This is hilarious so I laugh.
Inside my suit laughing sounds like a horror movie. It is loud and close and nervous.
I do not laugh inside my suit anymore.
I turn on the comms channel and say: “Online.”
Everyone else says online too so Charlie tags the machine and the water starts to pour in.
Over.
My.
Head.
For some reason the protocol at this point means that all the lights go out in the air lock. Now I am in the dark in a prison suit with a million tons of mountain over my head and a bajillion tons of water going down down to the black hell and it is dark and—
Charlie says: “Lights.”
And the suits all have lights on them and they come on so now we are in a tiny room filling up with ice water robbing a bank and we have no guns because it is water. I mean Saul obviously has a water bag for guns to go in but they will not work until we are dry again.
Doc says: “Excellent.”
I love her so much right now. Of course it is excellent. Everything is going perfectly. We are in the belly of the beast and that is where we belong. We did everything to get here this is the thing we are IN THE MOUNTAIN hallelujah.
The pig gets her snout on the chin switch and starts to scream and our comms are just all screaming pig.
EEEEEEEeeeeEEEEEEEEeeee…
The door opens into the water room and Charlie touches the door panel.
“Magnetic system is off,” Charlie says.
(EEEeeeeeEEEeeeeeEEEEEEAAAAA)
I lift my foot and it takes a long, long time and then I am almost falling forward because it is so heavy.
“SHIT—”
TLUNK CLUTTER TBONKLE
Strong hands on my arm—Saul and Charlie. She touches her faceplate against mine.
“You okay there boss?”
“I have never moonwalked before.”
“Yeah it is not moonwalking it’s like giant walking you got to think like you’re a huge badly rheumatic elephant.”
“And you know this because—”
“Because video games boss, virtual life is real life now.”
“…”
“Yeah okay Saul told me. Come on boss let’s go.”
So we walk out into the water room.
We are halfway across when the water starts to move.
The water room is like the size of a tennis court and it has rough-cut walls and a simple screed floor and lines that fluoresce in the suit lights to show you the way. You walk and you walk and you get to the other side.
We get halfway across when the water starts to move like to flow like a current like an undertow like a ghost in a movie is clawing at you clawing pulling grasping and getting stronger the more you are afraid.
In the water room there is no current because the stiff metal grilles at either end have basically only pinprick-size holes in but now that is changing. The grilles are opening.
Eiger’s fucking mountain has a fucking sneaky fail-safe trap we did not find if you do not do something dance the fucking fandango tra la la la la then after the magnetic system is switched off the grilles come down and purge the room, which means us.
Us going down into the hole.
Everyone starts to move really fast. Like really really fast. But also really slowly because we are in huge moon suits weighing tons and the water is flowing across and if you fall you are going. Down. Down down.
Down.
Into the hole.
It is open behind me.
The darkest mouth I have ever seen.
I walk like heave stomp heave stomp like push push push and I am sweating inside the suit and I do not look to see who else is walking I do not look to make sure anyone else is walking at all perhaps they have all fallen and they are already gone.
If you slip if you fall you are going—
I am going—
Any of us is going down.
Into the hole.
Heave stomp heave stomp head down push. Push as hard as you can. Push or die is what.
I walk and I remember that I dreamed that the Demons would bury me in the ground and water would come up over my head and here I am I am a little bit psychic.
There’s not enough air now in the suit. Or rather there is but it doesn’t feel like there is because I am running against the flow of water that wants to wash me over on the left side and take me down the hole.
Silence and rushing water and the sound of the deep down there and the clank of my own feet on the screed and the sound of my own breathing.
One foot in front of the other. One foot—
Something hits me hard in the side. I am moving forwards so it bounces off and goes round me but I skid—I actually skid on the screed—and I realize it is a suit. A suit which has come unstuck and now is flying or I guess rolling towards the—
A suit which rolls past me picking up speed and—
Fuck I hope that is the pig.
Of course it’s the pig the pig is an asshole there is no way it can do this no way anyone could hold on to it in this current and obviously that presents difficulties but one problem at a time so sure it’s the pig and that’s bad but—
God let it be the—
I almost turn and if I turn I’m going to slip and then you know it won’t really matter to me anymore whether it’s the pig or not because it will also be me so I—
Don’t look—
Just walk on. No point anyway you can’t help. No time. If you go back the grilles will open completely and you will die.
I wonder if it’s Doc. Or Saul that would be ironic that guy is super good at all the physical things.
I don’t think about it.
I hear the tumbling suit scrape along the ground toward the grille and then I hear it reach the opening and
