The Luminous Dead

by Caitlin Starling

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

“All your vitals are good,” Em said. “So I’ll clear it.” “You’ll clear it?” Gyre laughed sharply, incredulously. “Right. What would you do otherwise, lock my suit? Take me to court?” Em didn’t respond at first, then huffed a sigh. “No, I’d ask you nicely to take a break.” “Had to think about that.” “There were less-nice ways of phrasing it.” “Oh, feel free. I’ve heard worse.” “I’m sure.” Em’s voice had gone quickly from tight and frustrated to grudgingly amused, and Gyre found herself smiling. The banter was . . . nice. Especially after the silence of the four days before.

“I’d like to be focused too, and that means knowing the risks of the job. You don’t think I’m going to end up paranoid? Obsessed? Distracted?” I’m halfway there already, she almost said, but shook her head and made herself pay attention to the climb. “No, you’re not the type. You’re a mastiff, not a neurotic lapdog.” Gyre snorted. “Fascinating comparison,” she muttered. She looked around for old anchors and found none, so she hauled herself up the stone one body length. “Climbing,” she added belatedly. “Climb on,” Em said. After a second, she added, “I meant it as a compliment.”

Everything was extrapolation spackled with hope and desperation.

She vastly preferred the caves she’d explored when she was younger. They weren’t as deep or as wet, and so they were just—empty. Bone-dry and dead.

Baby steps toward being a person, Gyre thought. Then: I don’t need her to be a person. But she wanted her to be.

“Don’t do it again. Wait for me next time.” She snorted to cover her shame and fear. “Planning on abandoning me again?” Please don’t. “No,” Em said, and Gyre sagged with relief. “But that was so reckless, I can’t even—if I’d known, I would have been terrified.” Terrified. For her.

Gyre could see more of Isolde’s features in her now, including that particular set to her jaw that spoke of deep exhaustion, relentless determination, and inherited pain. Traumatic memories, passed down from mother to daughter.

That calculus was as raw as Isolde’s pain in that exit interview, and Gyre couldn’t fight the feeling of Em’s grief being a living thing, as inexorable as a Tunneler but with a beating heart, a pulse that throbbed and curdled in the vein.

“I’m not a complete monster,” Em said once more, her voice quiet. “Just most of one.”

to. Finish the story, witness the dead, and then climb back out.

Gyre watched her for a moment, transfixed by the gentle curve of her cheek, the slight parting of her lips, before she realized her heart was fluttering in her chest. Her pulse was quickening, and she hated it. It wasn’t fair. Not only was she—stupidly—considering helping the other woman, even after everything that had passed between them, but Em was just her type. She was smart and driven and beautiful, and so unreachable that she could’ve been halfway across the galaxy.

“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.”

A tug, a longing that didn’t feel like hers, pulling at her spine. It was like a whisper against her ear, a distant cry that begged her to come back, come home.

The quiet drew out her thoughts, amplified her breathing, made her think she could hear things in the distance. The music was back, then the humming, and once a bang that she realized only after she jerked and twisted around that she hadn’t heard at all. It was an overwhelming cacophony, until suddenly it wasn’t anything.

She craved the sight of Em’s face, the sound of her voice. She even wanted the warmth of her touch, too, the solidity of her body curled around Gyre’s own. She could practically feel it.

Longing for Em. Beautiful, selfish, cruel Em—who she needed desperately, who she relied on. 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.

I was too terrified I’d lost you. Not another caver. You.”

I was too terrified I’d lost you. The pain in Em’s voice made Gyre believe Em had feared for her with every inch of her being. Made her want to believe.

“If I’d lost you,” Em whispered, “I don’t know that I could have gone on.”

But I don’t know that I could have gone on wrapped itself around her heart, nestled in her chest. She meant something. She was different from the other cavers. The warmth she felt was part rage on those other cavers’ accounts, but a lot of it was simply happiness at being seen. At being wanted.

Gyre wanted to scream, wanted to shake Em, wanted to demand that somehow, some way, she be better than she was. But people didn’t change, not that deeply.

“You’re a monster,” Gyre agreed. Em’s flinch brought her no joy, no vindication. “But a human monster. People are selfish. You are. I am. Humans are selfish. It’s what we do. You loaded the gun, but Jennie Mercer, Michael Doren, me—we all pulled the trigger. We all decided the risk was worth it. You never forced us.”

I just took advantage of how this world drives people to do horrible things just to survive. I just—played the game, from the winner’s chair.

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.”

What was sunlight to the desaturated lines of her readout, to the engulfing darkness beyond? What was open air overhead but another threat?

You asked me not to. They were ruined. They were broken.

All she cared about now was seeing another person, a real person. Seeing Em. Feeling her warmth beneath her hand. Sleeping in her bed.

“Gyre, if I could give you the world, I would. Never doubt that.”

Em reached across the table and took Gyre’s hand, lacing their fingers together. The touch was electric, racing through Gyre’s nerves and to her heart, which stammered in her chest. This was real.

“Come with me,” she repeated. She couldn’t articulate the rest of it, how Em leaving would hurt, how her staying would hurt, how there was no way either of them could ever win. But she wanted Em there, with her. She wanted to experience the pain together, to struggle together, to hate each other and need each other, maybe even to love each other when the rubble cleared. She’d thought about it every day since waking up, and so many days before. It was foolish, and dangerous, and the Gyre of two months ago would have hated her for thinking this way about the woman whose obsession had brought them to this moment.

When Gyre had been ready to follow Isolde, Em had been there to carry her back into the sun. When Em had been forced to see the full horror of everything she’d done, Gyre had seen the humanity in her. 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.

Gyre leaned down despite the pain and kissed Em, the briefest contact, sensation arcing down her spine.

Em had fought for her even though death was Em’s thesis, was her conclusion, was the only thing that should have waited for Gyre. Even though the twisted rot that had destroyed so much had already destroyed the both of them, almost to the core.

They both had two options: fester and die, or take what they were given and grow.