Chapter 49 - The Severed Cord
The magnesium flare ignited at four thousand degrees Fahrenheit directly inside Daniel Vance’s exposed mechanical chest cavity.
The instantaneous chemical explosion detonated his internal lithium power pack. Daniel shrieked—a high, mechanical, agonizing sound that tore through the collapsing vault—as his grip released Rachel’s throat. Blinding white flame consumed his synthetic torso from the inside out. He stumbled backward off the edge of the gantry, flailing in blind agony, before plunging five hundred feet straight down into the roaring geothermal core below.
Rachel collapsed to the steel deck, coughing violently, drawing in lungfuls of acrid, smoke-choked air.
"Mommy! Get in!" Lily yelled, grabbing Rachel’s arm with all the strength her seven-year-old frame could muster.
Water was already bursting through the ceiling bulkheads in deafening, horizontal geysers. The pressure hull of the Leviathan Vault was caving in.
Rachel dragged herself across the threshold into the titanium spherical escape pod. With her last ounce of strength, she hit the red hydraulic cycle switch. The heavy, hermetic vault door hissed shut and locked into place with six pneumatic deadbolts.
Through the reinforced porthole, Rachel saw the central biological core of the Leviathan shatter. The massive glass tanks containing the ruling cabal exploded simultaneously under the inward rush of tens of thousands of tons of freezing ocean water. The immortal elite of the old world were crushed into nonexistence in less than a microsecond by the unfathomable pressure of the Mariana Trench.
*EMERGENCY BUOYANCY RELEASE INITIATED.*
Four massive solid-fuel rocket thrusters fired at the base of the escape pod, blasting it free from the docking cradle just as the entire Leviathan Vault collapsed into an apocalyptic cloud of crushed metal, boiling steam, and underwater ash.
The ascent was a violent, spinning blur.
Inside the tiny capsule, Rachel held Lily against her chest, wrapping both arms around the child as the pod hurtled upward through the black water at sixty knots, propelled by positive buoyancy and rocket fuel.
Around them, the deep sea roared, a violent tempest of displaced water. But inside the pod, there was only the sound of Lily’s quiet, steady breathing against Rachel’s neck.
"Is Grandpa gone?" Lily asked quietly in the darkness, her tears soaking into Rachel’s shirt.
Rachel tightened her embrace, kissing the top of the little girl’s head. "Grandpa saved us, Lily. He made sure nobody will ever put a chain on you again. No more tests. No more bunkers. Just you and me."
Lily closed her eyes, resting her head against Rachel’s shoulder as the g-forces pressed them into the padded seats.
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Ten minutes later, with a concussive breach that threw spray fifty feet into the air, the escape pod exploded through the surface of the Pacific Ocean into the open night air.
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