"Do you have a blanket?" Nelly breaks the silence after we've been traveling underwater in the Skipper for about twenty minutes. The ocean around us is completely dark, and the only light in the cabin is from the digital screens on the dashboard. I had almost thought she'd fallen asleep, she'd been so quiet until now.

"No . . .. Wait, there may be an extra jumpsuit in the cupboard behind you," I say over my shoulder before she gets up on her knees and opens the small door. A faint light comes on inside, triggered by the move. "Yeah, I see it there. It's the dark blue thing on the top shelf."

Nelly reaches for the dry clothes, and her shirt lifts just enough to reveal the small of her back. The delicate curve is a golden honey color like the rest of her and even in the dim interior I can see that it's covered in goosebumps. If I twist around a bit more, I could almost touch it.

"Can I help you with something?" she asks, clearly annoyed.

I snap my gaze upward at her words, and in addition to the scowl on Nelly's face, I see that she's holding a folded, blue square in each hand. "I found two. Want one?"

I reach for the jumpsuit, but I make sure to avoid the girl's eyes. I figure it's also pointless for me to tell her that I won't look while she's changing since I'd have to be a fool to stare a second time. Instead, I take off my own wet clothes, awkwardly stripping to just my underwear while still seated in the pilot's chair. Pulling on the sturdy overalls, I feel warmer immediately.

"Huh," she says from behind me amid the rustling of fabric. "I can't believe you can navigate in such darkness. We're totally blind down here."

I laugh. "Just between you and me, a pilot is only good as his equipment." I tap a gauge, and I immediately question why I just candidly shared this with her. Hoping to save-face, I reach up and flip a couple of switches. "Take a look at this."

The area in front of the Skipper that until now was pitch black is illuminated by the spotlights I've engaged, revealing a world teeming with life. Specks of plankton and other tiny marine creatures float by in the current, but it doesn't take long for the other residents of the deep to come into view.

"Wow." Nelly's voice is directly in my ear, and her breath grazes my face. "Is that a—?"

"Yup. Hammerhead," I say as the sleek, gray-skinned creature casually sweeps his tailfin from side to side, gliding away from us.

"How about that?"

"Puffer fish."

"Ooh, those are so cute. Shrimp?"

"Krill."

"And that one?" She points a finger at a stocky fish with a large mouth and zebra stripes.

I turn toward her. "What am I? An encyclopedia? I don't know what they're all . . . ," I say, the final word sticking in my throat. I'd forgotten how close she is and the shift in my position has decreased the distance between us even further. We're both taken aback when our noses almost touch, and Nelly quickly retreats to the space behind me.

We're quiet again for a few minutes before she begins to speak. "And to think that they've survived down here all this time . . . just like you on Vanguard."

"That's not quite accurate." I turn again to catch her eyes. "They may not look it, but most of the creatures down here have been affected by the radiation that's managed to penetrate through. It started with the ones that go near the surface, and then it trickled down to those that feed on them. It's the whole food chain thing. Luckily, most of the mutations have made the fish bigger, which means there's more of them to eat. Based on our tests, they're safe for human consumption so we're still okay for now."

She fidgets, her legs in criss-cross style. "What do you mean, for now?"

"We're not sure how much longer our fishing can be sustainable. Bigger fish need to eat more, which means they'll eat greater amounts of the smaller fish. They're throwing the balance of the ecosystem off. Even if the residual radiation doesn't affect us, the lack of our biggest source of protein will."

"Then why did you have to sneak away to see if anyone was left above the surface? Why isn't your entire fleet of Skippers out exploring the possibility of leaving Vanguard?" she asks.

I sigh. "No idea. I guess I've never thought about it."

By now, Nelly has ventured closer to my seat again, and she's leaning so far over my shoulder that my entire starboard view is blocked. I wouldn't mind the proximity, except that her hair is tickling the side of my face, and I'm having trouble concentrating.

"Would you like a better look?" I offer patting my knee before I realize how creepy that must have seemed.

Nelly's must agree because she pulls away. "I'm good, thanks."

"Oh, no. I didn't mean it like that," I say apologetically. "No funny business, I swear. But we still have a ways to go and if you want to keep looking out, then your legs are going to cramp up back there."

She sighs, as if considering the lesser of two evils, but ultimately squeezes her body between the chair and the inside hull. Putting an arm around my neck, she plops sideways into my lap. "Happy?"

I smile and nod. "You?"

Ignoring my question, she raises a finger and wags it in front of my nose. "No funny business."

I lift my hands to show that they're as far away from her as I can get them, and she finally pulls her lips into a small smile in return.

My hands can actually stay at my sides and off the yoke because the autopilot guides us at a comfortable fifteen knots toward Vanguard. I occasionally glance at the gauges to monitor system integrity, but otherwise there's nothing to do but sit and wait. I don't mind at all. I've always enjoyed the quiet beauty of the deep and it's cool to share it with someone like this for the first time.

I'm so relaxed I could probably fall asleep to the hum of the rotors as they suck in—and then expel—the water to propel us forward. In the dry clothes and with Nelly snuggled up against me, I'm contently warm, too. I feel like I should be doing something, but I pretty much know how I'm going to play things we get back on board, so there's no further need to strategize. Much of it will have to rely on luck and my powers of persuasion anyway. In eighteen years of life, I've had plenty of both so I'm not going to sweat it. It's actually kind of hard to concentrate on anything else right now other than the nice smelling girl in my lap, which makes me realize that I hardly know anything about her.

