TideBreakers Prologue Story:
One For The Bull
By Duncan Stockwell
Copyright 2015 Duncan Stockwell
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An old Bowhead cargo sub made a slow descent from the ocean's surface as the evening above began to gather away its light. The sub headed for the flooded ruins of Shelton Mast city, a sorry monument of brickwork and concrete that may have once been described as picturesque. The Bowhead's engines sputtered once and then hummed louder as the throttle was opened and it began to speed forward. In amongst the shadows cast under the derelict buildings there was the orange glow of a rig control cylinder.
Marcel Dugan sat against the wall in the sub's cargo chamber. With devout concentration, he stared at the small holographic display projected from his Gluv9 handphone. He shifted uncomfortably where he sat, his dive-suit cumbersome and inhibiting. He never once took his eyes from the screen though, even as he rolled his shoulders he still manipulated the data with his free hand, deftly tapping and dragging figures around in the lit-up space between his left thumb and forefinger.
The rhythmic clanking of carbon-fibre dive-boots indicated someone's approach. "Hey, Bristol." It was the voice of the crew's leader, an acerbic woman in her late-forties who spoke in what sounded like an Italian accent.
Even though she seemed to be addressing him, Marcel had no idea what she was talking about, so he carried on with his work.
"Bristol," she said again, "Hey!" She kicked his knee, jolting his hands away from the screen.
"Stretch five!" Marcel said hotly. "Trying to work here?" He pointed at the handphone screen indignantly.
"You don't know your name," she said. She drew her face in close, and stabbed a thick-gloved finger into his chest. "Bristol." She pointed a thumb at herself: "Jester", and then the other man in the chamber: "Fleece."
Leaning against the wall with folded arms 'Fleece', an American-Japanese jet-suit diver wore a battered old dive-suit. He was about the same age as 'Jester' and looked even more tired of her temper than Marcel was.
"Codename," he said, emphasizing the word to highlight his understanding. "Fine."
Jester stood back up again and pointed to the ceiling, indicating the pilot's bathysphere above them. "Celadon."
The pilot's voice came over the chamber's speakers immediately. She sounded worried by being called on in such a sharp way: "What?"
"I was just explaining!" Jester said, shaking her hands frustratedly. She turned to Fleece, drawing a hand across her brow. "This cargo, it's 'so valuable'." Jester drew out the words mockingly. "Guerin sends us with rookies."
Fleece massaged his eyelids. "Cut the heat now, yeah F– " He stopped himself before he finished the word, but Jester was already staring at him furiously.
"You can't remember my name now? It's Jester!" She stomped away to the other side of the chamber, her dive-suit rattling. "Rookies, all of them!"
"Hey." Marcel fixed his gaze on Jester. "In the hour since we all met I've remotely hacked into a rig with an octagon-standard encryption matrix."
"Yeah lay off the kid," Fleece chipped in again. Jester shot him another dirty look.
"We're getting paid equally," Marcel went on. "Even if I am twenty-five years younger than you."
"Twenty-five?!" Jester was, for a moment, speechless. "How does that even – You want to – you!" she said, pointing at Fleece, who was now trying to stifle laughter. "Ten years ago you – " She stopped abruptly as Fleece widened his eyes and shook his head in warning.
Marcel decided to ignore the exchange and looked back down at his handphone, the holographic display lighting up under his fingers again.
"Fine," Jester continued sullenly. "I still don't see why we don't wreck this rig." She folded her arms and leaning against the wall. "Much easier, no time limit."
Celadon's voice came over the speakers again. "At least we don't harm the crew this way."
Fleece and Jester looked up at the ceiling, and then at each other. They apparently didn't quite comprehend Celadon's concern.
"Wrecking wouldn't work for this cargo." Fleece said eventually. "Not for this cargo," he said gruffly. "Too much chatter. Too many shadows we don't want hearing about us."
"We've done it before," she said, annoyed.
Fleece grumbled something Marcel couldn't quite hear, apart from the words 'glad' and 'new contract'.
Jester tutted. "And now the muttering."
Fleece didn't respond.
Celadon's voice came over the speakers again. "What is this haul any way? Do you know any more than what the crate looks like?"
