The Hallowed Cure, page 14
Knowing my life, things would likely even end up going that way, but for now, we had a truce. My fighting was over. It felt strange to know I was done, even if just for a little bit.
“Understood, over,” Saul said. As he glanced at us, he was actually smiling. “I’ve reestablished radio contact with home base.”
That was the entirely unexciting term we’d chosen for Miguel Perez’s secret underground lab in Presea. Everyone else was now there waiting to hear from us.
“All of the observation submarines we had on station around Lindsay Griffyn’s sub were destroyed in the blast,” Saul continued.
“New submarines have arrived and confirmed its destruction. Her submarine went down with all hands.”
“No survivors?” I asked.
“Not unless they can breathe water,” Saul said. “While the full crew complement of her submarine was four hundred souls, we suspect they were running with a skeleton crew. So in addition to Lindsay, the casualties likely numbered less than—”
“Don’t care,” I interrupted. “I murdered those people. I’ll own that.
But a lot more people would have died if Lindsay Griffyn didn’t, so I’m not going to spent the rest of my life being torn up about it. I’m sorry I killed a bunch of sailors, but Lindsay gave us no other options.”
Mia bumped my shoulder with her head. “It was us. Not just you.
We did it.”
I kissed the top of her head again. “Thanks for offering to share the guilt, but I clicked the button. It’s different for me.”
“I would have if you hadn’t,” Mia assured me.
“Right,” I said. “But I did.”
Mia said nothing after that. I was certain she wouldn’t let me carry all the weight myself, but at least, for now, her understanding matched mine. Everyone on that submarine had to die. It was just too bad I had to be the one to murder them.
“Are you in touch with Skye?” Rosie asked hesitantly from the back of the submarine. “Can we speak to her?”
I doubted they could, at least over the radio. Unless they spoke Mute. I pondered again telling them what to expect, but I didn’t know how I could explain in a way that would make sense to me, let alone Skye’s parents. Fortunately, Saul took care of my problem for me.
“It would be best not to discuss the past few years over the radio,” Saul said calmly. “While you no longer face any danger from Lindsay, many within Cloud Nine may still hold loyalty to her, and any communications we now make could be easily intercepted.”
Rosie looked so disappointed I almost wanted to hug her. I didn’t.
We both would have thought that was weird.
“We have powerful people in the process of securing Cloud Nine’s leadership and facilities,” Saul continued. “Now that no opposition remains, they will do so. Once they do, you and Skye will be safe. But it’s still best if you wait to speak to your daughter in person.”
“But she knows we’re alive,” Andrew said.
“She knows you’re alive, and she’s very much looking forward to seeing you again. As to where she’s been and why this happened, I’ll let her explain that when you see her.”
Rosie looked to her husband. “I can’t believe she’s actually alive.
Why would they lie about it? Why was Cloud Nine after her?”
Andrew hugged his wife like I hugged Mia. “We’ll find out soon enough.”
I appreciated their patience. From ahead, Saul occasionally peered at his instruments—he had to focus on them extra hard, having only one eye—and made adjustments to the submarine’s course. Having no windows meant I had no idea how close we were to the city, but there were two pencil beams of sunlight pouring in through the holes in the upper hull.
Saul touched his headset and nodded as if listening.
“Understood. Changing course now. We’ll speak again when we’re in sight. Over and out.” He glanced again at us. “There’s a storm coming in, one we likely won’t be able to weather without submerging again if we wish to reach the underground dock in Presea. Therefore, we’re diverting to the old auxiliary dock in Rocham. We can’t be on the water when that storm hits, at least if we’re on the surface.”
I sighed. “Just tell me if I need to do anything.”
“You need not. We should reach the auxiliary dock before the storm arrives, and while the water will be choppy, it’s nothing we can’t handle. So relax, Riven. I have it handled. I just assumed you’d want to be informed, given you’re our commander. Allegedly.”
“Great,” I agreed, and closed my eyes again.
