Wolves

THIRTEEN

A day had passed since the Sea Wolf left the Turks and Caicos. In that time, the vessel had traveled about seventy-five miles southeast, and they were nearing the eastern edge of the island of Hispaniola, which had once comprised the countries of Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

But the boat was in bad shape. The remaining battery was down to a 61 percent charge, and the single engine was struggling to plow through six-foot waves.

Magnolia took a sip of herbal tea, hoping it would calm her sour stomach. She sat in her bunk with her knees pulled up to her chest, reading historical records she had pulled from the satellite station on the island. The cut on her scalp hurt like hell—worse after her fall off the bluff.

Blinking over and over, she tried to clear her vision and concentrate on the tablet screen in her hands. Most of this was stuff she already knew: the history of ITC and the life of its wunderkind CEO, Tyron Red—everything up to his assassination, and what followed in the days immediately after he transferred his consciousness to a robotic body.

“Timothy, were you aware of this?” she asked.

The AI’s voice replied from the single speaker in her small quarters.

“Exactly which part of ‘this’ are you referring to, Magnolia?”

“The part about a computer virus shutting down the grid across the world and then manipulating governments into blowing themselves to kingdom come. I always thought it was humans who did this.”

“Oh, it was.”

“How do you mean?”

There was a slight pause, just long enough for Magnolia to wonder whether the AI might be hiding something.

“Humans designed artificial intelligence.”

“True, but you still haven’t answered my original question.”

“I did another scan, and I do not have anything in my database for the year 2043.”

She lowered the tablet.

“What do you mean, you don’t have anything in your database?”

“I mean that I have zero files about events in that year.”

“How is that possible?”

Another pause.

“What about the year 2042?” she asked.

“I have over one million files for that year.”

She grabbed her cup of tea and took another sip. “What about 2044?”

“There are thousands of files for that year, but not nearly as many as 2042 and before, and they are limited to the Hilltop Bastion and communications with other ITC facilities.”

“Holy wastes,” she muttered.

“I’m sorry I can’t be of more assistance, Miss Katib, but this data must have been lost in what Dr. Diaz is calling ‘the Blackout period.’”

“I guess so.” She brought the tablet up again. This time, she did a search for Red Sphere, the top secret lab where the doctor and his team had spent several years after the war.

Maybe she had missed something in his audio and video clips. Maybe there was something more to this, an answer she had overlooked.

The boat suddenly rocked hard to starboard—the result of a rogue wave slamming into the port side. The impact nearly jolted the tablet out of her hand. She looked up at the bulkhead, where the recessed light flickered.

“No, please don’t,” she whispered.

Miles lifted his head from where he was sleeping off his second feast of shark meat. It was the most movement she had seen from the dog in several hours. It seemed the fish was not agreeing with his stomach. A gurgling sounded, and he let out an audible fart.

Magnolia chuckled until the light flickered off.

“Great. Just freaking great.” She laid the tablet down on the bunk to investigate what had caused the power outage. Whatever answers were in the data would have to wait.

She swung her legs over the bed and put her naked feet on the cold metal floor. Then she grabbed her sweater and threw it over her uniform. A boisterous clanking came from outside her quarters. The noises were followed by another sound, like grinding gears. She found her flashlight and used it to get across the small space to her boots without tripping on her gear bags.

“Mags, where you at?” X shouted.

“Hold on.”

After speed-lacing her boots, she moved into the dark passage, where she flitted her light back and forth over the smooth black bulkheads.

“X, what happened?” she asked. She got no answer right away. Not even Timothy replied.

Because the system is down, she realized.

“X, where are you?”

“Right here.”

She directed the beam behind her.

“No, up here.”

The beam hit his face. He was bending down from the upper level. “We just lost our battery power. Come on, I need your help.”

Magnolia felt a twinge of dread at the news. This wasn’t that much different from diving through a storm. They were at the mercy of Mother Nature until they got back online.

