Agoraphobia

[Maxspells]

1. Blood

A loud creaking rumbled through the hull as the vessel plunged into the black abyss. The man stood in front of the porthole, gazing into the endless dark. He did not stir. It had been six hours now. The vessel pressed onward, beginning its slow ascent. Twelve hours to go until Trelenje.

Footsteps echoed faintly as the crew shuffled about belowdecks. Hushed, frantic whispers floated up from the lower levels, occasionally drowned out by the sharp pinging of rhythmic sonar. Still, the man did not move. His eyes never left the glass.

His pupils were fully dilated now - coin-sized black circles swallowing the flaking hazel of irises once vibrant and filled with joy. He was tall, lanky, and stringy in build from years of malnutrition and the moon’s low gravity. His mariner’s coat, thick and warm despite being stained with soot and salt, helped conceal the corpse of a man he had become. He had ashed his bone-pipe hours ago but still occasionally drew on the tip, a habitual remnant of the man he used to be.

A young girl clung to his leg, sobbing quietly. She shivered, soaking his trousers with tears. Her grip tightened as the footsteps below grew louder.

Eventually, a voice broke the silence.

“Bloody ‘ell… There you are, Tess,” said a head peeking through the open bulkhead. “Yuh ain’t s’posed t’be here, child. It’s…”

He didn’t finish. His eyes found the hollow man standing at the window.

“It’s bad luck, aye? Come with me-”  he added gently, as he pried the girl loose from the man’s leg. Her sobs grew louder, swelling from a muffled groan into full wailing as he lifted her into his arms and carried her away.

The man at the window still did not stir.

[Maxspells]

2. Salt

The messhall was dark. Overhead lights flickered as the ballast pumps kicked on, emptying the tanks. The vessel surged upward, and the sudden shift in inertia pressed the two crewmen deeper into their chairs. Beer bottles clinked against the metal table as the men steadied them, bracing for the change in direction.

“Fockin’ Gainsbloom’s lost it, mate! He ain’t makin’ it to Trelenje! We oughta take charge now - ’fore he starts screamin’ or tries to drown us all,” said Bassiv, the skinnier of the two. “He’s been standin’ in there fer hours. Ain’t gonna make it twelve more.”

He took a swig from his bottle.

The man called Emmy just nodded, grunted, and drank in turn.

“Fuckin’ hell… ain’t like this one bit. Who’s- y’know- who’s gonna…” Bassiv muttered, before being cut off by the vessel lurching again. The lights flickered as the ballast tanks refilled. The engine whirred, and the submarine shifted, now moving forward. The men steadied their bottles again.

Emmy broke the silence. “It’s gonna be Cecil. Ain’t no discussin’ that. Daniil’s runnin’ the helm, and tides know it ain’t gonna be you.”

Bassiv stared blankly at the table as Emmy drained the rest of his beer and gave another grunt.

“It don’t matter anyway. Ship ain’t ours- it’s Gainsbloom’s. We’s all gonna need new crews. All o’ us.”

“And what about the girl? It’s hers now, right? What if she-”

“Fockin’ hell, Bas… she’s twelve. She ain’t no hydronaut. And it ain’t goin’ to her anyway. Jim’s ex-, or the dockyard’ll claim it - pawn it off fer dockyard fees after we get our cut. Or… somethin’,” Emmy said, tossing the empty bottle into the disposal unit with a hollow clunk.

“Then what about the girl?” Bassiv repeated, whining. “We just… droppin’ her off at the dockyard, then?”

The bulkhead whined and swung open. A tall, bearded man stepped into the messhall, wearing a striped shirt and bandana. Slung over his shoulder was the small, curled figure of a crying girl.

“Cecil! Welcome back. We were just talkin’ about who’s gonna-”

“Not in front of the girl, you fuckin’ halfwit,” Cecil snapped, his glare cutting into Bassiv like a blade.

He gently lowered the shivering bundle into a chair and crossed over to the foodstock, retrieving a wafer of hardtack and an apple. He set them on the table in front of her.

She had stopped sobbing but didn’t touch the food. Instead, she pulled her legs up into the chair and buried her face in her knees.

[Maxspells]

3. Steel

The metal hatch hissed, sealing the sound of the outer hull behind her. She stepped onto the dockyard floor and was bombarded by a cacophony of sounds and smells. Above her, the world was a cavern of light and steel. Dozens of submarines hung like jellyfish throughout the enormous moon pool, their hulls scraped and scarred, each suspended by massive hydraulic cranes. It felt like she was standing at the edge of a cliff side. The sheer expanse of it knocked the air from her lungs.

