Dark Life Read online

  She didn’t budge from the threshold. “Does this mean it’s not fish blood?”

  “I don’t know,” I admitted. Until now, there had been no proof that the Seablite Gang had ever killed anyone, only a heap of ugly stories and a bullet in a skipper’s leg — enough to convince me that I didn’t want to tangle with an outlaw. Around us, the hull moaned and creaked. “Hurry.” I circled the room to avoid the blood. “Once they haul this wreck out of the mud, it’ll fly.”

  “I’m not going outside.” She hovered in the corridor. “I’ll hide somewhere in here.”

  Maybe I shouldn’t have told her about the giant squids. “Listen,” I said, “if the Seablite Gang killed someone in here” — with a shudder, the sub lurched forward, and I grabbed on to the air lock’s hatch frame to keep from falling over — “you can bet they’re dumping this rig right into Coldsleep Canyon. You want to go down with it?”

  Blanching, she dashed into the air lock. “Tell me again why people live down here,” she said.

  I hit the button that closed the hatch behind her. “When you suck it in, do it all the way.”

  She flushed anemone pink. “Excuse me?”

  “The Liquigen.” Flipping her helmet over her head, I snapped its seal shut. “Some beginners leave pockets of air in their lungs. Then, when they get into the black, their chests are smashed flat by the water pressure.” I clapped my hands together for effect.

  The icy glare she shot me could have restored the glaciers. But my words must have sunk in, because she bit down on the Liquigen tube in the base of her helmet and made an effort to fill her lungs. As she gagged and snorted, she fell against the chamber wall, setting off a blinking red light above the exterior hatch. I secured my own helmet, only to realize with a jolt that Gemma couldn’t have set off the light. That light only pulsed when someone outside pushed the entry button.

  I snapped off my flashlight — and not a second too soon. The hatch dialed open and a stream of water shot into the air lock, glistening like a blood spurt in the pulsing red light. The stream widened into a waterfall and churning water climbed over our bodies. I unspooled a short length of rip cord from my belt, clipped the end to Gemma’s belt, and steered her to the wall near the open hatch.

  As soon as the ocean filled the chamber, a beam of light cut through the bubbles. A helmet light. I waited, nerves firing, as a dark figure stepped through the hatch. The instant he crossed the chamber, I darted outside, dragging Gemma with me. Given our speed, he must have felt the water ripple behind him. He wheeled around, looking younger than I’d expected. Or maybe he just seemed it with his mouth hanging open and black eyes wide at seeing the two of us. In a burst of movement, he slashed forward, baring teeth that had been filed into points and bleached till they were as transparent as a dragonfish’s fangs.

  Thrusting Gemma behind me, I slammed the entry button. As the hatch cinched shut, the outlaw threw out a hand, grabbing for my neck. The metal plates closed around his forearm. His fingers raked my chest, not trying to snag me anymore but convulsing under the pressure. Stumbling back, I banged into Gemma and knocked her off the bumper into the gloom. The rip cord between us snapped taut and then yanked me into the darkness after her.

  For an instant, I sprawled in the ooze, my legs entwined with hers, then I barrel rolled away from the rig, taking Gemma with me. A second later the sub lifted off the seafloor, kicking up silt as it went, sailing into the darkness.

  I got to my feet, only to tumble back into the mud when Gemma grabbed on to my dive belt. Did she think I was going to leave her? The rip cord still linked us. As we got up together, she gripped my hand like a moray eel chomping prey. I supposed the freezing darkness and intense pressure could be nerve-wracking if you weren’t used to it, which was why the other settlers almost never left the continental shelf. They didn’t share my fascination with Coldsleep Canyon, even though it was longer and deeper than the Grand Canyon and a hundred times creepier. Coldsleep had been named the Hudson Canyon until a chunk of the East Coast slid into its gaping maw. Now everyone associated the chasm with death and destruction. I just associated it with predators.

  I checked around us for the green lantern sharks. Seeing none, I turned my crown lights on dim and located my mantaboard. Gemma matched me step for step with her lights blazing and knife out. The glare would attract every beast in the area and her knife wouldn’t stop half of them, but if waving it around made her feel better, great.

