It was a beautiful bloody dawn, ripe and red and just leering over the watery horizon. It was days like this that made you happy to be alive and about to make other people dead.
“Just so you know,” said Sawyer, “your efforts at denying fate are doomed to inevitable failure.”
Their opponent shifted from foot to foot, clutching the rail at the edge of the tower.
“There is nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide. We’re miles and miles from any other form of shelter. And at the snap of my fingers, this tower will swarm with very pointy guards. Beneath you is a gargantuan pool filled with many highly specialized murdering organisms I have created with my own two hands and several gene sequencers. At last, I HAVE YOU RIGHT WHERE I WANT YOU!”
The seagull yawked twice, lifted its tail and shat once, and took off.
“Damnit,” said Sawyer. It had been so very nearly satisfying too.
Maybe they really were getting lonely.
Relocating to the central Pacific had seemed like such a good idea at the time. Any moron who’d ever so much as smelled a secret lair knew you wanted to minimize the number of meddling fools that could stumble upon your projects while maximizing the unharvested resources available.
But there was a fine but true distinction between a minimal number of meddling fools and a negative number of meddling fools, and Sawyer was beginning to feel that it was a very significant thing. A secret lair was all well and good, but an unknown lair was the loneliest place they could imagine.
They sighed as they looked down at the sea. Far, far below the fins of their marine patrol circled; above them the tower tapered to a spire, then a needle. And around them, nothing but the big beautiful empty horizon and a tiny dot.
Oh. That was new.
***
The long-form helioradar had already probed the intruder thoroughly by the time Sawyer got to it: a tiny and malformed dinghy laden with a single bedraggled and wildly hairy occupant. They slumped in the midst of a stupor, baked under the sun and desiccated by the waves.
Dead or alive? If it was one or the other it was only barely. Still, they were a witness. A secret base had to stay secret, right?
The gull landed next to the motionless form, pecked at it three times, then had its neck snapped and its body messily devoured.
“Ah!” said Sawyer. Still alive then, and ferociously practical. Maybe it would be a waste to exterminate a witness here. Yes, it would be a waste. Perhaps they could be a minion. It had been ages and ages and ages since Sawyer had a minion, and that had only been the grad student assigned to them back at the university. No killer instinct, no loyalty.
A minion wouldn’t go amiss.
So Sawyer’s hand slid away from the evaporating ray and towards the tidal manipulator, and with a steady chug and whirr the currents bent to their whim and sent the drifting lifeboat through the floating perimeter locks and through the sharks and in and in towards the inevitable maw of their secret lair, where everything was seamlessly sterilized by waves and waves of antiseptic mists. There was delicate equipment in there, and Sawyer didn’t want any of it getting covered in castaway cooties.
***
The castaway opened her eyes again six hours later in the medical casket, wrapped in some nanocarbon chains and a profound network of medical equipment. Her skin was flushed with rejuvenating fluids and before her stood Sawyer, whose legs were starting to hurt and who really wished they’d brought a chair or something because the urge to fidget was getting strong and their legs hurt.
First impressions, first impressions. So long since they’d had to make them. Dramatic pause first. Was that long enough? Was it too long? Better start.
“Hello,” said Sawyer. “Wait, shit. Ignore that. Welcome to my secret larre. I mean lair. Shit. Sorry, it’s been a long time since I talked to anyone.”
The castaway stared. It was a good stare. Flat, heavy, leaden. Silence poured out of it like blood. Sort of like the faint bloodstains on her cheeks and chin and lips.
“I suppose it’s been a long time for you too,” said Sawyer. That must be why their voice felt so tinny.
“The last thing I got to eat was a raw seagull,” said the castaway.
“Oh! Yeah. Yes. I saw that.”
The incredibly tiny beeping of the mechanized IV station was the loudest sound in the universe.
“How’d it taste?”
“I didn’t notice.”
“Ahahaha that’s great. Just great. Hey! How’d you like a job?”
The blink that emerged on her face was the slowest ever measured. Each lid closed like steel shutters, and raised twice as grindingly. “A what?”
