CRIMSON DARKNESS

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The watertight door came down between Morgan and the control room.

Morgan reached the opening while the door was still descending. She jammed the maintenance wedge into the track, ducked through, and pulled her leg clear before the support gave way. Chrysalis lost its left calf plate, scraped off by the edge; the metal door slammed down behind her boot.

The impact knocked out half the corridor lights.

On the other side, Acheron-Alpha tilted under a wave. Analog sirens competed with the roar of failing pumps. Water poured into the lower levels, and heat trapped in the servers turned the air into a mix of steam, salt, and burned plastic.

"Four people remain in this sector," T.O.N.Y. reported. "Vance, two agents, and the operator. Voss moved out of the last camera's view. One of the agents entered the north stairwell and hasn't come back."

"How did Voss get out?"

"The cuffs lost power during hibernation. There's a maintenance hatch behind the north panel."

Morgan ran.

Two hydraulic locking pins held the control room door shut. Someone was pounding on the metal from inside. Vance appeared at a narrow window, her face smeared with soot and blood.

"The lifeboat corridor's closed off," she said over the intercom. "The operator's hurt. There's a service exit, but Voss took the mechanical key."

"Where did he go?"

"Lower maintenance deck. There's an inspection capsule attached to the hull."

Morgan opened both routes on her display. She could still reach Voss's hatch; one detour might be enough to reach him. Then the operator screamed behind the door. She closed the capsule's map.

"Move away from the door."

She concentrated material at her fingertips, forming short wedges. Instead of cutting through the door, she went after the pins. The first gave way; the second held. Her right shoulder began to give out, and the display warned that her structural reserve had dropped to thirty-eight percent.

"I can redirect material from the legs," T.O.N.Y. said.

"Keep what I need to get out through the water."

Morgan threaded a conventional cable through the handle and used a column for leverage. Vance and the agent pulled from the other side. The pin bent. The door opened just wide enough for one person to pass through.

The operator's leg was pinned beneath an overturned console. Morgan went in, assessed the structure, and rejected the interface's first suggestion, which required lifting the entire panel with the suit.

"If I use up material here, I won't make it to the Manta."

"Correct."

"Hold that edge. I need to get a support in place."

Vance found a pry bar. The agent positioned it under the base of the console. Morgan formed a rigid plate only at the fulcrum, distributing the load. The agent pushed on the bar, Vance guided the support into place, and Morgan pulled the operator by his vest without putting strain on his trapped leg. The operator screamed, but his leg came free.

The platform tilted again. A side window cracked.

"The service exit's down the west corridor," Vance said, pulling the man's arm across her shoulders. "The stairs lead to the lifeboat deck."

"Go on ahead."

"You're coming with us."

Voss's capsule was moving away on the map. Morgan closed the log and looked for the route to the lifeboats.

"The west passage is still open. Is there a local log stored off the servers?"

Vance let out a short, incredulous laugh.

"You don't have time to go back to the core."

"I'm not going back. Is the archive on the way to the lifeboats?"

"The archive has my signature in it."

"Include it."

Vance held her gaze.

"A drawer by the west stairs. The audit cartridge is separate from the network. I installed it because I didn't trust Voss."

"And why should I trust you?"

"You shouldn't. Check the physical seal and take it to someone who doesn't work for either of our companies."

Morgan asked the interface to save the information with a timestamp. Vance saw the recording light come on and didn't take back what she'd said.

Morgan opened the service exit. The corridor beyond was tilted and flooded knee-deep. Vance led the group up. Before disappearing from view, she handed Morgan a short steel key.

"The drawer has no network connection. And Stark... the board will ask me to deny everything."

Morgan closed her hand around the key.

"What you said on record isn't going away."

Morgan followed the same corridor, keeping Vance and the injured people in sight until the turn in the stairs. She checked the rebreather: using the closed circuit in the core had consumed part of her reserve. The air on the landing had been confirmed breathable, and she opened her mask to conserve the rest.

At Pier 14, Maya brought the van to a stop inside the recycling warehouse. The cracked windshield turned the port lights into white lines. Leo kept his eyes on Morgan's marker as it disappeared and reappeared.

"The loop's down," he said. "O.B.I.S. has left the main fiber-optic line, but there's still residual traffic. The platform's lost stability."

"The Manta?"

"Surrounded by two inspection drones. Still responding."

Maya looked toward the sea, hidden behind the warehouses.

"Send it away from the structure on autopilot and make some noise."

"That'll give the capsule away."

"That's the point. The drones follow the Manta; Morgan gets out by the other column."

Leo sent the short route Maya had marked on the map. The submersible started its motor and moved away from the south foundation. The drones reacted, following its signature.

"She'll lose her ride back," he said.

"The return routine still runs locally. First we get the drones away from the west column, then we call the capsule to the rendezvous point."

