Panting broke over the comm channel, then a voice.
“Help… help me with her,” Michael gasped.
Les unslung his rifle, took off the vest laden with flares and magazines, and kicked off his boots. Then he dived into the water. Layla jumped in after him. They swam side by side, kicking away from the platform and into the rough sea.
Les hated dark water almost as much as he hated the dark skies, but at least the skies didn’t hide fish that could swallow you in a bite, or giant octopuses like the one X and Magnolia had reported. He tried to shut out thoughts of whatever might be sharing the same water with him.
Fear fueled his movements, and a minute later he was nearing the two chutes spread out like flattened mushrooms in soup. He put an arm under Erin and helped Michael pull her back toward the dock.
Layla swam alongside, freeing their chutes from their harnesses. They wouldn’t be able to salvage those, but it beat the alternative of drowning with them still attached.
“Is she breathing?” Layla asked.
Michael nodded. “She’s alive.” He let out a painful grunt that told Les it had been a rough landing. As the divers made their way back to the docks, waves rolled in, blocking their view each time one slapped against them.
Layla was first to the pier. She climbed up, then turned to help Les and Michael get Erin out of the water.
Les was so anxious to get out, he nearly jumped onto the concrete.
“We have to take off her helmet,” Michael said.
Les checked the radiation reading on his wrist monitor. This area was a green zone—odd, considering the storm that raged above them.
Something was definitely off about this place.
Michael eased Erin’s helmet off her head. Her eyelids were closed, and blood trickled from her nose.
Layla pulled out a medical kit and fished through the contents.
“Open her mouth, Michael,” she said.
He did as ordered, and Layla slipped a pill under her tongue.
“If this doesn’t wake her up…” Layla didn’t finish her sentence.
Les had used the adrenaline pills before. They acted fast, entering the bloodstream through the gums and veins in the mouth.
Michael looked over his shoulder as they waited, and Les followed his gaze down the dock. Two ships were anchored here, but with no sign that anyone had been aboard in the past hundred years.
“Cazadores?” Michael asked.
“I don’t think so,” Les replied.
“Those are ITC ships,” Layla said. “See the markings?” She gestured at the nearer of the two, whose hull read Transport Cyber… with the rest of the letters too faded to read.
A sudden gasp made Les whirl around as Erin, eyes wide, shot up to a sitting position.
“Easy,” Layla said, putting a hand on Erin’s shoulder. “Just breathe.”
“It’s okay,” Michael added reassuringly. He put a hand on her other shoulder.
She looked at them in turn as she took in deep breaths. “Wha… What happened?”
“You were grazed by lightning,” Michael said. “But you’re going to be okay.”
“Where am I?” she asked.
“Red Sphere,” Michael said.
“Can you walk?” Layla asked.
Erin pushed at the ground, her body quivering. “I… I don’t know. Everything tingles.”
A metallic clanking sounded in the distance, and the divers all looked toward the domed building set in the center of the round artificial island.
“Did you hear something?” Layla asked.
Michael nodded. “Come on,” he said, “help me get Erin up. We need to get out of the open.”
THIRTEEN
A day had passed since the Sea Wolf left the Turks and Caicos. In that time, the vessel had traveled about seventy-five miles southeast, and they were nearing the eastern edge of the island of Hispaniola, which had once comprised the countries of Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
But the boat was in bad shape. The remaining battery was down to a 61 percent charge, and the single engine was struggling to plow through six-foot waves.
Magnolia took a sip of herbal tea, hoping it would calm her sour stomach. She sat in her bunk with her knees pulled up to her chest, reading historical records she had pulled from the satellite station on the island. The cut on her scalp hurt like hell—worse after her fall off the bluff.
Blinking over and over, she tried to clear her vision and concentrate on the tablet screen in her hands. Most of this was stuff she already knew: the history of ITC and the life of its wunderkind CEO, Tyron Red—everything up to his assassination, and what followed in the days immediately after he transferred his consciousness to a robotic body.
“Timothy, were you aware of this?” she asked.
The AI’s voice replied from the single speaker in her small quarters.
“Exactly which part of ‘this’ are you referring to, Magnolia?”
“The part about a computer virus shutting down the grid across the world and then manipulating governments into blowing themselves to kingdom come. I always thought it was humans who did this.”
“Oh, it was.”
“How do you mean?”
There was a slight pause, just long enough for Magnolia to wonder whether the AI might be hiding something.
“Humans designed artificial intelligence.”
“True, but you still haven’t answered my original question.”
“I did another scan, and I do not have anything in my database for the year 2043.”
She lowered the tablet.
“What do you mean, you don’t have anything in your database?”
“I mean that I have zero files about events in that year.”
“How is that possible?”
Another pause.
“What about the year 2042?” she asked.
“I have over one million files for that year.”
She grabbed her cup of tea and took another sip. “What about 2044?”
“There are thousands of files for that year, but not nearly as many as 2042 and before, and they are limited to the Hilltop Bastion and communications with other ITC facilities.”
“Holy wastes,” she muttered.
“I’m sorry I can’t be of more assistance, Miss Katib, but this data must have been lost in what Dr. Diaz is calling ‘the Blackout period.’”
“I guess so.” She brought the tablet up again. This time, she did a search for Red Sphere, the top secret lab where the doctor and his team had spent several years after the war.
Maybe she had missed something in his audio and video clips. Maybe there was something more to this, an answer she had overlooked.
The boat suddenly rocked hard to starboard—the result of a rogue wave slamming into the port side. The impact nearly jolted the tablet out of her hand. She looked up at the bulkhead, where the recessed light flickered.
“No, please don’t,” she whispered.
Miles lifted his head from where he was sleeping off his second feast of shark meat. It was the most movement she had seen from the dog in several hours. It seemed the fish was not agreeing with his stomach. A gurgling sounded, and he let out an audible fart.
Magnolia chuckled until the light flickered off.
“Great. Just freaking great.” She laid the tablet down on the bunk to investigate what had caused the power outage. Whatever answers were in the data would have to wait.
She swung her legs over the bed and put her naked feet on the cold metal floor. Then she grabbed her sweater and threw it over her uniform. A boisterous clanking came from outside her quarters. The noises were followed by another sound, like grinding gears. She found her flashlight and used it to get across the small space to her boots without tripping on her gear bags.
“Mags, where you at?” X shouted.