Deep in the chasm where the work crews were toiling away, the workforce began to notice a strange phenomenon. Some sort of a pulsing was occurring on the sea floor. It almost sounded, and felt, like a hundred drums being struck at once. Rhythmic, and tribal. Like something out of an old war story, the way soldiers once marched across solid ground. After a time, the beating of the drums grew faster, and intensified, to the point where it sounded like a herd of beasts might sound. And then faster, and more intensely still, such that it began to feel like the sea floor was in motion, rocking back and forth, like some kind of a tremor.

  Then that tremor began to intensify. Workers atop the sea floor found it difficult to maintain their footing, and the sand was shimmering and bouncing off the rock like some crazy dust-dance. A few of the mermen lost their footing and went floating upward, hand-held equipment falling away or floating upward, depending on buoyancy.

  The machinery, too, was growing agitated in the rocking, shaking ground upon which they were stripping the rocks apart. Seeming to bounce along the surface, they weren’t heavy enough to stay put under the agitation of a thousand jostles, and as they shimmied out of place, the line between finished and unfinished operations began to blur. An entire day’s work had been wasted, and things were going from bad to worse.

  The foreman triggered a haptic alert, a short-burst S.O.S. quality vibration throughout the crews uniform worksuits—an urgent, universal sign to cease all ops and evacuate. His wrist beacon pulsed red, flashing an emergency halt command to every worker’s visor display for redundancy.

  The workers abandoned their stations, some kicking upward for safety, others grabbing whatever handholds they could find on the jagged chasm walls. Those who reached the walls pressed themselves against the rock, struggling to keep from being peeled away by the erratic motion of the rocks they clung to.

  Below, a few workers made a desperate effort to secure the machinery, fumbling with stabilizing clamps and weight anchors. But it was useless. The vibrations caused the machines to sway like some tidal kelp forest, their metal frames groaning under the unnatural strain. The sea floor wrenched them apart, meter by meter, until one of the largest rigs finally gave way—tipping, belching out a cloud of toxic sludge before vanishing into the lower chasm.

  “Forget the equipment! Up, NOW!” The foreman’s voice crackled through their shortwave comms, his urgency cutting through the confused chatter.

  No one needed to be told twice. The workmen who had tried to save the machines abandoned their efforts and swam upward, panting through their regulators. Others, already clinging to the walls, stared in horror as the rock that supported them fractured—methodically, as if something beneath the surface was choosing its targets.

  The first crack of the rockface came some six minutes into the shaking. The rock split right down the middle, with a machine resting right on top of it. Then the shaking intensified, machine-like itself, incessant—the rock split farther and farther apart, until it went from inches, to feet, to a fathom across. When it was large enough, the machine atop the new crevasse tipped, belched a sickening black blob of fuel-laden ooze, then slid down into the seabed, all but disappearing amid the shaking rocks.

  All around the area, the rocks were beginning to split. And where machines sat, the damage was all but done. A few workers made desperate dives for the sinking rigs, their hands stretching for the control panels, but the angry sea floor tore at the metal and sent fire and sparks shooting out, forcing them to give up.

  “This can’t be coincidence,” the foreman breathed over the audio as the first giant rig collapsed. The rocks weren’t cracking just anywhere, but only under the machines and around the technoquatics themselves. And the tremors were shifting somehow, in methodical fashion, from machine to machine, until every piece of equipment had sunk or was fatally damaged. It wasn’t random—the machines were deliberately targeted somehow.

  * * *

  “They’ve started in!” Mayor Danelia announced, a bloodthirsty edge to her tone. “It’s war they want? They’re destroying our construction site!”

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  “If that’s so,” Orwen said, “they won’t stop there. They’ll press on until they’ve taken the city.”

  “Oh, really Orwen? You think so, do you? Where were you when we started all this? Oh, mayor, they’ll just slink out to sea. Oh mayor, they don’t pose any danger. Oh mayor, let’s just take those resources they’re so idiotically sitting on.”

  Orwen held his tongue. The rest of her advisors were smart enough to leave their opinions unspoken as well.

  The mayor turned to her personal secretary. “Alert the aquasentinels. I need them ready to defend, especially the full-gills. These savages are going to have to stay underwater. We can use that to our advantage. They won’t be able to take their fight to the streets, but we can move either way. Have the full-gills outfitted with stun weapons as well as lethals. City charter says we can’t kill unless they attack first, but there’s nothing in the rule book that says we can’t stun the bastards into the Marianas trench if they set foot on our territory.”

