Chapter 94 - The Fall into the Salt Abyss
"You think I'll let you turn her into a monster like you?" Elena whispered.
"I think you have no choice," Eleanor said, raising her wrist to display a digital transmitter bracelet. "Ten seconds to structural implosion, Elena. Five... four..."
Elena didn't plead. She didn't drop to her knees.
Instead, Elena looked Eleanor dead in her merciless eyes, wrapped both arms securely around Maya, pulled the child’s protective neoprene survival hood tight, and took a violent step backward—straight off the edge of the catwalk.
Eleanor’s cold composure shattered. "NO!" she shrieked, lunging forward, but her fingers grabbed only empty air.
Elena fell sixty feet through the howling steam and flashing alarms.
The wind tore at her clothes, the roar of the ascending leviathan filling her ears like a roaring dragon. As she plummeted toward the boiling, churned black water of the submarine bay, the structural charges detonated above.
*BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!*
The cavern roof cracked open with a thunderous shriek of tearing bedrock. Giant slabs of granite and sheared steel girders rained down through the mist. The catwalk where Eleanor stood buckled violently, severing the metal spans and sending Eleanor crashing toward the control station below.
Elena hit the black water feet-first.
The impact was like slamming into a wall of solid ice. The shock knocked the breath from her lungs, driving her deep into the crushing, lightless abyss of the hangar pool. Thousands of air bubbles swirled around her like liquid silver.
Above her, the world was fire and falling stone. Giant boulders splashed into the water, sending massive shockwaves rolling through the depths.
Elena fought against the terrifying pull of the submarine’s massive intake turbines. Her legs kicked frantically. Maya was strapped firmly against her chest inside the waterproof survival sling, but the child’s weight dragged them deeper. Salt stung Elena’s eyes as she opened them in the dark, murky brine.
Ahead of her, drifting down through the water, was an auxiliary emergency dive bell—a yellow, heavily reinforced underwater transfer pod that had been dislodged from the upper deck during the explosion. Its hatch was open, its interior lights glowing faint emergency green.
Elena swam with every ounce of life left in her battered body. Her lungs burned like they were filled with crushed glass. Her arms felt like lead. She clawed through the churning water, dodging a sinking section of the catwalk that plunged past her into the abyss.
She grabbed the outer handle of the yellow capsule.
Hauling herself inside through the bottom moon pool opening, she broke the interior water surface, coughing violently, gasping for air. Maya was coughing too, spitting up swallowed brine, but she was alive. Her wails echoed inside the tiny, steel chamber.
Elena slammed the manual floodgate lever down, sealing the bottom hatch.
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Through the thick reinforced acrylic viewport, Elena saw the colossal shadow of the leviathan submarine clear the subterranean bay, ascending through the surface breach toward the open ocean.
And right behind the giant submarine, floating inside an armored executive escape pod, Elena saw the pale, enraged face of Eleanor Montgomery, glaring through the glass, disappearing into the dark blue void above.
