by London Shah
A sense of foreboding rises from the pit of my stomach.
Ari glances at me. “Don’t feel sorry for them. They could have harmed you.” His eyebrows meet. “What’s wrong?”
“You think I’m stubborn? Missionaries never, ever give up that
easily. . . . Something’s wrong.”
Jojo barks and sprints toward me; I scoop her up. “What is it, baby?”
Ari’s hands curl into fists by his sides, his eyes fixed on the viewport behind me. My insides lurch at the possibilities. I turn and gasp at the sight, covering my mouth.
It’s all flesh and wires. A small head and bulky body. It’s difficult to tell exactly what it once was. Only its face and flippers remain intact.
The corpse of the animal rotates in the vessel’s harsh lights. I stumble back and hug Jojo tighter. The creature’s midsection is missing. Inside the cavity of muscle and tissue, cables are all that remain. The wiring hangs out of its body, floating in the current. A small titanium contraption is strapped to its head, still flashing away.
“Oh my God,” I whisper. “What is it? What on earth is it?”
Ari’s eyes turn cold. “It was once a sea creature. Before the government decided to use it to its advantage. There are so many others like it.”
I look down, shaking my head. “Poor, poor thing. But why did those people flee from it?”
“That’s not why they left. . . .” Ari’s voice is grave now, his tone low.
Jojo starts whining. A cold chill sweeps through me as I lift my head back up, hugging the puppy close.
In the distance, a great, lengthy shadow looms. A wall of hazy darkness. A wall that’s alive, moving. It’s a group of something. . . .
Ari hurries back to the files. “Move away from the window! Tell Oscar to turn around now.” His tone is urgent. His hands swish through the air as he scans further files as fast as possible. “We need to retreat at least a league. Until it’s time.”
“Why?”
“Because we’re here. Whatever they are, they belong to the prison. It’s Broadmoor’s first line of defense.”
I sit up in bed and check the time. One a.m. An hour before my alarm is due to go off. We’ll soon head out in the hope of being at the prison when its moon pool opens up.
None of it seems real. Is there really a chance I might see Papa again in just a few hours? What state might he be in? My insides quiver. I mustn’t make any mistakes.
The plan fills me with dread: We’ll blast our way there, and then Ari will exit the Kabul in the submersible and head into the prison itself after Papa. It’s a totally bonkers plan. But I’m low on choices. I shared it with Bia, and once she realized I wasn’t budging on it she promised their guy inside would cause a distraction—a big one, and help in any other way they could in order to give Ari more of a chance to enter and leave safely with Papa. Both Ari and I have memorized every detail of the prison’s interior security measures and prepared accordingly.
Deep, melodic notes sound as the sax echoes in the submarine. Ari’s awake. I shuffle out of bed, wash, and read the Qur’an, praying for forgiveness.
I know if I hadn’t killed it, the Anthropoid would’ve killed me. But I’m personally responsible for a life leaving this world. Anytime I dwell on any of it, it’s too much.
Jojo’s still asleep in her Bliss-Pod when I’m done and I head for the galley. Emerging with two hot chocolates, I cock my head. Ari’s up in the small platform at the very top of the vessel. The music switches now to an incredibly sad piece as I make my way up. Such a low, forlorn tune that makes my heart ache. Can sound cry?
He glances at me as I crouch down at the top. His gaze is empty, distant.
Something’s on his mind. And whatever it is, it’s not good.
Ari puts the wooden sax down. I pass him his drink. A crimson Lumi-Orb casts a warm glow over the space. We sit in silence, sipping the hot, sweet liquid. Above and all around us the dense waters lap against the 360-degree translucent dome. Tiny creatures pass by, their lights pulsing away in the night.
He turns to me. “You mustn’t go any farther from this point. Stay here in the submarine and wait for me. I’ll take the submersible. I promise to do what I can to bring your father to you. Don’t go anywhere near the place. Please. Their weapons are too many, too harsh.” His voice is hoarse.
