Killing the Beasts by Chris Simms Page B

surface. Aware of Sean watching him, Tom tried again. But as soon his lips stretched round the rubbery object, the retching returned, this time with some burning liquid at the back of his throat. He had to swallow quickly before its acrid taste flooded his entire mouth. 'I can't do it. I'll puke.'
    Sean waded slightly closer to him. 'It's called a gag reaction. Plenty of people experience it. You want to give it another try?'
    Tom looked down at the sun-dappled form of his wife beneath the water. Every so often a stream of bubbles rose to the surface. 'Can she continue the course without me? You know ... the buddy system you described.'
    Sean flicked a strand of sun-bleached hair from his face. 'I can buddy for her; that's not a problem.'
    No, thought Tom, I bet it isn't. But he couldn't insert that disgusting thing in his mouth again. Old memories began to stir, ones he tried to suppress: the days of struggling with physics and chemistry, lying awake in the early hours of the morning wracked with worry. The dream still recurred now whenever he was under pressure: him looking at the timetable in the corridor at school and realizing there was an exam that afternoon for which he had completely forgotten to revise. The dread sense of impending, and completely unavoidable, failure.
    Full of trepidation, he raised the mouthpiece to his lips once again. Immediately his stomach constricted and, as he felt the bile rising at the back of his throat, his mouth formed into an 'o' in readiness to vomit. He dropped the regulator into the water. Attached to his tank by a long black tube, it snaked lazily off to the side.
    Not looking at Sean, Tom moved over towards his wife, bent down and held a hand beneath the water to touch her. She got to her feet, breaking out into the air, water cascading off her. Plucking the regulator from her mouth, she swept back her streaming hair. 'Everything OK?'
    Tom tried to mask his sense of humiliation with humour. 'It's bizarre, but I can't do it, babe. There's something about the rubberiness of the regulator. All slippery and bouncing off my teeth.' He shuddered in disgust. 'It makes me want to puke more than a shot of tequila. Listen, Sean here can buddy you, so carry on without me. I need to try and sort out this work stuff anyway.'
    Charlotte placed a hand on his arm, 'Are you sure? You really can't stand the feel of it in your mouth?'
    'No.' He shook his head, grinning. 'But hey – the only fish I like to see come served with a lemon wedge. You enjoy yourself.' Before she could object further he began shrugging off the canister.
     
    After a quick shower Tom hurried back over to the hotel's office, head bowed as he picked over the problem. He realized he was now barely noticing the beautiful scenery around him.
    By the end of the afternoon they had located a printer in London who could, for a price, print two of the building wraps over that weekend. Once they'd negotiated a price for transporting the wraps and the printer crew up to Manchester to actually hang the things, that was two of the four jobs with the most imminent deadlines taken care of. Next Ges suggested looking for printers in Europe or even North America.
    'Jesus,' answered Tom.' But what about the logistics? And do we know if they even use the same Vector and In Position software as us?'
    'Well, unless you can come up with anything else, I suppose we're going to have to find out,' Ges answered, now sounding as stressed as Tom felt. That evening, as they ate red snapper cooked on a barbecue by the side of the main pool, Charlotte asked if everything had been sorted out yet.
    'We're getting there, babe,' he replied. 'Two of the most urgent jobs are sorted, and we're now trying to find another printer for the remaining two. Problem is, we're talking twelve-floor-high images here, and that takes a specialist...'
    Seeing her eyes beginning to wander, he cut off his reply, claiming he'd had enough of work. Instead he asked her how the