Abigail was startled as the huge, gleaming white sphere slowly emerged from the twilight, bolted to four thick steel masts on the nearest plateau peak. The spherical shape might have caused some complications with the interior, but it was perfect for distributing pressure throughout the structure. Its surface consisted of hundreds of hexagonal plates arranged in a row, which had to be covered with a special dirt-repellent coating. Despite all the mental preparation for this moment, the sight of a man-made structure in the depths of the ocean was not something one could really prepare for. It looked like a futuristic temple of a long lost civilization. The programmer looked left and right at her comrades, who were swimming unperturbed toward the base, and then increased her speed to catch up. The distance to the submarine was calculated so that the agents could cover the distance to their destination in about ten minutes without much effort. The oxygen tank, optimized for great depths, allowed a total dive time of 40 minutes to give them enough buffer. Forcing herself to calm down, Abigail again focused solely on the monotonous paddling movements of her legs, bringing her closer to the bottom as the air bubbles trickled upward from her mouthpiece. It was almost over, they would soon reach the plateau. Faint headlights were visible on the left side of the base. According to Yanny's information, this must be the docking point for the PFN submarines that regularly resupplied the base. Most likely, external cameras were also installed here, so they should stay away from this side and head straight for the underside of the sphere.
As Abigail did the same as the other two, slowly descending further and turning slightly to the right, she looked down briefly into the seemingly endless black abyss, into which not a single ray of light had fallen since the seas began to exist. For a moment, she felt as if she had seen something there, as if something had moved. As if something had passed far below her at great speed. Something gray, as big as a man, maybe bigger. She suddenly became strangely calm. That wasn't possible, was it? She hadn't really seen it. Her eyes were playing tricks on her, and that wasn't surprising. She didn't have much experience in diving, but the whole situation and the unaccustomed pressure on her body down here could well lead to hallucinations. Had the other two seen it too? She glanced back at Harry and Yuri. No, neither of them seemed to have noticed anything. Then a cold shiver ran down her spine as she noticed another movement out of the corner of her eye. All right, maybe there were fish at this depth that hadn't been discovered yet? A small whale that had swum too deep in pursuit of an octopus? Just don't think about it anymore.
Her feet sank onto the plateau and directly into a layer of dead algae and decaying excrement that was slowly being carried in all directions by the weak current. The base's excrement had been there for some time. As the dark green cloud of swirling particles rose to her waist, Abigail was so disgusted that she forgot about the movements she had just seen in the valley. Yuri pushed off and swam to the circular opening of the base, which was exactly as described on its underside. When he reached the entrance, he activated his lamp to light his way. He crawled up, carefully pressing his arms and knees against the inside of the narrow tube, one hand-width at a time. When Yuri was out of sight, Harry motioned for Abigail to climb in as well. She gave a thumbs up and pushed herself off the plateau, hovering after Yuri and following him into the sewer. When she was close behind him, she could hear a low, monotonous humming. This was obviously the level of the engine room. Unlike the outer shell of the sphere, the inside of the tube was certainly covered in residue, the origin of which she preferred not to think about. Still, she could clearly feel the slimy layers through her gloves and shivered. Unfortunately, the tube was too narrow to swim in. So there was no other option, they had to crawl their way up. When Abigail had crawled far enough, Harry followed underneath her. They went up a few more meters until Yuri finally stopped. He had obviously reached the outlet. It took him a few moments to get into a suitable position and then to push the flap above him upwards. It bubbled heavily over Abigail, who knew how much the giant was struggling up there. All that effort without being able to breathe properly. There was a crack, then something shattered. A sound like a tracked vehicle driving over a glass bottle, then another crack. Metal particles trickled down on Abigail, followed by a brown cloud of diluted excrement. Her body was petrified and she wished she could have just screamed. It wasn't until Harry tapped her ankle from below that her shock eased. She looked up. Yuri was nowhere to be seen, but the cone of light from his lamp kept reappearing in the tube. Once again he seemed to be breaking something up there. Abigail pushed herself further up and landed in a clear plastic tank that was only half full of water. You could easily stand in it. It was filled with excrement from all the toilets in the base. When they had liquefied enough in the tank, which was always kept at a certain level of seawater for this purpose, they were flushed out into the ocean. While Abigail briefly helped Harry climb up, Yuri was already pounding the wall of the tank with powerful hammer blows, splintering off a few larger pieces. He still had his goggles and mouthpiece on, and for good reason. Although the water in the tank was no longer too dirty due to the unscheduled flush, he didn't want to inhale the stench of this container. After Yuri made a good hole with his hammer, he used his hands to break out a few more pieces. Then he wiggled through and climbed up, now standing on top of the tank. His hand appeared in the opening and he pulled his comrades towards him one by one. Only now did they remove their diving gear as quickly as possible. From now on they would walk barefoot and only in their skin-tight wetsuits.
"I'm sorry about sewage on your head," Yuri said, smiling and nodding to Abigail, who still hadn't said a word and was stoically performing one maneuver after another on her pneumatic cylinder.
"It's okay... I knew what was coming," she replied ruefully. "Besides, we'll probably have to leave the base the same way. Hopefully it will be less disgusting. Fortunately, most of this stuff is already out. Oh God, I wish I could take a shower now..." Yuri squeezed the water out of his beard and patted her shoulder.
"Don't worry about it. With a dear colleague like you, I'm happy to be flushed through any toilet," he replied, trying to sound encouraging. Abigail grunted in annoyance and pulled her gun from her waterproof bag. He obviously hadn't found the right words.