“And how do you think you’re going to get past all their security and anywhere near the prison, without the Kabul’s firepower? Ari? What’s wrong?”
He hesitates and faces the water before answering. “Did you see the news?”
My throat goes dry. It can only be bad. I shake my head.
“It was another attack. This time on a small community hiding out in Leeds. It was . . . bodies everywhere . . . Even children, babies.”
My hand flies to my mouth.
“They went after them with everything. Ripped whole families apart . . .
They’ll stop at nothing. What they did in the Faroe Islands . . . It was cold, calculated slaughter.” The tension is visible in his muscles, the strain showing in his jaw. He hangs his head.
My insides sink. Images of mutilated bodies flash before me. Anthropoid bodies. Anthropoid families. And I feel...pain. My heart actually hurts for them.
If Ari is one of them, then not all of them can be barbaric and evil.
He’s silent for too long. When he finally speaks, his voice is barely audible. “Please. If you stay behind now, you have some chance of survival. We don’t know how bad it might get. It’s too dangerous.”
Does he really think he stands a chance in one submersible, when Bia’s lot have tried and failed with everything they had?
“Ari, I’m not staying here in the submarine while you head off in a submersible to face all the different security measures they have. You know that’s no plan. No, we fight our way past all their defenses until we’re near the prison itself. Then you get into the submersible and head down into the prison, while I defend the Kabul until you’re back with Papa. Their guy inside is expecting you. We can do this.”
He stares into space. His eyes are so beautiful and so utterly, unbearably sad.
I move closer to him. “I’ll be all right,” I say quietly, nudging him with my elbow. “We have to hope for the best.”
“I daren’t hope, Leyla. It abandoned us long ago.” There’s a shadow over his expression.
“I don’t believe that, Ari.”
He swallows, his eyes softening. I stare at him. Amber-gold eyes peer back from beneath thick, dark lashes as they search my own. He looks down and brings up his palm. There’s a flattish pale-pink rock in it.
“It’s a flint tool,” he says, taking my hand and placing the rock in it. “From Mesolithic times. Thousands of years old. I found it one day when I was out . . . you know. In the water.”
I nod eagerly, suddenly overcome with the need for him to know it’s okay to mention himself actually in the water. What’s happening to me?
I gaze on the rock in my palm. The oldest thing I’ve ever held is a 1950s vinyl record at one of those Days Past events held by the Royal Preservation Society.
The tool is carved into a point and smooth where it hasn’t been chipped. Specks of white dot the pink. Thousands of years old. My face warms, and my eyes prickle. I close them.
Sometimes, when I’m hovering in a place with a specific history, I close my eyes and imagine I’m in that moment in time. It’s truly astonishing just how real and overwhelming it can feel. The sudden conjuring of a bygone person, place, or era.
Those lives were more than the buildings they inhabited or things they touched and used.
So much of us here and now—no matter where or how on the earth we’re living—binds us to those gone before. And sometimes . . . just sometimes that connection ripples and reverberates, more stunning and infinitely more sentient than a thousand solitary nows.
Whoever carved this flint tool made the most of whatever they had, and when they hunte
d and built fires and secured shelter and stayed warm and cooked and had relationships and nurtured life and worried and loved and believed and mourned—I could scream from the magic of it all.
How we never stop seeking, never stop dreaming.
Never stop hoping.
Hope isn’t measurable or conditional; it’s not for anyone to try and control. It’s ours—all of ours—boundless, as wild and unfettered as the waves. And always has been.
I open my eyes and meet Ari’s. He wears the most tender expression. If I blink, tears will fall, I’m certain. “Have more faith in people, Ari,” I whisper.
His shoulders rise and fall. He brings his hands up and cups my face, his touch gentle and warm. “I have faith in you, Leyla.”
I smile and he lets out a breath. His eyes flash brighter than I’ve ever seen them: heart and soul and fire. He brushes my cheek with his fingers, and my breath catches.
We both jump when his Bracelet bleeps.
