We arrived back at Trieste on 22 March. The journey from Churchill had taken five days because the SCAV drive was down. In a way it was a long five days, because there was still so much to do, and spending unnecessary time traveling was tedious, but it was also a nice period to unwind and plan the upcoming operations in the South Pacific and the Indian Ocean.
I also spent time with Renée, which was a break from what we’d been through over the days leading up to the heist in Churchill. There were eight of us on board SC-1, along with the large laser pack just aft of the living area, and there wasn’t much space. There were two recessed bunks in the bulkheads just aft of the pilot cabin, and two couches, but otherwise there wasn’t a lot of room to lie down. Renée and I found time, as lovers do, and we had sex where we could. We kept quiet, however, which was difficult, but we didn’t want to be disrespectful.
I’m not sure what Sahar would have thought, had she found out. Would she have understood the cultural differences and tolerated it? Or would it have made her furious?
Renée and I didn’t want to find out, so we kept our lovemaking slow and quiet. That was nice, too. The orgasms were even more intense.
We had set up a space in the engineering compartment for a bit of privacy, but it didn’t change the fact that things were cramped.
I was most concerned about Sahar, who deserved and needed privacy, but she endured the voyage like a trooper. In some ways, in fact, she didn’t just “endure” it—she loved it. She was on the adventure of a lifetime, she’d stated, and had a smile on her face during most of the trip to Trieste. She kept up her prayers, and Meg and Renée even joined her at times, mostly to meditate and show welcoming companionship and inclusion.
Cliff, Meg, Johnny, and I spent the time piloting—our max speed was only 70 kph—and we plowed our way through the Atlantic toward the warm Gulf waters.
Chalam was intense. He was happy to be on board and embark on the mission, but he kept to himself and valued privacy. He was still processing what had happened to him. I was worried about what he’d say to Alyssna or Sahar—who didn’t want to cause any death—but he avoided the others as best he could. He set up a space in the SCAV compartment, behind engineering, and mostly stayed there.
Finally, we arrived, and Sahar stared out the canopy with wide eyes at the crystal clear water and the sunlight shimmering downward, bathing the modules of the city in its glow. I’d once described the scene as an Island of Light, a description more apt at nighttime, when the floodlights around the modules illuminated the city and it glowed like a massive diamond in the darkness.
I’d seen a recent photograph of Trieste at nighttime as viewed from orbit. The glow from under the water was unmistakable. The individual modules were clear, as were the transparent travel tubes, and all around the world, the underwater colonies were growing. Politicians everywhere had planned new ones. What had once been an ambitious experiment had proven itself a thousand times over now. The resources sent topside were just too important, and while that was a positive for continued colony existence, it also sent a warning to the independence movement: Nations would fight it, more vigorously than ever before.
As for those underwater cities destroyed six months ago—Blue Downs and Seascape—engineers had rebuilt them in the same footprints; their mother nations were desperate for the influx of much-needed resources and couldn’t go without for much longer. The colonizing nations were going to use both cities for farming and fishing; Seascape, which at one point had been strictly for tourists, now had a new purpose for the topsiders.
Trieste was a sight for sore eyes, and my heart pounded as it appeared from the shadow of distant waters. It was like a mirage taking solid form before our eyes. Sahar gasped and mouthed something in Arabic as she stared at the city.
“It’s my home,” I whispered. “I love it here.”
“It’s so beautiful. Look at the fish, the seacars and kelp!”
“You can really see things here in this water.”
“The currents aren’t as strong?”
I nodded. “Yes, and the sand doesn’t get stirred up as much. That being said, high waves at the surface during storms affect us, and this region is prone to hurricanes. They don’t harm us, but they do have an impact. Navigation is more difficult, divers have to stay tethered to the modules, they need to carry floodlights with them to see in serious events, and we have rescue teams on high alert.”
“Are the storms bad?”
“During hurricane season, from May to December, we’re in their path. Doesn’t mean they hit us every year though, but the season is much longer than it used to be.”
It was because of the warming waters, of course. A hurricane required warm ocean water to generate the intense energy that drove their winds and spawned tornadoes within its furious embrace. The warmer the water, the worse the storms. The latent energy from evaporation emerged in the atmosphere in the counter-clockwise churning monsters, driving faster winds and generating more precipitation. The energy released from condensation in those beasts boggled the mind.
And they’d been growing worse since the 20th Century. At first the storms had been flashing warning signs. The Galveston disaster in 1900, then Andrew and Mitch and Katrina. Cyclone Tracy in Australia destroyed an entire town—Darwin. A serious danger signal of the escalating issue were storms like Allen and Dorian. Both had exceeded the Category Five designation, prompting meteorologists to suggest adding a Category Six. Eventually that did happen, and now they were suggesting a theoretical max Cat Seven.
