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By Root 1593 0

her. I can open my eyes here: everything is tinged pale green but I can see. Ramona dodges sideways then grabs me by the waist and we tumble beneath the reflective ceiling, grappling and pushing and shoving. I get my head above water for long enough to pull in a lungful of air, then she drags me under and starts tickling me. I convulse, but somehow whenever I really need air she’s pushing me up above water rather than trying to pull me down. Weirdly, I seem to need much less air than I ought to. I can feel the gills working powerfully in her pleural cavity; it’s as if there’s some kind of leakage between us, as if she’s helping oxygenate both our bloodstreams. When she kisses me she tastes of roses and oysters. Finally, after a few minutes of rubbing and fondling we settle to the bottom and lie, arms and legs entangled, in the middle of the circuit-board tracery of gold that caps the concrete table.

★★Fish-fucker!★★ She mocks me.

★★It takes two to tango, squid-girl. Anyway, we haven’t. I wouldn’t dare.★★

★★Coward!★★ She laughs ruefully, taking the sting out of the word. Silver bubbles trickle and bob towards the surface from her mouth. ★★Y’know, it’s hard work breathing for both of us. If you want to help, go up to the surface ... ★★

★★Okay.★★ I let go and allow myself to stand up. As I pull away from her I feel a tightness in my chest that rapidly grows: we may be destiny-entangled, but the metabolic leakage is strictly short-range. I break surface and shake my head, gasping for air, then look towards the beach. There’s a loud ringing in my ears, a deep bass rattle that resonates with my jaw, and a shadow dims the flashing sunlight on the reef. Huh? I find myself looking straight up at the underside of a helicopter.

“Get down!” Ramona hisses through the deafening roar. She wraps a hand around my ankle and yanks, pulling me under the surface. I hold my breath and let her drag me down beside her—my chest eases—then I realize she’s pointing at a rectangular duct cover at one side of the concrete platform. ★★Come on, we’ve got to get under cover! If they see us we’re screwed!★★

★★If who see us?★★

★★Billington’s thugs! That’s his chopper up there. Whatever you did must have really gotten them pissed. We’ve got to get under cover before—★★

★★Before what?★★ She’s wrestling with the iron duct cover, which is dark red with rust and thinly coated with polyps and other growths. I try to ignore the tightness in my chest and brace myself to help.

★★That.★★ Something drops into the water nearby. I think it’s rubbish at first, but then I see a spreading red stain in the water. ★★Dye marker. For the divers.★★

★★Whoops.★★ I grab hold of the handles and brace myself, then put my back into it. ★★How long—★★ the grate begins to move ★★—do we have?★★

★★Fresh outa time, monkey-boy.★★ Shadows flicker in the turbid waters on the other side of the coral barrier: barracuda or small sharks circling. My chest aches with the effort of holding my breath and I think I’ve ripped open the skin on my hands, but the grate is moving now, swinging up and out on a hinged arm. ★★C’mon in.★★ The opening is about eighty by sixty, a tight squeeze for two: Ramona drops into it feet first then grabs my hand and pulls me after.

★★What is this?★★ I ask. I get an edgy, panicky feeling: we’re dropping into a concrete-walled tube with hand-holds on one side, and it’s black as night inside.

★★Quick! Pull the cover shut!★★

I yank at the hatch and it drops towards me heavily. I flinch as it lands on top of the tunnel, and then I can’t see anything but a vague phosphorescent glow. I blink and look down. It’s Ramona. She’s breathing—if that’s what you call it—like she’s running a marathon, and she looks a bit peaked, and she’s glowing, very dimly. Bioluminescence. ★★It’s shut.★★

★★Okay. Now follow me.★★ She begins to descend the tunnel, hand over hand. My chest tightens.

★★Where are we going?★★ I ask nervously.

★★I don’t know—this isn’t in the blueprints. Probably an emergency maintenance tunnel or something. So how about we find out, huh?★★

I grab a rung