Episode 9 - A Dark, Deep Place. And the Hollow Beyond.

  Chapter 83 - The Current

  I scratch at the silicone seal of my respirator as I lean on the side of the trailer. The sheet metal cover of the fan controls is on the ground at my feet, propped against one wheel. A plastic cup balanced on the lip of the trailer serves as a container where I’ve gathered all the screws and washers. The problem fan in question I’ve dismounted from the airlock roof, sitting the whole box at my side where I can experiment with the control board and watch it in real time. Carefully folded to one side is the rubber seal that was sandwiched between the edges of the box and the trailer.

  I give the blade of the fan a prod with my needle-nose pliers between the tines of the grill. Impatiently flicking switches on the control board, I watch for a reaction. Nothing fires life into the blades of the fan, and it keeps on rotating lazily as I prod it along with the nose of my pliers. I adjust a few of the wires within the control box, relaxing a couple that are tangled a little too tight, pulling on their connectors at strange angles that could be the culprit for the fan's dysfunction. Another tap with my pliers, I repeat the sequence of switches with no change in the fan's behavior.

  With a sigh, I tug a few of the click-connectors from the edge of the control board and loop a couple through my hand. The process is second nature to me as I energize the circuits with Pooka’s powers and watch the motor kick and the fan shudder to life. I alternate connectors between my fingers, juggling them like the crew-men twist the beads they use for betting and card games between their knuckles. In turn, the fan energizes, speeds up, slows down and reverses as I test each circuit one after another. Nothing is wrong with the bloody fan then. I bounce the connectors in my hand a moment longer as I consider what to diagnose next, powering the circuit with a lazy half-thought of Pooka’s powers to spin the fan again and cool my sweating brow as I think.

  My mind splinters without warning. My stomach drops. As if the earth has disappeared beneath my feet and gravity has come to claim me. There is a dark place. Deep below. And my bond tears open at its call. A current beyond my communion picks me up as Pooka and I are torn asunder, and it threatens to wash my mind from me to somewhere beyond my borders. Ghosts clamor silent on the edges of my consciousness, welcoming me to their embrace where they promise dissolution. With hands that feel familiar, they grasp from the current and brush my mind, dragging me back to the current. With a desperate gasp, my vision spins, and I grab onto myself, flailing outwards with my mind to Pooka.

  My love. Answer not the hollow today. He reassures, wrapping me with his mind and pulling me from the current.

  I sit before my legs give way beneath me and I attract unwanted attention as I wait for my mind to recover. I lean back against the giant wheel of the habitat and blink as I look upwards at the sky, shaking the feeling of the dark with the blinding light and discomfort as I squint. A single black dot shadows the sky, and Pooka dives from somewhere high above, flaring his wings and splashing against the ground as fog. His furred head thrusts into my lap, his wet nose touching my throat beneath my chin and a paw leans on my chest. I tangle my hands in the ruff of his black mane, focusing on the feeling of his effervescent chill sinking through my gloves, contrasted with the beating heat of the sun. I catalogue the sensations of my body one after another. My breath. The itch of my underlayers. The pointed lugs on the wheel digging into my back. The tickle of Pooka’s whiskers on the side of my neck. The tongue of my boot that has half folded under the buckles and been annoying me since the morning. Each feeling, one after another, reassures me I am human and still here.

  This is the second time this week.

  I know.

  Pooka rests his chin on my knee, his wide ears bat-like around his head in his hyaenid form. His red eyes glow, pupilless, as they watch me. I scratch the center of his skull between his eyes while I reassure myself that no part of me was washed away with the call of the Hollow. Or at least I hope nothing has.

  You may need to restrain yourself from using my powers.

  I don’t reply, watching the fur on his skull part around my gloved finger as I continue to scratch his forehead.

  “What are you doing on the ground?” asks Addie.

  I pat Pooka’s ears backwards, watching them flatten then pop upwards like a spring as my hand releases them. “Just taking a break,” I reply. My voice is flat, empty of emotion. I haven’t told anyone I’ve been having these dizzy spells. I don’t even know how I would begin explaining them if I did.

  “Can you fix the fan?” she asks.

  I blink, pushing Pooka off my lap and picking up my pliers again. I don’t quite feel ready to get on my feet. “Uh, not sure yet. The fan is fine. Connectors at the control box might be buggered, or something about the board is dead. Haven’t worked out which one yet.”

  “We’ve got plenty of parts in trailer sixteen. Do you need me to find something?” asks Addie, hovering at a slight distance. Her symbiont is wrapped around her shoulders, rattle-tail hanging limp and diamond shaped head tucked into the neck of her suit.

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  “No, I’ll go have a look later. What did you come over for?” I ask, bouncing the tips of my pliers on my knee.