I almost slept. Almost. The sub was rocking too much, and the ominous sound of thunder kept rattling the submarine. It did sound like a monster storm out there, and it wasn’t long before the steady drumbeat of rain become audible on the hull, through the holes in it.
The earlier beams of sunlight streaming into the submarine were long gone.
I wondered what would happen if lightning struck the water. Were we lightning-proof? We’d better be. Then a thunder crack went off directly above us, so loud it damn near sent me out of my seat. And then ... the engines died. Again.
“No way,” I whispered. “No fucking way. Did we just get struck by lightning? ” I felt like I’d summoned it with my thoughts, which was a weird way to feel.
Saul flipped the engine switch over and over. Nothing happened, and the sub bobbed angrily on the now choppy sea. He looked to me and grimaced.
“We are the only metal object in the sea. Fortunately, we’re insulated. Unfortunately, the strike appears to have once again cut power. Without power, we can’t reach the dock.”
I was looking forward to drowning again. “So how do we fix it?”
Saul hesitated. “I don’t know.”
“How close are we to the dock? Are we in swimming distance?”
Saul paused. “If you’re all very good swimmers.” He looked to Mia. “And if all of you have two arms.”
“How many lifejackets on this thing?” Even I could swim with a lifejacket on.
“Enough,” Saul said. “You’re right. Swimming, at this point, is our only chance.” He rose and walked past me, then spun the wheel on the airlock—no, the hatch—in the ceiling of the sub.
He pushed and grunted. It didn’t budge. The power that ran to it must have been fried with the lightning strike. I steadied Mia before I got up.
“Let me,” I said.
Saul stepped aside. I climbed the ladder, then punched the hatch with the flat of my palm as hard as I fucking could. It didn’t want to move, but Hallowed strength remained impressive.
A few good slams bent it, and once I had leverage, I hit that fucking thing until it finally busted open. My reward was a whole bunch of heavy raindrops in the face. I pulled myself up the ladder anyway, into the storm.
The sub was bobbing like some sort of carnival ride. The waves kicking us up and down looked massive. Yet despite my overwhelming fear at facing the sea, I looked around.
In the distance, I could see the gleaming metal and flashing lights of the Rocham auxiliary dock, close enough that I could even make out crates on the shore. Yet we were moving away from the dock now, with our power cut, a little more with each swell of the waves.
We were drifting the wrong way.
Above, lightning flashed. What if it struck the sea while we were in it? Yet, as Saul said, we didn’t have a choice if we wanted to get back to the city instead of drifting out to sea.
I dropped down again. “What happens if we get struck while swimming?”
“Chances are, nothing, so long as it’s not direct,” Mia said, and rose. “It would have to be almost on top of you to kill you.”
“How do you even know that?”
“I used to do a lot of swimming.” She looked to Andrew and Rosie. “How about you two? Do you think you can swim to Dios in a
storm?”
“Is the alternative floating out to sea and starving?” Andrew asked evenly.
Mia nodded.
“Then we can swim,” Andrew said.
“Pull down the panels to your left and right,” Mia instructed. “You’ll find the life jackets there, and there should be six. Hand them up, please.”
Thanks to Skye’s parents, we all got our uninflated lifejackets on quickly enough, which was good, because I suspected the current was once again taking us out to sea. I popped my head up first to find the dock further away than it had been, but still in sight. Dark clouds loomed ominously overhead as lightning strikes continued and rain poured down.
Were we really going to swim in this mess? I guessed we were. I crawled free of the hatch and braced myself as best I could atop the now very slick submarine.
It would be so easy to lose my balance and slip off, but at least I had a life jacket now. All I had to do was pull the handle to inflate it once I was in the water. Inflating it before I was in the water was apparently against the rules.
Mia came up next, assisted by Saul. Yet I could tell she was having trouble due to missing her left arm. I took a firm grip on her arm and lifted her as Saul pushed from below, yet as soon as she was out, the sub rolled dangerously. This time, it rolled hard, and it tossed us.
