by L. J. Hatton
“The water molecules split into hydrogen and oxygen when they draw it in,” I said.
Even Winnie looked at me like I was crazy for that one.
“Or gills,” I amended. “They could have gills.”
Why not? Hydros were subhuman, after all. Mutations. Freaks. Gills fit the idea.
Bitterness gave me focus, causing everyone in the truck to fade from notice. I zeroed in on the Sea Center, taking note of its construction and comparing it to what I knew of the facility Nye had run. A narrow glassed-in hallway would be a weak point I could exploit. The smaller, bulbous dome we passed on our way in had to be where the generators were housed; I could stop them cold and let everyone see how funny the idea of gills was without fresh air pumping through the vents. We drifted by the control room’s bowed window that would be so easy to crack. The ocean would pour in and remind the Commission that they could only remain in its domain as long as it felt like sharing space.
Poetic justice, even. I’d bring the rain to them, and it would wash them away.
“Whoa! Look at that!” A recruit’s voice stopped my destructive musing short.
Everyone was looking out the same side of the truck, pointing and angling for a better view. Thin funnels danced through the water like tornados on an open prairie, picking up stones and crustaceans from the ocean floor until the waterspouts darkened with debris. They disrupted the nearest jellyfish, spinning them off in new directions.
“What is that?” one of the girls asked. “There’s no wind underwater.”
“Cold water meeting warm,” another answered. “Same principle, different medium. If the Center’s geothermal, we could be near the heat source.”
“Do you think one of them will reach the surface?”
“We could be looking at the genesis of a free-standing maelstrom.” The guy who said that looked like a pencil with glasses.
The rest chattered on, hypothesizing about every possible cause for the impossibility outside our truck except for the one that was actually responsible—me. Underwater tornadoes were the form my temper took this time, perfectly illustrating the churn of emotion in my chest. Rage colliding with regret. Fear bending beneath frustration. Determination trying to minimize them all. The Celestine was pawing at her cage, ready to be set free, and once she was finished, no one would even remember a few dancing waterspouts.
“Get a grip,” Winnie warned me in a low voice. “It’s not an order yet, but it will be if I have to make it one.”
I nodded slightly and pulled back, meaning to make the funnels dissipate; instead they blew apart, firing fragmented stone and seashell like a dirty bomb. My own underwater comets streaked toward the Center as smaller bits slammed into the truck, imbedding in the glass but not cracking it.
Everyone except for me and Winnie screamed and jumped away from the walls.
“I’m going to pretend you did that on purpose and that you aren’t already losing control before we set foot inside the building,” Winnie said as our driver called back through the intercom system to make sure everyone was okay.
“Looks like we’re experiencing some unexpected turbulence,” he said. “Everyone get back in your seats and buckle in. I’m going to cut the scenic route short and get us inside ASAP, just in case there’s more on the way.”
He had no idea.
CHAPTER 28
Warden Dodge was waiting to greet us when the transport navigated the final underwater road into the Center’s docking lagoon. We drove up from below the facility, along a ramp into a room with a giant pool in the middle that allowed people and vehicles access to the surrounding ocean without the need for airlocks.
“Welcome to the Center,” she said to each of us. “Welcome. Congratulations. Welcome to the Center.”
She clasped my hand with a weak dead-fish handshake and looked straight through me. There was no concern for the damage done to the truck or the Center by my water funnels, and there were no inquiries about whether or not anyone was shaken up or injured. Warden Dodge was clearly distracted, and I doubted having a truckload of teenagers sent down was her idea. Once I saw what lay beyond the lagoon, I could understand why. The Sea Center was barely functional. Her technicians were rushing through the work required to shave six months off the dedication date, and it showed.
Winnie swatted my arm and pointed up to a sign that had been bolted to the wall outside the lagoon room: “BRING THE.” The other half of the sign was missing.
“Bring the rain,” she mumbled.
Our handlers sent us to the rooms we’d been assigned, claiming that we needed to get used to the pressure of being so deep underwater—which meant that the pressurization systems weren’t fully functional yet. Not all of the rooms had doors, and of the ones that did, some weren’t hung correctly. The porthole window in the room that was mine, and by extension Winnie’s, had uneven seams. A small, empty aquarium had been pushed into a corner; all of its decorations and apparatuses were still in their packaging inside the tank. They were really overselling the underwater theme.
“I’m not sure we’ll have to sabotage anything,” Winnie said. “I think this place might destroy itself.”
“No kidding.” I knew just enough about engineering from watching my father and Squint to know that imperfections were magnified by high pressure. Given enough time, the Pacific would punch through the glass on its own.
I was actually more concerned for the safety of everyone on board if we didn’t trigger an evacuation and put the place out of its misery.
We waited for thirty minutes or so, until we were sure that the other silvers had settled, then we left the room in search of the holding area where the warden was keeping Nim. We headed away from the lagoon because it didn’t make sense to keep hydrokinetic prisoners near their easiest route of escape.
At least with no door, there was no chance of someone hearing us open or close it.
“This place is a ghost town,” Winnie said.
