Mothbreaker's Arc

Chapter 2 of 9

The boat bumped the concrete skirt of the plant, and Mothbreaker stepped off into ankle-deep water. Marina Soleil kept the engine idling. Above them, a guard's flashlight swept the roofline and stopped. Mothbreaker pressed flat against the wall. The intake doors were welded shut. The service hatch had a fresh padlock and a camera. She had three minutes before the sweep came back, maybe less, and every wall she could see was a wall she could not open. Staying meant being seen. Leaving meant losing the six hours she had left. She waded back to the boat. Marina was already unwinding a coil of oiled rope from under the bench. "You want in," Marina said, "the pumps are your door. Old outflow pipe, south side, underwater. Grate's rusted through. I saw it last summer diving for scrap." Mothbreaker studied her. Marina had sold this trip twice already; she was sure of it. But a second sale did not undo a true map. "Price," Mothbreaker said. Marina shrugged. "Owe me one. Collect later." Mothbreaker took the rope and a small dive light from Marina's kit and slipped over the side. The water was cold and black. She found the pipe by feel, then the grate, then the give in its corroded bars. She pulled herself through and came up inside a flooded pump room, breathing hard, the humming of the node loud in the walls above her. She was inside. She was also alone, wet, and unarmed against four guards and whatever the surface council had already sent down the channel to meet her, because by the time Marina reached open water she would be selling the trip a third time.