Read In Makr's Shadow - Book One: Symbiosis Page 46
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
"Filthy water cannot be washed." - Old African Proverb.
"Water, water and more water! I've never seen so much water down here before," Lieutenant Kieran O'Shea said, as she led her people through the tunnel maze.
"Maybe one of the pipes burst and the Cyber haven't figured out how to fix it yet," Sergeant Carter Gray offered.
"Possibly. But I've known pipes to burst down here before. Never so much water. I tell you something is not right!"
"Yes, ma'am."
"Sorry, I don't mean to be so..."
"Water's getting deeper fast, Lieutenant," announced her point man up ahead.
"That rips it," she said. "Looks like the Cyber are flooding the tunnels to get rid of Bio critters before they attack in force. What's your take on this, Sergeant?"
"If that is part of Makr's plan, we've more to worry about. Cyberts don’t routinely use water for anything they don't have to. Most cyberts today are made with rustproof composites. Getting rid of Bio critters would make cybert movement more efficient down here. And we’d be trapped, either by water or cyber. Either way, we’re dead."
"Agreed. That makes it all the more important to find Harry and Marlene...and Carlos and Mother-General—and anyone else still alive in the Nest."
As they pressed ahead, the water soon came up to waist high. Keep your eyes and ears open, Kieran told herself. Don't drop the ball...They're counting on you. She heard a familiar click.
"Down! Everybody down!" she screamed. She saw the flash almost too late, but she felt the heat before she felt the force of the explosion. Even muffled under a few feet of water, the roar was deafening. Underwater, the current forced her backwards and slammed her hard against a wall. Metal shrapnel and rock debris zinged through the water, some pieces hitting, stinging her back and burning her shoulder. A fiery furnace raged above—the product of natural gas and methane created by the sewage. The fire was so hot it was melting stone and steel, while filling the rest of the tunnel with thick clouds of steam.
Above her, the hotter blue and white flames danced as the walls glowed red hot in the background. Her lungs bursting, she waited another minute until the flames died down. The water had become so opaque with suspended debris that she couldn't locate any of her team. Undoubtedly, some of her companions had been wounded or killed. She was lucky.
Her air giving out meant it was time to risk it out of the water. Kieran surfaced at about the same time as Sergeant Gray and a few others, all quickly filling their lungs with steamy air, followed immediately by the rest of those who had made it below the waterline in time. She wasted no time counting heads and was three soldiers short. She looked behind her, trying to find her "lost" soldiers. Before the sharp tunnel curve further back, she saw bloody smears on the walls that weren't red hot, and bodies floating face down in the muck. The force of the explosion had knocked some of her soldiers back a hundred yards before smashing them against the walls. The rest seemed okay—just a few cuts and bruises. Her shoulder burned, but she'd live—for now.
While the cloudy fog cooled and dissipated, the fires were still burning a couple of yards apart a few minutes later as they started down the tunnel where the blast seemed to have originated. When they arrived, the door wouldn't budge.
"The blast..." Sergeant Gray started.
"I don't think so," said the lieutenant, shining her flashlight along the makeshift door's visible edges. "It's fused on the inside as if someone's welded it shut on the inside."
And fresh blood . Lots of it. Not ours, I hope. She was looking for something else and found it!
"Look," Kieran poked at several pieces of freshly scorched metal.
"Cybert trash. You don't think...?" Even the old veteran, Gray, looked grimly at the wreckage.
Stainless steel wreckage. Armor plate. Cybert. Looked to be a big one.
"Why, that sly dog." She smiled. "Carlos caused the blast. I'd guess a grenade or two. These tunnels are ripe with oil sludge, methane, and natural gas leakage. Probably explains why the door is still here. Cyberts can cut through the walls easily if they want to. He must have stalled them with the blast and welded the entrance shut. That means the Nest could escape topside. We better beat it, too."
"All this blood?"
"I'm hoping it's from some of the animals of the tunnel. This looks like high ground in the tunnel. Never noticed it before."
"This means the final battle's started Outside."
"Indeed it does." She signaled to the others to turn back. "Our job is topside. We need to go back a few hundred yards to another surface access. It opens inside the factory above. Few of us have been up there. I'm not sure what we'll find on the other side of the hatch."
"When do we ever know for sure what's happening next?"