I cheered silently, only to stop short when the drill gave out a metallic screech that fried my nerve endings. I peered down to see that the drill had stopped dead—its bit buried to the hilt in the hatch door. Serves him right, I thought, since he bought the lethal contraption with blood money.
Leaving Ratter grinding his gears, I swam around Drift and alighted on the bumper. Surfs crowded the window in front of me, gesturing desperately. In the glare from my crown lights, they looked blue lipped and colorless, bundled in blankets and wearing life vests. The boy on Nomad, frozen and silent, flashed through my mind.
I’d gotten a hatch unchained, but these people were already half frozen. How could they possibly muster the energy to swim to the surface? And that was assuming that they had Liquigen.
A dark-haired girl, not much older than me, moved to the front of the crowd. Even though she looked nothing like Hadal, the way the adults let her pass made me think she had to be his daughter. When she gestured to the floor, and I saw that the seawater had climbed past their knees, my guts twisted into a hard knot. If the township took on much more, it would drop like a rock into the depths. We were out of time.
Frantic, I pointed at the tube in the base of my helmet and then tapped my chest to indicate my lungs. She nodded and spoke to someone behind her. He passed her a Liquigen pack, which she held up. I gestured at the crowd around her to ask if there was enough for all. Again she nodded.
Suddenly the bumper tilted and the people inside tumbled past the window. Panic hummed in my ears as I swam downward, peering into each window, trying to find them again. They had to evacuate now. If Drift sank to the seafloor, even with Liquigen in their lungs they couldn’t swim to the surface without diveskins to keep them warm. No one could.
Then I saw that it wasn’t the climbing water that had caused Drift to roll to its side, but the added weight of Ratter’s sub, which now hung off the township, bucking with his efforts to free the drill. If he wasn’t careful, he was going to burn out the sub’s engine. But Ratter was the least of my concerns. As I studied the situation, my doubts split off, multiplying like amoebas. Evacuating an entire township past a banging hatch with a lethally sharp drill bit poking through would be dangerous in the extreme. But at least the hatch was ideally situated—at the bottom of the township. There was no time to waste.
Catching hold of the now-vertical bumper, I climbed hand over hand until I faced the lowest window, where the girl waited for me. I pointed downward and mimed opening the door to the air lock, but none of the people inside understood what I was trying to say.
The girl turned and shouted at someone behind her. She held up a finger, telling me to wait. Did one of the surfs aboard know sign language? It was almost too much to hope for.
The group parted, allowing someone through…. Someone in a diveskin.
Pa!
I slammed against the viewport, forgetting for a second that it separated us. Pa shouted something over his shoulder, and the surfs backed away, letting Ma through. Like me, she threw herself at the window, and then settled for pressing her hands to it.
Despite their smiles, I realized that my parents were as blue lipped as the surfs and my joy at seeing them suddenly faltered. The situation was as dire as before. No, it was worse. The water inside Drift was higher than ever. We didn’t have time for a reunion now, not if we wanted to have an actual one on the ocean’s surface.
Signing to them rapid-fire, I warned them about Ratter’s bucking sub, the drill bit, and the slamming hatch. Ma translated aloud for the surfs.
Pa decided that taking the hinges off the hatch from inside the air lock was the best option. Once Ma explained the plan to the girl, she had the others find him the tools he’d need.
“Ty,” I heard Gemma say through my helmet’s speaker. “Can you use this?”
Kicking away from Drift I shot my sonar into the dark water around me, searching for the pod. Before I could find it, I sensed something massive descending on me, twisting in the upwelling current. An old fishing net. I stroked out of the way, not wanting to get tangled up.
“I attached the top of the net to the skimmer,” Gemma said through my helmet. “If any of the surfs can’t swim, maybe they can use the net to climb up. Or, if they hang on, I could pull them to the surface.”
Brilliant. I swam past the long net until I was caught in the skimmer’s head beams. I shot her a quick thumbs-up and dove for Drift once more. Catching hold of the bottom, I dragged the net alongside the window to show the people inside. The girl made climbing gestures. When I nodded, she smiled faintly—as if I’d just given her a smidge of hope.
