The water hit Marcus like a sledgehammer made of ice.
Darkness.
Total, crushing black.
His body went into shock instantly. His lungs seized. The air was punched out of him.
He inhaled.
Water rushed in. Freezing, filthy water. It tasted of rust and decay.
He thrashed.
His armor—the scavenged composite plates—dragged him down. The vibro-sword on his hip felt like an anchor.
Swim.
His brain screamed the command, but his limbs wouldn't obey. His muscles were locked tight.
He sank.
Deeper.
The pressure built in his ears.
[SYSTEM ALERT: CRITICAL FAILURE.]
[TEMP: -2°C.]
[NANITES: OFFLINE. REBOOTING...]
The Gold UI in his vision fractured into static. Then it died.
He was blind. He was drowning.
He felt the bottom. Sludge. Muck that sucked at his boots.
He tried to push off, but he had no leverage. The current rolled him over.
He was going to die here. Not in battle. Not by a sword. But in a sewer under a dead city.
Then, a grip.
Something grabbed his ankle.
It felt like a hydraulic clamp. Metal fingers dug into his flesh, crushing the bone.
Pain.
The pain woke him up.
He was yanked downward, then launched.
Thrown.
He shot up through the water like a missile.
He broke the surface.
"GAAH!"
Marcus gasped. Air. Sweet, freezing air.
He coughed, retching up bile and river water.
He was floating in pitch blackness. The roar of the water echoed off stone walls.
"Marcus!"
Marcia's voice. Close.
"Here!" he choked out. "I'm here!"
"Grab the debris!"
His hand hit something hard. Wood. A piece of the destroyed market stalls from above.
He clung to it. His fingers were numb claws.
"Narcissus?" Marcus yelled. "Narcissus!"
No answer.
Just the churning of the water.
A light appeared below the surface. Two golden orbs, glowing in the murk.
They rose.
A massive shape broke the water.
Narcissus.
The giant cyborg didn't float. He stood. The water only came up to his chest. He was walking on a submerged ledge.
Water cascaded off his metal shoulders.
"I found the bottom," Narcissus rumbled. His voicebox was garbled, full of water.
"Lucilla?" Marcus asked, wiping sludge from his eyes. "Do we have Lucilla?"
"No," Marcia said from the darkness. "I lost her when we hit."
A scream echoed in the cavern.
High-pitched. Terrified.
"HELP!"
It came from downstream.
"There," Marcus pointed blindly.
He tried to activate his night vision.
"JARVIS. Light."
Nothing. The UI was dead.
"I'm blind," Marcus cursed. "My optics are fried."
"Use this," Marcia said.
A spark. Then a hiss.
A red flare ignited in her hand.
The cavern lit up in blood-red light.
It was massive. An underground cathedral of concrete pipes and rusted catwalks. The water was black and fast-moving.
Lucilla was clinging to a rusted ladder fifty feet downstream. The water was pulling at her legs.
But she wasn't alone.
The water around her was rippling.
Shapes moving under the surface. Pale. Long.
"What is that?" Marcia whispered.
A head broke the water near Lucilla.
It looked like a crocodile. But it was white. Albino. Its scales were missing in patches, revealing raw pink flesh.
And its jaw wasn't bone. It was chrome. A hydraulic bear trap bolted onto a reptile's skull.
[THREAT DETECTED: SEWER STALKER.]
[ORIGIN: FAILED BIOWEAPON.]
The beast hissed. It lunged at Lucilla's leg.
She screamed and kicked. Her boot hit the metal jaw. CLANG.
"Shoot it!" Marcus yelled.
Marcia raised her shotgun. She pulled the trigger.
CLICK.
"Wet primer!" she cursed. She racked the slide. CLICK. "Useless!"
"Narcissus!" Marcus shouted. "Get her!"
The giant was already moving.
He waded through the chest-deep water. He was slow. The water resistance was immense against his bulk.
More ripples.
Dozens of them.
The water was boiling with white shapes.
They weren't hunting Lucilla. They were hunting the splashing giant.
A Stalker leaped from the water. It latched onto Narcissus's arm.
Its metal jaws clamped down.
Sparks flew. The teeth ground against the cyborg's armor plating.
Narcissus didn't flinch. He grabbed the beast by the tail and swung it like a flail.
He smashed it against the cavern wall. CRUNCH.
But three more jumped him. One on his back. Two on his legs.
They dragged him down.
"Go!" Narcissus roared, disappearing under the white mass. "Get to the ladder!"
Marcus let go of the drift wood. He swam.
He fought the current. He reached the ladder where Lucilla was clinging.
A Stalker surfaced right next to him.
It opened its mouth. Rows of serrated steel teeth.
Marcus didn't have a gun. He drew his sword.
The vibro-blade sputtered. It wouldn't ignite underwater. It was just a sharp piece of metal now.
He stabbed it.
He drove the blade into the creature's eye.
Black blood sprayed his face.
The beast thrashed. Marcus kicked it away.