"Rookie." Jester huffed again. "Never ask!" She strode back over to the seats next to Marcel, pulled down one of the flimsy plastic chairs and sat down heavily.
A piece of paper flapped away from her and landed on Marcel's boot. It was an old Flood Bonds poster. Warped with water-damage and stamped with silty dive-boot prints its image was still legible: a stylised picture of a couple stood on a beach holding hands. A massive tidal wave was rushing towards them, its foam drawn into the likeness of a crazed and wild-eyed bull. Its tagline read 'It won't stop for your loved ones…'
"Whatever this cargo is," Marcel said shaking the poster from his foot, "Maybe Guerin can buy a new sub with his share."
Celadon's hollow laugh came over the speakers. "You don't know Guerin."
"Clearly." Marcel looked about at the chamber: everything had a thin film of sand and there was a layer of detritus collected by what must have been years of dives. "It could do with a clean at least."
"Enough talk." Jester said, standing back up again. "Get ready now. Celadon, ETA?"
"Two minutes till drop. Sixty seconds till I fill the chamber."
"That work for you, Bristol?" She kicked Marcel's foot again and he withdrew it, annoyed.
"Yes. Fine." He dragged a few more blocks of data around on his handphone screen. "As soon as I override the rig's control systems we'll have five minutes and twenty-two seconds before the encryption matrix locks us out again. I'll set it when we dive, ok?"
Fleece unfolded his arms and made for the small collection of equipment piled up on the wall. "Let's prep these suits then. Bristol, help me out."
Marcel clambered to his feet, the weight of his jet-suit hindering his range of movement and making each action clumsy.
"I like you, Bristol," he said in a low voice.
"Yeah?"
"Yeah." he nodded at Jester. "You piss her off." He gave Marcel a sly grin and handed him his jet unit, before turning around and squaring up his shoulders for its weight.
Fleece's jets were colossally heavy and the unit's casing was dented and scuffed, with a few screwed-on plates patching up what could be bullet-holes. "How old are these?" He struggled with its weight just about managing to hook the clips onto Fleece's shoulders. "This is like having concrete on your back."
Fleece was genuinely surprised. "This suit has served me well for years. Pure carbon-fibre with a hexa-cross lattice. I've taken it down to about five-hundred feet – didn't feel a thing."
"These jets have got to be at least thirty-pounds though. You're comfortable with that?" Marcel latched the final spring-clip and gave the jets a shake to check they were secure.
"I guess I could use a new charge-suit." Fleece picked up Marcel's jet unit and indicated for him to turn around. "This one's not converting as well as it used to. I've got my eye on a Solaris Nine Series.
I reckon my eighty-Key share should cover one from a Robles'."
On hearing the mention his share, Marcel turned around in surprise, dragging Fleece off-balance as he still held the jet-unit. "Eighty Keys?"
Jester also snapped up a pointed gaze from where she sat. "Your share's low." She spoke with an alarming iciness.
"Uh – " Fleece set Marcel straight again so he could continue fitting his jet unit. "Talk to Guerin I guess." He spoke with an overly casual offhandedness that was clearly to trying to hide his misstep. "It's what I've been told I'm getting."
Celadon came over the speakers again. "It's not what we're all being paid though, is it?" she said concerned. "Thirty seconds till flooding," she added.
With Fleece still fitting his jet-unit, Marcel now faced Jester and could see her staring over his shoulder, her eyes sharp and calculating. Her bottom jaw quivered as if she was on the verge of saying something.
Fleece knocked on Marcel's jet unit to show it was secure. "Still," he said with a cheeriness that contrasted his former gruffness slightly too much. "It won't be as much as Bristol's former employers."
Marcel's heart lurched in his chest and he darted an unchecked look of apprehension at Fleece. "Former employer?" He assessed Fleece's expression. "What do you mean?"
"Jesus." Fleece picked up the last of Jester's equipment. "Your jet-suit's brand new, that's all. Twelve Series, right? I'd work for that sort of money, whoever was paying it." He went over to Jester to fit her jets.
Marcel watched him for a moment, before picking up his suit's helmet.
"Talking. You need to stop with the talking," Jester said to Fleece.
Marcel lowered the helmet over his head. "Me?" Fleece was replying. "Are you seriously – " all sound from the chamber was cut off entirely as Marcel secured the airlock ring at his neck.