The boat swayed, and she hit the bulkhead with her palm to keep from falling. She found the rungs after a few steps and made her way up into the staging area, where X was already suited up.

“We have to go out and fix this ourselves.” He put his helmet on and tossed her a bag of gear.

She moved over to the rack where she stored her suit, armor, and helmet. Holding the butt of the flashlight in her mouth, she shined the light on the equipment.

Miles barked from the passage below.

“Calm down, buddy,” X said. “We’ll be back in a little while.” Holding two bags in his hands, he glanced over at Magnolia. “Meet me outside.”

She dressed as fast as she could, but by the time she was finished, X was already climbing into the engine room on the deck. Smoke rose out of the opening, toward the mast and into the dark sky.

A fire down there could mean a few different things, all of them bad.

“Let’s go!” he shouted.

A light drizzle hit her as she stepped outside. Waves slapped the hull, rocking them from side to side. She balanced herself by holding her arms out and moving in a straight line to X.

Smoke sneaking past him, he popped his helmet out of the opening to see where she was.

“Where’s the other bag, Mags?”

She cursed and went back inside the boat to grab the tools. Two minutes later, she was climbing down the ladder into the cramped engine room—essentially a utility closet with an overhead barely four feet high.

Getting down on her kneepads, she crawled after X, trying to see through the smoke and using her hand to brush it away. Her knees scraped over the metal deck and through puddles of salt water.

X rounded a corner and ducked into the passage where the batteries were stored. Magnolia used her headlamp to scan the area, but the inky smoke was hard to penetrate.

“Hand me that bag…”

X reached back with one hand but kept his helmet light directed at the mechanical equipment ahead. Magnolia glimpsed engine one and the two lithium-ion battery units encased beside it.

She pushed the bag forward, and X dug inside for several moments while she held her light steady. He pulled out the small computer they used to diagnose mechanical issues—the same one that had failed to diagnose the first bad battery. This time, though, X managed to find the issue quickly.

“It’s a bad wire,” he said. “I should be able to fix this right now and bring the power back on. Battery still has fifty-five percent juice, too.”

“Thank God,” Magnolia whispered.

“Still doesn’t tell us what’s creating the smoke,” he said. “I’ll deal with that next.”

After a half hour of cursing and clanking, he had the new wiring in place.

“All right, should be good… to… go.” He let out a grunt, and the lights suddenly came back on, filling the space with a white glow.

A confused voice immediately came over the comms.

“What happened?”

“Didn’t think I’d be happy to hear your voice again, Pepper,” X said.

“Thank you, sir.”

“I’m going to try and get the engine back online,” X said.

“Can I help?” Magnolia asked. She crawled after him toward the still-smoking engine. Her hands slipped in a puddle—not water this time.

“Careful, X,” she said. “We got oil.”

“I’ve just run a quick scan of the boat,” Timothy said over the open channel. “Unfortunately, it looks as though engine one is damaged beyond repair.”

X directed his helmet light inside the engine.

“We have a melted corner of a piston crown,” he said after he opened the casing. Several curses followed.

He played his beam over several areas while fanning away the smoke. “Looks like that last wave hit us so hard, it destroyed the compression ring lands and piston pin. I bet a lot of the metal is inside the crankcase and has contaminated the bearings and oil passage.”

“What does that mean?” Magnolia asked.

He twisted to face her. “Means we’re hosed unless we can get the sails up.”

Or unless the divers find a boat in Cuba, she thought.

Michael crouched next to Erin. They had taken refuge on the deck of the ITC ship docked outside Red Sphere. Interference from the storm made it impossible to reach Command. Worse, they didn’t have a path home. It was one thing to dive through a pocket of electricity like that, but rising back up through it with a helium balloon was suicide, pure and simple.

“Drink,” he said, bringing a bottle to Erin’s lips.

She opened her thick lips and took a gulp, coughed, and reached up to wipe her mouth.

“I can do it on my own,” she said, taking the bottle from him. “I’m not paralyzed.”

