. . . this quintessence of dust . . .

"Bastard ate the fucking thing, fuck your mother," I hear one blurt. And think: You could say that.

The Doctor kneels, waves them closer. One kicks me over. They see my face, hesitate as one- . . . this noise . . .

-and I feel my hands knot, my insides furl. I feel them start to reel away from me, then stop dead-sway, dazed. Instantaneously lulled. All of them, Doctor included, plunged into a kind of half-intoxicated trance brought on by my-(its)-proximity. Like standing next to a generator, invisible energy pouring off me in waves. Drowsiness seeping in through the pores.

I feel their fear, like I feel my own. And I feel what was once inside the shell-what's now inside me-sniffing at it: My mental tastebuds, gearing for the feast. My mouth, watering. The glow rekindling, a slow flame under my skin. This radiance looking out through my eyes, bruising them from the inside with the pressure of its glare.

. . . in my blood . . .

Disconnected, surfing the current: A battery. A contained conflagration, run on incipient panic. I lever myself up with both hands, mirroring the Doctor. Look around. See them return my look, all of them-helpless not to.

"Bet you wish we were back in El Salvador now, fellas," I remark. Conversationally.

And I feel it let go of me, the thing, exploding outward like a concussion bomb-blast: Blow out the bridge, bring the bulkheads down. Crush the goons back against the Waiting Room walls. Crumple the Doctor in on himself. A surge of pent-up energy, driving me upward-haloed, paralyzed, cocooned in power. Catapulted into some pupa stage, lapped in adrenaline and brain-opiates. I feel the shell's former inhabitant slip away from me, in search of fresher fields, and my terror surges, babbling. I match it, promise for promise-set myself up as its carrier, its willing Judas Goat.

Succor and repair me-love me for real, like you love yourself-and I will bring you prey and praise.

A modern Prometheus for the century's end: Eat my fear anew each day, that I may live forever. Trying my level best to make it understand, through instinct rather than intelligence, that I'm not just a host-not just some new flesh shell for it to hide and sleep in, hibernating until the next best thing comes along. Wordlessly eloquent, I vow to trade keeping myself in a constant state of fear and pain for a vaccination-however temporary-against the whole concept of death: Death by drowning, by slow suffocation, death here at the bottom of the deep black sea, in the pressure-drunken final fathoms.

Making sure to also point out-with strictest possible attention to detail-that if I lose my personal identity, then I won't know what I have to be scared of anymore.

And you'll starve.

I hover, wait for its reply. Until the words come, soft as necrosis. Cells collapsing. A lie for a lie: Time means nothing . . .

Yeah, yeah: To you.

. . . to us.

Which brings us, I believe, right back to where we started.

"Book," the Doctor whispers, now-so soft I can barely hear him, over my own constant internal whisper.

"Doctor," I reply. The word not meaning quite what it used to: Two empty syllables, ringing hollow in my skull. Language no longer seeming necessary, even as a nervous tic.

He clears his throat, or tries to, blood rattling in his lungs. Spits, or tries to. And shapes the words, with a last feeble breath: " . . . I'm . . . a-fraid."

I shift my gaze back to him, slowly. Take a moment to remember his title, his significance. Then nod. And think: But not as much as me.

Thankfully.

Here on the Subeja Trench's second shelf, already too far down to hope for rescue-anytime soon, at least-we drift past holes belching black lava, coral mountains crusted five arms deep with vivid, fleshy anemones. Everything watches us go by, large or small. They give us sidelong glances, and bare their teeth. And we keep on slipping down, fathom by fathom, until the foliage thins and the light falls away. Until there's nothing to note our descent but a congregation of boneless, blazing things which regard us with a total lack of curiosity.

While I note the Doctor's broken corpse, sprawled and sloughed on the floor beside me. Feeling similarly little.

Wondering: Did I really strike a bargain, just then? Or do I only THINK I did?

But if I can still think coherently enough to even consider the question, I guess, it probably just doesn't matter all that much.

The sub buckles, twisting in on itself deck by deck. But I hold fast, footloose and evidence-free, to the improbable notion that I have been promised exemption-that even when the water seeps in under the Waiting Room door, this thing's infernal patronage will render me impermeable, slicked with infection. No swelling, no softening, no gentle nibbles from passing teeth; just a long sleep, a long, long dream. One long nightmare, a phobophobic haze, during which I can jim in my own stew- (you fucker, you promised) -stew-swim in my own . . . juices. Awhile.