Tapping his left thumb and little finger together twice, his handphone display popped up inside his faceplate. Still watching Jester and Fleece, who were apparently now arguing about something, Marcel twitched his fingers, swiping away the hacking applications he had open onscreen. He opened a communications programme and moved a new contact labelled 'secure coms' onscreen. His radio mic buzzed into life. "Commander Rojas?" Even though he was fairly sure that his voice wouldn't be heard outside of his helmet, he still spoke in a near-whisper.
There was a pause in which Marcel kept his gaze focussed squarely on Fleece and Jester for any indication they could hear him.
"This is Rig Commander Rojas: I read you, Dugan, go ahead."
Marcel exhaled slowly, reassured to hear her voice. "We're one-minute-twenty from diving, sir."
"Excellent, how are our two fugitives?"
"I don't like it." He eyed Fleece and Jester again, who were now both fastening the clips for their own helmets. "These two are edgy."
"Edginess is their MO. It's how they've got so many names under their trigger-fingers."
Marcel glanced over the couple again as they all set to waiting in the chamber. "They're also terrible at acting like strangers."
"They ditched their names after we took their last hacker. Most people don't know their faces."
"Well I don't think they suit anonymity." Marcel continued to watch them from across the chamber. Even their body-language was aggressive towards one another. "Something's bothering them. His share's really low."
"Easy Corporal," Rojas said calmly. "It's only five minutes more now. JSD Strike Team Romeo are in place. You just need to get the Hisakawas to the cargo hatch and they'll do the rest."
"I'm still disabling The Domino, sir?"
"Affirmative," she said. "They've pulled this sort of job at least seven times. They'll get suspicious if there's anything unusual. Leave our coms on and the cargo hatch locked-down though; they've given us tricks before."
"Ten-four. You're still carrying that cargo, sir?"
"Had to – didn't have time to unload when we boarded at – "
The secure coms feed was automatically cut as Celadon's contact icon winked into the faceplate's display under the 'open-coms' menu: "I'm flooding the chamber now."
Marcel waited for the icon to disappear before speaking again. "I'll see you down there, Commander." He said. "Over and out." Her contact icon disappeared. Water began rapidly filling up from the floor, washing over Marcel's feet and rising up his shins. The current was strong enough that they all grabbed hold of straps on the ceiling to keep balance.
Jester's icon appeared on the open-coms menu. "Bristol," she said, "Set the override."
"Roger." His arms still by his sides, he swiped the hacking application back into view with a flick of his finger, as the water rose past his waist. With a few more movements, a small buzzer sounded and a timer popped up on screen, counting backwards from five-twenty-two. "Set now."
There was no response from either Jester or Fleece. He looked over at them – their movements suggested that they were talking animatedly to one another, but their conversation was not on open-coms. "What's going on now?" Marcel murmured to himself. With another few swipes of his finger, a new hacking window appeared; with a few more movements, their contact boxes appeared on his faceplate's display under the title 'tapped-coms'.
As the water level in the chamber rose above shoulder-level, Jester's voice broke into Marcel's speakers partway through a sentence. " – 'nce we left Ashcross you've been off."
"Fiorenza, come on – "
"No, no! Not 'come on'. Eighty Key? Where's the rest? Qualcosa bolle in pentola, Milo, and you know – you know. As soon as I get paid it's divorce."
"Come on, Fiorenza..." Marcel noted that the response didn't carry all that much concern.
"No! Divorce now. This is enough; this share, this money – it's it."
As the water in the chamber reached the ceiling, Celadon's contact icon pinged up in Marcel's faceplate again. "Drop-time guys," she said. "We're down on Parkwell Avenue."
The chamber floor shuddered beneath them as the whole back wall began to slowly drop down. To either side of the widening gap, buildings slid away into the darkening water as the young pilot threaded the Bowhead sub through the flooded city streets.
"Jets," Jester instructed.
Marcel let go of the ceiling strap and closed the fingers of his right hand around the control-pad in his palm. His jet-unit burst into life, lifting him upwards with the other two. The chamber was soon filled with the froth of the jets' backwash and the old flood-bonds poster tumbled past his faceplate again, just long enough for the wild-eyed face of the tidal-wave-bull to glare at him. 'It won't stop for your loved ones…' He brushed it away.
