Chapter 5: Substratum Surge

"It's not working," Ryder gasped, sinking to her knees before the gravity well's controls. "I'm not even sensing an echo this time," she added. The effort of trying to use the tech was still taxing, but it appeared that at least without power her body didn't react so violently; at that moment though, she would have welcomed any amount of agony if it meant getting out.

Trapped. Every time Ryder looked around and saw the encroaching darkness she was reminded of the fact; it seemed to reflect that void in her mind where SAM was supposed to be. Enough time had passed that the reality of that lifeless black was sinking in; her sense of time was utterly skewed, but fatigue had finally overtaken them and they had taken turns sleeping, so Ryder estimated that at least a day had passed since the structure shut down completely. She itched to talk, to fill the silence with the sound of her voice, but she was afraid that it would only emphasize what was missing. Even with Akksul there she felt alone – maybe especially with him there, considering who he was – but she wasn't willing to give in to the feeling. I'll stop trying to get out when I die, she thought fiercely, but at the same time she couldn't suppress the despair she felt quite as effectively as when the lights were still on.

"Try again," Akksul commanded, huddled next to the heat lamp Zivrel had provided, tinkering with something. He had been at it for hours now, barking the same command left and right whenever Ryder took a break or seemed to be more than ten paces from the gravity well.

Eyeing the man reproachfully, Ryder crossed her legs and hugged herself, deliberately not trying again. Beyond an initial burst of anger and demands that she start this fruitless endeavor of trying till she keeled over in exhaustion, the former Roekaar leader had been remarkably quiet, fingers deftly taking that thing apart or rearranging its components. To all appearances Akksul was completely immersed in his activity, but during quite a few of her numerous attempts at the well she had heard gaps of silence behind her when she was sure his eyes were on her. Whether that was to watch her 'progress' or to watch her for some other reason, she had no idea, but it certainly made her dwell on him a little too much.

Especially when she paused to really look at him; while he was absorbed as he was now, she couldn't help but wonder at how different he looked. It wasn't really a physical change, the angles of his tattooed face were the same as ever, though the tightness in his jaw seemed to have loosened, but rather his gray-blue eyes seemed somehow deeper, haunted by some memory, and that changed him. She wanted very much to ask him about what had happened to him; she saw only benefit in helping Akksul of all people put aside his animosity towards all aliens. For one thing, she suspected he was the only hope of stopping Zivrel and the reborn Roekaar movement without a lot of bloodshed, and for another, she couldn't help but feel compassion for what she knew of his story; as intriguing as the challenge was, though, Ryder also suspected that she was the last person he would let in like that. All the same, she wanted to do it, now more than ever, seeing that expression on his face.

"What are you doing?" she asked curiously, leaning backwards to get a glimpse of the device he held.

"Why do you keep asking?" Akksul demanded, giving her a flat look.

Ryder let out a breath of frustration. It seemed that every time she opened her mouth he reflexively turned into the Roekaar again; she had to fight to steer him towards his more sensible side. Still, she had glimpsed what lay hidden beneath that bitter contempt and it intrigued her much more than she was ready to admit. Turning her back on him again wordlessly, she was reminded of an uncomfortably pleasant fleeting dream she had had about the man during the night. It hadn't been anything serious, but they had discovered something and they had shared a moment of joy at the discovery; Ryder rather thought that it was the loneliness talking out of her, especially feeling as vulnerable as she did without SAM, but there was that side of him… She hadn't dreamed those times when he had forgotten about hating her and her species.

"Do you intend to wait until we starve?" Akksul asked pointedly.

Ryder gritted her teeth, stood and tried again. They had at least a month's worth of rations, maybe even more if they restricted themselves a little, but she had no desire to argue about it. Almost instantly her fingers began to cramp, and her head began to ache the harder she tried to get that sluggish flow of energy moving again, but she kept focusing anyway. She had a vague sense of the machinery she was trying to operate that became sharper every time she tried, that alone made it worth the effort, but she was also growing increasingly impatient with the futility of her attempts. No matter how clearly she sensed the tech, it didn't give her the power to wield it. Finally, the strain was growing to be too much and she let go, dropping her hand and walking away on unsteady legs. She approached one of the containers across from Akksul and sank down onto it, placing her head between trembling hands.

"Try again!" Akksul snapped angrily. "The Moshae's life depends on me getting out of here, I won't be trapped because of your idleness!"

"It's not working, Akksul, you're going to have to accept that fact," she said, punctuating her words with a glare as dropped her hands.

Akksul snorted. "The only guarantee that we won't escape is if you stop trying. But maybe I should have expected you to give up when you're not handed the solution."

