Palmer barely got his suit powered on as the man scrambled under the table after him. There was a blow to his head, the swipe of a hand and sharp nails, and his visor was knocked off. He reached for it, got a hold of the headband, felt the visor snap off, lost. Dazed, he took a quick breath and pulled the band on, flowed the sand in order to sink down, and got his eyes closed just in time. He was blind and weak and on a sliver of a charge and barely a lungful of breath. In a burst of inspiration, he dropped the sand in the tent a meter and hardened it. It was a killing offense to use the sand against men, but these men wanted him dead anyway.
He went sideways as fast as he could to clear the tent walls before rising toward the surface. There was drag in the sand, like something was wrapped around his feet, was wrapped around his entire body. The sand grew thick. Dense. His fucking suit was dying. Or the band had been damaged when the visor was ripped free.
He went up as fast as he could, blind, half a breath in his lungs, and came up flat, was partway out, his head clear, when the sand froze around him. No more charge. Palmer grunted and worked his shoulders back and forth until he got an arm free. He began digging himself out of the sand, the stars twinkling serenely above, while two meters away, men were hurling insults and curses and shouting for help as they tried to dig themselves out as well.
It was a race. Palmer got his other arm out. He kicked with his weak legs, twisted at the waist until his hips were free, was only in ten or so inches of sand, fucking close. A meter down, and he would’ve been buried. A few inches deeper, and he would’ve been trapped. He heard the stomp and crunch of sand in the distance as men were summoned from their tents. Palmer got up and ran, keeping the large tent between him and the rest of the camp as the men inside yelled at the others to fucking dig them out, to get out there and find that diver, to kill him fucking dead.
With his heart in his throat, a canteen sloshing a quarter full, his visor with the proof of his dive and discovery of Danvar gone, and hardly anything for his efforts but the life in the marrow of his bones, Palmer ran. He kicked sand in the darkness, keeping to the well-trod valleys where the shuffle of feet would make it hard to follow, and he fucking ran.
33 ? Not Happening
Vic
Vic burst through the back door of Graham’s shop and ran across the hot sand. Gunshots rang out behind her. It sounded like both men had their weapons working now. Fountains of sand erupted from the face of the dune ahead of her; there was a zing off a metal roof, an explosion of sand near her feet, and then some wild animal took a bite out of her calf.
Vic sprawled forward in the sand, her leg on fire. Someone yelled that that was his sister goddamnit, don’t fucking kill her. Feet stomped her direction. Vic could feel them coming, could feel a thrumming in the sand. But the thrum wasn’t from the boots chasing her down.
The sand opened and swallowed her. Vic was too startled to take a breath, only just got her eyes closed in time. A regulator was pressed to her lips. She accepted it and took a deep gulp of air, felt the sand around her stay soft so she could breathe, could feel movement through the earth as she was hauled sideways like so much scavenge.
The regulator was taken away for a moment. She was left with only blackness and motion. The regulator was returned. Someone was sharing their tank with her. Vic clutched this person, knowing they had saved her, hoping it was Palmer. The agony in her leg faded to a dull throb, and the sight of Marco’s head erupting filled the back of her eyelids and played over and over again—a bang and a fountain of what she loved best about him, a profound hollow in the pit of her soul, so that when she was brought up through the sand and into the open air, she was unaware of this, didn’t know she was out of the sand, couldn’t feel the hot sun on her flesh, wasn’t aware that there was air to breathe even as it filled her lungs, wasn’t aware of anything but that Marco was dead.
There was just fact like an all-encompassing blackness. A cool pit in the center of her chest. Her cheeks were dry and dusted with sand, Graham holding her, calling her name, asking if she was okay, her leg coloring a dune like a sunrise.
Graham worked on the wound while Vic sat there numbly. She gradually realized that they were on the back of a low dune in the training grounds, where at least it was legal to use a dive suit. Though they were long past legality. People were trying to kill them. No find was worth this. Danvar wasn’t worth this. Vic could feel the senseless violence of retribution attacks, that blank stagger when people mill about the dunes after a bomb has interrupted a funeral or a wedding or a queue at the cistern. Bang, and the world stops making sense. Bang, and mothers are wailing. Bang, and body parts mingle. Bang. Bang. Bang. The lucky make it out to mourn. For the lucky there is a click, a misfiring of fate, a dud of doom. Vic is there on that slope of sand, and Marco is dead. Life is capricious and cruel and totally fucking random and there is no hope of finding meaning in a nightmare. In a nightmare at least her enraged screams would come out a hoarse whisper, but Vic could not manage even that. Could not manage even a whimper.