Scarlet’s arms on his shoulders seemed to double in weight in a very short time, but they were nothing compared to the cramp in his side and the tightening stitch in his lungs. His arms and legs felt about as sturdy as noodles…what little he could feel of them, anyways.
“I’m not s-sorry I came along,” Scarlet choked out. “This has been…the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”
Reece went under and barely managed to surface again. “Drowning?” he wheezed. The weight on his shoulders shifted; Scarlet was trying to free her weight. He could make out her stubborn expression through the black spots popping up in his vision. “Scarlet…”
He paused, half sure the cold was playing tricks on him. Then he heard it again: a deep pounding, like a heartbeat. Someone was knocking on the underwater door.
Looking around frantically, he set his sights on the photon fixture a few feet away, and with a groan of effort, rowed towards it, dragging Scarlet with him.
“Grab this,” he told her, guiding her hands into place around the dome. “Hold onto it, keep yourself up. I’ll be right back.”
With a deep breath that scalded his freezing lungs, he let himself go under. For a moment, he floated, muscles limp with relief. It was painful getting them to move again, but he made himself kick towards the back door with the portal window. He put his face up to the glass, slamming his fists against the door to try and call back whoever had been knocking.
He’d be lying if he said he didn’t almost go into cardiac arrest when Owon’s face suddenly popped up on the other side of the portal, a few mere inches from his. He blew out some of his precious air supply and squawked like a drowning crow.
Then Nivy’s face appeared next to Owon’s, her blue eyes going wide with alarm. As the pressure on his lungs started to get uncomfortable, she gestured urgently, but he couldn’t for the life of him get his brain to interpret right now. It was too busy telling the rest of his body not to shut down yet, and Reece himself was preoccupied wondering why she had brought Owon to witness his undignified death.
The water suddenly shifted, churning Reece’s clothes like a breeze. A noise like a fan powering up made him twist and peer back into the darkness. He couldn’t see what was happening, but he didn’t need to, because suddenly he remembered. The steam vents, under the benches. Nivy must have hit the exterior controls to open them so the water could drain.
Invigorated by the thought he might actually get out of this alive, he thrust up through the water and surfaced with a gasp. Scarlet was still hugging the dome. Actually, she looked like she had frozen to it. Her eyes twitched to find Reece, but none of the rest of her moved.
“The water’s going down,” she murmured.
He set about gently prizing her hands off the dome so they could ride the water as it dropped. “Yeah. We’re safe,” he promised, and he was surprised again, this time by how ragged his voice sounded. His throat felt tight; his jaw ached. Because it was true…he and Scarlet were safe. But the horrible feeling in his gut that wasn’t draining with the water…it was the feeling that something besides the obvious was terribly, irreversibly wrong.
XXII
The Death of Po Trimble
Water gushed outta every door and every window, chasin’ Po as she breathlessly fled down the corridor. It cracked and splintered fine Oceanun sculptures and swept books, clothes and more past her as she ran, swirlin’ at her ankles. Anythin’ that hadn’t been secured before the attack was at risk’a either bein’ spat out into the ocean or sucked down into the depths with the falterin’ city, people included. Po included. The way the city was built, with all its sharp stairways and tiered levels, made for quite the waterfall. The only thing harder than runnin’ up a waterfall was runnin’ down one, and that’s exactly what she was tryin’ to do.
She’d been lookin’ for Mordecai in the western pier when the attack had started, so far underwater, she’d felt the first explosions in the pressure in her ears before she ever felt them shake the city’s spires. As she’d frowned wonderingly, the floor had given a slight tremble, and a distant, brassy gong had started soundin’ some kind’a eerie alarm. The Oceanuns in the hall with her had stopped walkin’ and looked upward in astonished disbelief as she curiously budged her way to a round window and peered at the city proper, loomin’ in the murky water to the north. Aside from some flickerin’ lights in the hazy grid’a residential tower windows, which could prolly be written off as another power flux, there was nothin’ to explain the alarm or the shiver underfoot. Someone behind her whispered somethin’ about bein’ under attack.