At Nye’s Center, the only time the halls were empty was during meals or after the workday was done, and even then I’d had to evade the odd workman or security patrol. Here, there was no one.
“If we don’t find a computer terminal to tell us where we’re going, we’re sunk,” I said.
“Don’t say that around here. You’ll jinx us.”
We passed the labs that had been part of the holographic tour. One door was open, but there was no one inside. There wasn’t much in the way of equipment, either, just boxes of paper file folders. This place wasn’t going to be ready in a matter of days. It wouldn’t even make it by the original six-month mark.
“In the presentation they gave us, there was a command module at the end of this hall,” I said. “It’s that huge glass window we passed outside, and according to the guide, it’s the busiest part of the installation.” With construction running behind, the warden could have ordered that everything be localized to conserve energy and resources until they could be properly allocated.
And that gave me an idea. With only a few sections of the Center in use, I could follow the energy flow to the areas with the highest draw on the grid.
The floor had been wired for heat to combat the deep-sea chill. There was an uptick in use at the end of the hall, enough to be consistent with the command area. Another peak came from beneath the guest rooms, but neither of those came close to the consumption in a tiny square that felt like it was focused on the room we’d both just agreed was empty.
“There’s something in that empty lab,” I said. “Its energy usage is off the charts.”
We turned around and headed back to the room with the open door.
“What am I missing?” Winnie asked. “Because all I see is a standard lab room that no one’s using.”
So did I, but when the hologram went haywire, there were people in this room. There were X-rays on the light boxes, and something about the furniture looked different. The glimpse had been so quick that I couldn’t remember any more.
<
br /> I tried for another read on the radiant heat in the floors.
“It’s that wall,” I said. “It shouldn’t be there.”
The dimensions of the room felt off-kilter. All of the doorways along the hall were the same distance apart, so the rooms should have been the same size, but this room was too short. Four feet were missing. There was a thermogenic swell behind the back wall, and there was something about the floor. A skip in the rhythm of the heaters.
I slid my foot across the tile, searching for the disturbance, and . . . click. The back cabinets split and slid inside each other like nesting dolls, leaving space for a concealed entryway between them.
“What is that?”
The lack of locks in this place was seriously starting to annoy me. Neither Winnie nor I heard Lawrence until he spoke.
“Go back to your room,” I said. “You’re not supposed to be here.”
“Neither are you. Tell me what’s going on, or I’m going to find someone in charge and ask them why there’s a secret passage in one of the labs. How did you know that was there?”
“I can make this a lot simpler,” Winnie offered.
Letting her handle him was the safest option, but I’d always been pretty skilled at reading people. Lawrence had been genuinely worried when he saw the sparks surrounding Nim’s collar. He was one of the good ones, I was sure.
“One of the hydrokinetics you saw in that hologram was my sister. She’s being held here against her will. I’m not a scholarship candidate. I’m not a warden’s niece. I’m here to save her, and I think she’s in here.”
“Or we can always go with option B: throw all hope of success out the window and run around shouting our plan to anyone in earshot. If you add some sparklers to the routine, you might even manage to alert Warden Dodge and get us blown out a torpedo tube,” Winnie said.
“I don’t think torpedoes are standard equipment for this type of installation.”
“No, but quantifiable personality disorders are standard for wardens, and I’d rather not get on this one’s bad side before we have to.”
“Are you serious?” Lawrence asked.
“You saw the wall open,” I said.
He stepped forward into the area beyond the dummy wall, where another section of the lab had been exposed. Unlike the open room behind us, this one was set up and functional.
“I’ve seen this before,” Lawrence said, reaching for one of the X-ray films without touching it. “It was in the hologram, too.”
I nodded and scanned the images. None of them were Nim, but rather a boy who was Dev’s age or younger. There was no name, and I couldn’t help but wonder if these were taken from the boy who repaired Arcineaux. The Sea Center would be a perfect place to hide him.
“Are you like your sister?” Lawrence asked.
“I’m human. We both are. I just happen to be really good at finding secret doors. You can come with us, or you can stay here, but please don’t tell the warden. Look closer at those X-rays. How old do you think that boy is? Because that’s what they do. They take children and they test them. They hurt them. The Commission has already taken most of my family from me. I need my sister back.”
He struggled with what to do or say next, but it was really hard to argue that a secret door inside an already secret base had been installed for something good.
“Ladies first,” he said.
The entrance led to a corridor where there should have been more workrooms. I was willing to bet that if anyone tried the handles in the main hall, they’d find the doors fused shut.
“It’s sweltering in here,” Lawrence said, pulling at the neck of his shirt.
The farther we walked, the worse it got, until we reached the end of the corridor and it opened up into a blisteringly hot windowless cell. Eight black-suited hydrokinetics languished in the heat, laid out and wilting with cracked skin and lips.
Warden Files used cold to keep his pyros in check. Dodge did the opposite. She’d created an arid desert to torture water nymphs.
“Nim?” I called.
One of the bodies in the back propped itself up off the ground, blinking in the light to see if I was a mirage. I hardly recognized her as my sister. “P-Penn? How—?”
