Free The Diving Bundle: Six Diving Universe Novellas by Kristine Kathryn Rusch Page A

“I took the vids before she even had the suit off.”
    Technically, that’s what I want to hear, and yet it’s not what I want to hear. I want something to be tampered with, something to be slightly off because then, maybe then, Jypé would still be alive.
    “Look,” Karl says, nodding toward the screen.
    I have to force myself to see it. The eyes don’t want to focus. I know what happens next—or at least, how it ends up. I don’t need the visual confirmation.
    Yet I do. The vid can save us, if the authorities come back. Turtle, Karl, even Squishy can testify to my rules. And my rules state that an obviously dangerous site should be avoided. Probes get to map places like this first.
    Only I know J&J didn’t send in a probe. They might not have because we lost the other so easily, but most likely, it was that greed, the same one which has been affecting me. The tantalizing idea that somehow, this wreck, with its ancient secrets, is the dive of a lifetime—the discovery of a lifetime.
    And the hell of it is, beneath the fear and the panic and the anger—more at myself than at Squishy for breaking our pact—that greed remains.
    I’m thinking, if we can just get the stealth tech before the authorities arrive, it’ll all be worth it. We’ll have a chip, something to bargain with.
    Something to sell to save our own skins.
    Junior goes in. His father doesn’t tell him not to. Junior’s blurry on the vid—a human form in an environmental suit, darker than the pile of things in the center of the room, but grayer than the black around them.
    And it’s Junior who says, “It’s open,” and Junior who mutters “Wow” and Junior who says, “Jackpot, huh?” when I thought all of that had been a dialogue between them.
    He points at a hole in the pile, then heads toward it, but his father moves forward quickly, grabbing his arm. They don’t talk—apparently that was the way they worked, such an understanding they didn’t need to say much, which makes my heart twist—and together they head around the pile.
    The cockpit shifts. It has large screens that appear to be unretractable. They’re off, big blank canvases against dark walls. No windows in the cockpit at all, which is another one of those technologically arrogant things—what happens if the screen technology fails?
    The pile is truly in the middle of the room, a big lump of things. Why Jypé called it a battlefield, I don’t know. Because of the pile? Because everything is ripped up and moved around?
    My arms get even tighter, my fists clenched so hard my knuckles hurt.
    On the vid, Junior breaks away from his father, and moves toward the front (if you can call it that) of the pile. He’s looking at what the pile’s attached to.
    He mimes removing pieces, and the cameras shake. Apparently Jypé is shaking his head.
    Yet Junior reaches in there anyway. He examines each piece before he touches it, then pushes at it, which seems to move the entire pile. He moves in closer, the pile beside him, something I can’t see on his other side. He’s floating, head first, exactly like we’re not supposed to go into one of these spaces—he’d have trouble backing out if there’s a problem—
    And of course there is.
    Was.
    “Ah, hell,” I whisper.
    Karl nods. Turtle puts her head in her hands.
    On screen nothing moves.
    Nothing at all.
    Seconds go by, maybe a minute—I forgot to look at the digital readout from earlier, so I don’t exactly know—and then, finally, Jypé moves forward.
    He reaches Junior’s side, but doesn’t touch him. Instead the cameras peer in, so I’m thinking maybe Jypé does too.
    And then the monologue begins.
    I’ve only heard it once, but I have it memorized.
    Almost time.
    Dad, you’ve gotta see this.
    Jypé’s suit shows us something—a wave? A blackness? A table?—something barely visible just beyond Junior. Junior reaches for it, and then—
    Fuck!
    The word sounds distorted here. I don’t remember it being