"THIS IS A type of hatch for bots only," Arthur was saying. "It's not going to open for you."
"Then why can't they open it?" Tish asked, pointing a tool at her bots working away in the small space along the edge of the narrow corridor.
"Why isn't any of this area working? None of us have that answer. I'll check further down. Maybe there is another door." Arthur stepped past them and kept going.
"But, this is the closest point to Rachel," Ignacio said. "There's really no point going further down."
Tish shrugged as she crouched down to work on one side of the bots. "Who knows. If he can get a door open maybe he can get to Rachel from a different direction from the inside."
Ignacio didn't like hearing so many maybes. His gut told him they didn't have much time. They should concentrate on what they knew. At least Tish stayed and worked in the small space with her bots. The hatch sat under a big pipe, requiring both of them to slide under on their hands and knees.
Not that Ignacio could do anything. The most he could do was hold a light for Tish to work by. Down the corridor Irvine alternated between splashing around in his water and hissing at the walls. As long as the little guy hissed, Ignacio knew Rachel was still okay, so he kept his ears attuned to the hissing.
Among the next bout of hissing came another sound. One not from the direction of Irvine's carrier, but in front of them where the bots were working. "Wait, do you hear something?"
Tish froze, looking over the bots at him. "Like what?"
He put a finger to his lips. "Shh. Just listen."
The bots froze, as well. All went quiet in the corridor, even Irvine.
Out of the silence came a muffled tap. No, not a tap. It sounded like a good wallop, but muffled. Right under where Tish worked.
Tish started, pushing herself up on her elbows to stare at the hatch. Ignacio searched through the various tools the bots brought, finding one with a good handle and a heavier ending.
He reached around a bot, angling the head at the door and let go with three hard strikes. Then he stopped and listened.
Hearing no response, he hit three more times, but with a little more force. The third try gave the response he'd been silently praying for. Four muffled strikes. He returned the same number at the same rhythm.
When the taps repeated again, Tish motioned to one of the bots. "The cutter, now. We either get this thing open or we start dismantling the wall and welding our way through."
The bots went to work. Tish pushed herself out from under the pipe to shout down the corridor, "Arthur!"
Arthur soon appeared. "Did you get through?"
"We found her," Ignacio said, pulling back to give Tish and the bots more room to work. "She just now responded."
"Is Redpoint One allowing you in?" Arthur asked, kneeling next to Tish and letting his hand rest on her hip.
"Redpoint One is not active in this area right now," Tish said as a bright light flashed from several points around the hatch. "It won't stop us."
Ignacio stared at the work, even though the flashes of the cutters from Tish and the bots caused his eyes to hurt. With a sudden certainty, he said, "She's not doing well."
"I'll get the others," Arthur stepped around them to head in the other direction.
He heard a few more taps as the work continued. He practically shook at the torment of the waiting. He tried assuring himself that as long as he heard the taps it meant she was still alive.
A clank preceded a hiss and a trill. Ignacio nearly jumped out of his skin when he realized the door of the carrier had come open. He turned and grabbed a fast-running Irvine before he could get into the cavities of the pipes.
"Now isn't the time, Irvine," Ignacio told him, trying to turn the carrier around with a knee. The good humor usually present when dealing with his animals was gone. He appreciated Irvine's inadvertent help with find Rachel, but this was going too far.
"I have it!" Tish announced, scrambling out of the narrow space under the large pipe. Two bots followed, dragging out the hatch.
"Rachel!" Ignacio called. He didn't hear anything, but he did see the body of a new bot backing out of the new open hole.
"That's Rachel's bot," Tish said, jumping to her knees in excitement. "Rachel, come on out. It's open."
Rachel didn't answer and the bot didn't move. It came halfway out of the hatch, but not moving any further. Tish crouched down with a small flashlight.
"Rachel? Wait, are you holding clothing? Bot, back up," Tish said.
Ignacio swallowed hard. He knew what was going on. He eyed Irvine and pushed him into the carrier, snapping shut the lid. Even as he dove under the pipe he could hear Irvine working the door to get back.
Well, Irvine might be of an endangered species, but right now Rachel meant more to him. He moved himself to the other side of the bot, telling Tish, "I'll grab her. Be ready to help if I need it."
Tish pulled out of the space to allow him and Rachel's bot more room while leaving behind the flashlight. "I hear the others coming."
The light of the flashlight and the bot's eyes told him he'd been right. Rachel's bot held Rachel's shirt near the collar. He could see her wet head on the other side of the hatch as well as the sound of lapping water.
Along with a bad smell.
He reached past the arms of the bot that was barely holding Rachel above the water. "What is that stink?"
"It's coolant," he heard Damien say at his feet. "Bots, we need better ventilation."
Ignacio decided just from the smell of it that it wasn't good. Rachel had once been responding with something heavy enough to be heard through the thick hatch, now didn't move, which meant he needed to get her away from the fumes as soon as possible.
He pushed himself further into the small space, angling in under Rachel's bot to get his hands under her arms. Pulling at the dead weight from such an awkward position wasn't easy, straining his upper muscles and hands while the edge of the opening dug into his forearms.
He jerked as a blast of air hit him.
"Sorry to startle you. Trying to disperse the fumes," Damien said. "You don't want to breathe them in for very long."
Good point. He didn't dare lose his grip now that he almost had Rachel up. Somehow he inched her up despite her wet slick skin and soaked clothes, getting her head through the hatch.
He heard a trill come from Irvine.
"Someone grab the newt," Tish shouted.
"How did it get out?" Arthur demanded.
