The airlock between the outer staging end-post and the inside of Biodome 01 cycled with a heavy, grinding high-pressure groan that echoed through the steel deck plates. The ten-inch hard dark metal-steel pressure doors parted. Then, venting a high-pressure cloud of sterile cold air, a blast of choking tropical humidity slammed into Arthur’s face like a sodden wool blanket.
The surrounding heat inside the dome hovered at thirty-four degrees with ninety-eight percent moisture in the air. The optimal artificial microclimate engineered by the Federal Agricultural Board for rapid hydroponic grain maturation. But the clean, grassy scent of growing rice was entirely gone, replaced by a thick, nauseating foul fog that tasted of damp basement mold, decaying fruit, and packed bitter-salt rot.
Arthur stepped across the rubberized threshold, his baked-clay boots landing on a suspended metal mesh walkway that overlooked the vast agricultural basin. Behind him, Valerie Koslov and Bramwell Heseltine stepped onto the overhead frame, their respirators humming softly as their straining packs engaged.
At Arthur’s left side, Grimm paused, his black leathery nose wrinkling in gut-deep disgust as he inhaled the dense air. The direhound let out a sharp, sneezing snort, his single intact ear pinned flat against his skull as he scanned the terraced landscape below. Grimm’s thick jet-black coat bristled along his spine, his senses overloaded by the chaotic stew of man-made pheromones, rot, and hungry insect traces drifting from the dark foliage.