It made me shiver.
I was happy to live underwater.
—••—
Within hours of arriving, Cliff met with his investigation team, and I made sure to get an update afterward. We were in my office, just off City Control, where I’d been catching up on city business. The office was all steel with a small viewport, there was a pile of stuff to do on my desk, as well as a full inbox to deal with, but walking in put a smile on my face that no amount of work could dampen. I loved it.
“My team has looked into the carbon monoxide attack on you and Renée,” Cliff said as he sat in the chair across from me. He dwarfed the chair and seemed to spill from it; the muscles on his arms rippled. He’d been working out more and more since the events at Seascape, when Zyvinski had arrested him and Meg and tortured them for weeks. They’d broken his leg, but it had since healed, and his limp was now nearly gone.
“They’ve reviewed the video?”
“There were a lot of people in the area. Divers were coming and going constantly over the previous days. It’s difficult to make out who brought tanks in, moved them, and so on. Your masks too. The cameras weren’t in positions to get a good view of your lockers. Sometimes large crowds were there. A class even had a field trip and that’s where they exited and returned. It was a big crowd of people milling about. Not just kids . . . staff, teachers, and other civilian volunteers.”
I grunted. The schools were located in the Living Modules. “So, no luck.”
He shrugged. “I do have a list. But it’s long, and not helpful.”
“Did you cross check it with the people working in the mining division?” We had thought that the culprit likely had access to the blasting explosives, because the first attempt on me had been an explosion.
He blinked as if my suggestion insulted him. “Of course, Boss. Nothing really stands out.”
“Really?”
“Well, nothing believable, anyway.”
I sighed. “Keep at it.”
“You know what will make it easier? When there’s another attempt on you. Then maybe I’ll get more evidence.”
I stared at him. “You’re being sarcastic.”
“Of course. I want you to take a guard.”
“I told you I’d think about it.”
“Are you?”
“Yes,” I lied.
“You’ve had days to consider it.”
“I still am.”
He stared at me, clearly aware that I was just putting him off.
—••—
After a few hours dealing with issues in the city—the farms needed more equipment, the mining division needed more prospectors, and a malfunction in a fish fence allowed a million Red Snapper to escape into the Gulf, the lucky bastards—and eventually I set things aside to get Johnny. Together we marched through the Commerce Module to a café. The atrium was nine levels—four above bedrock, five below—and lit by a skylight above which allowed natural light to flood in. Around each balcony were vines intertwined with the metal spindles, providing much-needed greenery. Flowers were rare in underwater cities, though I recalled there’d been one on Sahar’s desk when I first met her. Businesses and offices circled the atrium, and many of the food service ones were cafés, and pubs.
Chalam was sitting at a table, looking over the railing at the atrium.
He smiled when we arrived and gestured for us to take seats. “Mac, Johnny, nice to see you again.”
“I didn’t see much of you on the trip here,” I said. “Strange to achieve such a feat on a small seacar.”
He looked abashed. “I am still mourning my brother. Trying to process what happened.”
“I understand.”
“I also feel . . . guilt.”
That surprised me. “But why?”
He sighed and stared down. He didn’t respond for a long minute. Then he looked back up, letting the sunlight touch his face. “This is really nice, Mac. The sun shining down through the module, even though we’re thirty meters under water.”
“Planners designed it to let light get into every business, all the way to the first level.”
“It worked.”
I remained quiet. He sipped his coffee, then looked down again. “I was in the seacar and the hull was shimmering. Something was eating away at it. I instinctively knew it was about to give way. The pressure was going to get us. I have no idea how it happened though, or what it was. You said it was some kind of weapon that vaporized the water. A welding weapon of some sort.”
I remembered his story. I shuddered. It must have been terrifying. He still didn’t know the terrible truth of what had killed them.
He continued. “I rushed to the airlock. Grabbed scuba gear. I was frantic. I knew we only had seconds. I called to the others—” He choked off his words, and his lips were trembling. “I—I—”
“Go on.”
He stared at me. “I can’t remember if I warned the others to get their scuba gear on, Mac. I pulled my mask on, and then I saw the blue lights flash. The water flooded in—” He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “It’s the last thing I remember, before waking up in the BSF warsub.”
I frowned. “You did the best you could. Manse’s girlfriend was piloting. The other woman was sleeping. You had to get your mask on first before you could offer help, Chalam.”