It’s time.
I pace the viewport in the control room as I stare at the unidentifiable huddled mass ahead. No matter which way the submarine turns, the gloomy, wall-like body moves to block its way.
“What are they?” I ask.
Ari stands still and keeps his eyes on the obstacle. “We must move forward.” His face is all hard angles now, his stubbled jaw clenched and every muscle rigid. “We have to move now or we’ll miss the opening of the moon pool.”
He’s right. “Oscar? Stay alert. And move on.”
The Kabul presses forward.
Jojo’s in her Bliss-Pod in the corner of the room. I selected the music function and set the pod on rocking mode. Together they’ll hopefully distract her from whatever might unfold.
As the submarine advances, the shadows come into focus.
Ari’s brow furrows. “Manta rays. So many . . . and so organized.”
The dense wall disperses as the huge rays separate. They advance toward the sub. Ginormous wingspans block most of the light trickling down from the solar spheres. The gloomy creatures swim up to the viewport. An inky eye sits at either side of their wide heads.
“Poor things. I think they’ve been brainwashed into working as camouflaged Eyeballs, you know?”
A ray opens its mouth. All the rays open their mouths at once.
“Get away from the window!” Ari bellows.
I stumble back as he tugs on my arm. The view outside grows blurry. The water flickers.
Ari pulls me away. “Oscar, tear them apart—now!”
“No, wait. It’s not their fault! We can—”
The submarine shudders. I stand rigid as the creatures all hover in the depths, their mouths open wide.
“Oscar!” Ari yells again for the Navigator. He groans and hurries to one of the control screens. “They’re basically just machines now,” he shouts in my direction. “Remotely controlled to block and attack us. It’s us or them!”
A bleeping goes off in the vessel: warning of an incoming attack.
“Oscar!” Ari growls.
The Navigator finally appears.
“We have hostile visitors,” Ari shouts at him. “Defend the Kabul!”
The Navigator flickers in and out of focus, his words inaudible. Another alarm sounds in the room. The sub heaves. Ari swears and takes over control of the firepower. I seize manual control of the navigating. The Kabul fires. Lasers whiz through the depths and several rays are hit. Blood clouds the water as the creatures sink slowly out of sight. My hand flies to my throat. I’m suddenly in my recurring nightmare, where a forlorn and desperate red fills the water before me and I know something so utterly terrible has just happened.
The vessel tilts as they fire on us, and I jolt into focus, concentrating on navigating.
Outside, a formidable blockade still remains. “I’m reversing a little,” I say, and pull back several meters.
Ari runs a sequence on the control panel and turns to the water to watch. Before the rays have a chance to catch up with the sub, a low boom echoes and spreads from the Kabul. I glance out and cover my mouth.
The water wrinkles around us. The animals freeze in position. And then, oh my God, they implode. I cry out. The rays are nothing more than fragments of flesh and technology as they spread in the ensuing ripples. Waves unfurl from the spot and hit the Kabul. I shake myself and return my focus to the screen as the vessel rocks again.
Oscar appears beside me. “I do believe I am back in service, my dear lady. I daresay I was most flustered. Momentary blip, but all has been rectified.”
I’m trembling all over. “Oscar, check for damage.”
The submarine is fine, and all systems are working smoothly again. We move on through the drifting debris. I stare at the body parts around me. My chest aches for the creatures they once were. I check on Jojo; she’s fast asleep, thank goodness.
The sub speeds through the surge the implosion left behind. On and on, drawing closer and closer to Papa. Something drifts into the edge of my vision. I look up.
“Oscar, a drone! And another one! Above and to the right.”
“Already being taken care of, my dear.”
The long, ghostly machines come into view. No viewports, no portholes. They glide effortlessly. One of them suddenly tilts and rushes toward the sub. I step back. The drone erupts into a ball of fire. Oscar takes care of the second one in the same way.
The water is aflame now, a shifting kaleidoscope of fire and metal and debris.
The sub presses through and onward.
