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I have time to register his blue eyes and the dark hair billowing around his face before he disappears as if ripped from the universe. A large silver blur slams into him with such force he seems to teleport sixty feet away in the blink of an eye.

Socrates has entered the chat.

He’s brought friends, too. While he headbutts the blue-eyeddiver into submission, three of the local bottlenose dolphins descend on the other guy, who has picked the wrong moment to reappear. It must be terrifying to have three large marine animals jump you all at once. The dolphins welcome him to the neighbourhood with an extreme tail-fin smackdown.

Gem’s voice speaks in my helmet. ‘I really love those dolphins.’

‘Dolphins are the best,’ I agree. ‘Much better than Sharks.’

‘I didn’t saythat.’

I laugh, which sends hot needles jabbing into my side.

‘You’re hurt,’ Gem notes.

‘I’m fine.’

‘That cloud of blood pluming from your suit says otherwise.’

‘Don’t worry about it. We need to keep going.’ I give Socrates a quickthank youin sign language. Whether he notices or not, I can’t tell, since he’s still playing with his new diver toy.

Gem and I jet to the back of the dock. We surface cautiously, scanning above us, but as far as we can tell there are no other hostiles waiting. Even the dragonfly drones seem to have abandoned the cavern. I hope they escaped on their own and weren’t captured or destroyed.

Gem draws his Leyden gun. He guards me while I climb the nearest ladder. The effort is excruciating, but I make it to the top without passing out or getting attacked. I gesture for Gem to follow.

Once he’s joined me, we take off our helmets.

‘We really need to bandage that,’ he says, pointing to my ribs.

The bleeding looks a lot worse out of the water. I don’t want to know how bad the wound is. ‘There’s no time –’

‘No time for you to pass out in combat, either.’ Gem peels off the top of his dive suit.

My face starts to burn. ‘Gem, what are you –?’

‘It’ll just take a sec.’ He strips off his T-shirt.

‘But –’

He rips his shirt in half. ‘We can wrap this around –’

‘Gem, not to kill your “gallant knight” vibe or anything, but there’s a first-aid kit in the cabinet right there.’ I point to one of Luca’s many supply lockers.

Gem frowns at his ruined T-shirt. ‘I knew that.’

We take cover as best we can between two of the supply sheds. Gem bandages me up with gauze while I keep watch. I do not at all feel awkward or distracted by the fact that Gem is shirtless while he’s tending my wound. It’s totally fine. Business as usual.

My eyes flit from the lagoon’s calm waters to the vault door at the end of the pier. I’m waiting for Dev’s damaged skiff to surface, or for more guards to pour onto the dock from the base. It’s not a question of whether someone else will attack us – it’s a question of how soon and from which direction.

‘Good enough,’ I tell Gem at last. ‘Tie off the bandages and let’s go.’

The lagoon’s vault door opens for my handprint. You can’t keep a good Dakkar out, I guess. Or a bad one, since Dev was probably the last one to use it.

Pistols drawn, Gem peeks into the corridor. It’s empty. I see no one standing guard at the other end, but that doesn’t mean anything. Hostiles could be waiting in the room just beyond. The straight cylindrical passage will offer us no cover for fifty feet. Any sound we make will reverberate. Unfortunately, from where we are, this is the only way back into the base.

‘Wait here, please,’ Gem whispers.

Crouching like a cat, he inches into the corridor. He’s about twenty feet in when two LI students pop out from either side of the tunnel’s far exit and fire their Leyden guns. They must have been lying in ambush, but Gem is ready. A nanosecond before they pull their triggers, Gem fires his SIG Sauers. Both guards drop like sandbags. Their miniature harpoon projectiles scrape trails of sparks as they skitter harmlessly across the walls of the corridor.