"Why don't you take a turn if that's all it takes?" Ryder demanded. "The Moshae once told me you were her most promising student – well, prove it!"

"I have tried," Akksul replied irritably. "My abilities far surpass anyone else's, but they're not without boundaries." His eyes narrowed. "Unlike you, I didn't take shortcuts to learn what I know, it would take me twice as long to do it."

"In other words – your words – you're useless," Ryder said bitingly.

"Prove me wrong that you're not," he replied with hot eyes, but his tone was surprisingly subdued compared to the angry outburst Ryder was expecting. Ryder wasn't about to believe she had actually managed to hurt his feelings, but all the same, she regretted her hasty words.

She sighed tiredly. "If I just had SAM, I'm sure we could…"

"You don't have your AI. Get used to it," Akksul cut in harshly.

"I can't get used to it," she said, trying not to reveal the anguish his comment sparked. She couldn't just let go of hope and admit that SAM was gone for good, facing that would be admitting to the fact that they were going to die down here and she was not ready to do that. Her tongue didn't seem to agree, however. "How could I get used to it? You understand that the only reason Zivrel used me was because of SAM? How do you expect me to get used to it when…" she bit her lip hard to stop herself from going on.

Well, maybe she was already feeling pretty hopeless, but Akksul had no need to know just how hopeless and empty she was beginning to feel. She trembled with the effort, though; a part of her understood that unleashing her anxiety was exactly what she needed at that moment, but she couldn't believe Akksul the right person to do it with. Except that she had no one else, maybe never would have anyone else. She met his eyes for a moment, uncertainly allowing herself to at least communicate her feelings with her eyes; to her surprise, he seemed to reflect her feelings for a brief instant before the contempt returned.

"Does complaining about it help anything?"

"I never claimed it did," Ryder gritted her teeth. "Nor was I complaining!"

Akksul set down what he had been working on, shifting his weight to face her fully. "Is that the only thing that you are good for? Being a host to an AI?"

"No, of course not," Ryder answered, perturbed by the question. She was very attached to SAM, but SAM certainly didn't define her, not even as a Pathfinder; the AI's enhancements and insight were invaluable, but at every turn all the decisions were ultimately hers, she chose their path and she forged a way forward for her people and to help the angara.

"You're reliant on it."

Ryder bit back the denial that came to her lips and she considered. "SAM is important to what I do," she said finally. "Regardless, in this situation I'm not exaggerating when I say that I simply don't have the capacity to exert this much power. Besides, the attempt would probably kill me," she muttered. Akksul blinked at that, clearly startled that she was making the effort despite that fact.

"You humans are puzzling," Akksul shook his head. "You keep expecting me to change my feelings about aliens, yet all you seem to do is use others, your AI is no different. What could your people gain from sacrificing yourself to save the Moshae?"

"Again, you mean?" Ryder asked frostily. "Do you honestly think I would kill myself to gain something for the Initiative?"

"Clearly," Akksul replied. "So what do I have to offer you to make that well work?" he asked grimly.

Ryder stared at him, suddenly understanding. "You're… admitting you can't do it," she said, astonished.

Akksul flinched slightly, but he didn't deny it. Instead he said, "What will it take, human?"

"Why can't you trust your experience with me?" Ryder asked.

"My experience?" Akksul asked, glowering. "My experience is that your people have either muscled their way everywhere or manipulated their way into every angaran world, nothing I've learned about your people has suggested that are capable of doing any better than the kett in the long run, so my experience is that your kind needs something better than mere survival or kindness to motivate them."

"Your experience with me, Akksul, not 'my people' or whatever other arbitrary category you want to shove all of us into," Ryder retorted, clenching fists in her lap.

"You are one of those people, whether or not you want to admit it," Akksul said.

"Who exactly are you posing for down here? Do you have Roekaar stuffed up your sleeve you're trying to impress?"

Akksul smiled humorlessly. "Am I categorizing? Or are you unable to distinguish me from my movement because I speak truths you do not want to hear?"

"Like any of that matters down here!" Ryder shouted. "It's just you and me, Akksul, until we die."

"I will not die here," he leaned forward, glaring, but abruptly the glare faded from his eyes and his eyes left hers. They didn't leave her, but he seemed to be at least partly focusing inward, judging by his grimace. "I will not let you die, either." He locked gazes with her again.

Ryder blinked at him. "Why not?" she asked, despite herself.

"Because that is what I offer in exchange for your trying harder," he said.

