Dune xix's Arc

Chapter 5 of 7

Dune followed the glowing blue river deeper into the laboratory, past the equipment and specimen tubes. The water flowed through a wide channel cut into the stone floor, disappearing through an archway ahead. They stepped through and stopped. A wall of glass cubes filled the chamber, each one a small cell with a keypad on its door. The cells stacked four high and stretched the length of the room, all connected by clear tubes that fed the glowing blue water directly inside. Bubbles rose through the tubes, circulating the river water into each cube in a constant flow. Dune approached the nearest cell. The keypad was dead, but through the glass they could see metal restraints built into the floor and walls. Scratches covered the interior surfaces—deep gouges that could only have been made by something stronger than human hands. This wasn't a research lab. It was a prison for people touched by sea curses. Dune tested three keypads before finding one that flickered to life. The lock mechanism clicked, and the cube door swung open with a hiss of released pressure. Water droplets clung to the interior walls. On the floor, half-hidden under the restraints, sat a data chip shaped like a squid. Its tentacles curled around the edges, and when Dune picked it up, the chip pulsed with faint light. Someone had left it here deliberately. They pocketed the chip and studied the restraints. The feds hadn't just studied sea creatures—they'd imprisoned people like Dune, people marked by the ocean's touch. And they'd built this network of cells to do it, feeding them with the same glowing river water that probably kept the curses active. Dune sealed the cell and walked back to the river, chip heavy in their pocket. The marketplace above suddenly made perfect sense. The feds hadn't abandoned this place—they'd lost control of it. And now Dune had a choice: walk away from a facility designed to cage people like them, or claim it and turn those same cells into leverage. The woman upstairs with the vine on her wrist wasn't the threat. She was proof the feds were hunting again. Dune would need safe houses, bolt holes, and places to stash people the feds wanted to disappear. These cells could hold goods, information, or prisoners depending on what the marketplace needed. The feds had built a prison. Dune was going to make it a vault.