“I don’t think I warned them enough,” he murmured. “I—I can’t remember what I said, in fact.”
Johnny said, “There’s nothing more you could have done.”
“My brother was lying there, passed out, his stump bleeding. There was a pile of bloody liquid—liquid flesh and fat—on the deck! I needed to get a mask on him, and a tank. But I didn’t.”
“How could you? The ocean flooded in.”
“Still,” he muttered. Another long series of heartbeats. “But then something just as terrible happened. No one would listen to me. No one believed me. Or, they knew what had happened and they ignored me. Except Mayor Noor. She listened to me. But it didn’t change anything. They’re all still dead.” His eyes hardened. “But you’re going to help me get revenge now, Mac.” A sick smile spread across his face. “I think it’ll make me feel better.”
“It won’t, actually. Just be prepared for that.”
He looked shocked. “What do you mean?”
I shrugged. “I’ve dealt with it a lot. It won’t bring Manse back. It won’t solve anything.”
“It’ll make the people responsible pay.”
“If you say so, but they don’t care. They’re just doing a job for their superiors.”
“And who’s that, exactly?”
An image of a red and black logo flashed through my brain. “The BSFRL, I think. Or someone associated with them.” At his quizzical look, I added, “The Research Lab arm of the BSF.” But there was something else to this too, I thought. Something else was going on here . . .
His jaw dropped. “The BSF did this? I’m a British citizen though!”
“Yes. But they are testing their weapon. You were in the open water.” I shrugged. “I think you were likely too close to their facility. They saw it as an opportunity to test The Water Pick.”
He stared at me. “Water Pick?”
“It’s a nickname.”
“How do you know so much about it?”
I glanced at Johnny and took a deep breath. “Chalam, the inventor told me.”
“And who—”
“Alyssna Sonstraal. She was on the seacar with us.”
His face showed shock at first, then it slowly flattened. He was showing little emotion now, like a robot. “I met her?”
“Of course. We were all there. She’s going on the mission with us.”
“To get revenge?”
I shook my head. “To steal the device. That’s where we’re going. We need you.”
He looked away, pondering that. “Why does she want it, if she invented it?”
Johnny said, “She lost access to the project. She wants to keep working on it.”
I stared at him, wondering how he’d take this news. We needed his help, but couldn’t afford to have his anger fester within the team. However, he also needed to know the truth.
“I’m—I’m not sure what to think,” he muttered. “Her invention killed my brother.” His tone had turned to ice.
“Are you still interested in helping us?” I asked.
“Can I still get revenge?”
“I told you, that won’t help you. It doesn’t help you deal with grief. But, I promise we are going to take the weapon from them. It’ll hurt them where it counts.”
He looked horrified. “That’s your version of revenge?”
“In a way. You are your own person. You can do what you want. But we’re going to steal this device from them. Take it away. Then we’ll have it, and we’ll use it if necessary. Are you willing to tell us where they hit your seacar? The exact location?”
He paused and stared at me. “I will. But not yet. Not now. When we get there.”
That startled me. “You don’t trust me?”
“It’s not that.” Pause. “I don’t want to get sidelined here. I want to be a part of it. I want to be right where it happened.” He hesitated again, then said, “I’ll tell you when it’s time. I promise. Now, answer my question.”
I stared into his eyes for a long moment, then I shot a look at Johnny. “The answer is yes, if that’s what you want.”
“Good. Because I’m going to kill the people responsible.”
Does that included Alyssna Sonstraal?, I wanted to add. And what will Sahar say about this? But I didn’t. I rose and said, “Let’s go meet someone.”
—••—
Chalam stared out the viewports and the transparent travel tubes as we marched though the city toward the Research Module. He kept muttering under his breath, his eyes wide, and wonderment clear in his face. I understood exactly what he was feeling.
“The water is clearer here,” I said.
Johnny added, “It’s pretty wonderful, isn’t it?”
“Mac, it’s better than that.” He shook his head. “All our lives, Manse and I wanted to live under the water. We chose geology so we could make an impact at Churchill Sands. But this . . . ” He trailed off, staring at a seacar as it powered over the travel tube. His eyes followed it the whole way. “This is what we’d envisioned, but it’s not what Churchill is like at all.”
I shrugged. “We have rough weather here too, sometimes. Churns everything up.”
“But the colors here . . . the fish . . . ” His eyes darted about as he stared. “I could get used to this.”
I smiled. “I’ve been here since the early 2090s.”
