[Original Novel] Pressure: First Encounter, Part 7 (the finale!)

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Though he’d been hit just minutes earlier, Nate had somehow already entered REM sleep. Someone else might’ve overlooked that discrepancy, but it was a red flag to Angie. The screen cast flickering light over the contours of their faces.

A tropical garden lay before them, flowering plants of all types laid out with obvious deliberation along a path out of the forest and up the side of a hill. As their view moved along it they could see that a ring of mountains enclosed the region, which was lush almost beyond belief.

What little Angie knew of ecology prohibited the natural formation of a biome like this. Sparkling waterfalls issued forth from rocky swells, but with no obvious source of water behind them. Animals native to different continents entirely grazed alongside one another, oblivious to the strangeness of it.

And over everything, a hazy undulating pattern of light that lent it the quality of a painting. Only when the two looked skyward did the source of that light become clear.

“It’s all underwater”. Angie was excusably slackjawed. And correct. the bright blue sky, upon closer inspection, was sunlight filtered through ocean water.

Something similar to a whale but an order of magnitude larger sailed lazily overhead in pursuit of a creature one third the size, with a long neck and flippers. In nearby regions of the dome it was clearly raining, not from clouds but from inlets embedded in the dome which admitted water, presumably desalinating it as well.

The realization struck Angie like a thunderbolt. “The waters above and below, separated by the firmament of the sky.” Eliot was too engrossed in the imagery to ask what she meant. The view seemed to take flight, leaving the grassy hill behind and accelerating towards the dome itself.

A long black cable became visible, trailing from the outside of the structure up to a hexagonal platform floating on the surface. “What is that? What the fuck is that?” Neither ventured a guess.

With a startling feeling of impact, their point of view passed straight through the transparent membrane into the radiant blue abyss just outside of it. Only from this aerial vantage point was it now possible to notice encampments far below, complete with bonfires and barely distinguishable figures dancing around them.

“Tribal, Pacific Islanders maybe? Did the NOAA build this? Why would they keep natives here? Does a habitat this big actually exist anywhere? The Belusarius was news to me, so-” Eliot put a finger to her lips. Glancing at the screen she at once understood why. Before them a familiar serpentine form hovered silently in the water, small black eyes reflected by the dome as it peered inside.

“So it’s lying to us?” Angie paced frantically, running fingers through her hair and tugging at knots. “Well, that’s one possibility.” She spun on her heel. “Did we just see the same thing? What’s the other possibility, Eliot? That it’s all true?”

He chewed his fingernail thoughtfully, perched on one of the increasingly dingy chairs. A foul musk hung in the air. Their eyes locked, and several seconds of tense silence followed. “Look neither one of us is the type to take it at face value, but the bottom line is that we’re down to the air that’s in the Argyro right now and that’s rapidly fouling with every breath we take. There’s just no time left. We have to act. What we do depends on how we interpret what we’ve seen.”

Infuriatingly logical. “Everything it’s done so far has been a lie, in one way or another. The hallucinations we can agree on, if not the dreams.” Eliot nodded. “So we’ve got all lies or all truth. What about a mixture?” Angie calmed somewhat and sat opposite Eliot at the table, gesturing for him to continue.

“Well, imagine how long it’s been down here. Crippled, lonely, perhaps going slowly insane from it. Waiting eons for us to evolve to the point that we can discover it, and make contact. Imagine the desperation and anxiety. So alien to us, unsure of how to communicate, afraid we’ll recoil in disgust.”

“You make it sound like a frightened child.” Eliot shrugged. “Maybe it is. We don’t know anything about it, except what it’s shown us. Supposing it told us the truth until we began to show signs of fear and distrust? Then began showing us what we wanted to see instead.”

Angie interjected. “Nate’s dream! The garden, the firmament, all of it’s straight from scripture.” Eliot nodded. “And whether or not the rest was true, it fits neatly enough into that perspective.” Angie mulled it over. “Leo needs to know about this.” Both scanned the room. “How long has it been since you saw him?”

Just then, the inner door of the airlock swung open. Leonard, smeared with grease with a toolbox in each hand and a wrench gripped in his teeth, stepped over the rim of the hatch and then collapsed into the third chair. For the most part he ignored the barrage of questions and instead spit out the wrench, pulled a small comb from his chest pocket and began tidying his hair.

“Where have you been all this time? What were you doing? How much did you hear?” When it became apparent that he would reply in his own time the torrent of questions slowed to a trickle and then finally stopped. Leo looked around the room. “This tub is in a bad way, isn’t it.” They stared, visibly confused, waiting for more.

