Unity by Elly Bangs (free e reader txt) 📕

My headlamp traced the edges of his apologetic glance. “The one that actually gets us to the elevator shafts and out of the city.”

I swore under my breath and pulled nervously on my backpack straps. Of all the places to have to leave the protection of these crawlspaces, there was nowhere I less wanted to be than the open space of the habitat, but there was nothing to do now but keep climbing.

We’d felt and heard the seismic thuds of underwater explosions since leaving the barracks module, but so far they’d been mercifully distant. If one of those torpedoes flew true, there’d be nowhere less safe than where we were now.

The disconcerting buzz grew louder as we climbed. As we neared the hatch, it was almost deafening. In hindsight, it felt terrible to have wondered whether it was a hissing pipe or a machine; for all my lifetimes of knowledge and experience, I had never imagined, much less heard directly, the sound of a thousand doomed people screaming at the same time. I couldn't guess how many more were still trying to force their way into the habitat from other parts of the city.

I could only look for a moment before ducking back into the crawlspace and slamming the hatch behind me, but the images stained my vision: the terrified masses, packed almost too tightly to breathe, fighting to stay upright against the fire-hose surge of frigid ocean from the doors to the elevator dock. The whole space was layered with smoke and the stench of sea salt and burning plastic.

Naoto ducked away from the hatch and wiped water out of his eyes. “Fuck. Fuck!”

“Is there a way around? What’s up there if we keep climbing?”

He shook his head rapidly. “Nothing. I’ve memorized all the schematics. Oh God. A torpedo must have hit the main surface shafts. The emergency seals must be destroyed, which means the ladder wells will be flooded too. We’re fucked.”

I stared back down into the lightless crawlspace. “Then it’s over.” My mind was empty. Numb. “We’ll just have to go back. Wait for another chance.”

“We can’t.”

I glanced down into the red-lit shadows below us, trying to read him. “You think the way back is flooded too?”

“No, I mean it’s—” He rubbed his face and blew sea out of his nose. “I know, okay?”

“Know what?”

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have done it—” His voice kept choking. He might have been crying, but it was hard to tell through all the water falling over us. “When I couldn’t find you the night before last, I hacked your pane. I read your unsent drafts. Your suicide note.”

I shuddered and turned away, hugging the ladder rungs, sheltering my face under my arm.

“I know you won’t survive another year waiting for the equinox,” he yelled over the roar. “I know nothing I can do for you will make it bearable. You have to get out of Bloom. And for my own sake, I need you to.”

“Naoto . . .”

He seemed to steel himself. “Call him. Call the damned mercenary.”

I hesitated. “But what if you were right about him?”

“Then at least we’ll be out of the pan and into the fire.”

I took the shard from my pocket and tried to keep the water off long enough to dial. We cupped the holographic glass between our heads to hear it.

I couldn’t believe it when the mercenary answered. His voice was chillingly calm. He just asked, “Are you still going through with the vacation we discussed?”

“Yes,” I stammered. “Bringing a plus-one, just for the first leg of the trip.”

“Understood. Where are you?”

I swallowed hard and said, “We’re in the outer shell of the main habitat.”

“Isn’t it flooded?”

“It will be soon. But where . . . where are you?”

“Outside.”

It took a moment to know what he meant. I managed to open the hatch and avert my gaze from the drowning masses long enough to scan the slit windows set along the ceiling. A white light hung outside, drifting along the howling perimeter, peering in at the carnage. Perversely angelic.

I shut the hatch to snuff out the screams. “You’re in that sub? How did you get—?”

“No time to explain that.”

Naoto and I exchanged nervous looks, and I knew what we were both thinking. Even now, it felt dangerous to trust him.

“Do you have any canned air?” the voice from my shard asked impatiently. “Any kind of breathing apparatus?”

I took a mental inventory. I glanced at Naoto, but he shook his head. I asked, “Your sub doesn’t have an airlock?”

“It’s just a construction pod. The cockpit hatch can’t re-seal itself under water. I only have one idea.”

“Tell us.”

“You’re under about thirty-five meters of ocean right now. If you can get outside, you can grab on to the cargo cage of this pod, and I can surface at full speed.”

I was speechless for a moment. “How long will it take to reach the top?”

“Forty to fifty seconds. It’s your best chance of making it on just the air in your lungs, and the cage might hold you if you lose consciousness. Once we surface, we’ll need to get you both into the cockpit and re-pressurize it before hypothermia and decompression sickness can take effect.”

“Oh God.”

“It might be safer to stay in Bloom and enlist another contractor at another time. These aren’t ideal conditions for leaving the city.”

I met Naoto’s eyes and said, “No. We have to leave now. No matter what. How do we get outside?”

“If you can find a point where pressure inside the city is equal to the water outside, I’ll cut a hole in the outer shell. Once it’s equalized, you can swim out.” It was all coming together in my head as he said it. We were already in the right place. “Do you agree?”

“Yes. We’ll do it.”

Naoto grabbed my shoulder. Visibly bracing himself.

The chillingly calm voice said, “Where am I going?”

I handed Naoto the shard and he reluctantly answered, “Look for the second ‘O’ in ‘Bloom’ where it’s painted on the outside of the