Jonah’s chest rose and fell to the near-silent vibration of the Scorpion’s engines, his swollen eyes too heavy to open. He shifted in his bunk as a fresh wave of pain washed over his body. Every inch of him hurt. It hurt to clear his throat, wiggle an eyebrow, tongue the roof of his mouth. Jonah tried to raise his palm to his face, but stopped as a jabbing spasm radiated across his ribcage. His fingers crawled up towards his bare chest, crossing over his undone belt. He could feel the bandages over his ribs as he moved his hand to his pectorals, fingertips caressing a strip of wet plastic taped to his chest. The plastic went taut when he breathed in, tight against his skin, but gently fluttered as he exhaled. A fresh drip of warm liquid ran down the length of his abdomen. He opened his eyes slowly, fuzzy and useless as they drifted to a hanging IV bag before closing again.
He counted backwards from five, willing himself to open his eyes against the pain. It was easier this time, the harsh fluorescent lights muted, the surrounding room coming into focus. He’d been left in Hassan and Alexis’ cabin, alone in their tiny bed. He noticed with a pang of embarrassment that his broken nose had bled profusely across their sheets, staining them badly.
The homey cabin smelled like them, albeit with the taint of antiseptic and rubbing alcohol. Jonah let his gaze pan across the small space, taking in details he’d never bothered to notice before. There was an old Polaroid camera on a small shelf beside several selfie-style photos of them together. They’d taken no more than a single picture at a time, carefully conserving the scant film as they traveled across the Pacific Ocean. The doctor had painted things for her as well—colorful Moroccan designs on shells next to a lovingly rendered portrait, every detail of her smiling face reproduced with careful brushstrokes. The flowers he’d picked for her on the mysterious island had begun to wither, she’d removed them from water and hung them upside down to dry and preserve.
Jonah’s pearl-handled pistol awkwardly completed the ensemble as it lay next to a wooden bowl of ripening wild fruits. Maybe Dalmar retrieved it after it had gone flying out of the skyscraper window. He didn’t reach for it, but simply knowing it was there was a comfort of sorts, an understanding that some minor order could be returned to a chaotic universe.
The cabin door creaked open as Hassan let himself in without knocking. The doctor looked no worse for wear himself. His face was covered with a number of small adhesive bandages and still-blossoming purple bruises. He carried a tablet computer in one hand, and his well-worn medical kit in the other.
“I’m happy to see you awake,” Hassan said with a smile. He spoke slowly, careful not to presume that all of Jonah’s faculties had returned. “You’ve been out for nearly three hours.”
“And I’m happy you managed to drag my broken-down ass back to the Scorpion.” Jonah could barely get the words out through his half-crushed windpipe. “We’re still floating, so I’ll take that as a good sign. What’s the latest?”
“We’ll soon exit Tokyo harbor,” said Hassan. “Between the commotion created by the storm and the gathering fleet, Vitaly believes we will not be detected as we slip out to sea.”
“So what happened to me? One minute I couldn’t quite catch my breath—and the next I was out cold.”
“Broken rib and punctured lung,” said Hassan. “Your chest cavity was filling up with leaking air with every inhalation—you were essentially suffocating from the inside out. I managed to release the pressure before your lung collapsed. I took the further liberty of administering a general anesthetic to keep you under while I added a plastic dressing to your upper thorax that would prevent the cavity from re-filling. The dressing should suffice for now; at least until the wound begins to naturally heal. You’ll need a thorough course of antibiotics as soon as you’re able to eat. I’ll prescribe some painkillers as well. The punctured lung was far from the only injury you sustained.”
Jonah’s eyes closed momentarily and then opened, refocusing on the doctor. “Bottom line is that you poked a new hole in me. Is that about right?”
“Indeed. And as I did not have the medically correct implement on hand, I’d rather not go into how the procedure was performed.”
Jonah wrinkled his nose, trying not to imagine. If Hassan didn’t want to tell him, he was probably better off not knowing. “Any other updates?” His voice was no more than a rough croak, and his chest hurt with every spoken syllable.