She turned away from the window to see who’d spoken, and at the same time, heard a grainy pop. For such a little sound, it packed a lot’a punch. It felt like a giant had kicked the side’a the pier; everyone in Po’s corridor went sprawlin’ into one another, and Po herself almost crashed face first into the wall.
Curiosity turned to horror as she pulled herself up by the windowsill and blinked out into the sea. Swathes’a bubbles boiled from a jagged, broken tower that had not minutes ago been whole. Flotsam jettisoned to the surface, rubble and bits’a the city, but Po didn’t think she was imaginin’ that some’a the rubble had arms and legs. Screams drowned out the gong as the people around her figured out the same thing, and suddenly, it was all she could do to not get swept away as they wildly fled just a minute too late. With another pop and whoosh, and the whole western pier groaned and shook. Vases tipped and shattered; people tumbled into one another, rollin’ as the ground slanted treacherously to one side. What had sounded like distant whispers turned into a rush’a water that came careenin’ around the corridor corner. Po, who had gotten pushed against the wall, gasped as the frigid water splashed up to her knees, her mind briefly wiped blank by the sharp shock’a it.
For a moment, she was too confused and scared to do much else besides let the crowds push her along. By the time she got her wits about her, she’d been herded all the way to the next crossroads’a corridors, where she was able to squeeze outta the press’a bodies and duck into a corner to get her bearings.
By the distant bass poppin’ sounds, other ends’a the city were holdin’ the attention’a the attackers, whoever they were. She didn’t want to think it for fear the name alone would be enough to make her panic, but it slipped out before she could catch it. The Kreft. They’d finally caught up to Aurelia, and they didn’t sound none too pleased. Takin’ deep, shudderin’ breaths as she tried to ignore the pins and needles feelin’ in her soaked legs, she listened to the murmured booms’a ship fire and approximated that The Kreft were focusin’ mostly on the north to east piers. The ship bays, she thought. They were tryin’ to sink Aurelia to the bottom’a the sea, and if they took the rest’a the city down with her, all the better. ‘Cept they didn’t know that Aurelia wasn’t parked with the Oceanun fleet. Which meant there still might be time to get to her.
One look at the fleein’ crowds, which were quickly becomin’ a mob, and Po knew she’d never cut through the traffic fast enough to make it to the ship before she was either destroyed or taken to safety. The crowds were understandably all forcin’ their way upwards, like they’d just now figured out that they were under a million’a pounds’a water. It wasn’t a comfortable thought, and Po felt tight-throated just lookin’ at the splintered corridor windows. Down, she thought. The water didn’t seem to be leakin’ in too fast yet, at least not in this wing. Chances were, she could bypass all the madness by duckin’ down just a level or two and climbin’ back up once she was nearer to Aurelia.
That was how she’d ended up trippin’ her way down a corridor alone, the lights flickerin’ weakly, bouncin’ reflections off the ruffles on the water. Her raspin’ breath echoed damply in the green-lit corridor, which was horribly quiet aside from the hush’a the swirlin’ water and the gentle bumps’a litter nudgin’ the walls. She stumbled to a set’a slidin’ doors and had to brace her back against one side and her foot against the other to press them apart enough fo
r her to fall through. Someone caught her under the arms and hauled her up with a grunt.
Mordecai’s face looked gaunt in the low light’a the underwater tunnels, actually old, for once. Probably because he wasn’t smilin’, like he always seemed to be. It didn’t really matter, because Po threw her arms around him and hugged him anyways. He patted her on the back kindly before pullin’ back and askin’, “Seen the others?”
She shook her head a bit wildly, owin’ to the fact she was already shakin’ so hard. “You?”
He calmly told her no, and takin’ her hand, folded it over his elbow and started escortin’ her down the corridor at a pace just short of a jog. Down two more corridors and over one, she and Mordecai hurried along in silence, tryin’ not to look too closely at the rubble bobbin’ around their feet. They passed a few people hurryin’ the opposite direction, but let them go. They’d probably be safer up there. Po and Mordecai were just tryin’ to get to Aurelia before The Kreft did, and that unfortunately required this dark, roundabout way. The water kept climbin’, inch by inch. Po’s knees rattled together from the cold and her nerves.
