Gyre realized she had one hand resting lightly on her throat, and slowly lowered it. Her heart was hammering in her chest. That rumble—it must have been a Tunneler. She eyed the rest of the videos warily.
Em’s seen these.
It wasn’t enough to change anything. But it did make everything click, a heavy weight settling into her bones. Now Gyre could begin to see how a girl could grow up in the shadow of this, knowing the tragedy so intimately that she was warped into a monster, determined to finish what her mother had started by any means necessary. If Em had grown up watching these videos, knowing that her mom had gotten out but her dad hadn’t—
Gyre could see it. She’d thought her obsession with chasing her own mother was bad enough. This . . . this would have been all-consuming.
It didn’t matter. It didn’t justify the deaths. Understanding Em didn’t mean she wanted to help her, wanted to risk her life for her. And beyond that pointless understanding, the videos didn’t change anything. They weren’t proof Em had breached the contract. They weren’t proof she’d broken any laws. It wasn’t a way to get out and take the money anyway. It was just . . . tragedy. So what if she felt pain for the other woman? Caring about the emotional damage of some alienated millionaire wasn’t what she’d signed up for.
“You’re awake,” Em said, and her voice was enough to bring her anger roaring back to full flame.
“You drugged me.”
“I did. You were behaving erratically.”
Gyre clenched her jaw hard enough that she could hear her teeth creak. Erratically?
“I wanted to give you some time to think. And,” Em said, quickly, before Gyre could get a word in, “I have something to offer you.”
“I won’t believe anything that comes out of your mouth,” Gyre said, and stood up. Her head spun, and she reached out and braced herself against the wall.
“I have an amendment to your contract,” Em said. “Please sit down and hear me out. And I suggest a nutritional canister.”
“Fuck your suggestions.” Even if it was a good one. All she could think about was what Em had just said. An amendment. A way out? Gyre sat down slowly, scowling. “Keep talking.”
Em’s voice was level and measured as she said, “It memorializes my previous offer, that I will use my personal resources to locate your mother. And that if you continue on to Camp Five, I will also relinquish my rights to sue you for falsifying your professional background, and I will not provide negative references to future potential employers. In the event the cache at Camp Five is also missing and it is unsafe for you to continue, the expedition will end and I will pull you out per the terms of your employment agreement.”
Gyre’s chest burned and she realized she’d stopped breathing. “And why should I trust that the amendment will be valid? I don’t imagine you’re going to summon a witness.”
“No,” Em admitted, having the decency to sound embarrassed. “You’re correct. But I have something better.”
Gyre’s brows rose. “Better.”
“Yes. I’ve loaded the amendment into your suit, and I’m currently recording this conversation both from your suit and from my desk. The two feeds are being uploaded and stored in a black box—neither of us can get in to hear them until the date specified in the amendment, and they cannot be copied or altered. It is legally admissible evidence. If I try to nullify the contract, you’ll have my words to use against me.”
Gyre was shaking. There has to be a catch. But the only catch was that Em could be lying about the recording. Yet, as she watched, Em began displaying the upload feed, as well as specifications for the black box. Gyre wrapped her arms around herself, but the suit’s resistance was hard and the movement didn’t give her any comfort.
This was it.
“All I have to do,” Gyre said slowly, “is get to Camp Five.”
It wasn’t a way out, but it was the start of one. Freedom. All she had to do was finish this one descent, and then she could leave. She might not get any money—Em had been careful to make no promises—but she’d be free to try again on a more normal expedition, only a little worse for wear.
But this was Em. Em closed her eyes and inhaled deeply before saying, “Yes. Just one more day. And then you can turn back. Or . . . or you can go on.”
Not happening. With that recording ready to protect her from Em’s retaliation, there was no reason to stay.
With that recording—
Gyre sat up straighter, then slouched again, trying not to look too alert. She hoped Em was too busy waiting for a response to notice her heart rate jump again as she realized, If I can keep the recording running, I’ll have her.