  Luckily, her needle-nosed vehicle was whirling in a brine pool only two hundred yards away. A wealthy Topsider’s toy. A real beauty. I held the anchor chain taut so she could shimmy up to the gel-filled ring that was the entry port. I followed, pausing to hitch my manta to the jet’s tail, where it hovered, resembling a real manta ray, minus the tail. I wiggled inside and spilled onto the pilot bench alongside her. It was like settling into a small, perfect rocket.

  After unsealing my helmet, I drew in a breath to make the Liquigen in my lungs evaporate. Because we’d filled our lungs with liquid and not some volatile mix of gasses, our chances of getting the bends were slim. Still, I was glad to see that Gemma had turned on the vehicle’s depressurization system. Beside me, she coughed up Liquigen. “Don’t hack it out,” I instructed, stowing our helmets behind the seat. “That’s harder on your lungs.”

  She swallowed, eyes watering.

  “You know this isn’t really a minisub, right?” My fingers whispered over the control panel. “It’s a jet-fin. Not made for deep diving.” As I touched the icon that turned the toggle switches on the panel into holograms, I realized she was staring at me. “Sorry. You want to drive? It’s your rental.”

  “No.” Her voice was shaky. “I’m sure you’ve been piloting subs since you were five.”

  “Four,” I said with a smile she didn’t return. “Want me to take you back to the Trade Station?” She nodded, her eyes shining with a mix of alarm and fascination — the way my little sister gazed at mammals with fur. “I have to go anyway to report that rig.” To avoid her stare, I searched for the switch that would draw up the anchor. Nothing good ever followed that kind of look.

  “How did you find my sub in the dark?” she asked.

  “Your jet-fin. Minisubs aren’t tricked out for speed.”

  “You didn’t answer the question.”

  I shrugged, though my insides whirled like a comb jelly. I’d spooked her. And here I thought I was acting normal.

  “I just followed the current,” I said. Which was true. Sort of. “Any pioneer could do it.” I jimmied the throttle and the jet-fin blasted forward, throwing us back against the seat. I knew Gemma was still watching me; I could feel it. I tried to focus on the thrill of the ride, but even that didn’t unclench my gut.

  “It’s true, isn’t it?” Soft and insistent, her words poked at me. “What they say about the pioneer kids down here.”

  “They say a lot of things, but it’s all chum.” I kept my eyes on the viewport and increased the jet’s speed. “We’re just like you.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  She may as well have jabbed me with her flashlight again. In fact, I would have preferred it. Bruises went away. I turned to defend myself, but Gemma’s gaze was as bright and intense as the flare I’d fired at the green lantern sharks. And like those deep-sea creatures, I froze.

  “Admit it,” she said. “You have a Dark Gift.”

  CHAPTER

  TWO

  My expression was calm. “Dark Gifts are a myth.” I listened to my own voice. Distant. Almost bored. Good. I returned my gaze to the glowing blue control panel and added, “So’s the kraken, by the way.”

  “You found my sub, my jet-fin, in water blacker than tar,” she pointed out. “You swam right to it.”

  “If you think I can see in the dark — I can’t. I just followed the river.”

  “A river in the ocean?” she scoffed. “That makes no sense.”

  I forced the pedal to the floor to keep from shaking my head in
disgust. There was so much she didn’t know about the deep sea, yet here she was, paddling around two miles from the ocean’s surface. “And you all call us crazy,” I muttered.

  “Who does?”

  “You.” I yanked the joystick toward me, sending the jet-fin zooming up the continental slope. “Topsiders.”

  “Topsiders?” She didn’t sound offended. “You mean people who live …” Grinning, she waved over her head. “Above.”

  “Yeah.”

  Her hand dropped. “You changed the subject.”

  “Because there are plenty of real things to worry about in the ocean, without fixating on some old fisherman’s tale.”

  “Okay, fine.” She made a big show of fastening her seat belt. “Maybe you don’t have a Dark Gift. But they are real.”

  “As real as mermaids.”

  We traveled the next fifteen minutes in silence while outside the ocean was a blur of blue. With her lips pursed, Gemma stared out the viewport.

