23

Metal beams riveted to the concrete ceiling of the facility groaned and creaked under some unseen pressure. As I walked beneath them, a steady drizzle filled puddles settled into divots created by what I suspected was almost a decade of water falling in a stream onto the floor. The smell of rust and salt water permeated everything. Dank and cold, the only heat came from the incessant churning engine that ran the air pumps in the center of the building. Leaning next to it, the warm concrete pillar stilled my shivering and allowed a welcome respite from what had thus far been a world of constant winter.

I moved on, wandering the corridors, taking in the cracks in the walls deep enough to insert my fingers. Seepage oozed in from every seam, every rivet. Hoses lined the dark hallways sucking out the flooding but clearly losing pace.

The eyes of those living here followed me into whatever room I entered, their bodies tense, faces unmistakably filled with fear. I counted fifteen so far. Too many to survive out here without making supply runs. I wondered if that was where the victims of the Trembling Sickness out in the tunnel had come from.

A sound behind me, a shuffle of feet, pulled my gaze, but I kept walking. Whoever it was had been following me since I’d left Hunley and the others in the laboratory. A strange flickering against the wall caught my attention, and I crept toward the room. Metal doors, domed at the top like ship hatches, sealed off areas of the facility, and I found I could only enter some of the spaces. Whatever power Hunley used for her laboratory did not extend to the rest of the rooms. The lone candle I held aloft only proved to cast more shadows than it banished leaving me with a disorientation I could not shake. As I neared the doorway, I peered in and my mouth fell open.

Large, round portholes circled with rivets the size of my fist lined the far wall. They concaved outward, into the ocean, and what I saw there was beyond words. A figure moved next to the center one and Ashton’s pale face peered back at me. How was it he always seemed to be just beyond what I could see?

“Breathtaking, isn’t it?” He motioned for me to come closer. “I thought you might find this place.”

As I neared, I found I could not breathe. The low sun sent shafts of light slicing into the sea, illuminating the walls and ceiling with a wavering glow. My eyes locked on a creature just beyond the bulbous glass, and I leaned in to its hollow, sliding my palms along the smooth surface. It was as if I were peering out of the gigantic clear eye of a bug.

“We are under the water?” I licked my lips, mouth suddenly dry. “H-how far?”

“Approximately fifteen feet. We still have some light to see, but the mid-day hours are the most awe inspiring. You can see so much. For now, however…” Ashton set my candle next to the glass, and I gasped.

A squid larger than I had ever imagined, pulsed its translucent red arms as it flitted across my view. The undulating body of an eel slid against the surface, and I jumped. It hit the barrier and the charge between its teeth lit up Ashton’s face for a moment. In those few seconds, I caught the moving silhouettes of dozens of other swimming creatures further out. Some appeared larger than a full-grown man. “What is this place?” I leaned my face against the glass of the porthole, attempting to peer in every direction at once full of fear and fascination.

“It was at one time built to serve as a bunker for the governors should there be another disaster like The Great Calamity.” Ashton’s breath made the candlelight flicker and cast his angular features in half dark. He looked every bit a spy of The Order. Mysterious and dangerous. I told myself to remember that. His secrets tended to hurt me. “The earth proved too unstable even this far from the epicenters. Constant repairs, the cold, the distance to re-supply all caused it to be abandoned.” Ashton continued as he tapped the glass absently with his knuckles, a nervous gesture, if I was not mistaken. A memory flashed of him doing it before. In a study, or was it a captain’s cabin? It was a moment before I realized he was speaking again.

“What?”

“I said that Hunley is merely frightened. They all are. They mean no real harm.”

“That chamber seemed real to me, Ash,” I said softly. “What they are doing is…what are they doing, actually? How did those knights get out here in the first place? This laboratory of Hunley’s is something I would expect of The Order. Not you.”

“They make supply runs. There is nothing here to hunt or harvest.” Ashton shrugged. “There were supplies a half a year ago when I first brought them here, but enough for the three initial scientists that escaped Arecibo.”

“Were they attacked? I do not understand.”