  “Madam Mayor,” Orwen said, “there are peace charters to consider. We could attempt a dialogue…”

  “You mean like the dialogue they engaged with our construction crew? The dialogue about destroying all our equipment? That dialogue?”

  “They obviously felt threatened. Perhaps if we—”

  “Enough, Orwen. If they wanted dialogue, they wouldn't have attacked first. We drive them back, then we talk terms.” She turned sharply to her staff “Get me the chief of the aquasentinels, now!”

  * * *

  It wasn’t difficult for Ms. Terri and Khrystal to make their way out of the city. The majority of citizens seemed to be in some great panic to move in, as if there were some great danger they were escaping from.

  Judging from the shouted warnings and fearful rantings, there was some sort of an event out to sea that had destroyed a construction zone. “An earthquake!” one person said.

  ‘Can’t be’, replied another, “or we’d have felt it.”

  “Mudslide, then”, said the first. “And maybe more on the way!”

  “It’s them,” whispered Khrystal, careful not to whip up the people around them, “they’re coming for Kyle now.”

  “How do you know that?” Ms. Terri asked. She was still unsure about whether trusting Khrystal’s judgement was a good idea.

  “I guess it’s because of the time we spent with them? It seems like I can still hear them. Can’t you?”

  Ms. Terri shrugged.

  “Well, I don’t know then. I just can. It’s weird.”

  As they continued their way toward the city gates, the panic seemed to intensify, though there was no sign of trouble the further along they went. When they were very nearly to the gate, Marla appeared, out of breath but looking pleased to see them.

  “What brings you out here?” she asked, “thought you’d be hunkered down at the school.”

  “Ask her,” Ms. Terri said, motioning for Khrystal to explain, almost as if she still needed convincing herself.

  “I can’t say,” Khrystal answered truthfully. “There’s just something going on here I think I can help with. Do you think we can wait in the sentinel shack?”

  Marla considered. “Okay, I’ll pull a few strings. Not sure we really want to be out here though. Seems like everyone else has a different idea.” She looked at the fleeing mobs with trepidation. “They seem to be heading for the center,”—she leaned in with a conspiratorial whisper—”think that’ll help our boy Kyle convince a few of ‘em to let things lie?”

  At the mention of the merboy’s name, Khrystal’s hands clenched at her sides. Her breath faltered, her gaze flicking toward the city, as if sensing something she couldn’t explain.

  If he’s in trouble, Cali doesn’t stand a chance.

  Ms. Terri heard the thought. As clearly as if Khrystal had spoken aloud. But she hadn’t—Terri was watching her lips.

  I didn’t imagine that?

  More thoughts followed, slipping into Terri’s mind unbidden, like overhearing a conversation she wasn’t supposed to.

  She doesn’t believe Calistya is dead. Even after seeing it.

  Helping the merboy is the key. If he survives, he can save her.

  I need to be at the city gates. I have to play my part. We need to trust our instincts.

  Terri’s pulse pounded. These weren’t just insights—they were Khrystal’s thoughts. But how? Had Khrystal actually said any of this? Had she missed something? A wave of dizziness swept over her, as if her own mind were misfiring, betraying her.

  She had to answer. Her silence would seem strange.

  “Then we should,” she said, forcing an even tone.

  Khrystal and Marla both turned.

  “What?” they asked at the same time.

  Terri’s stomach dropped. What had she just done?

  “Should trust our instincts,” she said quickly, voice steadying. “Stay at the city gates. Like she said.” She gestured toward Khrystal as she spoke.

  Marla and Khrystal exchanged a look—confusion flickering between them.

  Then, suddenly, Khrystal’s expression shifted. Her eyes widened.

  Ms. Terri’s breath caught. She hadn’t just guessed what Khrystal was thinking—she’d heard it. Somehow, impossibly, the words had formed in her head, clear as spoken sound.

  Ms. Terri almost let it go. Almost. But the way Khrystal avoided her—not just withdrawing, but pulling back, shielding herself from something neither of them should have felt—sent a chill through her.

  She wasn’t sure what unsettled her more: that she’d heard Khrystal’s thoughts, or that, for the briefest moment before the wall went up, she could have sworn she heard Calistya, too.