Chapter Text
When the voice came on over the intercom, Simon knew that it wasn't real. Or at the very least, he had very few hopes that it was. The voice was different than the others, softer, lighter, and wholly unknown, but it was real to Simon. It tethered him there, as the others did.
It had to be real.
It would never be.
At first, the voice seemed just as confused as he was. And therefore, he ignored it. In intent, if not in actuality. The voice questioned, and Simon dismissed, anger lacing his voice as he muttered to himself and tried to get the voice to leave—not enough. He would never, ever truly ask for the voice to leave. He couldn't do it on his own. He never would. But the questions, the questions weren't helping. The questions made everything worse. The heat pulled at Simon's eyelids, and the last remnants of sweat trickled down the back of his neck as he waited for the dehydration to take over—it would soon enough, he knew it. The smell of metal, and rot, and blood turned his stomach. He was a doomed man.
The voice acted like he didn't know that. Despite his exhaustion, Simon responded to that voice. It was Simon who had begun the conversation after all.
He'd been trying to talk to Ava. It was a futile attempt, one that he shouldn't have bothered with, but it was the only thing he could think to do in his panic. Steer the sub. Ignore the heat. Pretend like he wasn't enduring a slow, dreadful execution in the dark, darker than even he could imagine. The light from the greenish-yellow lamps in the SM-13 made the entire submarine seem as though it were encased in sickness, a diseased organ. A lung full on phlegm.
"Please," Simon had been whimpering. It was after a long string of curses and pleas, and it was more to himself than to her; he knew he was dead already. There was no point in pretending he wasn't. The Brothers often spoke of Hell, a place of fire, and burning flesh, where your screams shriveled and searing in ya person's throat before they could reach the sizzling air. Maybe that was it. Maybe Simon was already there.
No. Simon was sure that whether or not hell existed, this place certainly put it to shame.
The intercom crackled. The hope that leapt in Simon's chest was disgusting, but he clung to it, a life-preserver in the storm. It was a life-preserver with a hole in it, and would only keep him afloat for a while longer, but he'd take anything he could get.
More crackling, and Simon asked, "Hello?" then, louder, "Hello?"
'Hello?' The intercom repeated back to him, in a voice he didn't recognize. Marred by static, and unfamiliar, but it was a human voice, belonging to a human person, or—or something that sounded close to it. Who knew what it truly was, some specter of those who went down before him, or a hallucination from his radiated mind, or something from that beast, that… that thing.
It spoke to him. He could feel it, niggling at the edges of his awareness as worms did to a carcass. Simon had never been to Earth, but he had been told about what happened to a carcass left to it's own devices back when the human body could be relied on to disintegrate back down into the dirt from which it came. The thought was both comforting, and wholly horrifying.
"Hello?" Simon repeated again, desperate to keep the voice on the line. It was male. Not as deep as his own, lighter, unassuming. He needed that voice to remain with him for as long as he could make it.
There was a short pause. A stagnant breath. The intercom staticed once more, and the voice said, warbling ever so slightly, 'Hello—shoot, are you—shoot. Who's there?'
Simon didn't know what to say to that; he couldn't tell what he was supposed to say. He just stood still in the middle of the submarine, trying not to touch any of the walls—he didn't know why. He hated this place, and he was exhausted, of course, but it was more than that. The entire place filled him with disgust to touch. Only the control panel and the camera really counted as exceptions, and barely at that. His head swam, and he swallowed hard before responding, gritting his teeth.
He didn't answer the question. "I'm in—I'm in the Iron Lung."
Another pause. 'You're… what?'
Nothing else. Frustration and fear bubbled in Simon's chest. He spoke again quickly, "Where are you?" not caring much for what the voice said. The answer was 'outside'. Or 'nowhere'. Either.
'W—I'm in my ship.' There was another interlude full of crackling, the speaker buzzing.
There wasn't enough brainpower for Simon to figure out what that meant. He could feel the SM-13 groaning underneath him; he didn't know what to do now. He could find something, surely, he still had a job to do, but that didn't matter right now.
They continued for a while. It continued to ask questions, and Simon’s relief shriveled as fear took hold again. The voice was there. And then it was gone, and Simon was alone again. There was no time to weep. The beast was after him. His vision waved like he was staring through heat. He steered the sub, and he prayed. Oh, he prayed.
And then the voice was there again.