“Penn?” Lawrence asked. “I thought your name was Ellie.”
The other hydros lifted their heads, curious but too weak to move much more.
“We came to get you,” I said.
“I-I don’t understand. How are you here? What are you wearing?”
“It’ll make a lot more sense once I get that collar off.”
I slid onto the floor beside my sister. It was so hot I felt my knees burning through my jeans.
“No, don’t stay here,” Nim mumbled. “You need to leave.”
I took her collar in my hands and begged my touch not to fail me as it had with Evie.
The connection sparked. I whispered “open,” and her torture ended. Nim fell back to the floor.
“We need to get her into the water,” I said as I disengaged the restriction cuffs around her hands and feet.
One of the other hydros dragged herself closer to me and laid her hand against my leg, begging me to set her free, too. The others were trying to move but had no leverage.
I beckoned Winnie and Lawrence into a huddle.
“I can deal with the collars and the restrictors, but there’s no way the three of us can get them all to the lagoon. It’ll take too long. We’ve got to get them moved before the handlers come back for us. We’re going to need help.”
“I’ll take care of it,” Winnie said, but Lawrence pulled her back.
“We’ve got twenty pairs of hands and nothing better to do with them,” he said. “The others need to see this. They won’t believe it, otherwise.”
He jogged back down the corridor before either of us could argue.
Things were either about to get a lot better or a lot worse.
CHAPTER 29
All of the silver-clad Commission prospects crowded into the hydros’ holding cell, already wiping their brows to get rid of the sweat after a matter of seconds. Nim had been a prisoner in that oven for months, and there was no telling how long the others had been there.
“Somebody designed this place,” Peter said. He started to run his hand over the tiled wall but pulled back when it stung his skin. “It wasn’t thrown together overnight. It took effort, and it took planning.”
And a twisted talent put to the task of fostering misery.
“They had to fit the components to the existing structure.”
“We should report this,” Callie said. She’d taken out her phone and was snapping pictures of everything.
“To who?” Winnie asked. “The people who already know it goes on but lie about it to people like you?”
While they argued, pairs of prospects walked the hydros out of the cell, counting on the Center’s deserted hallways to get back to the lagoon unseen.
“We can debate our next steps once they’re in the water,” I said. Winnie helped me raise Nim onto her feet. Lawrence and Peter slung her arms over their shoulders and carried her out. We hadn’t made it all the way down the corridor when shouting voices hammered through the façade doors. I ducked under Nim and Peter’s arms and rushed toward the lab room’s entrance.
As it turned out, Warden Dodge did have security personnel; they were just slow. A lone guard had been making his rounds when he saw the hydros being escorted to the lagoon.
“Stop!” he shouted.
The first pairs of silvers squeaked and double-timed it down the hall toward the lagoon.
“Stop! You don’t know what you’re doing!”
The security man reached for his radio. Winnie ran to intercept him.
“You don’t want to do that,” she told him, and he let go of the button.
“They’ll flood it,” he told her, but he didn’t try to make another radio call. Winnie wouldn’t let him. “They always flood it. Can’t repair it fast
enough because they flood it again.”
It sounded like some of the hydros had been fighting back. Maybe the collars didn’t work as well in water. Wouldn’t that be a shame?
Three more of the hydros had made it to the lagoon by now.
“I told you they’d flood it,” the security man said, still in the dreamy voice of someone under Winnie’s control.
Bubbling water rose from the lagoon door and washed down the hall, toe-deep. Another hydro went into the lagoon, and the water rose higher. The ones still in the hall slipped free to put their hands in it and splash their faces, including Nim.
“Are you okay?” I asked her. “I know those collars can mess with your head.”
“How did you do this?” she asked.
“A lot of things have changed,” I said. “I’ll tell you all about it once we’re out of here.”
The water was ankle-deep and still rising.
“We’d better go,” Winnie said. “The hydros can waterlog this place to the ceiling. They don’t need us, but we need to be back inside the truck where there’s enough air to go around.”
“I’ll see you on the surface,” I told Nim. She was the only hydro left who hadn’t reached the lagoon, but even a little exposure to water had made her stronger. It was at mid-calf now, and it hit a flood sensor on the wall, triggering an alert that howled with red flashing lights up and down the hall.
“Penn, wait,” Nim said. “There’s another detainment area for regular prisoners. Squint’s in there. I’ve seen him. If you hurry, you can make it down and back. Prisoners aren’t included in the evac procedure. They’ll let him drown.”
“I’ll find him,” I promised. “Now go help them take this place apart.”
I got a glimpse of the old Nim as she splashed off, with her long-absent dolphin golems flipping happily out of the water as it rose.
I navigated the hall behind my sailfish, allowing it to split the water ahead of me; otherwise I would have moved too slowly.
I should have thought of the detainment area. I’d seen it in the hologram, too. I’d heard the constant dripping meant to torment the people inside. None of that added up to Squint, but the Commission always kept prisoners, and it was standard practice to abandon them in crisis. I could only hope that having part of my Show family taken to Nye’s Center and part taken here didn’t mean that some of them had perished in Arcineaux’s facility when I brought it down.