“There’s a woman with us. She calls herself Freya, not that we could verify that—or anything about her, for that matter.”
“Freya.” Jonah awkwardly rolled the name around his mouth, his words lost to the gentle hum of the submarine’s electric engines. “Fre-ya. Freeeeeeeeya.”
“I must admit, she strikes a rather unconventional figure.”
“Where is she now?”
“She’s been confined to your quarters.”
“Good. Locked from the outside, I assume.”
“Of course. And Dalmar has been stationed on the other side of the door. I didn’t want to take any chances after seeing what she’d done to you—and with bare hands alone—a fact that Dalmar found quite amusing.”
Jonah ignored the last part of the update. “I don’t suppose we managed to get the SABC CEO aboard? You know, the whole point of coming to Tokyo?”
“Unfortunately, no. Freya carried you out of the penthouse alone. It’s the only reason we allowed her aboard the Scorpion.”
“I remember sirens—did the escape back to the sub go okay? And were you able to return the sedan to the yakuza? I hope you didn’t just abandon it on some corner where it’d get towed or stolen or whatever.”
The doctor shot him a pained look and pulled the tablet computer out from behind his back. “I’m not sure if I can adequately explain what happened. The Scorpion recorded some footage of the chase—perhaps you’d best see for yourself.”
A soundless video flashed into view, a fish-eyed perspective shot from one of the conning tower cameras. The Scorpion plunged headlong through a narrow canal with roadway on either side. The borrowed yakuza sedan slid into view on the left, pursued by black SUVs, as more police cars paralleled on the other side, firing at their quarry through open windows. The powerful sedan hesitated for a moment before surging forward over the curb, wheel yanked hard over as it smashed through a metal railing. Soaring through the air over the canal, the car did a hard belly flop onto the deck of the Scorpion, sliding to a stop with wheels hanging over either side of the hull.
Jonah’s eyes went wide as he watched Alexis stagger from the driver’s seat and to the deck hatch. Dalmar and Freya followed, dragging Jonah’s unconscious body with them. Hassan barely escaped a tidal wave of white foam as the submarine began to dive, the surge hurling the badly damaged sedan across the deck and off the side moments after the hatch closed.
“You don’t see that every day,” Jonah marveled as the tablet went dark once more. He caught a glimpse of himself in the blank, reflective glass—his eyes were both black and puffy, his splinted, tape-covered nose bloody and nearly twice its usual size.
“Quite. I believe it may be some time before any of the crew is comfortable allowing Alexis to drive again.” The doctor reached down and disconnected the long IV line, securing the hollow needle embedded in the back of Jonah’s hand with a strip of medical tape. He silently prepared a shot, lifted Jonah’s arm and pressed the syringe directly into Jonah’s injured ribs. “I gave you something to counteract the pain,” he said. “You’ll feel fairly well for the next few hours.”
“And then?”
“You’ll feel terrible. I recommend as much bed rest as is possible under the present circumstances. I took the liberty of re-aligning your nasal septum while you were unconscious as well—it was quite badly broken.”
“Thanks,” said Jonah. He unconsciously reached up with one hand to touch the tape over the bridge of his nose; it still felt loose, swollen. It’d take time to heal, time he wasn’t sure he had. “Did Freya say anything to the crew?”
“Barely a word. She stated in no uncertain terms she’d only speak with you, and that she was quite happy to wait until you were awake, however long that might be.”
“Gotcha,” said Jonah. “But she’s not my first priority right now. I’m going to need to check in with the rest of the crew first. It’s too bad our mutual kidnapping plans failed. It was a decent enough idea.”
“Given the amount of attention our presence attracted, the man was no doubt quite valuable.”
“It’s not a total loss. I’m willing to guess she has pieces of the puzzle that we don’t. Maybe we can put our heads together and come up with a clearer picture what we’re up against.”
“I’m not certain I would be quite so forgiving—the woman beat you to within an inch of your life.”
“It’s not forgiveness,” said Jonah as he gently touched his still-swelling black eyes. “It’s pragmatism. We’re pawns in this game—not players—and by the looks of things, she was just as played as we were.”