  There had always been tension between Topsiders and pioneers. After everything we’d been through — the floods, the subsea landslide that sliced through our telecommunications cables and cut us off from the world, and fifty-two years of living under Emergency Law — you would think that we would’ve gotten along. But that wasn’t how it worked. The Topsiders clung to the chunks of oversea land that were still left, and they didn’t understand why we weren’t clinging, too. For them, it was natural to crowd hundreds of thousands of people into a single square mile. But to live underwater? That was unnatural. Though honestly, the people who live on the small ocean townships aren’t given much more in the way of respect. Never mind that it is the ocean dwellers who supply the nation’s food and keep watch over the energy sources — the tides and hydrothermal vents. We were still freaks to them.

  Gemma must have been thinking along the same lines, although from her side of the equation. She turned to me abruptly and said, “There’s a boy who lives down here — he talks to dolphins.”

  I held in my sigh. “We all talk to dolphins. They’re like dogs.”

  “I mean he understands them.” Schools of fish surrounded us now that we were on the continental shelf, yet Gemma kept her blue gaze pinned to me. “His name is Akai. A doctor wrote about him in a medical journal.”

  “You read medical journals?”

  “No, but it was reposted all over the newsweb. The doctor thinks Akai’s brain developed differently because of the water pressure down here.”

  I rolled my eyes but she went on.

  “Adults aren’t affected. Their brains are already formed. Only kids get Dark Gifts.”

  “Good theory.” With a jerk of the joystick, I leveled off the jet-fin. “Must be why people still believe it even though that article was proved to be a big hoax. Guess that wasn’t reposted all over the newsweb.”

  “You do know about Akai.” Her expression was triumphant.

  “What I know is that such crackpot theories are ruining Benthic Territory.” I couldn’t stifle my anger. “Folks are scared to settle down here because they think their kids will turn into mutants.”

  “I think it would be cool to have a Dark Gift.”

  “Your parents wouldn’t. They’d worry about your messed-up brain.”

  “My parents are dead.”

  I twitched with surprise. She’d said it right out. Like it didn’t matter.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “I’m a ward of the Commonwealth. It’s no big deal.”

  I gave her a look, telling her that I wasn’t buying it.

  “How about this? You believe me when I say I’m fine, and I’ll believe you when you say you don’t have a Dark Gift.” An enormous glowing ball appeared in the murky water ahead of us. An island of light in the cobalt sea. “What is that?”

  “The Trade Station,” I replied, surprised. “You rented the jet-fin there.”

  “No, I was on top of the water. On a big floating ring with lots of people.”

  “That’s just the Surface Deck. An elevator takes you down to the lower station. See the cable?” The Trade Station was tethered one hundred feet below the ocean’s surface. A thick cable connected it to the floating platform above while anchor chains, studded with tiny lights, dropped into the darkness below.

  “Want to know what I do like about the Topside?” I tried for a light tone.

  She nodded.

  “Getting there!”

  CHAPTER

  THREE

  The jet-fin rocketed out of the ocean and into the otherworldly realm of air and sun. As it arced twenty feet over the ocean’s surface, Gemma screamed with delight and clapped when we splashed down in a whirlwind of spray. “Glacial!”

  Shielding my eyes, I flipped the motor into idle and let the jet-fin rock with the swells. Sunlight flooded my irises — too hot, too bright.

  “Hey, are you okay?” As she bent to see my face, her braid brushed my wrist, sending a shiver through me.

  “I’m fine.” I wasn’t. But I would be able to fake it in a minute. Forcing my hand down, I squinted at the endless expanse of ocean surrounding us. As always, surfacing threw my senses into shock. Overbright colors and sharp-edged sounds assaulted me. How was anyone comfortable up here? The light alone kicked every thought out of my mind and swapped my personality for a headache.

  I slid back the cockpit cover, wincing as heat rolled over me. The weird thing about natural air was that unlike filtered air, it had taste — flavored by whatever was nearby. In this case, the sun and ocean — hot and briny. I inhaled and gauged our distance from the floating Surface Deck. From here, the four-story elevator shaft topped with a white glass observatory looked like a mast and full-blown sail. But even as far off as we were, the din of voices carried across the water. I hated market days. To top it off, I hadn’t come equipped to surface. Didn’t have a hat or even sun-goggles to shield me. Not just from the deadly UV rays, like most people, but the stares.