“No, really, where are you?” The voice’s insistence was not helpful. It hadn’t been the last few times it asked, and it wasn’t now. Simon didn’t know how else to answer other than that he was in the Lung, or in the SM-13, or I don’t know, now for the love of fuck leave me alone.
“Stop,” he growled. “Stop fucking asking me that.”
“I only asked a few times, and you didn’t answer me a few minutes ago, so I’m asking again. I don’t—I don’t understand how we’re talking.”
That wasn’t a few minutes ago. That was much, much longer ago than the voice seemed to be insisting. “That was hours ago,” Simon pushed out. Anger made his already searing chest burn harder.
“That… no? That was…” The voice trailed off. “... What’s your name?”
Simon’s breath caught. He felt his jaw tremble. For a moment, he was sure that if he answered honestly, he would be heard, and he would be punished. “Simon,” he said forcefully. His voice trembled.
“Okay. Okay, Simon, my name—”
“Why are you here?” Simon was not going to cry. There wasn’t enough water in his system for him to cry.
“I don’t know, I’m just—I connected to your ship? You’re in a ship, aren’t you, in the… the Iron Lung? That’s what you said.”
No. Not a ship. Simon didn’t correct him. He wasn’t listening. His throat felt like it was closing; it burned. “I don’t want to die,” he warbled. Met with silence, he continued, “I don’t want to die. No one… you don’t either, do you?” No one else seemed to mind. Everyone else were lambs to a slaughter. Simon was just another in a long line, and yet… and yet…
“No,” the voice wavered.
Simon could have laughed. But he didn’t have the energy.
Time warped and circled, and blood leaked into the Iron Lung, and Simon swayed and shuddered with it. The submarine wouldn’t stand up to this; it wouldn’t last. Neither would he.
It gave a particularly hard shudder, and horrible jolt that almost sent Simon flying sideways, and then there was a buzz around the whole metal vessel; the thing shook, and the speaker sizzled with life. Through his mounting horror, Simon heard him again.
“Simon. Simon, I see you!”
Simon ground his teeth, and clenched his fists. He trembled. At least now he wouldn’t die alone—not completely.
“Simon!”
Bloodied hands wiped at Simon’s face, and the sub swayed. It felt different. But being close to death would make a person feel lightheaded anyway.
‘Simon! I see your ship! Simon, I see your ship, are you in there?”
“Y-yes.” There was no point in responding, but he didn’t know what else to do. He didn’t know what the voice meant, or what he was meant to do about it, or why he hadn’t died yet.
It was delaying the inevitable.
“You’re—we’re going to get you out. We know how to get you out, okay?”
The words didn’t sink though quite right; it made no real sense; it was impossible. It couldn't be—
Simon swallowed convulsively, and his arms shook. "Yes," he agreed. Pleaded. He didn't believe it, and really, believing would only set him up for disappointment in the future, and yet he couldn't bring himself to ignore it. Denying the voice would be wrong, in an instinctual, survival-driven part of Simon's soul, and so the word was all he could manage.
He had to hope it would be enough, but knew that it wouldn't be.
The events afterwards were blurry. They were not fast-paced, or overwhelming, and yet Simon was, indeed, overwhelmed. Heat licked at him, and his mind melted as the world swayed and tilted, warped beyond imagination. The feeble light played tricks on his mind, devils roaring at him from the shadows, until he found that he could no longer stand, slumping onto his knees on the stained and bloodied floor.
Oblivion would be a release at this rate, nausea curling in his gut, his skin burning with heat from the inside, fatigue pulling him down, down into the Iron Lung. The speaker quavers and words seep out, but Simon can't listen. He's so tired.
It's probably the radiation. Or maybe, maybe it's just heat exhaustion. Or both. Either way, it's slow, and dull, and Simon cannot listen.
"Crap. Listen, by buddy is getting your ship attached to ours. Where's the door? Do you—do you breathe oxygen? You're human, aren't you?"
Simon didn't know anymore. "There is no door," he said lowly. The words left him without his input. "I'm not supposed to leave. I'm supposed to die here."
The despair was distinct. He didn't want to talk about this anymore.
"Please," Simon begged, looking up at the speaker. "Don't leave. I don't wanna be alone…"
The SM-13 gave a lurch, like it had been hit, and then it was moving, being pulled through nothing like the blood ocean was nothing at all. Terror gripped Simon, but his adrenalized mind couldn't move his body; after so long being scared, he couldn't possibly be more so. When the Iron Lung jolted again like it had hit something, he squeezed his eyes shut tighter.
