And she was getting out before anymore goddamn mind games were played on her. DSU divers were survivors. They were trained to meet and overcome any and all obstacles. She let that training take over now and never was she was so relieved to be a brainwashed little automaton. She went over to the diving suit storage racks. Her suit was there along with two back-ups. She chose her own. Like the others, it was meticulously maintained. She went through the drill. Batteries fully charged. Primary and auxiliary life support operational. Propulsion ready. Navigation equipment on-line. Hull integrity secure.

The suit was fully operational.

And so was she.

She climbed up onto the step and began to work her way into the suit.

There was a sudden beeping.

She almost came right out of her skin. The winch had been activated. It slowly swung out over the moon pool. Only an incoming diver could activate it like that.

What the hell?

She checked the security cameras. They showed no diver or anything else below or at the perimeter of the platform. The winch was in position. She had to override it, she had to—

Shit.

The feed on the external security cameras was not live. It was merely spooled data feed from two days ago. Why the hell hadn’t she noticed that? She had some vague recollection of watching Hubbs when he left the habitat that day. Watching that same tape footage again and again. And it was still replaying it. She canceled the feed and brought up the outside of the habitat. Nothing. Just static. The cameras were down. As were the external motion detectors, sonar grid, and even the thermals.

Jesus, all of it was dead.

With a cry scraping from her throat, she raced for the winch controls. The clamp was dropping down into the moon pool. But it wasn’t too late. It couldn’t be too late. She punched the override controls. Nothing. She punched them until her fingers ached. Still nothing. She threw the emergency shut-off. A warning light flashed again and again.

MALFUNCTION

MALFUNCTION

MALFUNCTION.

She hammered the override buttons. No good. The clamp was still descending.

“What the fuck is going on here?” she shouted as she kept punching the buttons.

She knew she had to relax.

But there were only moments now before the winch brought the suit up. It could have been Hubbs. In fact, the screen told her that it was Hubbs. His suit was sending telemetry, but no biosigns. She punched a channel through. “Hubbs?” she said, her voice breaking in her throat. “Hubbs? Hubbs, is that you?”

The clamp had been activated.

The winch was bringing it back up.

“Hubbs! Hubbs!” Javonivic screamed into the mic. “Hubbs! Hubbs! Goddammit, Hubbs…is that you?”

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