Chapter 78 - The Shattered Lullaby
The effect was instantaneous and horrific.
The liquid freon flooded Eleanor’s internal cooling systems, dropping her core temperature by hundreds of degrees in a matter of seconds. The sapphire circuitry across her skin turned black as the fluid froze solid. Micro-explosions echoed inside her chest as the pressurized hydraulic lines shattered from internal ice.
Her grip on my throat slackened.
I fell to my knees on the frosted acrylic floor, gasping for air, clutching my bruised neck as Marco stood over the freezing machine, holding the line until the entire upper half of Eleanor’s synthetic body was encased in a thick shell of white frost.
She froze mid-stride, an immortal statue of steel, ice, and stolen bone.
Her crystalline eyes blinked once, twice, and then went completely dark. The humming lullaby died in her synthetic throat, leaving only the deafening silence of the deep trench.
"Laura," Marco panted, dropping the frostbitten pipe and dropping to his knees beside me. He wrapped an arm around my shoulders, pulling me against his chest. I could feel the rhythmic, unnatural, yet steady beat of the Bellini valve beneath his jacket. "Are you okay? Can you breathe?"
"She... she said the lighthouse," I managed to choke out between ragged breaths. "She said... don't let them wake the others."
"The others?" Marco’s face hardened. He looked across the cathedral of Sub-Trench Lab 04 toward the row of six empty stasis pods. "The pods were empty, Laura. They were never occupied."
"No," I whispered, pointing to the consoles along the perimeter that were now flashing red as Samuel Bellini's ghost sequence ticked down. "The pods weren't empty because the subjects died. They were empty because they had already been deployed."
On the master terminal, a sequence of green checkmarks appeared next to coordinates scattered across the Great Lakes:
*PATIENT 0-B: DETROIT WATERWORKS — ACTIVE.*
*PATIENT 0-C: CLEVELAND HARBOR — ACTIVE.*
*PATIENT 0-D: MILWAUKEE BASIN — ACTIVE.*
*PATIENT 0-E: TORONTO OFFSHORE — ACTIVE.*
*PATIENT 0-F: BUFFALO GRID — ACTIVE.*
May you like
*PATIENT 0-G: GROSSE POINT LIGHTHOUSE — STATUS: PRIMARY RELAY CHARGING.*
The ground beneath us buckled violently. Samuel’s explosive charges had begun their structural countdown.