As they surveyed the passing city out of the sub's open ramp, there was the glint of The Domino's glass control cylinder as they crossed an intersection. It was dark and lifeless in the shadow of a building.
"There she is," said Fleece as it faded into the gloom. His jets suddenly surged and faltered, throwing him upwards and then dropping him down, before they levelled off back to normal.
Marcel eyed him suspiciously.
"It's fine," Fleece said. "Just does that sometimes."
"Bristol, time-check," Jester said, brusquely.
Marcel focussed on the clock projected in his faceplate. "Four-thirty-seven."
"Let's go." She pitched forward and opened her jets, launching from the chamber. Marcel and Fleece followed close behind, the strip-lit interior of the Bowhead's dive chamber replaced with the chasm-like emptiness of the silent Shelton Mast.
A warren of flooded tower-blocks loomed out of the dusk-cast shadows around them and the three tiny figures carved their wakes through the ominous, drowned city. Some buildings disappeared above them where they reached out of the surface of the water; most became indistinct below them, obscured in a haze of silt and foam at what used to be road-level.
Jester's icon appeared over open-coms again. "Two more streets over. We go for the cargo-hatch on the rig's port side, ok?"
Marcel responded immediately, "Roger."
>
"Fleece?" Jester asked.
There was a pause, before he came on the line. "Roger that, Jester." He spoke distractedly.
As they sped onwards, gradually climbing up past what must have been the tenth storeys of the surrounding buildings, something caught Marcel's eye: the tiniest movement flaring in a ray of light somewhere off down a street in the distance. He glanced around, trying to catch site of whatever it was again, but there was nothing moving apart from the occasional shifting tendril of kelp that grew from a masonry crevice.
He flicked the fingers of his left hand and brought up the 'secure-coms' menu on the inside of his faceplate again. "Commander Rojas," he said, cautiously. "Can you confirm that Strike Team Romeo are tracking us through Clifford and Haywood?"
There was no response.
"Commander Rojas," he said again. "Please respond."
His coms still remained silent.
Marcel glanced around at the other two. Jester was a little way ahead, but from what he could see of Fleece, he seemed to be talking to someone in his helmet. Marcel slid up the 'tapped-coms' menu again, but there wasn’t any activity between Fleece and Jester. "If you're not talking to her," Marcel murmured under his breath. "Who are you talking to?"
Keeping one eye on any nearby obstacles, Marcel directed his faceplate towards Fleece. With a few movements of his fingers, a small wireframe highlighted Fleece's mouth, and the display scrolled through a vast array of menus until it stopped on one labelled 'Encrypted coms', with a ribbon of jittering waveform. Another tap of his forefinger and Marcel brought up the audio of the channel.
" – suspicious. She knows something is off." It was Fleece's voice alright. "This is still going ahead though?"
Another voice came on the line, a buoyant French accent that was somehow both plummy and gravelly. "Of course. It's all being enacted as we speak, Mr Hisakawa. Your payment will come out of your share as agreed."
Marcel recognised the voice as the crew's employer: "Guerin?"
Fleece continued: "Good. I can't wait to be – "
"Oh." Guerin spoke the one word with such genuine concern that it stopped Fleece immediately. There was the sound of him talking to someone in the background, but what he was saying was both in French and muffled so Marcel couldn't understand.
As the three divers ascended over the top of a crumbling AMB Channel 9 news broadcasting building, they had to dip just out of the way of an old television mast where it stood under a thick layer of sea-grass and coral. Across the other side of the roof, a few buildings up ahead of them was the metal dorsal of The Domino. She was a relatively small cargo rig, but nonetheless still dominated their field of vision with her enormous scale, dwarfing the cluster of apartment blocks she was nestled amongst absolutely. The control cylinder alone was four storeys tall, suspended another three or so storeys from where it projected out at the rig's prow.
Guerin's voice came back on the tapped coms line. "Mr. Hisakawa," he said with an affected tone. "Our mutual friend was just in contact. Why is The Domino's cargo hatch still locked?"
