Out of the corner of my eye I saw Flynn regrouping again, waiting for the current to bring the box jellies to him again, to cloak him again.
In his wake followed the entire cubozoan army.
I lunged for the operator box, found the manual release lever, flipped it, felt the tension in the armature ease. Felt control pass to me.
To me and Lanny.
We worked in tandem now, pulling the gate shut.
Slamming the door in Flynn's face.
No no no you won't release your pets into our sea.
An epoch passed.
The epoch that led from innocence to guilt.
Lanny wore his stubborn look, mouth sealed so tight it seemed he was going to swallow his regulator.
Tolliver and Walter were within a quick reach of the lever. Either one of them could disengage the lock and open the gate. It was under manual control.
They did not.
Flynn, on the other side of the gate, gripped the frame.
He was now fully coated. The fence was now fully coated. There were thousands of cubozoans swarming the fence, the front line nearly mashed and it was only the smoothness of the mesh and its gentle give that prevented wholesale slaughter. Hell, it was only the tiny holes of the mesh that prevented wholesale escape.
The four of us hung there on the free side of the fence.
And then Flynn drew his dive knife.
He put the blade to the mesh and the tip poked through one hole but the full blade itself could not fit into the tiny aperture and so he angled it to cut with just the tip, an awkward attack, trying to saw and rend but the strand of mesh under attack just bent around the knife tip, a polyfiber too slippery and too tough to slice.
He let go of the mesh and wiped his face mask. Wiping away the jellyfish.
And now he switched tactics, slashing at the mesh, putting his whole massive body into the fight, and his jellyfish cloak rippled in alarm.
He began to panic.
He jerked his head to look along the fence line. Looking for what? A gap in the mesh?
And then he dropped his knife and put his hands to his neck.
He grasped the neck of his wetsuit. There was a gap, where the wetsuit neck did not quite meet the bottom edge of his sting-guard face mask, there at the base of his neck, a gap that must have opened as he lost control.
A little cube was there waiting.
And then another, and another.
Flynn wrenched and peeled down the neck of his wetsuit.
He wore a necklace of jeweled cubes, a choker of glassy tentacles.
An epoch passed.
The epoch that led from life to death.
His hands clawed his neck and his legs kicked out and his body twisted — violent violent violent — all of it so violent that he flung off jellyfish like a wet dog flinging off drops of water. It looked like he was trying to throw off his wetsuit or maybe even his skin. And then he froze. He went from fight to surrender in a flash, in a millisecond, in a speed that could not be timed. He went rigid. He went into shock. His eyes behind the face mask squeezed shut as though he could not stand the floodlight. As though he could not stand the pain. Shutting it out. Focusing inward. I thought, nothing else exists for him now. No memories, no hopes, no awareness of a mission and certainly no awareness of us out here, beyond the mesh, no knowledge that his audience watched in horror. He was subsumed. And then suddenly he spasmed. It came fast as a snake strike. His hands flew to his chest. His mouth opened wide, so wide that the regulator slipped out but it did not seem to matter because he did not try to find it and put it back. It clearly was of no use. Lungs paralyzed.
His mouth opened wide in a desperate gasp seeking air.
Finding only water.
CHAPTER 45
We four exited the cavern, exited the tunnel, into the open sea, and we swam with the need of survivors upward toward the air.
CHAPTER 46
Tolliver was at the wheel of the Breaker.
Walter and I sat on the starboard bench, flanking Lanny.
Lanny seemed to be trying to shrink himself, take up as little space as possible, his arms drawn into his sides and his feet tucked under the bench.
Walter patted Lanny's arm.
Lanny did not respond.
I turned to look at the sea, at the sky. The fog was trying to lift. The sun was trying to break through. I didn't care — fog, sunlight, anything the sky cared to throw at us — we were back in our element and I relished the wind in my face and the air free for the breathing.
I wished I could forget the face down in the cavern, Flynn's mouth open like he had become a water breather.
We sped across the water, circling the algal bloom. I spotted a big wake of a boat in the distance. I focused on the boats up ahead, at the edge of the bloom.
Walter lifted his hand again, at the ready, offering Lanny the human touch.
Lanny drew himself into an even tighter space.
I wished I had something to offer him.
CHAPTER 47
Tolliver parked the Breaker perpendicular to the Sea Spray, which was roped to the Destiny.
I did not know where to look — at Jake Keasling lounging on the Sea Spray, or at Sandy Keasling standing like a flagpole at the rail of the Destiny.
Sandy settled it, calling out to us, “It's about time.”
Tolliver looked from Sandy to Jake and back to Sandy again. It took him a moment to speak, and then he said, wearily, “You want to explain all this, Sandy?”
The shifting fog had opened above the Destiny and Sandy was sunlit, inflaming her orange-blond hair. But her face was pale as the fog. She gazed from her lofty perch down at us. She said, “Lanny.” She shook her head. “Looks like you landed on your feet. Again.”
Lanny looked up.
“What the hell happened down there?” she demanded.
Tolliver said, “First you tell us what the hell happened up here.”
She looped her arms over the rail. “What happened, Doug, is my brothers and I arrived here to find your boat. With your dive flag up. So I told Lanny looks like the brass has things under control and we can go home, but he said he had a job to do.”
Again, it took Tolliver time to respond. He shook his head. He said, at last, “You arrived here on your boat?” He nodded at the Sea Spray. “You're standing on Oscar Flynn's boat. You want to explain that?”
She glanced at silent Lanny and then at silent Jake. “Eh, what's new, I get to do cleanup. Just so you know, I'm patching some of this together from what Lanny said. From what Oscar Flynn said. So, this morning, he followed Lanny — his boat has some radar-jamming stealth shit. Seems he figured, no surprise, that Lanny might screw up. And Lanny obliged. He detoured to bring me on board and then we detoured and had a little mishap — which reminds me, we were on the Outcast, and Lanny can fill you in on all that. Anyway, I didn't know the Destiny was standing off in the fog during our mishap so I ended up calling Jake for help. And that's why we arrived here on my boat. And then, like I said, Lanny went diving. And then the Destiny sneaked in, surprising the hell out of me.” She paused. “You with me so far, Doug?”
Tolliver just nodded.
“Now, Flynn. He shows up real unhappy about your boat being here, Doug. It seems when he set out this morning he hadn't been expecting you. Seems he picked your boat up on his radar someplace along the way, so when he arrived here he was pissed and suited up to dive.”