CHAPTER 15 - RESPITE

Roni squinted as he saw the dull, orangish morning sun when Kayden pushed open the door. No pedestrians were nearby, and the policemen seemed to have vanished, though Roni still didn’t feel like telling what he did to get blackmailed.

"Hmmm, wanna be a guest in our motel room? They won’t think to look there, and you could stay until we figure out what to do," Kayden said.

"Sure. Thank you."

***

Kayden knocked on the door, and Lai opened it, then hastily backed off, a little surprised. "Well, well dhen. Honestly I worried ya’d return, yanno, without someone. Instead, ya came back with an ekstra person!" he chuckled. "Erm. Name’s Lainoujai Kaikuw-ma, but you caaaan just call me Lai," he said, clearly not too sober again.

"Roni. Just Roni," said newcomer tersely stated.

"Yeah," Kayden said.

Everyone changed into indoor clothes, including Roni into his gray shirt, and what followed was a recounting of the events in the basement, including their once-attacker’s identity (with his approval). Lai sat down and listened, resting his muzzle on his hand. Nheka meanwhile, dumped out all the artifacts she had stored in her coat before into the dresser, right as Kayden got to that part of the story, and then laid on the bed and began resting.

Once Kayden was done, Lai said, after fidgeting with one of the artifacts for a brief moment and putting it back, "Honestly? I now reaaaalllly wanna know what happened, Roni. Ibh ya don’t mind."

The man sat down on the bed. "Where do I start? I… well can you promise you won’t sell me out for this, Kayden?"

"Well, if it wasn’t, I dunno, murder or something of that caliber, yeah I won’t. Go ahead."

Roni sighed and started talking. "Well, as you might not know, being a tourist, life as a miner is pretty hard. Yeah we aren’t on 19th century Earth, and there are robots to do it for you, but someone has to be in the mine, overseeing the robots! And it’s a quite hard and dangerous job, what with, you know, having to do all of it underwater in pitch blackness, while giant drill-bots furrow the seabed for veins of that precious iridium. If you wander a meter too close, a current might turn you into a fuckin’ red smoothie at the hands of one of your mindless servants! Anyways, where was I? Oh, yeah. I grew to hate my job. Luckily there was a vacancy on the spaceport, for a security guard job. I quit, and signed up for that one. It… didn’t pay well, so I decided to help random shady travelers smuggle contraband. Random shit like– illegal drugs, banned weapons, hell even got a fire-breath genotype template once. And, well… somehow they found out? They being the ‘Sharkteeth’. Maybe one of the smugglers was one of theirs, dunno. That’s how I got blackmailed for working for them."

"Ah. That makes sense, I don’t judge you," Kayden said. "And I do know, I’m from NA, there’s a mining industry there. My schoolyard friend’s dad worked there. It’s not underwater though. For obvious reasons."

"NA, huh?" Roni said. "I wouldn’t ever want to live there. Too hot, and the sand, you know, gets everywhere. Coarse and rough and... yeah. Not my kind of place."

"Not what I expected but that makes sense. What now?" Lai said as he flopped backwards onto the bed.

"Can you convince Amani to buy him a ticket to, I dunno, Kamohoalii, or Earth, or Mars or Thrive or whatever? Anywhere in the core," Kayden said.

Lai pulled out his datapad and quickly typed something in. "Well he’s two jumps away so, Roni, you’ll have to wait more than 3 days. I’ll compose the message a bit later today."

"I don’t want to go back to my home. They’ll find me there. And going to the cops is not an option. I like not being in jail."

The magenta relmai turned to his white-furred partner, who was apparently, much like Lai was wont to do, too distracted with a game to pay much attention. Following a tap on the shoulder, he took off his headphones, and listened as the situation got explained (in Liamuju).

"So what is it?" Roni asked Lai.

"Well, see, my mate is… moderately rich. Enough spare umecs, he said. He will give enough bhor a bhour-day stay. Or so."

Tiik sat up. "Indeed. What is your acc ID, sir?"

