Chapter 55 - The Boarding Party
Marco didn't hesitate. He raised his heavy-caliber revolver, adjusted his aim past the advancing strike team, and fired two rounds directly into the valve stem.
The iron fractured under the kinetic impact.
With an earth-shattering roar, superheated industrial steam blasted from the fractured pipe at four hundred degrees Fahrenheit. A blinding white wall of scalding vapor filled the subterranean corridor, instantly swallowing the advancing Council operatives.
Screams cut short by mechanical overrides echoed through the fog as the soldiers' thermal optics and synthetic suits were overwhelmed by the catastrophic heat bloom.
"Move!" Marco pulled me up by my arm, and we bolted down a lateral service ladder leading upward into a secondary drainage gallery.
Silas scrambled up behind us, coughing violently as the trailing fringe of steam bit into our heels. We tumbled onto an elevated iron grated platform, gasping for breathable air while the inferno hissed harmlessly fifty feet below.
"That bought us five minutes," Marco said, checking his remaining ammunition. "The steam will trigger the city's municipal fire protocols. That means automated blast doors are going to close along the Loop network within ten minutes."
"Good," I said, wiping soot and lake-water from my forehead. My mind was racing, analyzing the architecture of the subterranean map Silas had brought up on his tactical display. "Because we aren't going to the Loop."
Both Marco and Silas turned to look at me.
"What are you thinking, Laura?" Marco asked.
"The dreadnoughts offshore," I said, pointing toward the ceiling where the low hum of the lake still vibrated through the limestone bedrock. "Leviathan-1 is coordinating the resonance anchors across the city. If we try to dismantle the anchors from the city side, we have to find twelve different substations while Helen hunts us down. We'll run out of time, and the city will drown."
"And the alternative?" Silas asked, his brow furrowed.
"The resonance anchors operate on a closed feedback loop," I explained, gesturing between my chest and Marco's. "Prototype Zero has the master cipher. If we can get aboard the flagship’s primary acoustic transmitter, I can reverse the resonance polarity directly at the source. It won't just shut down the anchors—it will detonate their acoustic amplifiers."
Marco looked at me, a dangerous, wolfish grin spreading slowly across his bruised face.
"You want to board the Council's flagship."
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"I don't just want to board it," I said, my voice hardening. "I want to introduce myself to my aunt."
***
