The Storm (NUMA Files 10)

“What does that mean for us?”

Otero swiveled in his chair, feeling better, more confident. “It means we’re in luck. They’re as good as dead. And now it looks like an industrial accident.”

“As good as dead won’t cut it,” Matson explained. “Only dead for certain works. We need bodies.”

“They’re twenty feet beneath the surface,” Otero insisted. “The pressure of the water rushing in will probably crush them, and if it doesn’t, they’ll drown trying to fight against it.”

“Listen,” Matson said, “you and I have made millions getting Marchetti’s design to Jinn and his people. But if we don’t make sure these meddlers are finished, we won’t live long enough to spend it. So get some more robots over there and find their drowned carcasses and haul them up like dead fish.”

Otero went back to his keyboard. He punched up a list of active robots and scrolled down to the section labeled Hydro. He tapped the down arrow until he found two submersibles currently deployed near Marchetti’s lab.

“What are those?”

“Hull cleaners,” Otero said. “They roam around the hull, clearing the algae and barnacles.”

“Are they lethal?”

“Only if you’re a barnacle,” Otero replied. “But they can give us a look.”

Otero switched the hull cleaner to manual control and directed it to section 171A: Marchetti’s lab. The machine wasn’t built for speed, but it only needed to travel a short distance.

“There’s the observation deck,” Otero said as it passed a long rectangular window. “Marchetti’s lab should be just ahead.”

A moment later the exterior of the lab was front and center.

The damage was obvious. What had once been a majestic portal often beaming with light now looked like a dark cave. The circular window was shattered. A few pieces of the thick acrylic clung to the frame like broken teeth in some giant mouth. No light came forth.

“Take it inside,” Matson ordered.

Otero had already planned to, but movement on the right side of the screen caught his eye. He turned one of the cleaners that way. Its camera was locked on a group of swimmers, headed topside.

“Grab them!”

Otero extended the cleaner’s grasping claws and accelerated toward the last pair of bare feet. It was the woman.

The hull cleaner clamped onto the woman’s feet. A struggle began. The camera shook, bubbles rose when the girl had exhaled. Otero pushed the joystick on his panel downward, ordering the hull cleaner to dive.

The machine nosed over but went nowhere. Suddenly, a face capped with silvery hair came into the frame. The machine went sideways. The sound of an actuator arm sna

pping off came through the headset.

The screen cleared. The woman wriggled free and the man’s face appeared once again. He was holding on to the hull cleaner, staring into the camera. Otero felt the weight of that gaze through the water and into the control room. The man pointed a finger directly at the camera, directly at Otero, and then he made a slashing motion across his throat, before smashing the camera and rendering the hull cleaner useless.

The message was clear. The men from NUMA were coming for them, and it wasn’t going to be pretty.

Otero tapped a few keys and hit enter on the keyboard—setting up one last trick to cover his back—and then he stood and grabbed a small briefcase filled with cash. His final payment.

“What are you doing?” Matson asked.

“I’m getting out of here,” Otero said. “You can stay if you like.”

Otero pulled a revolver from his desk drawer and hustled out the door into the hall. Seconds later he heard Matson racing to catch up.

At the starboard section of Aqua-Terra, Kurt found a ladder running up the side of the hull. He and Joe hustled up first and took cover behind a small oak tree on a pile of woodchips. He stared across the wheat field as Leilani hauled herself up the ladder and slumped beside them, looking exhausted.

“Now what?” Joe asked.

“We need to find the best way to that control center,” Kurt said, thinking it’d be nice to have some input from the man who designed the island.