I swam down to where Ratter’s sub hung beneath Drift. Just as I realized that the sub was suspiciously still, a harpoon tore through the water and missed me by a hair. I darted up again to take cover behind Drift. I scuttled farther along the rim, then peered over to see Ratter in an ill-fitting diveskin hovering outside the hatch, harpoon gun in hand, waiting for the surfs to show. A tether line attached him to his sub.
Beside me, Drift sank another foot. Without a weapon, how was I going to get Ratter away from the hatch so that my parents and the surfs could escape?
And then I knew. I did have a weapon. One that Representative Tupper had brought to my attention. Unease prickled my skin.
I’d promised myself I wouldn’t try stunning a human with my Dark Gift, but what choice did I have? Too many people were depending on me to get them to the surface—to keep them from drowning.
The plan formed in my mind. I would stun Ratter just long enough to pry his harpoon gun from his immobilized fingers.
I swam along Drift until I was twenty feet from where Ratter last saw me. Once I left the cover of the township, he’d spot me quick enough and pull the trigger even quicker. I had to shoot first. Mustering my grit, I dropped past Drift, and with Ratter in sight, I blasted sonar more intensely than I’d ever shot before.
His body jerked as if he’d touched a stripped electric wire and then his hands sprang open. The harpoon gun rolled from his clutch and spiraled into the deep. Not knowing how long I had before he recovered, I kicked past Ratter, who seemed to be asleep, floating in place. His face was slack, and behind the flexiglass of his helmet his lips were parted.
I caught the end of the net and swam for the hatch when suddenly, the sub’s head beams went out. Probably Ratter had burned out the engine with his antics. The surroundings went dark, since there were no lights working on Drift except for the flashlights. Not that I was afraid. Between my helmet’s crown lights and my Dark Gift, I could see just fine. The surfs were another story.
Without warning, the hatch dropped away, still impaled on the sub’s drill. My helmet lights caught the metallic shimmer of Pa’s diveskin inside the air lock. He’d managed to remove the last hinge. I looked back to see the sub slowly sinking—too heavy for the upwelling to keep afloat without an engine doing the majority of the work. Pa swam out of the hatch, signing for me to bring the net closer. It was only after I’d handed Pa one edge of the net and took up a position on the other corner that I remembered Ratter. In a sudden panic I shot clicks downward, into the depths where the green sub had fallen away.
When the echoes came back to me, I saw Ratter in my mind’s eye. No longer stunned, his arms and legs were thrashing as he flew backward through the water. He was still attached to the sub by a tether line. But the weight of the sub was hauling him down so fast, he needed to react now—unfasten his dive belt and free himself.
But he didn’t. Maybe his brain was still too dazed. Or maybe it had never worked well in high-pressure situations. And now that the surfs were evacuating Drift one after another, climbing up the fishing net, I needed to keep a tight grip on my corner. If the net whipped up in the current, someone could lose their hold. At this point, there was nothing I could do for Ratter even if I was of a mind to.
Despite the circumstances, the surfs stayed amazingly calm. Those that could swim hovered near the net, helping
the climbers along.
Unable to stop myself, I sought out Ratter again with sonar. A mistake. Watching him trail after his sub as it crashed into the mountain of scrap below—it was awful. And it didn’t end there. His sub kept going, sliding down the wreckage until it was teetering precariously atop a large derelict.
All Ratter had to do was unclip his dive belt and he’d be free. But no, he continued to flail at the end of the tether line, futilely trying to swim away even when the sub tipped off the derelict. Rolling as it fell, Ratter’s prize submarine reeled him in, until finally he was crushed beneath its bulk. Poetic justice, maybe, but still horrifying to witness.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-NINE
It was as if Drift had been waiting for all of its occupants to escape safely, because as soon as the last person dropped out of the hatch, the township sank into the depths.
Pa had headed for the surface some time ago, taking up two children, so I was alone when Drift crashed onto the mountain of derelict vessels. Not that Pa or anyone else could have seen what was happening in the darkness far below. Only I knew that the enormous township had settled squarely on top of Ratter’s sub. Probably smashed the ill-gotten vehicle flat. In a grim sort of way, it seemed a fitting spot for Drift’s final resting place.