No, but you’re still stubborn as ever, Michael thought.

Erin was in bad shape, there was no denying it, and Michael had a feeling she wasn’t being honest about just how bad. They didn’t have any way of knowing whether she had internal injuries from the lightning.

The suits were designed to help mitigate and distribute the three hundred kilovolts of energy from an oblique arc, but they couldn’t save a body from a direct strike. She was lucky to be alive. There was likely a lot of damage he couldn’t see, including burst blood vessels that could cause major problems later.

What he could see was the burn mark on her back. They had already rubbed cream on the wound and applied a cool patch to help dull the pain, but it was still bothering her.

“It itches,” Erin whispered.

Layla thrust her fist in the air. “Everyone quiet.”

The three divers sat in silence in the dark, listening to the clatter and groan of constantly shifting metal all around them as waves rocked and jostled the ship.

Michael checked the time again. Les should have been back. He stood up with his rifle and moved over to the hatch. Not wanting to break radio silence, he decided to take a look for himself.

“I’ll be right back,” he whispered.

Layla’s helmet dipped once, and Erin gave a thumbs-up.

Michael gritted his teeth as he walked into the hallway. Erin wasn’t the only one injured. Smacking into the ocean had hurt both his legs. His right was really bad—a sprain or maybe even a hairline fracture.

Keeping low, he moved down the passage.

Water dripped from the overhead, collecting in a puddle on the floor. He stepped around it, cautious not to make any extra noise. The NVGs provided an eerie, narrow green view of the passage ahead. He headed for the bow, where Les had last gone to scope things out.

Halfway down the hall, Michael froze at a noise that could be footfalls. He listened to the echo, trying to home in on their location.

Turning, he saw a hulking figure at the other end of the hall.

A flash hit him in the face shield.

“Just me, Commander,” Les said.

Michael raised a hand to block the light and clicked off his NVGs. If Les was using his helmet light, then he thought the coast was clear.

“Scared the crap out of me,” Michael said, lowering his rifle.

“Ship’s all clear,” Les confirmed.

Michael gestured back toward the quarters where Layla and Erin were waiting. Les ducked under the overhead and stepped inside.

“No one’s sailed this thing for hundreds of years,” Les said. “And I doubt Samson can get it running again. Everything’s old-school technology. Freaking engine room has diesels.”

“At least it’s not a Cazador pirate ship,” Layla said. “No sign of those freaks?”

Les’ helmet wagged. “None, but there is something I think you should see.” He looked to Michael.

“Can you walk, Erin?” Michael asked.

She pressed her hands to the deck and got herself up with Layla’s help.

“Just you, Commander,” Les said.

Erin and Layla both looked over at Michael.

“You two stay here,” he said. “We’ll be right back. Open comms if you need anything.”

He followed Les back into the passage and down a ladder to a lower deck. Their helmet beams guided them through the metal warren of dark passages. Cobwebs of rust covered the bulkheads, disguising any markings from centuries ago.

Michael racked his brain over how this ship was still afloat after all this time. Hurricanes, storms, barnacles, and rust had had their way with it, and yet here it still was.

There had to be another explanation. Perhaps it was resting on concrete piers, or…

“Down here,” Les said, gesturing right at an intersection. They walked through an open hatch and down another ladder, deeper into the bowels of the vessel.

Les ducked under another overhead and came out on a veranda overlooking a massive room that appeared to be some sort of warehouse. Metal crates, all of them open, rested on the deck twenty feet below.

“This is the place,” Les said. He walked out onto the metal platform and over to a railing, shifting his light to the deck beneath them. Michael joined him at the ledge and directed his helmet beam where Les was pointing.

“What in the wastes is that?” Michael asked.

Les shook his head. “I was about to ask you the same thing.”

For a moment, he just stared at the mass grave below, trying to make sense of what his eyes were relaying to his brain. Below them, hundreds of bones lay in a bed of red moss. But they weren’t just randomly thrown there. The bones were put back together in a deliberate way, making the skeletons look…

“Pretty eerie,” Les said.