She fought down the urge to fiddle with her interface. She’d need to wait until Em was asleep, away from her desk. But then . . . then, if she could figure out how to turn it on . . .
Gyre thought of the team in the video, Jennie’s broken suit, Adrian Purcell at Camp Two. Not only could she blackmail Em into paying her, she could get vengeance for all of them.
“What about sedation? I want it off the table.”
“No,” Em said. “You’re down here, you’re my responsibility.”
Gyre hissed through her teeth. She wanted Em out of her body, now. But it wasn’t worth losing the opportunity over, and she put aside that particular grievance for later.
“Let’s sign the amendment, then.” The words were out of her mouth before she could second-guess herself. “Camp Five it is.”
Em laughed weakly in relief. Gyre read through the amendment, which was written in plain language so that she felt comfortable giving her assent and hearing Em do the same. The document left her view, and she made to stand up again.
“Eat,” Em said, reiterating her previous suggestion.
“I want to conserve what I have.” Her hand went instinctively to the compartment where her remaining rations were stored, while her gaze flicked to her battery readout. Em had knocked her out for over ten hours, leaving her that much closer to swapping to her one backup.
“It should only be one more push to Camp Five.”
“And if that cache is gone?”
“You’ll still have enough food to get back to Camp Three at normal activity levels. I’ll try again with somebody else once I’ve restocked everything.”
Gyre scowled but said nothing. What could she say? Em clearly didn’t care that Gyre objected to the mission. Try again. The thought of Em sending another parade of people down here to die turned her stomach. She’d have to get the recording up and running before she got to Five, then.
“Your arm isn’t incapacitated. How is it feeling?”
“Stiff. Guessing it’s bruised. I’ll be able to climb today.”
Em answered with silence again.
Gyre crouched down and set up her feeding. She held herself up on her knees, her left hand braced against the wall, and turned to look down the tunnel.
“Did you do any scans on it? Down there, I mean?”
“Some. I am, of course, limited by where your suit is. Everything seems settled. The Tunneler passed a while ago. You were safe.”
Gyre sucked on her straw in an attempt to ease the rough cracking of her throat. “Anything interesting happen while I was out?”
“I made you a roast dinner,” Em deadpanned.
Gyre snorted. “Fuck you.”
“I’m . . . I am sorry, about the sedation,” Em said. “I really did think it was in your best interest.”
“To shut me up?”
“No, to make you sleep. You didn’t, at Camp Four. If you’d fallen again trying to climb out—”
“You swore to me. You agreed.”
“I know. And I broke my word.”
“Well, I know better than to take you at it, now, don’t I?”
Em said nothing.
“You can’t control everything. Not my mind, not my decisions.”
“I know,” Em said. “I know.” But it didn’t mean she wouldn’t do it again.
Gyre hated this. She hated this part, this vulnerability. Knowing that she couldn’t trust Em. But that had been true from day one.
She just needed to keep going.
Em cleared her throat, then said, “My suggestion is that you reach Camp Five today and rest there, take a day to think about if you want to keep going. If you do, then you head back here with a portion of the cache. The ascender should make that relatively easy, just a few hours to get up. Then you can stage the gear hauling between Camp Three, here, and Five as anticipated.”
“And after that, if I do keep going”—if I need the time to catch you in more of your lies, she thought—“Camp Six is the last?”
“It is.”
“How many of your cavers made it that far?” She knew the answer from the dossiers. Five. Did Em still remember?
“Five,” she said. “It’s the last sump that’s been the biggest problem.”
“That’s the one that those—what, three or four died in?”
It was three.
“Yes. That’s the one. It’s claimed three of mine.” Em’s voice trembled on the last word, then firmed up again as she continued, “The one before it is substantially more straightforward.”
She’d remembered. She couldn’t remember the names, but she could remember the numbers. She wasn’t a complete monster.
Just very close.
“The rest turned back,” Em noted quietly. “They didn’t all die.”