On hearing this, Marcel immediately tensed, his eyes widening in alarm. Without even looking, he knew that Fleece's gaze was on him; he could only imagine the expression of anger and confusion. He really struggled to keep looking ahead at the rig, keenly aware that any of his movements might now give him away.
Another realisation then suddenly hit him and he swiped in the secure-coms to Rojas again. "Commander," he said urgently. "There's someone else at the rig. They just tested the cargo hatch."
There was another distressingly long silence.
"Commander Rojas," Marcel implored. "Please respond."
By now the three divers were almost at the thick plate metal of the rig's convex top-side. Marcel scoured the scene for any sign of the Strike Team; there was no movement at all from either the control-cylinder thirty meters south to the rudders forty meters north.
"Commander Rojas," Marcel tried again. "Milo Hisakawa knows that the hatch was locked; my cover is compromised."
There was still no answer. A buzz in Marcel's faceplate indicated there was two minutes left until the rig's control systems went live again. On open coms he said "We've got two minutes left, guys."
"Understood," Jester replied with a surprising calm.
As they rounded The Domino's dorsal, Jester cut her jets, stretching out her arms to spin her slowly in the water as the momentum carried her on towards the rig's cargo-service hatch. For a moment, she looked up at Fleece and gave him a genuine smile. "Reminds me of The Connor," she said over the coms-line Marcel had tapped into. "Back in Clinton Bank."
"I remember," Fleece replied, distractedly, now floating just above her on a low-powered jet.
Marcel loosed his right hand on the control-pad, cutting his jet-unit. He too spun himself round, dragging the fingers of his left hand against the steel of The Domino's hull. As he lowered in next to Jester, he continued to scan the scene above and around him – there was still no sign of the jet-suit Strike Force.
Jester continued "Was it Clinton Bank? Where that one guy, he – " she actually began to laugh " – he came out with that…" Her laughter abruptly stopped. "Wait…" She was at the hatch now, a small opening next to one of the rig's ballast vents.
Jester looked up at them both. On open-coms, she said: "There's a barrier-breaker here. Look."
Marcel could see the black card protruding from the hatch's small terminal – it still sparked once or twice from where it was jammed into the exposed wires.
"The hatch is already open." She spoke in a sort of sad puzzlement.
"He had to break in?" Fleece said, almost to himself. "Guerin said…"
"Who?" Marcel was just as confused and again checked the surrounding area again for some sign, any sign of the Strike Team. He could still see no indication of anyone and looked at Fleece.
The man was already regarding him in a tight-jawed, narrow-eyed expression of intense distrust. "Why wasn't the hatch unlocked?" he said coldly. "Who are you really working – " He was cut off by a now-furious Jester.
"Guerin?!" Jester's voice was so loud it crackled the coms line. "He who? What did Guerin say? What new contract did you take?" She fired her jets once, launching back up to Fleece and tackling him into The Domino's hull. "You did this!"
"Guys, report," Celadon said, worriedly. "What's going on?" Marcel could see the Bowhead's bubble-trails as it banked round behind the buildings in the distance.
"This is him!" Fleece was shouting, trying to point at Marcel as Jester shook him by his suit's chest-plate, ramming him repeatedly against the hull. He tried to fire his jets to get away, but as Jester struck him against the hull again they frothed, gurgled and died. "The hatch should have been unlocked!" he said again, uselessly.
Jester snapped her eyes onto Marcel, locking an acidic gaze on him where he still floated by the service-hatch. "Yes," she spat. "Why wasn't… it…" she trailed off as she refocused on something in the water far below Marcel. He pulled himself round to try and see what she was looking at.
In the distance below them, just on the roof of a block of apartments, hung the limp body of another jet-suit diver. There was no movement as the body spun slowly in the water, a cloud of crimson billowing away from the diver's chest, teased out in the current.
"What…?" As he watched the gruesome vignette below, something nudged Marcel's foot and he darted it away. A lifeless hand reached out from The Domino's shadow. With a yell, he gave one burst of his jets, landing next to Jester and Fleece on the top of the hull.
"What is going on?" Jester asked Fleece, looking around inside her helmet. She paused over another slowly turning body in the distance, suspended in a beam of light from the water's surface.
"Who are all these JSDs, Bristol?" Fleece asked, as he spied a fourth hanging out of a nearby window, the arms drifting in the swelling current. Fleece struggled to sit up, but Jester was still straddling him and his dead jet-unit now weighed him down.
