“Commander, are you okay?” Timothy asked.
It was so bad, Michael could only grit his teeth in reply.
“We got the hatch open,” Layla said over the comms. “I’m taking a look to see if the entrance is blocked here, too.”
“Layla…” Michael groaned. “Wait…”
“Tin?” she replied. “Tin, is everything okay down there?”
He closed his eyes as a drop of sweat raced down his forehead.
“Long, deep breaths may help,” Timothy said.
Tell me something I don’t know.
Dr. Huff had given Michael several pain-managing techniques, and he really didn’t need the AI to repeat them now.
“Timothy, what’s going on down there?” Les asked.
“Michael is experiencing some phantom pains and has asked you two to wait before going inside.”
“Roger that,” Les said. “Standing by.”
Lightning bloomed inside the line of bulging clouds to the west as Michael opened his eyelids. The pain finally faded with the blue residue of light.
“Sorry,” he said. “Layla, I want you to send in the drone before you go down. Okay?”
“Two steps ahead of you,” she said. “I’ll run the feed through our wrist monitors.”
Michael held his wrist monitor up as it connected to the feed. A fuzzy display came online as a remote-controlled drone whirred into the opening and down another rusted ladder.
The small aerial robot’s light captured the concrete passageway and steps. It didn’t go far before hitting a blockage of debris.
“Damn,” Layla said. “You see this, Tin?”
“Yeah.”
Michael cursed under his breath and pivoted to Timothy. “Where’s the other entrance?”
“I’ll show you,” he said.
Layla and Les climbed down from the ladder and rejoined Michael and the AI. He waved a translucent arm, and the divers filed in behind him, weapons up, and moved around the main structure.
Wind and rain slammed into them as they made their way out onto one of the piers stretching away from the central platform.
“Where are we going?” Layla asked.
Timothy walked past the rusted hull of a fishing boat. “To the other entrance—or exit, rather,” he said, pointing with his hand.
Layla looked over her shoulder at Michael, who shrugged back at her. Les had his rifle shouldered again. The barrel wasn’t pointed at the pier or even the boats, but at the water.
“I have a bad feeling about this,” he said over the comm.
Timothy stopped at the end of the pier, his hologram standing at the edge. Water slurped against the side, splashing through his legs.
“Beneath each of the piers is a hatch,” Timothy said. “They were meant to be exits in case of an emergency. They were designed to be escape only, and not an entrance.”
“But you just said a few minutes ago it was an entrance,” Michael said.
“This one is.” Timothy looked down into the water. “The hatch was used in one of the videos I downloaded from Dr. Julio Diaz’s team. Check your wrist computer and I will play it for you.”
The feed came online. In it, a man crawled through a tunnel.
Flashlight beams flickered through the space, hitting the feet and legs of the man ahead. A trail of blood streaked across the floor from his tattered boot. He turned, wearing a mask of horror. Despite the blood smeared on his cheeks, Michael recognized Dr. Julio Diaz, who had once run the labs at Red Sphere.
“Hurry,” Julio said. “We’re almost there.”
“They’re inside,” said a female voice.
The same person who apparently was taking the shaky video turned and looked behind her. An orange glow flickered at the end of the passage, and an electronic wail echoed.
The woman turned back to Julio, who had stopped ahead. He punched at a keypad on the wall, then bent over a large spoked wheel. Grabbing the sides, he tried to spin the hatch open.
“Dana, it’s stuck,” Julio said. “I can’t get it.”
She squeezed beside him to help, and the camera angle went awry, providing a jerky view of the floors, ceiling, and then the tunnel, where the orange light brightened. In the glow, a defector moved on all fours like a dog, its hyperalloy exoskeleton clanking.
“Hurry!” Dana said.
A cracking noise sounded, and she pivoted back to Julio, who finally managed to unseal the hatch.
“You go first,” he said, backing away.
She went to move when a bolt flashed by her, hitting the ceiling. Hunks of shrapnel rained to the floor. Another bolt cracked, and blood spattered the wall.
Julio let out a scream. The camera dropped to the ground, the angle giving Michael a perfect view of Dana, or what remained of her. The female face, identifiable only by the long hair, had a sizzling hole where the nose and eyes had been.
“Dana,” Julio stuttered. “Dana, no…” He crossed his chest and whispered something about God, then dived through the open hatch. Water splashed up into the blood-stained passage.
The clanking of metal limbs followed, and a moment later the machine reached Dana, grabbing her by the leg and pulling her away from the camera that continued shooting the ancient feed.
It lapsed into white noise on their displays, and the divers all looked up, their visors turning to one another.
“That was the last transmission Dr. Diaz ever made,” Timothy said. “I have no idea what happened to him, but apparently he was able to open the hatch right below us.”
Michael stepped over to the edge of the water.
“Be careful, Commander,” said the AI. “There’s no telling what kind of beasts lurk down there.”
“Can you do a scan from Deliverance?” Layla asked.
“I can, but the ship will need to descend into range.”
Michael looked up at the sky and then gave the AI a nod. The turbofans whined overhead, and the thrusters fired, purple flames streaking through the dark clouds.
“Here she comes,” Les said.
The airship’s belly and turbofans broke through the bottom of the bowl of clouds.
“Scanning now,” Timothy said.
Using his night-vision goggles, Michael searched the water for fins or any movement along the dock but saw nothing.
“I am not detecting any organic life-forms, or anything to suggest the defectors have come back online,” Timothy reported.
“You’re sure?” Layla asked.
“One hundred percent.”
“Never heard that one before,” Michael muttered, stepping back to the edge.
Les reached out again but then lowered his hand.
“I’ll go first,” Michael said. He looked back down at the dark water, but before he could jump in, Layla moved in front of him with a rope.
“You crazy, Tin?” She clipped the rope to a carabiner on her waist and started taking off her gear. “You can’t just jump in, or you’ll sink like a rock.”
He backed away. She was right, of course. He was going to get himself killed if he didn’t get his mind right. The cardinal rule of Hell Diving was to be cautious and patient.
When Layla had peeled away most of her armor, she pulled her hair back into a ponytail.
“Three-sixty awareness,” Michael said, grabbing the uncoiled rope. “Tug if you run into any problems, and we’ll be right there to help.”
She smiled, then dived into the water.
Rhino gestured to the guy with a flamethrower, then to the one with the Minigun. They stood with their backs leaning against the bow of the skiff.
“This is Fuego, and Whale,” Rhino said.
Fuego dipped his helmet, and Whale thumped his armored chest with the brass knuckles he wore. The boat crested a wave and slid down into the trough, and both monstrous warriors bobbed up and down.