After what felt like hours’a trudgin’ through icy water and pushin’ open reluctant doors, Mordecai pulled her by her arm to a stop. She almost kept goin’, her march through the water had become so stiff and mechanical.
“What’s—”
“Shh,” he hushed her gently. They strained their ears to the quiet. Around their knees, the water suddenly started lappin’ madly. From the distance came a sound like wild applause that rattled Po’s teeth in her skull. “Move,” Mordecai urged. “Move.”
They started gracelessly lopin’ towards the nearest door as the corridor quaked behind them and the water started speedin’, tryin’ to sweep them away into the unknown with displaced books and clothes and toys. For a heart-stoppin’ moment, the door didn’t want to open, not even with both’a them pullin’ at it with groans and growls’a effort. They finally managed to pry it open enough for them to squeeze through one at a time before it slammed shut violently at their backs. Behind the door, the ocean purred like a thing alive.
There was nowhere to go but down another set’a marble stairs. Thankfully, the water was only a few inches deep down here, which meant the door mechanisms hadn’t shorted yet and Po was able to seal the doors behind them to keep the floodgates closed. Lettin’ her fingers drift over panels and hit levers, push buttons, and cross-tie wires helped calm her somewhat, even if it couldn’t stop her fears flowin’ like the water underfoot. For all she and Mordecai knew, The Aurelia and everyone in the city they cared about could be long gone by now. Reece…Gideon…Scarlet…there were so many ways they could’a been hurt or worse. This was just like leavin’ Atlas all over again, and not knowin’ if Gus and Tilden would be alright. The not knowin’ was the worst part.
Suddenly, Mordecai’s gnarled hand covered hers where it had been fiddlin’ mindlessly with a wire. “Ain’t nothin’ you can do for them here,” he said in a fatherly voice. “The sooner we get to the ship, the more useful we’ll be. Ah. There you go. Got that one awfully quick.”
The door slid open, and together, they stared down the stretch’a new tunnel at the door at its opposite end. It stood open and waitin’, but between them and it ran a length’a bowed glass walls that were webbed with cracks that as they watched, split off, tapered, and multiplied. The whole thing couldn’t be but seconds away from explodin’ inward and floodin’ this whole level.
Mordecai grabbed her arm, and shoutin’, yanked her after him in as much of a sprint as they could manage, tearin’ down the hall. The crackin’ glass sounded like clickin’ teeth; outta the corner’a her eye, Po could see fissures racin’ along beside her. Her heart punched like a fist against her chest, and in the chaos, it was hard to tell its furious drumroll apart from the sound’a her boots poundin’ the marble and the regular snaps’a the glass givin’ way. It all rolled up into one blind panic, one frantic run for her life.
She slid through the open door beside Mordecai, spun to face the door panel, and let out a wail’a despair when she saw it had short-circuited already. Thank goodness Mordecai still had his wits about him. Roarin’ with the effort it took, he grabbed the slidin’ door in both hands and powerfully jerked it out. Without the mechanics’a the panel to latch it, it couldn’t close all the way, but he pushed it with his palms until just a sliver was left. Not a half-second later, they heard the tunnel crunch and the glass shatter, and an explosion’a water pounded into the door, fountainin’ outta the crack, soakin’ Po’s hair.
Mordecai’s white-knuckled hands shook where they gripped the door, and his face was goin’ purple with the effort’a holdin’ it as close to shut as possible. Even then, the water level in the room—some sorta lobby from the looks’a it—was risin’ steadily. It was already up to Po’s knees and splashed higher when she pushed forward to examine the only other door in the room, which was blessedly open, though that wouldn’t help much if they couldn’t get it closed. Gaspin’ and coughin’, she threw herself around the side’a the door to look at its panel. The floor fell out from under her stomach. It was dead.
“We gotta keep runnin’!” she screamed to Mordecai.
He struggled to look at her over his shoulder. Veins stood out all along his arms. “Can’t let this door go for long, or we’ll be swept away.” He jerked his chin at the exit. “That got an emergency release?”