Roni whispered something to Tiik, and soon after the money was transferred. He gladly accepted hugs from both of the relmai. There was silence for a while as they embraced. Roni then broke the hug and sat down on one of the chairs.

Kayden, meanwhile, sat near the window, looking outside. He looked at Roni. "Do you have the original messages they blackmailed you with?"

"Well I probably have them, in my datapad, which I was made to leave in my home. I suppose I could make a quick dash there? But I’m afraid to go alone."

"You don't know your own password or username? You can just login from my pad," Kayden said.

Roni scratched his head. "I knew that relying on 'remember me' would bite me in the ass."

Kayden sighed.

Nheka perked up from the bed, apparently not having been asleep at all, and said "I can accompany you…"

The two left the motel, and Ray, who had been quiet before, said "Do you want to go anywhere else today?"

"Only after Roni comes back and we try and get some clues."

***

Fifteen minutes later, Nheka opened the door. "We got the pad."

Roni held it with a nervous smile on his face, and showed the contents of the message to the group.

From: Ann O’Nymus (throwaway3598393)

To: Roni Väisanen (fracturedillusion_200)

Sent: 28/01/2230

Hello Roni,

Let’s get straight to the point, shall we? We know what you did.

Go down to the basement on Labor Street 35 within the hour and await further orders. If you take the datapad there, or attempt to report us, or no-show, we will out you to the police and/or kill you. So don’t hesitate. ;)

With love,

The Sharkteeth Syndicate

Kayden furrowed his eyebrows as he stood up from the chair he was sitting on. "...what’s up with that name?"

Roni exhaled, almost chuckling. "Wow, I just noticed that. I guess they were trying to bypass the ‘your name has to be a real name’ restriction while being… anonymous."

"Yeah. When I was a kid I used to troll with a variety of fake names but I was a little more imaginative you know? Anyways that’s not much to work with… wait. Enable the detailed timestamps," Kayden said.

Roni turned the datapad back to himself and tapped a few times. "27:30:23, it was indeed late at night, why?"

"Well we could, I dunno, contact the ISP for what kind of traffic went through the web at that time?"

Roni shook his head and sighed. "Do you think they’re idiots? They probably sent the message via Cloaknet. Or at least a proxy. Let’s not waste the ISP’s time. And our time for that matter. Also, they might throw me under the bus."

"Well, then I’m not sure what to do," Kayden said.

"Yeaaaaa," Lai said. "Just stay here, Roni. Don’t poke your nose out, they won’t poke theirs in."

Kayden shrugged. "Right. I guess we did our job. Does anyone wanna go somewhere interesting around the town? Or outside it?"

Compared to earlier that day, there was something of a deeper search into activities. A while passed while Kayden considered the options.

"I know you hate swimming, Lai, but how do you feel about a mini-submarine ride? We’ll be behind layers of nanoglass."

The relmai scratched his head. "Yea that’s bhine. What’s to see there though?"

"There are lots and lots of underwater arches and pelagic mountains and stuff. Even some caves big enough for the sub to fit in," Kayden said.

"I’m down," Lai nodded. "Juuust gonna, ya know, take some stubh that counters my bhear a bit because it’s still a lil bit scary ya know?" He then ate one pill from a pocket of his jumpsuit.

"But how dark will it be?" Tiik said.

"Well I guess since it’s under a huge sheet of ice the sea will be pitch black but here it says the sub has powerful floodlights on it so it won’t be dark."

"Technically, it is ocean not sea," Ray intoned.

"Ocean, sea, swimming pool, what’s the difference, huge body of water. Doesn’t matter," Kayden said. Having grown up on a desert planet, the distinction really couldn’t have had less meaning to him.

Nheka also agreed to go. Roni, of course, decided to stay behind for safety and monetary reasons.

***

Just like before, they chose to walk instead of driving there. A road led out of the town, and at the end of it was a quite large, two-story building with a green roof. This was, apparently, the local equivalent of a marina. The inside was quite dimly-lit, but no less colorful than every other interior on Cocytus. After registering at an automated terminal, the group went into an elevator, to descend below the ice crust into the docking bay.

