Nick Cutter - The Deep

Sleepwalked… just like Clayton might have been sleepwalking when he sent that transmission to the surface.

Happens a lot on submarines , Al’s voice chimed in his head. Guys who never had the habit before. Your brainwaves go a bit buggy…

“Thanks, girl,” Luke said. “You beat an alarm clock all to hell.”

LB chuffed as though to say: No problem, boss. Just doing my job.

Luke returned to Westlake’s quarters… then caught noise from the main lab. He followed it, craving any kind of companionship. LB tagged along at his heels.

It was Clayton. He was leaning against the lab bench, his head lowered. He seemed disoriented— discombobulated , as their mother might’ve said. He had the look of a man who’d been kicked awake with a pointy-toed shoe.

“You okay?” Luke asked.

“What?” Clayton’s face swiftly recomposed into its regular withering expression. “Yes… why wouldn’t I be?”

“Clay, I just had the strangest dream.”

His brother said, “Yes, they can be incredibly vivid down here.”

Luke decided to speak no further about it—the dream about Zachary eating ambrosia. After all, Clayton, wonderful sibling that he was, hadn’t even contacted Luke when Zach had gone missing. Not a phone call, not an e-mail, nothing. Complete radio silence. Maybe he hadn’t known what to say… or perhaps he hadn’t even known Zach had gone missing—or worse and probably more accurately, he hadn’t cared. He’d never even met Zach. Or Abby, for that matter. Clayton hadn’t responded to the RSVP for their wedding or Zach’s first birthday party. No cards, no gifts. What else should Luke have expected, anyway? It was fine, as far as Luke had been concerned. Better that Clayton exist distantly—his brother, the brilliant scientist. On a primal level, Luke hadn’t wanted Clayton’s presence wafting through the lives of the people he loved.

“Clayton, do you think it might be a good idea to get out of here for a while? Take a powder, head up to the surface to clear your head?”

Luke wasn’t about to mention his sleepwalking incident, either. Or Westlake’s audio files. Not yet. He couldn’t face Clayton’s sneering scorn, not without Al here to back him up at least.

“You can do whatever you want, Lucas,” his brother said. “You shouldn’t even be here. But I can’t leave.”

“Why not?”

But Luke already knew the answer. The Trieste was the seat of the unknown, and his obsessive brother wasn’t about to abandon his attempt unlock its secrets.

“Fine,” he said, setting it aside for now. “Where’s Alice?”

“She’s getting some sleep.” Clayton cocked his head. “In the meantime, would you like to see what I’ve discovered? Now that you’re here?”

Clayton clearly wanted to show Luke. Childishly, part of Luke wanted to give his older brother what Abby used to call the RFU: the Royal Fuck You.

Nah, not interested, Clay. It sounds pretty boring, to be honest. Hey, you got a TV in this joint? You get decent reception down here?

More crucially, did Luke really want to see?

He’d witnessed Clayton’s blooper reel before—a mouse with a collapsed nose on its back, for one. Luke’s skin crawled at the thought of what his brother had been up to down here where the light never shone.

But of course, Luke did want to see. If anyone could figure out how to harness the ambrosia, his brother was that man.

Alice’s voice floated to them from another part of the station. She sounded vaguely fearful.

“Luke?” she called out. “Hey, Luke?”

“Hurry up,” Clayton said, shepherding Luke into his lab.

“Wait. What about Al?”

Clayton shook his head. Luke hesitated as Clay punched a code on the keypad.

“Family only. You have eight seconds to get inside, Lucas. Then it locks automatically.”

Luke didn’t move.

eight… seven…

Clay’s jaw tensed.

six…

Luke said: “The dog comes with me.”

“It does not. No dogs allowed,” said Clayton.

It was Luke’s turn to cock his head at his brother. He knew Clayton wanted to show him. Otherwise he’d never have offered.

Alice’s voice drew nearer. “Luke?”

three… two…

“Fine. Get in, both of you,” Clayton snapped, relenting. “Quickly.”

Luke gripped LB’s collar. She backpedaled, fighting him.

“What’s the matter, girl? It’s okay.”

Really? Was it?

Luke picked her up. LB tucked her head to his throat the way Zach used to do before falling asleep.

one…

THE LOCK ENGAGEDwith a hiss. Clayton draped a blanket over a hook above the porthole, shielding them from the main lab.

Clay’s lab was a cube, yet its walls didn’t meet at right angles; instead they bellied outward to maintain the Trieste ’s egg-based physics. A cot in one corner. Clayton must also sleep in here, Luke figured.

Westlake took to sleeping in his lab, too, he recalled. He wanted to be close to the hole. His hole.

Luke set the dog down but she remained zippered to his side. Her eyes rolled in their sockets; she was clearly afraid but Luke couldn’t pinpoint any immediate cause. A terrarium and a cage housing a pair of guinea pigs sat against one wall. Beside those rested a pair of larger cages—dog crates, one of which had surely held LB.

Where’s the other one? Luke wondered. Where’s Little Fly?

A stainless-steel lab bench occupied the middle of the room; Luke could see where it had been riveted together, as a bench that size would have been brought down here in sections. A large poster of Albert Einstein—that famous shot with his tongue sticking out—was hung on the wall directly behind the bench. The quote read: “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.”

“I didn’t know you were a fan,” Luke said.

“It’s good to visualize your competition.” Clay smiled. “You will laugh at this, Lucas, but sometimes I talk to Albert. If I’ve been working long enough, sometimes he’ll talk back.”

A squat white box sat along the near wall. Clayton opened its lid; plumes of vapor billowed out. He reached inside, whistling absentmindedly. Clayton used to whistle or even sing in his basement lab all the time; the notes would drift up the staircase into the kitchen. The most inane melodies. The theme to Gilligan’s Island , or even “Whistle While You Work”—except Clayton used to screw with the lyrics:

Whistle while you work, Hitler was a jerk; Mussolini bit his weenie and now it doesn’t work…

Clayton shut the cooler—but not before Luke noticed a squared-off shape wrapped in black plastic. It looked a bit like a butchered hog loin, though Luke knew it wouldn’t be that.

“Don’t be alarmed,” Clayton said, placing a guinea pig on the lab bench.

The animal was frozen stiff, glittering with frost. Luke wasn’t alarmed at all—as a veterinarian in the Midwest, he’d seen plenty of frozen animals.

“How did it die?” Luke asked. “Or is that important to your scientific query?”

The guinea pig tipped onto its side, its legs jutting up at the ceiling. LB edged to the lip of the table, snuffling with keen interest. Clayton swatted at her; the dog flinched away in fear.

Luke reached out and snatched his brother’s wrist. He felt the live-wire twitch of Clayton’s tendons—he also noticed that Clay’s fingers were now bandaged to the second joint, swaddled under thick gauze.

“Not very nice.” Luke tsked. “Do you treat all your guests that way?”