The four-hundred-foot black crystal-clear monolith rose from the center of the fiery glass plateau like a blade thrust into the mantle of the world.
At minus thirty-five thousand meters beneath the Pacific Ocean, the surrounding water was chilled to a fraction of a degree above freezing, resting under three hundred and fifty tons of pressure of deep water pressure. Yet within twenty yards of the monolith’s polished, black glass facets, the physical laws governing the ocean altered fully.
The water here didn’t freeze, nor did it compress. It hovered in a state of suspended, non-Euclidean stillness.
Arthur Vance stood at the base of the titanic monument, the magnetic soles of his Mark IV sky diving boots locked onto the polished black glass terrace. Beside him, Grimm stood with his black hackles raised, his single notched ear pinned flat as his gravity marrow rang with the deep, silent hum shaking from the crystal’s inside. Vesper circled Arthur’s boots, her razor-thin claws clicking softly against the glass, her glowing amber eyes wide with feline wariness.
High above, coiled in a majestic, twenty-five-meter spiral of midnight sapphire and spun white-gold, Echo kept a nonstop spatiotemporal shield over the expedition party. Beside Titus’s anchored bulk, the cutter Trident-Prime rested quietly, its halogen searchlights bathing the massive stone facets in crisp white light.
