Deep Storm

15

Robert Loiseau stepped back from the industrial range, removed the toque from his head, and wiped his sweaty face with the chef's towel hanging from his belt. Even though it was cool in the kitchen he was sweating like a pig. And he was only half an hour into his shift. It was shaping up to be a long, long day.

He glanced at the wall clock: half past three. The lunchtime frenzy had passed, the cleaning staff had washed the pots and pans, and the kitchen was quiet. But quiet was a relative term: he'd learned long ago that working cuisine in the Navy was nothing like on dry land. There were no set eating schedules; people came and went as they pleased. And with the Facility running on three shifts, it wasn't unusual to serve somebody breakfast at 8 P.M. or lunch at 2 in the morning.

He wiped his face again, then let the towel fall back into place. It seemed he was sweating all the time these days, and not just in the kitchen. And that was only one of the things he'd noticed, along with hands that shook a little and a heart that beat faster than he liked. He felt tired all the time, too; and yet he was unable to sleep. He wasn't sure when it had started, but one thing was certain: slowly but surely, it was getting worse.

Al Tanner, the pastry chef, walked past, whistling "Some Enchanted Evening." He had a pastry cone draped casually over one shoulder as if it were a freshly killed goose. He ceased his whistling long enough to call out, "Hey, Wazoo."

"It's Wah-zoh," Loiseau muttered under his breath. You'd think that in a gourmet kitchen, people would know how to pronounce a French name. Maybe they were all just teasing him. But the fact was only Renault, the executive chef, pronounced his name properly-and he rarely condescended to call people by name, preferring to beckon with a curt movement of his index finger.

With a sigh, he turned back to the range. No time for daydreaming. Right now he had to prepare some béchamel sauce: a whole lot of béchamel, in fact. Chef Renault was serving tournedos sauce Mornay and côtelettes d'agneau Écossais on the dinner menu, and both sauces used a béchamel base. Of course, Loiseau could practically prepare béchamel in his sleep. But he'd learned the hard way that cooking was like running a marathon: when you paused, everyone else kept going, and if you paused too long it became impossible to catch up.

Sweat the onion, incorporate the roux… As he went over his mise en place, Loiseau felt his heartbeat accelerate again and his breathing grow shallow. It was possible he was getting sick, of course. But he thought he had a better explanation for the sweaty palms and sleepless nights: anxiety. It was one thing to work on an aircraft carrier, with its cavernous hangars and endless echoing corridors. But this was different. During the protracted vetting process, with its endless interviews, he hadn't stopped to think much about actually living in Deep Storm. The pay was fantastic, and the thought of participating in a classified, cutting-edge project was a little intoxicating. He'd spent five years in the Navy, working in admirals' kitchens: how different could it be, cooking beneath the sea instead of floating on it?

As it turned out, nothing could have prepared him.

Christ, it's hot. He slowly added a pale roux to the mixture of milk, thyme, bay leaf, butter, and onion. As he bent over the pot, whisking vigorously, a brief sensation of dizziness washed over him and he had to step back, gulping for air. He was hyperventilating, that was the problem. Get your nerves under control, Bobby-boy. Shift's just starting and there's a ton of shit to do.

Now Tanner was coming back from the pantry, a large sack of cake flour in his hands. When he saw Loiseau, he stopped. "Everything okay, fellah?"

"Yeah, fine," Loiseau said. Once Tanner had moved on, he wiped his face again with the towel and went immediately back to whisking: if he stopped now, the sauce would scorch and he'd have to begin all over again.

Thing was, he hadn't counted on missing sunlight and fresh air quite so much. And at least aircraft carriers moved. Loiseau had never thought of himself as being claustrophobic, but living in a metal box, with no way to get out and all that ocean pressing down on your head…well, it got to you after a while. Whoever had designed Deep Storm had done an ingenious job of miniaturization-and at first, when he was working in Top, the galley on deck 11, he hadn't noticed it so much. But then he'd been transferred to Central, the deck 7 kitchen. And things down here were a little more cramped. When it got busy, when the flour really started to fly, so many bodies were packed in you could barely move. And that was when, these last few days, Loiseau had felt the worst. Waking up today, the first thing he'd thought about was the dinnertime crush to come. And the sweats had kicked in, right there in his own damn bunk…

He gripped the stainless-steel range handle tightly as a spasm of indigestion lanced through his stomach. The dizziness returned and-with a faint sense of alarm now-he shook his head to clear it. Maybe he was getting sick, after all. Maybe he was coming down with the flu. When he went off shift, he'd stop by Medical. Either way, nerves or illness, they could help.

With an effort he went back to whisking the sauce, backing it carefully off from the boil, trying to concentrate as he checked it for color and aroma. As he did so, he noticed a "runner"-one of the workers assigned to Bottom, the mess located in the Facility's deepest depths-heading out with a tall stack of prepared dishes. Bottom had only a small galley of its own and frequently used runners-who worked and lived in the classified section of Deep Storm and had the necessary clearance-to bring dishes prepared in Central down to the lower levels.

That was something else that bothered Loiseau: all the security. It was a lot more noticeable down here than it had been in Top. He could always tell the ones who worked in the classified areas: they huddled together at a table away from the others, heads together, talking in low tones. Why did a scientific expedition have to be so hush-hush, anyway? With all the secrecy, he had no idea how the expedition itself was going or what kind of progress they were making. And that meant he also had no idea when he would be able to get out of here and go home again.

Home…

Suddenly, a stronger wave of dizziness washed over him. Loiseau staggered, grabbing for the range handle again. This was no fit of nerves: this was something else. Something serious. Fear stabbed through him as he fought to keep upright.

Abruptly, his vision began to dim. Around the kitchen, people were pausing their work, putting down their knives, spatulas, and wooden spoons to stare at him. Somebody was speaking to him, but sound had attenuated to a murmur and he couldn't make it out. Reaching out to maintain his balance, Loiseau grabbed for the heavy pot full of béchamel but just missed, slipping off its side. He felt nothing. Yet another wave of dizziness, even more overpowering. And now an unpleasant scent rose to his nostrils: the smell of singed hair and overcooked meat. He wondered if it was a hallucination. People were running toward him. He glanced down and noticed, with a distant curiosity, that his hand had pushed the béchamel pot aside and fallen over the open range. Blue flames licked up between his fingers. Still he felt nothing. A curious blackness enfolded him like a blanket-and then to Loiseau it seemed the most natural thing in the world to sink to the floor and slip into dark dreams.