He decided to make another methodical sweep along the uppermost side of the hull. He had turned icily calm after breathing far too heavily, consuming valuable air at a reckless rate. Maybe they had decided wreck-diving was too dangerous. Maybe they were having a recreational tour close by, with no nefarious intent. He would stay close, assuming they would come back to the mooring line before surfacing. Their air must be running low. How strange it will seem, as Miranda swims by, to see me.
Morgan drifted around the stern and back over the upper deck that slanted at a precarious angle against the lucent horizon, gazing in all directions into the distant opacity, searching for movement.
He glanced down as he passed over a row of portholes and caught in one what he took to be a spear of sunlight cast by the prism of a wave overhead. With a slight acceleration he coasted back down over the portholes before passing on to examine the breach in the hull gaping ahead. He directed the beam of his light into the dark cavity in the ship’s side.
They must have surfaced — their air supply would be depleted by now. Suddenly, he heard a sharp metallic clanking reverberate from the darkness inside the hull. It was impossible to determine the direction of its source. He remembered the flash against glass like a shaft of sunlight. There were no waves overhead. He withdrew from the cavernous shadow where he had been hovering, bewildered by the sound, and swam back along the side of the ship.
Miranda flashed her light against the glass of the middle porthole and it glared back in a mirror image of their watery crypt. Alarmed by the image, she dowsed the light. And yet several times she repeated the sequence, mesmerized by how the luminescent world outside the ship was extinguished and then reappeared, as if she had transformative powers. Once, she thought a shadow passed by, but when she flashed her light it had vanished.
She inhaled in slow, shallow breaths and slowly exhaled, tilting her head and watching the bubbles rise in front of her mask and gather against the bulkhead above. She switched on her flashlight with the beam directed downwards to soften the glare, and turned her head to see if Rachel was alive. Rachel stared out at her with what Miranda perceived as serenity. Miranda’s eyelids dropped interrogatively.
What had Alexander done to deserve such a miserable death? How had Miranda so completely misunderstood their relationship? What terrible things swarmed through a mind driven to murders so contrived and cruel and seemingly arbitrary — without even the satisfaction of knowing her victims understood? Perhaps that is the point, Miranda thought: love as a prelude to death, a prologue to absolute power. Some things are beyond understanding.
Or perhaps Alexander understood his own death. Surely Rachel understood hers. And understanding for Miranda was not important — it would neither console nor redeem, and it would not compensate. Dead is dead. She felt life surge inside her and for the briefest moment she was angry, but anger made her colder. She tried to think of sunlight and fires. But when warmth began to creep through her body, she knew hypothermia was setting in as she shivered in spasms.
Rachel twisted their manacled wrists, and grasped Miranda’s hand. She gave it a slow and gentle squeeze — what might have been intended as a meaningful gesture. Miranda turned her light directly on Rachel. Rachel gave an almost imperceptible shrug, then took her mouthpiece from her mouth and held it up over her head.
There was a sudden rush of bubbles, then nothing. Her air was gone. She shrugged again, but instead of inhaling water she seemed to be holding her breath, as if she were determined to be in control to the end, to die by asphyxiation rather than drowning.
Miranda’s mask was filling with water, rising above her nostrils and splashing into her eyes. She felt panic tighten inside her. She took a slow breath and, tilting her head upward, exhaled through her nose, feeling the precious air stream out the top of her mask, driving the invasive water with it. Her mask cleared and the panic subsided.
She drew Rachel close. Reaching down to her side she freed up her octopus, which was tangled with her primary regulator hose, and pressed the auxiliary mouthpiece against Rachel’s pursed lips. After a moment of resistance, Rachel opened her mouth and grasped it between her teeth, but seemed not to breathe. Calmly, Miranda reached over and pressed the diaphragm on the front of the reg, forcing a burst of air into Rachel’s mouth. Rachel took a deep involuntary breath and began to hyperventilate. Miranda pressed against Rachel’s chest with her hand, urging her to slow down. They would share her air to the end. Miranda did not want to die alone. But she would prolong the process as long as possible. She would savour every last moment of consciousness.
Morgan swooped down on three portholes that had deliberately been scraped clean of algae from the inside. He tried to peer in but could see nothing. Grasping a steel flange with his fingertips, he pressed his flashlight against the glass to eliminate the reflection. He was sure there were human-shaped forms in the shadowy darkness. He banged on the window but there was no response. He turned and swam back to the breach in the hull, plunged into the depths of the ship, and was swallowed whole, with only the thread of his light beam to draw him through the bizarre angles of darkness.
Miranda drew in her last full breath and held it until her lungs burst and the residual air spewed out in a violent shudder. Her flashlight was on. She looked into Rachel’s mask, surprised to see fear in her final moment. She shone the light around their murky prison, calmly conscious of inscribing in her mind her final perceptions. Overhead, there was a pearly sheen where their exhaled air had gathered against the steel. She reached up and discovered she could break the surface and her fingers disappeared into a shallow pocket of air. She leaned down and drew Rachel toward her, then stretched upwards, kicking against the cuff around her ankle, forcing it to slide along the iron rail to gain a few inches of height.
Arching her neck, her face was less than a hand’s width away from the air. When she grasped to cup air with her hand, it slipped through her fingers. She needed to press into the pocket with her lips. Her mask hit steel, she tore it off and stretched again, until she could feel the flesh of her ankle break open against the restraining shackle. Still beyond reach. She dipped her fingertips into the eerily beautiful opalescence and pulled back to watch as it broke like shattered mercury. Her mind wavered; carbon dioxide tore into the walls of her lungs and trachea and larynx with innumerable edges; her chest and windpipe collapsed in a paroxysm of agony.
As her mask drifted away, Miranda felt the snorkel attached to its band brush against her leg. She grabbed down at it, but it slipped from her reach. Dropping her flashlight, she tore Rachel’s mask from her face and, after releasing the snorkel, let her mask drop as well. With a jarring heave she tried to twist the stiff plastic into a straight shaft. Briefly asphyxia took hold and her vision flashed black. She stopped, she clasped the snorkel with her manacled hand, reached out, groping, found Rachel’s knife, grasped the release, squeezed, turned the razor-sharp edge against the plastic, incised around the shaft a continuous line. The knife slipped from her fingers. Struggling to remain conscious, she twisted the snorkel with all her remaining strength. It refused, shivered, gave way, the valve end detached and slipped into the murk beneath them.
Miranda pressed the mouthpiece into her mouth and guided the sheared upper end into the pocket of air. She blew out, sucking residual air from cavities of pain to clear the shaft, and took in a slow, deep breath to replenish her screaming lungs.
She took another breath and another, then drew Rachel close, and bending away from her air supply, she pressed her lips over Rachel’s lips, forcing them open with her tongue, and blew air into Rachel’s mouth. Rachel coughed, regurgitating water into Miranda’s mouth. Miranda pulled back, and reached for another breath, then returned and blew more air into Rachel’s mouth. Her flashlight beamed from below in wavering swards above Alexander’s tethered corpse.