Stranded (33 page)

“Here!” Connor shouted, taking a hard right turn and wrenching the wheel on a metal bulkhead door. The bolts screeched as they slid free and he pulled it open. Noah dashed through. He paused, looking around, remembering where he was. One more turn to the left and they'd be at the change room.

Noah saw the shadow separate from the others only a split second before it caught him in the side, shoving him hard into a wall. His head banged against a low pipe. He had no breath and the blitz attack had overwhelmed his ability to react. He leaned against the wall just trying to get his hands up to defend against whatever came next, but they wouldn't respond. He hadn't realized he had more air to lose until the fist slammed into his stomach and he crumpled to the floor in a gasping heap.

“It's us!” Connor yelled, pulling the attacker back. Noah rolled over and kicked away from the figure looming over him. Sean Mickle's mirror reflection struggled with Connor, hands balled into fists and his face a snarl.

“Let me go!”

“Sean, it's us,” Connor shouted over the sound of the Klaxon.

Noah rolled away from the wall onto his hands and knees. He fought to get a deep breath of air and failed, choking instead and shallowly panting like a dog in August. The realization that he'd dropped his flashlight alarmed him more than his inability to get enough oxygen. His heart raced as he pawed for it under the low equipment, searching the hidden spaces where it might have slid. His hands came back empty, caked with dirt and grime.

“I see who it is,” Mickle said, staring down at him. His tone was pregnant with contempt. “He brought them here. It's
his
fault.” He jerked forward, but Connor held on.

“I didn't know,” Noah said. Barely able to hear himself under the alarm, he said it again. Abandoning his search for the light, he sat up on his knees, unsure whether to stand or lie down and wait.

“We're leaving,” Connor said. “If you want to come with us, then stop and think about who your friends are.” He let go of Mickle, shoving him away as he stepped in between the men. Connor extended a hand to help Noah to his feet.

“Those people were my friends,” Mickle said, pointing toward the dormitory.

“Mine too,” Connor replied. “And we can still save some of them. Do you know where Boduf and Yeong are hiding?”

Mickle hunched his shoulders. “I haven't seen anyone else since we left the quarters. Nevins and I were hiding in a pump room when the Twins ran through—not the real Twins—the ones
he
brought. Nevins went after them.”

“
Real
Twins?” Noah said. “Jack and Kevin are as real as you are, asshole.”

“Says the ghost.”

Connor shoved at Mickle again. “Shut up, Sean. This isn't helping. What do you mean, ‘went after'?”

“He's following to see where they go. And stop them if they try something.”

Although he was happy to learn Marty—or a version of him—was alive, Mickle's interrogation was keeping them from their goal. Noah wondered what had happened in his world that had made him seem so different from his counterpart on Noah's ship. Where was the point of departure in their lives where the caring man Noah knew became jaded and hostile? Perhaps it was right here. Watching his friends be slaughtered had broken him like it was breaking everyone else. He wasn't the only one fighting whatever was trying to dominate his will.

Whether we live or die, this place will destroy us all.

Noah tried a different tack. “The Twins are going to the change room to get their gear on. The power failure caused a crude spill and we're all in more danger than from just Brewster. We're abandoning the rig.”

Mickle's eyes widened as it seemed he got his first whiff of the odor swirling around Noah and Connor and recognized it. “And how did the power just happen to go out, I wonder.”

“We found Serge.
Our
Serge,” Connor said. “He killed the other one of him in the hall near the causeway to the power station. It's possible his twin shut down the gennies before he got caught out.”

“Good! That's another one
he
brought here out of the picture!”

“Enough!” Connor yelled. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

“I'll be happy to stand trial when we're safe on board the
Promise,
” Noah said. “Until then, I need you with me. Or you can wait here for Brewster and try to explain to him who's real and who's a copy. We're on the same side, Doc. We're friends in my world.” But seeing him on his feet and energetic meant that friend was gone. This Mickle was the last. If Noah was going to stay friends with him, he had to win this one over. He held out a hand. Doc didn't take it. He looked afraid to touch him and took a step back.
Of course. In his world, I'm a dead man.