The elevator was quite large, and nobody else except the five of them was there. The shiny metal walls were striped white, and most noticeably instead of controls there was a screen that showed a little diagram of the crust, with the cab being a red dot with a number next to it counting down exactly how many meters they needed to descend. It rapidly counted down, starting from 153m.

The doors slid open after half a minute, and the group stepped out into the docking bay. It was a brightly-lit narrow room of solid durasteel– carbon-nanotube-infused steel– and a single massive window going down its whole length, made of laminated nanoglass. Outside the window occasionally passed sleek, shiny minisubmarines of various sizes, forms, and colors. People, both passengers in civilian clothes and dockworkers in yellow jumpsuits, walked around. Various information signs hung on the wall.

Kayden walked up to the window and looked outside. Darkness, behind the thick glass. Only a few centimeters stood between the safety of the room and an abyss of icy, pressurized water. He got intrusive thoughts about a hole somehow springing in this protective barrier, and everyone being swept away and crushed under the frigid deluge. Even the cold docking bay suddenly felt cozy, with its toasty -6C air temperature. Kayden unzipped and loosened his winter coat as he walked back to his group.

"If it’ss below zero Celssiuss, why iss the water sstill liquid?"

Kayden at first wanted to laugh at this silly question, but he remembered that Nheka was, after all, from a tropical swamp world and likely only ever saw ice or snow in pictures (or a kitchen freezer), and had no real education in anything related to science at that. "Well you see, it’s saline, which makes it harder to freeze, and it’s being pressurized by the ice crust pushing down on it. Those two factors at once make it stay liquid. Also, the crust acts like kind of… a blanket, a very heavy blanket, and keeps in the heat that radioactive decay creates in the crust."

"Makess ssensse."

"Europa, in Sol, has this kind of situation too but it’s way colder and has fewer radioactives so the crust is kilometers thick. People live there but in the crust. Well, there’s radiation but it’s from the outside, and the crust helps keep it out."

They walked to the minisubmarine they booked, visible through a window in the floor of the dock. It looked a bit like an oversized, lime green manta ray, perhaps the size of a minivan, with a propeller on the back of each fin. Most of its front and sides were taken up by a single, wraparound, bubble-like window that ever-so-slightly bulged out. Four headlights, currently off, were visible: one on each ‘wing’ and two on front, one on the top and one on the bottom. It was accessible via a hatch. The whole vehicle looked less like a submarine and more like what people thought space fighters would look like, before they realized that the harsh realities of space travel would preclude the existence of fighters in reality. And of course, it had no weapons.

The inside was very cramped, and had two rows of soft black faux-leather seats, with bright lights overhead. It smelled oddly of… fruit, for some reason. Outside the window was still the same eerie blackness, but each seat had a screen on its back that would show the sonar readout, if it was currently running.

The ceiling was oddly low, and Kayden guessed that there was a bottom floor where the actual, gritty and industrial engineering and maintenance facilities of the sub were, the top floor being the passenger deck, especially since there was no visible ‘cockpit’ and the front merely had more expensive seats in it. Considering that Tiik was nice enough to register everyone for said area, Kayden and co sat there, with the five seats being nicely arranged in front of the window.

The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

While waiting for the vehicle to fill up, Kayden said to Lai, who was sitting next to him, "I never asked you, do you like this planet? I know Nheka doesn’t too much, heh."

"Weeeelll I thiiink… it’s okay? A lil bit cold ya know? I mentioned how the colors remind me oooof home, dunno ibh ya knooow what I mean. People seem niiice also."

"Oh I do know your culture likes those bright clashing colors. But yeah that makes me think... Why is that? Why does everything you guys design look like the saturation is cranked to a million?"

Lai thought for a moment. "I… well to us ibh something isn’t thoroughly colored, it just looks… gray. Bheels like my soul is getting sucked out looking at most things humies design, when I’m not, ya know."