He turned to me. “I know your history, of course. You don’t have to—”
“It’s okay. I won’t. But I have to be honest with you.” I struggled to decide how to say it. I swallowed. “I used the concept of revenge to lure you to this. But the truth is, revenge really isn’t a force for healing.”
He looked shocked. “But surely we’re going back to the Indian Ocean, right?”
“Eventually, yes.”
“What does that mean?”
I glanced around. Triestrians were wandering past us, traveling the other way in the tube, and many were waving and making comments to me. Children high-fived me. “It’s not the place to explain. Wait three more minutes.”
“But I’m going to get close to those responsible, right?”
“Absolutely, if all goes well. But what I’m trying to say is that revenge is an anchor that drags you down. It doesn’t make life easier. It makes it harder. I want you to trust me when I say this. I have extensive experience.”
He was still staring at me. “Because of your dad?”
I grunted. He knew history. “Yes.”
“Did you and Meg eventually get revenge?”
“I forgave the killer. Meg didn’t.”
“And who is better off?”
I considered that. “We both have our issues. But she’s been through more hardship because of it than I have.”
He nodded and looked away.
—••—
Soon we were at the hatch and it slid aside at my request. Doctor Max Hyland was inside, at a holoscreen, dictating code to the AI. He turned to us and a huge smile split his face. He rose and practically leaped toward me to give me a huge hug.
“Mac!” he cried. Then he turned to Johnny, who got a similar greeting. Then to Chalam he said, “It’s great to finally meet you, the famous geologist!”
The other looked abashed. “I don’t have my PhD yet, Doctor. I’m still a student.”
“You’re a university professor and an instructor. That makes you a legend.”
Chalam chuckled. “If you say so.”
The two had already been collaborating for me on a side project that was soon to become our team’s main focus. They’d been conversing via video feed, but now it was time to bring the two face to face so they could solidify our plans.
“Are you here for a while?” Max asked. He was in his forties with dark hair and dimples. His enthusiasm and good spirit were infectious. The ladies found him very attractive, as did some men, I had learned. And Max was receptive to both.
“Until we leave again, yes,” I said “But I hope you’ll be coming with us then.”
He blinked. “Me?”
“Yes. To put into action what you two have been working on.”
“I see.”
“Can you fill me and Johnny in?”
He walked back to the holoscreen, motioning for us to follow. “Yes, come see.” He quickly brought up a 3D projected map of the Indian Ocean. He zoomed into one area, and the joint USSF/ BSF underwater warsub base Diego Garcia centered in the image. To the east was a massive geologic feature. The isobath lines—cartographers called them contour lines on land, but this was underwater—identified a massive trench. They stretched north and south and were very close together, but they never crossed—one of the cardinal rules of such lines that signified elevation, or in this case, depth below sea level.
He said, “This is the Chagos Trench. Chalam has educated me about it.” Max moved the image and Diego Garcia disappeared off to the edge as he brought the trench into focus.
I stared at the feature. “It’s striking, that’s for sure.”
“And it has all three tectonic boundaries. It’s unique in the world. It is part of a major region that is tectonically active.” An oval shape appeared, stretching to the east and nearly touching Sumatra, part of Indonesia. An area just off Sumatra’s coast flashed red. “This is the location of one of the most devastating quakes in human history. December, 2004. It was a 9.1 Richter quake on the boundary with the Sunda Plate that spawned a tsunami that killed nearly 230,000 people. One hundred and seventy thousand alone died in Sumatra. Many others were in Sri Lanka and Thailand.”
“The Burma Microplate, to be precise,” Chalam muttered under his breath.
“I know this disaster,” Johnny said. “I’ve heard of it. The Boxing Day Tsunami, right?”
Chalam said, “Yes. The entire region is active. A subduction zone caused it. One section of crust sliding under another. The tension builds over time. Pretty much the entire Ring of Fire around the Pacific Ocean is one long Subduction Boundary. Eventually it gives way, and the crust moves meters in only seconds. It displaces water at the surface which spreads like ripples in a pond. They’re not wind-driven waves. They’re displacement waves. Unstoppable. That’s the tsunami.”
“Go on,” I pressed.
“A section of the crust nearly 1,500 kilometers moved. Whole islands shifted. Cartographers had to redraw maps. It was a natural event, of course, but the consequences on human lives around the Indian Ocean were monstrous. Sections of the crust rose forty meters. This is what caused the water displacement. The wave that hit Indonesia was thirty meters high.”
I swallowed. That height was the same depth of Trieste under the water. It was difficult to conceptualize a wave that high hitting a populated area.
“The last people to get hit died eight hours later, if you can believe it. Happened in South Africa.”
