She didn’t have much longer. She crawled onto the third table and carefully straightened. The whole edifice felt unstable. She stretched for the box attached to the dome.
Nope. No good. She still couldn’t reach.
“Pass me a chair.”
“You can’t,” Bertrand said.
“I can.”
She would.
The chair turned out to be a terrible idea. It slid on the smooth surface of the table, not helped by the water that was soaking everything.
Perfect balance. Like an acrobat. She really wasn’t cut out to be an acrobat.
She raised herself inch by inch, swaying. Like a reed… The chair shifted. Don’t panic! She took a slow breath.
The metal box was right above her. It was twice the size of her head and it was attached to the glass panes around the crossed metal struts by suction cups. She could break the seals and pull it off. If it wasn’t booby-trapped somehow. She removed her thin, sharp knife from inside her sleeve and carefully levered the cover from the device. Inside was a tangle of whirring cogs, twitching levers, curling springs, and vibrating discs. Harriet peered closer. Behind the mechanism, heavy metal spikes rested against the glass. It was a booby trap. If she made the wrong move, those spikes would drive into the glass, shattering it, and letting the Valles Marineris pour in.
There were so many components all connected and interacting. Half of them must be fake, parts to trip her up and trigger the booby trap. If only they weren’t all moving so fast… She stared at them. Don’t try to follow them. It’s like a magician’s trick. Don’t let your eyes follow the distractions. See the whole thing.
She had trained for this. If only she’d actually managed to disarm any of those blasted traps during training.
“Harriet,” Bertrand shouted. “Look out!”
Harriet snapped her gaze from the device. There, in the water, heading right toward her, was the mosasaurus. The submersible was nowhere to be seen.
She was out of time.
She stared at the device. How could she stop it? No time to wonder, no time to second-guess herself.
That cog. It had to be the one. If it weren’t, she would never know. She would be crushed beneath the water before she could even realize her mistake. She inserted her blade under the cog, then, with a quick prayer, flicked it out.
The mechanism stopped. Harriet closed her eyes, clenched her jaw, and waited for the impact. It didn’t come. She opened one eye. The device was inert, the spikes still resting gently against the glass. The mosasaurus was swimming calmly away into the depths. Harriet slumped.
Which was the worst thing she could possibly have done. The chair went one way, the table beneath it another, and for a brief moment Harriet was flying. Then she crashed down, right on top of Reginald Pratt, Viscount Brotherton.
She struggled up, picking the random bits of clockwork that had come off Reginald’s jacket from her ball gown. Her back ached where she had bounced off Reginald’s shoulder and her head thumped. Reginald sprawled beneath her, blood streaming from his nose.
Bertrand helped her up. The crowd of panicking guests was still packed solidly around the entrance, shouting and calling.
“What the hell is going on, Reggie? Why aren’t you getting the doors open?”
He stared up at her, eyes white and wide. “I can’t do it.” He wiped his sleeve across his nose, smearing the blood.
“What do you mean you can’t do it? Is it jammed? The dome could collapse at any minute. Anyone locked in here will die.”
Reginald’s eyes flicked from side to side. Harriet saw the panic crouching in them.
“Did you even try?” Harriet demanded.
Reginald didn’t reply. His hands were shaking.
She swore. “Get out of my way.” She splashed off across the ankle-deep ballroom. Bertrand and Colonel Fitzpatrick ran after her. The crowd of people was so thick and so panicked that Harriet had to let Bertrand and the colonel drive a path through for her.
The pressure doors were made of heavy, thick steel with only a small glass porthole at head height. Harriet peered through, looking for any of the hotel staff who might be outside, but all she saw were two slumped bodies. Whoever had locked them in had made sure no one would let them out.
There were no obvious wheels, levers, or handles on this side of the pressure doors, and although some of the gentleman had been heaving at them, they had not managed to budge the doors.
“There must be a way to release them,” Harriet said. “They can’t be designed in such a way as to lock people in.”
Bertrand looked helplessly at her. “Don’t ask me.”
No mechanism that could be released accidentally, Harriet thought. Should the worst happen, it would be important that the doors could not accidentally spring open. A concealed mechanism, protected from the water and any debris or sea life that might happen to come in contact. That must mean a panel. She peered closely. There. Near where the two doors joined. The panel fitted tightly, no doubt to prevent seawater seeping in, but it was there. Using the blade of her knife, Harriet quickly unscrewed it and swung it open.
A crash sounded behind her. Harriet risked a glance back. A glass pane had given way completely. Water poured in faster and faster. It spread across the floor in a calf-high wave. Around the powerful jet of water, metal bent and glass began to splinter.
“It’s giving way,” Bertrand said, his voice breaking in alarm.
There was a single, heavy lever inside the panel. Harriet jerked it up and heard bolts release along the door joint.
“Now!” she called.
The men who had been trying to force the door heaved. Slowly, the heavy doors slid apart.
“Out!” Harriet shouted. “Everyone out!”
She didn’t have to give the command again. The crowd surged forward, pushing, jostling, and fighting to get through the entrance, slipping and falling, and scrambling to their feet again. The water that had been rising flowed rapidly into the hotel with them. Harriet saw Reginald Pratt elbow his way through and out, almost knocking Mrs. Fitzpatrick’s feather-topped from her head. Harriet looked back at the dome. If it gave way while they were evacuating, the whole hotel would flood and not a single one of them would escape. Come on. Come on. She pushed and hurried the guests onwards, not caring for propriety or station. She grabbed a duchess by one arm and swung her bodily at the gap.
“That’s it,” Bertrand said. “They’re all through. Come on, Harry. It’s our turn.”
They dashed through the open doors. Behind them, the dome gave an alarming creak. Glass splintered. Another pane burst, then another. Water roared down almost deafeningly. The men who had helped pull open the doors were gone, fleeing down the corridor.
“Come back!” Harriet shouted. “We have to close the doors.” But the men kept on running. Only Bertrand and Colonel Fitzpatrick remained. She met the two men’s gazes. “We’re going to have to do this ourselves.”
“I’ve got this one,” the colonel said.
Bertrand and Harriet took hold of the other door and together they rolled them shut. Harriet seized the locking handle and threw it down. The bolts jolted into place. And not a moment too soon. With a shriek like a dying leviathan, the dome gave way. Water hammered down, driven by the pressure of a hundred feet of ocean above it. It smashed into the marble floor and roared toward them. The impact of the wave hitting the massive metal doors knocked Harriet back. For a second, she thought they would give way, but they held and through the glass porthole Harriet saw swirling water, mud, and the debris of the broken ballroom.