Holding his hands up in surrender, Mickle took a step to the side. Noah walked past him, hoping the second officer would fall in line behind him and not bash him in the back of the skull. By the time he made it to the door of the change room, he figured Mickle was along for the ride, for a while anyway.

Noah grabbed the handle, and paused. He knocked three times, opened the door and turned to the side, gesturing for Mickle to go first. “I'm not in the mood to get sucker punched again. You set that trap,
you
go defuse Nevins.”

Mickle pushed through the door into the room. Inside, the scene wasn't what anyone expected to find. Nevins was helping Jack and Kevin into fitted immersion survival suits. Unlike the Gumby suits on the
Promise,
these were not the loose, bulky emergency-only ones they'd worn to break up the ice. Somewhere between a survival bag and a wetsuit, they would actually be able to hike … or run … to the ship in these. Nevins looked over his shoulder at the trio standing by the door first with concern and then relief.

“We found these!” Kevin said, like a kid at Christmas, pulling on a pair of boots.

Jack pulled the zipper up to his chin. “Better than our shit. Warm, too. I'm already sweating.”

Nevins nodded toward the back of the room. “They're in a closet back there.” He hesitated, looking at Noah for a long moment before asking, “You guys find anyone else?” Connor shook his head and Nevins' face fell.
He
was the same as Noah's version. At least he seemed to be at the moment. He didn't look entirely well, either. That was good news for the man left behind on the
Promise,
and bad news for them both. If they lived through Brewster's madness, they still had to figure out how to stop the sickness. Even if that was only a problem for a minority of the men now.

Mickle looked at Nevins and cocked his head, silently asking what had happened to the plan. Nevins shrugged. “It's Jack and Kevin, man. What am I supposed to do, tie 'em up and work 'em over with a phone book?” Mickle pursed his lips and stalked away to find a Gumby suit in his size.

Noah walked over to Nevins and held out the same hand he'd offered the second officer a moment earlier. “Thanks.”

Nevins grabbed his hand and gave it a firm shake. “It's really fuckin' weird to see you, man. But it's
good
to see you. I hope you know what you're doing.”

“I have no idea. But I'm working on it. I'm open to suggestions, if you have any.”

Nevins tilted his head and half-smiled. “I'm just the mechanic. I follow orders; thinking is for officers.”

“I'm glad you know when not to listen to them.” He rolled his eyes toward Mickle.

Shaking his head, Nevins whispered, “It's not his fault. I guess you don't know, though. He hasn't been the same since they lost the baby.”

Noah didn't even know he was married. That was it. In an infinite number of worlds, there was an infinite amount of suffering, and in each one was that one thing capable of breaking a person wide open.

 

34

They stood in a circle staring through the hatch at the swirling maelstrom of snow beneath them. Biting wind kicked up and stung their exposed faces. Connor cranked the winch, lifting the “elevator” out of the chaos. It seemed to refuse to come fully into view as it spun and whipped around at the end of its cable. Finally, Connor got it inside with them where it hung like a skeleton in a gibbet. It was dented and smashed. The platform underneath was completely missing. Kevin sat down heavily on a box in the corner of the room while Jack whispered that they were fucked. No one disagreed. Their ride down had been destroyed. Connor and Mickle pulled the cage in to take a closer look at the damage, but it was obvious from even a casual inspection that it wouldn't hold a single one of them. It was useless.

“I don't even know how something like this could happen. I've dropped this thing a half dozen times by accident,” Connor said. “It can take the fall.”

Mickle held his face in one hand like it was all he could do to keep his head upright. “Well, it didn't take
this
fall. Good thing it happened before there was anybody in it and you had another ‘accident.'”

“There isn't another one we can use?” Noah asked.

