Chapter 20 - The Rising Tide
The heavy steel bulkhead doors at the far end of the underground chamber slammed shut with a hydraulic hiss that echoed like a death knell off the damp concrete walls, and instantly, a deafening alarm began to shriek overhead, flashing a harsh, blinding crimson strobe across the room. Along the base of the eastern wall, massive intake valves groaned as they began to turn, and dark, churning harbor water erupted through the iron grates in a foaming, violent torrent that immediately flooded the floor up to our ankles. Gerald Cole and his guards didn't panic; they moved with cold, rehearsed precision toward a vertical escape ladder leading up to a sealed bulkhead in the ceiling, leaving us behind in the rapidly rising subterranean death trap. "Rachel! The circuit box behind the main server rack!" Tessa yelled over the deafening roar of the rushing water, having managed to wriggle her bound hands slightly loose against the rough steel beam. I threw my entire weight backward, catching my primary guard off-balance and driving my heel hard down onto his instep with a sickening crunch. As he cursed and released his grip, I lunged forward through the freezing, waist-high water, wrenching the heavy steel maintenance panel off the main server rack just as the water level surged past my chest, plunging my bare hands directly into the live, sparking wiring harness in a desperate attempt to short out the flood gates before the room went completely dark.