On the platform, Morgan reached the archive room. Vance's key opened a drawer protected by ceramic insulation. Inside was a gray cartridge bearing a date, Acheron's identifier, and three intact physical seals.

Morgan stowed the cartridge without touching the seals and closed the drawer. A crack beneath her feet sent her backing toward the wall. The floor gave way where she'd been standing a second earlier.

She reached the side catwalk. Chrysalis deployed small plates over her ribs as a beam struck her. The impact slammed her into the wall. The air left her lungs. Her display flickered, and her right arm went numb again.

"Impact to the left flank. Your breathing has changed," T.O.N.Y. reported. "I'll transmit the medical alert as soon as a channel is available."

"I'm getting out."

Morgan pressed her left side and couldn't draw a full breath. She left the fallen tool where it was. The cartridge compartment was still closed; it was the only thing she checked before moving on.

She headed for the lifeboat deck. Ten workers were already waiting in the boats. Elena remained on deck, directing Vance and the injured operator. The agent with them had put his weapon away and was holding the boarding sling.

"Fifteen people on the manifest identified, counting the agent on the stairs," Elena said. "Voss has left the platform. I need that man here before I lower the last boat."

Morgan headed for the north stairs, where the last image had shown the agent. She found him unresponsive, his face covered in soot. She called Elena and the other agent. They used a sling from the lifeboat; Morgan kept the passage clear while the two of them got the man out, sparing her from having to carry him against her injured ribs. The inspection capsule appeared on an external monitor, heading northeast. Too small to reach shore safely, but equipped with an emergency transmitter.

"He'll call for rescue," Vance said.

"Or he's already arranged for someone to pick him up."

Acheron groaned. Another ballast compartment flooded, making the deck tilt farther.

"Get the lifeboats in the water!" Elena ordered.

Elena checked off the waterproof list: eleven workers, the operator, two agents, and Vance. Fifteen replies or confirmations from someone accompanying them. On the sixteenth line, next to Elias Voss, she wrote: absent, departed in an inspection capsule. She handed the list to the man on the radio, who read it back to the maritime team.

Morgan held the passage barrier steady while Elena released the last winch. The deck twisted, tearing away the section of stairs between her and the boat. The passengers were already below, too close to the hull.

"Move away!" Morgan called.

"There's room for you," Elena replied.

Morgan searched for a support she could use to climb down. The beam cracked beneath the wedge. She wouldn't ask a lifeboat carrying injured people to stay there waiting for the metal to fall.

Maya received the image and plotted a route to the west column. The Manta was returning, but still had to go around a drone. The estimated rendezvous time was six minutes.

"Do you have enough air for that?"

Morgan checked the indicators: the equivalent of ten minutes in the main circuit, plus the independent supply for withdrawal. The lower lock was flooded, and the stairs had just disappeared.

"I do. As long as I don't speed up. Let the capsule come to me."

She closed her mask, tested the seal, and lowered herself down the conventional cable to the water. Elena kept the searchlight trained on the column until Maya confirmed she was tracking the marker.

The ocean met her with cold and silence. The fins deployed, but the left calf component could no longer sustain the same flow. Instead of speeding up, she kept a controlled pace and followed the west column. Above her, the lifeboats were pulling away as the Coast Guard appeared on the horizon, called in by Pepper and over the emergency channel they'd kept open.

The Manta arrived later than the initial estimate. Morgan had used the column for support to minimize movement; even so, exertion and shallow breathing had reduced her reserve to two minutes by the time she reached the hatch. She climbed in, closed the hatch, and let the system drain the water.

When the air returned, her hands were shaking.

Not from triumph. From cold, pain, and an adrenaline crash.

"Status?" Leo asked.

"Alive. Injured rib. Audit cartridge recovered. Voss escaped in a capsule heading northeast."

"O.B.I.S.?"

Morgan photographed only the cartridge's external label. All three seals were still intact. Beneath Acheron's identifier, a contingency route listed two names:

SILO-NINE, NEVADA.

PROJECT EXODUS.

"Is that the destination?" Leo asked.

"It's a reference from the archive. I'm not opening it here. We need to verify the contents in isolation."

T.O.N.Y. stayed silent for too long.

"Did Tony know this place?" Morgan asked.

"I have his records on Silo-Nine," the interface replied. "I still need to compare them with what you recovered."

The Manta began the return trip. Maya kept the relay buoy active and coordinated Morgan's arrival with the medical team at Pier 14. Leo asked Morgan to check in periodically without making her keep her eyes on the display. She leaned her head back but kept her hand near the button. Behind the capsule, Acheron was sinking section by section; on the surface, the lifeboats were moving toward rescue.

Farther east, an unmarked helicopter veered away from the Coast Guard's route and headed northeast.

Leo saved the image of the helicopter without treating any link to the cartridge as proven. Morgan looked at the two records side by side: an escape to the northeast and the name of a facility in the desert.

The platform was behind them. The destination remained an open question.

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