The doctor shrugged. “I could only speculate.”
Jonah drew himself up to a sitting position with a grunt. He allowed himself a few moments of dizziness, eyes closed once more, before grasping at the narrow doorframe and dragging himself to his feet. With the doctor at his side, he staggered over the cabin threshold and into the narrow corridor that connected the length of the submarine.
“Steady on!” said Hassan, throwing a supportive hand underneath Jonah’s armpit, holding him up as he swayed from side to side.
“I’m good; I’m good,” grunted Jonah as he used the corridor wall to steady himself. “Got any stronger pain meds? Like maybe something meant for horses?”
“Yes—but not if you want to stay on your feet.”
Jonah frowned and muttered his annoyance. He looked into the command compartment and picked out the empty chair at the communications console. With one final burst of energy, he limped towards it and flopped down, letting out a long, slow wheeze of relief as he leaned his head back to rest.
Vitaly barely looked up from his computer. “Your solution always crash,” complained the Russian, waving his hands in the air with open frustration. “Crash submarine into door, crash truck into ocean, crash big ship into big island, now crash car into Scorpion.”
“I can’t take credit for that,” said Jonah as he leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs over the low desk. “Alexis was driving. I wasn’t even conscious.”
“You bad influence. Still your fault.”
“I’m going to go forward, get some antibiotics,” said Hassan, excusing himself with an amused smile.
Jonah heard the heavy thump of steel-toed boots as Alexis approached from the engine compartment. “Nice driving, Tex,” said Jonah over his shoulder. “I always wanted to die in my sleep.”
“You’d better not be making fun of me,” said Alexis, crossing her arms. “I should have listened to my mom and gone to law school. Lawyers don’t shoot at people, or get chased around the whole goddamn ocean by the Japanese navy. Lawyers don’t crash stolen cars onto submarines on purpose to flee the cops.”
“It was borrowed, not stolen.”
“Law school maybe not better,” said Vitaly. “Too many lawyer in America. Drive down salary. But smuggling is growth market.”
“See?” said Jonah. “You’re in a growth market. Even Vitaly says so.”
Vitaly didn’t laugh. He instead swiveled from his console and grabbed submarine’s control yoke with one hand, using the other to furiously type a systems diagnostic command into his keyboard.
“What’s wrong?”
“I feel resistance,” he said. “Unusual vibration, drag on yoke.”
“Did we pick up some debris in the harbor?” asked Alexis. “Maybe some floating rope or a commercial fishing net?”
“I do not know,” said Vitaly. He reset the system, nodding pensively as he experimentally tugged at the control yoke again. The Scorpion responded easily to his touch. “I think maybe fixed?”
Then the submarine began to abruptly tilt, a little shift at first, but was quickly followed by a sharp lurch. “We’re yawing,” said Alexis. “I can feel it, too. We need to re-trim.”
“Trim is within usual parameter,” said Vitaly. The yoke began to buck and jerk in his hands. “This should not happen. Something wrong.”
The yoke suddenly ripped itself out of Vitaly’s grasp, moving on its own as it slammed into the metal guard welded to the deck. The submarine teetered into a lazy, descending corkscrew, nosing down sharply. Jonah tumbled out of his chair and onto the deck as the other two struggled to hold onto anything they could grab.
“I have lost control!” said Vitaly, straining against the yoke with both hands, ass on the deck, feet splayed. Jonah crawled up beside him and shoved his shoulder into the metal stalk, trying to force the yoke upright. The command compartment running lights flickered and died, leaving them in darkness until the emergency lighting erupted in red. Alarm klaxons began to blare, only adding to the chaos.
Alexis stared at the rebooted navigation console in horror. “The conning tower hatch release has been triggered!” she shouted. “The computer is trying to open it!”
Jonah’s mind reeled. “Flood the ballast tanks!” he ordered, his shoulder still underneath the yoke. “Take us deeper!”
“Are you insane?” screamed Alexis. “Deeper?”
“Do it now!” said Jonah. “The only thing keeping those hatches closed is water pressure. We need as much as possible to work against the hydraulics—we get too close to the surface and we’re fucking dead!”
