The blip of the radar hits at the tip of my frustration.
“There, Caleb, there.”
The captain doesn’t have to tell me twice. Already in my overwrought gear for an overwrought dive, the riggers double-check it quickly before I figure out my mask and fall backward into the ocean after a woman worth thousands of memories, and a shark whose legend spans deeper than all its rows of teeth.
• • •
“Caleb, you look like shit.”
She swigged her 7-Up like it was beer. I admit, when I was younger, I’d been attracted to that kind of confidence, but I didn’t know Allysandra then.
“What else did you expect?”
Allysandra leaned back in her chair like she owned every inch of the place. She probably did. I smiled, my grin full of porcelain teeth—teeth she paid to put there. Her own grin was full of stains from a life living on the edge. We had matching smiles a while back, there had once been photos of us smiling together. But those probably got destroyed, along with me: Versions One and Two.
“So, anyway, Caleb. Remember all that talk about the Vice Shark?”
“Oh yeah,” I said, sipping my own RC Cola, also direct from the bottle.
Now Allysandra leaned in. “What if I told you that I know where it is, and I can lead you right to it.”
“Bullshit.”
But I’d said it too loud, and too many people were interested. Eager to be a part of this long-lost legend. So long-lost that the Vice Shark’s story had been buried in Weekly World News microfiche and the Internet Archive. Both told a story of a shark that fed off the most debaucherous hedonism, the dregs of humanity: people like me and Allysandra; people like all of us stuck in Nowhere. And the story goes, if you were lucky (or unlucky) enough to find the Vice Shark, you got one wish.
The trick was finding it: the wish or the shark.
So, like everyone else trying to listen in, I kept my voice low when I said, “Also, why tell me? You contacted me like what—a month ago—after six years of silence? Not since the last surgery. Not since that One More Party, Please, Caleb party to see me off. Why the fuck do you want me on this job?”
Allysandra leaned over and put her hand on mine. Her perfect smooth calm fingers covering up my twitching ones. Twitching from nerves and annoyance. I didn’t like this, and I didn’t want Allysandra here.
“Caleb, you know why. You know why.”
“You don’t owe me anything, Allysandra. I’m the one who owes you.”
She smiled then and stood to leave. But she didn’t go; she was waiting for me. I hesitated a minute, then a minute longer. Allysandra knew me too well, but I knew her just as well: the Vice Shark was bait.
Allysandra was leading me to something else.
• • •
Allysandra used to understand me like I understood her. Because she was me at one point: because I was the girl who studied marine biology at undergrad with her, partied with her, and followed the smell of her $30 hairspray around like it was better than cocaine. Which we both knew wasn’t true.
Then, I transitioned. And I kept on with the drugs, I got a boat, and started taking people out on dives. Because international waters were a thing, and drugs didn’t matter out here where the water was lawless. On the waves that I could navigate while half-sober while everyone else partied, puked, and nobody died.
Until they did.
Allysandra Fayden and I had grown apart after graduation, because she had a penchant for being bad on a big dime with women who did the same. And I was a guy who played risk with fewer zeroes. But Allysandra had always had a death wish, and one day she came around, and that’s how me, Version Two disappeared.
She whispered to me that night, out on the water, under the stars. Everyone was asleep, the party left to damp confetti on the deck and bass thumping in the background. Allysandra and I were still awake and sobering up, finally. I’d only agreed to take her out here after a long reconnoiter. After three of months of fucking in her apartment, and promising that everything was like it used to be. After four months before that of me being a tourist in her life while she showed me how she lived.
That night, though, on the water, when the moon was setting and dawn was threatening, after promising me everything between us was all alright and would always be, she whispered, “How would you like to kill a billionaire?”
I didn’t answer. Just fucked her on the prow till the sun came up. Best sex of my life.
Unfortunately, she didn’t die. Other people did. It was Allysandra’s fault, and she spent a shit-ton of money hiding the evidence: boat sunk, bodies gone. And me? I’m not who I was. Name? Changed. Dental records? Gone. Nose? New. Cheekbones? Smashed and reworked. I got transplants, plastic surgery, and lost my captain’s license. My lifeline to being Caleb Gall is dedicated to Allysandra Fayden, delivered to a P.O. Box in Nowhere, Georgia in unmarked bills. I became me, Version Three.
Used to think Allysandra only pretended to be in crime. Truth was, she was. Deeply.
Now, I’m chasing her like I always did, churning in the wake of her destruction because I have no other choice. If she dies, I die. If she goes, I go. Whatever she says, I gotta do. That’s how it worked when we were eighteen and that’s how it works now. I’m too old for this, and if she’s chasing her death wish down here with the Vice Shark, so am I.
• • •
But Allysandra couldn’t be tied down to anything for more than ten minutes without wresting control back. Even when she hired me to get the shit to sail all the way out to the Mariana Trench, to find the Vice Shark, she had to oversee every detail. I didn’t sign off on anything, I just pointed at what I needed on the computer screen, and she took it from there, her face as unreadable as a seagull’s. Her eyes as mean, and as hungry.
