Rick Yancey - The Infinite Sea

“Because if that’s a lie…”

“Then everything’s a lie.”

Below us the land is covered in a blanket of white. The horizon is indiscernible in the dark, lost. Everything is a lie. I thought of my dead father telling me that I belonged to them now. Instinctively, I gather Teacup’s little hand into mine: truth.

I hear Bob say in the headset, “I’m confused.”

“Relax, Bob,” Razor says. “Hey, Bob. Wasn’t that the major’s name at Camp Haven? What’s it with officers and the name Bob?”

An alarm sounds. I return Teacup’s hand to her lap and shuffle forward. “What is it?”

“Company,” Bob says. “Six o’clock.”

“Choppers?”

“Negative. F-15s. Three of them.”

“How much time before they’re in range?”

He shakes his head. Despite the cold, his shirt is soaked in sweat. His face shines with it. “Five to seven.”

“Bring us up,” I tell him. “Maximum altitude.”

I grab a couple parachute rigs and drop one into Razor’s lap.

“We’re bailing?” he asks.

“We can’t engage and we can’t outrun. You’re with Teacup. Tandem jump.”

“I’m with Teacup? Who are you with?”

Bob glances at the other rig in my hand. “I’m not bailing,” he says. And then, just in case I didn’t hear or don’t understand: “I’m. Not. Bailing.”

No plan is perfect. I’d planned for a Silencer Bob, which meant my plan entailed killing him before we bailed from the chopper. Now it’s complicated. I didn’t kill Jumbo for the same reason I don’t want to kill Bob. Kill enough Jumbos, murder enough Bobs, and you’ve plunged to the same depths as the ones who shove a bomb down a toddler’s throat.

I shrug to hide my uncertainty. Toss the rig into his lap. “Then I guess you get incinerated.”

We’re at five thousand feet. Dark sky, dark ground, no horizon, all dark. The bottom of the lightless sea. Razor is looking at the radar screen, but he says to me, “Where’s your chute, Ringer?”

I ignore the question. “Can you give me a sixty-second ETA on their range?” I ask Bob. He nods. Razor asks the question again. “It’s math,” I tell him. “Which I’m three-quarters really good at. If there are four of us and they mark two chutes, that leaves at least one of us on board. One, maybe two of them will stay with the chopper, at least until they can take it down. It’ll buy time.”

“What makes you think they’ll stay with the chopper?”

I shrug. “It’s what I’d do.”

“Still doesn’t answer my question about your chute.”

“They’re hailing us,” Bob announces. “Ordering us to set it down.”

“Tell them to suck it,” Razor says. He stuffs a piece of bubble gum into his mouth. Taps his ear. “Popping’s bad.” Jams the gum wrapper into his pocket. Notices I’m watching and smiles. “Never noticed all the crap in the world until there was nobody left to pick it up,” he explains. “The Earth is my charge.”

Then Bob calls out, “Sixty seconds!”

I tug on Razor’s parka. Now.

He looks up at me and says slowly and distinctly, “Where’s your freaking chute?”

I haul him out of the seat one-handed. He chirps in surprise, stumbling toward the back. I follow him, squat in front of Teacup to remove her harness.

“Forty seconds!”

“How are we going to find you?” Razor yells, standing right next to me.

“Head for the fire.”

“What fire?”

“Thirty seconds!”

I haul open the hatch door. The blast of air that punches into the hold blows Razor’s hood off his head. I scoop up Teacup and press her into his chest.

“Don’t let her die.”

He nods.

“ Promise. ”

Nods again: “I promise.”

“Thank you, Razor,” I say. “For everything.”

He leans forward and kisses me hard on the mouth.

“Don’t ever do that again,” I tell him.

“Why? Because you liked it or because you didn’t?”

“Both.”

“Fifteen seconds!”

Razor maneuvers Teacup over his shoulder, grabs the safety cable, and shuffles back until his heels touch the jump pad. Silhouetted in the opening, the boy and the child over the boy’s shoulder, and five thousand feet beneath them, the limitless dark. The Earth is my charge.

Razor releases the cable. He doesn’t seem to fall. He is sucked out into the ravenous void.

I HEAD BACK to the cockpit, where I find the pilot’s door unlatched, the seat empty, and no Bob.

I wondered why the countdown stopped; now I know: He changed his mind about the whole bailing issue.

We must be in range, which means they don’t intend to shoot us down. They’ve marked the location of Razor’s drop, and they’ll stay with the chopper until I bail or it runs out of fuel and I’m forced to bail. By this point, Vosch has figured out why Jumbo’s implant is on this aircraft while its owner is in the infirmary being treated for a very bad headache.

With the tip of my tongue, I push the pellet from my mouth and lick it onto my palm.

Do you want to live?

Yes, and you want that, too, I tell Vosch. I don’t know why and, hopefully, I never will.

I flick the pellet from my hand.

The hub’s response is instantaneous. My intent alerted the central processor, which calculated the overwhelming probability of terminal failure and shut down all but the essential functions of my muscular system. The 12th System has the same order I gave Razor: Don’t let her die. Like a parasite’s, the system’s life depends on the continuation of mine.

The instant my intent changes— Okay, fine. I’ll parachute out —the hub will release me. Then and only then. I can’t lie to it or bargain with it. Can’t persuade it. Can’t force it. Unless I change my mind, it can’t let me go. Unless it lets me go, I can’t change my mind.

Heart on fire. Body of stone.

There’s nothing that the hub can do about my snowballing panic. It can respond to emotions; it can’t control them. Endorphins release. Neurons and mastocytes dump serotonin into my bloodstream. Other than these physiological adjustments, it’s as paralyzed as I am.

There must be an answer. There must be an answer. There must be an answer. What is the answer? And I see Vosch’s polished, birdlike bright eyes boring into mine. What is the answer? Not rage, not hope, not faith, not love, not detachment, not holding on, not letting go, not fighting, not running, not hiding, not giving up, not giving in, not not not, knot, knot, knot, naught naught naught.

Naught.

What is the answer? he asked.

And I answered, Nothing.

I STILL CAN’T MOVE—not even my eyes—but I’ve got a pretty good angle on the instruments, including the altimeter and fuel gauge. We’re five thousand feet up and the fuel won’t last forever. Inducing paralysis might stop me from jumping, but it won’t keep me from falling. The probability of terminal failure in that scenario is absolute.

It has no other option: The hub releases me, and the sensation is like being hurled the length of a football field. I’m shoved back into my body, hard.

Okay, Ringer 2.0. Let’s see how good you are.