. . . a while, a minute, a century . . .

And when they (the CIA, the Doctor's bunch, a salvage crew, whoever) finally find us, and pry open this busted can, how very sweet I'll be. Well-marinaded, and ready to serve: To be my prehistoric savior's chosen liaison, its translator. Its face prepared to meet the faces it will eat.

Or maybe we'll just stay down here, forever, unfound and unmourned, until entropy eats us both.

I raise my hand, look at my fingers. See my vision narrow. My pressure-drunk brain, squeezing itself flat. Glitches, sparking and fading: Images fizzling. Kiley's shadow-animals. Nanny's hands.

The two moons of Mars, on that childhood chart. Deimos and- (Phobo) -Phobos. Meaning panic-.

(phobia).

-and fear.

Fear, my motive, my spur. My dark and guiding star.

All my life, I think, my fear has driven me to take the easiest way. And where does the easiest way lead, usually?

Well, that would probably be-down.

Down here, at the bottom. Where there are a lot of things, and most of them glow . . .

Thinking: When you get what you ask for, you really have no right to be surprised.

. . . including me.

The Machine is Perfect, The Engineer is Nobody.

Brett Alexander Savory.

When she touches him, he flinches awake. Lying on a filthy mattress, he stares up at the low rock ceiling, listening to the sounds of machinery. Her breathing close to his ear blends with the mechanical sounds, nearly indistinguishable from one another.

"What do you think they're doing out there?" she asks.

He sighs. "We've been over this a thousand times. I don't know what-"

"Yes, yes, but what do you think they're doing?"

He turns on his side, away from her.

Outside their little cave, gears grind, engines roar deep and throaty. The stench of oil exhaust permeates everything.

A few moments later, she touches him again. He does not flinch this time, does not respond at all. In all the time they've been here, she has not asked this question, has not had the courage to do so, but now she does, now she feels she needs to: "Are we going to die in here?"

He turns back to her, cups her cheek with one hand, and kisses her gently. It is the first time they've kissed.

They fall asleep, their backs touching.

Four months ago, when they first arrived, they'd thought to escape through the small vent in the ceiling, but when they'd finally gotten the vent cover off and shined a lamp inside, they saw that the shaft went straight up as far as they could see. It probably only went up a dozen metres or so, but they had no way of getting a grip to climb up its metal sides, and it was small enough that either of them could've easily gotten stuck.

Piled in one corner of the cave was a supply of lamps and kerosene; in another corner, they'd found canned food and bottles of water, stacked nearly to the ceiling. A toilet-size hole was dug into the floor, in a tiny cul-de-sac, as far away from the bed as possible. As with the vent, they couldn't see how far it extended. Within the first week, they'd run their hands over every part of the walls, ceiling, and floor and could not discover how they'd gotten in. When they'd asked each other what they remembered about getting to this cave, neither could recall. One of them felt that the other was lying.

Several hours after kissing her, he gets up from the mattress, lights a kerosene lamp. Yellow-orange light dances on the walls until the flame settles. The vent in the ceiling flaps with the strength of the wind outside.

He looks into the corners of the room, these corners that used to be completely stuffed with food, water, and kerosene. Now only four bottles of water and six cans of food sit in one corner; two containers of kerosene are left. He goes back and sits on the edge of the mattress with a can of food and a bottle of water. He pulls his utility knife from his belt, cracks the can open, pulls up the edge of the lid, and scoops out the beans with his fingers, shovels them into his mouth. He hopes she doesn't wake up to see him eating a whole can to himself in one sitting.

When he finishes the beans, he neatly and quietly stacks the empty can in another corner of the cave. He sits back on the mattress, facing her, and sips his water. She stirs when he sits, knuckles her eyes, turns and grins sleepily at him.

"What's for breakfast?" she asks.

He smiles briefly, but it quickly slips. "There're only five cans left."

She yawns, sits up, says, "I know. You don't have to tell me. I know."

They are both so thin that their cheeks are sunken and their vertebrae poke through their thin black shirts.

"Do you want to talk about the kiss?" he asks. Despite their situation, he still, absurdly, blushes.

"What is there to talk about?" she says. "It was nice. Isn't that enough?"

His eyes fall to the floor. "Well, what I mean is-"

She suddenly brushes past him, picks up a can of beans, holds it at arm's length in his direction. "Can you please open this?"

