Paul Zindel - The Zone Unknown 05 by Reef of Death

Author:Reef of Death [Death, Reef of]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2012-05-29T19:16:59+00:00

8

DEMONS

“Coast Guard gone,” Wally Wallygong said. “They ask about you. Doctor tell Lt. Roessler not to worry, eh. She said she’ll get you to be with your uncle. She must have seen what happened to Cliff.”

“Not if I can help it,” PC said, gasping.

PC and Maruul took a series of deep, long breaths. They felt oxygen racing back into their blood and strength returning to their bodies. PC’s nose had finally stopped bleeding. There were sounds of guards running toward the shattered chamber. PC opened the ship’s program on Ratboy, checked the Anemone’s design plan again.

“We’ve got to move it,” PC said. He pulled Maruul to her feet and led her and Wally out through the shattered door of the pressure chamber and down a curving metal stairwell.

Maruul was confused. “Shouldn’t we be going up?”

“No.”

PC took them deeper inside the ship, far below the waterline. They found a vast lighted room, an area that seemed to be part factory, part smelting plant. There were ingot molds and rinse tanks. Extrusion machines. Furnaces. An alcove of diving equipment. The freighter was turning out to be a Chinese puzzle, PC thought—box within box within box.

Wally went straight to an aisle of open crates brimming with shiny metal. “Magnesium. Doctor mining magnesium. Still, not fortune, eh,” he said. Off to the side there was a receiving bin of wet, freshly mined metal spilled out from a sluice.

“Why is Dr. Ecenbarger doing all this? Why would she want to kill us?” Maruul asked.

“Greed,” PC said. “She’s sick, and can never have enough money or power. There aren’t any more countries in the world, you know. There are only corporations with two kinds of people: the ad guys and the Dr. Ecenbargers, the ones who call the shots on the whole scam. They’re the mutations—monsters who’d cut our noses off and try to kill us for a buck. There are Ecenbargers all over the place now!”

PC headed for the circular pool beside the dive equipment. White piping with gauges and valve controls covered a wall. Although he’d seen only pictures of them in articles about high-tech nuclear submarines, he recognized the setup as an ocean interface—a tank that allows divers to launch themselves into the sea from inside a ship.

Maruul turned in a slow circle, taking in the whole of the layout. “What is this place?”

“Whatever it is, it’s state-of-the-art. This whole nasty freighter is a front for something else.” PC held up one of dozens of slick blue diving vests that had built-in breathing-exhalation bags, soda lime canisters, and nitrox tanks. “Rebreathers. They recycle the air. Divers can stay down for hours.”

“My nephew sells rebreathers for plenty of dollars,” Wally said. He picked up a face mask with a built-in receiver. “He sells these, too. Now we talk better to each other underwater—like fish. Buddy phones. Got walkie-talkie chip. Five hundred bucks a pop.”

Sounds of guards.

Closer.

PC noticed a surveillance camera mounted on the ceiling. It turned like radar. “They know we’re here. Suit up,” PC said.

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