Providence - Max Barry Page 0,80

her for the second time that day. By the time he’d finished, water was lapping at the harness’s lower straps. Or not water: a thick black liquid that smelled like death. He fixed the EV helmet onto Beanfield’s head and peered at her face. He was a little jealous of her right now. Not only did she get the good suit, the one with the bigger helmet, but she got to do this unconscious. He heaved her out of the harness. He eyed the roiling blackness below. Dense liquid, Jackson had said. It was going to squeeze him like a bitch.

“Go,” Jackson said.

Anders had been written up twice for untidy quarters in his first month at Camp Zero, which meant that during a room inspection, a floor sergeant with nothing better to do had discovered a crease in Anders’s bedsheet, which existed because another floor sergeant had called an assembly drill at four in the morning. Service, Anders had quickly figured out, was a bunch of assholes who claimed to be family but acted like they hated you. And that was okay; that was actually very true to his own family experience. But he’d joined for the opportunity to hold the whip handle for a change, not realizing how much whipping he would have to undergo himself first. He was thinking of quitting and this untidy-quarters bullshit felt like it might be the final straw. Because no one else was being written up: They’d all figured out they should sleep beneath their beds, leaving the sheet undisturbed, in a tight little space you could create under there by pulling out the storage tubs. Anders did not do this, because that small, dark place was far too much like a toolbox. But faced with crashing out of Service, he realized he wanted to stay. Even with the bullshit, there was nothing better for him out there, just a father he didn’t visit anymore, a string of mistakes, and three gravesites, the most recent, barely a year old, being the one into which Eddie had put himself. So Anders made himself crawl under the bunk. The funny part was how there was a kind of comfort in its familiarity. It was bad, but in a way he recognized. It was the closest he’d felt to his brothers for a while.

The point of all this was that you could do anything. You could suck it up and do the worst thing you could imagine, if you had to. He nodded to Jackson. He dropped the lightning gun and the smoke swallowed it silently. He heaved Beanfield after it. This time there was a sound of wet acceptance. He jumped.

* * *

—

There were layers. At first he swam through muck, thrashing his legs and pulling with one arm, tugging Beanfield. Then they came to a place of clear amber light full of tiny bubbles. It was harder to swim, the liquid offering him less purchase with which to fight the gravity. His mind volunteered a terrible idea: At a certain point, he would reach a place of equilibrium, where he couldn’t rise any farther, not unless he let go of Beanfield. He decided that wasn’t going to happen. He swam. Eventually he broke some kind of surface and droplets began to spatter his faceplate.

He swung his head left and right. The light on his helmet illuminated only a few yards, and even that barely at all, but there were thick, undulating waves, which were furry. The water had hairs on it. He waited until he’d developed a sense of the direction of the waves and then began to swim. He could barely move his arms. But there was a current and he went with it.

At some point, his hand scraped rock. He couldn’t feel his arms, but he dragged Beanfield up the shore and fell onto his back. The gravity was terrible. He was beginning to understand how unrelenting it was. It would be everywhere forever. It hurt to breathe.

“We made it, Beanfield,” he said.

That might turn out not to be exactly right. But it was true for now. Before his body could surrender, he fought to his feet and pulled Beanfield from the water, dragging her until they reached a hollow, something like a cave. Then he slept.

* * *

—

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