She peered over the top of her makeshift barrier and saw that three sides of a metal square had been completely cut. Tabitha blinked and rapidly swept the seatback out of the way. She wasn’t simply going to be an observer at this point. Hell, no.
Bending to pick up her crowbar, her fingers easily found it. Her rudimentary tool would allow her to bang away, pry the metal from within, or whatever the freak else was necessary to help Spencer.
Seeing, through the small crack where his gloved fingers had wrapped around the mostly severed metal, that he was pulling outward, she added her strength and began banging away a foot lower than his hands. She was careful not to hit his fingers in her adrenaline infused enthusiasm, but…
…bending back the titanium skin was a lot harder than she’d imagined.
There was give, that was for sure, but the metal wasn’t surrendering without a fight, and…Frick.Tabitha was down to eight minutes of air remaining in her tanks.
Well, she wasn’t about to give in when they were so close.
Dropping the crowbar as being next to useless in her bulky, gloved hands, Tabitha braced her back against the still intact captain’s chair, and using the boots that were integral to her escape suit, began pounding her soles against the metal.
Bam. Bam. Bam.
Come on. Come on.
Bam. Bam. Bam.
She knew the physical strain was using up her remaining Nitrox faster than was judicious, but that would soon be a moot point, one way or another. If she could get to Spencer within the next couple minutes, his tank—although he too was expending a lot of energy—had to be good for another twenty-five minutes or so. If not…
She wouldn’t think about that.
Tabitha calculated quickly. Even with her sucking air from his tank via his auxiliary “octopus” regulator, they should still make it to the top with a few minutes to spare. Thank God they didn’t have to share a mouthpiece.
Unlike in the movies, there was almost no more buddy-breathing via passing one regulator back and forth. In the nineteen seventies, the popularity of the octopus—having been developed in the forties—gained traction, allowing for two regulators to be attached to a single diver’s tank. These days the ubiquitous yellow hose was a given, worn on the right side of a diver’s body where it was attached to their buoyancy compensator for quick retrieval.
But she was getting ahead of herself. Breathing from Spencer’s tank wasn’t on the tablequiteyet.
Tabitha was still entombed, although that was an unfortunate choice of words.
Bam. Bam. Bam.She kicked again. A couple more minutes ticked by.
Spencer was clearly using all his strength to bend the panel back from the outside, while Tabitha kicked and kicked.
Finally, an eight-inch gap was opened. Not big enough for Tabitha to fit through, but…
She met Spencer’s eyes through the opening, and ran a hand across her throat, letting him know she was pretty much out of time.
His face disappeared.
Where…?
Spencer visage was back not five seconds later. He’d maneuvered the octopus from where it hung on his BCD, flipped it over his right shoulder, and was holding it out to her. He then mimicked her unzipping her suit and abandoning her head-cocoon in order to takehisoffering into her mouth.
Tabitha closed her eyes for a second to steel her nerves. Then without pausing again, and before she could overthink things, she sucked in a deep breath, grabbed her zipper, and…
…almost gasped as the cold water flooded in following her initial yank.
But Spencer was already in her face, pushing her now useless hood aside; handing her the mouthpiece which he’d kept pointed downward.
She quickly grabbed it and put it in her mouth, then rolled her tongue back to seal it while she pressed the purge button.
Done.
Blessed air filled her lungs.
She tried not to be greedy. They still had to get her out of the sub and up to the surface, sharing what air remained in Spencer’s tank. It would be tough, but…