Turning my attention upward, I let go of the fishing net and swam for the surface. An acre’s worth of legs dangled above me—not treading water—just swaying in the current like tendrils of seaweed. An unsettling image for sure; they were so vulnerable.
The ocean’s surface seemed strangely calm, considering that hundreds of people surrounded me. But they were all too weak to do more than bob in their life vests. It took me a moment to locate Gemma among them. She was by the pod, hanging on to the bumper. But the two people tucked inside were old and frail—not my parents.
As I swam closer, Gemma said, “They’re over there,” anticipating my question. “They’re trying to amplify the buoy’s signal.”
I spotted the crown lights of their helmets—the only illumination other than the moon. The cracked-open buoy floated between them. If anyone could amp up the buoy’s signal, Pa could.
“Amp up.” The phrase made me think of Ratter and how I’d amped up my Dark Gift. My heart fluttered in my chest, and suddenly I understood how Zoe felt about her ability to seriously hurt someone.
Suddenly it struck me as odd that only Gemma and I were clinging on to the pod. I asked her why. “Did Pa tell them not to?”
Gemma pressed the flexiglass bubble of her helmet against mine so that she could speak softly. “Ria ordered them to keep their distance. She didn’t want the pod to sink under the extra weight. Not after we helped them escape.”
“Ria?”
She nodded toward a girl a ways off, floating in a life vest that rode up on her shoulders.
“Your father had to talk her into letting them”—she tipped her head toward the two old surfs—“sit in the pod. Ria thought your parents should.”
Though I could only see the girl in profile as she spoke to a clump of despondent-looking surfs, I knew she was the one I’d communicated with through Drift’s window.
“Hadal’s daughter?” I asked.
Gemma nodded.
“Did you tell her what happened to him?”
“She’s been swimming around, trying to keep everyone’s spirits up. It didn’t feel like the right time to mention it.” Irony might have tinged Gemma’s words, but her expression was dead serious.
“Good call.”
“Ty!” I heard my mother say, and closed my eyes to savor the sound. I’d never completely believed that they were gone. And yet, relief rushed through me now.
Hearing a splash, I turned to see them both cutting toward me. Together they swept me into a hug and then beckoned Gemma into the fold. She hesitated only a second and then threw her arms around all of us—at least, she tried to.
“Are you okay?” Ma asked, pressing a hand to my helmet as if she could stroke my cheek through the flexiglass.
“Me? I’m fine. You were the ones taken captive.”
“The moment the sub met up with Drift, we were hustled aboard,” Pa said. “The surfs didn’t have any more choice than we did when Mayor Fife’s man threatened to kill their sachem.”
As we treaded water, the three of them filled me in on how Gemma had finally been able to reach Captain Revas’s troopers on the other side of the gyre and that it would take them at least an hour to arrive. We looked at the people around us—so many of them shuddering. Even though the night was warm, the ocean was well below body temperature.
“And there’s still nothing else in the area?” Pa asked. His voice was little more than a croak. “No trawler, no floaters? Someone has to hear that signal.”
“I’ve tried every frequency on the pod’s control panel,” Gemma said. “There’s no one out here.”
“There’s a flare gun in the toolbox behind the bench,” I said as my sense of desperation grew. “Maybe if we—”
The radio inside the pod crackled to life and a man’s voice said, “We’ve locked onto your signal. Tell the surfs to hold on, we’re almost there.”
Shocked, we exchanged looks.
“Who was that?” I asked.
Ma swung into the pod with an “Excuse me” to the elderly surfs on the pilot bench. She bent over the console. “Can’t be the troopers to the north.” Straightening, she pointed west. “It came from over—” Her words ended in a gasp as in the distance, a small submarine zoomed out of the ocean. Then another sub surfaced beside it. Then more burst through the waves, all shining in the moonlight.