“A job! I need a minion. To ah you know um keep away the err secret agents. From my secret lair. This secret lair. Which is mine.”
“Where is it?”
“It’s secret. Nobody knows.”
“You want me to keep a place nobody knows about secret.”
“Yes!”
The castaway considered this. “Maybe.”
“Great. Wonderful! You’ll start tommmmmmokay then, how about, ah, I show you around first? Get to see the place! It’s great, great. Good location. Good view.”
The nanocarbon chains were loosed, the medicine was unlatched, and the castaway fell over.
“Oh right. Fixed the muscular atrophy but you might need a moment to get used to that. Want a cane?”
***
The castaway did not want a cane but she took one anyways.
“Top of the line stuff, top of the line,” said Sawyer as they descended the elevator shaft. “Lightweight but superdurable. And it’s neutrally buoyant! I made the whole tower out of it.”
“It’s rebar.”
“Lightweight but superdurable rebar! And down here’s where you get to see it in action, at the perimeter circumpool.”
The castaway peered over the waves. “That mesh wall?”
“Oh, the mesh only stretches above the surface for a few feet. Beneath it, that’s all Sawyer Alloy. Keeps the sharks in.”
“The sharks.”
“Oh yes! The sharks! Hang on a second, I’ve got some here, I’m certain – just the wrong pocket. Oh maybe the wrong pants, hah. Sorry. One second. Just….one more…second. Aha!”
Sawyer produced a small dried mackerel, overhanded it, and applauded happily as a smooth and streamlined head broke the water’s surface to snipe it before it even touched the waves.
“Lovely animals, just lovely. Two separate entirely original species, and they keep the trespassers out. If I had trespassers. Besides you. Who isn’t a trespasser. You know, I do more than just metallurgy out here: I’m a real dabbler in artificial marine ecologies. Do you like barnacles?”
“I’ve eaten them when I had nothing else.”
“Oh. Well, do you like eating them?”
“No.”
“These are intended to sink ships and they taste pretty bad, so you should like them.”
“Interesting.”
“Yes! I could talk all day about them but maybe another time. There’s plenty of that, right? Right. Right!” Sawyer slapped their hands together briskly. “Right! Let’s see the elevator shaft!”
“Again?”
“We were on our way to see this, so I didn’t really show you it.”
“It’s a big tube filled with tanks.”
“A very important big tube filled with tanks! Why, if its skin were ever punctured, the whole hydroferrocatalytic balance of the lair would be thrown off, and I’m sure you can imagine the results!”
The castaway shrugged.
“Well. Maybe another day?”
***
“Living quarters! This is where I sleep and eat and research.”
“And put me in caskets.”
“Don’t touch that panel; that activates the harpoon cannons, and I want to reserve ammunition. And yes, the medical room is here too.”
“The closet next to the fridge.”
“Oh, it’s part of the fridge unit. Why would I want to keep my delicate medicinal compounds exposed to the stifling heat of the atmosphere?”
“You keep them in with your food?”
“That has never caused a problem.” Except for the time with the marrow paste that had looked like mayonnaise, but Sawyer thought they could tell her about that later, when she’d accepted the job. It would be good for her to avoid making THAT mistake; they weren’t sure the toilet could take another round of abuse.
“And of course the view is lovely from here,” said Sawyer. Someone had to say something, obviously, or else it would get awkward. That would be terrible.
“Where is the view?”
“Out the window.”
“No. Where are we? Where is this?”
“Oh, we can go over that on the observation pinnacle.”
***
Sawyer really hoped the wind up there wasn’t spoiling the castaway on the whole notion of staying.
“Do you need a jacket?”
“Please.”
“Here, take mine. Take mine. Just don’t put your hand in that pocket, it has an omnilateral remote in it and you might mess with the lair’s settings. So! This is the navigation pane, and as you can see we’re somewhere in this GPS-blocked mesh here. Owe that to the counternav satellite my professor gifted me on graduation, a real peach of a thing to do. The roof can endoscope downwards to envelope the deck, if need be.”
“Why isn’t it down at all times?”
“Well,” said Sawyer. “It’s for intruders.”
“What kind?”