Swearing in disbelief, Alexis entered the commands. The submarine’s nose lurched downwards once more, sending Jonah’s stomach into his throat as the Scorpion spun ever deeper into the harbor, hull moaning like a wounded animal.
“Passing four hundred feet! Four hundred fifty!” shouted Vitaly.
Alexis grabbed her monitor in fury, shaking it violently. “I’m locked out—I can’t override the hatch command!”
Jonah looked up the conning tower shaft to see the hatch. It flexed, hydraulics straining against the increasing exterior pressure. A single jet of aerosolized water hissed from the rim, condensing into a steady trickle of foamy seawater. The stream flowed down the interior ladder, dripping salty water onto Jonah’s forehead from above.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM. One after another, the internal bulkhead doors began to slam shut on their own, metal hinges squealing as they sealed themselves automatically.
“Internal communications are offline!” Alexis typed ineffectually at the console keypad before smashing at it with balled fists. “We can’t talk with any other compartment.”
“What the fuck is happening to my sub?” demanded Jonah.
A massive whooshing sound erupted from all around, shaking every inch of the Scorpion. “Tanks have blown! We’re going up again!” shouted Vitaly.
PIIING-PIIING-PIIING-PIIING-PIIIING—a non-stop gong of sonar pulses reverberated and echoed throughout the sealed compartments, drowning out the blaring klaxons and howling system failure alarms. Jonah cupped his hands to protect his hearing. His eardrums felt like they were about to implode. The navigation computer picked up the ricocheting acoustic signals, painting a vivid green 3D wireframe model of the rock-strewn harbor seafloor and gathering naval fleet above. The sub suddenly jolted from its corkscrew, turning to lock laser-like on a massive, bulbous fuel ship. The Scorpion’s diesel engines roared to life, supplementing the power of her electric drive. Jonah’s ears popped as the thirsty diesels inhaled cabin air, belching exhaust through an emergency shunt into the submarine’s interior. Coal-black smoke poured from every ventilation duct, filling the compartment with choking, sulfuric gas.
“I’ve lost all control!” shouted Vitaly, trying in vain to shove the control yoke over and somehow alter their course as they raced towards the surface.
Jonah heard the sound of protesting metal as the bulkhead door behind him began to open. Through sheer force of will and muscle, Freya wrenched the heavy steel against frozen hydraulics. She wedged herself halfway through before Jonah and Alexis scrambled to her aid, holding it open so she could slip through.
“Help me!” Vitaly shouted from beneath his own console. Freya sprinted across the room and slammed her shoulders into the control yoke beside him, trying to somehow push the submarine off its suicidal course. Her added strength forced a wobble into the rudder, slowing the submarine to a violent shake.
“I’ve seen this before!” she shouted, one eye locked on the looming fleet above, muscles straining against the yoke. “Your computer network is fucked—disconnect it now!”
“We cannot do this—the server run everything!” protested Vitaly. “Let me re-set system!”
“It won’t work! Disconnect before it’s too late!” shouted Freya.
Jonah ripped a hand-held radio out of the nearest desk, depressing the talk button. “Any crew near the engine compartment, disconnect the central server!” he shouted. Only hissing static answered him. He shot a worried glance at the communications console—the Scorpion’s radio transmitter had autonomously matched his frequency, drowning it out in white noise. He began to cough, barely able to see through the thick, choking diesel exhaust pouring from the vents, clutching the plastic valve Hassan had dug into his chest. “Alexis, you’re with me—engine room, now!”
The yoke jerked free, throwing Vitaly to the deck as Freya gritted her teeth and braced her feet, still trying to change the direction of the hurtling Scorpion. The wobble evened out as the submarine picked up speed once more, surging towards impact. Jonah and Alexis pried open the bulkhead door to the crew quarters, forcing themselves through before it could slam shut behind them.
“How long do we have?” said Alexis, breathless in the thick smoke.
“Two minutes before impact—tops,” said Jonah, gasping. He crawled forward in the dark, airless corridor, running face-first into Dalmar’s sprawled body. Sun-Hi wore an oxygen hood as she stood over the unconscious pirate, fruitlessly trying to drag his body away from the engine room and to safety.