When next he opened his eyes, there was a sound of buzzing, and grinding, and metal being shredded. Sparks flew. Simon's heart leapt.
Something was sawing it's way inside.
Someone was coming to get him.
"Blip, blip, BLIP! BLIP! BLIP!" Ryland was screaming, like Rocky didn't already know that. He was the one who had proposed the plan to pull the ship (even though that was not a ship) in and get it to the airlock, like he had connected his own ship when they first met. The only problem was that Rocky wasn't able to pull the thing in after they had connected that hose to it, via some very skilled chemical xenonite compounds from Rocky that Ryland had yet to understand, and some very skilled and precise throwing from Ryland to stick it to the metal form that had suddenly appeared on outside in the vacuum of space.
The plan was for Ryland to pull the Iron Lung to the airlock, made easier from the lack of gravity, and then Rocky would seal them together, and then saw through the thing as the resident engineer, since it apparently had no exit.
Ryland's stomach turned just thinking about it.
There was a problem, though, which was revealed through a few simple scans: the Geiger counter, specifically.
This thing was radioactive, or at least had been exposed to it and was now contaminated. Whoever was inside—Simon, and human name, and a human voice that Ryland could have wept at hearing—was being exposed to a lot of radiation, which was, as he explained to Rocky, bad. Not necessarily end of the world bad, depending on how long it had been, but… bad.
But Rocky couldn't help, in that case, or not for much longer than a few seconds—this was risky for Ryland, and downright dangerous for Rocky, which meant they needed a new plan, and fast.
"You've gotta go!" Ryland said as he pulled the Iron Lung in, regretting that he didn't have time to fully look at how it was made. It wasn't anything special, and it was kind of bleak, but he still wished he could look. Instead, he listened to Rocky rushing around on the other side of the airlock inside the ship, presumably doing something with xenonite, which he should not have been.
The new plan was even more simple than the first one: Connect the Iron Lung to the Hail Mary only by the hose, as close as possible. Saw inside while the door to the airlock was closed to keep Rocky safer, and pull whoever was inside out into the airlock. Let the Iron Lung go. And close the airlock, safely back inside Ryland's ship.
Debatabley safely.
Rocky's voice answered him, "Grace want to fall out of airlock into space, question?!!"
Ryland grit his teeth. He didn't have time to inquire what Rocky was doing; he just had to hope that he was safe.
The looming metal vessel was close now, close enough that it obscured the view into the vastness, and all Ryland could see was the metal. He was probably too close. He hadn't explained to Rocky how humans reacted to radiation, not in detail, and so Rocky thought that their resistance was mugh higher than it actually was. Tears pricked at the corners of Ryland's eyes; he cried often, and a lot, and he was getting a little tired of it. Now at least he had a reason: stress.
He tied the hose to some of the hooks inside the airlock, where the other suits were kept, hoping it would hold. And he set to work with a buzz saw.
Was that—blood?
It was. It was, or something close to it, and Ryland's stomach turned over on itself, but he didn't stop. It felt like slow work, but there was nothing he could do. He sawed as fast as he could, and as he did, the heat began to seep out. The blaring, overwhelming heat; sweat beaded up on his forehead and on the back of his neck, and he worked harder, like he could speed it up if he tried hard enough.
It took a great deal of force to push the square of metal he'd cut out into the vessel, but he managed it. It dropped with a clang, and a wave of rancid, breath-stealing heat blasted into Ryland's face. He coughed, covering his face with his hand for a moment like he wasn't wearing a helmet, peering into the strange, yellow-ish light.
There was a person. Ryland got a look at matted dark hair, and a hand reaching for him, and he reached out to meet it.
Everything was covered in blood. Pools littered the ground, the red running in rivulets down the interior sides, and splattered on the man inside who was reaching for him. Their hands clasped, and nausea rose in Ryland's throat as disgust and horror coursed through his viens.
"I have you!" he said through labored, quick breathing. He had to—he couldn't leave this man to die. He couldn't.
As Simon felt fingers slip through his own, a golden halo without a face bloomed in front of his eyes. The side of the SM-13 was open, and waiting.
Simon rose from hell, crawling on his belly.