Ashton shook his head. “Hunley said they encountered an air ship under attack on the journey back from a trading post in the Minnesota dome. A downed vessel that they stopped to help. It was there they took on the survivors. A nurse, a mechanic, others. They were attempting to flee to the north but things went wrong. They were spotted by a patrolling blockade ship and tried to outrun them. Both ships crashed, and Hunley rescued the survivors.”

“That doesn’t explain the knights.”

“Pru is…” Ashton ground his jaw. “She lost her brother to the Trembling Sickness and Tremblers killed her fiancé after they got caught in a horde of them trying to escape a dome after the Reaper invasion. She told me once that she believes the Solenium is a path to a cure or at least an explanation. I think that Pru strives to save others from the sickness to somehow make up for not being able to save the one person in the world she had left. She saw the two knights there…”

“That is terrible,” I said. I knew that pain. The Trembling Sickness took those we’d loved in such a horrific way. “So that is why she takes the Solenium?”

Ashton shrugged. “The Trembler Knights are the only other source, save for mining it out of the deep. Pru must have thought the knights at the crash site had died and were no longer a danger. She brought them back to the lab to study.”

“That was a bad idea,” I breathed, secretly impressed by Hunley’s bravery.

“Clearly.” Ashton continued. “There was some sort of outbreak afterwards. The knights were not dead after all.” He motioned for me to follow him. “Come, I want to show you something.”

We left the room and proceeded down the corridor. My boots splashed in the puddles, and I found myself almost huddling into the light of the candle for its minute warmth. At the end of the hallway, double metal doors stood ajar. Peering in, I saw several sheet-covered forms on tables.

“What is this?”

Ashton sighed. “A nightmare.” He gestured toward one of the forms, and we gathered at the bedside. The room, cold and dank, vibrated with the pumps working hoses at our feet. I hugged myself, not liking the jitters rattling through me. They were small, but unmistakable symptoms of my affliction.

“What is this place?” I repeated.

“A morgue of sorts, I suppose,” Ashton said and pulled back the covering in one motion.

I turned away, a whimper escaping my lips. “Ash, what are you doing?”

“Look at them, Charlie,” he whispered, his gaze flitting to the doorway.

“No, I would rather not.” I took a step away, but he caught my arm. “I have seen enough of their ruined faces for a lifetime.”

“I need you to look.” His voice, urgent, confused me, and I chanced a glance. “Do you see?”

“See what?” Hand over my mouth, I gulped down the bile rising in my throat. The body still wore the chest plate and arm guards of Order Knights.

“Really look,” Ashton took my chin in his hand, and gently turned me so that I faced the head.

I did not understand at first, so strange was the juxtaposition of young unlined skin with the ragged mouth of someone that had chattered their teeth to jagged stubs. Forcing myself to take in all that I was seeing, a slow sickness settled cold and heavy in my gut. The unmistakable circle of pale around the eyes that came with wearing goggles in the sun, the darkened skin of the hands despite the blue creeping up the fingers, and the streaks of tears cutting through the blood and dirt on his cheeks. Branches of dark blue rose up his neck like those on the victims of the ill-fated air ship that crashed into Port Hayden.

“This is a boy.” I gripped the edge of the bed stopping only when the corrective shocks twitched my muscles. “This young man is from Outer City.”

Nodding, Ashton walked over to the body next to it and ripped back the sheet. Another youth. Just as the first. “They all can’t be more than sixteen or seventeen. Youths in the armor of men.”

“These Trembler Knights,” I breathed. “They are the missing?”

“If we are correct, then we have found the young people who disappeared from Outer City these past two years.” Ashton said. “You were right, Charlie. Here is your confirmation.”

“Arecibo is stealing an army.” I walked from bed to bed, seven in all, gently peeling back the shrouds. My throat ached more and more with every reveal of a youth, no older than Mara had been when she’d died, suffering from the ravages of the terrible blight. But more so, their arms and legs encased in what was surely the shock-equipped mechanica Arecibo created to harness their trembling, was more heartbreaking. My fingers rested on the rope lashing a lad’s wrists to the table. Bound. As I had been. I had led men. These were children. I looked over at Ashton. “He has to be stopped.”

“I hesitated to show you this because of what you might do, but I could not keep this hidden.” Ashton pulled the covers back over their faces, his jaw working. “The other Trembler Knights, they were given a choice. Convicted criminals and traitors told that they could serve their time in Order prisons or to serve as Arecibo’s ‘volunteers’.”