"Hmm," Kayden pulled out his datapad, not to turn it on but to show the case to Lai. It was a tasteful beige color. "Is this gray?"

"Yea," he squinted.

"Right. So you’re all… colorblind?"

Lai recoiled. "Noooope! Not colorblind! You’re colorblind! You don’t even see the colors tkaw or muqoe!"

"Oh so like those… mantled shrimp on Earth?"

"Mantis shrimp," Ray corrected. "Relmai have 7 types of color receptor cones in eyes, not 3 as humans, resulting in wide array of possible colors. However, this results in fewer receptors per color, sacrificing saturation depth. This means objects they make need to be highly saturated in order to be perceived as colorful. Addendum: mantis shrimp have 9."

"Right. Biology is not my forte."

There was a lengthy wait. Kayden idly tapped his knuckles on the watershield, causing a dull sound to resonate. Right as he was about to grumble about it taking so long, there was a loud clang that startled everyone in the cabin as the vehicle undocked and started moving, with a steady hum of the propellers. The headlights activated, casting four parallel cones of light into the blackness of the subglacial ocean. Little bits of detritus were lit up by the four headlights, resembling a starfield effect, like in antique science fiction, as they swept past the watershield. The sub gently tilted as it began its descent, and Kayden could feel himself involuntarily leaning forward. At the same time, in the absence of seat backs to mount sonar output screens on, five small HUDs flickered into view in front of each premium seat, positioned in such a way as to not obstruct the view for anyone sitting behind them. After the first, echoing ping, each HUD showed the landscape below, as a tilted wireframe-grid blue landscape. It was actually quite flat, but punctuated with odd sinkholes and underwater canyons. It gradually closed in, until the sub was actually quite near the seafloor. It was perhaps another 150 meters or so– unlike many other subglacial oceans, this one was very shallow. The headlights illuminated the silty ground, casting shadows behind every bump or jutting-out fragment of rock. The pings resonated every ten seconds, providing something of a soundtrack to the experience.

According to the map that appeared next to the HUDs, the next interesting destination, a series of natural underwater arches, would take a few minutes to reach. Nheka was looking intently into the distance, occasionally glancing onto the display. "Why doess it even have sse lights if it hass a ssonar?"

"Well, I guess the sonar has a low frequency and doesn’t catch smaller obstacles. Or as a backup for if it malfunctions. Also so we have things to look at, because this is a civvie tour. Actually, where’d the sub even come from, I doubt there’s a big enough market for them to be produced just for people to take rides on?"

Ray chimed in. "From integrated database: There are many minisubmarines used on Cocytus for ferrying people, goods between mining stations. Older-generation subs or excess ones left from downsizing get sold to private individuals or organizations as this one, and renovated. Hence, leather seats, not bare metal."

"Right, thanks," Kayden kept looking at Nheka. "I’m surprised you’re so… unfazed by this. I feel kinda weird, I mean I only know what to expect because I remember things like this from Simulacrum and other games."

"On Akeruh, we have ssome regionss where the sswamp iss hundredss of meterss deep, and the ssurface iss fully covered with layerss of tough vegetation… roadss would ssink or be overgrown, cutting tunnelss would ressult in them clossing back up… the only solution? Go under, in boatss called, how do I transslate it, muckswimmers, looking like thesse ssubmariness but sslightly larger…"

"Why don’t you guys just… drain those swamps? Or I dunno, pave over the whole thing?"

Nheka looked right into his eyes and while he couldn’t quite read her expression, he could tell that his chohjozra friend was very exasperated. "Oh, I remember, you humans nearly turned your planet into a wassteland. Becausse that’s how you do just that. Nature inconveniencess you? Pave it over! Alsso, ssome of our godss live there, we don’t want to anger them…"

"Well… okay I concede that was a dumb idea. Sorry."

"We revere and resspect nature… I, mysself, often spent hours outsside, halfway-submerged in the mud, jusst relaxing, my mind empty…" She said, turning back to look at the HUD.

"I can’t even imagine how that would smell."

"Fine, actually, we have sshowers, you know?"