Within the span of a minute, a fleet of submarines had emerged—not a tight formation of Seaguard skimmers, but vehicles of many shapes and sizes, plowing through the water toward us. There were big cruisers like my family’s, but more telling were the reapers, swathers, and combines—vessels that only subsea farmers owned. Lars had hoped to rouse a few settlers to join the search, but from what I could see, all of Benthic Territory had come to help.
The sounds of the approaching subs jolted the surfs out of their stupor and a shout of joy went up, growing louder as the vessels neared. But the cheer stopped short when the subs drew to a halt before reaching us.
I flipped back my helmet. “It’s safer for us to swim to them,” I shouted as best I could.
With numb limbs and teeth chattering, the surfs splashed forward—some actually swimming, others barely able to flutter-kick.
A hatch popped on the big cruiser in the front and a figure in a diveskin scrambled out. Lars. More hatches opened and I watched as my neighbors poured out of their subs and took up positions on running boards and bumpers with their hands outstretched to the surfs. Many plunged into the water to assist those who needed it. Gemma and I swam into the splashing throng to offer our help as well.
When the last surf was pulled from the ocean’s icy grip, Gemma dog-paddled toward me, looking as done in as I felt—as if she couldn’t lift her arm for even one more stroke.
After I tried and failed to hoist myself onto the bumper of the cruiser, Lars hauled me aboard and then did the same for Gemma.
Ria knelt on the bumper to my right. With her wet hair plastered to her cheeks, she peered into the waves as if she could see through them.
“Are you okay?” I asked, hunkering down next to her.
She looked up, her expression bleak. “Can we raise her?” she asked. “Tow her to the surface?”
“Her? You mean Drift?”
Ria nodded.
“Not a chance.”
Gemma scooted behind me, popping me on the back of the head as she passed. I realized I shouldn’t have put it so bluntly. Kneeling on Ria’s other side, Gemma said, “Ty means the settlers can’t do it. But surely there’s another way,” she added, directing the question to me.
“Nothing easy. Drift’s filled with water at this point,” I explained. “It’d take a rig the size of an ocean liner to hoist up
that kind of weight.”
Ria’s composure crumbled. “What do I tell them?” She gestured at the departing subs—all heading back to the Trade Station. “There’s no way to reclaim our home? Our fishing tools? That we have nothing?”
Gemma’s eyes met mine and she gave me a silent nod in answer to the unspoken question between us.
“Actually,” I told Ria. “You have Nomad.” I pulled the metal square from the sealed pouch on my dive belt and held it out.
Confused, she didn’t take it.
“The Seaguard fixed it up. The engines, everything,” Gemma said.
Still, Ria didn’t take the title card. “There were no survivors?”
I shook my head. “Gemma and I found it, so it’s ours to give away.”
“That means it’s your salvage,” she protested. “Yours to sell. Why would you give it to surfs?”
“You’re our neighbors. And in Benthic Territory, when something terrible happens to a neighbor, we help out—doing what we can, giving all we can spare.” I pressed the title card into her palm. “I wouldn’t live any other way.”
EPILOGUE
Torches circled the patch of high ground—the only part of the surfs’ community garden that wasn’t flooded. There, settlers and surfs worked together, dragging away chairs and tables to create an open dance area. Gemma and I took that as our cue to head for the water, even though I appreciated Ria having invited us in thanks for saving them—and for modifying the ordinance. Now the townships could fish anywhere on the continental shelf except inside the Benthic Territory boundaries.
I paused halfway across the torch-lit area to watch Lars and Raj clink tankards with several surfs and felt a rush of pride for all my neighbors. They’d come tonight bearing gifts of sea greens and had gamely eaten the surfs’ halibut head stew. Although only Zoe had tried a seal eyeball.
When the music started up, Gemma touched my arm. “Looks like I won’t be getting any more marriage proposals.”
I followed her gaze and saw Jibby joining a circle dance even though he clearly didn’t know the steps. But then, neither did his partner, Captain Revas, who had let her hair down for the evening and was laughing as the two of them tried to keep up with the other dancers. “Probably not,” I agreed. “At dinner, she told him he could call her Selene.”