Gyre bit down her response; she needed Em to lower her guard, not keep fighting her. She stared down the tunnel as she waited for the feeding to finish, wriggling her hips every so often as if it would help the cramping, crawling sensation in her gut. When Em’s parents had come down here, they’d been able to eat real food, scratch their itches, massage their cramped muscles. They’d been able to sit around a campfire together, reach out and touch one another. She was jealous until she reflected on her fall the day before. That could have broken Laurent’s arm, without the protective carapace around it, and it certainly wouldn’t have healed as quickly as it had.
Suited or suitless, they all seemed to suffer and die the same. Nobody should be down here.
Canister spent and stowed, Gyre straightened up, her eyes still on the tunnel.
“It should be stable, if you want to explore. It seems to go down in the direction of Camp Five. It may be an easier path.”
The cliff was the simpler, known path, but Gyre didn’t like the idea of leaving the tunnel unexplored behind her. “I’ll take a quick look,” she said, stepping across the jumbled rock at the threshold into the smooth portion of the tunnel. It branched off to either side, ascending sharply on the right, arching down to her left in a gentle slope that looked more walkable. She went left, hugging the wall as she edged along.
The floor was smooth, with a slight dip in the center, and the entire opening was a flattened oval, wide along the top and bottom, sharply curved at the walls.
The shape of a Tunneler?
She walked for about ten minutes before she saw the sudden drop-off, the sharp curve down where the Tunneler had changed course. She eased herself close to the corner, where the ground was buckled, almost wrinkled, pushed out into the open air of the tunnel when the creature had left it in its wake. She crouched, one hand on a ridge that jutted out over the shaft, peering down.
It seemed to go on forever.
“Is this still lining up with Camp Five?” she asked.
“I think so, but not directly. Better to go the original route,” Em replied. Then she inhaled sharply. “That buckling—”
“When it went down, it must have pushed some stone back behind it. Like dust on a road.”
“It’s going the wrong way for that.”
Gyre frowned. Em was right. If the Tunneler had been going down, behind it would have been up. It would have created a fence, not a shelf.
“So it was coming up.” Gyre stood, then turned, looking back the way she’d come. “And it kept going—”
“Toward Camp Four,” Em said. “Whatever attracted it must have been there. And recent.”
“The cache?” Gyre said, her voice suddenly weak. But there had been no sign of a Tunneler breaking into Camp Four, near the cache or otherwise. The cache hadn’t attracted it. That left . . . “Whoever took the cache. That’s what you’re thinking, right?”
“Somebody is in my cave,” Em whispered.
“Was.” Was. Gyre had to believe that, or she’d turn tail and run, amendment or not. Because no matter what Em thought, right now it was Gyre’s cave, and she didn’t want to share it with anyone.
So it had to be was.
“We didn’t see any trace of them. They have to be gone by now. Maybe the Tunneler—”
“If there’s another entrance now, I need to find it.” Em’s voice had gone cold. Mechanical.
Gyre didn’t need this. She didn’t need Em to be distracted, and she certainly didn’t need to give her own imagination any fuel. Her skin was already beginning to prickle with the feeling of being watched once more. “No. Camp Five first.” I need to get this turned around. She couldn’t get dragged into this; she had to get out. But she also needed a better excuse than fear, something Em would listen to in her obsession. “I can’t—I can’t stage from here without more gear,” she stammered out, “and I can’t haul from Three easily without those dry bags—that’s why we kept pushing forward to begin with.” Gyre shook her head and began walking up the incline. “Camp Five marker,” she said. “Put it up.”
Em muttered to herself, but the Camp Five marker appeared on her screen. Gyre took one last glance over her shoulder at the jagged ledge. Then she sped up to a trot, taking the gentle path up to the cliffside much faster than she had come down.
The moment she stepped out of the smooth tunnel and back onto the rougher rock of the ledge, she shuddered in relief.
She went out onto the ledge again and looked up at her leads from the day before. With the gear hauling—or the potential need for a fast escape—it would be best to leave them there for now even though it reduced how much line she had left. She toggled her next—and last—spool into place inside her suit.
“Is this enough to get me down?”
“Yes,” Em said. “There’s more at Five.”
