Chapter Two: Caryn
I dive a second late and my hesitation will cost me five seconds off my final time.
The water sucks me in as my body slices through the surface. For a moment my chest tightens and my vision blackens. I see Heather’s face clearly as if it were today. Trapped beneath the waves as water enters her lungs her eyes turn to me. I feel helpless and frozen. I want to scream, but I force my mind to concentrate on my arms and how they push the water around me, on how this is a different day, one where no one will die, at least not here.
Out of the corner of my eye I can see May and Janissa in their lanes ahead of me, their bodies sliding through the water. I grit my teeth and slowly build up momentum with each stroke and kick. I use every ounce of strength I have and by five strokes I have caught up to them. All three of us are neck and neck.
Three of the ten available lanes are designated by a color--mine is red to match the stripe on my swimsuit--that travels around the border of the underwater race track of the practice aquarium. The tasks are stationed at the north and south points of the oval. Cutting straight through the center, dividing the north from the south is a reinforced, heavy plastic partition with gates that open to the side we must reach next. These gates are located near the bottom of the partition close to the floor so we can swim straight from the gate to the task without tiring ourselves by swimming up to the surface and over the partition. In the real aquarium, the partitions serve to separate the highly territorial jigger males. Part of the tournament challenge is to navigate through the partition gates and to complete each task smoothly. If more tasks are completed by a contestant quickly, that contestant could still win even if she doesn’t hold her breath as long as the others. However, those left in the race would have to pass her last completed task in order to beat her.
I blink and my eyes feel better, less dry. The red flag of the first task guides me deeper and is much easier to see now that I am underwater. My ears pop as they adjust to swimming down the twenty feet to the floor of the aquarium. A container in my equipment bag bumps against my side and lower back, but doesn’t get in the way of my movement.
The first task is always the hardest and I grit my teeth as I swim up to it. Soft, green fabric with white dots is wrapped around each wire, to give it an organic look as they move with the water, like hair reaching up to the surface. There are purposefully too many to avoid, so I swim right into the middle of them. Even though they are meant to represent the anemone, whose poison will eventually kill, the shocks they give are only sharp enough to make me jump at first contact. Our task is to get the ‘anemone’ to open wide enough for us to dump the mixture in and collect some of the soft marbles, meant to look like jigger eggs.
It is important to impress the eggs with the chemicals in the mixture, since this changes them and allows the cure to grow inside them even when they are adults, which also makes allows the cure available as long as the fish from that batch are still alive.
My hands and legs jerk a bit with each touch of the wires, but this is not my first time and I ignore the pain, grabbing the mixture-filled bottle from my bag. I squirt some of the mixture onto the soft marbles, pull out one of the empty containers in my bag and scoop some of the ‘eggs’ into it. I seal the container and stuff it back into its spot in the equipment bag. One task down.
I push away swimming as fast as I can. May is ahead of me by a foot and I let her lead for the moment. We arrive at the east side gates together. I stroke with my right arm so my left will be ready to lift the protective plate covering the gates’ opening sensor as soon as I am in reach. My fingertips grasp and flip the plate open, the gate slides up into the partition and I slip through it barely ahead of her.
There is an underwater camera following us off to the side and allows those watching to score our actions. This time I don’t let myself hesitate when the second task appears. I dive in, squeeze the dye and scoop out some marbles. I leave the second task first and make it through the west gate ten feet in front of both girls. I force myself to swim faster, taking all the training I have had and putting it to good use as I reach the third task. It is not enough to be fast, or strong, I also have to be efficient with the movements I make.
At my second approach to the east gate, I miss the opening plate on my first try. I glance down, find it and whip it open. But when I swim through on the other side, the water pulling me back as the gate closes right behind my feet, I see Janissa two body lengths ahead of me. I want to kick myself for another mistake. I push myself harder, but she still leaves the fourth and fifth tasks ahead of me. May also starts to creep up and seems to fill my periphery vision.