“No. People are meant to either land by helicopter or board off a ship from the ladder gangways. But the gangways fell off before we ever got here, so we jerry-rigged this.”

Noah's brow furrowed. “Fell off? I don't remember seeing them.”

Connor locked the winch in place, as if it mattered whether the cage dropped again. “They're out there. Snow's covered 'em up. This place…” He trailed off. Noah got the gist: this was a place that consumed things. It broke them down and made them a part of itself. Connor's ship was in the process of disappearing into the ice. The platform would follow it piece by piece or maybe all at once. And so would his ship if they didn't get away. There were so many things to run from and almost nowhere left to run.

“We have to climb down the rebar ladder,” Connor said.

Noah pulled at the chest of his immersion suit. “With the wind and snow, you sure we can all make it without slipping or being blown off that ladder?” He nodded toward Nevins. “He's in no condition to make that climb even
without
a storm.”

“We're screwed either way. I vote we go back to the original plan. Find Brewster and take the fight to him.” Mickle slammed the hatch shut. The bang of the door was louder than both the wind and the alarm, and everyone in the room flinched as if a shot had been fired directly at them. He looked like he'd just made his point.

Noah glared at the second officer, tired of being challenged. “That was never a plan. Remember the spill? This is the only way to be completely safe.”

“Safe?” Mickle shouted louder than he needed to be heard over the alarm. If he couldn't go hunting Brewster, he seemed to want to draw the Old Man to them.

“I can climb,” Nevins said, cutting off the others before their argument progressed further. “And if I can't, I'd rather die from a fall than be murdered, I guess.” No one argued with him. Noah understood; he'd rather die in an accident than at the hands of the man who'd been tormenting him for years for the crime of loving his daughter. Hell, in one version of reality, he'd done exactly that already. He wondered how much happier his life in Connor's world had been. The end coming when it had, sparing him from Brewster's abuse. Sparing him from watching his wife die—which, in Connor's world, she hadn't. She was alive, and now the reflected Brewster was dead, and it felt like a second chance at life. They could all be happy again. He squinted his eyes tightly shut and fought to stay in the present.

“No sense in talking about it anymore. Let's go.” Connor snatched the rope from the box next to him and headed for the door to the ladder room.

“Wait!” Noah said. “What about the lifeboats?”

“What?” Mickle said, pausing in mid-stride. “You're fucking insane!”

“No I'm not. Hear me out. If we take the ladder, whoever goes first ends up freezing at the bottom waiting for everyone else. Maybe someone at the top loses his grip and falls and knocks another man off and they both get hurt or die. Or … we take the lifeboat. Strap ourselves in and release it. We all go at once like an express elevator.”

“That's going to crash nose first into the ice,” Mickle said. “It's made for diving into water, genius. You told me to trust you, but it sounds like you're trying to finish Brewster's work for him.”

“What if it breaks through the ice and then we're trapped in it under water?” Kevin asked.

Noah sat heavily on a box and rested his head in his hands. “Fine. I'm all out of ideas. I guess we climb down and take our chances one at a time.”

“No,” Connor said. “I think it's worth a try. We're gonna get whiplash, but it's the fastest way down, not counting that.” He pointed at the cage.

Mickle folded his arms and shook his head. “Count me out. I'll take my chances on the ladder.”

“I don't think we should split up, but I can't force anyone to do anything,” Noah said, pushing himself up off the crates. He wanted to plop right back down again. Stopping felt good. Sitting felt better. He didn't want to run anymore. But he knew if he didn't, it was an inevitability that death would find him in one form or another. If he wasn't shot, and didn't burn, he'd freeze. He had a new reason to live. That kept him standing. And it was the push that made him move to the door. “I'm taking a lifeboat. You go however you want and we'll meet you down there.” He opened the door, turned, and said, “If we don't find you in twenty minutes, then just go on by yourselves.” He didn't add what he thought should be obvious. If they didn't rendezvous within a few minutes at the bottom, it was because some or all of them didn't make it down alive.