The interior of the Nereus V submersible is freezing, the air thick with the smell of recycled oxygen, damp earth, and the sharp, metallic tang of ozone. Outside the thick quartz viewport, the crushing, lightless void of the Indian Ocean trench presses against the titanium hull with over eight tons of pressure per square inch.
We are thirty-two thousand feet beneath the surface.
I am strapped into the central interface chair, my left arm completely numb, a dead weight resting against the sterile sheets of the med-bay cot beside me. The neuro-regenerators Margot is pumping into my bloodstream feel like liquid ice in my veins, but they do nothing to dull the diffuse, blinding static that crackles behind my eyes.
Above us, miles above the crushing depths of the ocean, the Third Anchor on t
