There followed a momentary pause, while the visual field blanked out. Then another face appeared. Dark hair, strong cheekbones, Polynesian eyes. A far prettier face, far more welcome.
“Kendra!” Scotty said, and Wayne could hear the naked relief in the big man’s voice.
“Scotty.” Whatever their history might have been, the affection in her voice was clear. Dammit, he wanted that for himself. If there was nothing else this adventure had taught Wayne, it was that he wanted someone to care like that.
Darla?
She was close behind him, and her hand stole into his. He pressed it.
“Scotty,” Kendra continued. “Piering and a rescue team are down in the tunnel, on the far side of the airlock. If you can disarm the bomb, they can get in. What do you think?” Her smile looked just a little desperate and sick. “Could bomb disposal be part of that wild, wide, wonderful training of yours?”
“Ah…” Scotty looked a little scared, and Wayne saw that the answer was no.
Darla raised her hand. “Listen. If this bomb is like everything else, it was jerry-rigged. Can’t be terribly sophisticated.”
“If it was made here, then…” Kendra’s eyes closed for a moment. “Maybe I have someone who can tell us what we need. Give me ten minutes, will you?”
“If we can.”
“I’ll get right back.”
The air in Toby McCauley’s holding room was stifling, almost as if it had gelled thick with fear. When Kendra entered, he was staring at his fingers.
Very slowly, he turned to look at her. That mischievous, cocky light in his eye was dead and gone. “What do you want now? I already told you everything I have to say.”
“I’m thinking that you might want to say a little more,” Kendra said. “There seems to be an explosive device attached to the airlock leading from the aquifer into the maintenance room.”
“I wouldn’t know anything about that,” McCauley said, his long face had taken on a greenish pallor, but managed to stay neutral at the moment.
“I know, I know,” Kendra said. “But there’s something you need to know. So far, no one outside my staff knows what you have done.”
“What I’m suspected of doing,” he corrected, without much enthusiasm.
“Not to us. But here’s the thing. My husband is down there. And he is going to try to dismantle that bomb. And if he dies…” Kendra stopped herself, surprised at the lump that had materialized in her throat. “If Scotty dies, I swear that all and any evidence needed to convict you in the court of public opinion will materialize, and be mysteriously leaked far and wide. I further promise you that you will be moved, in a low-security vehicle, to a holding cell in the mining district. And there will be no pressure suit or emergency supplies in that vehicle.” She leaned closer. “I promise you that that vehicle will never make it. It will break down… or be hijacked… or spring a mysterious leak. Look at me, Toby. Look at me.”
He forced himself to face her. Stared into her eyes, and blinked.
“We’ve played poker for years. I usually lose. You know me, Toby. I’m not a good bluffer. Am I bluffing now?”
Toby blinked again, and looked away. “What if I did have something to say?” The words came slowly, like pulling teeth. “What happens then?”
“I swear to you that if you can help us, you will be allowed to leave Luna. Health reasons. You’ll have your career, and your reputation. I will have no reason to want you prosecuted… so long as you leave.”
Toby said, “They brought their own detonator. It looked like an old wristwatch.”
“Which door is mined?” Scotty asked, when Kendra was back on the line.
“Big Figjam said just the inner door. Our side. You should be able to enter the chamber, from your side.” She ran down the rest of what she had learned from McCauley, while Scotty listened intently.
“What’s the length of the tunnel?” he asked.
“Fifty meters. Why…” Then sudden comprehension. “Oh, right. Your breathing equipment is broken.”
“We’ll manage it, Kendra. I’ll make contact when we’re in.”
“You be safe,” she said.
He nodded, giving her a cocky smile. Then when she clicked off he turned to Darla. “Can you hold your breath that long?” Scotty was already peeling off his pants.
“Hey, cowboy. I’m a mermaid, remember?”
Together, the two of them stripped until Darla was pink plumpness in panties and bra, and Scotty buff in briefs. “Fifty meters,” Scotty said. “That’s Special Forces stuff.”
Darla poked a finger at his gut. “Ow. Smuggling drywall there? Good swimmer?”
“Yeah.” He could hear the voice in his head clearly: But are you that good?
She nodded. “All right. Hyperventilate to get your lungs full. The trick will be to stay relaxed. Don’t panic, and we might just get through this. We have to swim it, get into the chamber, and trigger the cycle. Can you do that?”
“Easy,” he lied.
“Not to be a wet blanket,” Mickey said. “But what if they’ve sealed the door? Or you can’t open it?”
“Then we’ll have to swim back,” Darla said.
Her smile didn’t mask the fear in her eyes. And suddenly, Wayne’s heart broke.
Standing there in her underwear, shivering in the cold, Darla seemed so brave, so strong, so very beautiful to him. He went to her and held her. “When this is over. If we’re still-”
“When this is over,” she said. “I’m coming back.”
“Right,” he said. “Right.” Wayne scratched his head, sighing. “Look. I don’t know if it would make more sense for me to invite you down, or you to invite me to stay up here for a while. But I think… I think I’d like to find out what there is between us.”
She laid the softness of her palm along his cheek, a fond gesture. “Sex,” she said. “And right now, I could use a lot more of that. We’ll work out the details later.”
He sighed, deeply. “You’ve got it,” he said.
And kissed her. And no kiss of his life had ever been sweeter, or more sincere.
For three minutes Scotty had been breathing deep and exhaling shallow. He gulped air, exhaled half of it, took another and then another until he felt full almost to bursting, and light-headed. Let it out. Then inhaled deeply again.
He and Darla nodded to each other, waved to their companions, and then dove.
The water was chilly but not freezing. If the power had been off here, the cold might have given him muscle-lock. The aquifer was intended for recreation. They must have sealed off part, and warmed it with induction coils.
He followed Darla’s lead, diving deep into the pool, strong smooth strokes taking them down. His ears didn’t hurt. Lunar gravity made for less pressure. The blue lights were mounted at the bottom, down through a forest of what simply had to be fake coral.
A startling sight: Seahorse-type creatures as big as real horses, anchored deep, motionless, waiting to play.
Ali’s horses. Briefly he wondered: What was supposed to have happened here? How would the game have gone, barring pirates?
No time. He swam on: Darla was an eel, thank God, and seemed to know just where she was going, down into a tunnel halfway to the bottom. Fifty meters. All right…
He clamped his mind down on doubt and swam on.
Angelique clapped her hands together. “All right, everyone! We can’t just wait for help. We need to prepare, in case the pirates arrive before the marines.”
She looked up into the Game Master’s cloud. “Xavier-what do we have in terms of control?”
“Just about everything,” he said. “Including a few things that you would have picked up along the way.”
“Good,” she said. “I need all the help you can give us. We want to make the next few minutes absolute hell for the pirates, and hope that that’s enough. It should be easy. When they drop into the water they’ll be dead meat.”
“Hold up a minute, love. I can’t see them in the ‘Little Wars’ scenario. They may have used the other mirror.”
“Other mirror?”