The hum wasn’t muted completely, but enough for her to get the awful, knotted feeling that they were leaving, perhaps for good.
By the morning of the following day, she’d gotten so upset about her predator’s disappearance that her sister had even picked up on it.
Of course, Clementine couldn’ttellNelly what was going on. The gods only knew what kind of fuss she’d kick up if she found out her older sister was not only being stalked, but actually enjoying it.
I’m not enjoying it so much now,she thought, lowering the submersible’s hatch. It sealed with a hydraulic hiss.
Nelly assumed Clementine was struggling with the reality of living on a deserted island, but that wasn’t true. She was struggling with figuring out how to make her very first real friend and grappling with the anxiety that they might not return.
She just couldn’t figure out what she was doingwrong.
Calling out hadn’t worked. Laying in wait hadn’t worked. After agonizing over it for days, she’d recalled her mug’s mysterious disappearance and came to the only conclusion available to her: perhaps her predator wanted gifts, too.
They’d taken her mug. Had that perhaps initiated some sort of cultural practice of gift exchange she didn’t understand? If so, it stood to reason that her predator was miffed about her lack of thoughtfulness. After all,they’dgiven her plenty of lovely things. All she’d done was leave an old mug out on the floor.
The more she went around and around the problem in her mind, the more reasonable it sounded — primarily because she had nothing else to go on. At least the idea that they might be hoping for a gift in return gave her something todoother than sit on her hands and worry they’d decided she wasn’t interesting anymore.
Butterflies danced in her stomach as the submersible dock’s arm slowly lowered the vehicle into the moon pool. Once it was safely in the water, the arm released its hold. No matter how many times she did it, Clementine jolted at the feeling of being dropped in the water, a momentary weightlessness that made her stomach swoop.
She’d done a few supervised practice runs, but this would be her first trip to the office and back completely on her own. Her palms were a little sweaty as she gripped the rubbery material of the rectangular, almost bow-shaped steering wheel.
The half-dome of triple-reinforced plexiglass was illuminated with soft light around the edges, allowing her to just make out all the buttons, switches, and control panels in front of her.
The craft itself wasn’t terribly difficult to work. It was designed for a one-man crew, so most of the trickier tasks were automated. Technically speaking, she didn’t really need to steer, either, since it had a simple autopilot function, but being dropped into the deep dark, shark- and merfolk-infested water was bad enough without feeling like she didn’t have some control over where she was going, even if that control was just keeping her fingers on the wheel while it did all the work.
Most people couldn’t afford the really fancy, fully autonomous vehicles that the EVP was famous for manufacturing, including herself. Trusting that the submersible knew what it was doing had definitely taken some getting used to.
She wasn’t sure how exactly the EVP scientists had done it, but they’d somehow managed to make the vehicle’s propulsion almost silent as it cut through the water below her house. A ping alerted her to the closing of the moon pool’s doors just as the submersible glided down over the steep drop-off just beyond the rocks.
Clementine swallowed hard, all her senses straining as she scanned the dark water ahead of her.Are you out there?
Unlike much of the coast, the Farallones were not surrounded by thick kelp forests. The jagged islands were perched on the very edge of an underwater cliff. Beyond them was nothing but vast open ocean.
That meant that the Farallones themselves were a bit of a gateway for those terrifying predators who called the open ocean home — orca, great white sharks, seals, and merfolk coming in to snatch a quick bite during various breeding seasons.
That great stretch of deep blue reminded her a bit of a watery desert. A desert that could at any moment be completely overrun by beings capable of biting her limbs off.
Nice, Em. Real nice.
Shaking off that grim thought, Clementine hit the course selection button on the control panel and pressed her back into the stiff cushions of her seat. She breathed deeply through her nose.Focus.
The submersible cut through the water effortlessly, uninhibited by current or the silvery flash of fish. Her fingers remained curled around the wheel, but it moved independently under her loose grip.
Even though she remained alert, Clementine liked that she could also focus on remaining calm. Calm was necessary to maintaining her barriers. Those barriers would be essential to keeping her shit together the closer she came to the screaming wall of noise and chaos that was a city full of sentient beings.
Breathing in a lungful of the stale, recycled air, she held it for ten seconds before slowly releasing it. As always, the mantra she’d learned before she could even truly understand speech sing-songed it’s way through her mind.
Brick by brick, build the walls high, build them thick. Build the walls high or you’ll go mad quick, quick, quick.
She slipped into a familiar meditative state as she worked. Her breathing evened out and her gaze grew distant the deeper she went, shoring up holes and stabilizing walls that had begun to weaken with the day-to-day flexing of her mind.
By the time she was pulled out of her work by a small psychic nudge to what she and her sister had always calledthe doorin her mind, the submersible dock’s lights were just flickering into view.
What do you want, Penelope?
Her sister’s voice, crystal clear and achingly welcome, resonated in her mind like the high notes of a harp.Wow, it must feel good knowing you can still remember names in your old age, huh?
I’m not old!
