Quickly, Nailer slid along the wall, seeking better handholds. If he was lucky, maybe there was a ladder. He reached a bend in the pipe. It turned sharply downward and disappeared into the oil.

Nailer stifled a sob of frustration. He was going to die.

Don’t panic.

If he started crying he was screwed. He needed to think, not bawl like a baby, but already his mind felt drunk and scattered. The fumes were overwhelming. Nailer could see how this would end. He’d hang on for a little longer, inhaling more and more of the poisonous air, clinging like a bug to the wall, but eventually he’d get too tired and high, and he’d slip off.

How could he die in such a stupid way? This wasn’t even a storage tank. Just some room full of pooled waste oil. It was a joke, really. Lucky Strike had found an oil pocket on a ship and bought his way free. Nailer had found one and it was going to kill him.

I’m going to drown in goddamn money.

Nailer almost laughed at the thought. No one knew exactly how much oil Lucky Strike had found and smuggled out. The man had done it slow, over time. Sneaking it out bucket by bucket until he had enough to buy out his indenture and burn off his work tattoos. But he’d had enough left over to set himself up as a labor broker selling slots into the very heavy crews that he’d escaped. Just a little oil had done so much for Lucky Strike, and Nailer was up to his neck in the damn stuff.

“Nailer?”

The voice was faint, far away.

“Sloth!” Nailer’s voice cracked with relief. “I’m here! Down here! I fell through!” He kicked in his excitement and the oil rippled around him.

A bit of green light illuminated the gloom above. Sloth’s scavenge features peered through the duct hole, an LED smear on her forehead.

“Damn. You screwed big-time, Nailer?” she asked.

“Yeah. Big-time screwed.” He grinned weakly.

“Pima sent me in for you.”

“Tell her I need rope.”

A long pause. “Bapi won’t do it.”

“Why?”

Another long silence. “He wants copper. Sent me in for copper. Before the storm comes.”

“Just drop me a rope.”

“Gotta make quota.” Her glow face disappeared. “Pima sent stuff, case I found you. Case you needed help.”

Nailer grimaced. “You see a ladder anywhere?”

Another long pause as they both peered at the gloom with her phosphor green paint lighting. Nothing. No ladders. No doors. Just a rusty room filled with black murk.

“What’s wrong with you?” Sloth asked. “You broke something?”

Nailer shook his head before remembering she probably couldn’t see him well. “I’m swimming in oil. You tell Bapi I’m up to my neck in oil. Thousands of gallons. It’s worth his while to get me out. There’s a lot of oil for him here.”

Another pause.

“Yeah? A lot?”

Nailer realized with a chill that sly Sloth was calculating the advantages.

“Don’t think you can do a Lucky Strike,” he called up.

“Lucky Strike did it,” she responded.

“We’re crew,” Nailer said, trying to keep his voice from showing fear. “You tell Pima there’s oil. You tell her there’s a secret stash. If you don’t, I’ll haunt you like Jackson Boy and come back and gut you while you’re sleeping.”

Silence: Sloth, thinking.

Nailer felt a sudden wash of hatred for her. The skinny starved girl perched up there had all the power in the world to help or kill, to tell Bapi at least that there was something to be gained from Nailer’s survival, and yet there she sat.

He called up. “Sloth?”

“Shut up,” she said. “I’m thinking.”

“We’re crew,” he reminded her. “We swore blood oath.” But he knew the calculations she was making, her clever mind working the angles, sensing the great pool of wealth, the secret stash that she might pillage later, if Fates and the Rust Saint worked in her favor. He wanted to scream at her, to grab her and drag her down. Teach her what it felt like to die sucking oil.

But he couldn’t yell at her. Couldn’t piss her off. He needed her. Needed to convince her to help him survive.

“We’ll keep it secret,” he offered. “We can Lucky Strike together.”

Another pause, then she said, “You said yourself you’re swimming in it. Soon as anyone sees you, they know you found a pocket.”

He grimaced. Too damn smart. That was the problem with girls like Sloth. Too damn smart for his own good. “We’re crew,” he said again, but he suspected it was pointless. He knew her too well. Knew all of them too well. They’d all starved. They’d all talked about what they’d do if they ever found a Lucky Strike. And here Sloth had been given one. Chances like this didn’t just come along. Sloth had to make her gamble. It was her chance.

Please, he prayed. Please let her be good like Pima. Like Pima and her mom. Let her not be like Dad. Fates, please don’t let her be like Dad.

Sloth interrupted his whispered prayers. “Pima says I’m supposed to hook you up good. If I find you.”

“You found me.”

“Yeah. That’s for sure.” A rustling. “Here’s food and water.”

A shadow fell through the green glow of her forehead phosphor. It hit with a splash. Nailer could just see pale objects floating on the surface, starting to sink. He stretched for them, trying to keep his hand on the wall. Managed to snag a water bottle before it disappeared. Everything else was already gone. The blackness of the room closed in on him again as Sloth disappeared.

“Thanks for nothing!” he shouted after her, but she was already gone.

He had no idea if Sloth would actually report to Pima or if she’d just hurry back, dragging copper, determined to replace him and think of some way to claim the oil prize all to herself. For certain, she wouldn’t tell Bapi. Bapi would just call it light crew scavenge and keep it for himself.

That meant they had hours more copper work to prepare for the storm… and that meant he had hours to wait, even if Pima knew where he was and that he needed help.

With one slippery hand and his teeth, Nailer managed to open the plastic bottle and drink while he clung to the wall. He swished the first mouthful and spat it out, trying to clear the oil and gunk from his mouth, and then drank, hard and fast, gulping. Grateful. Unaware until the water was pouring into him how thirsty he’d been. He swallowed the rest greedily, then set the bottle floating in the blackness. If he died this would be the last thing of him on the surface.

A few scrabbling sounds drifted down from above, scraping and tearing.

“Sloth?”

The sound stopped, then started again.

“Come on, Sloth. Help me out.”

He didn’t know why he bothered. She had made her decision. As far as she was concerned, he was already a corpse. He listened as she busied herself with stripping out the rest of the copper. His fingers weakened. The oil crept up around his chin. Fates, he was tired. He wondered if Jackson Boy had also been betrayed by his crew. If that was why the licebiter hadn’t been found until a year later. Maybe someone had let him die on purpose.

You’re not going to die.

But he was lying to himself. He was going to drown. Without a ladder. Or a door-

Nailer’s heart suddenly beat faster.

If this was some room accidentally filled with oil, then there had to be doors. But they’d all be down below the surface. He’d have to dive down and risk not making it back up. Dangerous.

You’ll drown anyway. Sloth’s not going to save you.

That was the real truth. He could hang on for a little longer, getting weaker and weaker, but eventually his fingers would fail and he’d slip off.

You’re dead already.

It was a curiously liberating thought. He really had nothing to lose.

Nailer slid slowly along the wall, questing down into the murk with his toes, feeling for some bump or ledge that would tell him a door lay below. The first time, he found nothing, but the second, he let himself sink lower, oil lapping up around his jaw. His toes brushed something. He tilted his nose to the sky, letting the oil lap higher, up around his cheeks, closing around his mouth and nose.