Chapter 32: The Shark Tank

  The hydro-tube hummed, a vibration that rattled the expensive fillings of the dental work I didn’t have. Outside the thick, curved glass, the ocean was a blur of indigo streaks and bioluminescent flashes as we shot through the underwater transit network.

  "Relax, Rocky," I said, leaning back against the padded seat, enjoying the squish of actual upholstery. I popped a piece of dried, spiced kelp into my mouth. It tasted like money and salt. "You look like a gargoyle trying to hold in a sneeze. It’s just a high-velocity glass straw shooting through a crushing abyss. What’s the worst that could happen?"

  Vrex was gripping the safety bar with white-knuckled intensity. His massive stone frame took up two seats, his knees pressing against the forward compartment. He looked miserable.

  "I hate this," he rumbled, his voice tight. "It is unnatural to travel this fast without moving one's legs. It feels like being digested by a very fast snake."

  "It's called luxury," I grinned, patting the heavy pouch of pearls at my waist. "We won, Vrex. We cornered the dust market, we fleeced the Guild, and now we’re riding the aquatic roller-coaster to payday. We’re untouchable. Literally. I bought us top-tier snacks. Do you want a dried eel? It's chewy."

  I held up the packet, shaking it tauntingly.

  Vrex glared at me. "If we stop moving, I am going to—"

  THUD.

  The capsule didn't stop. It shrieked.

  A jagged, rusted point of black iron punched through the floor of the capsule, erupting between my legs. It missed my femoral artery by an inch, spraying slivers of polycarbonate glass and freezing seawater into my face.

  "Brake failure!" I yelled, the sarcasm instantly replaced by the taste of bile.

  "It is not a failure," Vrex roared, bracing his massive legs against the walls to stop the spin, the screech of stone on metal drowning out the alarms. "It is a catch!"

  Through the spider-webbed glass, I saw it. A massive, chain-linked harpoon had punched through the outer wall of the transit tube itself, snagging our capsule like a fish on a line. The vacuum seal of the high-speed tunnel broke.

  The ocean didn't leak in. It detonated.

  A jet of high-pressure seawater, moving fast enough to cut bone, sliced through the breach. It hit the far wall, shredding the upholstery and painting the interior with a fine mist of salt and hydraulic fluid.

  "Kaelen!" Vrex bellowed. The water rose to his waist in a second. "The glass! It will not—"

  BOOM.

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  The front of the capsule blew out.

  It wasn't just water. It was a concussion grenade made of the Atlantic Ocean.

  The blast wave hit me like a physical hammer. I felt my nose break with a wet crunch. My vision went white, then red. I was ripped from my seat and hurled out into the churning, freezing darkness of the flooded service tunnel.

  I slammed into a rusted grate, the air driven from my lungs. I gasped, inhaling a mouthful of oily, metallic water. I retched, coughing up bile and blood, scrambling for purchase on the slippery metal.

  "Vrex!" I choked out, wiping the gore from my eyes.

  I looked down.

  The service tunnel had a grate floor, but the explosion had blown a massive hole in it. Below was the open ocean, the infinite, crushing dark of Ostracon’s depths.

  Vrex was falling.

  He wasn't swimming. He couldn't. He was two tons of living granite in a world made of buoyancy. Gravity, usually a suggestion in the Waylines, was a death sentence here.

  He plummeted straight down into the abyss. He didn't thrash. He didn't scream. He just reached up, his massive stone hand grasping at the water, silent and terrified.

  He plummeted straight down into the abyss. He didn't thrash. He didn't scream. He just reached up, his massive stone hand grasping at the water, silent and terrified.

  I saw the blue light of his Mana-Lung—the only thing keeping him alive—flicker in the darkness. It grew smaller. Smaller. A dying star falling into a black hole.

  Then, the darkness swallowed him whole.

  He was gone. My tank. My anchor. The only rock in the universe stubborn enough to put up with me. Sunk because I wanted legroom. Sunk because I just had to take the scenic route.

  "No," I whispered, the word bubbling out of my mouth, pathetic and small against the roar of the ocean.

  A bolt of dark energy hissed past my ear, singeing my hair and impacting the wall behind me. Stone sizzled and melted like wax.

  I scrambled behind a support pillar, pressing my back against the cold metal. My chest heaved. My ribs screamed in protest.

  I wiped the blood from my mouth with the back of my hand.

  The humor died. The panic died.

  I stood up.

  I stepped out from behind the pillar.

  Three figures stood on a service platform thirty feet away, protected by a shimmering bubble of air.

  [Entity: The Watcher]

  [Rank: Unchained] [Class: Manifest] [Density: Vector]

  The Shadow from the balcony. His cloak was living oil. His mask was bleached coral.

  Beside him stood a Hull-Breaker—a bio-grafted nightmare with a hydraulic claw and a helmet fused to his neck. He was reloading a massive harpoon cannon.

  And behind them, a Tide-Binder weaving patterns in the water.

  "The stone one is gone," The Watcher said, his voice projected by magic. "He walks the bottom now. At this depth, the pressure will crack his Mana-Lung in... eight minutes."

  He stepped forward.

  "You have a Locus full of Grade 3 pearls and alchemical glass," The Watcher stated calmly. "Give us the inventory willingly, and I will let you swim to the surface. You might even make it before the sharks smell the blood leaking from your face."

  The Hull-Breaker laughed, a wet, gurgling sound. He leveled the harpoon cannon at me. The tip was barbed, serrated.

  "Time is up," The Watcher sighed. "Spear the fish. The Locus bursts either way."

  I didn't speak.

  My face was a mask of blood and seawater. I looked at the Hull-Breaker. I looked at the Tide-Binder. I looked at the Watcher.

  I activated Kensho.

  I didn't look for an escape route. I looked for the structural weakness in the platform they stood on. I looked for the pulse of the Tide-Binder’s concentration. I looked for the intake valve on the Hull-Breaker’s suit.

  I drew the Void-Knife.

  The blade came out with a sound like a inhale. The Tyrant quality flared, drinking the dim light of the tunnel. It hummed, hungry and cruel.

  I raised the knife. I pointed it at the Watcher.

  Then, I pointed at the ground.

  The Hull-Breaker stopped laughing.

  I didn't wait for the signal. I moved.