case something goes wrong, and that energy has to go somewhere.”

“The storms.”

“Yes. The storms. At least, over the ocean, fewer people are at risk.” A young woman in a blue jumpsuit gave Dad a handheld computer. He scanned it, nodded, and handed it back. “Time’s running out. Come on.” We went back to the portal, standing in front of it. “It takes about an hour for the storms to clear when someone goes through. They tried it closer to sea level, but the storms were so strong that the man they sent through was ripped apart.”

“But how come they started when I got close? I didn’t touch the… portal?” He nodded, and I continued. “I didn’t come through.”

Dad gave me a look I remembered perfectly, a look that said I should’ve figured it out for myself. “How do you think we knew you were coming?”