"Bristol?"
"I've no – " Marcel coughed, his mouth dry. "I've no idea." He spoke hoarsely. Then, as he remembered, his tone turned sharper and he rounded on Fleece. "You knew who that barrier-breaker is from though."
"Yeah," Jester said, heavily pushing him down into the hull again. "You did this. Who was that breaker – "
Celadon's voice suddenly came over the coms. "Guys, I'm to your south." She was near-to-frantic: "Get back here now!"
Jester pushed herself up to her feet, leaving Fleece scrabbling around on his back under the weight of his now inactive jet-unit. "What can you see – "
With a rush of water and the roar of twin engines, a Mobula attack sub rose vertically from the depths below them. Its sharp ray-like fuselage was painted in the angular blues and greys of water camouflage, but had no other markings on it – no livery or registration numbers.
"No…" Jester whispered in horror. "I know who that is." She turned to Fleece. "You didn't…" she said, "You didn't!"
Just at that moment, the timer buzzed in Marcel's helmet making him jump and instinctively recoil from the speaker. "Domino's online again!" he yelled. There was a faltering orange glow up ahead as the control cylinder flickered back to life and almost immediately the hull beneath them shuddered. The ballast pumps thundered and the whole rig angled upwards so rapidly it buckled Marcel's knees beneath him.
"She's gone for emergency blow!" Jester said. "Celadon bring that Bowhead in now!" Taking one tentative look at the Mobula sub, she fired her jet-unit and shot away into the open water.
Marcel went to open his jets as well, but Fleece had begun to skid down the steeply angled hull, desperately trying to roll himself over and grabbing at anything he could to stop as his dead jet-unit weighed him down. Marcel fired his jets and dove after him, ducking around the strafing wires and communications aerials, reaching out with his left hand as the rig's rudder loomed forward towards them.
He caught Fleece's wrist and was instantly pulled down with extra weight. He clenched onto his jet-unit's control pad as tightly as he could with his right hand, trying to force more output, but it was no use. With one final effort, he grabbed hold of a railing on the rig's side and immediately yelled out in pain as Fleece's weight pulled him down on one arm and the rig's momentum pulled him up on the other.
He glanced down at Fleece, and could just see the Mobula sub still below them, following the surfacing rig at a safe distance. "Hold on!" Marcel shouted over coms.
He took another quick look at the sub, before glancing at Fleece again. "Grab the rail!"
He could just about see Fleece's face – he was shouting something back and shaking his head, but his coms must have been also been knocked out as his voice was not coming through.
The surface was getting closer now, the water around them getting lighter and lighter. The Bowhead slid in perilously close on the rig's left side, Celadon just about matching The Domino's rapidly increasing surfacing speed.
Jester appeared above Marcel again. "Leave him!" She ordered.
"His jet-unit's gone!" Marcel said, Fleece's wrist beginning to slip from his grasp. "Help me carry him out!"
"Leave him!" Jester barked again. "He's one for the bull!" She kicked hard at Marcel's hand and his grip opened.
"Stretch five, Jester!" He yelled as Fleece tumbled down. "What is wrong with you?!"
"Back to the cargo sub, now!" she yelled wildly and jetted away to the Bowhead's dive chamber.
Marcel watched as Fleece sank away past the rig's rudder fins, his arms and legs flailing uselessly until the broiling cloud of water blasted back by The Domino's engines swallowed him. Marcel glanced from the Mobula attack sub to the open chamber of the Bowhead sub to the rig's control cylinder.
"What are you waiting for, Bristol?!" Celadon shouted. "Get in here!"
Marcel could see Jester staring at him from the sub's open chamber. After a deep breath, he released the rail and closed his hand on the control pad, blasting up on his jets and trying to match The Domino's speed as it ascended.
"Go, Celadon!" Jester yelled. "He's not coming! Close the doors!"
He watched the Bowhead banking away hard and out of the corner of his eye saw the unmarked Mobula diving back down into the city, just as the surface of the water rushed forward with a daunting speed. As the light from the topside became blindingly bright, Marcel braced inside his suit, gritting his teeth for the impending crash of resurfacing.