“But how—”
“There was no tsunami warning system in the Indian Ocean.” A shrug. “They simply didn’t know it was coming.” He paused for a moment. “There was another one in 2011 which caused the Japanese Tsunami and the resulting meltdown at Fukushima Nuclear Plant. That one was so large it shortened the length of our day. Japan moved two meters. Both of these quakes were due to Subduction Boundaries.” Chalam paused and stared at the map. Then he indicated another location on the map, near to the first. Another red light flashed. “Then came this quake, here, on April 11, 2012. Very similar in size, in the same general region as the Boxing Day Quake, also just off the west coast of Sumatra. It was 8.7 on the Richter Scale. People were immediately concerned about the quake. They thought it would spawn another tsunami.”
“Did it?”
He shook his head. “The wave was only thirty centimeters.”
“But you said it was a quake nearly the same size and in the same location.”
“That’s why it caused so much interest,” he said. His eyes were glowing now, he was in his element. “That’s why Manse and I were there. Well, partly, anyway. There are multiple boundary types in the Chagos Trench, which is weird. Well, turns out that boundary wasn’t a Subduction boundary! It was a Transform Boundary!”
Silence met his comment. Johnny and I just stared.
He continued, “One crust doesn’t move under another there. Instead, they grind past each other! A Strike-Slip, like the San Andreas Fault in California.”
“So, there’s no tension?”
“There’s a lot of tension! The crust plates get caught up with each other. Over years the tension grows, then it gives way. The crusts move relative to each other, causing the quake.”
I frowned. “I don’t understand. It sounds the same as—”
“Yes, but there’s no displacement of the water at the surface. Well, no massive displacement, anyway. Just a bit. Everyone was expecting this massive wave that never materialized.”
Max was watching the presentation. He said, “Chalam and I have been going over this area for the past week or so, Mac. I don’t really know why yet, though.”
I said, “Are you familiar with the area now? The trench?”
A shrug. “I’m not a geologist, but I guess so.”
I glanced at Johnny, then, “We’re going on a mission. You two are coming with us. We’re going to steal a weapon from the British Submarine Fleet. We already have the first component. A laser pack.”
Chalam’s face hardened. “Is that what killed my brother?”
“Not really.” I took a breath. “A ten-terawatt laser blast encloses the real weapon. It creates a vacuum channel, or pathway, through the water to the target. We stole the ten lasers five days ago in Churchill. That component was in the seacar on the way here, covered by a tarp. But now we’re going for the other three components.”
Max Hyland’s eyebrows raised. The notion shocked him. “Where are they?”
“One is on board a BSF warsub in the South Pacific. The other two are here.” I pointed at the map of the Indian Ocean.
“Is that the weapon?” Chalam growled. He’d been waiting to hear this for a while now, and I knew it was time to tell him. “You said it was something that vaporized water. A welding weapon of some sort. Well, a ten-terawatt laser pack would definitely qualify.”
“That just creates the channel, or the void.”
Max was a physicist, and he knew how unique this was. “A vacuum pathway, underwater? Contained?”
“By the lasers, as long as they’re firing, yes.”
“Incredible.”
“What’s incredible is what fires down the vacuum channel.” I paused and then, “It’s a neutral beam.”
Max’s face paled. “A neutral beam? Underwater?”
“Yes. Sustained.”
He swore. “What’s the range?”
“Only a few hundred meters. Two hundred at the most, I think. Doctor Sonstraal can answer that for you. It depends on—”
“Likely the temperature, salinity, suspended sediment,” Max interjected.
“The weapon is dynamic apparently, altering its wavelength based on those variables. It doesn’t have a great range, but it is deadly against warsubs. And more efficient and reliable than torpedoes.” I watched Chalam as I said this. He was furious.
“This killed my brother. As well as Kalinda and Preet.”
Max was watching the other’s expression. “Are you serious?”
“It happened a few weeks ago. I want revenge against those responsible.”
I sighed at that, but pressed on, “We’re going to steal it. We leave in two days. But before we do, we need to lock down our plans.”
“How does that involve me?” Max asked.
“And me?” Chalam said.
I turned to Max. “We need some Isomer Bombs for this mission, Max. I hope you have built a few for us.” Then to Chalam, “And only you know where the base is. The modules you discovered on the seafloor, at a depth of 500 meters. That was the secret facility. That’s where Doctor Sonstraal and her team were developing The Water Pick.”
Max said, “You’re sure it was a neutral beam?”
I said, “Absolutely. Chalam was an eyewitness. And I need both of you for this mission. Your participation is crucial. Are you with us?”