Nick Cutter - The Deep

“ Oooookay . Well, it’s not working now. And whatever’s on it isn’t the proof you believe it to be anyway.”

Luke wanted to put his fist through the fucking screen. It would feel so damn good—a release of the poisonous tension pulsing behind the bones of his face. Put his fist through it, and then plant that same fist square in his brother’s smug mouth. He wouldn’t be expecting that, would he? Fuckin-a right. It’d be so easy. His fist pistoning until Clay’s skull was nothing but a bowl of red mush, Luke laughing and laughing, his lips flecked with blood.

Luke recoiled, snorting like a man who’d been given smelling salts.

Where had those thoughts come from?

He’d never perpetrated premeditated violence on another person in his life. Yet he’d seen himself doing it. His fist slamming down again and again. His eyes alight with mad glee. An insectile buzz invading his mind as he nursed crude animalistic impulses… .

Clayton was scrutinizing him now. “You all right, brother?”

“Yeah.” Luke laughed coldly. “Just pissed this thing won’t work.”

“Down here, it’s unwise to let your emotions get out of hand.”

Are you coming down with a case of the sea-sillies, El Capitán? His mother’s mocking voice. You weren’t built for rough water, sailor.

Luke shut his eyes and squeezed her out of his head.

THEY FOUND ALICEin the main lab. She was once again staring at Westlake’s hatch.

Her skin had a sickly pallor— cadaverous was the word that sprang into Luke’s mind—her eyes peering out of her cored sockets with bovine confusion. Her lips moved, reciting words or phrases Luke could not make out.

She ran a hand over the hatch… intimately, somehow searchingly. Luke could hear snatches of her speech now.

“I want to… yes, oh yes, I’d love to…”

Luke said: “Al?”

Her hand circled the hatch, tracing odd patterns. Her fingers fell to the keypad.

Clayton flicked a switch, bathing the lab in a harsh wash of halogen light. Al blinked, disoriented. In that moment her face held a wrathful, almost murderous look—the look of a person awoken from a dream she wished would never end.

Luke said: “You okay, Al?”

Al swiped her palm across her nose, a childlike gesture.

“Never better, Doc. Feelin’ fine like cherry wine.”

Luke peered out the window. Those inky scarves unfurled beyond the spotlights. A wave of panic rose in him. He tasted it: the tang of pure dread, acrid as the juice in a springtime leaf.

Get out of here, he thought wildly. You have to convince Al to leave.

“Alice, listen… Do things feel a bit hinky down here? I’m asking because you’ve spent years underwater. Maybe it’s just me.”

Al pulled her gaze away from Westlake’s lab with what seemed like a great, almost Herculean effort. Somewhat reluctantly, she nodded. “It’s not just you.”

Luke pointed to Westlake’s lab. “Something happened in there, I’m pretty sure. Something… not good. For all I know, it’s still happening.”

Clayton grunted dismissively. Luke ignored him.

“And oh yeah—Clayton showed me something very interesting.”

“Don’t you say a word,” Clayton snapped.

“Oh, screw off, Clay,” Luke said casually. “Al, you should give Clay a round of applause. Why? Well, my brilliant, brainy brother was able to cure a guinea pig of what is commonly viewed as a terminal condition. A condition known in the veterinary biz as getting its fucking head cut off .”

He told Al everything. The ambrosia, the shears, the blood-tentacles. About Westlake’s files, too. The hole .

“Is this true?” Al asked Clayton.

Clayton said: “The ambrosia, you mean? Yes. It’s a remarkable substance. But regarding this hole my brother keeps babbling about?” Clayton rotated his finger around his ear, the universal gesture for loony .

“That does sound a little nuts,” Al said to Luke with a charitable smile. “And Westlake… well.”

“I never claimed it was sane ,” Luke said defensively. “I think it’s… symptomatic, maybe. Of what’s happening down here—how this place tears at your head. Westlake went nuts, fine. A hole in the wall is impossible. I thought so, too. But maybe the Trieste or whatever, it caved in his mind.”

Al nodded sympathetically—but to Luke it seemed too much like the pinched, dismissive nod someone would offer a raving bag lady.

“Some people aren’t built for this,” she said. “Doesn’t matter how smart they are or how rugged in every other way. This is a specific kind of pressure, and you can’t toughen yourself against it.”

“How do you feel, Luke?” Clayton asked with mock concern.

“This from the guy who’s walking around in his sleep, sending up pleading transmissions.” Luke’s voice rose to a reedy falsetto. “ Oh brother, oh brother, where art thou my brother—I neeeeeeeds you! ”

Clayton’s jaw tightened. “I did no such thing. I’d as soon have called for a janitor.”

Luke turned to Al, refusing to be baited into a fight. “I told Clay we should head up. Just until we can get a grip on what’s happening down here.”

“I can understand how this may come as a shock,” said Clayton, recovering his poise. “The things I’ve discovered are daunting. Frightening, even. But imagine living in the shadow of a dormant volcano. It’s scary at first… but you get used to it. People do it all the time. They exist under perpetual threat. And there’s so much work to be done here. Up there”—he pointed toward the surface—“people are suffering. Dying . They need us to stay here. To be strong and persevere. Surely you understand that?”

Oh please, you sententious bastard , Luke thought. You only care about yourself and your research, same as it ever was.

“What about the animals?” Clay continued. It was the first time he’d referred to them as anything but specimens. “If we go, we’ll have to leave them. And Dr. Toy, as well, who could destroy the station in our absence. Can we really take that risk?”

“What’s to stop him from destroying it right now?” Luke shot back.

“Maybe us just being here?” Al said reasonably. “There’s nothing in Toy’s quarters that he could use to wreck this place—but if we leave, giving him full run…”

Luke was dismayed to see that Al was taking his brother’s side on this.

“So we lock the hatches,” Luke said. “Can’t we do that? Can’t we—”

“Look, I told you I’m not leaving,” Clay said simply. “There’s too much to do, and too little time left. As I keep telling you—do whatever you want.”

A sense of despair had settled under Luke’s skin, itching like pink fiberglass insulation. Al held the deciding vote.

“Fuck it,” Al said after a spell. “Dr. Nelson, no disrespect, but Luke’s got a point. I think things may be on the verge of a catastrophic fuckup.”

Clayton impassively regarded Al. “I’ve spoken my piece.”

“Fuck it,” Al said again. “Luke, let’s go talk to topside operations. Dr. Nelson, I want you to stay where I can find you.”

“I’ll be in my lab,” Clayton said.

He turned his back to them. He was singing another nursery rhyme as he retreated into his lab.

“Ladybug, ladybug, fly away home; your house is on fire, your children all gone…”

LUKE AND LB FOLLOWED ALto the storage area. They shimmied through the crawl-through chute. It was easier this time. Al caught LB as she rocketed awkwardly out of the chute; she licked her face appreciatively. Luke came last. They continued on to reach the storage tunnel hatch. Al spun the wheel; there was a steady hiss as the pressure abated.