Chapter 21 - The Spark in the Sub-Basement
The freezing harbor water surged higher, cold as liquid ice, wrapping around my chest and clawing at my throat as the alarms shrieked a brutal, rhythmic warning overhead. Sparks showered down from the live, severed wiring harness in my hands, hissing violently as they hit the rising tide. My fingers burned, muscles locking up from the electricity, but I forced my grip to tighten, wrenching the exposed copper cables together. A brilliant flash of white-hot light blinded me for a second, accompanied by a deafening metallic groan. Across the room, the churning torrent gushing through the intake valves suddenly stuttered, choked by a blown circuit. The massive iron grates locked in place, halting the water just as it threatened to submerge our chins. "You did it, Rachel! Move!" Tessa screamed, her voice cutting through the ringing in my ears. She slammed her shoulder against the damp concrete pillar, leveraging her bound wrists against a jagged bolt until the heavy plastic zip-ties snapped. Without wasting a second, she waded through the waist-deep water toward me, grabbing my arm to haul me out of the electrical hazard zone. Above us, the heavy steel escape ladder was swinging empty; Gerald Cole and his corporate mercenaries had already vanished through the upper bulkhead, sealing the hatch tight behind them. But they had left something behind—a ruggedized tactical tablet dropped by one of the guards during the scramble, its screen glowing green in the crimson strobe light. I snatched it up, wiping the saltwater from the glass. The screen displayed a live GPS tracker and a system override code for the county’s Central-Dispatch CAD database. "They think they've won," I panted, coughing up a mouthful of briny water, my fingers flying across the keypad. "Let's see how they like being locked out of their own kingdom."
