Mack 'n' Me: The Wolves of Alpha 9

not let me be dropped into it, in the first place, but I was going to drown if I didn’t get out of this shit, soon. I saw Barangail’s men struggling and noticed that their struggles only seemed to pull them under faster. Looking back to the side of the vat, I watched as the ant turned away.
Scanning the side of the vat for more, I realized I’d been dropped on the opposite side of the vat to where the others were—and I was grateful. I watched as another of the men, lashed out in his struggles, trying to pull himself up using one of his comrades. That didn’t end well, and I looked away.
I couldn’t help them. Wasn’t sure I would, if I could... Actually, that wasn’t true. I wouldn’t let anyone drown in this stuff if I had a choice. Right now, though, I had to work out a way to stop drowning in it, myself.
“Focus, Cutter.”
Like I couldn’t have worked that out for myself, Mack.
Funnily, enough he didn’t have an answer for that, which was a good thing—because he was right. I had to focus. I could already feel the viscous liquid dragging at my limbs, and my arms were starting to settle lower on the surface. Once they went under, getting out was going to be a Hell of a lot harder. I looked for the side of the vat, and was glad to see it was about a foot off from where I’d been dumped.
The guards had been dropped a lot further from the side. Maybe ‘my’ ant had been distracted, or maybe the fact I’d stayed so still for the last part of the journey had fooled it into thinking I was a lot more damaged than I really was. Still, that foot was going to be a difficult distance to cross.
At least they’d made the vat nice and full. If I could get within arm’s reach of the side, I’d be able to pull myself out of the gunk they’d tossed me into. That was if they didn’t notice me making the attempt and then toss me back in. Yeah. Lots of ‘ifs’, there. Still, all I could do was try.

16— Of Wolves and Honey
Getting a good bead on the edge of the vat, I tried to swim over and grab it. Swimming wasn’t a skill I’d learned growing up—mum had never had that much money—but Odyssey had been very thorough in their training. At Odyssey, I’d learned enough to outdistance Ax and the other recruits before they could try to drown me for what I’d done to them on the interactive range. I put those skills to good use, now.
It was a good thing the edge of the vat wasn’t any further away. I risked tipping myself onto my side and tried side-stroking my way to the lip—and counted myself lucky when it worked. Moving my hands through the thick, sticky liquid was a lot of hard work, and my sides burned with the effort. In theory I might have been able to move faster, if I’d put my head under, but there was no way I was risking not being able to pull it free, again.
There were a lot of ways to die, and being drowned in something resembling honey was not one I wanted to try. I pushed myself to the side and flung an arm up over the edge of the vat, curling my elbow up over the impossibly smooth surface of the vat’s lip, and hanging there long enough to catch my breath, and see if my antics had been noticed by any of the cavern’s inhabitants.
A quick survey of the area showed me that the only folk who’d noticed what I was doing had been the guards thrown in ahead of me. The three remaining on the surface were now doing their best to make their own swims to safety. It made me wonder why the ants hadn’t posted anyone to guard against captives doing exactly that.
That thought was replaced by the idea that maybe they hadn’t seen the need. It was damned hard to pull enough of me free to swing a leg over the side and drop down onto cavern floor, three ant-lengths below. The weight of the... ant honey, seemed to fit... the weight of the ant honey pulled at my clothes and dragged at my limbs, and I landed heavily, glad of the strapping that stopped my ankle from crumbling completely. Glad, too, of the fact the nanites seemed to have done some of their work, and it didn’t hurt anywhere near as much as before.
Maybe. I still hit the floor pretty hard, and I sank to my knees to catch my breath. By this stage, one of the guards had reached the side of the vat and was hanging on. I figured it would be a lot easier for him to get out, if I just tipped the whole damn thing over, but my escape had been noticed and an ant had emerged from the tunnel through which Varian had been taken.
I pulled myself up onto my feet, and looked around for somewhere else to hide. The only place I could find was the other side of the vat, and I didn’t know if there were any more ants over that way. Still, a potentially bad option was better than no option at all, and I stumbled around the crystalline edge, noticing the way it tapered as it reached the floor.
Tipping it over might not be as far-fetched an idea as I had thought. A heavy thud signaled that one of Barangail’s men had landed nearby.
“Hey,” I said, coming round the side of the vat. “Help me tip this thing over.”
He looked at me, and then looked over at the tunnel, where a second ant had emerged. I caught him glancing up at where another of Barangail’s men struggled at the edge of the vat.
“If we tip it over, he might have