Albuquerque, he said. I said it was probably because Yellowknife was already taken. Yellowknife. Yellowknife. Medicine Hat. Medicine Hat. Stoke-on-Trent. Medicine-on-Arm.

Bad jerks. My muscles, I mean, not Tom and Gord. Some cramping, but my joints feel fine. Smooth. No creaking. Even better than that, no creaking anywhere on the hull, either. We engineered the capsule to be able to drop into the deepest of clefts, the Mariana Trench (“I didn’t know your mom’s name was Mariana,” said Tom once) and that’s ten times deeper than our last milestone. Might only be five miles deeper than where we are now. Don’t know our descent speed, but we’re taking our time about it. Conservative. Leisurely. When you have to ascend as slowly as we do, you always want to make sure you back out sooner rather than later. Like with your mom, I would tell Tom if he were here. Tom loved the mom jokes.

I think I figured out a way to gauge depth by checking my blood. Checking my oxygen and nitrogen levels will tell me what mixture I’m breathing, and from that I can extrapolate the depth, or at least the depth the controller thinks we’re at. Don’t know why I didn’t think of it before. No, I know exactly why I didn’t think of it before. I’m not thinking in much of a straight line right now. Two dead friends in the other chamber and a narcosis roller coaster winding up and spinning down in this one. No, not a roller coaster. The one with the impaled horses, the one that goes round and round and up and down, where the most exciting part of the whole ride is trying to decide which horse you want.

I can’t check my blood right now because my hands are