“Hardly a choice.”

“But something more than abduction nonetheless,” Ashton countered. “Those men were hardened soldiers and knew what battle could be. These,” He smoothed the hair away from a young man’s forehead. “This boy would have had no experience to help him. No training in any real sense to keep him from being anything more than fodder.”

“I do not understand the purpose of them, then,” I said, perplexed. “If he had trained volunteers, then why do this? Why take these innocents?”

“I told you before, the sickness takes the older more quickly. Before I left, when I was able to get hold of some of Arecibo’s laboratory records, it was clear that he believed there was a higher possibility of survival and response to the attempts at harnessing the tremors if they are young.”

“Because of what I can do,” I murmured, my heart breaking. “And your friend, Prudence, just stores them here and in her laboratory? Keeps the live ones behind glass like some macabre aquarium?”

“Hunley is not thinking correctly. She is after answers, and sometimes…” his voice trailed off as I stepped away.

“And I am the abomination?”

I walked to a sink, filled a basin from a pitcher, and grabbed a nearby cloth. I set the bowl near the boy’s head on the gurney and dunked the cloth, wringing it out. “It is over now,” I leaned in and whispered softly. I brushed dirt from his lashes and dabbed at the blood spatters on his slight shoulder, my soul aching. Ashton stood by, silent as I cleaned the boy’s damaged hands, wiped the tears from his cheeks, and righted his hair.

I had wiped my mother’s brow as she passed from this earth. Had a hand in my own father’s death, and begged my mentor, Tesla, to not leave me alone in this world. I was acquainted with sorrow, but the words failed me as I tried to remember the verse that I had clung to in those times.

“H-he will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or…or…” My voice broke.

And then Ashton was there, his hand over mine, his voice at my temple. “Or crying or pain.”

I broke down, my legs failing me as I sank next to the bed. How much more horror could one man cause? I shook, anger welling in my mind like a burning pool crowding out everything else. I looked up at Ashton. “We have to get them back.”

“They are gone,” Ashton said. “He took dozens and they’ve been missing for months.”

I searched his face, letting my gaze travel his chiseled features, the fullness of his mouth, his mesmerizing eyes. I’d loved him from almost the first day I’d known him and yet there had always been the secrets. The mistrust. He was a spy, from the time he was a child he’d been trained to manipulate and survive. And yet Ashton turned from what he knew, what he believed, to seek out the truth of my father’s death with me. He’d lost his place in The Order, a calling he believed was ordained, because of me. I thought all was forgiven. That I could trust him because after all that had happened, Ashton had found me. Stayed with me in the grip of Arecibo. Helped me survive. But now…all that was in question as well. Why had he really sought out Arecibo’s lair?

“You are miles from here, Charlie,” Ashton said quietly. “Come back to me.”

I took in a deep breath, trying to breathe around the ache in my throat. “’I have seen what she can do,’” I repeated his words from earlier. “What mission did you mean for me to help you complete?”

“I was trying to save your life,” Ashton said evenly.

“You were trying to secure a weapon for your crusade to retake The Order.”

“That is not true.”

“You said it was better that you stayed,” I said, watching his eyes. “That does not sound like a decision made solely on my health. It sounds tactical. It sounds as if once you found me, it suited your mission for you to infiltrate Arecibo’s ranks and sabotage his plans.”

“That is not the only reason.” Ashton raked a hand through his dark hair. “I made the best of an impossible situation.”

“If I was well enough to fight then I was well enough to flee. Why wait so long to try to get me out? Did you not have enough information yet? Did you decide that letting me tarnish my soul was worth all you gained by keeping me in Arecibo’s control?”

“No,” Ashton shook his head, his brows drawn over angry eyes. “That is not what happened. You do not know—”

“Because you will not tell me!”

“He was planning something beyond The Order, I think. I believe he was colluding with someone of great power in Europe but for what I could not figure out.”

My heart sank.

“So you admit that you did not stay because you ‘could not leave’ me, but because it was a strategic move to do so?”