“You know. INTRUDERS. Secret agents. They’re always the ones that come stumbling into secret lairs. There haven’t been any yet. But there will be! Which is why I want you. To help me. With intruders?”
“How.”
“When they’re standing here, confronting me – they’re going to confront me, right. I explain my master plan to them.”
“Like…”
Sawyer realized that the disconcerting feeling that had been occupying their face for the past hour was probably embarrassment, and didn’t care for it. “Well. I’m working one out. Have to get your ducks in a row before you shoot for the moon, right? Right! And when I explain it –”
“Your master plan.”
“-right, when I explain my master plan to them, standing here, as they confront me, I press this button right there – on that pane? Disguised as a rivet. And it drops out this whole section of the balcony, and plunk they go! Down into the perimeter circumpool!”
The castaway squinted. “Which section of what balcony?”
“Are your eyes alright?” asked Sawyer anxiously. “I thought I flushed out all the salt and sun damage, but that solution was a little new and it worked alright on the seagulls but maybe”
“They’re fine. Just didn’t see where.”
“Oh, it’s over there.”
“Where?”
“There!”
“Where?”
“Here!”
“Right,” said the castaway. And she pushed the rivet.
***
Sawyer didn’t say a word. People don’t usually say a word when they’re that surprised.
But they did make a sound, which was something like “Erp.”
Then they hit the water, which made a lot more sound and a big splash.
“Blorb,” they continued. Smooth, seamless flesh circled them. Something frictionless and alive touched their legs. “Blorg! Cough. Bleagh.”
Somewhere above, just a fraction louder than their coughing, there was the slight hum of crisp, well-maintained machinery.
“Oh FUDGE,” said Sawyer. And then they were yanked underwater just as the harpoon cannons started up.
The meta-sharks surrounded them, thrashing them deeper and deeper and away from the nasty little barbs. One of the big females tugged at a release hatch and pulled the emergency oxygenator over to Sawyer’s panicking hands; a smaller specimen delicately dragged it over their face, only making a few cuts and nicks in the process.
“Blurb,” said Sawyer around the mask, which meant thank-you.
The meta-sharks understood. They understood better than Sawyer did, probably. They were so proud of them.
The harpoon cannons had stopped, which probably meant that the castaway was looking for bigger guns. She wouldn’t find any, of course – who needed bigger guns than harpoon cannons? – but she might find something else, like the electric matrix that could fry the surrounding waters for seven leagues, or the atmospheric launch controls that would convert the masking satellite into a very angry orbital ICBM or the flash-cloning command for the CATASTROPHE SQUID.
Well. Only one way out then.
Sawyer sighed into their mask as they unsheathed their quasi-shark.
***
The quasi-shark occupied a tricky metaphysical position relative to the rest of the perimeter circumpool’s occupants. On the one hand, it took up too much space; on the same hand, it also took up none at all, practically speaking.
On the other hand, it couldn’t breathe in water; on the first hand again it couldn’t breathe at all.
And finally and firstly it also wasn’t real, it was just persistent.
It was also Sawyer’s best friend, although they would never tell the meta-sharks that. It would make them sad.
So they only let the quasi-shark out for a couple of seconds, to avoid consequences, which was long enough for it to remove nine-tenths of the tower’s mass from sea level up in eleven-tenths of a bite.
“Blurb,” said Sawyer as the shark’s wavelength collapsed back into its sheath, which meant thank-you. The quasi-shark understood, doubtlessly, and probably always would have.
The meta-sharks also understood something rather different that had slipped Sawyer’s mind, which was why they each very gently grabbed a different limb and began to tow them away rapidly as the whole hydroferrocatalytic balance of the lair was thrown off, turning it inside out and upside down and then about seven hundred meters into the air and six thousand meters straight down.
***
Well.
That was that, then. Time to start over. Drat.
Still, Sawyer reflected, any day where you learned something was a good one. And today had been very educational.
A secret lair might be less lonely than an unknown lair, true, but a lair with true friends and pals was never lonely at all.
Also, they should really put biomonitors in their deathtraps. That ejection platform should never have worked on them, let alone the harpoon cannons.