  I stood up in my seat. “I’ll meet you at the docking-ring.”

  “Where are you —” Gemma’s words cut out as I dove under the water, back into the sea’s cool embrace. Instantly, my mood improved. With two kicks, I was behind the jet-fin, where I unclipped the mantaboard’s towline.

  “Race you!” I called to Gemma, who was leaning over the other side of the jet. She whirled around as I pulled myself onto the manta. With a twist to its handgrips, the board shot across the waves like a skipping stone.

  “You didn’t say go!” she shouted. Behind me, the jet-fin roared to life, then sliced past with Gemma waving from the open cockpit.

  I rose to my feet and toed the joystick to high and the manta sprang forward, while wind and sea spray slapped my face. I’d say this much for the Topside: Everything moved faster up here, without tons of water weighing it down.

  As I approached the Surface Deck, the noise went into attack mode. Hollering vendors, haggling shoppers, and screeching gulls. I slowed the manta until I risked sinking it and focused on the brightly colored stalls that circled the promenade. Even more calming was the sight of the boats clustered along the docking-ring at water level. At least most of the people on the Surface Deck wore tunics with loose-fitting pants, which meant they were probably floaters — people who lived on houseboats. Even if they hadn’t seen a shine firsthand, most would know what it was and so would the fishermen. Hopefully.

  I almost never came up here. I’d learned long ago that it wasn’t a place for me. And I’d learned that the hard way.

  There was no turning back now, though. Not with Gemma leading me forward. I rounded a barge and spotted the Seacoach in the next slip, unfolding its wing-sails like an enormous albino bat about to take flight. My unease evaporated when I saw my neighbor Jibby Groot on the deck, hosing down the solar membranes that stretched between the wings’ struts to catch sunlight and wind. Cruising between the moored boats, I called, “Need a tow?”

  Jibby raised his shaggy blond head and, upon spotting me, cra
cked a gap-toothed smile. “Just the glow stick I want to see.”

  “I don’t glow.” I sliced my board into a wave while cutting the motor, which sent a sheet of seawater crashing over him. Laughter and applause erupted nearby and I saw several other young men — all newbie settlers like Jibby — lounging by the ship’s deckhouse. As I returned their waves, Jibby jumped onto the docking-ring.

  “Where’re you headed?” I asked, grasping his outstretched hand.

  He hauled me onto the docking-ring, mantaboard and all. “Paramus,” he said. “The station is out of everything, thanks to the chum-sucking outlaws. We’re going to see what we can scrounge. Want to come?”

  “Can’t.” I folded in the manta’s wings to make it easier to carry. “I’ve got to see the ranger.”

  “Good luck. He’s below — in the town meeting.”

  “Why aren’t you?” I asked with surprise. I’d been itching to hear what was to be “an announcement of vital importance, concerning all territory residents” (according to the sign posted in the Trade Station). But my parents were under the illusion that chores took priority.

  “If I wanted to sit indoors and jaw,” Jibby retorted, “I’d still be living in a stack-city.” A sly grin pulled at his lips. “Ranger Grimes will be in that meeting for hours. Your parents, too. Come on. We’ll hitch your manta to the back and do some wakeboarding.”

  “Tempting. But I still can’t. I’m helping someone.” No way was I going to mention Gemma to Jibby, who was on the lookout for a bride. Last year, he’d tried to order one but demanded a refund when she’d arrived, older than his granny.

  “Someone?” he asked, interest piqued.

  “Ty!” Down the bustling docking-ring, Gemma waved at me with both arms. So much for keeping her stowed away. She’d parked herself between an orange ladder that led up to the promenade and a door to the lounge, which was a fancy name for the hollow space furnished with lockers and benches inside the Surface Deck. Fishermen clustered around her, each bare-chested and slathered in a different color of zinc-paste — orange, green, blue — to protect their skin from the sun.