I tried to move, but my upper body was pinned by an immoveable object. Slipping close to panic-mode, I twisted my head free and managed to sit up, my eyes latching onto a blue LED light that slowly orientated me.

You’re in the forward cockpit. The sub’s upside-down.

“Ben?… Ming?”

No reply.

Feeling beneath my inverted chair, I found an emergency kit and a flashlight. Crawling on my hands and knees along the cold curvature of the acrylic dome, I squeezed myself into the middle cockpit and found Ben lying face-down, either unconscious or dead.

I reached for his right wrist and felt a pulse. Using the light, I did a quick search for open wounds as I roused him. “Ben, wake up. Come on, rise and shine.”

He coughed, groaning as he rolled over. “What happened?”

“I don’t know. The current freed us, but I have no idea where we are. The sub’s on its back.”

He sat up, striking his head on the pilot seat’s inverted joystick. “Ow. Why’d the engine shut down?”

“I don’t know. Wait here, I’m going to check on Ming.”

I crawled back to her cockpit. Still strapped in her seat, she was suspended upside down and appeared to be unconscious. Reaching up, I opened the latch to her harness and let her lithe gymnast’s body slide into my arms.

“Ming, you okay?”

“Zach, forget her. I need your help.”

I laid her down gently on the cockpit’s inverted ceiling and crawled back to Ben’s compartment. “What’s wrong? Are we powerless?”

“If we were powerless, we’d be dead. Hear that humming? That’s our lithium-ion batteries.”

“How long will they last?”

“Longer than us, I’m afraid.” He pointed to the inverted air gauge: 147 minutes.

My limbs began to tremble, fear pushing my mind toward a place that I knew would end badly.

“We’re in a bit of trouble here, Zach. The river left us high and dry on its bank. We need to find a way to maneuver the Barracuda back into the water, then manage our way across this plateau into the northern basin and locate our extraction point. Allowing for a minimum ascension of thirty minutes, we need to accomplish all that, well, pretty damn fast.”

“The river must be close. Maybe we can roll the sub manually, like a log.”

“You’re reading my mind. First things first, we need to retract the Barracuda’s wings. I’m seeing double right now, so maybe you can locate the stabilizer controls on my command console.”

Balancing on my knees, I used the flashlight to search the control panel. “Got it.”

“Beneath—I mean above—the stabilizer are two small T-bars. Pull them toward you and the wings should retract.”

Locating the devices, I gave them each a sharp tug.