The Rising Sea (NUMA Files 15)

“Keep it hot and we could make coffee with it,” she joked.

“Now you’re talking,” he said. “How many cones did you count before we stopped looking?”

“At least fifty,” she said.

“Let’s see if there are any more.”

She redirected the Remora once again and it traveled down the canyon for another twenty minutes. They counted more than a hundred cones. There seemed to be no end to them.

“Picking up a source of iron,” Gamay said, checking the magnetometer. “But we’re starting to lose the signal.”

“Head toward it,” Paul said. “We’re getting close to maximum transmission range. We’re going to lose the ROV any minute.”

She adjusted course once more, but the image on-screen began to glitch as pixels dropped out and the transmission became garbled. The view froze and then cleared.

“Hang in there,” Paul urged.

“Bottom coming up

,” Gamay said.

The screen froze once more and then cleared just as the Remora crashed into the sediment pile.

“You’ve hit bottom,” Paul said.

Gamay was already adjusting the controls. “No backseat drivers, thank you.”

The impact caused a momentary blackout, but the link reset after several anxious moments. As the view resolved, the camera focused on a tangle of metallic wreckage.

“Something else was down there,” Paul said.

“It looks structural to me,” she said. Twisted steel plating and pipes were clearly visible. Whatever it had once been, it was now half buried.

Gamay adjusted the lights and then panned and zoomed the camera. The video flickered and a new sight appeared. “That’s an arm.”

It was white in appearance and stretching away from the camera. It looked like colorless, bleached flesh. But the shape was too perfect and consistent and the Remora’s lights reflected off its polished surface. At the end of the arm, they found a hand and mechanical fingers.

“Interesting.”

As the ROV hovered, its thrusters scoured away the loose sediment. A shoulder came into view next and then a face appeared from beneath the silt. Perfectly shaped and porcelain white, it filled the screen. It was like unearthing a statue of Athena.

“She’s beautiful,” Paul said.

“She’s a machine,” Gamay replied.

“Machines can be beautiful.”

Gamay nodded. That was true in many ways but oddly disturbing in this situation. The beautiful machine seemed a little too human. It appeared to be alive even though it was not moving. The face held a sad quality. The eyes were open and looking up toward the surface as if waiting for a rescue that hadn’t come.

It was the last image they recorded before the signal was lost for good.

25

BEIJING

WEN LI trod carefully as he crossed Tiananmen Square. An early snow had dusted the ground. It painted the sky gray and settled in specks on the fur hats and dark green cloaks of the soldiers guarding Mao’s tomb.

Wen smiled as he passed them. As the old joke went, no one knew if they were supposed to keep vandals out or the ghost of Chairman Mao trapped within.