One

Though everything was dark, Jane tried the lights, the TV, the radios. No response. Wind was getting into this module somewhere; he could hear it howling and rattling around the prefabricated units. It was a wonder they all hadn't been torn off their housings. He was about to leave the control room and move further into the building, to the recreation room, when he saw Eamonn Tate, the OIM, sitting against the wall, his hands in his lap. He seemed to be staring down at them, or perhaps at the pale grey slack of his tongue as it lolled against his chest. Though Jane had been expecting this, to actually see the guy in charge, a guy who was as serene and quiet-talking as they come, broken and bent and capsized, was almost too much to take. Jane crouched down next to him and thought about taking his pulse, but shook his head. No survivors. Just Jane and Stopper. He was turning to tell Stopper this, but he realised he would have to take out the regulator to do so. Stopper wasn't ready for the news anyway, by the look on his face. To confirm what he was already seeing was to invite his utter dislocation.

Jane clapped Stopper on the shoulder and gestured to the door. Stopper followed him. Jane lowered his head against the wind as he edged outside and led the way to the lower decks and the bright orange lifeboats. Jane checked behind him when he was shooting open the bolts on the entrance hatch. Stopper was standing loose, head back, watching the queasy swirl of the sky. He appeared deflated, a bottle of something unstoppered, flat. Now Jane wished he could say something. If Stopper didn't keep his mind on what was happening, a rogue gust was going to pick him up and toss him a couple of hundred feet into freezing water. Jane made a grunting noise around his mouthpiece, waved his arms: Stopper slowly levelled his gaze back on his buddy, but Jane doubted it had anything to do with his pleas for attention. Stopper's eyes were wide open but unseeing. Clouds had formed, despite the wind, pinguid and low, like something thick in a mixing bowl, streaked with the colours of decay. The secret colours he had only ever heard mentioned by his mother and her sisters: taupe, mauve, teal. The clouds sweated greasy rain.

Jane bundled Stopper into the lifeboat and swung the hatch shut. He pressed his fingers against Stopper's regulator to prevent him from spitting it clear, waiting to see if any of the granularity of the sky had followed them inside. What there was settled quickly without the wind to propel it. It settled like a weird matte glitter on their clothes, twinkling dully. Scintillas of quartz, Jane thought. Obsidian. Asbestos. He plucked the regulator out and drew a breath.

'Normal service has been resumed,' he said, trying a smile. Stopper blinked at him. Jane gently tugged free Stopper's mouthpiece; a glut of drool followed it out. The other man didn't protest but regarded him slackly, as if every muscle in his face had been injected with relaxant.

'Buckle up, Stop,' Jane said. In the end, he had to do it for him, pulling the straps tight over flesh that felt deboned, as yielding as a baby's.

Jane secured his own restraints and took a few fast shallow breaths. He hated fairground rides, and the times he'd rehearsed lifeboat drops had left him on the brink of vomiting. There was a lurch, but not his guts, not yet: the oil platform. Something had given way, most likely the leg they had been trying to reinforce. He peered through the hatch and saw the deck of the oil platform tilting towards the sea as the supports folded beneath it. Then a hard jolt and the tilt was halted. Jane reached out and hit the release button, but nothing happened. He punched it again and again. No reaction. It would need to be released manually, from the outside.

He unbuckled his harness and went to the porthole. 'Maybe the sea will wrench us clear,' he said, 'when the platform gives way.'

He looked back at Stopper, who had freed himself and was spinning the wheel of the hatch.

'What are you doing?'

Stopper stopped and slowly turned around as if addressing a fool. 'Uncoupling the boat,' he said.

'But it needs to be done on deck.'

Stopper gestured at the hatch. 'I know.'

'But . . .' Jane had been about to say you'll die and had to stop himself. Stopper was in shock. He wasn't thinking straight.

'I know,' said Stopper. 'I'm not going with you. I'll set you free.'

'What do you fucking mean, you're not going? We're a team. I'm taking you off this platform. Now sit down and buckle up, or I swear' – he unsheathed the fire extinguisher from the wall – 'I'll deck you stone cold with this cunt.'