Free Neurolink by M. M. Buckner Page A

stealing Qi’s earplug to call the NP. Or maybe—a new inspiration struck him—maybe he could hijack this very bathysphere and get back to the surface. Medical attention. Decent air. A very long, very sanitizing bath. Yes, hijack this shuttle craft. That’s what he’d do.
    He began to feel optimistic, but the little girl on his shoulders kept yanking his hair and making his eyes water. He could tell the shuttle was going deep because his eardrums ached, so he held his nose and blew hard to equalize the pressure in his middle ears. Next, an infant started crying. That was just one too many sounds.
    Dominic reached through the crowd and tapped the young mother’s shoulder. “Give it something to chew. Make it swallow,” he said. “Haven’t you got something to give it?”
    When the young woman shook her head in confusion, Dominic raised his voice to be get everyone’s attention. “Who has some food or water for this baby?”
    For a moment, the other passengers stared at him without speaking. The infant began to scream.
    “Speak up. This baby needs to swallow to clear its ears.”
    The grandmother, Juanita, was the first to react. From the folds of her plasticene shawl, she drew out Qi’s water sack—still two-thirds full. A moment later, other people brought forth treasures. A bit of moldy bread. Some kelp juice. A tube of nutrient paste. Someone offered half a bag of hard caramel candy. The mother gave her baby a little water, and the crying subsided. Dominic smiled with sardonic pride. At least he’d achieved one objective.
    The bathysphere plowed interminably on, sometimes dropping, sometimes rising, and Dominic guessed the pilot was hugging the contours of the seafloor to avoid detection. Apparently, the Benthica had not been hiding under the factory ship. When the little girl slid off his shoulders, sound asleep, he handed her over to her grandmother and stood up to stretch. He craned to see over the pilot’s shoulder, hoping the console gauges would yield some clue to their location. The pilot must have noticed his interest because he stepped aside so Dominic could see everything. The gauges were all in Spanic though, a language Dominic had never bothered to learn.
    “You’re an educated man, yes? I hear it in your voice. What is your training?” The pilot’s face was creased and pitted with black grit, and three of his front teeth were missing. He garbled his words with the same syrupy American drawl the old woman used.
    Dominic hesitated. Should he say he was a banker and let the man think he dispensed coins for a living? In the periphery, he saw Qi smirk. Some of the others were looking his way. He had to say something. “I’m a negotiator.”
    “Ah.” The pilot wrinkled his forehead and nodded sagely, though Dominic doubted he understood the term. “Whatever your training, you are welcome here. We need many skills. Many. My name is Estaban.”
    The pilot stuck out his hand to shake, and Dominic felt obliged to introduce himself. But he had no lie ready. Major Qi should have prepared him. What kind of covert agent was she? Thinking his hesitation might raise distrust, he shook hands and improvised. “I’m Nick. I came with those people there.”
    When he pointed to the old woman and the grandchildren, the boy Benito flashed him an angry glare that radiated the pure antagonism of the innocent. Dominic knew the boy had caught his lie, and for an instant, he felt a curious pang of guilt. But the boy said nothing, and the moment passed.
    “See, here she is.” Estaban pointed with pride to a blurry round screen in the center of his console, and Dominic stepped over the seated bodies for a closer look.
    On the screen, in the false colors of metavision, an extraordinary image was coming into focus. Dominic had to study it for several minutes before it made sense. Below them, where the seafloor flattened to a broad, sloping plane, lay a mountain range of garbage. Peak after peak, the mountains