Devil's Gate

“So you have to fight to the death in a cage match?” Kurt said, joking.

“Does this look like a fight to the death?” Joe asked.

“Well…”

“The guy whose cow I hit owns the gym. The Scandinavian guy over there moved here and became the local amateur champ a year ago. The islanders like him but would rather see someone else as champ, someone who looks more like them.”

Kurt smiled. With his Latin background, Joe looked far more like the islanders than Thor did.

The bell rang again, and Joe answered it, stepping up and trying to get inside the Scandinavian man’s long reach. It was dangerous work, but aside from a few glancing blows Joe seemed to be holding his own, and the Scandinavian seemed to be slowing.

Joe sat down again, and Kurt changed the subject.

“I need to talk to you about the Barracuda,” he said.

“What about it?”

“Can it dive to sixteen thousand feet?”

Joe shook his head. “It’s not a bathysphere, Kurt. It’s designed for speed.”

“But could you modify it to do the job?”

“Yeah,” Joe said. “By putting it inside a bathysphere.”

Kurt went silent. Joe was a genius with machines. Still, he could work only within the laws of physics.

Joe rinsed his mouth and spat.

“Okay, I’ll bite,” he said. “What’s on the bottom of the Atlantic that you want to take a look at?”

“You heard about what happened the other day?”

Joe nodded. “A ship almost fell on your head.”

“It did,” Kurt said. “I’d like to get a better look at it now that it’s all safe and sound on the bottom.”

The bell rang, and Joe stood, his eyes on Kurt. He seemed to be thinking. “There might be a way,” he said, a gleam shining in his eyes.

By that moment, Joe had lingered too long. The God of Thunder had roamed across the ring.

“Look out,” Joe’s cornerman shouted.

Joe turned and ducked, covering up, as the haymaker glanced off his raised arm. He stepped back into the ropes, protecting himself, as the other fighter fired blows at him, left and right.

Suddenly, Kurt felt horrible for his friend, as what was supposed to be a friendly match looked more like a one-sided beating. Partly his fault for distracting Joe. If it had been a wrestling match, he’d have grabbed a folding chair and slammed it over Thor’s shoulders. But he guessed that wouldn’t do for Queensbury rules.

Thor’s gloves made a heavy thumping sound as they slammed into Joe’s arms, ribs, and head.

“Rope-a-dope,” Kurt shouted, throwing out the only boxing advice he could think of.

His voice was drowned out by the roar of the crowd. Meanwhile, Joe’s cheerleaders gasped. The older women looked away as if they couldn’t watch.

With little room to maneuver, Joe continued to cover up, unable to even open his arms and clinch the other fighter. Kurt looked at the clock. This was the last round, but there was over a minute to go.

It didn’t look like Joe would make the bell. Then a moment presented itself. As the Scandinavian wound up to deliver another hammer blow, he opened himself up.

At that very instant, Joe dropped his shoulder and fired an uppercut. It caught Thor on the chin and snapped his head backward. From the look of things, Thor hadn’t expected anything but defense from Joe at that point. Kurt saw the man’s eyes roll as he stumbled backward.

Joe stepped forward and fired a heavy right, sending Thor to the canvas.

The crowd oohed in surprise. Joe’s cheerleaders shrieked with pleasure, like young girls watching the Beatles step off an airplane. The ref began to count.

The Scandinavian fighter rolled onto his hands and knees by “Four,” while Joe danced around the ring like Sugar Ray Leonard. By “Six,” Thor was using the ropes to help himself up, and Joe looked a little less happy about things. By “Eight,” Thor was standing, looking clearheaded and glaring across the ring. Joe’s face had turned decidedly sour.

The ref grabbed Thor’s gloves and looked ready to send him back into the fight.

And then the bell rang.

The round was over, the fight was over. It was ruled a draw. Nobody was happy but everybody cheered.

FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER, with his debt to society paid, a few autographs signed, and at least one new phone number in his pocket, Joe Zavala sat with Kurt, ripping the tape off his hands and then pressing an ice bag to his eye.

“That’ll teach you to run over people’s cows,” Kurt said, using a pair of scissors to help Joe with the tape.

“Next time I fight,” Joe said, “you sit in the back row. Or, better yet, find something else to do.”

“What are you talking about?” Kurt asked. “I thought that went well.”

Joe had to laugh. Kurt was as good and loyal a friend as Joe had ever known, but he did have a penchant for glossing over the downside of things. “I’ve always wondered about your definition of ‘well.’”

With the tape off, Joe moved the bag of ice to the back of his neck as Kurt explained what had happened aboard the Kinjara Maru.

It sounded as odd to him as it had seemed to Kurt. “Sixth sense going off?” he asked.

“Three alarms,” Kurt said.

“Funny thing,” Joe said, “I hear the same sound in my head right now. But I think it’s for a different reason.”

Kurt laughed. “All I want is a look,” he insisted. “Do you think the Barracuda can get us there?”

“There might be a way to do it,” Joe replied. “But only as an ROV. I wouldn’t trust the mods to keep anyone safe at that depth. Plus, there would be no room for us anyway.”

Kurt smiled. “What are you thinking?”

“We could build a small outer hull and encase the Barracuda inside it,” he began.

As Joe spoke he could see the design in his head, could feel the shape beneath his hands. He designed things intuitively. He did the math just to back up what he already knew.

“We fill that compartment with a noncompressing liquid, or hyperpressurize it with nitrogen gas. Then we flood the interior of the Barracuda itself or pressurize it to several atmospheres as well, and the three-stage gradient should help balance out the forces. Neither the outer hull nor the inner hull would have to handle all the pressure.”

“What about the instrumentation and the controls?” Kurt asked.

Joe shrugged. “Not a problem,” he said. “Everything we put inside is waterproofed and designed for a high- pressure environment.”

“Sounds good,” Kurt said.

He looked pleased. Joe knew he would be. And so he dropped the bomb.

“There is one minor problem.”

Kurt’s gaze narrowed. “What’s that?”

“Dirk called me before you got here.”

“And?”

“He gave me orders not to let you talk me into anything reckless.”

“Reckless?”

“He knows us too well,” Joe said, guessing it took one adventurous, even “reckless,” mind to know the workings of another.

Kurt nodded, smiling a bit. “That he does. On the other hand, ‘reckless’ gives us a lot of leeway.”

“Sometimes you scare me,” Joe said. “Just putting that on the record.”