The nasal septum had five distinct arterial branches, and every one of them was burning under seven atmospheres of phantom pressure.
Elena Rostov pressed the ball of her thumb against the bridge of her nose. Her vision flared with constellations of blinding white spots. It was not a sinus infection, and it was not standard chemical irritation from the chlorine boiling out of the vats.
It was the sensation of a pneumatic rib-spreader being tightened across the delicate cartilage of her ethmoid bone.
In six years as a trauma charge nurse at Saint Jude’s Memorial, Elena had treated severe barotrauma, explosive decompression, and severe industrial crush injuries. She had seen what happened to harbor divers when their surface air-lines were severed in thirty fathoms of black channel muck. But this was inverted barotrauma.
The atmospheric pressure inside the cavern was normal, but her skull felt like it was being submerged in deep ocean water while her body stood on dry iron.
She glanced down at Clara’s telemetry pack.
The green EEG trace was spiking erratically. Clara’s lips were moving faster now, forming silent, frantic words that matched the rhythmic pulse of the pumps: *“...thirty-year water... don’t look at the eyes...
