The water hit Julian Vance’s leather boots with the shock of broken ice.
It didn’t seep in slowly. It burst up through the heavy cast-iron floor grates in five-foot geysers of black ocean brine. Shreds of rejected Clause-Pulp floated in the foam like torn wet bandages, swirling in violent eddies around the concrete machine footings.
“Get up on the catwalk!” Julian shouted, grabbing the iron rail with both hands.
“I’ve got the doctor!” Mac Cole yelled back.
Mac’s pneumatic prosthetic forearm hissed as he threw his full weight backward. With a metallic grunt, he hoisted the front wheels of Dr. Beatrice Hahn’s oak chair off the lower landing.
Corvo lunged forward, catching the rear axle. Together, they dragged the wheelchair up the five narrow steps to the main staging catwalk, hauling it six feet above the flooding floor.
Down below, the sea roared like a freight train through an open tunnel.
“Water depth is rising at zero point four feet per second,” Lin Mei called out, her voice tight. She braced her hip against the catwalk railing, her pocket stopwatch clicking in her hand.
