A Study of Fiber and Demons Read online

  "Kill or be killed," Sylvestra muttered, and although Alim understood how true the sentiment rang in university politics, he had never before heard of it being enacted literally.

  Alim found himself abruptly more forgiving toward his other two companions for ruining his career.

  "I just… I don't want 'politics as usual' getting in the way of progress on this research," Jack said, and again his hand hovered over the control panel. "This is for the sake of scientific endeavor. You understand."

  I can't let a bit of squeamishness stand in the way of my ambition. Yes, Alim now understood with absolute clarity.

  Alim readied himself to slam his own hands against the window, wondering how much force it would take to break it and if rage alone could give his scrawny arms that amount of power. Before he could lunge, the pod shook again, and he felt his gut rise to his throat as the floor fell out from under him.

  *~*~*

  Alim's perception of space and direction flipped on its head as he felt another smack to his hip, and this time to his shoulder and skull as well. Aching and heat crawled through him, across his side and around his legs. Instinctively, he kicked out, eliciting a pained grunt from Liam.

  Sense began to return with the icy clarity of panic.

  He, Liam, and Sylvestra had all toppled to the floor when the pod was dropped into the underground lake. While the fall was blessedly short, Alim sat up just in time to find a shroud of dark green rushing up outside the window. The pods, it seemed, did not float.

  Alim kicked again to untangle his legs from Liam's, where they had fallen on top of each other. Sylvestra grabbed the control panel to pull herself back to her feet, and while Alim stood on wobbling, bruised legs to join her, Liam remained on the floor, scampering back to press himself against the far wall. Alim ignored him in favor of watching the waterline rise above them.

  "Well, blazes," he said as it rose above the top of the window and their vessel became entirely submerged. The bubbling hum of water all around echoed throughout the pod.

  Sylvestra huffed. "That's putting it mildly." Bending over the control panel, she began examining the various buttons and knobs. The lighting was still red, so it was difficult to see clearly, and she squinted at the faded demon etchings. "No time to waste. We need to figure out how to get out of here."

  "This must have been designed for submarine travel, given that we're not already at least an ankle deep in water. Kind of Jack to seal the doors, I suppose."

  "Foolish that he did." Her hands hovered over the controls with uncertainty, and Alim's jaw clenched at her hesitance. While he understood that she didn't want to accidentally trigger anything that might hurt them, her abrupt lack of confidence in her knowledge of demon technology was poorly timed. "We still have a chance to get out of here, if we can find an escape before we starve. He could have just drowned us."

  Liam let out a strained choking sound, and Alim glanced back at him, still hunkered on the floor. Liam had his hands to his head, shaking as he covered his ears and stared wide-eyed at his feet. Pity and fright caused Alim's jaw to tighten further, straining his muscles all the way down his neck. Liam, ever the liar, had concealed the severity of his phobia, but it seemed he had reached the end of his abilities with that. As much as Alim didn't want to rely on him, he was stunned at the realization that Liam was completely vulnerable in this situation, perhaps beyond the point of being able to help them escape it.

  "Do you suppose you can figure out how to steer it back to the surface?"

  Sylvestra looked up at Alim upon hearing the urgency in his question, then glanced back at Liam, mute and immobile in his anxiety. "Oh, hell. Now you fall to pieces?"

  "Being underwater must have a more extreme effect than being above it," Alim suggested, and Sylvestra whirled back on him with a sneer.

  "With good reason. If I can't drive this thing back to the surface, then I'll have to find a way to open the hatches, and we will all be at risk for drowning."

  Liam grunted again. "Please, can you not talk about it?" The sharp request quivered more than his usual gruff growl.

  Sylvestra returned her attention to the control panel. "Yes, let's focus on what's important: Returning to the surface so I can rip that whimpering little kindergartner to confetti." She spun one dial and smacked a button near it, causing the lights to shift from red back to pale yellow, and a vibrating hum rattled the entire shell of the vehicle. Sylvestra glanced up with a sparkle of pride in her eyes, and her restored confidence helped soothe a fragment of Alim's fear. "We'll see how well demon technology holds up over the years. While I try to turn on whatever engine this ancient beast might have, make yourself useful and comfort Liam."

