SELL ME YOUR FEAR

The instant the water struck his left ear, Ian Kang clenched his teeth.

A blow beneath his jaw wrenched his head sideways. His right foot slipped off the board. The leash at his ankle snapped tight, then went slack. The wave that had been beneath his feet a moment earlier folded over behind him.

He wrapped both arms around his head.

The next blow hit his back.

His body rolled half a turn. His knees struck his chest. As the water drove him deeper, the inside of his nose burned. He opened his eyes, but all he saw was white foam sweeping past his face.

He could no longer tell which way was up.

Ian started to reach out, then pulled his arms back in. The water was still tumbling him. Trying to swim now would only waste air.

His throat contracted once.

Don't swallow.

He pressed his tongue to the roof of his mouth and tucked his chin. The water shoved against his back, squeezed his side, then lifted his feet again. A low vibration filled his ears, drowning out even the sound of his heartbeat.

The sensor fixed to his chest tugged at his skin.

That tiny sensation stood out with strange clarity.

He thought of the client's channel, which had been active right up until he was pulled under. Somewhere, someone might still be receiving the last sensations transmitted.

Pressure crushing his ears. His body spinning. White filling his vision. His heart racing faster even though he couldn't breathe.

There was no water in that person's room.

There was water in Ian's mouth.

His body flipped again. His right shoulder wrenched backward. He pinned his elbow against his side. He didn't move it to find out how badly it was hurt.

First, he had to get out of the spin.

The leash tugged his ankle downward.

He didn't follow it. There was no guarantee the board pointed toward the surface. Caught in the foam, it was turning with him.

For an instant, the force tumbling him eased.

Ian spread his fingers.

The water sliding across his palm slowed slightly. A patch of dark green appeared amid the white. He released a little air. The bubbles leaving his lips drifted diagonally past him.

He turned his head toward them.

This time, he moved his legs.

Once.

Then again.

A spasm tightened beneath his lungs and folded his abdomen inward. His body demanded air. He kept his mouth shut and reached out. The water flowing past his fingertips grew steadily brighter.

Then the leash jerked his ankle.

The board must have caught a different current. His right leg was dragged backward, bending him at the waist. The bright patch vanished from sight.

Ian bent his knee to absorb the pull and reached for the handle on his vest.

His fingers slipped.

He caught it again.

Pulled.

The vest pressed into his ribs from both sides. His chest felt tighter, but the pull gave him a direction. He kicked along with it.

A thin white opening appeared overhead.

He kept his mouth shut until the very end.

When his face broke the surface, the first breath caught in his throat.

“Hhk—”

Air and water came in together. He turned his head and coughed. Wind slapped his wet face. The crash of breaking water, an engine, and his own ragged breathing rushed back all at once.

Another wave was rising to his left.

Even when he lifted his head, he couldn't see its crest. A jet ski in the distance dropped below the swell, leaving its rider's upper body visible for an instant before the dark wall of water swallowed that too.

Ian didn't wipe the water from his face.

He looked right.

Whitewater from the previous break stretched across the surface. Beyond it, the jet ski appeared again, circling in from the side instead of cutting straight across the wave's face.

That was the way out.

He raised his right hand.

His shoulder pulled painfully.

“Ian.”

Yunjae's voice broke apart in his earpiece, then came back.

“Can you hear me?”

“I can hear you.”

“Get your breathing under control first.”

Ian pulled the board toward him by its leash. He draped an arm over it and lifted his chest, wincing as his ribs compressed between the vest and the board.

“I'm okay.”

The words came out before anything else.

“You dropped your right hand. Did you hurt your shoulder?”

He started to lift it again, then stopped.

“Just a pulling pain.”

“What about your chest when you breathe in?”

He tried a breath. A cough cut it short before he could fill his lungs.

Yunjae called his name again.

Instead of answering, Ian turned the board toward the approaching jet ski. The rider pointed to the rescue sled behind it. Ian shifted across and grabbed a handle.

His right hand gave way.

He hung on with his left, then hooked his right hand around the handle again. Once his foot found the end of the sled, the rider accelerated.

Water streaked beneath him.

Lying facedown, Ian looked back.

The upper part of the wave collapsed. The spot where he had been floating moments earlier disappeared beneath the falling water. The sled bucked hard as it crossed the edge of the whitewater.

He pulled on the handle with both hands.

This time, he didn't let go.

His right arm wouldn't straighten properly as he climbed the ladder to the support boat.

He took the hand reaching down from the deck with his left. Once he cleared the last rung, he sat on the nearest bench. He had no strength to waste on standing upright and keeping his balance.

Yunjae crouched in front of him.

“Your shoulder.”

“It twisted backward once.”

“Raise your arm as far as you can without pushing through the pain.”

His arm stopped below shoulder height.

Yunjae checked the feeling in his fingers and asked where it hurt when he inhaled. Ian tried to answer, but another cough interrupted him. She waited, then repeated the question.

“Here, when I cough.”

He touched his right ribs.

“And when you're still?”

“Not as much.”

Yunjae entered it on her tablet. The underwater data stored on the device was arriving in delayed fragments. New lines filled the gaps between interrupted curves.

Ian undid the buckle on his soaked vest.

