Nicholas Smith - Hell Divers

The stress of the past few days finally hit Tin. Shivering, he sank onto his back, staring at the ceiling, blinking slowly, his mind drifting. A helmet swam into view, then another, as Militia surrounded him. A soldier knelt by his side and put a hand on his arm.

“You okay, kid?” the man asked.

Tin could hold on to only one thought. “Is X back yet?”

The man shook his head. “I don’t know, son. Just hold on. We’re going to get you help.”

Tin ran a hand through his hair. “Do you see my hat anywhere?”

“Don’t worry, kid, I’ll find it.”

Tin closed his eyes, smiling. He couldn’t wait to tell X how he’d patched the bladder and helped save the ship.

The domed concrete warehouses were different from those X had raided on other dives. From a distance, they looked like clutches of giant eggs surrounding the ITC towers. Weaver pointed to the building in the center.

“That’s it,” he said. “According to your map, the cells and valves should be inside.”

The tower, larger than the others, loomed above them. The divers huddled in the mouth of the access tunnel, waiting there as a flight of Sirens sailed overhead and disappeared beyond the skyline.

After their cries had faded away, Weaver said, “Now’s our chance. Follow me.”

X went back to Murph, who was slumped against the wall, hands pressed against his stomach. He pulled away fingertips stained with blood. There was fear in his eyes. And exhaustion.

“You good to go?” X asked.

Murph managed a nod but waved X away when he tried to help. “I’ll be okay,” he said unconvincingly.

“I’ll take rear guard,” X said. “Katrina, cover our nine o’clock. Magnolia, you got three o’clock. Weaver, stay on point. Murph, you just stay alive.”

The engineer coughed wetly, and X saw, behind the visor, the rash forming on his face. It was an early sign of radiation poisoning. The gash in his suit had allowed the invisible poison inside. Murph didn’t have much time, and by the look on his face, he knew it.

“You guys coming, or what?” Weaver said.

The four divers pushed out into the snow and followed Weaver in a wedge formation across the field. They were in the open now and exposed to the elements. Lightning streaked through the muddy clouds, spreading a fleeting curtain of blue over the industrial zone. The entire place gave X the creeps.

The relentless sound of thunder echoed overhead as they moved. Weaver set a quick pace, and X worked hard to keep up. He walked backward, his rifle trained on the access tunnel. The storm had covered the area beyond the embankment with a fresh layer of snow.

He took a pull from the straw in his helmet. The chems from the drink flooded his system, and his body accepted the energy greedily. He could almost feel his pupils dilating.

“Almost there,” Magnolia said.

X sneaked a glance over his shoulder. The central ITC building’s shell had been stripped of paint, exposing the windowless metal surface. It rose ten floors and ended in a curl of twisted metal that looked a bit like Tin’s hat. The sight filled X with dread. The kid was waiting for him to come back, just as he had waited so many times for his father. And the deeper X trekked into this frozen wasteland, the less likely he was to return home.

It wasn’t fair, but X had a mission to complete.

“Over here,” Weaver said, waving them toward a set of rusted steel doors at the base of the central building.

“Where’s the security panel?” Murph asked, clutching his gut.

“You okay?” X asked. It was a useless question, of course. Murph was far from okay. But he nodded and trudged over to the box that Weaver was busy wiping off.

“I doubt this is the kind you guys have seen on other dives,” Weaver said. “Never seen anything like it myself.”

“Oh, yeah?” Magnolia said. “I’ve seen it before. On the Hive . There’s a security panel just like this outside the armory.”

Murph nodded. “Very hard to hack into.”

“Don’t I know it,” Magnolia said.

“Well, can you do it?” X asked. Sirens were nowhere in sight, but they were out there somewhere. Every second that passed increased their odds of being discovered.

Murph opened up a pocket on his tactical vest and pulled out a second minicomputer. Reaching for another pocket, he doubled over in pain, coughing.

“Let me take a look,” Magnolia said.

“No,” Murph said. “I can do this.” Uncoiling the cable with great care, he plugged one end into the security panel, and the other into his computer.

X gazed out at the stark landscape. Gusting wind kicked up fresh powder in the distance. Behind the embankment, the snow rippled like waves. A few miles away, a pair of whirlwinds scudded toward the city. He watched them dissipate as they moved into the heart of Hades.

“How you coming along with that, Murph?” X asked.

“Just need a couple of minutes.”

X pulled out his binos and studied the gated access tunnel they had come from. He half expected to see Sirens pouring out of the passage, but he saw only the two divers’ corpses they had passed on their way out.

The snow above the embankment continued to drift in the wind. X zoomed in for a better look, and his breath caught at the sight of bony fins slicing through the powder. The spikes were moving fast, kicking up snow into the air. Beneath the surface, an army of Sirens was racing toward them.

“Murph,” X said. “You—”

“Still working.”

“You better do it fast,” X said. “We’re about to have company!”

Numbers rolled across the engineer’s computer. A five and a six had solidified, but three more digits still had to line up.

X looked back at the hill just as the first Sirens climbed over the wall of snow. They tumbled down the side and streamed onto the field, some of them breaking into a gallop, others taking to the sky.

“Murph, you got thirty seconds, tops!”

The third and fourth numbers were in place.

“Oh, my God, oh, my God!” Magnolia grabbed the door handle and rattled it. “Open it, Murph!”

X felt a stab of fear as he raised his rifle and picked a target. But there were too many, and he had only one magazine left. The only hope for survival was inside the building.

“Got it!” Murph finally yelled.

Magnolia yanked the door open and burst through, with Weaver and Katrina on her heels.

“Go!” X yelled, shoving Murph through the door. X grabbed the handle, then hesitated. The sight took his breath away. Sirens stampeded toward the building, kicking up snow behind them, as others formed up in a large flying V. X slammed the door and threw his weight against it. He couldn’t hold the monsters back now, but somehow, leaning against it made him feel better. Their only hope was to power down and pray the Sirens would move on.

Glancing over his shoulder, he saw that the other divers had already removed their battery units. Their helmets were angled up to where the roof should be.

But his team wasn’t looking at the sky. They were looking at the bulblike nests lining the walls of each floor. Hundreds of them.

X took a hand off the door and pulled his battery from its slot. They had made a strategic error in assuming that the Sirens wouldn’t be inside. The building housed not only the cells and valves the Hive needed—it was also home to the Sirens.

Tin took his foil hat from the soldier who had carried him from the farm.

“Thanks,” he said.

“You bet, kid,” the soldier said, grinning. He patted Tin on the shoulder and hurried off to join the growing crowd of gray uniforms outside the farm entrance.