  Feeling useless was about the worst thing Alim could imagine about this situation—aside from drowning—but he was no therapist, nor did he feel a strong compulsion to ease Liam's suffering. All he could do was glance over his shoulder and say to Liam, "There, there."

  The ungrateful jackass did not even acknowledge Alim's efforts.

  "Grab on to something, as well," Sylvestra said, but her warning didn't come in time for Alim to act. She turned more dials and pulled a lever, and the sensation of sinking shifted to that of forward propulsion. He staggered back, grabbing Sylvestra's arm to keep from falling on his ass. Outside the window, he could only see deep emerald shadows.

  "This must be some kind of subterranean waterway," he said, sharing his notion from earlier. "I'm beginning to think that maybe our orange demon survived and escaped, after all."

  "Perhaps." Sylvestra's response was terse, as though the last thing she wanted to talk about was the project. Alim couldn't blame her.

  "But how do you know where we're going? How do you know there's not a tunnel wall directly ahead of us, I mean?"

  When she exhaled, he could hear as much quiver in it as in Liam's voice. "I don't."

  Alim swallowed down any further questions, hesitant to distract her from the task.

  "Shouldn't we be going up?" Liam asked, his words running together in his rush to get them out. "To the surface?"

  "I'm… trying. I don't exactly know how to control this thing."

  "Don't exactly know?"

  Sylvestra whirled on him, and Alim felt a flicker of fear for Liam's physical safety. "Yes, Master Steppard, I only vaguely know what I'm doing because even the most complete knowledge of the written language of demons is only roughly translated, and half these markings are faded beyond legibility. But if you feel that sitting on the floor whimpering has better odds of saving our hides, then be my guest and utilize your endless talent to return us to the surface." Liam shrunk away at her admonishment.

  Sylvestra turned back to the controls and added with a snarl, "Though I'm sure if I can get us back, you'll take the credit, regar—" She cut off as the pod collided with something unseen in the dark water, knocking the ship at an angle and causing them all to stumble to the left. Whatever it had been, they only clipped it, and the pod righted itself as it continued on its way.

  "Is there anything we might do to assist you in figuring out how to operate this thing?" Alim asked. "I think we would all feel more comfortable returning to the surface as soon as possible."

  The wrinkle in her brow from the snarl didn't dissipate, but neither did she turn her wrath on him. "Perhaps. The primary character utilized for 'surface' and related words looks a bit like a horizontal line with three long strikes through it, and then a forth, shorter strike. Or is it the third strike that's shorter?" She shook her head. "Anyway, check to see if you can find any markings that resemble that. You might also look for a symbol that looks a bit like three vector lines meeting at apex point at the top."

  Alim narrowed his eyes at her, wondering if even now she was trying to be sardonic. "You mean like an arrow?"

  "If you find anything that looks like it might useful, point it out to me. Don't go tampering with anything on your own."

  "I'm not one of your lab assistants, Sylvestra."

&nb
sp; "No, and a shame for that." He wasn't sure what to make of the sudden softness lacing her tone. "Just see if you can find something I can work with. I'll keep my eyes out, too, but I'd rather focus on steering this fossil."

  "You're steering it?" It felt as though they were just going in a straight line, occasionally brushing up against the resistance of a current.

  "I'm certainly trying."

  Alim supposed he couldn't ask more of her and began searching the control panel for what she had mentioned. After a cursory glance, finding only alien-looking markings that he could make no sense of, he turned and checked the wall the Liam cowered against. It would be poor design choice to put such a key control so far from the main controls, but he had to be sure. There was one button there that had an etching faded beyond recognition, but bits of old green pigment still lingered on it, and it was larger than any of the surrounding buttons. It looked important, but he supposed the ship had a number of important functions, and there was no way to know if it was the one he wanted.

