Apparatus 33 by Lawston Pettymore (bearly read books TXT) 📕

its starting position, he waited for the hatch to open, confirming that Zerrissen was inside. A minute passed and nothing moved, nor were there any sounds. Impatient, Nicolaus threw the craft open, half expecting to find it empty. He had begun to believe that Zerrissen made the journey to the Tea Garden as a test, and then, finding that it worked, sent it back using the RETURN sequence. What he actually saw, however, was an unconscious Zerrissen, up to his neck in water.

After several moments of breathing real air, Zerrissen awoke, sputtering, coughing, and finally vomiting. He opened his eyes, taking in his surroundings and trying to understand how he could see the inside of the workshop again, instead of the hypoxic hallucination of being on board with Pyotr, screaming back into the atmosphere as the spheroidal warhead shell melted away, exposing the cesium and cobalt to air and causing sparkling, sand grain-sized explosions.

Seeing rage in Nicolaus’ eyes, and the hurt expression on Halina’s, Zerrissen defused the moment as best he could.

“Well… the RETURN lever appears to work.”

Holding Zerrissen’s head in his lap, Nicolaus stared into his face, not believing that he was capable of the worst interpretation of the events, that he had abandoned Nicolaus and Halina for his own escape, nor of the best interpretation, that he was truly concerned for their safety.

“So. Many. Questions.”

Zerrissen was conflicted about what to confess. Had he taken NIX for a test drive, or to escape and abandon the two of them? He himself was not sure.

“I told you I wouldn’t put Halina in this monster if I thought it would only kill her.”

“OK,” was all Nicolaus could muster in response, expecting more.

“So, I can tell you NIX works rather well.”

“Rather well? She’s completely flooded with water.”

“Yes. She’s a bit leaky now thanks to some border guards.” Zerrissen let this premier hang teasingly as he took a deep breath and wiped water from his mouth and eyes before continuing, “Before that, though, she was fine. Here’s a tip. When you pump out water, you must adjust the depth planes down to compensate for the weight change. I let her ride too high. Their rifles did the rest.”

Nicolaus weighed the explanation while looking for obvious damage on the visible portion of NIX. Even in the limited light, he could see an oval gouge in the tubular section, the first strike that had caught Zerrissen’s attention, but had not penetrated the Krupp steel pipe. The hole in the tail section went through the softer material, creating two holes in the otherwise watertight compartment.

Nicolaus glared at Zerrissen as he continued his tutorial. “NIX will surface if you just let her drift with the current. You need to propel a bit faster than the current to keep it submerged.” Seeking approval from the pair, and receiving none, Zerrissen continued lobbying.

“So, I saved your life finding that out. Again. You’re welcome. And I am fine, thanks for asking.”

Nicolaus’ lips remained pursed. His flannel shirt, wet from river water, adhered to his skin. A big dark-red stain was glistening in the low light, expanding slowly. Zerrissen was bleeding from a wound, whether from a bullet, shrapnel, or both, it was not clear. Halina began to cut away the shirt to find out.

Zerrissen wiped water from his lips, still streaming from his thinning hair. “Also, fuck you.”

“Did the guards understand what they were shooting at?”

“I don’t know. I was busy not drowning. Did you hear the part about ‘Fuck you’?”

Nicolaus signaled for Halina to press a rag against the Zerrissen’s wound to stem the bleeding, while he crossed the slippery floor to a motorized device with a long hose attached to the wall. He used it to pump water out of the interior. By the time the first rays of dawn had flowed into the workshop, the water was out, exposing the pillows and much of the sound absorbing fabric ruined by the polluted river water. As there would be no time to replace any of it, their trip to Tiergarten would be done with much less luxury than Zerrissen’s cruise to nowhere. He noticed bullet holes in the rubber joints of the tail section and announced to Halina that she had to repair them herself if Zerrissen was unable to help.

As he looked in her direction for a reaction, he noticed that the sequencer had the red scuttle tape, not the blue Tiergarten destination tape. He pulled it out and went to question Zerrissen, whose wound was freshly sewn up by Halina. She had extracted from his skin a splinter of aluminum made shrapnel by a bullet and began prepping NIX for another voyage: recharge the batteries, replace the scrubbers, and find the blue Tiergarten tape.

Zerrissen, pressed a makeshift bandage to the wound which Halina had sewn rather nicely using fishing line, though would nonetheless leave a permanent scar, a railroad track to nowhere.

“So, was the red cassette programmed to scuttle NIX or to send you to neutral ground?”

“Believe what you like.”

“Well, what I’d like to believe is that the blue tape will really take us to the Tiergarten, or do you have another surprise for us?”

Zerrissen fumbled in his shirt pocket for the other microcassette.

“This will work. That’s the truth. I have no reason to lie.”

Nicolaus considered the truth of that statement, and the falsity of Zerrissen’s other statements.

“We have no choice but to believe you. My friends will come for you if we don’t arrive alive. Their feelings will be hurt. You won’t like them.”

“I know.”

Zerrissen struggled to his feet, not expecting any help from Nicolaus, and not getting any. He yelped as he held the stitches together, careful not to rip them out, and hobbled over to assist Halina prepare NIX. In an hour, it was ready to go, and it was time for the goodbyes that Zerrissen always hated.

Halina was about to hop into NIX, braced leg first, but stopped to sign something to Nicolaus, and held out her hand, which was holding a