This is what I am thinking about as the crew lowers me down farther and farther into the dark water. The suit I’m wearing is rated for impossible dives like these. The deep deep fucking dives when people are going where they really shouldn’t. And I’ve got the captain in my ear feeding coordinates into my HUD of Allysandra’s last location. I have about fifty meters before the water gets too cold for the suit to function.
The blip on my radar says Allysandra is twenty meters below me. Her vital signs are low, going lower. She’s also not moving. My own vitals spike and the access line to the boat tugs, I tug on it twice. Letting them all know I’m fine. But they’re right to be concerned. Those guys have my best interests in this. They hate Allysandra as much as my life with her is complicated. I should leave her behind, leave her down here to die. Boo hoo, big accident, big whoop.
But I never was that smart.
• • •
The legend was basically dead. No news online or anywhere for over a decade. I never said a damn thing; was always good at keeping secrets. But surgery is one helluva deal breaker. Because coming out of anesthesia after my last facial reconstruction surgery—the one Allysandra paid for because of her massive murder fuckup—I blabbed everything.
When I woke up, she was shaking me: “What do you mean, there’s a hedonistic shark in the ocean that grants wishes?”
“What?”
“Caleb, this shark that grants wishes: I need it.”
“Allysandra, that’s my one thing. You have everything, you owe me.”
She locked the door of my hospital room and switched off our phones. In my weird post anesthetic clarity, I noticed that her nail polish was chipped; it was never chipped. Her eyeliner was smudged; it was never smudged. Her tone was furious and strained and tired, and she looked basic. Like only a couple thousand bucks.
“I owe you? I owe you? I just saved your entire fucking life, Caleb Gall.”
“You owe me at this point. Like a lot. Like a lot a lot. And this hedo shark or whatever is the payment. Give it to me.”
I tried to rub my eyes and she grabbed my wrists. “Don’t, the skin graft is still fresh. Anyway, what’s it called?”
“Vice Shark, and you’re not going without me. Deal?”
“Deal.”
• • •
So, I do what any contentious friend with benefits would do, I shake her.
Allysandra wakes up and looks at me with wide eyes that are dark and wrong. Her HUD blinks all the warnings, reading all sorts of wrong things; while mine is calm, like everything is fine. But I’m not. I’m panicking, and she’s gripping my arm tight.
She grins with too many teeth, and brings up a gloveless hand that I recognize too late is not a hand. It severs my access cord with a single swipe. So much of Allysandra is inhuman now. Her hand, all her rows of teeth, her eyes. And Not-Allysandra grabs me and pulls me to her.
We plunge down, together. Down and down, sending bubbles from my rebreather up way too fast. My unsynched-HUD continues to read everything as just peachy, thanks. Not-Allysandra’s display is red and angry. Total red alert, which at least thankfully conceals all her teeth as she smiles at me.
• • •
But then I found the right clients, and the reviews were five stars all the way down.
When I was me, Version One, I didn’t have a good life. Everything was an adjustment. My clothes, my hair, my eyeliner. Everything I said was too much, too loud, too brash. Too everything. I didn’t like a damn thing about me, so when I learned about what transgender was, and applied it to me, it was such a relief, allowing all that too muchness to occupy the right face, the right body, the right hands, the right smile.
Even though that version was Allysandra’s favorite, I couldn’t ever live up to her expectations of who she wanted me to be. I couldn’t ever measure up to what she wanted, her ideal of the woman she wanted me to be. I didn’t have the income, the pedigree, the gravitas. Or the tolerance. Either for her lifestyle, or for her.
Me, Version Three, suits me. I’m more attractive, though still kind of weird looking. Being in Nowhere, Georgia suits me. Hanging out in the bar I like suits me. Drinking RC Cola from a bottle suits me. Being sober suits me. Playing the same song on the jukebox suits me. Occasionally playing pool badly suits me. I like being single and I like being alone.
And now this me—Version Three, the one I like best—is being dragged down too fast, too hard, to the coldest darkest meanest part of the ocean, by Allysandra. The woman made this version. The woman I owe my life to, and the woman I chased around my entire life, never measuring up to. Also, the woman who spent her entire life—at least the life that I’ve known her—trying to die.
In my head, Not-Allysandra’s voice comes in with too many s’es, “Caleb, you look like shit.”
My teeth chatter as she holds my arm, my heart beats too fast and too cold. My vision starts blurring as her face warps beyond her flashing red display. Her grip tightens, her descent quickens. The water is so dark it’s like bathing in fear. Blips of light come from here and there as the water lights up with angler fish and other things with too many teeth and similar vendettas. I want to answer her with something clever, something fun. But all I can say is.
“Well, what did you expect?”
And then the water gets too dark to see her face.
• • •
And here she is: that something else. Looming over me, helmet off, face changing. So many teeth and blackening eyes. Skin going grey and losing its pores. I am still in my helmet. The HUD lamp lights up, but the readout lies to me, saying everything is going to be fine, Caleb. Just lie still. Just breathe. Just breathe. You are going to die here, it’s fine. It is fine.
“We can be here together, Caleb. You and me, finally. Just wish to be me.”
