Covah and three others watch from the hydraulic lift, now poking up through the open hatch of the PLC. The open elevated platform extends five feet above the ship’s deck. A cold rain whips their dry suits, pelting their exposed faces. Dark, menacing swells roll across the tail end of the sub, concealing the rubberized graphite coating sealing Goliath’s metallic skin.
Attached to the guardrail of the lift are four small winches supporting four steel cables, the taut lines running thirty feet to stern before disappearing into the raging sea.
Covah closes his eyes, attempting to gather what little strength his weakened muscles have left to offer. He feels the fury of the storm as it batters Goliath to and fro along the surface. Cold and vulnerable, alone against the elements, alone against the world—these are the moments when Covah misses his family most, the times when the emptiness of his existence causes his pentup rage to cool, threatening to drown what little sanity he has left.
Soon enough. You’ll see your loved ones soon enough … .
An echoing gunshot of thunder snaps his eyes open. A vein of lightning ignites across the blackened sky, illuminating the four hooded heads of the returning divers above the rolling whitecaps. Before Covah can even signal, pistons fire and Goliath’s hydraulic arm raises the new propulsion unit away from the lift, extending it out toward the submerged stern.
Thomas Chau and his team climb over the rail, the exhausted men unhooking the cables from their harnesses, the muscles in their half-frozen arms responding slowly as they hand the clip-on end of their lines to their comrades.
Chau spits out his regulator, his teeth chattering. “We’ve removed the damaged assembly. Sorceress will position the new unit. All you have to do is secure it in place with these lug nuts.” Chau ties a heavy sack around his captain’s waist.
Sujan Trevedi sloshes forward, his face cold and pale, his lips blue. “Be careful, my friend. The sea is angry.”
Covah wipes a gloved hand across his drenched mustache, then positions the regulator and hood. Offering a thumbs-up, he climbs awkwardly over the rail, then lowers himself feetfirst to the submerged deck.
He manages only three steps before the first incoming swell slams him sideways and thrusts him underwater, his face mask bouncing twice against the sub’s rubber-skin hull. The unmerciful cold burns his exposed cheeks, his flesh tightening like a drumhead along the scarred boundaries of the steel facial plate. Rolling onto his knees, he forces himself off the deck, then links arms with his mates as he backs down the sloping surface like a frog on a truck tire.
A dozen more steps and his head submerges, the ocean, like a raging river, threatening to sweep his feet out from under him at any moment. The Arctic sea is so cold it bites through his dry suit; the waves tugging on his lifeline, howl past his aching ears like rolling thunder. Twelve paces underwater and he stops, peering over the rounded edge of the stern, now a dark shadow visible in the underwater lights.
Gripping his guideline he bends, holds on to the edge, then steps off the precipice into the menacing blackness.
The line grows taut, slowing his descent even as a whirling, malevolent current spins him, then sucks him below into the twenty-foot-high steel sleeve that sandwiches the five enormous propulsors, each engine spaced evenly along the width of the steel stingray’s keel.
Twisting, flailing against the current, he finally secures himself within the protective opening, the torrent lessening as he maneuvers deeper into the alcove. He gropes along Goliath’s mighty steel arm for support, the appendage swaying against the driving sea as it secures the new propulsor assembly against the now-barren driveshaft.
From the wrist of the robotic appendage glows the eerie scarlet sensor orb, the unblinking computer eyeball silently urging Covah’s team to complete its work before the robot’s mechanical arm snaps in two.
Covah removes one of the cantaloupe-size lug nuts from the satchel around his waist and passes it carefully to another member of his team. One by one, the six lug nuts are twisted into place and tightened, using a power wrench the size of a tennis racket.
Covah’s teeth chatter against the regulator, the pain in his mangled ear increasing, his body becoming numb as his men tighten the last of the lug nuts, firmly anchoring the new assembly in place. Sorceress wastes no time in testing it, opening and closing the afterburner-like unit.
The robotic arm retracts, signaling the computer’s acceptance. A moment later, the four steel cables drag Covah and his team upward, back into the heart of the storm.
Caroming along the line, Covah reaches above his head to guide his torso up and over the dark edge of the stern, the waves punishing his numb body as the quarter-inch steel cable hauls him up onto the submerged deck. Awkwardly, he regains his feet as the winch draws him forward, his head momentarily clearing the surface before it is again submerged beneath a rolling swell.
Sorceress, a maelstrom of intellect, programmed to learn, caught within its own loop of self-analysis, as it attempts to answer an algorithm it cannot possibly understand—its own existence … its own identity.
A flash of lightning.
ENERGY …
The steel arm rises like a lightning rod, its three-pronged claw opening as if instinctively drawn to the heavens like a flower reaching toward the sun—
—begging the gods above for the power with which to see.
Three more steps, and Covah’s head clears the sea. His eyes gaze up, surprised to see the steel arm reaching skyward, stretching vertically toward the violent heavens.
The towering robotic appendage sways in rigid defiance against the storm.
What’s the computer doing? Doesn’t it realize that—
Like a magnet to steel, the jagged bolt of lightning races across the ominous sky, kissing the outstretched appendage in a blinding white explosion of light.
The blast sends Covah sprawling backward into the sea, the heat from the lightning strike scorching his face, leaving his artificial metal cheek sizzling. Before he can react, an immense wave buries him, pummeling his frail body against the rubberized hull even as its icy embrace soothes the burn.
For a long moment, the four men dangle like bait, flailing helplessly against one another along the hull of the powerless sub.
Covah flounders against the sea, the current yanking on his mask, flooding it, blinding him. Too weak to stand, he pinches his nose and holds on, gasping breaths through the regulator, the seconds passing like hours.
A sharp tug. The line drags him back against the current as it is manually retracted, giving him enough leverage to get his weighted boots beneath him.
Covah staggers and stands, then a strong hand grabs his arm, pulling him toward the rail. Sujan climbs out over the rail and helps him up. Covah rips off his flooded mask, the purple spots in his stinging eyes preventing him from focusing.
Exhausted and numb, he collapses onto the steel grating. The muffled voices of his men are drowned out by the storm, their rubber boots close to his face. Lying on his side, he stares forward at the contours of his submarine’s ascending spine, the dark metallic surface still crackling with neon blue capillaries of electricity. High above his head, the once-shiny steel arm stands melted and mangled beyond recognition. A scorched, blackened scar marks where the bolt of lightning struck the claw.
Positioned along the deformed robotic wrist is Goliath’s sensor eye—the laser red pupil now dark and dead.