  Returning to the front, he checked under the control panel, thinking of the tram and where its emergency brakes would be located in the conductor's car. Some way to surface the pod was not quite the same thing as a brake, but there must have been some emergency trigger down there for dire situations. He found a number of levers, but one was marked with a sort of vector symbol like the one Sylvestra had described.

  "What about this one?"

  Sylvestra hesitated to pull her attention from the window again but ducked to take a look. "Uh, yes."

  "You don't sound certain."

  "I'm not, but if we don't try something this pod is eventually going to collide into something impassible. But that does look like an emergency floatation switch of some kind. Pull it. And…" She glanced back at Liam, hunkered silently. "Prepare for the worst."

  Liam groaned, and Alim was inclined to agree with the sentiment. Nevertheless, crashing their pod—or driving too far out into the ocean—was less than ideal, as well. Taking a deep breath, Alim grabbed the lever and pulled.

  Pops and creaks rang out around them, both muted and echoing from the water encasing their ship, and Sylvestra did something to kill the engine, glancing around in anticipation. Alim stood, uncertain of the effect of his actions.

  A fwoosh and the sound of stretching leather broke through the metallic creaking, and Alim could see out the window something pale growing near the body of the pod. At the same time, their ship began to tilt, shifting at the same rate that the mysterious shape outside grew.

  An inflation device.

  Alim almost cried in relief until the pod tilted so far that he went stumbling back into the wall behind Liam, Sylvestra sliding along as well. In the background, something clicked rapidly, groaning in frustration.

  "I think one of the inflation balloons is stuck," Sylvestra said. "We may come up a little lopsided."

  "At least the door is on the upside," Alim said, but as the vessel continued to tilt and rise, the three of them struggled not to accidentally hit any buttons as the far wall quickly became the floor. He wondered if they would still be able to climb up to the door once they surfaced.

  The rise was slower than the descent, but even Liam appeared to be calmer as they drifted upward. Alim tilted his head back, watching the surface break over the window's glass. The beads of water that clung to the gritty window could have been diamonds for how beautiful the sight was.

  Once surfaced, Sylvestra turned her attention to the controls closest to them. She found the large green one that Alim had noticed earlier. "Ah, I think this is just what we need." Hitting it and a neighboring button simultaneously, the door creaked open, raining lingering seawater onto them. It was, however, completely above the surface.

  Sylvestra began crawling toward the exit, rocking the pod with each step, and Alim realized that they had not been turned at exactly ninety degrees when the inflation balloons had gone off. There was still enough of a slope that they could scramble up to the door.

  All three crawled over to the open hatch and peeked out.

  Wherever they were, it was dim but not completely dark, but Alim had been hoping for the white sky of a clear, coastal afternoon. "Another underground lake?"

  It took a moment for his eyes to adjust, revealing jagged cave walls glistening with salt water. It was illuminated only by the lights in the pod, but that was enough to spy a stone shelf some distance off, low enough for them to climb up onto solid land.

  Next to him, Liam was shaking and softly wheezing, but his panic had tapered with his ability to look out above the water's surface.

  "A moment to collect ourselves on dry land should be our next step, yes?" Alim asked, confused by his own pity for Liam.

  "I think damp land is the best we'll find, but yes," Sylvestra said. "We will have to swim a bit." She looked to Liam, and he nodded with grim determination.

  "I think… I should be able to dog-paddle. Just give me a moment." A metallic creak droned over half his words. Alim almost didn't notice it mixed with the lapping of water against stone echoing all around them, but just as he wondered what the suspicious sound was, there was a telltale fwoosh again.

  Alim was pitched forward and headfirst into the water as the last inflation balloon worked its stuck hatch open, bursting out and tipping the vessel upright.

  He opened his eyes in the water, dizzied by its endless darkness, but the soft light from the pod glowed as a beacon. Pumping his arms and legs, his disorientation faded when he resurfaced, and he paddled toward the stone ledge.

