Adhara's Sonder

Chapter 26: Confrontation

Cyrus arrived outside Acryogen Industries' corporate headquarters in the early hours after midnight. He had been here a few times before; Acryogen University's corporate offices were in this building, on the lower floors of the triple skyscraper. Mason would be on the upper floors.

He knew from previous visits that the security measures in the headquarters were more thorough than anywhere else in Hudson City, but mostly clustered around the ground- floor entrances. He could see the winking red lights of auto- mated gun turrets perched like gargoyles in the shadows.

They would delight in mowing him down before he made it past the lobby. Fortunately, from a former classmate whose mother was in the navy, he knew that there was a secret underwater docking bay, and where to find it.

The headquarters stood in the center of the crescent-shaped city, only a dozen or so yards from the deeper part of the bay which formed a harbor rather than a beach. Cyrus slipped through the shadows to the end of a dock. He paused beneath a dock lamp. By its flashing green light, he checked the seals around his mask and gauntlets. Then he took a deep breath and stepped off the dock, plunging into the water.

He didn't actually need the breath. As one last upgrade before confronting the Industry itself, Cyrus had connected his backpack to the filter cartridges on his gas mask. As soon as he submerged, a miniaturized Lorentz field and electrolysis array began splitting the water molecules, providing him with as much clean oxygen as he needed and refilling his backpack's proton supply from the hydrogen. Cyrus chuckled to himself at his cleverness.

The weight of his equipment dragged him down, and in seconds he touched the bottom of the bay in a cloud of silt. Even after it settled, he couldn't see around him, not even back up to the surface. Although, even in daylight, it was unlikely that the murky water would have allowed much visibility. He had brought a flashlight, of course—but Cyrus had read recently that a certain microwave frequency emitted through saltwater would produce plasma, and he couldn't resist trying it. He entered the frequency and raised his hand tentatively. After a few fizzles and some trial and error, a sputtering flame burst from his palm like a flare.

Hand held high, Cyrus sallied forth. The glowing plasma illuminated only a meter around him, but he knew where he was bound and marched unwaveringly. The sound of his breath filled his ears; all other sounds faded away. After several long minutes, his feet found the edge of a drop-off. He pushed off, falling deeper and deeper before his feet found the bottom again. The ground was more rock and sand now and sloped downward. He continued onward and had just started to worry about the depth when a crack suddenly split a lens in his mask. He recoiled backward as if struck; water forced through the crack and sprayed him in the eye. He panicked and began to claw at the mask as if he could stop the flow by holding his hand, clumsy inside the gauntlet, over the breach. The other lens cracked, and he finally flung his hands outward, pushing the water away behind a force field. He ripped off his mask and fell to his knees in the damp sand to catch his breath.

When he had calmed, he looked around. It was dark again so he couldn't see the water, but he heard it rushing all around him at the edge of his force field, which seemed so thin. He slowly stood, shivering. But in the dark, he could see something. A distant yellow glow. Hands outstretched to maintain his bubble, he tiptoed forward carefully. As he approached the light and it grew brighter, he realized he had finally found the secret bay.

But as he grew closer still, he realized it was not a docking bay. It was a giant robot, half-buried in the silt.

He couldn't help but giggle excitedly.

After sneaking in through a moon pool, relieved to find it deserted, Cyrus sat on a low pipe and took off his equipment so he could wring out his clothes. In this moment, the stress of the past months melted away, and all he could see was the humor. He couldn't help but laugh to the empty room. Was the undead army not enough? Were the police with street-legal tanks, the weaponized robots and the wall of volcanoes, and an artificial hurricane surrounding the city insufficient? Did they need a giant robot to guard their secret underwater entrance as well?