“I didn’t hear it all but I got the gist. I saw Nate go by with Angie when he was having his little episode. I’d have done something if I thought Nate was any danger to her, but we both know he’s not. For my part, since we’re out of O2, I was scooping CO2 absorbant into buckets and carrying it up here to top off the pressure suits. With the subs out of commission, the suits are our last way out.”

“But we can’t surface!” Angie blurted out, nearly falling out of her chair. Leo slowly shifted his gaze to meet hers. “Don’t intend to. I also don’t intend to die here. I think we should head for the Belusarius.” This time Eliot objected. “And spread whatever we’ve got to them? We’ve been over this, Leo.”

He shifted uncomfortably in his seat, then continued. “That’s assuming they’re unaffected. And it can only reach them through us while we’re halfway between the two. That’s my theory anyway. And even if I’m wrong, better the world know what’s down here and put people to work figuring it out, right? This way it’s still contained, the Belusarius is just as far down and just as remote. Whether or not anyone comes with me, that’s where I’m going. Only problem is, we’re short one suit.”

All three peered into the airlock. The two pressure suits hung in their cradles, silently demanding that a terrible choice be made.

The air stank mightily. Angie cradled her head in one hand, struggling to clear her vision as the men made final preparations. Hypoxia, she recalled, triggers a flight instinct in all complex animals.

A leftover from burrow dwelling ancestors. When the amount of CO2 in the air passes a certain point, feelings of panic overwhelm you. Under the circumstances it was difficult to determine how much of that was hypoxia and how much was sober awareness of their predicament.

The men finally settled on splitting the suits between Leo and Angie, while Eliot followed in the repaired minisub. Incidental emergency lights had already begun to shut off and finding their way to the docking port required a great deal of fumbling. There was a powerful sense of finality to it.

Whatever lay ahead of them, hanging back and deliberating any longer was off the table. This cramped, fragile bubble of air and light no longer offered either. Each time they inhaled, less oxygen was added to their blood.

With each exhalation, more CO2 filled the station. The walls dripped with bacteria growth, a biofilm that in the past three days had completely enveloped every available surface. Even as they were driven out, something else intruded.

“Wait for my okay from the airlock.” The floor seemed to sway gently under her. She focused on Eliot’s face, grimly nodding to Leo, and felt momentarily stabilized. “Once we’re suited up and flooding the lock, you disembark, and stay in sight.”

Just then, the last of whatever force held her up gave out and Angie collapsed against the bulkhead. “Angie!” Eliot moved to assist but Leo was closer. “Foul air got to her. She’s been showing symptoms for hours. Don’t worry, once she’s in the suit and breathing easy, her strength will return. Just prep the sub and wait for my signal.”

With that, Leo hoisted her into his arms and began trudging up the stairs.

There would be no easy exodus. The airlock door was shut, the control panel indicating a recent egress. Minutes later the lock was drained and open to the interior, with a conspicuous absence. “Eliot!” Angie watched Leo’s face as he shouted into the intercom.

It helped to have a fixed point of reference, and at the same time unsettling to watch even Leo losing his composure. Spots of light entered the edges of her vision. Not promising. “Leo, why aren’t you outside yet?”

Leo was inside the lock, still dripping with sea water, frantically searching for the second suit as if there was enough room in there to lose it. “Eliot, Nate’s gone.” The garbled sound of confusion and static came back.

“He’s gone. Took the suit. There’s only one now. He took the suit Eliot, what the fuck do we do now.” Darkness replaced the points of light, and began to creep towards the center of her vision. The last thing she witnessed before passing out was Leo hunched over her, shaking her by the shoulders and yelling.

There was as strange sense of peace and acceptance she felt while drifting off. Death was kinder than she’d imagined. Leo’s shouts were muffled and increasingly distant. For a while she hung motionless and numb in the black expanse. Then suddenly, light and sound exploded into being around her.

“Angie. Angie, come back to me.” She looked up expecting Leo, still shaking her on the floor of the airlock. Instead it was Eliot looming over her with an oxygen mask. She made weak noises, barely audible but which Eliot correctly interpreted as “How are we alive?”
With help, she sat up and examined her surroundings. Overhead, a panoramic glass dome. Below her, what she quickly recognized as the floor of the observation bubble. The hatch was securely shut, and before she could ask, Eliot confirmed that they were already nearly a mile above the Argyro and still rising.

“L...Leo?” she managed. Eliot’s smile faded. “I don’t know. I assume he set out after Nate. With the power out, the relays won’t work. They’ll have the onboard compass, but no other means of navigation or comms. It’s just the two of them down there, in the darkness, heading for the Belusarius. For their sake, I hope Leo gets there first.”

