Reluctantly, I ended the kiss, took a step back. Fang's obsidian eyes were glittering brightly, and his stoic face had a look of wonder on it.
"Gotta go," I said quietly.
A half smile quirked his mouth. "Yeah. Hurry back."
I nodded, and he stepped out of the air-lock chamber, keeping his eyes fixed on me, memorizing me, as he hit the switch that sealed the chamber. The doors hissed shut with a kind of finality, and I realized my heart was beating so hard it felt like it was going to start snapping ribs.
I was scared.
I was crazily, deeply, incredibly, joyously, terrifiedly in love.
I was on a death mission.
Before my head simply exploded from too much emotion, I hit the large button that pressurized the air lock enough for the doors to open to the ocean outside. I really, really hoped that I would prove to be somewhat uncrushable, like Angel did.
The doors cracked open below me, and I saw the first dark glint of frigid water.
Showtime, folks.
72
THE ARTIFICIAL air pressure in the chamber allowed me to drop down into the water. Want to hear something funny? I took a deep breath first. Then I remembered I didn't have to.
Then every thought went right out of my mind as I realized how totally completely beyond cold the water was at this depth. I gurgled out my best underwater shriek, realized I hadn't been crushed yet, and began to swim toward the light.
I was hoping it was the sub's floodlights and not the lights of the afterlife, like I'd already just died and didn't realize it and now I was swimming toward, well, I guess not heaven, even on a good day, but someplace lighter than the other option at least. Then I realized that if I was already dead, I wouldn't feel like a bird-kid-cicle, so cold that every tiny movement was incredibly painful. So that cheered me up.
At this depth, even though I hadn't been crushed, it was still shockingly hard to swim, to move, to get anywhere. It was like paddling through Jell-O or in slow motion, and there was a lot of weight pressing in on me on all sides. It didn't feel good, and I wondered how long my body would hold out.
The water was cloudy, full of debris, and I blinked constantly, wishing I'd remembered to put on a mask before I went charging off on my white seahorse. Then I saw it: one of the creatures. There were several more, grouped around it, but it was the biggest one, easily as big as our sub. It fixed its red eye on me, turning slightly.
The birds are working, said the Voice.
Huh? I was so startled that I quit swimming for a second.
The birds are working, the Voice repeated.
I began swimming again. Voice, could we do this later? I'm kind of in the middle of something here.
I was now about twenty feet away from the sea creature, and as before, I saw its skin was a mass of oozing sores, red-rimmed and raw. It wasn't symmetrical with a fin on each side—it looked like it had been put together by a two-year-old using a sea-monster Playmobil set. And he'd put it together wrong.
The birds are working, the Voice repeated. They're working to help us.
Just then the creature shifted, releasing… Angel.
I surged forward as fast as I could, which was about the pace of a sea slug. Angel's eyes were closed, and she floated there without moving. My heart constricted, and I paddled harder.
Then she blinked, smiled up at the sea monster, and turned to see me. Her face lit up, and she held out her arms, kicking off from the thing and rushing in slow motion toward me. I grabbed her and held her in a fierce hug, so relieved that she was still alive and that I could kick her butt later.
"Max!" she said, her small arms looped around my neck. It was bubbly and indistinct but understandable. "I've been explaining everything to Gor, here." She gestured at the biggest creature.
"Wha?" I managed.
"It isn't their fault," bubbled Angel. "They're genetic freaks, just like us. And they're smart. They've been attacking fishing boats because the long nets have been damaging their eggs and babies."
My mouth had dropped open, and now I quickly shut it as some tiny transparent shrimp tried to swim in.
"All the radiation created them, but it's also making them sick," Angel explained as minuscule bubbles wafted away from her neck. "They're really mad at the Chu Corporation. I told them we are too. So now we're on the same team! Plus—" Angel paused, her blue eyes gleaming in the floodlights. "Plus, they know where Dr. Martinez is."