Chapter 405 I Was Finally Built for the Stupid Idea

By morning, I had developed a strong emotional connection to the treasure I hadn’t stolen yet, which made waiting for Lukas to finish checking his diving equipment feel extremely rude.

Lukas stood in the flooded kitchen checking his diving set while I hovered beside a sink big enough to wash a horse. Our guide line led back through the serving hatch to the dry maintenance room, with the boat secured outside at the canal hatch and my patience somewhere on the floor.

He checked the reserve again, then gave me a thumbs-up. I pointed at the corridor with enough feeling to make it rude.

[System: Off you go, you red shower hose, and check the pressure in stages. That woman charged two hundred credits to tell you how not to die, so try getting your money’s worth.]

For two hundred credits, she could have carried the treasure upstairs and left us a mint.

We entered the first service hall, following the diver’s marks rather than the inviting open shaft beside it. My gauge matched the safe figures on her card. Lukas’s showed the same reading, which was reassuring because I preferred equipment that agreed before it started lying underwater.

The corridor sloped down between pipes thick enough to shelter behind. My Current Sense picked up moving water at the far end, and the cold pull against my underside confirmed that a valve had failed somewhere ahead.

Warning paint shook beside a partly open relief outlet. A rag disappeared into it, and I immediately hated the pipe for demonstrating what it wanted to do to me.

I signaled Lukas to hold the rail, then tightened my core until my loose shape drew firm. The current still pulled, but my middle held together. For once, being a dense bastard offered an advantage Lukas couldn’t argue with.

The difference was glorious. I wedged against two sound pipe supports, reached a tendril around the outlet wheel, and turned it slowly while the pressure tugged at me.

[System: Put your back into it, mate. You’ve finally evolved beyond soup in a sock, and I’d hate to see you celebrate by getting sucked through a hotel toilet.]

If that happened, I expected him to tell the girls I died fighting something impressive.

The valve closed another quarter turn, and the pull weakened. Lukas crossed behind me, clipped the line to the next fixed ring, and tapped my side in thanks.

I pointed at the valve, then at myself, waiting for recognition. Lukas tapped the route ahead, apparently believing a rescued man could immediately return to giving orders.

I repeated the gesture until he thanked me with a finger he could have kept to himself.

The next room held an equalizing gate with a handwheel on each side. We followed the written sequence, opening the small balancing valve before touching the main lock. The needles moved together, then settled.

I tested the main lock too early and felt it resist. Old Mate cleared his throat, so I pretended I had merely been inspecting the handle and waited for the needles.

We passed through without a violent rush of water. Lukas checked the hinge and tied our return line where the door couldn’t pinch it, then showed me his air gauge. There was plenty left, but he marked our turn-back point on the slate anyway.

Old Mate drifted upside down beside him, somehow drinking without spilling a drop. This was the sort of physics violation he found acceptable while lecturing me about responsible diving.

[System: Righto, treasure objective. Get the sealed storehouse open, recover what’s actually valuable, and both reach the upper maintenance room alive. Twenty-five thousand experience and forty-five points, with any guard-fish violence already included. No billing me twice because you enjoyed it.]

Can we call it a diving allowance? Getting paid to fight a fish sounds less impressive than the risk deserves.

At the next bend, we found the service gate from the diagram. Its bars separated the storage approach from a lower channel, and the operating chain ran to a platform behind a thick wall. Lukas examined the wheel, freed a jammed link with his tool, and moved it a few inches to test the weight.

The bars rose cleanly and dropped with a heavy clunk. Old Mate made a pleased noise, like someone had just shown him a barbecue large enough for a neighbor.

Beyond it, the route widened into a sunken delivery court. Four loading arches faced us, with three collapsed under old stone. The last carried the same crowned seal as our diagram.

A line of gouges cut through the wall beside it, and several crushed shells lay in the silt. I showed Lukas, then pointed back at his gate controls.

He stayed behind the thick service wall where he could see the opening without putting himself in front of it. I moved toward the sealed door, testing the water with small turns of my head.

Something had been moving here recently. The silt was stirred beneath the intact arch, and a broad current passed through the broken loading bay to my right.

I nearly called into the arch out of habit, then remembered I was underwater. Being unable to introduce myself to trouble was probably adding years to my life.

A round brass fitting on the door matched the valve setting in our recovered diagram. I could reach it, provided I crossed the open court and put my back to the broken arch.

[System: Look up before you fiddle with that door, mate. You’re glowing like a takeaway sign, and I doubt the resident’s waiting for a formal invitation.]

I looked up, and two pale eyes opened beneath a broad shelf of broken stone.

The hammerjaw fish eased forward, showing a head wider than the door and a mouth built to crush whatever had been stupid enough to stand in front of it. Old scars marked its natural hide, while a hook from some previous visitor hung uselessly behind one gill.

It pushed away from the ceiling, and the entire court filled with the heavy beat of its tail.

Behind me, Lukas took hold of the gate brake as the fish turned its armored forehead toward my glowing red body.