"Climb!" Marcus grabbed Lucilla's belt. He shoved her up the ladder. "Move!"
Lucilla scrambled up the rusted rungs. She slipped, regained her footing, and kept going.
Marcia reached the ladder next. She was shivering so hard she could barely hold the bars.
Marcus pushed her up.
He looked back.
Narcissus was gone.
The water where he had been was a frothing whirlpool of white bodies and black blood.
"Narcissus!" Marcus yelled.
A metal hand broke the surface. It grabbed a Stalker by the throat.
SQUEEZE.
The Stalker went limp.
Narcissus rose. He was covered in them. They were biting his cables, tearing at his hydraulic lines.
One had its jaws clamped on his fusion core housing.
"I... am... busy!" Narcissus bellowed.
He punched a Stalker in the head. The skull caved in.
"Go!" the giant yelled. "High ground!"
Marcus gritted his teeth. He turned and climbed.
The ladder groaned under his weight. Rust flaked off in his hands.
He reached the top. A metal catwalk suspended twenty feet above the water.
He hauled himself over the railing. He collapsed on the grating, gasping for air.
Marcia was there. She was wringing water out of her hair. Lucilla was curled in a ball, sobbing.
Marcus crawled to the edge. He looked down.
The flare was dying. It sputtered in the water below.
In the fading red light, he saw the battle.
Narcissus was a titan of violence. He ripped a jaw off one beast. He crushed another against his knee.
But there were too many. They were dragging him deeper.
"He can't breathe," Marcus whispered. "His intake fans... if they flood..."
"He's a machine," Marcia said, grabbing Marcus's shoulder. "He doesn't breathe."
"He needs oxygen for the fusion mix!"
The light died.
Total darkness returned.
Just the sounds of splashing and metal tearing.
"JARVIS!" Marcus smacked the side of his head. "Reboot! Damn you, reboot!"
Static. Then a flicker.
[SYSTEM REBOOTING...]
[DIAGNOSTIC: WATER DAMAGE IN NEURAL PORT.]
[INITIATING PURGE.]
Heat flared in Marcus's skull. A sharp, stinging pain behind his ear.
Steam hissed from his implant.
The UI snapped back online.
Gold lines traced the dark.
[NIGHT VISION: ENGAGED.]
The world turned green.
Marcus looked down.
The water was calm.
The thrashing had stopped.
"Narcissus?" Marcus whispered.
Silence.
Then, bubbles. Massive bubbles rising to the surface.
GLUG. GLUG.
"He's down," Lucilla whispered. "They took him."
"No," Marcus said.
He stood up. He gripped the railing.
"I'm going back down."
"Don't be stupid," Marcia grabbed his arm. Her grip was weak, but frantic. "You jump back in there, you die. You can't fight them in the water."
"I'm not leaving him!"
"He's heavy, Marcus! He sinks! You can't lift two tons of steel!"
A loud metallic CLANG echoed from the darkness below.
Then a sound like a grinder chewing rocks.
VRRRRR-CHUNK.
A Stalker flew out of the water.
It was thrown. It hit the cavern ceiling and fell back down with a splash.
Another one flew. Then another.
"He's not dead," Marcus grinned. "He's cleaning house."
A massive hand grabbed the bottom rung of the ladder.
The ladder groaned. The bolts holding it to the wall screeched.
Narcissus pulled himself up.
He was a wreck.
His chest plate was torn open. Wires hung loose like intestines. One of his golden eyes was dark—smashed. A dead Stalker was still clamped onto his left leg.
He climbed. Slow. Heavy.
Step. Step. Step.
He reached the catwalk. He hauled his bulk over the railing.
He reached down and pried the dead Stalker off his leg. He tossed it back into the water.
He looked at Marcus with his one good eye.
"I hate fish," Narcissus grumbled.
Marcus laughed. A short, hysterical bark.
"They aren't fish, brother."
"They bite," Narcissus said. He shook himself like a dog. Oily water sprayed everywhere.
"Are you functional?" Marcus asked, looking at the exposed wires in his chest.
"Core is stable," Narcissus said. "But my knee... it clicks."
"We'll fix it," Marcus promised. "We just need to get out of this hole."
He looked down the catwalk.
It stretched into the darkness. Endless pipes and cables running along the walls.
"Where does this go?" Marcia asked.
Lucilla stood up. She walked to the wall. She touched a massive, insulated cable. It was humming.
"This isn't a sewer," she said. Her voice echoed.
"What is it?"
"It's a cooling tunnel," Lucilla said. "For the server farm."
She pointed to the writing on the pipe.
[PROPERTY OF THE BOARD. VATICAN MAINLINE.]
"We aren't just under the city," Lucilla said. "We're in the nervous system."
"Does it lead to Rome?" Marcus asked.
"It leads to the surface," Lucilla said. "And to the control node."
"Lead the way," Marcus said.
They began to walk.
Limping. Dripping. Bleeding.
But alive.
The tunnel swallowed them, but this time, they weren't drowning.
They were invading.