Jonah ignored them both as he and Alexis pried open the bulkhead hatch to the engine compartment and forced their way in. Alexis led, feeling her way past the battery banks and the deafening engines.
“It’s down here!” she shouted, her voice all but lost to the roar. She slammed her palm against the metal deck grating to indicate the location of the server. Jonah wrapped his fingers around the metal and together they lifted, pulling the section of grating off, and leaning it against the battery bank. Both dropped into the crawlspace below, landing hard atop the thick electrical wires surrounding the hot, humming computer. Jonah tried to pull the wiring free, bare hands straining against the unyielding cables. Alexis unscrewed the thickest electrical cord and shoved it hard against the CPU. Jonah smelled ozone and burnt air as the arcing line connected, sending a spider web of electricity across the server as the dim lights around them flickered and died. The engines seized a second later, the churning din replaced with total silence as the Scorpion drifted unpowered beneath the waves. Jonah’s still-ringing ears picked up the faint grinding of the rudder and stabilizers shifting, no doubt altering their course away from the tanker.
Sun-Hi’s masked face appeared above them through the sooty clouds as she dropped two oxygen hoods to Jonah and Alexis. They both slipped them on. “What now?” said Alexis, voice muffled by thick plastic.
“We search every inch of the Scorpion, inside and out,” said Jonah. “We find what did this.”
Jonah swam alongside the matte-black hull of the submerged Scorpion, suspended in darkness. He let his powerful flashlight play against her sides, feeling the awkward position of the heavy crowbar in his weight belt. Vitaly had settled the Scorpion on a patch of muddy bottom just fifty feet from the surface of the storm-wracked harbor, uncomfortably close to the traffic above. There were dozens of churning ships above; the nearest silhouetted in the stormy moonlight, all weighed down with arms and men. It was a haphazard collection—destroyers and their escorts, minesweepers, patrol ships, fuel tanker, and troop-laden civilian pleasure-cruisers.
He inhaled against his scuba regulator, listening to the Darth Vader-like sound of hissing clean air. The crew was still stuck searching the submarine interior, which began with a very thorough examination of anything Freya had touched. He doubted she was responsible. After all, she would have died with the rest of them, but he wasn’t in the mood to take chances. His crew had shut down nearly every system with the sole exception of air filtration as they slowly brought the carbon monoxide down to a safe level.
Hassan had all but thrown a fit when he learned of Jonah’s plans to inspect the submarine’s exterior, giving him a laundry list of potential dangers relating to his broken ribs and punctured lung. But it’d likely take him weeks to completely heal, weeks they simply didn’t have. Jonah made a mental note to start training someone else as a diver, at least for the easy jobs like this.
He shone his flashlight across the last of the starboard hull, carefully looking for any unexplained objects or unexpected damage. It was all taking longer than he’d hoped. Large swaths of the sub were a mess of missing paint, deep scratches, and warped metal; the weeks since her recent retrofit had been absolutely brutal. He tried the receiver in his built-in radio, but heard nothing but warbling, artificial static in return. Whatever had taken over their computers was still jamming the signal.
Jonah did a lazy barrel roll as he contemplated the situation. The Scorpion had been significantly upgraded since falling into mercenary hands: computers, consoles, and general system automation reducing the necessary number of crew. By his calculations, she might have once sailed with forty men or more. But the new systems meant it could be manned by a handful, including some with no prior experience aboard any vessel much less a submarine.
He gave the massive propellers a wide berth as he passed, reminding himself that they still might churn to life on their own, sucking him into the blades. His light was powerful enough for a detailed inspection even at a distance, and he soon eliminated the stern and moved onto the port hull.
And then he saw it. A multi-segmented metallic device measuring nearly six feet in length clamped to the side of the submarine. The damned thing looked like a lamprey. It was almost more insectoid than mechanical, glinting as it slowly swayed in the current. Jonah swam close to it, feeling the heat rising from its reflective skin. He ran a cautious hand along the length of its exoskeleton; recoiling as the metal shivered to his sudden touch. Jonah slipped the edge of his crowbar between the device and the hull, preparing to pry it off when it suddenly disengaged on its own, wriggling away into the brackish waters. He was barely able to reach out and grab it by the tail, holding it fast before it could escape into the darkness and disappear forever.