She drew the transparent plastic mouthpiece to her face again and inhaled eagerly. “I thought maybe I’d lost you, yenno. You were out cold for a while there, pulse was so faint I couldn’t tell if I was imagining it. I thought you’d really left me alone.”

She let the mask fall away. Tears began to well up in her eyes, and when he lifted her closer it was all the invitation she needed to kiss him. The tension built up over the last few hours before their escape poured out from her body, replaced with euphoric relief.

She cried, helpless to stop, holding fast to Eliot as if even now there was some chance he could slip away. They made it. She remembered Leo, for a split second, and felt a tinge of regret that they’d left him down there with Nate. Survivor’s guilt. Except he was still alive, she reminded herself. There was still a chance.

Then the realization struck her; they were rapidly heading for the surface. Her stomach shrunk.

“Eliot, nothing’s changed, has it? How can we simply surface like this?” He put a finger to her lips with one hand, and caressed her cheek with the other.

“I don’t know. With both suits gone and the sub too small for both of us, there was only one thing left. I had to act, and then think about it on the way up. Best I could figure is to surface, and then ride it out as long as the oxygen lasts. This cupola doubles as a lifeboat, there’s maybe two, two and a half weeks of provisions. How long did it take us to acclimate? Attune, whatever. A week? The effect should wear off before we’re picked up. I had to take the chance. If I thought you’d be fine in the sub, I’d have sent you off by yourself. But I couldn’t go alone. Not if it meant leaving you behind. Angie, I...”

He looked so embarrassed, she laughed in spite of everything. “I love you too, Eliot.” This time the embrace was stronger. Their lips lingered. Her hands ran up his neck, then through his hair.

“Remember the box forts? The ones we had when we were kids.”

Eliot looked lost in thought for a moment. “From the ride down to the station. That conversation stuck with me for some reason. What I didn’t tell you then is that it was a hard habit to break. I was building those silly forts well into my twenties. Even had boys in them sometimes, that’s what this reminds me of.”

Eliot glanced around the cupola interior. “Haha, oh yeah. And you pretended it was a submarine, I take it.” Eliot smiled at her expectantly. She waited for him to remember that hers was a spaceship. Ready to laugh about it, again. That’s when the intercom crackled to life. “A--gie---...w-y...-tach the...-opla.....aught up with Leo, Na-....sarius.”

Outside, a dim green laser flickered against the cupola’s photoreceptor, then went dark for the last time. Angie, still smiling, stared at the intercom for a few seconds while it registered. “That....sounded like...” she fell silent. Then slowly turned to see Eliot hunched over, faced away from her. The room seemed to slowly contract.

Her glance moved upward, to Eliot’s reflection in the dome. The reflection of a pale, huddled nude figure. Nearly human, but not quite. She tried to cry, but found that no sound would come from her throat as in one smooth motion she drew the pistol from her pocket, aimed at the dome, and fired.

“Unidentified sub, this is the Belusarius docking authority. Please respond.” A bright green laser pierced the darkness outside the porthole, returning vague position and orientation data for what soon resolved itself as the distant black outline of an exoskeleton.

“Do you think his comms are broken?” One man, wiry and balding, leaned against the transmission console as his partner struggled to provoke a response from the approaching diver. “What do we do? Handbook says don’t let him in without the codes.”

The balding man shifted his weight, and set to rubbing his temples. “Yeah, I know....but if he’s not transmitting back, he could be hurt.” They didn’t get much chance to deliberate as soon the suited figure stood right outside the lock. The man at the console leaned back and exchanged a worried look with the second fellow, who had already begun prepping the harness used to suit up and desuit divers.

“Fine. But this is going on record as your call. I took the heat that time you spilled the dessicant.” Bald man shrugged, then quickly wheeled the harness down the hallway to the interior airlock door. The suit was already inside the lock, which drained noisily for a few minutes, then spent a few more equalizing.

The interior hatch was easily twice his size and groaned as it swung open. It was a two man job to help the unexpected visitor out of the lock and into the desuiting harness. “Where’d you come from, fella? This suit’s not one of ours.”

The bald man ran a dirty cloth over the viewing dome and peered inside. “You look like hell. How long were you out there? Hang tight, we’ll get you out of this thing.” The moment the seal broke, a foul odor escaped from the suit and both men covered their mouths and noses.

“Christ, what is that? Smells like someone died in there.” The filthy, haggard man freed his arms from the suit’s upper half, then stepped out onto the metal grate. “The fresh water shower is over there by the tools. There’s some gear in there right now. We were washing it, but you need it more. After you’re done, head for the-”

He stopped mid sentence and took a step back. His friend back at the console turned just in time to see the visitor withdraw a rifle and pair of clips from inside the suit. “May God forgive me for what I am about to do.”

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^{The End.}