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.He turned to regard the glowing red radiation beetle next to the door.There was something about it that had bothered him before he went inside.Taking it off the wall, he turned it over and saw that it had been tampered with.Prising the back off with his fingers, he saw that someone had twisted a pair of wires together, shorting the circuit.Now why would someone do that? It appeared to him that having a nuclear reactor intact would be quite the asset to the flotilla.He knew that they were designed to last thirty-plus years and could easily provide all the power ever needed for the flotilla.Too late now, though, he thought.The flotilla was self-destructing, and he was at the centre of it.He considered his next move.He could either stay on the sub until he starved or died of thirst—not a pleasant way to go—or perhaps he could go out and dive to the base of the mountain and let the ocean drown him.But as he weighed up his various options, he realised he couldn’t go without seeing Duncan one more time.He needed to tell him about the reactor.Even if Jim wasn’t going to stick around, he could give his son a final gift and at least tell Duncan how he felt.How proud he was of him, how much better a man he was than Jim.With his decision made, Jim staggered to the lockout hatch.From the controls on the outside, he initiated pressurisation and waited for the water to be expelled so he could climb inside.Once inside, he hit the button to let the water back in.The process took a while, allowing him to breathe and calm and let the effects of his bump ease.He shook with cold as the water climbed up his legs, waist, and chest.Biting down on the regulator, Jim took small breaths until the lockout had completed its procedure and the hatch opened.Shivering with the cold, his limbs feeling like rubber, he pushed off, out through the hatch, not bothering to replace the chains and lock.The water was so dark it felt to Jim that he was swimming through crude oil.His arms were barely visible in front of his face.But he kept kicking and driving upwards, becoming ever more desperate to break the surface.He didn’t know how deep he was when he took the last breath through the regulator, a shallow inhalation that stopped halfway, his lungs expecting more.He spat out the regulator and tried not to panic but to keep swimming upwards with graceful movements, nothing too extreme, so that his oxygen would last a little longer.An orange light undulated on the surface some distance to his left.Directly above him, the silver kiss of the moon marked his destination.He was close now.What was that orange light?It seemed to flicker independently of the ocean’s tidal dance.As he pondered and kicked his legs slowly and steadily, trying to ignore the fact that his lungs wanted to burst from his chest and steal what little oxygen they could from the water, he noticed a shadow tracking him from below.He stopped kicking, letting himself float upwards as he looked down into the inky depths.Something nudged Jim’s hip, knocking him about.Jim pulled his legs up and spun around, trying to see what it was.He just caught a glimpse of a tail fin flicking away, the moonlight shining on its tip.Sharks.Nearing the surface, where the cloud cover had blown away to reveal a full moon, the light of which penetrated the first few meters of the water, Jim saw a pack of them, at least a dozen, tracking his movements from below and from the sides.They had him surrounded even as he breached the surface and replenished his straining lungs with air.He began coughing immediately, choking on the smoke.He looked to his left and saw the flames rising in the sky, the smoke dancing away like the spectres of the dead, heading up and up.All around him, he saw fins approaching.Another nudge against his leg.Much harder this time.They were getting nearer.The flotilla’s edge remained at least twenty meters away.Jim screamed for help and kicked out, catching one of the sharks with his heel.He doubted he would last long, but by God, he would try.As he frantically kicked and clawed his way closer to the flotilla, he reached down and grabbed the fishing knife from his belt.He spun around to see one of the fins come closer, the great dark skin of its body rising up in the water.Jim struck out with the knife, skimming it across the surface, scraping the blade against the shark’s hide.It darted away, crashing its tail fin against Jim’s chest, making him drop the knife.The shark’s blood looked like crimson oil.The other fins drew closer before disappearing beneath the water.Chapter 31Eva looked up at Danny as he climbed to the top of the ducting shaft, his small, agile body quickly scaling the cylinder, blocking out the light from above.When he reached the top, he slowed, pressing his face against the baffles, turning left and right.“Well?” Eva said, fighting the urge to try to climb up there and bring him back.He tilted his head down against his chest.“No one’s here,” he said, his quiet voice echoing down the ducting.“Okay, good work, Dan.Come back down.Be careful, though.”“I can get up,” he said as he pushed his shoulders against the fan baffles, shifting the unit up and clear.“I’ll get help.” He stepped up onto the next ridge, clearing the baffle completely and pushing his head above the deck.“No, Dan, come back down.It’s too dangerous.” Eva stepped across to stand directly beneath the hole and watched in horror as Danny lifted his legs out of the ducting and rolled away out of sight.“Dan! God dammit.” Eva kicked the extractor unit.“He’s going to do something stupid, and it’ll be my damned fault.”Patrice, Duncan, and the others gathered round and looked up into the night sky, waiting for Danny’s face to peer back down, but they saw nothing.Heard nothing.Eva stayed in place until her neck started to cramp.“Come away,” Duncan said, gently turning her away by her shoulders.“Someone might see us.We should move into the machinery store, just in case.”“How can we just let him go? What if Faust’s people are out there right now… what if…” She pushed Duncan with frustration and barged her way through Patrice and the others until she reached the door leading to the galley.She placed her hands on the handle to open it but immediately recoiled, the heat singeing her skin.“Fuck it!” She kicked out again, striking the door.“He’s a smart kid,” Duncan said.“I’m sure he’ll be fine.Let’s all just calm down, think rationally.”She spun and faced him then.“Rational? Calm? We’re trapped here and a young kid is out there on his own with a bunch of fucking psychos.What’s there to be calm about? I’m fucking mad as hell, and I don’t want to stand around doing nothing.”“There’s nothing else we can do,” Patrice said.“We’re blocked at all levels; we can’t go lower, and these are the last two rooms.We just have to wait and hope that Danny can bring help.”“And all the while we just stand by and burn to death?”“Look,” Duncan said, raising his voice and adding a bit of grit.“I get that you’re stressed and worried.We all are.I don’t even know where my dad is.But you know yourself, from your previous career, that doing dumb shit is what gets people killed.”He had a good damned point.Eva clenched her jaw and yelled inwardly, releasing her frustration.Closing her eyes and taking a few deep breaths, she remembered her father trying to show her how to fish.His gnarled farm-worker’s hands gripped hers around the rod as he showed her how to cast.The float, thin and long with a bright yellow tip, splashed into the water until it bobbed upright, shifting on the river’s current.For three hours she sat on the boat while he snoozed, all the while concentrating on the float.She never did get a bite, but it taught her a lesson in patience and focus [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]