He has had control of the utility knife the entire time they've been here. Now he pulls it from his belt, extends his arm toward her, palm open, upturned. She looks at him strangely for a moment, then gently takes the knife from his hand.

Later, they are lying on the mattress, trying to sleep, but both wide awake. The machines pound and they pound and they pound. Sometimes small bits of rock fall from the ceiling, sprinkling them, their mattress, the floor. It is one of the only things that makes this experience seem real to her. She says, "If that vent just goes straight up and out, why can't we ever see daylight when we look up it? It doesn't make any sense. I don't understand."

He waits a moment before he responds, fiddles with his watch-the watch that tells the time and date. The number "22" sits in the little window, on its way to "23." Glancing at the remaining supplies, he knows they probably won't live to see much of next month.

"We don't ever see daylight when we look up the shaft because the daylight is gone," he says. "It's gone."

They sleep again, but this time their backs do not touch.

A couple of days later, eating and drinking, trying to ration what little they have left. They sit on the bed, cross-legged, facing each other. The man thinks of it as their attempt at creating a civilized dinner-table situation. The woman simply thinks of it as heartbreaking and squalid.

"What did you mean when you said the daylight is gone?" the woman asks, licking beans from her fingertips.

"I mean that the daylight is gone; it no longer exists," the man answers. He does not look at her when he speaks.

"So what happened? Does it have something to do with the machines outside? Or maybe something to do with what they're digging for?"

"I don't know. I really don't." He wipes bean sauce off the inside of the can with his index finger, angling it so he doesn't cut himself on the sharp edges.

"Sometimes I feel like you're not telling me something."

The man finally looks up from his can. "Like what?"

"I don't know." She reaches a hand out, touches his knee lightly. "You wouldn't hide anything from me, would you? We're in this together, aren't we? I want to think that I can trust you."

The man grins a little, touches the woman's hand with his own. He plays with her fingers like they've known each other for years, gently stroking the tops, curling down to slide under her palm. His familiarity simultaneously excites and disturbs the woman.

"Yes. Yes, we're in this together. I'm glad you think so. I really am. I know I haven't said it before, but I'm very happy you're here with me."

Something about the phrasing of this statement makes the woman pull her hand away from the man. Happy you're here with me, she thinks. What does that mean?

Something like suspicion crawls across her scalp, settles deep at the base of her skull.

When they fall asleep that night, one of her hands is curled into a tight fist, nestled next to her heart; the other hand wraps around the fist, pulsating in time with the grind of the machines.

He is awakened by more pounding, but this time it's much closer and not nearly as deep. Not the bone-rattling pounding of the machines outside, but a machine inside-or at least very nearly inside.

He springs from the bed-a movement he wouldn't have thought himself capable of anymore-and reaches down to his belt for his utility knife. Fuck, he thinks. I knew I shouldn't have- "Here," she says. "Calm down, it's right here." Awake now, too, she hands him the knife. He snatches it from her hand, flicks open the longest blade with his thumbnail.

The noise comes from beneath them. A drill. Louder with every passing moment. The floor shakes. He is very aware of the knife in his hand, his thumping heart, blood pounding through his system. She yells something at him from where she sits on the bed.

"What?" he bellows back, the floor now buckling. The faint outline of a manhole-size circle forms.

She takes a deep breath and shouts, "I said, why do you want to kill this person? Maybe he's here to rescue us. What's wrong with you? What's wrong with you?"

The tip of the enormous drill finally breaks through, scattering pieces of rock across the floor of the cave. The drill then recedes. Muttering voices as it's passed from the driller down to someone below him. The driller tentatively pops his head into the cave. He eyes the man and the woman in the room. He raises himself up a little more, bringing a gun into view.

For nearly a full half-minute, no one says anything. Just heavy breathing, wild-eyed stares, and the sounds of the machinery growling outside the cave walls.

Then: "Nearly out of water, I see," the driller says. He's wearing a heavily scuffed hardhat and dark goggles. "Food, too."

The man with the knife just stares, still in defensive posture.

The woman speaks: "Are you here to rescue us? We've been here for so long."

The driller does not look at her.

"Sir," he says. "We have to get you out of here. They're getting closer, they've nearly drilled down to where they think it is. But they're getting bizarre readings, indications of something no one expected to find this deep and-"

"I'm not leaving," the man with the knife says.

The woman's brow furrows. "What are you talking about? And what is he talking about?" She moves her head in the direction of the driller. "What is this 'sir' shit? What's going on here? What-"