“I stayed because I love you, Charlie,” he shouted. “I stayed because at first all we did was steal plans and spy on officials for Arecibo. That in exchange for your life? Yes, that was a fair trade for me. The things that happened afterward, they happened so quickly and unexpectedly. One instant we are securing stolen files and the next you are attacking entire crews aboard vessels. I had no idea why. I did not know if it was Arecibo’s doing or if you were simply reacting to all that was done to you.”

He rubbed his face, the pain etched under his tired eyes reminded me of his injured leg. He sighed, leaning heavily against the sill of the window.

“I am just…” The truth was, I did not know what I was. Or if I could trust these feelings anymore. Who I was when I fell for him was not who I was now. Did that change anything? I was wiser. Knew more about the pain of the world and therefore should be able to accept that Ashton could search for me both because he loved me and because he meant to stop Arecibo’s plans. They were not mutually exclusive. And yet, the pang I felt did not fade with my reasoning. The romantic debutante still lurked in my heart. Desperate for the true love my father and mother were so blessed with.

“So much has happened between us. In so short a time. At least the time was short to me. I do not remember what we were to each other during those months. I–I can only understand what I am feeling now. And right now, after what Hunley said…why did you come for me? Why did you stay with me?”

“Charlie,” Ashton reached out, took a tendril of my hair in his fingers. “I looked for you because the idea of you in Arecibo’s grip was terrifying to me. I stayed because the thought of walking this earth without you was unacceptable.” The blue waving light played across his jaw, caressed his collarbone. “I would rather be with you in midst of chaos and pain than not. That is why I did what I did. That is why I will always do what needs to be done.”

Pressing my lips together, I shook my head, unable to untangle the conflicting emotions.

“How, did you know about this place?” Trying for detached, the crack to my voice betrayed my thoughts and I turned away, leaning on the wall, eyes at the ceiling watching the water drip. “Had you been here before? Did The Order send you on some mission to infiltrate this place?”

“The Order does not know about it. That is why it was safe. I destroyed any mention of it I could find.”

I tilted my head, regarding him for a moment. “Was it the All-Key?” I asked.

“Does it matter how I knew?” He looked at me exasperated.

“Yes, it does.” I bit my lower lip to keep it from quivering. My eyes stung, and though I knew I could no longer cry, the emotion nonetheless churned in my chest, squeezing. “It matters, Ashton. Secrets matter. Truth matters.”

“Truth? What would you have had me do, Charlie? Greet you with a list of grievances once I found you?” Ashton rubbed his neck with his palm, his gaze out at the sea. “How would I have said these things to you? ‘I know you’ve barely escaped a madman with your life and your mind, but here are quite a few things I cannot wait to burden you with?’” His voice rose and his hands balled against the glass.

“Anything you told me would have been better than hearing it second hand and wondering what else you were keeping from me.”

“Keeping from you?” His genuine look of confusion set my teeth on edge.

“You betrayed me,” I cried. “To my enemies and I cannot…it is so hard to make myself trust you.”

“Charlie,” Ashton said, his arms going out in resignation. “What—”

“When I reached out to you and thought you came to Outer City to help me stop the Reaper invasion you served me up to Lizzie and Ajala and as a result, I was captured by Arecibo.”

“I never meant for any of that to happen. It was my intention for both of us to escape that meeting together. I did not know that Lizzie would betray us to Arecibo...” He shook his head, sorrow lining his gaze. “I did not anticipate our capture and for that I am so sorry. I–I thought if I explained to you my plan, if you only knew what I was really trying to do, you would see past all of that. You would know that I really only meant to come to convince you when everything spiraled out of my control. I have regretted my decision to trust Lizzie every day. You are right to question me…you are, Charlie. I do not blame you. And I will, God willing, spend the rest of my life trying to earn back your trust. That is all I can do. If you will let me.”

He shifted on his feet, leaning in. I moved away. Sighing, he stepped back, easing into a dark swath near the window. After a few moments, he spoke. “Yes, it was the All-Key.”

“You stole it from the Reapers?” I did not remember much from that day. Only that I had caused the death of two women and let countless other fall to an attack I failed to prevent.

“Recovered it. After the dust settled. Arecibo needed us to secure secret documents from The Order to further his plan, whatever it is. The safest, surest way to do so was with the All-Key.”