Po ducked down and felt around on the floor. Her fingers found the edges of a small lid, and when she peeled it back, a handle. The only problem was…it was on the wrong side’a the door. Because in case’a an evacuation, the people’a the city would usually be runnin’ the other direction, up, not down. She’d tried to be clever, and it had wound her up at a dead end.
Whimperin’ as she wrapped her arms around herself to try and hold in her precious little warmth, she stood and trudged back to Mordecai. “It’s no good. It’s—it’s in here, with us. We gotta run for it, Mordecai. You gotta let it go.”
For a long moment, Mordecai looked at her without expression, though there was somethin’ about his blue eyes that pierced her right through the heart and out the back. Then he nodded once, drew a deep sigh, and let go’a the door. Between his mad run and the fresh burst’a water propellin’ him along, he quickly reached Po, who was fightin’ to keep to her feet, and grabbed her roughly by the bicep to haul her towards the door.
They reached it together.
Po went through alone.
By the time she realized it and swung about with a shout, Mordecai was already pushin’ her by the shoulders so she flew into the water and landed on her back. Gaggin’ and flailin’, she pulled herself outta the waves just in time to see the exit door zip closed. Through its round window, for just a second, she saw Mordecai’s whiskered, smilin’ face. Then it whipped outta sight, washed away behind a blur’a water, erased as if it had never been.
Somehow Po found herself at the foot’a the door, though she couldn’t recall how she’d gotten there. She screamed and kicked and mashed her fist into the door panel in a blind storm’a anger and horror, but nothin’ worked, no matter how hard she fought, no matter how hard she cried. Her hands were bleedin’ as they pulled and plucked at wires as if she could somehow fix this, and yet she knew she couldn’t, or else this wouldn’t be hurtin’ so bad.
The water kept risin’ until she had to tread to keep afloat, and then until her head almost bumped the ceilin’. She could barely manage to make her arms work; they felt as heavy as steel thrunge plates as she clumsily rowed them. She ducked underwater, came out in a stairwell, and kicked upward until her head broke surface with a hoarse, choked gasp. Her fingers hooked a stair. Shakin’, she drew her over to it, and then she crawled, one painful knee up at a time, until she dropped exhaustedly above where the water lapped the glass stairs that glittered prettily in the water. It dully struck her as odd that anythin’ pretty should be in this nightmare.
It was so quiet here, so d
ark. She preferred the ragin’ chaos. However bad her fear had been, it had nothin’ on her sadness. But she was scared. Scared because she knew if it hurt this bad now, it’d be a million times worse when it all started to feel real. Mordecai. Mordecai. Mordecai.
“Po!”
Footsteps shook the stairs, and she planted her hands and pushed herself up with a whine. She’d hoped it would be Reece, or Hayden, or anyone besides Gideon, but it was always Gideon lookin’ out for her, so when he knelt down next to her, already peelin’ off his coat to wrap it around her shoulders, she didn’t feel any real surprise. Just shame. This was her fault. Gideon had already lost all his family, and now thanks to Po and her bleedin’ cleverness, he’d lost Mordecai too.
Her mind started catchin’ up to the rest’a her, and she realized she was bawlin’ hysterically, grabbin’ at his arms as he stared at her in bewilderment. He caught her face between his big hands and pushed her hair outta her face with his thumbs.
“Po Girl, you gotta slow down,” he urged.
Rather than listen, she choked out in one coughed sob, “Mordecai…” She looked over his fingers at the way she’d come, and after a beat, he cursed and snatched his hands away from her face. She gasped as he effortlessly heaved her to her feet, givin’ her a push to start her up the stairs. She gibbered dumbly, tryin’ to tell him it was too late, but he just snarled, “Get goin’!” and dove into the water, disappearin’ into the dark. For a moment, she stood there yellin’ for him to come back, lurchin’ down a step before the cold water hit her feet and she realized what she was doin’. Even then, she couldn’t tear her eyes away from the swellin’ well’a water. A part’a her was scared that if she left, somethin’ might happen to Gideon, and then his death would be her fault too. Not that she’d be good for much if he did need her. Mordecai had, and now he was dead.
The Airship Aurelia (The Aurelian Archives) Page 33