Chapter 47 - The Obsidian Siphon
The blast of electricity turned the flooded chamber into a blinding sun of white light.
The current ripped through Samuel’s biomechanical frame with terrifying violence. The hydraulic conduits in his arms and legs ruptured, spraying dark hydraulic oil and boiling steam into the lake water. The milky film over his eyes burned away, revealing the raw optical fibers beneath as they scorched into blackened embers.
A shriek of agonizing electronic distortion tore from the creature's throat—a chorus of a thousand overlapping algorithmic screams that shattered the remaining glass domes overhead.
*BOOM!*
The glass ceiling gave way.
Hundreds of tons of frozen Lake Michigan poured down from above like a biblical deluge, burying the thrashing, burning corpse of Samuel Bellini under an avalanche of ice, lake silt, and collapsed steel scaffolding.
"Laura!"
A strong, wet hand grabbed my collar, hauling me backward out of the vortex. Marco dragged me onto the lower steps of the mezzanine stairwell just as the dais, the bronze chair, and the crushed remains of the patriarch were swept away into the dark abyss of the subterranean vaults below.
We lay on the iron stairs, gasping for air, choking on the spray of freezing lake water.
Above us, Silas fell to his knees on the landing, his face pale and covered in blood, dropping the spent battery housing he had used to complete the circuit.
"The whole foundation is going," Silas wheezed, pointing toward the emergency access shaft at the top of the tower. "The lake is reclaiming the entire catacomb. If we don't reach the surface tunnels in two minutes, we drown like rats in Samuel's tomb."
Marco looked at me, his gray eyes wild, blood running from the corner of his lip. But his gaze dropped to my chest.
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Prototype Zero was glowing. Not blue. Not green.
A deep, violent, pulsating violet.