“He knew you had it?”

Ashton shook his head. “No, he did not. Our ability to get him what he wanted kept us alive. So, no, I made sure Arecibo did not know.”

“Do you still have access to it?” I gauged his response, looking for subterfuge.

“Why?” Ashton asked, his eyes narrowed. “What good would it do us here? It opens secure vaults, the locks that keep the dome’s emitting beams protected, and the treasuries if they had any silver left in them. Out here there are no secrets to be had.”

“Arecibo is planning something, Ash,” I said, steadying myself on the gurney as I stood. “You believe that. Maybe if we had access to where his facility might be.”

“Do you not think I did that already? While trying to find you. There is nothing to find out in those records. Arecibo is very good at what he does. He keeps so much hidden from The Order. No one knows what he is truly up to.”

“But it is something.” I argued. “Something that involves Europe and now he’s attacked Outer City. What if he raids there again during the Coalition’s Attack and takes more people for this? No one would be able to stop him. Not while a battle wages against European air ships. He has already hurt Lilah and nearly killed little—” I froze, my heart stuttering in my chest.

“What is it?”

“Oh, no, Ashton,” I rounded the table, heading for the doorway.

Ashton followed after. “Wait,” he said, stopping me with his hand around my waist. “Talk to me. What is it?”

Panic ripped through me, my head swimming. “You said that Arecibo tried to graft tissue. That he wanted to create soldiers with my ability to live with the affliction.”

“Yes, but it did not work. They died, as those in there would have eventually. No one has proven able to fight off the Trembling Sickness but you.”

“No, Ashton. Not everyone. There is another person who has lived with the sickness nearly as long as I have.”

He shook his head, his brows furrowed, and then a dawning stole across his face. “Jack,” he said.

I nodded, my eyes stinging. “He is a true survivor of the sickness. Ashton, I can hear him. Not as strong as the others, but still. And he responds to me. He is suspended mid-change as I am, only he does not need mechanica or Solenium to do it.”

“And Arecibo saw him that night.”

“We have to warn them.” I started for the door, my heart ramming. “They have to get away from that port. They have to hide him.” The thought of that sweet baby in the hands of Arecibo turned my stomach.

“Where are you going?” Ashton called.

“I have to get out of here. I have to get to Jack before that monster does.”

“We’ve no ship, Charlie,” Ashton said as he caught up to me at the threshold. “And even if we did, you cannot go back there. Did you forget the mob that tried to trade you to Arecibo not a day ago?”

“We have the one Hunley uses for supply runs,” I countered.

“It’s a small surface skimmer,” Ashton said shaking his head. “It does not even possess the thrust to get up to Outer City.”

“I refuse to hide here while my loved ones are attacked,” I said to him. “And, in case you’ve not noticed, we are one moment away from an angry mob here anyway.”

Ashton stopped with his palm to the door, keeping it shut.

I stifled the need to push him away. He was aware that I could throw him across the room if I had to.

“Your presence there may have exposed them in the first place,” Ashton said. “Think about it.”

“What are you talking about? Get out of my way, Ash.”

“Arecibo chanced on the one port where you were hiding despite dozens of other ports, not to mention safe houses all over the country where you might have gone? That never bothered you?”

I stopped, my mouth dropping open. “No, I never…it never crossed my mind how he knew where I was.”

“Arecibo may have spies there. He may have some ability to track you via the mechanica. We don’t know, but until we figure it out we cannot go back. If Arecibo doesn’t, in fact, have plans to take Jack, then you will almost certainly paint a target on him the moment you step foot on that port.”

I paced the corridor, my mind reeling, unable to focus.

“Then we slip in during the attack on Outer City and get them to safety then.”

“During the Coalition’s invasion?” Ashton looked at me as if I had lost my mind. “The Coalition of Khent most likely has an armada. They would spot us a mile off. We would never even get close.”

“Actually,” a voice sounded from down the hall. Hunley, illuminated by the candle she held, pushed the spectacles back onto her nose. “I may be able to help with that.”

“How long have you been listening?” I asked.

“Long enough to hear that a monster has a child in his sights.” She glanced from me to Ashton, conflict playing across her features. Finally, she sighed. “Come on.”

