Chapter 51 - The Black Sea
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The Pacific Ocean was a churning, pitch-black abyss under the starless night sky.
We were seventy miles off the coast of California, riding in a stripped-down, radar-absorbing stealth boat piloted by a Russian smuggler named Yuri, whom Elena had known from her mercenary days. The twin outboard engines hummed quietly, designed to evade sonar detection.
The crystal drive sat in a waterproof case on the console. The timer read: 12:45:10.
I sat near the bow, dressed in a sleek, black neoprene tactical suit, checking the seals on my rebreather mask. Elena sat across from me, loading armor-piercing rounds into her suppressed rifle.
"We are approaching the target coordinates," Yuri growled over the roaring wind, his face illuminated by the green glow of his GPS. "I will drop you one mile out. If you are not back in exactly two hours, I am leaving. I do not mess with the people who own this rig."
Through the heavy fog, a towering structure materialized in the distance. It looked like a steel monster rising from the depths of the ocean. The offshore rig was massive, bristling with searchlights, radar dishes, and anti-aircraft batteries. It was a floating fortress.
"Look at the infrastructure," Elena pointed, handing me a pair of night-vision binoculars. "There's a submerged data cable running directly from the rig down to the ocean floor. That's the Aegis Network mainline. If the Architect activates the drive, the signal travels down that pipe and infects the global grid."
"We sever the head, the body dies," I muttered, strapping a waterproof explosive charge to my belt.
May you like
Yuri cut the engines, letting the boat drift silently in the rough swells. "This is it, ladies. The drop zone."
I slipped on my rebreather mask, secured my waterproof weapons bag, and looked at Elena. We both nodded. Without a word, we rolled backward off the edge of the boat, plunging into the freezing, crushing darkness of the Pacific Ocean.