"So what's your story?" I ask.

Nelly turns her head, bringing her face dangerously close to mine again. "What do you mean?"

"Well, you were really good at figuring out all this stuff about me—with my sister, life on Vanguard, and all that—without revealing anything about yourself—"

"No," she interrupts. "I didn't figure it out. You told me. Haven't you realized that you liked to talk about yourself, Will? I just gave you the right prompts."

A rush of warmth flushes into my face. "Fine. But at any rate, how about you tell me something to even things out?"

She shrugs. "Sure. What do you want to know?"

I'd like to know if she and that Jed guy are a thing, but I'm certainly not stupid enough to lead with that. "Parents?" I ask instead.

"Dead."

Crap. I should have gone with the boyfriend question.

I clear my throat. "Uhm . . .."

"Go ahead," she says. "Ask why."

Oh no, she doesn't. Nothing good can come from this conversation, and I'm not taking the bait. "It's okay. You don't need to—"

"No, really," she cuts me off again. "I want to tell you how living topside in a post-apocalyptic wasteland has ruined my life. No use in sugarcoating the truth, after all."

I swallow hard. "Okay," I whisper. "How did your parents die?"

There's a moment of silence before she begins. When she does, her voice is strong, but distant. "Because so many doctors abruptly quit when it became apparent that they were just delaying the inevitable, pharmaceutical companies jacked up prices trying to make one last quick buck, and medical care got inaccessible to almost everyone except the mega-rich, my mom had to give birth to me at home without any real medication," she says in a way others would tell a bedtime story. "I may have not made it either if it weren't for the midwife with her, but not even she could do anything about the ruptured placenta that made my mom bleed out a few hours after delivery."

I can't imagine what it was like for her to grow up without a mom, and her tough attitude makes more sense. "And your dad?" I ask.

"Radiation poisoning."

"From being exposed to sunlight?"

She shakes her head. "Of course not. He wasn't that stupid." She shifts in my lap before continuing. "Dad knew what Bradford was up to. I mean he was part of the planning process. Six months ago, he went with two other men to the St. Lucie Nuclear Power Plant. He wasn't even supposed to tell me this, but he did because he wanted me to promise that if he didn't come back, I wouldn't go looking for him."

"And he didn't come back?" I guess.

"No."

"So you're assuming he died at the plant?"

"Yes."

"What were they doing there?" I ask, already knowing this answer, too. Vanguard—and by extension all of its craft like the Skippers and the ferries—operates on nuclear energy. If the people of O-town wanted to commandeer any of the ships, they'd need a localized power supply to recharge them.

"Looking for fuel for the ferries," she says, confirming my suspicions.

"Did anyone go after them, though?" I ask.

"They had a radio. We were in contact for the first six weeks. The trip down was long and rough—they could only travel at night, and even then they had to avoid rovers and mutants."

"But they made it to the plant?"

"Yeah. Dad found the Plutonium, too. He was going to remove it for transport the next day when things went radio silent. Literally," she says, her voice cracking at the end.

"Shit." The word wasn't meant to leave my brain, but somehow it spills from my lips. "Sorry."

"Me, too," she whispers.

After this, we sit in silence again because I'm not about to start asking any more questions. Nelly has also lost interest in the identity of every single marine animal that floats by, until a bright orange, opaque blob bobs into view.

"Is that a jellyfish?" she asks while following the creature with her eyes.

"Yeah, it's a sea nettle," I say, identifying the most common type of this bell-shaped invertebrate around these parts. Its tentacles softly dance in the current, but their sting can be as deadly as they are beautiful.

"Look, another one!" She exclaims, pointing into the distance to where the spotlight's reach ends and the darkness begins.

This second jellyfish also swims past us—its mushroom cap-like body pulsating with each contraction of a ring of muscles as it sucks water in before expelling it—but even before it's gone, two more appear. Those are quickly replaced with four others, and I reach around Nelly to pull a lever, decreasing our speed. If I'm right, it'll be slow going for a while anyway, but I'd rather it be controlled than out of necessity from a busted rotor. I'm soon proven right as the amount of sea nettles continue to multiply exponentially until we're in the middle of a swarm.

"Is this normal?" Nelly asks timidly, mesmerized by the sight of the hundreds—perhaps thousands—of undulating creatures.

"As normal as anything is these days," I say, taking the Skipper off auto-pilot and regaining control of the ship. "These blooms, which is what this massive gathering is called, seem to be getting more frequent every year as the ocean temperature keeps going up. They eat everything small enough in their path, so it throws the ecosystem off even more. But as long as we gently glide through them, we'll be fine," I add, sensing her body tense up.

It takes all of my concentration to safely navigate through what turns out to be a mile-long swarm of jellyfish. Granted, it may have been easier if I didn't have Nelly still sitting smack dab in my line of sight, but I gladly peek over her shoulders instead of asking her to go back to behind me on the floor. When the orb-shaped underwater structure I call home finally comes into view, I switch on my communications device to hail command.

"Wilhelm to Vanguard. Come in Vanguard, over," I say before Nelly even realizes what's happening.

It doesn't take long for her to act and she smacks my arm. "What are you doing? We can't sneak on and steal the ferries if you're going to announce your arrival like this," she seethes, angrier than I've ever seen her.

It doesn't matter because this is all part of my plan, soI grin with mock contrition. "I know. That's what I'm planning on."