We followed her down into the bowels of the building, Ashton and I quiet as she led the way. He slipped his hand over mine and we walked hand in hand past sealed doors and deeper cracked walls and ceilings, some with chunks missing. I ran my palm along the wall and pieces crumbled beneath my fingers. The constant wet seemed to disintegrate even the concrete to dust. Deep thumping sounded from beyond the corridor, echoing along the dark shaft. Cold settled over me, a wet, moldy odor from stagnant pools. Flooding reached up to my knees and the wading slowed our progress. Unidentifiable forms bobbed in the filthy water and brushed past my skirt.

“Where are we going, Pru?” Ashton asked.

“Just a little bit further,” she said over her shoulder.

The candle in her hand flickered with the constant wet air that hovered within the corridor, and I worried it might go out. I did not think I could handle being in the confines of this small space with no light. As it was, I measured my breaths, forcing myself to concentrate on the path in case I needed to retreat. Given our confrontation in the laboratory, I would not put it past the wily Hunley to lead us into an ambush. Despite my trepidation, I ventured after her because she had held out at least the thread of hope that I might do something to help Jack. With the specter of fear hovering ever-present at the corner of my mind, I pushed myself to think only of the moment. The task. The steps I needed to do what I must. Anything other than that and I was sure I would crumble to dust with the worry alone. “How far under the sea are we now?” I asked, striving for nonchalant, only to hear the quaver in my voice.

“I believe we are at nearly twenty-five feet now,” Hunley answered.

“How is this entire building not flooded to the gills?” I murmured. No wonder the walls creaked with pressure.

“Well, we are doing our best to keep that from happening.” Hunley stopped at a door larger than any other I had seen here. Massive and metal, it reminded me of a vault door in a bank. “All right. Here we are.”

“There must be a very good reason why someone felt the need to secure the door so thoroughly,” Ashton remarked. “Do you have just as good a reason to open it?”

“Ash,” I said, forcing a smile. “I thought danger sped through your veins.”

He chuckled. “Danger, not recklessness.”

“I beg to differ on that point,” I said and stepped forward, resting my hands around the enormous center wheel. I turned to Hunley. “Is it locked?”

“It is to normal people,” Hunley said evenly, her gaze unreadable as she stared at me. “I am willing to bet that you are able to succeed where we have not.”

“So, you do not know if a torrent awaits on the other side of this?” Ashton asked, his brow raised, amused.

“There is a second door. A water-lock that must also be opened, but I have no idea if that has been breached.” Hunley wiped her brow with the back of her hand. “But no telling until we look, correct?”

“You are sure you want to open this?” I asked.

She was shaking. “No,” she said, but did not look away from me. “Please, Ms. Blackburn.”

I looked from her to Ashton.

He stepped forward and grabbed hold as well. “Yes, Blackburn,” he said as he snagged a pair of gloves from Hunley’s bodice belt. “Lets.”

Neither seemed the least bit concerned I might drown us all in a few seconds.

“All right,” I said and gripped the wheel tightly. “I suggest you two hold your breath.”

“On three.” Ashton counted.

We yanked, to no avail. The wheel seemed immovable at first. The rust was almost solid around the shaft where the wheel met the door.

I panted with the effort, my muscles quivering as I strained. The mechanica on my neck snapped a trail of white-hot power down my spine, and I shouted with pain. Sparks erupted from my hands, the devices on my arms, leaping to the metal door. The gloves on Ashton’s hands smoked, the smell of leather mingling with the odor of the heated metal.

And then the wheel gave. Just a bit at first, and then more readily.

“I knew it,” Hunley said excitedly. “Keep going.”

I shot at look at Ashton. She was truly more reckless than I imagined. After a few more turns, air pushed through from behind the wheel. “Do you smell that?” I asked.

Ashton nodded. “Stale air,” he rasped, grunting with the work of turning the stubborn wheel. “At least we know the compartment is not flooded.”

The final turns came easily, and the doors released from the threshold with a dusty hiss. We swung them open, and Hunley moved out in front of us with her candle. The chamber, larger than any of the other rooms thus far, stretched beyond the candle light, but what I saw took my breath away.

