White Space

36

 Yemon pulled up the comms app on his wrist and looked at the screen. According to his readout, they should have been right where the signal was coming from. They'd even found Alpha's submarine, for Pete's sake. How come there was nobody there? He pressed the button to make call him once again, however he had very little hope that it would work. He'd tried it over and over while they were making their way through the cavern system, but there was never any answer from the other side. If Jaleel hadn't been with him when they first made contact, he'd have thought he'd imagined it. But then again, he was sometimes seeing the burning girl too, when he was awake. The constant darkness was also getting to him by now. Every time when he closed his eyes or when he let the stress seep through, he could feel her close by. He had already reached a point where he didn't want to blink anymore. Not with his entire team missing. He was terrified of how certain he was he'd seen her.

 "Yemon to Cob. Cob, are you there?" he said as soon as the comms icon turned green. No answer.

 "He should be close." Jaleel said. "I don't get it." He looked around slowly, tracing the shadows across the wall. He'd gone around the place twice, shone his lights into the tunnels through the doorways, but they found nothing.

 "Let's check the sub." Yemon said, turning towards the overturned, beat up vehicle, "Maybe they just left the comms equipment on inside or something."

 "Wait a second," Jaleel said as he was looking for leverage on the sleek, metallic body. "How is this thing so deep inside this place, anyway?"

 Yemon was ready to push, but he stopped. It was true. They should have noticed it. The submarine was sticking out like a sore thumb. But the strangeness of the situation somehow masked the things that were just barely out of the ordinary. But the sub was deeper inside than the water level allowed. A few clicks, even.

 "I have no idea." Yemon looked around with a ghastly expression. "It shouldn't be here."

 "So, there's this, and the fact that we don't see any rubble from the digging and drilling that obviously took place probably just a few days ago." Jaleel said, raising his right hand to scratch the back of his head, but his fingers bumped into his helmet, so he just looked at his hand absent-mindedly, then lowered it back down.

 "Yeah, you're right." Yemon said. "This place must have been underwater when they'd arrived. This entire section we've come through."

 "But where's all the water? And... I mean... There isn't even enough elevation to keep the water out."

 They silently stared at the gray vehicle for a few seconds. It was tightly pressed against the wall, obscuring the canopy from their view. They started pushing on it to get it away from the wall. Yemon forgot how much the infinitesimal gravity helped with moving objects around. Whatever had happened to the sub probably wasn't such a spectacularly brutal thing as he imagined it was. He probably could have just picked it up on his own. After a few thrusts, they had the submarine on its belly.

 The two men exchanged a surprised glance at the sight of thick condensation on the inside of the canopy. Yemon knew it very well that not only were there various systems in place to prevent it, but something would also need to produce water vapor on the inside for condensation to settle. Yemon started knocking at the canopy. There was no movement on the inside, but a faint blinking signaled that the comms channel was very much active in there.

 "So this is it." Jaleel said, tapping on the canopy, "There's nobody else. What do we do now?"

 Yemon closed his eyes. "But he has to be here somewhere." He was doing his best to keep the burning girl out of his mind. He was failing miserably.