Ignacio heard people scrambling across the floor and a clang against the pipes, quickly followed by a curse from Arthur. He didn't try to go after Irvine or even look around for him. All his attention remained on the one person in front of him.
A little more and Rachel was bent halfway in and out. She slipped a few more inches forward without Ignacio even trying.
"I don't even see him anymore," he heard someone else say.
"Forget Irvine," Ignacio said as he pulled back further. "I think we have bots helping from the other side."
One of Tish's bots moved out of the space on the other side of Rachel's bot to be quickly replaced by Damien. He grabbed her tool belt and tugged. With the help, Rachel came out even further, her head limp with her forehead sliding along the floor.
"On the count of three," Damien said.
Ignacio solidified his grip, positioning his legs for one more good pull. At the end of the countdown, he pulled back, with Rachel coming out of the hatch in one smooth movement.
Flipping her over and his arms under her arm and wrapped around her chest, and Damien and Arthur helping with her legs, they pulled her down the corridor to a wider section.
"Medical help is on the way," Arthur said as they laid her down.
Ignacio pulled down her shirt, deformed by both him and the bot pulling on it. She was breathing. He could see and feel the slight movements of her rib cage, but her eyes remained closed. How long had she breathed in the coolant?
"Just how dangerous is the coolant?" Ignacio demanded. He propped her up against his knees, hoping it helped her breathing.
Damien's lips thinned. "Can be deadly. It's for cooling, not to breathe."
"Relax, both of you," Arthur said. "Help is on the way."
A deeper breath, and then a soft sigh.
Music to Ignacio. Into her ear he whispered, "Rachel? Can you open your eyes?"
All the activity around them disappeared as he waited for her response. Her skin felt so cold to the touch. If he weren't cradling her head, he would take off his shirt to cover her up.
The rise and fall of her chest remained regular. He told himself it was a good sign. She was alive and emergency medical help would soon arrive. She would be okay. She had to be. He'd just found her. How could he lose her now?
Another deeper breath accompanied with a sigh.
Her eyes came open. Suddenly, and lovely. Clear brown eyes with the mysterious blue flecks in the inner ring. He'd never seen such beautiful eyes before in his life.
Terrified eyes. With the emotion came halting breaths and in increase in her heart-rate.
"It's okay. You're out of the water," he said. A blanket appeared from somewhere to drape over her. She gazed up at him, as if in disbelief. He smiled at the expression. "And no, you are not dreaming."
***
Rachel wasn't sure if she wanted to believe or trust the dream. One moment she'd been immersed in cold water with the air growing worse by the breath, and the next she woke up propped up on Ignacio's legs.
How did that work? Did she miss something along the way?
"Prove it," she said to the figment of her imagination. No, not right. To the dream.
Ignacio grinned like an idiot. For some reason the expression seemed real to her. If she'd been pulled out of a cutoff area, he might look like that. Relieved to find her alive and breathing, just like something out of a sappy romance movie or novel.
"I let Irvine go to save you." Ignacio said. "He's around here somewhere, but who knows where."
She closed her eyes and groaned. Now she knew she must be awake. Irvine loose to get into her pipes? Oh yeah, that was her kind of luck. She must really be awake after all. "He'll get into another pipe."
"Pipes can be fixed. You can't," Ignacio said.
Her eyes flew open and she stared up at him. "Did you really say that?"
"Say that you are more important than my newts? I believe I did." Ignacio's grin settled down to an upside-down version of the intense gaze he'd settled on her at their impromptu date in the corridors. The kind that warmed her clear to the middle, and, oh, did she need a little warmth right now.
"I meant every word," he said.
Rachel heard shouts from down one of the corridors, somehow knowing they were for her. The guess was confirmed when she heard Arthur shouting at the new arrivals to hurry.
"We'll expand on that later," she said with a smile of her own to mirror his. "Don't think you'll get out of it. I won't let you."
"How about one step further." He leaned down, whispering in her ear, "I love you."
The breath she'd brought back into her oxygen-starved lungs left again. No way did he say that. He must be a dream after all. Soon she would wake up, back in the water with bots trying to prop her up.
Well, if it was going to be a dream, she might as well go all the way, too. No regrets. Even good dream-time was too precious to waste time in.
"Ditto, newt-man. When I wake up from this dream you and I are having a good long talk about the future," Rachel said.
Arthur's face appeared within her vision. "Rachel, you breathed in coolant. You are hallucinating."
"I better not be," Rachel said, staring straight at Ignacio as he continued to hold her. "Although I wouldn't mind hallucinating Irvine is loose somewhere. Definitely don't want that to be real-life."
"People have broken up over their animals. I hope it doesn't with you." Arthur said before glaring at Ignacio. "It better not."
Rachel giggled, even though she hated people who giggled, feeling sorry for Ignacio being the focus of Arthur's protective streak.
But, Ignacio was apparently not bothered, as he answered, "It won't be a problem for us."
"Especially if Irvine stays in his enclosure," Rachel said with one last giggle before she got control of them. Okay, maybe the fumes were affecting her after all.
"Is someone missing a small hissing animal?" Tish called out.
Rachel tried to prop herself up to look in Tish's direction, but Ignacio kept her still. Just as well. The little bit of movement set her head to spinning.
No matter, her bot was moving towards her, coming into view. Her wonderful bot who had helped to save her life. A bot holding a long sinuous body in two small metal hands. Irvine pushed at the hands with all legs, hissing himself silly at her bot. Her bot hissed back with just as much fervor.
Rachel collapsed back into Ignacio's arms, once again giggling herself silly, announcing to her maintenance co-workers and the newly arrived emergency medical group, "My pipes are safe!"