Chapter 57 - Inside the Belly of Iron
The underbelly of Leviathan-1 was a nightmare of industrial militarism.
The ship was over four hundred feet long, suspended twenty feet above the silt of the lake trench, its massive ducted thrusters humming with a rhythmic power that vibrated straight through our diving masks. Along the hull, banks of violet illumination revealed clusters of sub-aquatic torpedo tubes and acoustic pulse cannons aimed toward the Chicago shoreline.
We swam beneath the slipstream of the main engines, fighting against the crushing undertow until Marco located the ballast intake manifold Silas had described.
Marco slotted the obsidian key into the manual maintenance interface.
For three terrifying seconds, nothing happened. My core temperature was dropping dangerously fast; my extremities were growing numb. Then, with a hydraulic hiss that sent a swarm of silver bubbles into the black water, the emergency ballast hatch unlatched, swinging inward.
We scrambled inside the void chamber. Marco hauled the hatch closed behind us and pulled the manual purge lever.
The water drained away in a furious vortex, dropping us onto a grated steel deck. We tore off our rebreathers, coughing and shivering violently, cold water pooling around our boots.
"We're in," Marco breathed, racking the slide of his sidearm to clear any residual moisture.
The interior of the ship was not metallic gray like a naval vessel; it was constructed of smooth, non-reflective black composites and glass. Soft violet luminescence ran along recessed floor channels, guiding the air toward a sterile, clinical corridor.
As we moved down the hallway, keeping our steps silent, we passed wall-sized observation windows looking into pressurized laboratory chambers.
I stopped dead in my tracks, my hand flying to my mouth.
Inside the chambers were rows of cylindrical cryogenic vats. Suspended within the pale blue nutrient fluid were human forms—dozens of them. Not soldiers, but older men and women, hooked up to intricate external circulation pumps. Above each vat, a digital manifest displayed names, bank account balances, and corporate holdings.
"Mayors," Marco whispered, reading the digital tags in horror. "Federal judges. CEOs. Supreme Court justices."
"They aren't prisoners," I said, leaning closer to read the telemetry readouts. The surgical incisions across their sternums were identical to the one I had performed on Marco. "They're clients. The Council is keeping them alive on life-support while growing synthetic heart-matrices to control them."
"A shadow government run on pacemaker keys," Marco said, his voice laced with venom. "Samuel wasn't the outlier. He was just the test subject who dared to lock the door from the inside."
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"And now," a cold, cultured voice echoed through the ship's intercom system, "the wayward son arrives to hand over the key."
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