Her first thought was to dive deep. She knew that the supersonic rounds from Hodges’ assault rifle wouldn’t be able to reach her even just a foot or so under the surface. Still, she would have to surface eventually and the only way to make sure that Hodges wasn’t waiting to pick her off again was by swimming so far under the surface that he wouldn’t see her at all.
She swam down, kicking furiously to overcome her natural buoyancy in salt water. When the pressure in her inner ear made it feel like her head was going to burst, she leveled out and turned back toward the ship. If she could swim under it and surface on the other side, she might be able to sneak up behind Hodges and get the drop on him. Then she would be able to save the others.
If they’re still alive.
She knew that Dorion was dead. His wounds had probably been instantly fatal. This realization stung a bit, but only because she felt that she had failed somehow. The grief would come later.
She wanted to believe that Professor and Ophelia were still alive. After all, she had seen a future where they were both still breathing. But, if the Moon stone disappeared into the unreachable depths of Little Abaco Canyon, then everything about that future would change.
They’re still alive, she told herself. And I’m going to save them.
As deep as she thought she had gone, it wasn’t enough. The mostly-submerged hull was an impenetrable yellow wall, blocking her path, reaching down further than she could see and sinking deeper before her very eyes.
Oh, God. I’m too late.
She abandoned the attempt to swim under and instead angled up in the direction of the bow where she and Professor had climbed up the anchor chain…yesterday? A few minutes ago? With the anchors reeled, there would be no cable to climb up now, but if the ship was as low in the water as it appeared, she wouldn’t have to climb.
When she surfaced, she found that the bow of the ship was actually higher than it had been when they had boarded earlier, and now rose up at a thirty-degree angle from amidships where the Moon stone was pressing down with all the mass of a miniature black hole. She sidled along the sloping deck until it met the water then pulled herself aboard.
She couldn’t believe how much the ship’s condition had deteriorated in just the minute she had spent underwater.
A minute to her at least; maybe as she had moved further away from the Moon stone, the time dilation effects had decreased. She had too much else to worry about right now to even attempt trying to figure whether that meant the ship’s break-up was happening faster or slower, relatively speaking.
She instinctively ducked low as soon as she was aboard. Hodges was only about a hundred feet away, close enough that she could easily make him out, and if he happened to look her way, her rescue attempt would be stillborn. The good news however was that she could also see Professor, alive and evidently conversing with his executioner.
He’s stalling. He knows I’m alive and on my way.
There was no way to know if that was true, but believing it gave Jade the courage to get moving again. She crept forward, ascending the sloped bow, past the submersible which, despite the fact that it was once more covered and secured with heavy straps, looked as though it might slide down the deck like a hockey puck. When she was no longer in Hodges’ line of sight, she circled to the opposite side of the ship to begin descending.
As she got close enough to eavesdrop on the conversation, it occurred to her that she hadn’t given any thought to how she would actually save Professor.
“…unless you’d rather drown?” Hodges was saying.
“Tell me one thing first. What did you see?”
“What?”
She had her dive knife. If she could get close enough, she could either drive the five-inch long tanto-style titanium blade through Hodges’ heart, or use the razor sharp edge to slit his throat.
If.
Knife work was tricky business and she was not exactly a trained knife fighter. Hodges probably knew more about that kind of combat than she did; if she didn’t get it right on the first try, he would probably take the blade and use it to kill her. Or just shoot her.
As she stared across the deck at them, contemplating her options, she realized that Professor was staring right at her.
“When the moon rose, we all blacked out,” he was saying, “I’m guessing you did too. Just like that. Like someone came up behind you and conked you with a concrete block. Only it wasn’t exactly a blackout. More of a peek at the world as we wish it could be.”
Jade broke into a grin. Thank you, Professor.
She looked around. Not a single concrete block in sight, but there were plenty of other things that might work as a makeshift bludgeon. She spotted a fire extinguisher mounted to a bulkhead. That’ll do.
Hodges answer was nervous, evasive. Professor had found the chink in his armor.
Professor kept talking, digging at the subject like a dog gnawing at a bone. His tone was confrontational and Jade knew what he was trying to keep Hodges angry, off-balance, so that she could approach undetected. She lifted and placed her steps with exaggerated caution to avoid splashing in the water that now covered the deck in a thin layer.
I’m a ninja, Jade told herself. I’m invisible. Just keep him occupied, Prof.
“What I don’t understand, Brian, is how you could have come back here after seeing that?”
Hodges was too consumed by anger to notice her approach. “Because it’s a lie. They’re gone and that’s that. That other…whatever…it’s just a lie. It’s not my life. All that I have left is honoring their memory by stopping it from ever happening again.”
She raised the fire extinguisher, ready to hammer it into the back of his head, but Hodges still had his rifle trained on Professor, his finger on the trigger. If she hit him, he might pull the trigger with a reflex action.
She gestured to Professor, trying to silently communicate the message: Get him to lower the gun.
“You honor their memory with cold blooded murder?”
Jade couldn’t believe her ears. Instead of talking Hodges down, Professor had just poked him in the eye.
“No.” Hodges’ voice was as cold as ice. “This is personal.”
There was not a doubt in Jade’s mind that Hodges was going to pull the trigger. She swung the fire extinguisher with all her might, but in the instant before she made contact, she heard the strident crack of Hodges’ rifle.
There was a loud clank as the metal container hit home and Hodges staggered forward, dropping the rifle. Jade’s attention was on Professor. She had seen him try to move at the last second, throw himself to the side, out of the line of fire, no doubt trying to time his dodge with Jade’s attack. They had both been a nanosecond too slow. Professor now lay sprawled on the deck, blood streaming from his head and flowing into the two-inch deep accumulation of water in which he lay. More blood oozed from the wound in his thigh.
Jade let the fire extinguisher fall from her hands and rushed forward to his side, unaware of her own desperate murmured “No! No! No!” She knelt, touching his face, unsure of what she was even trying to do.
The amount of blood was appalling, and yet when she searched for a wound, she was surprised to see that the source of the hemorrhage was a ragged gash that furrowed his left cheek and continued in a bloody groove that ran up the side of his head, just over his ear. The bullet had only grazed him.