A Straight Line, If the Maps Hold

Construction moved fast, once the design was settled, the same familiar rhythm that had carried every previous machine from sketch to reality, each piece slotting into place with the practiced ease of a crew that had done this dozens of times before.

The boring head went together first, the same proven adamantium cutting geometry from the original rig, reinforced and scaled for sustained, continuous operation rather than the stop-start rhythm of tired players trading off shifts.

"Cutting edge looks good," Gorthruk said, inspecting the finished head with the same careful, professional eye he'd given her very first pickaxe. "Same pattern-welded structure. It should hold up considerably longer than the original, given the material quality alone."

The steam engine mounted behind it took shape over the following days, boiler, drive shaft, the same charcoal-briquette fuel system proven reliable across an entire ocean crossing, now repurposed for a considerably more straightforward job of steady, continuous rotation instead of altitude and thrust.

"...Feels almost simple, compared to everything else we've built," Claire admitted, checking the final assembly. "No pressure differential to fight. No salt water corrosion to manage. Just rock, and a machine built to cut through it steadily."

"That's kind of nice, actually," Arista said, grinning, watching the assembled rig gleam under the workshop lights. "Not everything has to be a crisis waiting to happen."

They broke ground at the shoreline on a clear, ordinary morning, no crowd this time, no forum-ready spectacle, just the core crew gathered to watch the boring head bite into the earth for the first time, steam venting steadily, the whole machine settling into a smooth, consistent rhythm within minutes.

Behind the rig, the debris chain settled into its own steady rhythm almost immediately, bagged rubble passing hand to hand down the growing line, Nettle's spare crew and the freed-up dome workers falling into an easy, practiced pace within the first hour, the same unglamorous, essential work that never made it into any forum thread but kept the whole operation actually functioning.

"...Ten kilometers," Petrov said, watching the progress readout tick forward at a slow but entirely predictable rate. "At this pace, we're looking at a genuinely reasonable timeline. No guessing based on crew stamina this time. Just steady, measurable progress."

Arista stood at the tunnel's mouth, watching the rig work, feeling the same quiet satisfaction settle into her chest that had once carried her through a year and a half of tunnels and trains.

"...We started with a pickaxe," she said, mostly to herself, watching the machine steadily carve its way toward the coast's interior. "Now look at this thing."

Bram, standing beside her, nodded slowly. "Everything comes back around eventually."

"Everything comes back around eventually," Arista agreed, grinning, watching the rig disappear steadily into the earth, the last major piece of the entire project finally, properly underway.

The tunnel's route unfolded exactly as planned, the boring rig carving steadily inward from the shoreline, first cutting into the continent proper, angling gradually downward as it went, before beginning its slow, deliberate curve back out toward open sea.

"...We're deep enough now that we're heading back toward the ocean," Colm reported, cross-referencing the rig's current position against his own carefully compiled charts, coastline, seabed slope, depth soundings, every scrap of data gathered across months of careful survey work. "If my measurements hold, this should be a straight run from here. No further course corrections needed."

Arista studied the chart alongside him, tracing the tunnel's projected path against the dome's known coordinates. "...You're confident in this."

"As confident as the data allows," Colm said, and there was no false modesty in it, just the quiet, earned certainty of someone who'd spent months measuring exactly this stretch of ocean floor with obsessive, patient precision. "Every depth sounding, every current pattern, every coastline curve: all of it's been directly measured, not guessed at secondhand. I wouldn't stake this project's timeline on anything I hadn't verified myself, multiple times over."

Stolen from NovelPhoenix, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

"...Good enough for me," Arista said, and meant it fully. She'd trusted his charts through the entire survey ring expedition, through the mermaid ruins' discovery, through every careful measurement that had gotten them this far without a single navigational surprise. There was no reason to doubt him now, at the one moment it actually mattered most.

The rig pressed on, steam engine humming steadily, boring head cutting a clean, consistent path through rock and packed earth, the progress readout ticking forward at the same predictable rate it had held since the very first day.

"...Four kilometers in," Petrov reported, checking the schedule against actual progress. "Right on pace. If this holds, we're looking at completion considerably sooner than the original railway timeline ever managed for comparable distances."

