Chapter 87 - The Sub-River Conduits
To reach the offshore intake crib without braving the gunboat-patrolled surface waters, we had only one option: the abandoned water tunnel that ran ninety feet beneath the Chicago River, directly connecting the old Chicago Avenue Pumping Station to the Two-Mile Crib.
The entrance lay beneath a flooded basement in the River North district. We traveled by an electric rail cart along the subterranean freight tracks, dodging the occasional tremors that rattled through the overhead concrete as thousands of synchronized sleepers marched through the streets above.
"The air in the deep intake conduit hasn't been cycled in forty years," Luca warned as we reached the massive, circular cast-iron hatch of the tunnel. "It’s pressurized, and Vance has likely fortified the interior."
"My father's dampening coil is our only shield," Marco said, his face pale under the amber work lights. He sat on an iron crate while I finished securing a tight compression bandage around his burned chest. "Laura, if the carrier wave reaches its final phase before we upload the release code..."
"I'm not letting you die down here, Marco," I said, meeting his gaze evenly. "I didn't pull you out of your father's chair just to bury you in a drainage pipe."
He caught my hand, his grip surprisingly warm despite his fading pulse. "If Prototype Zero begins a harmonic collapse, the energy will vaporize the transmitter. You have to take the scalpel and sever the secondary ventricle. Do not hesitate. You have to save yourself."
"Focus on staying alive so I don't have to," I retorted, snapping my medical pack shut and checking the safety on the compact automatic Luca had handed me.
Luca engaged the pneumatic release on the hatch. A hiss of stale, ice-cold air blasted outward, smelling of deep lake mud, stagnant water, and scorched insulation.
Beyond the threshold lay a perfectly circular tunnel of dark, wet masonry, stretching out into black nothingness toward the lake. Running along the arched ceiling was a modern, high-voltage fiber-optic umbilical cord, pulsing with an intense, rhythmic sapphire light that cast moving ripples of blue across the standing water at our feet.
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The pulse of the carrier wave was getting faster. The countdown was almost over.
***
