There was an inner door. You opened that, climbed in and shut it. Then you let the ocean in.
The red striping on the hatch was bright and inviting. I jammed the rifle between the top torpedo and the ceiling, hooked my right arm through the ladder, then gripped the dogging wheel with my left hand. I could see gnat-sized beads of condensation hanging from the door’s surface.
The wheel wouldn’t turn. The ladder dug into the crook of my bracing arm, the sinews of my left wrist rippled beneath the skin and my palm ground against the cold metal, but the hatch and I were frozen there in an isometric struggle.
I felt sweat trickle down my back beneath the suit. Disengaging my right hand, I added it to my efforts, trigger finger a jagged protrusion from the fist formed by its four companions. I squeezed the ladder with my knees and twisted. Pulled. Threw every cell of my upper body into the task. Shit, was I even turning it the right direction?
Then the wheel slipped into motion with a shriek. I let go of it with my left hand, scrabbling for a grip on the ladder as I pitched backward. My right hand got caught for an instant, jerking my arm and bashing my injured finger against a spoke of the wheel.
The pain this time was searing. It pulsed through my hand and arm into the pit of my stomach, and as I clung to the ladder, panting, I saw specks of light floating in my vision.
I’m not sure how long I clung there, tears and sweat winding their way down my face. And it’s an even greater mystery how I managed to steady myself again with my right arm, reach out with the opposite limb and turn the wheel the rest of the way.
The hatch swung open and dangled there.
“No!” Not a denial, but a sharp, painful syllable filled with all my fears and frustrations. The space on the other side looked about the same size as the inside of a clothes dryer. A child could fit in there, maybe.
I was sobbing now, angry. There were handholds set on the inside of the escape tower-how could they call a space that small a “tower”?-and on the hatch. I’d have to climb off the ladder, up the hatch and jam myself into the area above. With one hand.
But first, I shined the rifle-mounted light through the opening. There were two softball-sized knobs set into a recess in the chamber wall. Both had bumpy red handles, and both were surrounded by instructions in Korean. Not that I would be able to read the characters, even if I’d known the language. There was no chance I’d be able to fit the light in there.
I reached up as far as I could and grabbed a handhold, then pulled one foot free and rested it on the lowest notch on the hatch’s surface. My momentum and leg would have to propel me far enough up into the space that I could find a rung with my other foot. If I didn’t, I could hang there, bent into an L shape, and keep trying. Or I could fall, my head bouncing off some piece of unforgiving metal, and lie there until I died.
There was no reason to count to three. If I couldn’t do it now, I couldn’t do it three seconds from now.
The suit’s material squeaked, and I felt my fingers slip. But my leg straightened, pushing me up, the edge of the hatch scraping against my back. The other foot landed on something solid enough to brace on. And I was in.
Below me, the gun fell to the floor. Already, the clatter seemed part of a different plane of existence. The rifle a million miles away, casting a beam back aft across the floor. In its distant light, I could see that the tower was a little bigger than it had appeared. There was a lip around the bottom edge, a shelf a few inches wide on which a person could brace himself.
Or herself. I reached through my legs, my hand touching, then grabbing the hatch. It took all the remaining energy in my shoulders and back to haul it closed and turn the wheel until it stopped.
And now I was alone, more so than I had ever been. Lost in a blank, featureless reality that echoed with the frantic sound of my own breathing. Where were those knobs?
No, not yet! I stopped myself just as my searching fingers found the switch. I needed to close the suit’s hood. I considered taking a deep breath before I did so, but it seemed like such a ridiculous, futile gesture that I laughed instead and spoke into the nothingness.
“Don’t go off the deep end, Christine.”
But I already was there. The trick was to get back to the surface.
With the hood in place, the slick odor of the submarine was replaced with a synthetic smell, like the inside of a newly made plastic bottle. It was getting difficult to breathe.
The first knob I tried didn’t move. I gave up. But it was the other one I had been looking for, anyway, as I saw when water began to gush into the chamber from vents around my head. I sat there, knees to my chest, and watched the sea rise around me.
It didn’t take long. Fifteen seconds, maybe, and then the entire space was filled. I felt my ears trying to pop, my body compressed by countless tons of water. But I realized the suit had inflated, perhaps triggered by the water.
There was a wheel-just like all the others-on the inside of the outer hatch, and I felt panic swirl in my chest as I placed my hand on it. What if it wouldn’t open? What if it were damaged? What if…
But the wheel turned. And after a few revolutions, the door swung back and my darkness gave way to a different shade of night, just as thick but somehow perceptible as blue.
The suit now was puffy and stiff, protecting me from the depths. If I let go, I would float up.
A sudden urge gripped me. For the first time since setting foot on the submarine, I was in a position to escape. To win. But I wanted to ensure that victory was total.
I couldn’t see the lower hatch, but I could feel it with my foot. I slid a toe into the dogging mechanism and began pushing it. It wasn’t designed to be open in this circumstance and fought my efforts in a way that would have made its engineers proud. After a few moments, however, I noticed thin threads of bubbles streaming past me.
Almost there. The threads became ropes, and suction tugged at my leg. Maybe that would do it. Maybe Vazquez wouldn’t be able to get into the torpedo room, and it would flood with the water already jetting around the edges of the escape hatch.
But that same impulse, that primal desire to destroy, seized me again, and I kicked out, bashing the wheel and pushing off at the same time.
For a second, the water rushing into the submarine seemed to grab me and try to yank me back into its maw. The hatch had swung open. Hovering there a few feet above the sub, on the razor edge of capture or escape, I saw the light dancing inside the compartment, distorted by a shimmering torrent of seawater. Then I was free, floating upward, I guess, although there was nothing by which to judge my progress.
Except the Dragon.
I saw it below me, a menacing shape against a lighter background, its life bubbling from a wound in its snout. It was visible for just an instant before being swallowed by the sea’s murkiness.
And I rose, looking upward, seeking deliverance.
[Transcript continued]
MYERS: I can't say that I remember much after that. I just have a vague recollection of breaching the surface, pulling back the hood and bobbing there, staring at the stars. I have no idea why I didn't sink after I opened the suit.
TRENT: It has a flotation device built into it. It's triggered by contact with water, just like the rest of the suit.
OLSEN: Don't worry about what you remember. You've done a really remarkable job.
MYERS: Remembering is easy. I think my problem is going to be forgetting. That's what I want to do.
OLSEN: Well, regardless. You've been very helpful. Now, do you have any memory of being picked up? Of what happened then?
MYERS: I told you, it's all dim. I don't even know how long I was floating there. How did anyone know where to look for me?