The world slowed as my world swept into hyperfocus. I caught myself on a small antenna rising from the submarine’s hull, and I caught Mia’s metal hand in my other hand as she slid past me along the slick hull. I also heard, to my horror, the sound of her arm lock disengaging.
As momentum yanked her away, her cybernetic arm snapped right off. Mia went straight into the frothing sea, lifejacket uninflated.
With no hands to pull the tab and metal legs dragging her to the depths, she sank like a stone.
I’d dived in after her before I remembered I couldn’t swim.
Yet I knew what I was supposed to do, to swim, theoretically. I kicked. I flailed. The gleam of two metal legs as they sank was all I needed to focus.
Somehow I reached her. Somehow I wrapped my arms around her. I fumbled for the release of her lifejacket, which, I realized shortly, had slipped off when it realized she didn’t have any arms.
So we’d inflate mine, then. I fumbled for the hatch with one hand while clutching Mia’s sinking form as, belatedly, she started to struggle. She must have been more shocked by being tossed than I was. Finally, I found the tab and pulled. My life jacket inflated with a muffled pop.
And still we sank.
I realized then that, together, with me and Mia and her two heavy cybernetic legs, we weighed too much for a single lifejacket. I clutched Mia and kicked upward desperately, yet we kept sinking.
She thrashed in my arms, trying to help me?
No ... she was trying to break away. She was trying so desperately to save me.
Bubbles frothed past my face as the water got deeper and darker.
Someone screamed, underwater, right next to my ear. I heard the woman I loved shout “Let go!” with the last of her breath, but I wasn’t letting her go. Not today. Not after we’d decided to be together again.
“Kick!” I shouted back, with the last of my breath.
Frothing beneath me told me she was trying to swim. We tried.
We sank, and I finally, numbly, accepted that the two of us were going to drown. Even if I did let Mia go now, which I wouldn’t, I’d never swim back up in time. I’d certainly never make it back to Dios.
This was better. At least we’d go together. Mia had been right all along.
It had been so incredibly stupid of me to worry about dying in seven years when it could happen to both of us as easily as it had today. My only regret was that I’d wasted all that time being an idiot. I hoped she knew that. I suspected she did.
I stopped kicking. After a moment, she did too. I hugged her as we sank, together, and she wrapped her legs around mine.
My lungs burned, but we had a few more minutes of suffering before the pressure or suffocation or damage to our brain cells overcame our Hallowed regeneration. With luck, at least, the others would all get home safely, and they’d remember our heroism and pour us a drink. That, of course, was when something hard and slick bumped up beneath us.
Before I could scream, something else bumped up against my back. Mia’s movement against me told me something had bumped against her too. Were these sharks? Were we going to be torn apart before we suffocated?
Yet, as the sound filled the water, I recognized it. Tiny engines.
We’d just been smacked into by at least three Cloud Nine observation submarines. And finally, finally, they were pushing us back to the surface.
I supposed it was a good thing Caitlyn and her father had been paying attention.
[ 17 ]
TA E AS MU H TIME AS YOU NEED
I gasped and vomited water, again, once I broke the surface of the sea. Mia did the same. A wave immediately smacked into my face, forcing me to swallow more, yet we didn’t sink. The three small automated submarines beneath us had now been joined by two more, and they struggled valiantly to keep us afloat, pushing and bumping.
More submarines arrived, the same automated observation submarines I remembered Miguel Perez had working beneath the island. I fumbled until I found a hand grip on the back of one—likely used for rescues—and gripped tight.
I pulled Mia close with my other arm, crushing her against me yet keeping her head above water. Most of the time. We still both swallowed a lot of it.
Submarines fell in about us, and then we moved. Waves battered us, but we moved. I spotted the distant lights in the rain and the gleam of the metal docks, and we moved.