"Heh. It’s kind of interesting how so many species’ tools are the same everywhere? I dunno, fridges, forks, airplanes are recognizable as those things even lightyears away. And that to me is… deep? I dunno how to explain it."

"That is because fundamental laws of physics are universal, and thus the optimal tool shape gravitates towards one form. A refrigerator must be a large box to function, you uncan improve a fork, and optimal airfoil shape and arrangement for given atmospheres can be easily calculated." Ray said.

"Mm. I don’t really get the culture of a lot of places however. And I don’t think I ever will. But you know, it could have been way more incomprehensible… or way less." Kayden paused and said to Lai. "This reminds me, remember when we binged those old ‘sci-fi’ shows from like, even pre-Age of Protests? Like, a few decades prior. Hilarious how people imagined our time would be like. And what aliens would be like," he said, tracking with his eyes an oddly-shaped rock on the seafloor.

"Eeeeh, id’s bhine. They didn’t have current super simple CGI. Stubh that you could make on your computer and a bhew bhriends in about, maybe a bhew months bhor free, actually cost years and millions of umecs to make. Aliens that look like humies with some makeup on made sense then."

"Dollars. They didn’t have umecs then. But yeah. A lot of the stuff from that time is kinda… vapid. Especially Age Of Protests stuff from a bit later. They spent those millions on flashy graphics, that were the hot shit at the time, while the story was, I dunno, not more complicated than ‘team of heroes defeats villain’. No ambiguity. No deep philosophy or morality. Just explosions and fight scenes. All to turn millions into billions," Kayden leaned back on the seat.

"Bhlashiness has to, yanno, have a purpose to it, yanno?"

"That is wild coming from you. Or any relmai."

"Eeeeh, ya don’t understand, do ya? Bhor us, it is more a way to express ourselves. So lemme explain. Ya know the lifestyle in our empire? And in enclaves? Ya know, the day-long parties with hundreds of people, where all the lights constantly strobe in rainbow colors and yaijiekuo is blasted from speakers everywhere at bhak who knows how many decibels and there is glitter sprayed everywhere? And everyone is hopped up on a cocktail obh hard drugs? Ya know, the kind of party that would probably kill a humie on the spot bhrom sensory overload."

"What about them?"

"Do ya think we’re doing it to show obh? To impress others like mouluwto birds show their plumes to their mates? No no no nope nope nooope. Every one of us has their… I dunno how to translate to English... style? Unique way of expressing themselbh. We do it bhor ourselves because it makes us happy, not bhor some vapid clout. That is the purpose of our bhlashiness," Lai explained while his partner gave a thumbs up from across the row of seats.

"Ah. I… I’ll admit, I honestly didn’t know that," Kayden said.

"Now you do."

"Well now I wanna ask a question. We talked on Alacrity about how you coped with your awful planet that way. But like. How did your, sorry if this is too harsh, constant debauchery, not prevent the relmai from reaching space? Much less becoming basically the de-facto Alliance leaders?"

Lai laughed and loudly slapped his knee. "Ya think our essential people are conked out their whole liveeees?! We keep our scientists, engineers, businesspeople, starship crews, off the hallucinogens while on duty. Instead they get more euphorics. Happy people work smarter and harder! Before we automated menial labor away almost completely, that also applied to workers. And obh duty, well, such things can open up your mind and help make breakthroughs, yanno?" he said, while Tiik nodded along.

"...makes sense. And you have a point."

Nheka, who had gone quiet for a while, said "You have bussinesspeople? I thought you had sstate control of the economy like uss…"

"Nah. We have huge corporations… ish. Like humies do. But unlike humies we don’t really regulate them, BUT! They’re owned by dheir workers, so dhere’s no incentive to exploit people because it would be bhaking yourself over, ya see? We have no major CEOs on top."

"And how’d you come to that system?" Kayden said. "Some kind of revolution?"

"Naaaaah. Id was always that way. Everyone got a say in any kinda organization. Like, bhrom before we were even civilized."

