When she got close enough, she saw a jagged piece of metal had run clear through his stomach. Another piece had sunk into his shoulder, a two-foot piece of rusted rebar that had pierced above his lung. He gasped, gritting his teeth. They had to get him up, and fast. His eyes went wide as he looked behind them. Two more AUVs joined the first, hovering in the water a few dozen feet away. Another discharge of bubbles streamed out from the closest one, sending a projectile tearing through the water.
She grabbed Dirk’s arm and kicked upward, barely clearing the building as the second explosive thunked into its side. Seconds later it detonated, sending them tumbling through the water. She lost her bearings, and for a second couldn’t figure out which way was up. Then she saw the bright surface of the water and started to kick toward it. But the third AUV maneuvered itself between them and the surface, angling itself down to fire. Raven was suddenly beside them, taking Dirk’s other arm.
She glanced at her O2 meter. Three minutes left. They weren’t going to make it.
Dirk started struggling against them, shoving them away. She watched, confused as he grabbed something off Raven and kicked toward the hole in the docking door. Then she saw a jet of fire stream out from him. He’d grabbed the pocket pyro and cranked it all the way up. The AUVs maneuvered in the water, angling toward the heat signature. He swam furiously, blood streaming out from his stomach and shoulder in waves. He made it to the hole and pulled himself through.
“Dirk, what are you doing?” H124 shouted.
“Get to the surface!” he shouted.
She looked at her oxygen gauge. Two minutes.
“We’re not going without you!” She started kicking toward the hole just as the first AUV reached it.
“They’re programmed to protect the facility!” Dirk shouted. “They’re not going to bother with you if I’m in here with a jet of fire.”
Sure enough, the AUVs sped toward him, all three disappearing through the hole behind him.
“Dirk!” she shouted.
“Come back out!” Raven pleaded over the comm.
“Astoria wouldn’t want this. She died to save you!” H124 yelled.
“I know,” he gasped through the pain. She heard him swallow hard. “So let it count for something. Get that launch vehicle and save the planet. Go!”
They heard two explosions and a stream of bubbles erupted from the hole as fiery light streamed out.
“Damn it!” she cursed. Raven grabbed her arm and started kicking them toward the surface. “We can’t leave him!”
And then she ran out of air. She gasped, her lungs rebelling. She felt her stomach tremble, as her mouth opened and shut in vain. She kept kicking, sensing that her whole body was about to burst. Raven’s body kicked and convulsed; for a moment her eyes met his in the dark water, and in them she saw terror. Up and up they kicked, clawing for the surface. Her vision tunneled, and her brain felt like it was about to explode. The world grew tiny, narrow, and black-and-white. But the white parts got brighter, and suddenly she was breaking through the surface. She tore off her mask. Raven emerged next to her, his body flopping. She tore off his face mask, and he gasped in a ragged breath of air.
About a hundred yards away, they saw the conning tower of the submarine.
“We’re here!” she said over the comm, waving. “But give the facility a wide berth. There are three more of those things down there.”
A watchman spotted them and climbed back into the sub. It motored toward them, skirting on the surface around the outside edge of the facility.
Her heart thudded in her chest. Her mind struggled to understand what had just happened, that they’d lost Dirk. She could hear the dull thrumming of the sub’s engines in the water as it motored toward them, but it felt like it was a million miles away.
When they’d almost reached her and Raven, she heard the weapons officer call out over the comm. “Sir! Coming up beneath us! Another AUV!”
“All ahead full! Right to 160!” shouted the captain.
The sub wheeled to the side, and she and Raven started to swim backward. A dark shape sped up through the water below. But it didn’t pause to take aim at the sub. It careened toward the surface, bursting into the air with explosive force. Immediately she saw that something was attached to it, which slid off into the water, floating on the surface. “Dirk!” she shouted, kicking over to him. The AUV sank back down into the depths as Dirk struggled to stay afloat.
She and Raven reached him, treading water with him between them, ripping off his mask. He drew in a harsh breath. His head bobbed, but a wry smile came to his face. “Astoria always said there wasn’t anything I couldn’t rewire.” He coughed. “The other two are destroyed.”
H124 grinned, then said over the comm, “It’s okay to pick us up. The AUVs have been neutralized.”
And they floated there, their friend between them. Blood seeped out around Dirk, and already he was losing consciousness. They’d have to get him to a medpod fast, but he was alive.
She gazed up at the blue sky. A storm was brewing to the southeast. Looked like it was going to be a doozy. She thought of the hurricane she and Raven had braved.
As the sub drew closer, she looked out at strange skeletal platforms dotting the horizon. She’d learned people had once lived on these massive platforms, stations that had once drilled deep down into the seabed to extract oil. It had been a dangerous place to live back then, with violent explosions that killed workers, and accidents that spewed millions of gallons of oil out into pristine waters, destroying wildlife.
She’d seen similar rigs out in the distance when Raven had taken her up to the northernmost extent of the continent above Sanctuary City. He’d told her that both locations had once been wildly diverse places full of myriad marine wildlife, but that after several disasters on the oil rigs, millions of gallons of oil had washed up on shore, killing countless birds and other flora and fauna besides.
Now she tried to imagine what it had been like, teeming with creatures, vibrant coral communities with colorful fish. Next to her, Dirk bled into the ocean, and they all held on to each other, bobbing with the waves.
Chapter 3
H124 gazed out over a flat, dry brown landscape. Orion and Onyx had dug around in the Rover archives, poring over ancient historical documents, and finally found a probable location for the A14. When low-lying areas in the east had flooded, museums had moved priceless collections westward to the interior of the continent. A lot of vehicles from the old space program had been moved to a location just east of Delta City called the Museum of Innovation and Science.
Gordon, her stalwart friend and pilot, had picked up H124, Raven, and Dirk in his Lockheed Vega, eager to see the A14, if it still existed. Dirk had healed in a medpod, but his side still bothered him. Sitting across the plane aisle from her, he winced. All three had developed the bends after surfacing so fast, and each had to spend time in a medpod.
As they approached the coordinates, H124 gazed out the plane window. Raven sat a few rows ahead in the small jet, studying the museum’s layout on his PRD. Below, dirt billowed and swirled in the relentless wind, and even though the plane’s climate controls hummed in the cabin, it couldn’t compensate for the hot, dry air outside. Dirt devils wound away on the landscape, and in the distance, a pair of long, parallel metal tracks stretched to the horizon. She swallowed, her throat dry and scratchy. She looked at her PRD, studying the photograph of what the original entrance to the museum had looked like.
A large glass structure had stood above