Page 43 of Legacy of Chaos

A few? All it would take was one like that, and she’d swear off flying forever. Fortunately, thanks to the Harrowgates, she didn’t have to fly much.

Once the helo was safely on the platform, a big man in a yellow raincoat ran out to greet them. They ducked the rotors and sloshed through rain to the nearest door.

It was warm inside—relatively—and smelled like oil and chemicals. Although there was the faint aroma of something savory coming from the hallway off to the right.

The guy led them through empty halls, Cyan’s shoes making squishing noises on the skid-proof floor until they reached the forward operating center. The room resembled the bridge of a ship, with massive windows overlooking the vast sea. Not that she could see much in the darkness and with the rain pelting the windows.

A couple of people monitored the flashing and softly beeping equipment while a male and a female stood at a table in the center of the room. A 3D set of platform blueprints hung in the air at eye level. On another floating screen, the female was resizing underwater images.

The big male came forward, his hand outstretched. “Stryke. Glad you made it.”

Stryke shook the other male’s hand. “The rest of the team is on the second helo. It should be here in a few minutes.” He pivoted to gesture at Cyan. “This is Cyan, a technomancer on loan from DART. Cyan, this is my foreman, Taran Ross.” He nodded toward the other female. “That is Twila Coppa. She’s in charge of the cameras and imaging equipment.”

Twila gave Cyan a dismissive nod, but Cyan barely noticed; her concentration was focused on one of the underwater images. She drifted toward it, drawn by the glowing symbols barely visible through some sort of dark, floaty stuff.

“How long have those glyphs looked like that?” she asked.

Taran shrugged. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, but those images are about an hour old.”

She tapped her finger on one of the symbols. “I’m looking at those. They’re broken. Some are peeling off whatever that surface is.” She looked closer. A pipe, maybe?

“We aren’t technomancers.” Twila flicked the photo Cyan fingered off to the side and magnified the area Cyan had indicated. “We can’t see what you’re seeing.”

Right. Cyan always forgot that others couldn’t view magic that was as visible to her as printed text was to them. She looked closer at the drill casing and the odd bulge the glyphs were adhered to.

“Can you see the object connected to the drill casing?”

Taran nodded. “That’s a nanomachine injector.”

“A what?”

“It’s new tech,” he said. “It’s doubled oil production at some sites.”

She expanded the image and focused on the spherical casing. “How does it work?”

“The injector drops nanomachines into the well,” Taran explained. “Once they reach the oil, they form vein networks to reach smaller pockets.”

She was glad the injector created an electronics-adjacent surface for the glyphs, but the location didn’t make sense.

“Wouldn’t it be easier to inject the nanomachines from the platform instead of deep underwater?”

Stryke came up behind her and studied the image. “There’s a minimum safe distance requirement. No one wants them to crawl back up the pipe.”

“Crawl up the pipe? And do what?”

“They’re programmed to drill,” he said. “If they aren’t contained, they could start drilling anything full of liquid. Like us.”

That was incredibly disturbing. She side-eyed him. “I’m guessing it’s a StryTech invention?”

“Hardly.” Stryke shot her an offended look. “This tech is an abomination. Demonovation was reckless and irresponsible.”

She could say the same about some of StryTech’s products, but she had more important matters to deal with.

“Okay, well, then what I’m seeing on the casing is broken code. But it’s not just broken.” She frowned at the glowing, twisted outlines. “It’s…rearranged. I don’t understand it. Why would someone do that?”

“You think it was a someone, not a something?” Stryke asked. “Maybe a whale hit it, or a seismic event—”

“It was intentional,” she interrupted, a little annoyed that he’d questioned her. She knew her shit, dammit. And she also knew that now wasn’t the time to get pissy, so, setting her irritation aside, she pointed out the telltale pattern in the images as if he could see it. “Definitely done on purpose. But who could have done it?” She glanced at Taran. “Stryke said you have mages on board?”

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