"Ah. You didn’t have petty tyrants and dictators? We had those until– fuck if I know. Mid-late twenty-first century? Took us that much to get our shit together, as a species. If only it was even a bit earlier."

"Not reaaaalllyyy."

"Lucky. Oh look–" Kayden pointed to the HUD. An entire series of arches, each larger than the other, begun to be visible on the virtual horizon, though they were still invisible in physicality. The submarine rapidly ascended, pressing everyone into their seats– not from speed but from the tilt– before descending again, gaining speed far above its usual limit. Soon, everyone could see the arches go past the vehicle, illuminated by the headlights, as it tilted repeatedly from side to side while careening forward at a blazing speed. The previously tranquil ride turned into something that reminded Kayden of that damn snowmobile, and this time if they crashed everyone would definitely die. Whimpers of anxiety could be heard from the back seats, but were drowned out by shouts of excitement.

"Is everyone on this planet some kind of daredevil?" Kayden whispered to Nheka.

"Sseemss like it," she said more loudly.

The vessel swerved and swayed, passing through the middle of each arch like a thread through a needle’s eye, with as much grace and finesse that could be accomplished in water. Soon, it passed through the last arch, tilted at a 45-degree angle, and slowed down.

"This was… certainly something," Kayden said, looking at his datapad. "Next up is… actually, the ruins of a mining station that was abandoned because the iridium nodule ran out," Kayden said. "They didn’t demolish it and just left it sitting there. Because why the hell not, I guess?"

It wasn’t that far, it didn’t even take a minute for it to show up on the sonar readout. A clump of hemispherical, dome-like buildings, connected by half-pipe-shaped corridors. Not much else was visible via sonar and it all looked a bit ‘melted’.

Up close it certainly didn’t look melted at all, though still dilapidated, its decay exacerbated by immersion in saltwater. As the four light-cones illuminated the base, its true state of disrepair became apparent: gaping, jagged holes in the domes, with glimpses of furniture visible inside; small towers composed of a rebar framework, many of them rusted and fallen over; and finally the mine entrance, a gaping, rectangular chasm going down into the ground at a roughly 60-degree angle.

The craft dove down and lowered itself to the ground, which was flatter than the natural seafloor, almost skidding over it with its belly. Kayden pressed himself into the seat out of anxiety as it ran several circles around the largest tower, tilted thirty degrees.

"Well I bet the crew are having fun doing this," he thought.

As soon as this was over and the minisub leaned upwards to exit the abandoned mining station’s boundaries, Tiik turned his head to look at the rest of the group and said "Oooh I now know what this and the mobile reminded me obh. The Black Fang Republic. I’ve been to one obh their planet capitals, Stonemountain, capital of Bloodmace, bhor business waaaay back, and let me tell you. Those wolf-people are insaaaaane."

"I dunno much about them," Kayden said, "Only the secession stuff but we learned that in school. Tell me more."

"So, and this is important to understand what I will say next: they are all extremely bio-augmented and cyber-augmented. Sorta like Laterals, but only based on Eardh canines. Wolves, usually. Some are, erm, Gilded Receivers–"

"You probably mean Golden Retrievers," Kayden interrupted, turning away from the watershield, which now again showed only the usual ‘starfield’ amid blackness.

"Yea. Dunno about human dog breeds. Was not my point. So they’re like… hulking masses of fur, muscle, and metal. Some several heads taller than ya and me. And they’re absolutely obsessed with, well, being rough. Their culture is basically based around constantly reveling in their own kinda fun that is very dibherent from our kinda fun, if that makes sense?"

"‘Dibherent’ how?" Kayden briefly imitated Tiik’s accent as he leaned further back.

"They live bhor, dunno how to put it, viscerality. They love violence, often against inanimate objects or simply enjoying things with a violent vibe. Which brings me do what I wanted to say. Their sports are like, a buncha Canids on motorcycles trying to throw a ball through a gate while shooting at each other– but they have bulletproof fur and the guns are pellet guns so it’s okay. Or sliding down a steep mountain on skis with rockets strapped to them, which the mobile reminded me obh. Or racing through deep sea trenches in subs while dodging obstacles, at least they don’t shoot each other there. Which dhis ride bheels like. But obh course both of this is much tamer."

