Chapter 32 #2
“Kevin response time from western boundary to bay?”
Maren runs the projection. “If he commits to the false line, two minutes twenty back to bay at current speed. Less if he chooses a direct low route.”
Dutch says, “So we don’t need him interested. We need him committed.”
“Yes.”
“Can you make him commit?”
Maren looks at the boundary grid. For the first time since she entered the room, I see fear reach the surface with no polite clothing over it.
“I can make it look real,” she says.
Holden closes the tablet slowly. “If this releases him, topside needs to know before we launch.”
Maren looks at him. So does Dutch. So do I.
“Not as a verdict,” he says. “As warning. If we survive and he breaches into open ocean, the first official record can’t be the surface learning afterward.”
“Then tell them,” Maren says.
He nods and starts a new message.
Maren turns to me. “Pod?” Her eyes hold mine. “How sure are you?”
Sure enough.
The phrase waits in my mouth, familiar and poisonous. Last time, sure enough carried seventeen people onto a span that should have held.
The emergency pod blinks amber behind us.
“Sure enough,” I say.
Her eyes soften. She steps closer and puts her hand over mine on the console.
In front of Dutch. In front of Holden.
In front of Lina, who’s definitely going to pretend not to understand and then understand everything.
Maren’s palm is warm over my hand. “I’m trusting you,” she says.
My throat tightens. “That is a terrible thing to say to an engineer.”
“I know.”
Dutch looks at the pod schematic. “I’m taking the floor position.”
“No,” Maren says.
“Yes.”
“Dutch.”
He points at the diagram. “Twelve seats. Thirteen people. Someone rides without a seat. I’m the largest problem and the easiest to wedge.”
“That’s not how safety works.”
“It’s exactly how unsafe safety works.”
“I can take the floor position,” Holden says.
Dutch doesn’t look at him. “You have a leg injury and less mass to brace a secondary impact.”
“We’re not deciding floor positions until the pod is loaded,” Maren says.
Dutch looks at her. She looks back.
He nods once. A tactical retreat.
I mark the seating unresolved, but unresolved is a lie I’m letting the screen tell.
There are thirteen people and twelve seats and a single point that has to hold the others, and I’ve spent my whole life learning what happens to single points.
Dutch volunteered for it the way I’d volunteer for it, the way Holden would, the way Maren already has in a hundred small ways tonight.
The unit’s strength is that any of us would be the thirteenth. The unit’s curse is the same sentence.
Lina stands, steadier now. “I’ll brief the survivors on the loading plan.”
“Keep it simple,” Dutch says. “No one gets the boundary bait details.”
“They’ll see the lights,” she says.
“Then tell them we’re creating a launch window.”
“That’s almost true,” Maren says.
Lina’s mouth twitches. “We’ve returned to almost true. How nostalgic.”
“Careful,” Maren says. “I’m emotionally attached to truth now.”
“Growth is inconvenient.”
Lina’s mouth starts to make the old shape.
The dry line, the deflection she and Tom used to volley across the bar.
It doesn’t finish. There’s no one to throw it to now.
“I’ll tell them we’re creating a launch window,” she says instead, and leaves before the silence where his answer used to go can fill.
Holden sends the topside warning. I see his thumb hover before the final transmission.
Somewhere above us, people will read the sentence: potential containment compromise to open-ocean systems if false weakness fails.
They won’t know how small this room feels. How tired Maren looks. How Dutch is bleeding through a new bandage and pretending he’s not. How Holden’s jaw has locked around every judgment he’s choosing not to make.
How my hand is under Maren’s and I’m saying sure enough to another structure that may carry people or become the place they die.
I start the final checklist. Then I strip nonessential storage from the pod manifest. Remove sample lockers. Remove comfort restraints. Remove two tool packs. Keep first aid. Keep emergency oxygen. Keep locator beacon. Keep manual ballast override.
The pod gets lighter.
Dutch builds the boarding order on another screen. Wounded first, then lowest mobility, then essential operators, then remaining. He doesn’t put his own name anywhere.
Maren notices. “Dutch.”
“I know where I go.”
They look at each other for three seconds. Then she lets it go because love inside a crisis often means choosing which argument survives to become dinner.
Holden moves beside her. “Topside acknowledges. They’re sending support, but weather and fauna risk delay any descent.”
“Which means we assume we’re alone,” Dutch says.
“Yes,” Holden says.
Maren nods. “We are good at that.”
I load the false boundary sequence onto the main display. If it works, Kevin leaves the bay. If it fails, Kevin learns we can weaken the wall.
If it works too well, Kevin may learn where the wall can be made weak.
Every outcome has fangs.
Maren reads the sequence once. Twice. Then she looks at all of us.
There are only thirteen people left below, but in this room are the four pressure points of the plan.
Her knowledge. My repair. Dutch’s timing. Holden’s witness.
Maren looks at me.
I hold her gaze. “Sure enough,” I say again.
Maren turns to the boundary controls. Her hand hovers over the authorization field.
The false weakness blinks on the map, soft and red and waiting to become real.
She enters her director code.
The system asks for confirmation.
I watch her hand hover, and I know she’s doing the thing I do, counting.
The ones the count gave back and the ones it didn’t.
Tom, who’d have made a joke about the confirm button.
The four unknowns. The ones the reef took so the pod math would almost work.
She’s about to gamble the thirteen against a wall she has to weaken to save them, and every name that isn’t answering tonight is pressing on that key with her.
Outside the bay, in the dark, Kevin waits.
Maren presses confirm.