Gyre nodded, her lips pursed in thought. Even if Em was wrong, Gyre could always climb back up, make for Three again in a pinch. She’d have to keep an eye on it though, be ready to bail. There was no way she was going to try to outclimb the rope.
She hooked herself into the line from the day before and made her way out to the original bolt, checking her cams as she went. Everything looked sturdy. She shouldn’t have needed Em to tell her that much. Once she had transferred to the vertical length of her old rope, she began to descend once more, hand over hand and step by step.
* * *
Half an hour in, her right arm felt almost normal again, and the work was easier. The lingering effects of the sedative had worn off, leaving her head clearer than it had been since before the sump at Camp Three. She increased her pace. Again, a few of the bolts had to be replaced, and again, Em’s overlaid calculations seemed correct. They worked together with a few words exchanged every ten to fifteen minutes. Em sounded distracted, and still angry.
Gyre itched to dig into her suit’s workings and find the recorder, but she kept herself only to the climb. She was losing precious time to prod at Em’s defenses, but she couldn’t risk Em seeing her fussing with it.
Then Em said, “I need to look into something. Wait for me when you get to the bottom.”
Her line closed.
Gyre swore loudly and thumped her fist into the rock wall. Her suit scraped against the stone, and the impact jarred yesterday’s injury. She sucked in deep breaths through her clenched teeth, then let go of the wall, hanging for a moment in her harness while she gestured angrily toward the surface.
“Yeah, just leave me down here during a climb. Great handling!”
There was no response, and as Gyre’s pounding heart quieted, she realized that, hanging there in the dark, she was entirely . . . Alone.
Unless the cache thief is still here, her nerves whispered. She pushed the thought away. Better to be alone on the side of a sheer drop than on the side of a sheer drop with another climber somewhere else on the wall.
She situated her toes back into holds on the wall and resumed her bouncing glide down toward her next bolt. Every time her rope nudged against an outcropping, or her spool released unevenly, her throat tightened. She could see the other climber up at the tunnel ledge, grabbing her rope, hauling it up hand over hand—or unfastening it, and letting her plummet. She swallowed a surge of panicked bile and looked down. There was still so far to go, longer if she did it safely enough to guard against company. And the climb back up would take—
No, she couldn’t spook herself like this. The chances of the other climber still being alive were slim to none.
If there even is another climber, she reminded herself.
No, the thing to think about was how, if Em was still gone by the time she reached the base of this wall, she’d have time. Time to set up her trap, time to ensure she could get out safely. Cache thief or no.
Camp Five’s marker burned steadily at the bottom of her screen. Oh, she thought. Em didn’t toggle it off before she left.
That said something—that she was surprised that Em hadn’t screwed her over in her anger. That it seemed reasonable that she would have turned off the marker to strand her where she wanted her. Gyre laughed, helplessly, at how quickly things had gone from almost okay to nightmarish.
If Em had ever wanted Gyre to trust her, she’d given up on the ledge. That cold look of hers when Gyre had told her to screw herself over administering the sedative—Gyre knew that look on a deep, intimate level. That was the look of somebody resigned to being the monster they knew they were. The self-awareness was no comfort, didn’t imply that Em wanted to or could be brought back to reality.
All it meant was that she needed to get the recording going. If Em had given up on being trusted outside the bounds of a formal contract amendment, there was no telling how much further she’d go.
She clipped into another bolt. The process was automatic now, the route easy enough, just long. Too much time for her mind to wander, to go all analytical on herself. She’d turned to caving as a way to escape all this thinking. And now this cave was forcing her to live inside her own head, and for the first time she could remember, she hated not being able to see the sky.
She kept climbing, and Em’s line remained closed. The ground grew closer, and her rope was long enough. After what felt like days, but her HUD said had only been four and a half hours, she reached the end. Gyre let out a sigh of relief as she settled her weight onto her feet again. Solid ground after half a day’s descent felt like some kind of magic, and once her rope was secured and she had cut herself free of it, conserving the last length, she knelt and set up her feeding.
After that, she had real work to do.