"Yikes."

"I know right? My business associate took me on a small tour of Stonemountain, and in the arena which had that motorcycle-ball game, by the end obh the match the field looked like a warzone. When one obh the players ran into and knocked down all three goalposts in quick succession, dhe stands bhaking exploded with laughter. One guy lost a leg, as in it was detached, because he bhell obh a bike and got it ran over but it was a cyber-leg so he got it replaced soon abhter, or so I heard. Was nonchalant about it."

"Did anyone die?" Kayden asked as his eyes widened.

"Nah. I mean I’m sure ibh they were humans, or just normal doggie genemods, one round obh their sports would result in half the athletes dead or crippled bhor life. But as it is it’s mostly flesh wounds at most bhor them. If that. Again they revel in that."

"You said they’re like Laterals, don’t they have like, i-BCIs and meshes and stuff, aren’t they smarter than that?"

"Yea you see, ibh they weren’t smart, they’d die in droves regardless. They just use dheir smarts to bhigure out ways to get themselves into danger without actually getting killed. Very bhew obh them have any real interest in things humans, or even us relmai, consider intellectual. They don’t think like humans anymore and haven’t for generations."

"So they’re basically aliens of human origin."

"Yea, exactly!"

"Makes sense. Never met one. They’re like, on the other end of the Fed."

When Kayden again looked forwards… the vessel was entering a cave system, swiftly entering the gaping mouth of the entrance. It was very wide, much broader than the sub’s wingspan, and very gently tilted. He looked at Ray puzzledly, awaiting an answer.

"Large volcanic activity of Cocytus results in thousands of kilometers of lava tubes. Most lava tubes deep underground, but some, thanks to erosion, exposed to sea."

"...are you sure we won’t be swept away by a sudden lava flow?"

Ray would probably have laughed if they weren’t an emotionless near-robot, because Lai sure did. "Nonsensical question. First, lava cannot spread through water. Second, according to my database, volcano responsible for this tube system is dormant."

"I’m an idiot okay?" Kayden said as he looked out of the watershield. The four headlights illuminated the rocky, solid, slightly curving floor of the tube. The ceiling wasn’t lit up. The sonar was showing that they were, indeed, in a tube that slightly resembled an intestine.

Suddenly, a voice resonated over the as-of-yet-silent PA system. "Please do not take off the seatbelts except in an emergency."

"...what seatbelts?" Kayden said. "There are no–"

From previously-invisible slots on the sides of the seats, pairs of black rubbery seatbelts swiftly extended and clicked in, restraining everyone. There was a red button where they crossed, but Kayden heeded the warning and didn’t press it.

"What is this for, we didn’t need them–"

The sub suddenly took a nearly 90-degree plunge downwards, deeper into the tube. Kayden’s heart skipped a beat as it continued to accelerate downwards, and he could hear the water flow against its hydrodynamic surface as he– and the other passengers– were only prevented from falling forwards by the seatbelts. This seemed to last for a long time, but in reality it wasn’t even a minute until the vessel’s trajectory straightened out and then went upwards as it passed what appeared to be a gentle U-turn. Much of its momentum was preserved, and it only slightly decelerated as it flew out of the cave system… and then kept pulling up. Soon everyone was upside down for a few seconds until the submarine rotated 180 degrees, now facing the right side up.

"This was… something…" Kayden said, and immediately after that the vessel did two more quick radial spins before the belts clicked again as they retracted.

"Yep. Certainly something. So now I assume is the long and boring return trip?"

"False. We are near dock as we made a turn at the mining station."

"My directional senses aren’t too good."

"It is easier when you have compass overlaid over vision, along other information."

The sub indeed returned soon, and the group clambered out, amid the rest of the passengers.

"I liked this. What now?" Kayden said as the elevator moved up. "Actually… Actually I’m hungry. Wonder what the food here is like."