  “Quartermaster wanted to know if you can charge the batteries tonight? We’re getting low. Oh, also a vote was taken and we’ll be camping here for the next few days. Oh, also Captain Rattakul’s been sighted by the avians. Oh, also, Carol wanted to know if you finished sketching the latest set of herbarium samples he left with you? Oh, and last one, I’ve got those pottery relics we pulled from the ruins at Beifong cleaned and wanted to know if you want to see them before I get them packed for buyers?”

  I rub my forehead where the edge of my mask sits at the barrage of information. “Yes, to the pottery samples. No, to the sketches. Yes, to the batteries -”

  Are you sure?

  You can do it instead of me.

  Pooka harrumphs into my hand, his tail beating once against the ground and kicking up a puff of white and brown dust. I run Addie’s list through my mind trying to figure out which update I’ve missed in my response so far. “When is Rattakul due in?”

  It is not Addie’s voice that replies. “Captain Rattakul. We landed about an hour ago.”

  I blink at the male voice, shielding my eyes as I look up from the ground still and study the outline of the second figure that has approached.

  “Oh, it’s you,” says Addie dismissively.

  Rhett grunts. “Yes, it’s me.”

  It has been almost two weeks since we last saw Rattakul’s crew. In the two months I’ve been on my secondment with Captain Moreau’s crew, they have run with us just as often as they did not. This was one of their longer breaks. We’d run into each other for a few days, cross between a city or ruin together, then our routes would separate again only to meet at the next major city. The Navigators keep in touch - their avians making regular flights between our crews, and often supplies or food or water would be swapped as needed during the rendezvous.

  Rhett has his rope-safety harness worn over his environmental suit, but today Pell is perched on his shoulder. I haven’t seen her in ages. The highly physical work of manning the ropes on the gondola is far too dangerous for her brittle-jointed body. She’s large for an invertebrate, and paradoxically it seems to make her more vulnerable than something much smaller - a target large enough to be accidentally crushed or injured.

  Rhett’s hood is down and the sides of his head are freshly shaved to a short peach-fuzz, his curled hair tied not in a braid, but in a tousled bun on top of his head.

  “What’s up?” I ask, resting my elbows on my knees and dangling the pliers from my hands.

  “Patrick is giving out haircuts if you want to get in line,” says Rhett idly, leaning on the trailer and curiously looking over my work.

  “Fuck, I might. Been a while. Can you check this control board for me and tell me if it's fried or not,” I mutter.

  “You sure you wanna let him touch our stuff?” asks Addie.

  “It’s fine,” I reply, not giving her tone much attention. My outsider status seems to give me some grace not to be required to take part in their cliquish dislike of Rhett, fueled by many odd rumors I have heard about him now. I know Captain Moreau does nothing to stop it.

  Pell scuttles down Rhett’s shoulder and crawls over the board, the teal markings between her joints glowing faintly in the bright sunlight. After a moment of consideration, Rhett replies. “Boards good, you’re probably right that it’s just a bad connector.”

  Addie hovers at a distance from the both of us, seemingly unsure what to do around this man she has been told not to like. I don’t think she’d ever interacted with him until she’d run into him in my company. “I’ll wait for you then, to come see the pottery samples? It’ll need to be packed again before we move.”

  “I’ll come after lunch,” I reassure her.

  “That’s as long as I’ll wait.” She glances between us, then slips away again.

  I sigh and feel human enough to stretch to the lip of the trailer and pull down my cup of screws. I give them a jingle, then toss my pliers into the cup.

  “You right?” mutters Rhett, leaning over me against the wall of the trailer, casting a shadow across me with his torso.

  “I’m taking a break,” I repeat, using the same excuse I gave Addie.

  “Hmm?” he replies with a skeptical crescendo at the end.

  “Just a break in the dust,” I mutter, rocking forward and pulling myself to my feet.

  “Doesn’t everyone?”

  I brush the dust off my backside and lean on my knees a moment longer as I catch my breath. Then I straighten and go through the act of stretching my back. My vision has stopped swimming at least. “Why are you here?” I ask suspiciously. It’s not like him to willingly walk into Moreau’s camp.

  Rhett leans on his wrist as he remains parked against the trailer, watching me stand. “Came to chat with my dad.”

  “Are you and he capable of ‘chatting’?” I ask skeptically.

  “Something close to it then,” he grunts.

  I know that stiffness in his voice when I hear it. I feel a twist in my stomach and let the topic pass without confrontation. “Where’d you say Patrick was?”

  VERY IMPORTANT UPDATE, there is a photo of the new kitten behind the spoiler.

  I DIED BEFORE.

  THIS TIME, I'M TAKING EVERYONE.

  The Immortal Scam is back. Cursed into a peacock, armed with foreknowledge, and powered by rage. Forget destiny, The Loop Ends Now.