Try harder? "While you do what exactly?" she demanded, jumping to her feet. "All you've been doing is sit around there snapping at me to keep running my head against a wall with that thing," she jerked her head at the well, crossing her arms.

"I've been trying to modify a power cell," he frowned.

Ryder hesitated. "To kick-start it? It's a long shot," she snorted, then added judiciously, "it might work. But I've had even more experience with using dormant RemTech than you, don't you think putting my mind to use with that is more productive than trying to do something we know doesn't work?"

"As if you knew enough about our technology," Akksul sneered, but it appeared a little forced to Ryder. "This is far more advanced than anything your Initiative has."

"You still believe that after what you've seen me do?" Ryder demanded. She wasn't sure he actually did any longer, but as exasperating as he was, he would never admit to the fact aloud.

"Do I have a reason to believe otherwise?" Akksul also stood, either feeling at a disadvantage sitting beneath her or trying to loom over her himself. Unfortunately it was effective, if not in the way he intended probably. Again she noticed just how tall he was, then grew irritated with herself. This was not the time to be noticing things like that.

"Akksul, you have seen what I can do even without SAM," she said, then stopped abruptly, blinking at him. Was he…? No, it was impossible. Now that she thought their conversation through, though, no matter how she looked at it, it was as if he had designed it to goad her. Perhaps he really was trying to motivate her by provoking her; she wasn't sure if that made everything he had said better or worse. How could she trust what he said, or know when he was being honest or just prodding at her? Glaring up into those startlingly deep eyes she thought the man was perplexing, utterly irritating and still somehow fascinating despite everything.

"I saw you kill a bot with remarkably little effort, what is stopping you now?"

"No power," she said flatly.

"Well, then, let's find power," Akksul said.

"That's the first sensible thing you've said so far," Ryder replied coolly, but out of the corner of her eye she studied him as he set about preparing himself, donning the few pieces of armor he had taken off while he worked, trying to puzzle out if the man had somehow manipulated her into this course of action. Come to think of it, she had instantly gone along with his first instinct to keep trying to make the well work; she didn't think she would have rejected the idea of going back into the nodes, but Akksul clearly had assumed she would and forced her to come to the conclusion that they needed to find power. Or am I imagining all of this and he really is like that? she wondered, not quite sure what 'that' was, but knowing at least that it was intriguing, in a completely maddening way.

As soon as he was done, Ryder snatched up her weapon from where she had laid it while she tried to make the well's controls work and moved towards the entrance deeper into the building. Akksul slowed them a little with his limp, but he seemed to have regained quite a bit of strength sitting in front of the lamp for so long, Ryder noted with relief. He had slept in front of it, too, while she chose to sleep on the opposite side of a two crates; she had also spent a long time peering at him through the gap between those crates, wishing for some reassurance that she knew she wouldn't get from the former Roekaar leader, but at least the warmth of the light had its own soothing effect that eventually helped her get to sleep, even muted as it was in her patch of shade.

"It's so quiet," she said, shivering as they entered the corridor, turning their lights on.

Akksul glanced at her, but there wasn't really anything to say to that, so they moved forward in silence. It only took them a short time to reach the first node, which was so dark that Ryder was sure the darkness was actually trying to smother their lights, but there was something else about that place that bothered her. She turned around slowly, tensing as if for an attack, but finding no enemies to shoot. Tentatively they approached the corridor that lead to the room with the snake bots, ghosting along as silently as they could, though the light would surely give them away before their footsteps would. Still, the mood of the place demanded it somehow. As they reached the room, all they found was silence, and again something made Ryder's shoulder blades itch with a sense of wrongness. As before, she turned around slowly, shivering slightly at the gaping hole in the ground, void of snakes or anything else, but with a palpable sense of emptiness that only clung to something that was meant to be emptied.

Abruptly she realized what was bothering her. "Akksul, look," she stepped closer to the side of the room.

Akksul followed her gaze and paled. "No liquid," he breathed, and for the first time since they had been trapped he looked afraid.

"No wonder nothing works!" Ryder exclaimed, dismayed. "There's no ferrofluid in the conduits… this place didn't just go dormant it's completely shut down."

"I can't accept that," Akksul shook his head violently. "We need to go deeper. To the rooms we haven't seen before."

"You'll get no argument from me," Ryder said fervently. If there was even the slimmest chance that there was something deeper in they hadn't seen before, she needed to know as much as he did. The alternative was too terrible to contemplate; no SAM, no power and not even Zivrel and her Roekaar had any way to extract them, though she almost wished Zivrel would never return even if it meant their deaths. If she ever did, that would mean the Moshae's assassination had succeeded and that was one piece of news neither Akksul nor she would be able to digest.

