Love, Death and Robots. Volumes 2 & 3

Anton gave up at twenty and sprang back to the conversation. “We go, extros,” he beamed. “You run. You run. I run. He runs. He runs. He runs. He runs. Here…” He gave the pylon a dull clanging kick. “To here!”

Sedgewick followed Anton’s pointing finger. Far off across the scarred ice, he could barely make out the yellow glow of the pylon opposite them. His stomach dropped. Sedgewick looked at his brother, and for a nanosecond Fletcher looked like a little kid again, but then his mouth curled a smile and his modded eyes flashed.

“Alright,” he said. “I’m down.”

Sedgewick was a breath away from saying no you fucking aren’t, from saying we’re heading back now, from saying anything at all. But it all stuck on his ribs and instead he turned to Anton and shrugged. “Benga,” he said. “Let’s go.”

The handshakes came back around, everyone hooting and pleased to have new recruits. Fletcher got the motion on his first try. When the vape made its final circle, Sedgewick gripped it hard and stared out over the black ice and tried to stop shivering.

* * *

Sedgewick knew Fletcher was faster than him. He’d known it like a stone in his belly since he was twelve and his brother was ten, and they’d raced on a pale gray beach back on Earth. Prickling fog and no witnesses. Fletcher took the lead in the last third, pumping past him with a high, clear incredulous laugh, and Sedgewick slacked off to a jog to let him win because it was a nice thing to let the younger brother win sometimes.

Occupied with the memory, Sedgewick was slow to notice that the eerie green pallor of the ice was no longer cast by Anton’s lantern. Something had lit it up from underneath. He stared down at the space between his boots and his gut gave a giddy helium lurch. Far below them, distorted by the ice, he could make out dim moving shapes. He remembered that frostwhales navigated by bioluminescence. He remembered the methane sea was deeper than any Earth ocean.

Everyone tightened the straps of their thermals, tucked in their gloves, and formed themselves into a ragged line that Sedgewick found himself near the end of, Fletcher beside him.

Anton waltzed down the row and made a show of checking everyone’s boots. “Grip,” he said, making a claw.

Sedgewick threw a hand onto Brume’s shoulder for balance while he displayed one sole and then the other. He leaned instinctively to do Fletcher the same favor, but his brother ignored it and lifted each leg precisely into the air, perfectly balanced. Sedgewick hated him as much as he ever had. He glued his eyes to the far pylon and imagined it was the first cleat of the dock on a rainy gray beach.

Under their feet, the ghostly green light receded, dropping them back into darkness. Sedgewick shot Oxo-of-the-jaw-implant a questioning look.

“First they see ice,” Oxo mumbled, rubbing his hands together. “They see ice for thin area. Then, down. For making momentum. Then, in one-by-one line…”

“Up,” Sedgewick guessed.

On cue, the light reappeared, rising impossibly fast. Sedgewick took a breath and coiled to sprint. His imagination flashed him a picture: the frostwhale rocketing upward, a blood-and-bone engine driven by a furious threshing tail, hurtling through the cold water in a cocoon of bubbling gas. Then the impact quaked the ice and Sedgewick’s teeth, and he thought about nothing but running.

For two hard heartbeats, Sedgewick fronted the pack, flying across the ice like something unslung. The second impact nearly took his legs out from under him. He staggered, skidded, regained his balance, but in that split second Petro was past him. And Anton, and Oxo, and Oxo, Brume, Fletcher last.

Sedgewick dug deep for every shred of speed. The ice was nowhere near smooth, scarred with pocks and ridges and frozen ripples in the methane, but the others slid over it like human quicksilver, finding the perfect place for every footfall. Modded, modded, modded. The word danced in Sedgewick’s head as he gulped cold glass.

The green light swelled again, and he braced before the third frostwhale hit. The jolt shook him but he kept his footing, maybe even gained half a step on Oxo. Ahead, the race was thrown into relief: Brume’s broad shoulders, Anton’s thrown-back head, and there, sliding past gangly Petro for the lead, was Fletcher. Sedgewick felt hot despair churn up his throat.

His eyes raised to the pylon and he realized they were over halfway across. Fletcher pulled away now, not laughing, with that crisp bounding stride that said I can run forever. Then he glanced back over his shoulder, for what, Sedgewick didn’t know, and in that instant his boot caught a trench and slammed him hard to the ice.

Sedgewick watched the others vault past, Anton pausing to half-drag Fletcher back upright on the way by. “Benga, benga, extro!”