The Luminous Dead

by Caitlin Starling

Gossiping about the boss had always seemed like a constant of the human condition.

Nothing had changed. Except for the body at her feet.

The caver’s chest had been split open, and filamentous white fungus grew from the hole.

Em had been down here, with a team. Teams didn’t make it. Teams never made it when they went deep. Hers couldn’t have. But Em had made it.

She’d heard somewhere that pride came before the fall. But she wasn’t going to fall. She was going to climb.

On the other end of the line, Em cleared her throat. “Before you start,” she added, voice a little softer, “I have to say: You’ve covered a lot of ground today, especially given that you had to learn a new skill. You’re doing well.”

Still, better safe than dead.

If I die down here, will she even try to get me out?

And to take down Em when this was all over, so that there would never be another Jennie Mercer, dying in terror, abandoned by the woman she’d thought she could trust.

She had never been down here. She had killed twenty-seven people chasing nothing. She’d just been a voice in their ears, the promise of coming topside once more. Whispering them to their deaths.

Instead, all she had to deal with was her now-absent, lying handler and an impossible death curse.

“That you’re strongheaded,” she said. “That your willingness to lie about your professional history wasn’t to cover a lack of skill, but to let you jump over entry-level risk. That you have few connections outside yourself, and that your only goals relate to your own success.” She paused. Then: “Not to your own enrichment.” Yeah. That sounded about right.

“I’m a stubborn bitch who knows best.

She saw other bolts in the walls with scraps of line between them, and ignored them, as if they were ghosts sent to waylay her.

“Trust me. I’ve never died on a mission yet.” Em snorted. “You’ve never been on an actual mission.” “Yeah, but I also haven’t died on one.”

She couldn’t hear her own voice. Blind, she twisted in nothingness. She reached out in every direction and felt nothing except the light buffeting off the current behind her. I have to stay put. No. I have to get to air. No. I have to— I have to— She was going to die.

It was amazing what being angry at someone for saving your life could do to clear your head.

It was everything she’d never wanted. She’d been weak. She’d traded her independence, the only thing that had kept her safe for so many years, for the company of a monster.

Em was there. Em hadn’t left her to die. Em had fought for her.

It hadn’t been long enough for her to forget. It will never be long enough.

It’d be the easy path to turn off my computer and walk away, but I will be here. I will be here, and I will fight like hell to keep you alive, and if I fail, I’ll be here then, too. And you can curse me and hate me and you’ll be right to do so. But I don’t want you to feel like you’re alone, not ever again. You have me.”

I wasn’t good enough for my own mother to take me with her.

Two more days, and then she could let herself fall apart.

“No drugs!” she cried. “I want to know when I’m dying. Don’t kill me, Em. Don’t kill me.”

They were ruined. They were broken.

“Get on your feet,” Em said low in her ear, her voice cold. “And keep moving. You are going to Camp Four, caver, and I am going to bring you home. You signed a contract, Gyre.” “Fuck you.” “In a life-and-death situation, you agreed to defer to me. So do it.”

Isolde was right. If she spoke, she’d call the Tunneler back. If she spoke, the cave would collapse, and she wouldn’t be able to climb down. If she was quiet, if she crawled to the edge of the cliff, found her line, clipped in, she could join Eli. She could be with Isolde. Then when Em came, she would follow them all. Em would follow her down, desperate to find her, and then they’d be together, all of them, in the heart of the cave. They’d be together in the blackness.

“Come with me,” Gyre said. “If we climb down together, we’ll never be alone again. They’re all down there, Em.” “Gyre—” “They’re waiting. Isolde is waiting. We belong down there, with them.”

“Em, please,” she said, gasping. “You don’t belong down here,” Em murmured in her ear. “You never did. Maybe I do, but you deserve the sun. Gyre, please, stay with me.” “I belong with them,” Gyre whispered, struggling to stand, to look back. “This is why you couldn’t let go. It wasn’t your fault. It was never your fault. It was always the cave.” “The cave is just a hole in the ground,” Em said. “It never deserved any of you.”

“The two of us, walking into my mother’s boardroom, me in the suit. I want to do that. I want you to be there. I want you to be there at the end.”

They had broken each other open down in the dark, and now that their wreckage was splayed out in the light, Gyre recognized every inch of Em, and Em knew every inch of her.