THE BEAST WAS AWARE OF them mentally. They were like soothing little lozenges on its head. Water flowed through cracked surfaces on its hide where it hadn’t flowed in a long time.
These two things were intriguing enough for it to descend very slowly. Breach suits could handle temperature and pressure changes with ease, but not that much ease. The force of the displaced water sphinctering around Milo and Ramses was enough by itself to knock a prizefighter out. Without the suits they’d be dead tragic figures surrounded by the Atlantidean Ocean. With the suits, they were tourists.
Swarms of lean, armored parasites attended Tyson as if he were a bloated movie star, snatching at disoriented crabs and tunnel eels. Stunned dragoons and fish floated lazily with Leviathan’s eddies. Dragoons resembled dolphins with prehensile noses, and it was odd to see several of these gray vacuum cleaners when normally spotting just one was rare.
Leviathan belched two gargantuan jets of water to stop its descent, scaring every living thing away for a quarter mile, which left the three sentients alone in the grey, encompassing water.
Milo closed his eyes again.
Ramses followed suit.
I draw the breath of life and health. I expel the breath of doubt... Speak to me, thought Milo.
*the world has not known my kind. the world will not know my kind.*
Milo tried to think in terms of deep secrets alongside the assurance of we are not the voices.
*war brings truth* it broadcast, and that’s how Milo knew it was Buford. Somehow, someway, Buford Bone had managed to use the world’s ultimate roadblock: convincing the Leviathan that the Brothers Jetstream meant to change its world. Milo could imagine scores of Buford’s followers descending to their deaths under the Atlantidean all while broadcasting the fervent impression that the Brothers Jetstream’s War meant Leviathan was going to become an attraction at the Mall of America.
By the time things got old they’d earned the right to want to be left the hell alone, and wanting to be left the hell alone was the prime inclination of all old things.
Even a beast that likely remembered what dinosaurs tasted like. And like old things, Tyson was supremely aware of what was going on in the world.
Both brothers tried as honestly and flatly as they could to convince the old fart they bore it no intentions, and they did this by detaching from its hide and simply floating, minds blank to everything but the water around them. They projected the sense that here, the water, was Leviathan’s universe and Leviathan was god.
Leviathan, somewhat begrudgingly, saw that it was good.
And since it didn’t care one whit for their lives, it prepared to give a massive push of its flukes to send it barreling to the depths where it would wait, and wait some more.
Breach suits weren’t up to that kind of change.
Mosquitoes do what they can.
Ramses shot it in the eye.
*what the fuck!*
It wasn’t as if it hurt but it was enough of a jolt to get its immediate attention.
Wait, was all Ramses put out.
Leviathan felt their feeble electrical impulses racing away from it. *did you just shoot me in the eye? alpha and omega? fool! stupid humans. son of a...*
We mean to keep you safe, Ramses broadcast.
Leviathan calmed itself. Several sensations in one short span. It really couldn’t complain, but the intent was a pisser.
*do it again* it warned him. It settled back into its usual mode, further grumbling *alpha and omega…*
They swam quickly away from its head. The ancient aquatic was arching its back and filling its jets again.
Ramses and Milo weren’t far enough away.
They grabbed hold of each other in a tight hug and waited.
Leviathan flicked powerfully downward and the brothers swirled around in the toilet bowl of its descent.