The Prisoner - Carlos J. Cortes [17]
Silence.
Laurel could read Raul’s expression, and she felt her stomach contract involuntarily.
“I don’t—know. Maybe. But he would be a vegetable. He’s been down too long.”
Raul wedged the spare syrette between his teeth, turned on his heel, and squatted by Bastien. Slowly, he ran a hand over the dome of Bastien’s head, like a mother caressing her newborn. Then, face set and his profile cast in stone, Raul gripped Bastien’s head and jerked his hands. The report of bones snapping echoed over the whine of motors.
Laurel’s shoulders sagged. Honor was an aesthetic idea for some. Not for Raul. They had been like brothers. Through a haze of tears, she saw Raul’s shadow near and felt the tips of his fingers brush her cheek. Then she heard a sharp intake of air and, instants later, a splash when Raul jumped into the tank.
“Pass—Russo—over.” Lukas’s voice sounded muffled.
Laurel followed the sound. A quivering Lukas, wisps of red hair plastered to his forehead, reached to remove the syrette from Raul’s mouth. He was pale. She squatted, threaded the fingers of one hand through the slippery mesh, and hauled Russo’s neck ring with the other.
Raul swung, one hand gripping the net of a young man—almost a child—then caught the cords cocooning Russo and pulled.
It all happened too fast. As Laurel squatted by Russo, her hand gripping the jelly cords, a powerful force dragged her forward. She lost her footing and plunged headlong into the tank, still holding on to Russo.
The shock astounded her. A forest of needles skewered her skin with icy cold. A hot pincer seared her neck and jerked her head upright. She screamed. Laurel thrashed in the liquid ice until she felt something solid beneath her feet. She planted her soles and bolted straight, one hand flying over her face to remove the viscous liquid slithering over it, while the other reached blindly for the nearest jelly mesh. She started to shake.
“Just a few seconds. It will wear off in a few seconds.” Lukas’s voice droned somewhere to her left.
Unable to keep her chattering jaw steady, she rubbed stinging eyes with her free hand. The fluid was level with her midriff. In the center of the tank, the liquid turned lazily around a wide depression. Around her, scores of nets held inmates, their skin pruned like alien larvae, some thin, their ribs protruding like so many grates, others padded with flabby skin like shar-pei dogs. The wretches jerked an arm or a leg here and there; necks twitched, their mouths stretched as they suckled the tits of a machine. Laurel’s stomach heaved, but she had nothing to throw up.
Raul and Lukas stood on the bottom of the tank, each holding on to one of the dangling inmates to offset the powerful pull of the rapidly draining fluid. Lukas kept Russo’s head above the liquid with a grip to his neck ring, and Laurel suddenly realized the burning sensation on her own neck came from Raul’s other hand.
The lights dimmed an instant, as if an automatic relay had rearmed after a power surge.
“The alarm,” Lukas announced.
“Now what?” Raul asked. He removed his hand from Laurel’s neck and grabbed Russo’s ring.
“Too much fluid yet. When the level drops down to six inches, we can go.”
Laurel lowered her head. The fluid was level with her knees. Raul had not asked Lukas how they would reach the sewers. He must have figured it out, like she had.
“How long?” Raul demanded.
“Thirty seconds, tops.”
The conflicting sensations were almost unbearable. Her body burned, but her legs and feet seemed encased in a block of ice.
“Feetfirst.” Lukas nodded to a manhole-size opening in the center of the tank. “It’s a tall drop, twenty feet vertical to a smooth bend, then fifty or sixty feet horizontally until we hit the secure spur line.”
“It’ll tear our skin off!” Laurel complained.
“No, it won’t. These conduits are smooth-walled, designed for special cleaning machines and kept spotless, without incrustations or excrescences. The secure spur line uses a more aggressive cleaning procedure because it handles solids. These