hydrothermal vent.â He reaches into the gaping maw, snaps off a tooth. âOsteoporosis, probably other deficiency diseases as well.â
âMaybe you could save the lecture until you straighten that out for me?â She points to where her squid, listing drunkenly, describes small erratic circles in the overhead darkness. âI donât think Iâm gonna be swimming home with this leg.â
He coasts up and wrests the vehicle back under control. âWe have to bring it back,â he says, riding it down to her. âAll of it,â with a nod to Lopezâs gutted remains.
âItâs not necessarily what you think,â she tells him.
He turns and jackknifes into Impossible Lake, on the trail of his own squid. Clarke watches his rippling image kicking hard, fighting against buoyancy.
âItâs not β ehemoth,â she buzzes softly. âItâd never survive the trip.â Her voice is as calm as such mechanical caricatures can be out here. Her words sound reasonable. Her thoughts are neither. Her thoughts are caught in a loop, a mantra borne of some forlorn subconscious hope that endless repetition might give substance to wishes:
It canât be it canât be it canât be  â¦
Here on the sunless slopes of the Mid Atlantic Ridge, facing consequences that have somehow chased her to the very bottom of the world, denial seems the only available option.
PORTRAIT OF THE SADIST AS A YOUNG BOY
A CHILLES Desjardins wasnât always the most powerful man in North America; at one time heâd been just another kid growing up in the shadow of Mont St. Hilaire. He had always been an empiricist, though, an experimenter at heart for as long as he could remember. His first encounter with a research-ethics committee had occurred when he was only eight.
That particular experiment had involved aerobraking. His parents, in a well-intentioned effort to interest him in the classics, had introduced him to The Revenge of Mary Poppins . The story itself was pretty stupid, but Achilles liked the way the Persinger Box had slipped the butterfly-inducing sensation of flight directly into his brain. Mary Poppins had this nanotech umbrella, see, and she could jump right off the top of the CN Tower and float to earth as gently as a dandelion seed.
The illusion was so convincing that Achillesâs eight-year-old brain couldnât see why it wouldnât work in real life.
His family was richâall Quebecois families were, thanks to Hudson Hydroâso Achilles lived in a real house, a single stand-alone dwelling with a yard and everything. He grabbed an umbrella from the closet, let it bloom, andâclutching tightly with both handsâjumped off the front porch. The drop was only a meter and a half, but that was enough; he could feel the umbrella grabbing at the air above him, slowing his descent.
Buoyed by this success, Achilles moved on to phase two. His sister Penny, two years younger, held him in almost supernatural esteem; it was dead easy to talk her into scrambling up the trellis and onto the roof. It took a bit more effort to coax her to the very peak of the gable, which must have been a good seven meters above groundâbut when your big-brother-who-you-idolize is calling you a chickenshit, what are you supposed to do? Penny inched her way to the apex and stood teetering at the edge, the dome of the umbrella framing her face like a big black halo. For a moment Achilles thought the experiment would fail: he had to bring out his ultimate weapon and call her âPenelopeââ twice âbefore she jumped.
There was nothing to worry about, of course. Achilles already knew it would work; the umbrella had slowed him after all, even during a drop of a measly meter or so, and Penny weighed a lot less than he did.
Which made it all the more surprising when the umbrella snapped inside out, whap!, right before his eyes. Penny dropped like a rock, landed
âMaybe you could save the lecture until you straighten that out for me?â She points to where her squid, listing drunkenly, describes small erratic circles in the overhead darkness. âI donât think Iâm gonna be swimming home with this leg.â
He coasts up and wrests the vehicle back under control. âWe have to bring it back,â he says, riding it down to her. âAll of it,â with a nod to Lopezâs gutted remains.
âItâs not necessarily what you think,â she tells him.
He turns and jackknifes into Impossible Lake, on the trail of his own squid. Clarke watches his rippling image kicking hard, fighting against buoyancy.
âItâs not β ehemoth,â she buzzes softly. âItâd never survive the trip.â Her voice is as calm as such mechanical caricatures can be out here. Her words sound reasonable. Her thoughts are neither. Her thoughts are caught in a loop, a mantra borne of some forlorn subconscious hope that endless repetition might give substance to wishes:
It canât be it canât be it canât be  â¦
Here on the sunless slopes of the Mid Atlantic Ridge, facing consequences that have somehow chased her to the very bottom of the world, denial seems the only available option.
PORTRAIT OF THE SADIST AS A YOUNG BOY
A CHILLES Desjardins wasnât always the most powerful man in North America; at one time heâd been just another kid growing up in the shadow of Mont St. Hilaire. He had always been an empiricist, though, an experimenter at heart for as long as he could remember. His first encounter with a research-ethics committee had occurred when he was only eight.
That particular experiment had involved aerobraking. His parents, in a well-intentioned effort to interest him in the classics, had introduced him to The Revenge of Mary Poppins . The story itself was pretty stupid, but Achilles liked the way the Persinger Box had slipped the butterfly-inducing sensation of flight directly into his brain. Mary Poppins had this nanotech umbrella, see, and she could jump right off the top of the CN Tower and float to earth as gently as a dandelion seed.
The illusion was so convincing that Achillesâs eight-year-old brain couldnât see why it wouldnât work in real life.
His family was richâall Quebecois families were, thanks to Hudson Hydroâso Achilles lived in a real house, a single stand-alone dwelling with a yard and everything. He grabbed an umbrella from the closet, let it bloom, andâclutching tightly with both handsâjumped off the front porch. The drop was only a meter and a half, but that was enough; he could feel the umbrella grabbing at the air above him, slowing his descent.
Buoyed by this success, Achilles moved on to phase two. His sister Penny, two years younger, held him in almost supernatural esteem; it was dead easy to talk her into scrambling up the trellis and onto the roof. It took a bit more effort to coax her to the very peak of the gable, which must have been a good seven meters above groundâbut when your big-brother-who-you-idolize is calling you a chickenshit, what are you supposed to do? Penny inched her way to the apex and stood teetering at the edge, the dome of the umbrella framing her face like a big black halo. For a moment Achilles thought the experiment would fail: he had to bring out his ultimate weapon and call her âPenelopeââ twice âbefore she jumped.
There was nothing to worry about, of course. Achilles already knew it would work; the umbrella had slowed him after all, even during a drop of a measly meter or so, and Penny weighed a lot less than he did.
Which made it all the more surprising when the umbrella snapped inside out, whap!, right before his eyes. Penny dropped like a rock, landed
Similar Books
It's Always Darkest Before the Fridge Door Opens: Enjoying the Fruits of Middle Age
Phil Callaway, Martha O. Bolton