"Steam power over pedaling," Bram said, watching the readout with quiet satisfaction. "Turns out consistency beats enthusiasm, long-term."

"Don't let Petrov's original crew hear you say that," Arista said, grinning. "They'd argue enthusiasm got the railway built in the first place."

"Enthusiasm got it started," Petrov corrected, mild. "Consistency is what actually finished it. Both mattered. I'll take consistency for a job this precise, though, a straight-line tunnel toward a fixed target has considerably less room for error than an open, flexible route across an entire continent."

Arista watched the readout climb steadily forward, the tunnel curving its slow, patient way from shoreline, downward, and back out beneath the waves toward the sealed dome waiting a hundred and fifty meters below the surface.

"...If Colm's maps are right," she said, quiet, mostly to herself, "we come out exactly where we need to. First try. No corrections."

"They're right," Colm said, simply, without a trace of doubt in it.

Arista believed him.

Ten kilometers in, with the boring head closing steadily on the dome's final coordinates, Bram stood up from his station, expression suddenly, unmistakably serious in a way that cut clean through the rig's steady, familiar hum.

"Everyone get out."

Arista looked up sharply. "...Bram?"

"The next part isn't going to be pretty. I want everyone clear before we make the final breach." He said it plainly, no theatrics, the same flat, resolved tone he'd used once before, staring down a hydra fight nobody had wanted. "You can log out now, come back once the water's actually drained and it's safe. Or walk back to the tunnel entrance right now, under your own power, while there's still time."

Silence settled over the tunnel, the rig's steady hum suddenly the only sound.

Nobody argued. Everyone had seen the plan, understood exactly what an instant pressure breach would do to whoever stood at the connection point, and one by one, the crew began turning back toward the entrance, toward the surface, toward safety they hadn't needed to think twice about accepting.

Claire went first, offering a brief, steady nod before heading back. Colm followed, notebook already tucked away, glancing back once with quiet, genuine concern before continuing on. Petrov paused only long enough to confirm the emergency protocols were properly logged before turning as well.

Nettle didn't move.

"...Nettle." Bram's voice carried a warning now. "That includes you."

"You need two people to man this rig," Nettle said, arms crossed, entirely immovable. "One to handle the boring head's final cutoff, one to manage the emergency ballast and pressure release the second the breach happens. That's not a job for one person alone, and I am staying, and that is final."

"Nettle—"

"I have a normal respawn state, same as you," Nettle said, cutting him off before he could finish. "I'm not on Ultimate mode. If something goes wrong, I come back, same as you would. You are not doing this alone just because you decided to be noble about it."

Bram stared at her for a long moment, clearly searching for a counterargument and visibly failing to find one.

"...You're not wrong about needing two people," he admitted finally, grudging.

"I know I'm not."

Arista, still lingering near the tunnel's midpoint, hesitated. "...I could stay too—"

"No," Bram and Nettle said, in unmistakable, immediate unison.

"You're on Ultimate mode," Bram said, firm. "Permadeath. Absolutely not. We already had this exact conversation."

"I know, I know," Arista said, raising both hands. "I just. I built this whole thing. It feels wrong to not be here for the actual finish."

"You'll be here," Nettle said, gentler now. "Just from a safe distance, instead of standing directly in the blast zone. There's a difference between 'present' and 'about to get hit with a hundred and fifty meters of instant pressure differential.'"

Arista managed a small, tight laugh despite the tension. "...Fair."

She lingered a moment longer, looking between Bram and Nettle, steady, resolved, both of them fully aware of exactly what they were volunteering for, and felt the same fierce, complicated pride she always felt watching people choose to stand somewhere dangerous for something that actually mattered.

"...Be careful," she said finally, quiet. "Both of you."

"Always am," Bram said, entirely unconvincing.

"Never once," Nettle said, grinning despite the tension, already moving toward her station at the rig's controls. "But I'll try extra hard this time, given the stakes."

Arista held their gaze a moment longer, then turned, reluctant, and began the long walk back toward the tunnel's entrance, toward the rest of the crew waiting anxiously at the surface, leaving the final, dangerous work to the two people who'd refused to let her carry it alone.