The first came loose easily. His fingertips shook on the second. The buckle slipped out of his hand and struck the bench.

Yunjae reached for it.

“Let me.”

“I've got it.”

He gripped the buckle again. This time it opened.

An indicator for the client's connection blinked at the edge of the screen.

“Did you get all the data?” Ian asked.

“It's still coming in.”

“The client?”

“Sensory reception is paused.”

He looked at the screen.

Yunjae lowered the tablet.

“Just because the data's coming through doesn't mean your breathing has recovered.”

Ian dried his hands with a towel.

“I'm okay.”

“You can't raise your arm, you're still coughing, and your hands are shaking.”

She pointed to the end of the towel.

“Which part of that sounds okay?”

Ian stopped moving his hands.

The engine hummed low. Water that had run beneath the bench flowed back as the boat tilted the other way.

“I'm not dizzy while I'm sitting,” he said.

Yunjae nodded and entered that instead.

When he kept gripping the towel, she asked, “Is the cough getting better, or staying the same?”

Ian listened to his breathing for a moment.

“A little less.”

She recorded that too.

He didn't say he was okay again.

Across the deck, someone opened an equipment chest. Ian's gaze followed the passage beside it. A low platform sat at the stern, beyond the end of the railing. The ladder he had climbed was to the left.

Yunjae watched him.

“What are you looking for?”

“Where I can get off.”

Her eyes went to the ladder, then back to him.

“Are you thinking of going back in?”

“Just looking.”

He always did that when he came aboard. In a building, he checked the doors. On the water, he checked how to get off. Only after identifying the way out did he notice everything else.

Yunjae didn't stand in front of the ladder.

Instead, she tucked a dry towel behind his back.

“Lean back. For now.”

Ian rested against it.

The pull in his shoulder eased a little.

With nothing else to do, the shaking in his hands became more obvious. He set both hands down on the towel.

The tablet vibrated again.

Yunjae opened only the client's voice channel.

A man's low voice came through the deck speaker.

“Is he all right now?”

“I'm back on the boat,” Ian answered.

“Did the connection drop earlier? I was still spinning.”

“The live connection dropped below the surface,” Yunjae said.

“The last segment you received kept replaying. Right now, we're connected by voice only. There's no sensory feed.”

The speaker went quiet.

A wet strap dragged across the deck. Someone set Ian's board down inside the railing. Drops falling from its tip trembled to the vibration of the engine.

“Did it feel that intense to you too, Ian Kang?”

Ian looked at his hands on the towel.

“How did it feel to you?”

“Like my body was disappearing.”

Ian bent and straightened his thumb. Sand trapped beneath his nail pressed into the skin.

“I could feel mine all too clearly.”

The man didn't answer.

Yunjae handed him water. Ian took a small drink. The salt taste remained deep in his throat.

“I definitely felt like I couldn't breathe,” the client continued.

“But my hands were still resting on the chair.”

Ian remembered the instant underwater when he had missed the handle on his vest. His hand had reached it, yet failed to hold on. The effort of keeping himself from inhaling had overwhelmed the simple act of closing his fingers.

There was no chair for his hand to rest on down there.

“Your airway wasn't actually blocked,” Yunjae said.

“The interface reconstructed the sensory and physiological data you received. The pressure simulation reached its upper limit in places, too.”

“I know. That was explained to me.”

The man's response grew curt.

“But it was quieter than I expected.”

Ian looked toward the speaker.

“Underwater?”

“No. You, Ian Kang.”

Yunjae's finger stopped over the screen.

“I made noise. I assumed you did too.”

Ian tried to laugh and coughed instead. He bent forward and waited. Only when he could breathe again did he lift his head.

“I couldn't open my mouth.”

The long crash of a wave rolled in from the sea.

The client waited until the sound faded.

“Was there a moment when you thought it was the end?”

Ian set the cup on his knee.

The answer wasn't in the sensor records.

They would show the moment his vision turned upside down, the interval when his heart sped up, the movement of his hand searching for the vest handle. But the client could not see when Ian had thought it might be the end.

When his ankle was pulled backward as he climbed toward the light.

When he lost the handle.

If he lost it one more time—

He moved his hand before the thought could finish.

“I found the way back up,” he said.

“That isn't what I asked.”

“That's what I did.”

Yunjae looked at him.

He lifted the cup and drank the remaining water. When he put it down, its base tapped the bench twice. The tremor in his hand had become a sound.

Yunjae addressed the client.

“We're assessing his recovery now. No decision has been made about continuing.”

Ian looked at the board inside the railing.

His vest lay beside it. Through the wet fabric, he could see the handle he had pulled only minutes ago. The feeling of his body beginning to move toward the surface still lingered in his palm.

He moved his right arm slightly.

A pull of pain rose from beneath his shoulder.

He lowered it.

Yunjae saw the movement. This time, she didn't ask again where it hurt.

“Ian Kang.”

The client was calling him.

“Yes.”

“I'll pay an additional fee.”

Ian's hand stopped above the cup.

Yunjae didn't look at the tablet.

The boat rose and fell. Beyond the railing, a new swell lifted. Ian's gaze moved automatically to its right edge—the direction he could escape before the wave folded over.

The client said,

“One more time.”