I furrow my brow as I look out. The windows . . . They seem to move. I peer closer. The acrylic appears to bend and pucker in places. Unease creeps over me. What is it? Something in the water? But there isn’t anything out there.
“Oscar? I think you need to see this.”
“Highly cunning bots, my lady. Able to blend in anywhere. Inspired by the camouflage skills of certain sea creatures. A most devious foe.”
A bleeping sounds in the room. “Oscar, that’s the oxygen alarm!”
“Yes, my dear, we must act swiftly. They aim to paralyze our systems by accessing and scrambling them. Their first point of attack is often to impair oxygen levels, and it would appear they have already made a start. We cannot terminate them until they are detached from the vessel.”
“Ari, you should check the atmosphere control equipment manually, too, just to be sure,” I say. “I don’t want to risk abandoning this station in case Oscar has another navigating blip.”
Ari rushes out for the engine room.
The water ripples all around us. Seconds later, the windows are clear.
“They’re gone, Oscar!”
“Not quite, my lady. They are in the water now, watching us. They remain hidden, but they are there. As you will see.”
The water seems to shudder. The center pulses, sending waves in all directions. And then there they are, bobbing in the resulting choppy currents. I gasp.
An army of small and transparent mechanical contraptions, each no bigger than a large hand, fills the water. At the heart of each one is a fist-size cluster of technology. The blobs are manic. They rise and dive, and dart to and fro as they watch the sub, desperate to cause some serious damage. The alarm continues.
Laser power flashes from the vessel, attacking the bots. The blobs jerk, twisting around in the waves. Some fall, but not enough. They regroup, making their way toward the sub again.
“Oxygen levels are being affected, my dear. The bots must be destroyed to break the connection they’ve made with the Kabul’s equipment.”
“Take them out, Oscar.” I hold my breath and stand still.
I watch as a spray of shots leaves the vessel and explodes among the bots. The explosion produces a dark, murky substance. On contact it dissolves their jelly-like encasement and penetrates the tech inside. The blobs writhe around. Small prods and wires stick out as the contraptions struggle. One by one, they fall below.
At last, the water is clear again. The alarm goes q
uiet.
I wrap my arms around myself. “Oscar, check the sub’s oxygen levels.”
“We’re okay,” Ari says as he returns from the engine room and hurries back to the control panel. “The connection wasn’t sustained long enough to cause any lasting damage.”
Phew. The Kabul plows on.
“Oscar, how much farther?”
“Around one league before we arrive at our location, my lady.”
The obstacles are never-ending the closer we get. An oily liquid obscures the viewport when bots disguised as a shoal suddenly turn on us. It takes a while for the Kabul’s windows to self-clean. More drones appear. They release a substance that shrouds the surrounding waters.
“Thermal imaging, and terminate the drones, Oscar!” I shout. “And keep moving on. How far now?”
“Half a league until we approach the prison, my dear lady.”
Half a league. And the closest military base is over fifty leagues away. Even if the prison’s management suspect a breakout attempt now and decide their own security won’t be enough, we should have enough time to go through with the plan and speed away before backup arrives. Half a league and then Ari can descend in the submersible and get Papa out of there.
If all goes well.
Humongous mechanical devices appear out of nowhere. Almost as big as small submersibles, they try to stall the vessel with wave generators. My insides heave. The sub rocks but pulls through the turbulence.
Ari consults the files hovering in the viewport. “We’re over halfway through their defense walls.”
I shake my head as I tap the screen, checking engine, propeller, and firepower status, just to be sure. Will we make it?
“A quarter of a league, my dear,” Oscar announces.
“Good, just keep her moving forward, Oscar.” I pace the viewport.
What’s going on at the prison? Has Bia’s inside person caused the distraction yet? She seemed really confident their guy would come through. During previous breakout attempts, they’ve faked a structural emergency and a technical wipeout; both proved insufficient in causing the required distraction but never came into play anyway. Bia’s people have yet to get past the extensive security.