  It was an effort to pull himself up. The short swim had drained him, chilling sea water permeated his clothes and skin and blood, and the weight of his own body dragged at him as he tried to grasp onto slippery stone and pull himself up. He managed—somehow—and sat on the stone to heave in several deep breaths even as sea water clinging to his nose and lips was inhaled in the process.

  Sylvestra was close behind him, putting more force into her strokes than he had put into his as the weight of her clothes threatened to pull her into depths, but when she reached the ledge, she clambered up with more ease and determination than Alim had. He might have felt relief for her safety, but his heart hammered and clenched with such a cocktail of fright and betrayal and hope and regret for ever signing on to this miserable project at all that he could not fully distinguish one emotion for another in the moment.

  Liam was still in the water. Dread overrode every other of Alim's warring emotions as he looked out to the pond. Liam had resurfaced several feet from the pod and even further from the ledge, flailing and slapping at the water in a struggle to stay buoyant.

  He was too muscular to float, and it was doubtful he could swim well with his phobia, which itself likely had his limbs strained stiff in panic. He would drown.

  "Oh, hell," Sylvestra snarled, and began ripping off her damp clothes and boots. Alim didn't register what she was doing until she was down to her undergarments and jumping back into the water. She was going to save him?

  Shock and exhaustion—and the knowledge that his presence wouldn't help the situation—froze Alim in place while he watched Sylvestra paddle out to Liam. What if Liam pulled her down?

  "Arm around my shoulders!" Sylvestra shouted to Liam as she neared. "Kick as hard as you can!" It was unclear how much of that he caught, as his head dipped under the surface.

  She reached him in time to sidle up to him, hook one of his arms over her shoulder and wrap one of her own arms around his waist. With the support, he was able to lift his head over the surface again, barely, but her face strained at the effort her own kicks were putting forth to keep them both afloat.

  "Kick!" she repeated. "Tilt back to float." Liam tried to obey, sputtering as water filled his mouth each time he bobbed downward, his eyes glassy with panic. Still, she did her best to tilt them both back, giving them a better angle to float as she tried to backstroke to shore with her one free arm. "Alim!"

  He scooted to the edge, ready
to grab on to either one as they neared. Once Liam was in an arm's reach, Alim leaned forward to grasp him by the shirt and heaved back, dragging him quickly to the ledge. Sylvestra released him and clung to the stone, hanging there panting rather than climb back up.

  She would be fine, but Alim wasn't sure about Liam, and did his best to pull him up onto the safety of solid stone. Again, Alim could tell that Liam was trying to move his limbs, but there were stiff and twitchy, and Alim had to lean forward far enough to grab Liam by the back of the belt to help drag him up.

  On his hands and knees upon the ledge, Liam hacked up the water and salt that had invaded his nose and lungs, shaking like a machine about to fall to pieces. Once emptied, he collapsed on the rock, still wheezing.

  "Is he…?" Alim looked over to Sylvestra, who was making her way up and back onto the ledge more slowly this time, still flushed from the exertion. "Is he suffocating?"

  Sylvestra stared at Liam prone on the ground, but she began wringing out her hair as though no longer concerned with his fate. "No, it's his anxiety. He's just hyperventilating."

  "Just?" Alim turned back to Liam, who had his eyes squeezed shut and was curling into a ball, although the movement didn't appear entirely voluntary. "Mightn't he faint?"

  "He might." When Alim scowled at her, she returned the face. "I already saved him. Why don't you do something, if you care so damn much?" She was shaking, too, looking worn with her hair plastered with seawater against her head and her undergarments soaked through and askew from the frantic paddling. At the moment, Alim was the best equipped to save Liam.

  He scooted toward Liam, holding his hands out hesitantly, guided only by basic instincts of compassion, which were difficult to summon forth on Liam's behalf. Regardless, he laid his hands down gently on Liam's arm.