They made slow progress, Ryder searching for bullet holes she had marked doorways with to get their bearings while ignoring Akksul's grumbles that his sense of direction was perfectly fine. Since first arriving they had only explored a handful of nodes, but this was the first time they ventured through the archway that was in a straight line from the gravity well room. It lead them to another node with a handful of doors, which was expected, but instead of exploring each room clockwise as they had done before, they paused at each archway, discussing the likelihood that a control center of some sort would be beyond; Ryder maintained that they should keep going straight, it made sense that all the important rooms were connected along the same axis, while Akksul argued that he had never seen such logic applied to any Remnant structure. Finally, Ryder won the argument by simply striding down the center corridor and only slowing once she was sure Akksul would follow so he could catch up.

"Do you hear something?" Ryder asked a few minutes later, pausing to listen.

"Fluid, like running water," Akksul said with barely masked excitement, placing a palm against the wall to rest his injured leg for a moment; it must have really pained him to openly display his unsteadiness in front of her. He grimaced when he glanced at her, knowing now that Ryder had been right about the direction; he didn't say anything aloud, but there was much less hostility in his eyes now compared to when they had argued about it.

"Maybe deeper in there is still an active room," Ryder said enthusiastically. "That must be a control center, it's the only thing that makes sense, that would be the last place to lose power!"

"We should have come this way a lot sooner," Akksul said, not quite glaring accusation at her, but at her flat look – this direction had been her idea, after all – he looked away with a slightly abashed expression. Well, he wasn't a complete fool, but still Ryder was surprised he would even admit to it that much. He pushed away from the wall and followed.

"Can you walk?" Ryder asked, eyeing him as he continued to favor his left leg.

"I'm not as fragile as you think, human," he grumbled.

"I didn't say you were," Ryder said. "That doesn't mean you don't occasionally need help."

Akksul snorted. "From you?"

"No, we'll just wait here for as long as it takes Zivrel to figure out how to get at the Moshae, she'll come back and you can call up and ask for a Roekaar to keep you company instead of me," Ryder said irritably, then took a deep, calming breath. Snapping at him wouldn't help change his mind about her variety of alien, but the man could have provoked a stone.

For a wonder, Akksul echoed her sigh, looking away. "I doubt any who follow her have the intellect to help me. I know those faces, their main skills involved brute force, the first to disband were the scientists."

Ryder closed her mouth with a snap when she realized she was gaping at him. "That… sounded remarkably like a compliment," she said a little faintly, footsteps slowing to a halt. Was he toying with her?

Akksul also paused and grimaced, but when he met her eyes he gave her a reluctant nod.

Ryder blushed, feeling utterly off balance. She cleared her throat. "Let's move on," she said, brushing aside hair from her face reflexively, as if she could smooth away the embarrassment.

The man definitely could twist Ryder's mind into knots; the only thing she couldn't decide was if it was intentional or not. Briefly she thought about giving him a return compliment, but when she looked at him she discarded the idea immediately. He kept surprising her, but the one consistent trait he had was turning sour on her whenever she seemed to lower her guard and speak in more friendly terms. They moved forward in painful silence, which Ryder increasingly felt as uncomfortable while Akksul seemed to be in as much ease as he could be, considering the pain of his injury and the oppressive quality of the air, but before long Ryder's least concern was the awkwardness between them; the sounds of rushing liquid were building in power as they began descending.

They kept to the pattern of going through whichever door was straight across, but several times now the corridors between the nodes sloped downward. Clearly they were going to the depths of the Remnant structure in a more literal sense than they had initially thought they would, but still every corridor lead into yet another node identical to the last, with their rigid, dead pillars and a handful of doors, where the number of doors seemed to be the only variation to the theme. When they finally reached something truly different however, Ryder wished she had never listened to Akksul, wished that she was blissfully ignorant of anything beyond what had been obvious on the surface of their situation, trapped and maybe even forgotten in the dark.

Water. The corridor across from them was filled with rushing water slowly gurgling upwards, by millimeters to be sure, but inexorably swallowing the node they had entered. Before either one of them could voice their despair or horror, a fountain of water gushed from somewhere between the black pillars, drenching both of them in ice. Gasping for air and struggling to rush out again, the pair slipped and slid their way up the slope to the previous node. Immediately Ryder swiveled around and stared panting at the archway that lead down, afraid to see more water already rising to swallow yet another circuit of the building into its cold depths, but thankfully the moment never came; the flooding really was a slow process, but there was no mistaking it: it was deliberate.