Jonah dropped the flashlight, watching the bulb slowly rotate to the ocean floor as he was physically dragged away from the Scorpion. He cocked back the crowbar like a spear before jamming the end into the largest seam in the metallic exoskeleton. The thrashing device twisted in his grasp as he slowly drove the metal crowbar deeper and deeper into its soft carapace.
The device twisted, reared back and shuddered one last time before going limp in his hand. Jonah looked around, realizing with surprise that he’d been dragged nearly a hundred feet from the now-distant Scorpion. Fortunately, the abandoned dive light penetrated the dark waters like a fog-shrouded lighthouse. Just visible enough to lead him back to the stern of the submarine. Swimming down to retrieve the lost light, Jonah was able to take a closer look at the device. His flashlight glinted off its articulated shell, the sharp, tooth-like spikes from where it’d bitten into the side of his submarine. He supposed the real secrets probably lay inside its electronic guts—Vitaly could take a closer look once he was back inside. At least it wasn’t trying to wriggle free anymore. The crowbar seemed to have disabled it for good.
Jonah glanced down at his dive watch. He cocked his head to the side, confused. All the numbers were wrong, the tiny computer advising a decompression schedule three times faster than he’d anticipated—deadly if he followed its instructions. Cornered and wounded, the mysterious device had made one last effort to kill him.
Stepping down the last few rungs of the conning tower ladder, Jonah lowered himself into the command compartment, the lamprey-like metal device slung limply around his shoulders. He still wore his heavy wetsuit, but he’d left the bulk of his diving gear back at the lockout chamber. Alexis and Hassan were alone; both leaning against the command compartment as they spoke with one another in low tones.
“I see you survived,” said Hassan, arms crossed. “I’d like to check your ribs and dressings at the soonest possible opportunity.”
“Was that thing attached to the Scorpion?” asked Alexis, pointing at the foreign device. He’d yanked the crowbar out of it in the lockout chamber, the open wound still dripped with goopy white fluid.
“Yep—this was our culprit,” said Jonah. He unslung the device from his shoulders and dropped it on the chart table for the rest of the crew take a closer look. Without asking, Jonah reached into Alexis’ tool belt and withdrew a ball-peen hammer. He removed his dive watch, set it on the table next to the device, and struck it sharply three times. It shattered into a mess of broken glass and plastic.
“What the hell are you doing?” said Hassan, yanking the hammer from his grasp and handing it back to Alexis before Jonah could do any further damage. “Have you lost your mind?”
“Whatever this thing is, it got into my dive watch and rewrote the decompression tables,” said Jonah, pointing to the device. “Started giving instructions that would have fizzed me up like a Pepsi in a paint shaker. I think I killed it, but I’d recommend keeping it away from anything electronic nonetheless.”
Alexis held a small EM meter over the device, ignoring his explicit instructions. “I’m still reading electronic activity,” she reported. “It’s not disabled—not entirely, anyway.”
“I’m going to take a look inside,” said Jonah. He motioned Alexis to help him hold the device down as he wrapped his bare hands around a shell-like section of the metallic exoskeleton.
Jonah looked over his shoulder as he grunted with exertion. Freya had let herself out of his cabin again. She stood quietly, silhouetted in the bulkhead doorframe as she peered over their shoulders from a distance.
He adjusted his grip and pulled again, slowly bending the metal carapace open to reveal a grotesque, writhing mass of pulsating organs and electronic wiring. The living tissue quivered one last time before sagging.
“My god,” said Hassan. “It . . . it was alive.”
“Well, that was unexpected.” Jonah scratched his forehead in stunned amazement.
“And super gnarly,” added Alexis, wrinkling her nose. “I can’t believe how ugly it is.”
“You think that’s ugly?” asked Freya from the other side of the command compartment. “You should see its mother.”