"Come on now!" Harry hissed. "We've got a lot of work to do before we can flush the toilet." Then he marched straight to the only door, opened it a crack and peered through. He hadn't expected it to be locked. Who would seriously expect to get in through the drain in the middle of the ocean? The other two followed. Harry looked down a brightly lit, curved corridor and had to blink a few times to adjust to the light. The twilight had been ideal for his light sensitive red eyes. Now he had to adapt quickly. The spherical design of the outer shell continued inside. No one could be heard, so he opened the door wide enough to walk through and proceeded without a second thought. They had no floor plan of the base and no idea where the control unit for Lazarus was located. One direction was as good as another. With a quick glance, Abigail checked the screen on her arm. Yanny still showed no injuries, which was a good sign. The next door appeared on their left, with a sign above it in Cyrillic letters. Harry marched towards it without slowing down, even though he couldn't read what it said.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
"Briefing room," Yuri called to him, who until now had kept his attention to the rear in case of any unwanted surprises. Once again, they had taken Abigail with them as they moved forward; it was the same tactic they had used in the subway tunnels.
"Good," Harry confirmed curtly, pulling the door open and hurrying inside. Abigail took a sharp breath and bit her lower lip. She had never seen Harry act so recklessly. If she hadn't known better, she would have thought he was out to get himself killed as quickly as possible. The room Harry stormed into was surprisingly large. In the middle was a C-shaped table with about ten chairs, next to an overhead projector in front of a white screen. The first thing he noticed was a woman in a blue jumpsuit with military insignia. She was sorting through a stack of printed transparencies next to the projector in preparation for a presentation. She stopped for a moment and looked toward the entrance, then said something in Russian. Her expression quickly changed from perplexed to panicked. Harry was about to run towards her to cover her mouth and prevent her from alerting others when a soldier suddenly appeared to his left, also wearing one of those uniforms. When he saw Harry, his hand immediately went to the pistol in the holster on his right thigh. Harry, however, had drawn his wakizashi much faster and sliced through the soldier's neck with a lightning fast, fluid upward motion. As the soldier staggered backwards, his eyes widening in horror as he clasped his hands to his bleeding throat, Harry jumped onto the table, made another leap towards the woman, and with a third leap landed directly on top of her. Abigail and Yuri, who had just entered the room, saw Harry lunge at her and pull her with him, landing them both on the floor next to the projector. A muffled squeak was heard. Yuri stomped over to the gurgling soldier, who was still trying desperately to keep his neck wound closed and was now staggering around in the middle of the curved table. Harry's cut would be fatal in the long run, but due to the short distance it had probably been made with too little force and therefore was not very deep. The giant lashed out, striking the soldier in the face, knocking him off his feet and sending him crashing into the table, where he collapsed and lay motionless. Abigail quickly averted her eyes and closed the door behind them to leak as little noise as possible out into the hallway. Her cheeks glowed with excitement and adrenaline as she drew her Colt, ready in case this room was stormed.
Yuri ran past the table to Harry, who had pinned the woman to the ground. With one hand, the street samurai covered her mouth to keep her from screaming, while with the other, he pressed the blade of his short sword against her throat. She whimpered, her eyes wide open and sweating in agony, not daring to move a single centimeter. Yuri stomped closer and stood directly over her head. A closer look at her uniform told him that they were not part of a special unit. They were regular Marines, trained as submarine crews to be exact. This was their chance. Regular soldiers were usually not brainwashed in the same way as the special forces of the PFN. It would have been impossible to get any information from them, because they were ready to die if necessary, just to avoid giving away any secrets. Yuri smiled softly, drew his tool hammer from his belt, and addressed her in Russian.
"Now listen carefully, Ensign: we are here to get to the control unit of Project Lazarus. On the way there, we will kill anyone who opposes us. No matter who, no matter how many. If necessary, we will kill everyone on this base. Do you understand? We will not let any of you live. We know what you're up to, we know what your prototype is supposed to be doing in Elysium, and we know what the goal of this operation is. So there's no point in denying anything. If my colleague takes his hand off your mouth right now, the first and only thing you will say is which way we have to go to get to the control unit. If I hear anything else, you will be the next to ascend into eternity. Do I make myself clear?" Yuri turned the hammer in his hand to add a particularly cruel note to his calmly spoken words. The woman whimpered in fear and nodded as much as she could under Harry's pressure.
"What now? What did you tell her?" he asked.
"Just truth. Now take hand off mouth, lady gives us directions," Yuri replied calmly. Harry slowly removed his hand from her mouth and she immediately began to speak at a low volume, stuttering uncontrollably due to the intimidation. All color had drained from her face.
"You need to follow the corridor outside until you come to a staircase and then up to the top floor. As far as I know, you have to go straight across the bridge to get to this control unit. There is no other access for security reasons," she said, shaking with fear.
"Security measures?" Yuri asked.
"There... there aren't that many soldiers here since they brought the Meteor Drinker to our base. They said it would be enough to protect us..." she hurried to answer, sweating even more as she realized how absurd this explanation must sound.
"The... what?" Yuri asked, raising his eyebrows. He felt sorry for her, but if he hesitated or showed weakness for even a moment now, it could jeopardize the entire mission.
"Please... I don't know what this is all about. They brought the man to the base a few weeks ago and then straight to the lab, kept him there for a long time. A muscular blond wearing a black uniform. I don't know, he seems completely normal and eats with us in the cafeteria. But he always has appointments in the lab and sometimes stays there for days without us seeing him. Once we heard the name *Meteor Drinker* in passing from the scientists. He only introduced himself as Tichon. I really don't know anything more, please believe me. I don't know why he would be so dangerous and replace twenty guards all by himself," she whimpered. Yuri nodded slowly.
"You can let her go," he said to Harry, who immediately complied. The woman lay there, not daring to move. Something was wrong here. Another unknown quantity in this mission that was already more than risky.
"What happens now, what did she say?" Harry urged.
"I'll tell you on the way. This time big shit not coming, but already here on base," growled Yuri.