“He’s got a pulse now!”

The voice seems to come from very far away.

A wrenching sensation rips through my chest. Liquid spews out of my mouth. I sputter and cough, then gasp for air. Hands push me onto my side as more water gushes out of me, then roll me onto my back again once the coughing and vomiting subside. My eyes open. I see Evan and Andrea crouched over me.

“You with me, Noah?” Evan asks.

I cough and sputter some more. I’m not dead. I’m supposed to be dead. I deserve to be dead.

“You were under for over two minutes. Can you hear me? Blink if you can hear me.”

I blink and nod.

“Are you OK?”

“No,” I say between more coughs. “I’m on the deck when I should be under the water.”

I hack out a laugh. Evan slaps me across the face. Hard.

“Bullshit,” he says. “Don’t you joke about that.”

“No joke,” I say through a series of coughs. “Let me go back.” I try to rise. “It was nice down there. She was down there.”

His strong hand pushes me back down.Evan is strong, but I’m faster, desperate, and slippery. If I can twist just right, I think I can get out of his grip. I take a swing at his face and feel my fist connect with his cheek. His grip falters and I’m almost free. I scramble toward the railing just a couple of meters away.

“Stop,” Andrea croaks.

The sound of her voice is slurred and broken, profoundly wrong on every level. That’s the first time I’ve ever heard her say a word. It hits me harder than Evan’s slap. I fall to the deck and stop resisting as Evan pins me down again. A memory surfaces of Father’s notes saying that she should be able to talk again if she wants to. I guess he was right.

I give up and lay back down.

“OK.” I say.

“We all done trying to do stupid shit?” he asks.

I look up at him. He’s not giving in on this. I nod.

“Good. Now, are you all right?” Evan asks.

“Yeah, super.”

“Is your implant still working? It’s got diagnostics.”

“Yeah, probably,” I answer. “The console came back up, anyway,”

“Hold on a second, I need a cable,” he says. “Andrea, do know where—no, nevermind, I know right where it is. Hold him here.”

He waits a moment while I feel my limbs bound by invisible forces. I don’t need to turn on the overlay to know what her bots are doing. Once Evan is sure I can’t move, he lets me go and sprints to the cabin. I hear the click of one of the waterproof supply cases being opened.

Andrea sits down next to me and puts her hand firmly on my chest with a warning look. Not like I could move if I wanted to. Why am I so small? All there is of me is just this stupid human body. I feel like I’ve had all my limbs amputated. I let my head loll to the side to cough out more water and notice the layer of dark dust on the deck. How long did he say I was under? Two minutes? Long enough that all my bots lost connection and lobotomized themselves. Andrea’s warning look fades, her expression melting into pure sadness.

“I really am sorry about Jeff,” I whisper. “I know how wrong that was.”

Andrea turns away, tears starting to flow down the sides of her cheeks. Evan returns with a small black cable in one hand and one of the white boxes we use for medical bots in the other. Andrea turns away from him and wipes her tears on the sleeve of the hoodie she’s wearing.

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“Have you checked your brain yet?” Evan asks.

“It’s clearly working well, man,” I say, trying to smile but only managing a grimace. “I’m making good life choices now. I haven’t attempted suicide in minutes.”

“Too soon, brother. Shut up while I check you.”

He finds my satchel still laying on the deck where I dropped it. He fished out my processing appliance, plugs the cable into it and then into his own. A live brain scan pops up in the air between us as he puts my implant into diagnostic mode. It’s low on oxygen all around, but it doesn’t look like any significant parts died off. As reds turn to yellows, everything appears to be starting to get back to normal. Evan stares into space for a long time, clearly doing a more thorough check.

After several minutes, he nods, apparently satisfied.

“Now, let’s make sure you don’t get pneumonia. Try to hold still as much as you can.” He opens the medical box. “I’m going to get as much water out of your lungs as I can.”

I feel a weird sensation as the bots flood into my mouth. It gets worse when they start flowing out through my mouth and nose. Holding still isn’t going to happen. I sneeze and cough, then cough and sneeze a lot more. I don’t move much though, since Andrea still has me bound. Finally the sensation fades, and I see the tiny bots file back into the box where they’ll sterilize themselves back to a perfect clean. Once they’re all in there, Evan seals the box back up.

“See? I’m fine.” I say, trying again to sit up. Andrea loosens me just enough to let me get into a sitting position, but I can’t move more than that. “How did you even know I jumped?”

He waves up at the bridge deck of the cat. “There’s a man overboard alarm built into this thing. I didn’t even know about it until it went off.”

Damn that clever dev team, thinking of everything. I look longingly out at the waves. I could have been done. I could have been free. I swear, for a minute down there I saw Mom’s face. Probably just the delusion of a dying man, a last burst of neural activity before I lost consciousness.

“You’ll have to thank Chuck and Marcus next time you talk to them,” I say. “Or blame them, depending on how you’re feeling about me around then.”

“I guess that all depends on whether you want to sucker punch me again next time I’m trying to save your life.”

“Hey, you hit me first. I was just minding my own business, trying to finish a little midnight swim you rudely interrupted.”

He snorts out something that’s almost a chuckle. He finally seems satisfied that I’m not in immediate danger of getting worse and disconnects my device from his.

“Hey, give me a minute alone with Andrea, would you?” I ask.

“Only if you promise not to jump again,” he says.

“Not in the next few minutes, at least,” I promise. “Besides, she can obviously stop me better than you can.”

He shakes his head. I can’t tell if he’s mad, or sad, or just tired. It’s hard for me to read emotions these days without the vitals that the bots show me. He heads into the cabin without another word. Andrea’s firm bonds still hold me against the deck.

“I really am sorry about Jeff,” I whisper again. “I know how wrong that was.”

Her face turns away from me for what seems like forever.

“Keep a secret for me, please,” I ask her. “One you can’t tell anyone ever.”

She turns and looks at me. More tears roll down her cheeks. She nods slowly.

“Father didn’t kill my mom. Not really. He just made her mad and she had a car accident driving angry. I thought he did it. I was so sure for so long. I found out the truth the day before we killed him. but my broken brain lost it. I couldn’t remember it until it was too late. He killed other people, but he didn’t kill her.”

She cries harder.

“I deserve to die for what I’ve done. For Father, and for how I wrecked Jeff. I know that,” I tell her. “I’ll jump again now if you want.”

She shakes her head emphatically.

“Then I’ll do whatever you want me to do,” I promise.

I feel the invisible threads holding me to the deck let go. She reaches over and takes my hand, holding it.

“I’m so sorry,” I say again. I’m crying now, too.

She pulls me close to her, embracing me.

“So sorry,” I repeat, over and over. She holds me for a long time. When she finally releases me, she gives me a long look, then a nod.

“Thanks,” I say.

I feel empty, but different than my normal dead emptiness. Now I feel like an infested wound that’s just been drained.

Andrea gets up, then helps me to my feet. I stumble a little as she escorts me to the cabin. Evan doesn’t say a word. I get a better look at his face. I don’t think he’s mad now, just worried. They give me a few minutes to get cleaned up in the bathroom, then march me into the bedroom. Evan tucks me into the center of the bed, then lays on one side of me on top of the blanket. Andrea climbs over both of us and gets on top of the blanket on the other side of me, laying there on her side with her back against my arm. I’m pinned in the middle by the covers. Without any bots, I don’t think I could get out even if I wanted to.

The warmth of their bodies brings back memories of Mom, more of them that I thought were gone forever. Old memories, when Mom would tuck me in and lay on top of the covers like this while she read me a story.

Mom, I’m sorry I failed you so badly. Please, help me to be a better man.