Behind her Akksul paced up and down, leaving a trail of wet footprints. Ryder opened her mouth to say something, but looking at his face she held her council. Whatever he had thought before, the former Roekaar leader was clearly struggling with the realization that unless a miracle happened, they were definitely going to die, much sooner than their supply of rations was good for. Abruptly he went through one of the archways to the side and Ryder followed with a grimace, but she needed to see, too. Every room was the same: a gaping hole where likely hundreds, if not thousands, of bots had been unleashed.

"We need to get back," Ryder said finally, breaking the silence.

"Get back to what?" Akksul demanded, glaring at her.

"I don't know, but it's better than waiting to drown!" Ryder snapped. She turned and left him there, though she was relieved to hear his footsteps behind hers; now more than ever she couldn't face being completely alone. Once they finally reached the gravity well again some time later, Akksul rounded on Ryder.

"How could you let this happen?" he growled.

"Me? It was you who couldn't sit still!" she glared right back at him.

Akksul snarled. "All you could do was speak empty promises that your AI would fix things! Your AI would figure out a way past Zivrel's device – and now in a few days only our corpses will float up to the surface."

"I had to save your life using what power remained to me," Ryder glared, taking off her outer armor and standing closer to the lamp just as her teeth began to chatter. "Then you had to go running off, again, where you triggered those sparks that took SAM away completely, well congratulations Akksul, you brought this on us!"

Akksul strode up to her, ignoring his own doused clothes. "Without me to save you, that room would have killed you," he said angrily, but there was a surprising amount of raw anguish behind that anger. "None of that matters now, if your people had any notion of doing things right, this would never have been possible in the first place! The Moshae's blood is the price of your ineptitude as a race. Now leave me be to my thoughts."

"So you fail to save her and it's my people's fault?" she stared at him, stepping to block him when he tried to go past her.

"What use is that thing if someone like Zivrel can snap your connection like a thread?"

"I've never met a man more arrogant and self-centered than you, I mean, how can you live with yourself?" Ryder demanded, irritated the way his granite eyes and dusky blue face suddenly stirred her appreciation even while just the sight of it provoked her ire beyond reason.

"Nor have I met anyone so utterly oblivious," Akksul snarled. "You have an AI in your head and controlling your body," his eyes appraised her, as if wondering where the technology showed. His eyes locked with hers again, full of fire. "You could be so much more than you are and you waste it! But then, I expected nothing better from your kind. Now get out of my way!"

"You think I'm wasting my potential? You want a taste of my AI and see how just how I use it?" she scowled, stepping closer to him. She wanted so much to slap him senseless with the full force of SAM's enhancements behind it to send him sprawling, but she restrained herself. The connection wasn't there anymore, but even if it had been to the degree that it was when Zivrel trapped them, it hadn't been nearly strong enough for her to dare risk snapping it by drawing on it too much for such a frivolous reason; still, the look on his face was worth it. "What would you do differently, since you've apparently got it all worked out?"

"I would have gotten us out of here by now!" Akksul retorted, looming over her threateningly, but there was a split second of hesitation before he spoke. It wasn't fear, she was sure, the man was too reckless for that; the way his eyes lingered – was her closeness making him uncomfortable?

"And why didn't you get us out of here if it's that easy?" Ryder asked pointedly, stepping even closer. If it put him off balance, so much the better; she was not letting this argument end with yet another smug recitation of how she validated his resentment of aliens. "You're supposedly an expert! What use is your knowledge if all you can do is moan about my shortcomings?"

"Just stop talking!" Akksul growled. "What do I have to do for you to leave me alone, woman?"

Ryder let out a humorless laugh. "You're not going anywhere without me and you're certainly not dodging the question!"

"Are you trying to provoke me?" Akksul asked, leaning closer, fingers flexing at his sides.

"Maybe I am!" she replied, tilting her chin up defiantly. If he could do it to her, why couldn't she do the same to him? Maybe then he would actually do something instead of just expecting her to pull a miracle out of thin air.

Akksul snarled but a change seemed to come over him as he studied her face and without warning, he kissed her, hands seizing her arms almost painfully to pull her near. Her fingernails dug into his arms as she gripped him back, but she didn't pull away; in fact, after a moment she let go and snaked arms around his neck to keep him from pulling away, but he didn't seem to have any such intention, lips only leaving hers to bite her neck, fingers tangling into her hair.

"I thought you hated me," she said and when he pulled back, their eyes locked. His gaze was clear and intense, filled with a stark desire that only abated for a brief moment of curious self-reflection.

"Maybe I don't," he said, bending to kiss her again, unexpectedly toppling them over onto his cot.