The Wire Beneath the Water

Mercer reached the inspection room as the blows from inside stopped.

The water had climbed to her ribs. She planted one hand on the hatch frame and leaned close. Somewhere below the floor, a motor strained, then settled into a steady hum. The room’s metal door trembled against its locks.

“Vale!” she shouted. “Keep your feet down.”

A scrape answered her. Then his voice came through the steel, thin but clear. “I am trying.”

Mercer found the hatch lever, but it wouldn’t move. A red indicator above it glowed through a crust of grime. The brass key Elias had taken was gone with him beneath the water.

She turned toward the dye floor. The current carried splinters and a strip of Mara’s dark coat past the pillars. Beyond them, the gantry lay folded into the flood. A lamp burned on its side, throwing light across the wreckage.

Mercer pushed toward it. Her boots caught on something under the surface, and she struck the pillar with her shoulder. The water had begun to rise faster. At the base of the fallen gantry, Mara’s hand was hooked around a rail. Celia’s sleeve showed beneath a crossbeam.

Mara was conscious. She had a cut above her ear and one leg pinned beneath the railing. “The box,” she said. “Did he reach it?”

“I don’t know.”

“Then get him out first.”

Mercer tested the beam. It shifted, then settled back against Celia’s shoulder. The older woman’s face was gray with effort. She had one hand trapped under the metal and the other pressed against her ribs.

“The room,” Celia said. “The circuit is under the north vat.”

“You know where Elias went?”

“I built the line.” Celia’s breath rasped. “I know where it ends.”

Mara pulled at her pinned leg. The railing scraped her boot. “She can tell you that when you’ve got her out.”

The hatch shuddered behind Mercer. Vale struck it once, a hard blow that rang through the water and steel.

Mercer looked toward the north vat. The current ran around its concrete base and vanished through a grated trench. Bubbles rose there in irregular bursts. Elias was beneath it, working one-handed with his wrists still cuffed together.

She could go to him, or lift the gantry. If he failed, Vale had no more time. If she left the women, the water might finish what the broken control box had started.

“Can you hold the rail?” Mercer asked Mara.

“I’ve been holding it since I fell.”