“Let’s get the satellite link up. I want to contact Command and let them know there’s something down here after all. Then we start looking for supplies and boats.”

Michael tried to back away from the railing, but he couldn’t pull his eyes away from the mossy red growth on the deck and the bones. These weren’t just human. There were animal bones down there, and robotic-looking parts mixed in like some sort of Frankensteinian fantasy.

“You think those are the defectors that killed Dr. Julio Diaz and his team?” Les asked. “Or maybe that is Diaz’s team.”

Michael had trouble formulating a response. He was too busy trying to make sense of a skeleton that had a buffalo skull attached to a human rib cage, robotic arms, and bony hands with claws.

“What kind of hell island did Katrina send us to?” he whispered.

“It was a rogue pocket of electrometric disturbance,” said Dave Connor, avoiding Katrina’s gaze. It was his job to decipher the hundreds of readings coming from the airship’s advanced sensors, but she didn’t blame him for this.

“This is not your fault, Dave,” she said. “This was my decision, and it’s on me. Besides, everyone knows how tough a rogue pocket is to spot.”

“I should have seen it,” Dave said, shaking his head. “I’m sorry.”

Ada twisted around from her station, concern written on her freckled face. “How will they get back up here if that storm doesn’t pass?”

“We’ll find a way,” Katrina said. She returned to the helm, where she slumped in the leather chair. The porthole window hatches were up, and she stared out into the ocean of black.

Seeking refuge here, away from the other officers, seemed cowardly in a way, but she couldn’t help feeling she had made a mistake in flying Deliverance to Red Sphere.

Somewhere twenty-five thousand feet below, the four most experienced divers aside from her were possibly dead or in serious peril. Even if they had survived the rogue layer of storm clouds, they were stranded with no way of getting home.

And she had no idea what was down there. All the data, transmissions, and videos from Dr. Diaz’s team suggested that this place was nothing but a tomb. But then, there were always threats on the surface.

The wait to hear from a dive team, though always agonizing, was worse than normal this time. Her boot rapped syncopated rhythms on the deck as, behind her, Ada, Dave, and Bronson continued monitoring their screens and sipping their cups of caffeinated water.

It was going to be a long day.

An hour had passed since the divers leaped from the belly of Deliverance, and it already felt like a lifetime.

An unenlightening half hour later, she got up and walked back to the circular command station. “Have you detected anything yet, Ensign?”

“Negative, ma’am,” Bronson White replied. “So far, none of the beacons are getting through the electromagnetic disturbance.”

“Nothing over the comms, either,” Ada confirmed.

An insane thought crossed her mind—one she didn’t dare say aloud. There were still over fifty people on Deliverance—farmers, engineers, cooks.

She couldn’t risk their lives.

Yet.

“Ada, get me the Sea Wolf,” she said.

“Will do, ma’am.”

Grabbing her headset, Katrina retreated back to her leather chair to stare out the portholes. She already knew what X would say, but she wasn’t calling him to ask for advice.

“Captain,” Ada said, “I’ve got Timothy Pepper on the horn, but he says X and Magnolia are preoccupied.”

“Patch him through,” Katrina replied.

“Hello, Captain DaVita, what a pleasant surprise to hear your voice.”

It felt odd to talk to the second AI after deactivating its clone on the Hive.

“Good to talk to you, Timothy,” she said politely. “Where are X and Magnolia?”

“They’re working to fix the mainmast,” he said. “Is there something I can assist you with?”

“I’d like to know if Magnolia or you have discovered anything else I should know about Red Sphere. If there’s anything vital that I may have missed in those files Magnolia sent.”

“What, exactly, are you wanting to know?”

“Based on what you have scanned in the files, do you believe there is anything alive down there?”

Timothy’s reply came without hesitation. “In my experience, life always seems to find a way, and while nothing on those files confirms it, I do believe it’s possible, Captain. In fact, I would say it’s very likely.”