The Deep Sea Diver's Syndrome by Serge Brussolo

Invariably, he would come out of the drugstore empty-handed.
    “Well?” Hugo panted, quivering with impatience.
    “Prescription only,” David would lie. “They wouldn’t give me any.”
    “Aw, darn!” the cyclist grumbled. “Don’t worry, we’ll try somewhere else. It’s bound to work someday.” And he would cross the name of the pharmacy off the endless list of dispensaries copied from the phone book.
    Since the grown-ups were clearly against them, they had to resign themselves to undertaking their first raid without the help of nuclear suppositories, trusting themselves to Hugo’s calves alone. David had come tearing into Merlin’s courtyard just as the old man was nursing his second daily liter of wine, seized an old clock with a broken face, and turned on his heels to exit enemy territory before the junk dealer came out of his trance. No sooner was David over the doorsill than he leapt onto Hugo’s bike rack as if onto a horse, fresh from robbing a bank … which is to say, horribly bruising his balls. The speed the bike picked up going down Commerce Street had seemed miraculous, and sent actual shivers of holy terror racing up their spines. Just before he went home, David had tossed the clock in a trash can. He didn’t know what made him do it. A fit of extravagance? Maybe Hugo’s craziness was catching? Would he go off his rocker too and start hitting up every pharmacy in town for nuclear suppositories?
    The next week, they’d carried out another raid, and the weekafter that too, and … It was like a curse, a vicious cycle whose workings David didn’t understand. He would pass by old Merlin’s secondhand shop and
click
, something would go off, a sudden gluttony for that heap of shapeless old things all jumbled up together, those mountains of used tires, cast-iron skillets gray with ash, pipes that looked like mortar casings after a battle. Over all this hovered some undefinable smell, the smell of the past, of things so old they’d seen it all: the world and its secrets. David beelined for these marvels, hands outstretched like claws. He sneaked into enemy territory, dashing low to the cobblestones, hair on end with terror, his mind intent only on the loot and a quick U-turn. Hugo was no longer satisfied with covering their getaway; he grew more demanding, raising the bar a notch with each new incursion.
    “Gotta go a bit farther each time,” he decreed. “That pile of clocks is too easy. There’s nothing but trash outside, the good stuff’s hiding back there in the shed. No two ways about it, buddy, you’ve got to dive deeper.” Dive deeper? David had risen to the challenge, filling his lungs with air like a pearl diver as he entered the secondhand shop. But Hugo was right: old Merlin kept his best finds all the way at the back of the hangar, the aged items he sold to antique dealers. But they always tossed the haul no matter what. As soon as they got their hands on it, it lost all value, stopped glittering—like gold gone suddenly to lead. They’d ditch it in a garbage can or by the side of the road. Hugo took a liking to the forays. They were just too much fun; old Merlin’d never corner them! Now David was stealing candlesticks, bronzes, statuettes of chipped marble. But these objects, carefully scoped out with his father’s binoculars, so feverishly coveted, seemed ugly and soiledas soon as they were past the doors of the junk shop. It was as if some magic charm governed fat old Merlin’s territory.
    “Don’t you get it?” David muttered one day. “That’s why he doesn’t even bother to stop us. He knows everything we steal becomes worthless the minute it falls into our hands. He’s a wizard.”
    “You’re getting as crazy as I am,” Hugo snickered. Then he added, “True, it looks a lot nicer inside. Maybe you’re not going deep enough, is all.”
    Two weeks after that conversation, David became aware that his mother was also a shoplifter. The discovery astounded