Metal from floor to ceiling, the walls were broken only by a single large porthole with convex glass much like the ones through which I had just witnessed the undersea creatures. Black beyond gave no view of what it was supposed to provide a view to. I looked around, perplexed. Cobwebbed panels of dials and switches lined one wall. Various hoses and brass equipment hung on the walls on giant hooks.

We ventured deeper, Hunley raising the light. A form came into view and she screamed, dropping the candle. I caught it before it hit the floor, my eyes riveted on the figure of a man standing against the far wall. It was not until I advanced that I realized what I was looking at.

“Is that what I think it is?” Ashton asked, crossing over to it with me.

A large, brass suit hung underneath a tangle of hoses and wires like some sort of metal marionette. Suspended from the ceiling, the suit appeared to stand on its own with the large, round helmet facing straight at us. Thick wires stretched across the wide viewing window in the front of the head piece.

“A diving suit?” I walked up to it, fascinated by the sheer workmanship of the contraption. From the spherical joints to the polished rivets holding it together, I ran my fingers over the surface, not believing what I was seeing. “Diving bells, I have seen, but this…”

“According to the supply records it is an ambient armor. There is a breathing pump and an engine that drives oxygen to the helmet.”

“How do you suppose this will help us?” Ashton asked, turning to Hunley.

Stepping through a curtain of spider webs hanging near the suit, Hunley pointed to the large window. “I believe what is beyond that porthole is what you need.”

“What is this place?” I asked, walking to the porthole and attempting to peer out.

“It was more than a bunker for elite members of the government,” Hunley explained. “As we explored this facility and located files in an inner control room, we realized it was once used for under-sea mining.”

“Pardon?” Ashton looked at her askance. “That was abandoned as soon as the seas ceased to be navigable after the quakes.”

“Apparently not,” I said and took a walk around the suit. “You know this is not complete, correct?”

Hunley and Ashton looked over at me.

She nodded. “Yes. I know. I read something about that in a maintenance log.” She walked over to the panels and appeared to be looking for something. A panel against the wall held papers and schematics curled and stained with the wet air. She pulled one down, squinting at it.

“How can this help us, Pru, if it is not operational?” Ashton asked, walking over.

My gaze went to a slumped pile of canvas on the ground near the suit. I picked it up, inspecting it. And then, I understood. The material was a diving skin. Gum rubber encased in layers of waxed twill and canvas. Waterproof, but not temperature sustaining. “You want me to dive for you,” I said and held up the suit.

Ashton’s face contorted with disbelief.

“Without the ambient armor, it is impossible,” he said. “The pressure and cold alone—”

“Not for her,” Hunley cut across him. “We could never open the chamber, but we never truly attempted to because we knew the diving suit was inoperable. There would be no point. But we never counted on Blackburn.”

“You are right,” I said and glanced at the deep black pressing against the porthole’s glass. A trill of fear pulled through me, stealing my breath. “I might survive the cold, possibly the weight of the sea as well.”

“Have you lost your mind?” Ashton walked towards me, his face a mask of incredulity. He stopped, his head shaking. “Do not entertain this idea. The equipment is old. There is no telling if part or all of it will fail. If a hose cracks because age has made it brittle or a rivet disengages on the helmet because it’s been rotting in this chamber for nearly a decade, there is no way to save you.” He turned me to face him, his hands covering my shoulders. “Charlie, tell her she is mad.”

“What is on the other side of that glass, Hunley?” I asked instead. “Is it worth it?”

She handed me the candle and Ashton came over as she unfurled the paper she had taken from the wall. It was a schematic. I could scarcely comprehend what it illustrated. A large machine with protruding windows and powered by a massive propeller. It had fins, like those of a fish, in fact its entire structure mimicked the large cylindrical shape of a giant whale. Long appendages protruded from its underbelly. The large claw-like feet appeared to be designed to grasp at the ground below it.

“What is this monstrosity?” Ashton breathed.

“It is a submersible vessel,” I said and my heart paced up.

“An undersea ship?” Ashton tilted his head, pointing to the schematic. “Not a diving bell, but a vessel that moves under its own power…through the sea?”

“Yes,” Hunley said, her eyes reflecting the dancing flame of the candle. “It’s called The Chasm Walker.”