“I have to win,” I tell myself. Somewhere deep inside, I find the determination I need to push even harder. I speed through the sixth task and make it to the west gate a split second behind Janissa. As we push toward the seventh task I begin to inch away. Somehow my motions at the sixth task are quick despite the sluggish pull of the water and I leave before Janissa does. I reach the eighth task alone and approach the ninth alone too. I’m afraid to lose my focus by looking behind me to check where May or Janissa might be. But as long as they are not beside me I should be fine. Still, I try to maintain the same level of intensity because they could be right behind me, waiting to make their move. The longest I have been able to stay underwater has been 38 minutes 45 seconds, but both May and Janissa’s best times have been within a minute of mine.
I make it through the tenth and eleventh tasks in the lead with absolutely no sign of either girl. However, as I am leaving the twelfth task I hit ‘the wall.’ It happens every time I hold my breath, normally around the twenty minute mark. The weight of the water only makes it worse.
My lungs throb, my eyes blur, and all my muscles quiver. I know it is starting and I panic, kicking my feet frantically to get as far as I can before it completely takes over. The few times I have lost in practice have been because of this. I swing my head around to see if there is anyone behind me, but all I see are spots. I feel claustrophobic and panic begins to close my throat. My body freezes. All I want to do is float back up to the surface, but the added weight in my equipment bag is keeping me down.
For the first time I begin to doubt that I can win. How can I make it a second longer? The ceiling lights dance on the surface above and want to pull me up to them. I have to think of something, anything to distract myself. Anderson’s last words to me come back.
“You were born for this.” I close my eyes so I can’t see the water for a moment.
It is the same thing Heather once said to me. Both of us were treading water with weights around every limb, the tops of our heads were starting to dry, and we had been alone for two hours. She was smiling. It was a beautiful smile, one that made me feel warm and happy.
“Are you tired?” she asked.
I nodded. “A little.”
“You think you can go for another hour?” Her smile grew.
“Sure.”
“You know,” she said. “No one else can do what we do. We were born for this.”
We treaded water for that hour and added a second hour to it and we had talked and laughed the whole time.
Already I can feel the panic leaving. I cling to the memory, to the sound of Heather’s laugh. The seconds drift by much like the air bubbles on my arm separate and slowly float past my face ever upward. My vision clears somewhat and I see a task ahead of me.
I finish the task and limp to the gate. I can’t remember which number I am on. Some of my functions are returning and my movements are not as shaky. With an iron will I force my heart rate to slow down and remove the last remnants of panic that linger inside.
I make it through the gate, but as I emerge on the other side I see May at the task ahead. My heart jumps. When did she pass me? Then a worse thought hit me. If May is ahead, will Janissa be too? Both my arms and legs are exhausted. The lack of oxygen is starting to limit how hard I can push myself, but I still manage to move faster. Befo
re I can start the task May is moving away, but I can tell she has hit the wall too and she is not swimming very fast. I finish the task as quickly as I can and race after her. She makes it through the gate first, but as we approach the task I pull even with her. May jumps as she sees me, but doesn’t increase her pace. I leap forward at the chance and leave her behind at the gate.
There is still no sign of Janissa, but my muscles strain harder and my lead lengthens. I arrive at the task and am so used to the wire stings I barely feel them as I finish it. I don’t have time to look at the watch on my wrist, although I imagine by the slow panic in my lungs that I have been under for thirty minutes. I have to move faster, I keep telling myself. I have to win.
My head starts to throb in the middle of opening the gate. I won’t be able to last much longer. As I swim to the next task, I see black and white spots before my eyes again. The wall is the warning; the second time it happens is when the damage starts. My arms are too sluggish to arc in full strokes. I have to breathe. Just three more strokes. For a moment I forget which way I am supposed to be swimming and my whole body is shaking. I try to see May or Janissa behind me, but I am having a hard time focusing on anything in the distance. I can’t go any farther so I let myself rise to the surface.
A loud bell sounds as I take in my first breath. It is a moment before my vision fully returns, but when it does I see May and Janissa wrapped in towels by the side of the aquarium. They are both staring at me and Janissa’s mouth is open. I quickly turn to the scoreboard. Despite the mistakes I made at the beginning, my time is higher than the times of both girls. My single breath lasted for 41 minutes 53 seconds, the highest time anyone in the Compound has ever had. I won and I can’t help shivering in the water.