This weird Not-Allysandra is not the friend who’d spoken in a half-smirk her entire life. Her mean-girl special. Now her mouth is too wide, taking up too much of her face as her not-hand strokes the side of my helmet. I’m officially freaking out. My heart beating in my throat, I am going to die here. Die while Not-Allysandra holds me down to the ocean floor with my head dangling over the edge of an undersea trench.
“Just wish to be with me.”
This is what I wanted for so long, right? This is what I wanted since I was eighteen and followed her around campus. Jumped into the passenger seat of her car. This is what I had wanted since she asked me to kill her. This is what I’ve wanted since accepting her paychecks. But now? None of it, none of any of it, is appealing.
So, I ask, “What happened to your face?”
“I made my wish,” she says in my head again. “I became the Vice Shark.”
She pushes me closer to the edge, where the hot air filters up like a whisper of malice. Her grin widens with too many teeth. Worse than the smirk. This is not how I wanted to die—and I will, unless I do what she wants. I hate her even more.
“I want you to be the Vice Shark, too. Caleb, we’ve always been together, you and me. Don’t kill that now.”
Not-Allysandra isn’t lying to me, my surroundings aren’t lying to me. My body feels numb, drugged. Like I’m coming down from MDMA and now all I want to do is to be one with the concrete. Except it’s not concrete, it’s the ocean floor. And I’m not partying with my friends. All I have is Allysandra-the-Vice-Shark. She’s brought me down here so she could do what she wanted.
The thought hits me like shock.
It’s been decades of doing Allysandra’s thing. In college, I did what Allysandra wanted. All the time, every time. We went where she was going, I took the classes she chose. Dated the boys she thought were cute. The only part of my life that was truly mine was transitioning, which she was wholly against, until she heard about my business.
Then she found me useful again, I guess. For this.
The shock sends my HUD into full compliance, my eyes wide and me hyperventilating. Allysandra-the-Vice-Shark pushes my torso so volcanic heat hits my back. It feels like her breath steaming up my mask.
“Say you want it.” Full of spit and fury, through all her rows of teeth. “Say you want it, Caleb. Say it and I’ll let you live.”
“I want it.” It’s a lie. I have to lie to live. “I want it, I want to be with you, Allysandra. It’s all I ever wanted.”
Part of it is true. Had been true so many times. For so many years I wanted to be with her. To be around her, experience her life, be seen with her. The mention of her name got me clout and clients; talking about my life with her got even more clout and more clients. But that life is over now, and I like being a nobody in Nowhere, Georgia. I just like getting her paychecks. I like not being around Allysandra Fayden. I like being me.
“Wish it,” she says. “Wish it, Caleb Gall. Say it.”
But I’m panicking. “Say what?”
“Say, you know, ‘I wish,’ and then the rest.”
I’m busy trying to pull myself off the edge, but Allysandra-the-Vice-Shark is very strong. She could easily toss me over this sea cliff, and I’m pretty sure my ability to swim is nil. With a flick of her arm, I can go sinking into that hellmouth of bleak water.
“I wish…” I pause.
I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to play her games anymore.
Allysandra-the-Vice-Shark shakes me. “Come on, say I wish I could be you.”
“What if instead I say, ‘I wish you could have my wish so you could say it.’”
Allysandra-the-Vice-Shark is furious, and in her fury pulls me to all her rows of teeth. We’re face to face, her black eyes search me for trickery. My HUD screams in my ears. I’m both low on oxygen to breathe and fucks to give.
“Caleb, just say, I wish I could be you.”
And Caleb Gall dies right then and there.
• • •
I survive, though.
When Allysandra-the-Vice-Shark became me, the transformation was instantaneous. In the mask’s reflection, I watched her face become mine, the rows of teeth become those perfect porcelain teeth. I watched the face become mine as it choked and drowned. I watched her swim upward in panic.
The freakiest thing, though, was watching that face in the mirror die. I helped her almost to the surface, until she stopped moving. Then let her—him—her float the rest of the way. So the boat would find her. So they could pull her from the water and pronounce Caleb Gall dead.
I swim away. There’s a small feeling of regret, but it’s gone in an instant. It was that insubstantial. There’s a stronger feeling, a more immediate feeling. The feeling that I need to survive above all; that feeling is far more. (There Must Always Be A Vice Shark. Always). There’s a need to swim. And there is a hunger, one that feels like loneliness
Time is not something known to me, swimming against loneliness. There is only fear. I know the direction I am headed. It doesn’t matter where. Land no longer belongs to me. My teeth are too wide to make smiling palatable. My legs no longer understand walking. I belong to the sea, and the people on land belong to me. Their basest desires, their worst deeds.
I find a port town and sink into the waters past a sandbar. My fin cuts below the water as I listen to hedonism, the dregs of humanity, the worst of the worst. I listen to the calls of music, the footfalls of dance, the cries of joy and of anger. I listen to the bottles collide, clink, and cheer. Listen to them fall and shatter, and cause fire. Listen to the fights and fucking and drinks and drugs. I feed on it all and I become stronger, I become full. Become myself.
And slowly, so slowly, I become me, Version Four.