I was so nauseous from all the bobbing that I felt like I might pass out, yet I couldn’t. I pushed through it. I needed to get Mia to shore before I passed out, and I kind of wanted to get there myself. Sure, I’d only buy myself seven more years, but I really wanted that now.
I held the handle of the sub. I held Mia. I tried not to throw up and failed more than a few times. That was my life now, until I realized something had brushed my feet that wasn’t a submarine. It was firm, and it was hard, and it was metal. I thrashed forward and stood.
The water still tugged at me, but it only came up to my knees now. Ahead of me, a dock loomed at about head height, and I saw figures atop it, gesturing desperately. One was a man I recognized.
“Take my hand!” Lincoln shouted, his dark hair plastered to his forehead. “Riven, now!” Above him, rain poured and thunder boomed.
I stumbled to the docks. “Take Mia first!”
She didn’t struggle as I lifted her to Lincoln. Maybe she’d passed out. Lincoln passed Mia off to someone behind him, then reached down for me. He looked so scared, it made me want to comfort him.
I took his hands. He pulled. I pushed. And then somehow I was on top of the docks, on metal that wasn’t tossing me around hard enough to make me hurl.
I saw Mia lying on her back, just breathing, and flopped down beside her. Belatedly, I turned on my side and wrapped an arm around her waist. And then I breathed. I just breathed.
Lindsay was dead. We were back in Dios. No one was drowning in the sea. Caitlyn Alexander had come through for us one last time, with her mini-subs, and I was absolutely going to thank her the moment I stopped vomiting up sea water.
Lincoln flopped down beside me, breathing heavily, and patted my arm. “Dude, you really need to learn to swim.”
I coughed. “I know.”
“You did a number on that submarine, though. And good job rescuing Skye’s parents! Saul and them are all safe now, just so you know.”
“Thanks.”
“What happened to Mia’s arms? You lose those in the sub?”
I coughed up more seawater, then rolled on my side to avoid swallowing it again. “Can I just,” cough, “finish drowning,” cough,
“before you interrogate me?”
“Oh sure, sorry.” Lincoln lightly thumped my arm. “Take as much time as you need.”
One week later, after I’d moved to my third safehouse with Mia, Miguel Perez emerged from retirement and once again took official control of Cloud Nine Engineering, taking over as its Chief Financial Officer despite his “reluctance.” Given his significant experience with the company and the complete lack of eligible people not currently dead, everyone agreed he made the most sense.
Perez then revealed his daughter, Caitlyn’s, parentage. She, too, was the daughter of Jack Griffyn by Eve Alexander, one of Cloud Nine’s most famous researchers. Then Perez announced Caitlyn’s elevation as newest CEO of Cloud Nine Engineering, despite her young age.
While this news shocked the city and was certainly fodder for the gossip columns, no one with any power opposed it. Shockingly, Caitlyn’s elevation to CEO of Cloud Nine was accepted and applauded, unanimously, by the Dios City Council. I couldn’t imagine why.
Maybe it was because they knew she knew they’d worked with Jack Griffyn to flood the city with panacea, kicked off the Hallowed War, and murder thousands of people. It was just a guess. Either way, we had leverage over them now. They wouldn’t fuck with us.
As Miguel put it, trying times required bold choices, and as much as Dios would grieve the losses of Jack and Lindsay Griffyn—
intellectual and philanthropic titans who died as a result of despair over illness and a tragic submarine accident, respectively—newly minted Cloud Nine CEO Caitlyn Alexander, like her mother before her, would bring stability to Cloud Nine Engineering. She would also, like those before her, continue to protect Dios from the Mute menace.
Or make peace with them. I wasn’t clear on what her plan actually was. I assumed Caitlyn would announce she had a whole underground facility full of friendly Mutes at some point in the future, or maybe keep it a bit secret forever. Whatever worked.
Yet politics and Mute wrangling was no longer my job. For me and those close to me, there was finally no reason for us to run. I still woke up every morning in a blind sweat, convinced I’d screwed