The fluorescent grid overhead swayed and flickered, making her stomach turn. A sudden, splitting headache blurred the edges of her vision. Every step she took felt wrong, and the ground tilted in front of her eyes as the vertigo swelled and spun. The air tasted sharp, a metallic salt stinging the back of her throat. It had little to do with the sea, and everything to do with the memory of a man who is gone.

"Cecil," she whispered, her voice swallowed by voices and machinery. He didn't answer, stepping past her and grabbing her hand. His grip was firm and she anchored herself to it. It was the only part of her that felt solid. They moved past the sleeping vessels, past the dockyards, the rafters, and the outlines of children scurrying amongst them. She kept her eyes fixed on the laces of her boots, terrified that if she looked back at the water or the expanse of the pool, she would drown in it's sheer scale. The world stretched too far ahead as she walked further and further away from the only home she had ever known.

[Maxspells]

4. Records

Officer Vane didn’t move for a full second after the scan cleared. Her eyes lazily looked over the row of intake forms stacked on her desk, standard issue. Stark white surfaces. Mandatory fields. And always, the same requirement: a parent who did not, for lack of records, legally exist.

She picked up her stylus. The file on her screen read:

GAINSBLOOM, Tesset.

Vane began the typing sequence. The haptic keyboard tapped loudly beneath her fingertips.

Surname: Gainsbloom
Given Name: Tesset
Age: 14 (approximate)
Origin: _

She sighed, opened the drop down, selected Other, and finally: Hydronaut.

Below, the system prompted for primary parentage. Vane tapped the arrow and let the system auto-fill from the DNA scan she’d uploaded that morning. Standard procedure. Hydronauts were born on submarines, rarely in hospitals. They didn’t keep records.

Her cursor hovered over Maternal Lineage.

She had processed three thousand hydronaut intake reports on Trelenje alone. She had seen this same emptiness a thousand times. Usually the field read Unknown, or Deceased. Sometimes there were fragments... a partial record, a name, a location.

But the mother?

Nothing.

James Gainsbloom, at least, registered as the father. His information, what little there was, auto-filled instantly.

Query: James Gainsbloom, Hydronaut.
Result: 2 matches found.
Result 1: Deceased.
Result 2: Name Only. No biometrics.

Sparse. It was always sparse.

Vane scrolled. The documents were slim, digitized scraps. The same phrases repeated:

“Registered for vessel departure.”
“Upkeep logged.”
“Status: Deceased.”

That was all.

Her stylus hovered over Submit.

There were records that records had been made, but nothing concrete. The Hydronaut's absence from the system wasn’t an accident, it was a known defect. They didn’t register births. They didn’t register employment. They simply… appeared. And sometimes, they disappeared. It was just the way things were.

Vane exhaled slowly, returning to Maternal Lineage. The options were limited:

Available. Unknown. Orphan. Adopted.

Available felt like an insult.
Adopted was impossible.
Orphan was true, but incomplete.

Vane selected Unknown.

She moved to finalize the report and began typing the summary.

Report Status: Ready for Review.
Maternal Status: Unknown.
Father Status: Deceased / Inactive.

The cursor blinked. A quiet ping emanated from the laptop.

SOURCE: WIDER SOLARIAN ALLIANCE RECORD SWEEP.
ALERT: MATCH FOUND.

Vane froze.

Her stylus hovered midair.

The form remained open, but the cursor vanished, replaced by a loading indicator. The sweep cascaded through databases, Callisto, then Mars, before finally reaching Luna. The connection lagged slightly.

Then the data arrived.

Vane had rarely seen cross-system matches for hydronauts. Almost never from Alliance citizen records.

She read the name.

CLARKE, Diana.
Citizenship: Luna
Residency: Hangzhou
Employer: Zeng Hu Pharmaceuticals

Vane expanded the file.

The difference was immediate.

Clean. Structured. Complete.

A full citizen profile.

Name: Dr. Diana Clarke
Affiliation: Zeng Hu Pharmaceuticals
Specialization: Biochemistry / Genetic Engineering
Current Location: Phumanus Station, Europa
Daughter: Tesset Gainsbloom

Vane didn’t move.

She looked at the screen.

Then at the physical file on her desk.

Then back again.

The cursor waited.

“I found your mother,”  Vane whispered.

And then, finally...

Vane began to type.