Thunderhead (Arc of a Scythe #2)(124)

“Getting the system back on line will take about twenty minutes.”

The engineer saw the look on the buoyancy chief’s face slide from disgust to horror—and although she didn’t want to ask the question, she knew she had to. “And if we keep taking on water, how long until we’re at terminal buoyancy?”

The technician stared at the screen, shaking his head.

“How long?” demanded the engineer.

“Twelve minutes,” said the technician. “Unless we can get the system back on line, Endura will sink in twelve minutes.”

? ? ?

The general alarm—which was still functional everywhere but the council complex—began blaring across the whole island. At first, people thought it was just another malfunction and went about their business. Only people in the higher towers with panoramic views could see the lowlands submerging. They came racing out into the street, grabbing publicars or just running.

It was Scythe Curie who read the full level of their panic, and saw how high the water level had gotten within the island’s eye—just a few feet from overflowing onto the street. Any anger she had at Rowan suddenly became unimportant.

“We need to get to the marina,” she told Anastasia and Rowan. “And we need to move.”

“What about our plane?” said Anastasia. “They were already preparing it for us.”

But Scythe Curie didn’t even bother to answer her—she just pushed forward through the thickening crowds toward the marina. It took a moment for Anastasia to realize why. . . .

? ? ?

The queue at the island’s airstrip was building faster than the planes could take off. The terminal was filled with all sorts of bargaining, exchanges of money and fistfights, as polite discourse crumbled. ?There were scythes who refused to allow anyone but their own party onboard, and others who opened their planes to as many people as they could carry. It was a true test of a scythe’s integrity.

Once safely on board, people began to relax, but were troubled by the fact that they didn’t seem to be going anywhere. And even in the planes, they could still hear the muffled alarms that sounded throughout the entire island.

Five planes managed to get airborne before the runway began to flood. The sixth hit deepening puddles at the end of the runway, but still managed to labor into the sky. The seventh plane accelerated into six inches of water, which created so much drag, it couldn’t reach takeoff velocity and dove off the end of the runway into the sea.

? ? ?

In wildlife control, the biologists on duty tried to pull someone with some sort of authority into their office, but everyone claimed they suddenly had bigger fish to fry than the ones that were now surging beneath the island.

On their screen, and in their window on the sea, the incoming swarm seemed to differentiate itself—the larger, faster sea life reaching the eye first.

It was then that one of the biologists turned to the other and said, “You know . . . I’m beginning to think this isn’t just a system malfunction. I think we’ve been hacked.”

While right before them, a finback whale surged past their window heading for the surface.

? ? ?

After the third attempt to climb the walls of the council chamber, the Grandslayers, scythes, and pages in attendance regrouped, and tried to come up with another plan.

“When the chamber floods, we’ll be able to swim out,” Frida said. “We just have to keep our heads above water while it’s flooding. Can you all swim?” Everyone nodded, except for Grandslayer Nzinga, who always showed calm, graceful deportment, but was now near panic.

“It’s all right, Anna,” said Cromwell, “just hold on to me and I’ll get us to shore.”

Water began to spill over the rim at the far side of the chamber. The pages and scythes unlucky enough to be trapped here as well were terrified, and looked to the Grandslayers for guidance—as if they could end this with a wave of their mighty hands.

“Higher ground!” shouted Grandslayer Hideyoshi, and they all tried to climb up to the closest of their Seats of Consideration, without much consideration as to whose seat it was. The way the floor had tilted, the jade and onyx chairs had the highest position—but Amundsen, who was a creature of habit, instinctively headed to his chair. As he slogged through the water toward it, he felt a sharp pain at his ankle. When he looked down he saw a small, black-tipped fin swimming away from him, and the water was clouding with blood. His blood.

A reef shark?

But it wasn’t just one. They were everywhere. They were spilling over the lip of the sinking chamber, and as the deluge became larger, he swore he saw bigger, more substantial fins there, as well.

“Sharks!” he screamed. “Dear God, it’s full of sharks!” He climbed up onto his chair, blood from his leg spilling down the white marble into the water, sending the sharks into a frenzy.

Xenocrates watched from his perch, clinging to the onyx chair, just above water level beside Kahlo and Nzinga—and something occurred to him. Something more dark and terrible than the scene before them. It was commonly known that there were two ways to end a human being so they could never be revived: fire and acid—both of which consumed flesh, leaving very little behind.

But there were other ways to make sure that flesh was consumed. . . .

? ? ?

What began as confusion and disbelief in the streets and towers of the inner rim was quickly resolving into panic. People were running in every direction, no one sure which way to go, but certain that everyone they passed was going the wrong way. The sea was beginning to surge up through storm drains; water was pouring down stairs in the hotel district, flooding out the sublevels, and the marina docks were bowing from the weight of people trying to wheedle their way onto a boat or submarine.