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At the end of the vestibule, a white hallway led off into the top level of the Facility. Asher was already heading down it, bag slung over one shoulder, and Crane hastened behind him. The hall was narrow-of course-but not nearly as cramped as he'd expected. The lighting was unexpected, too: warm and incandescent, quite unlike the harsh fluorescence of submarines. The atmosphere was yet another surprise: warm and pleasingly humid. There was a faint, almost undetectable smell in the air Crane didn't recognize: coppery, metallic. He wondered if it was related to the atmosphere technology the Facility employed.

As they walked, they passed several closed doors, white like the hallway. Some bore individual's names, others abbreviated titles like ELEC PROC or SUBSTAT II. A worker-a young man wearing a jumpsuit-opened one of the doors as they passed by. He nodded to Asher, looked curiously at Crane, then headed back toward the vestibule. Peering inside, Crane got a look at a room full of rack-mounted blade servers and a small jungle of networking hardware.

Crane realized the walls and doors were not painted white, after all. Instead, they were constructed of some unusual composite that seemed to take on the color of their environment: in this case, the light of the hallway. He could see his own ghostly reflection in the door, along with a strange, platinum-colored underhue.

"What is this material?" he asked.

"Newly developed alloy. Light, nonreactive, exceptionally strong."

They reached an intersection and Asher turned left. From the image, Crane had assumed the chief scientist of the National Ocean Service to be in his late sixties, but he was obviously a decade younger. What Crane had taken for age lines was really the weathering of a life spent at sea. Asher walked quickly, and he toted Crane's heavy bag as if it were nothing. For all his apparent healthiness, however, the man kept his left arm cradled against his side. "These upper levels of the Facility are a warren of offices and dormitories, and they can be disorienting at first," he said. "If you ever get lost, refer to the schematic diagrams at major intersections."

Crane was impatient to learn more about the medical issues and the dig itself, but he decided to let Asher set the agenda. "Tell me about the Facility," he said.

"Twelve decks high, and exactly one hundred eighty meters per side. Its base is embedded into the matrix of the ocean floor, and a protective titanium dome has been placed over it."

"I saw the dome on the way down. That's some piece of engineering."

"It is indeed. This Facility we're in sits beneath it like a pea under a shell, and the open space between is fully pressurized. With the dome and our own hull, there are two layers of metal between us and the ocean. And it's some metal, too: the skin of the Facility is HY250, a new kind of aerospace steel, with a fracture toughness above twenty thousand foot-pounds and a yield strength in the range of three hundred KSI."

"I noticed the surface of the dome was punctured by a horizontal tube, running inward," Crane said. "What's the purpose of that?"

"You must mean the pressure spoke. There are two of them, actually, one on either side of the Facility. Given the water pressure at these depths, the ideal shape would be a perfect sphere. The dome being only one half of an ideal sphere, those two tubes-open to the ocean-help counterbalance the pressure. They also anchor the Facility to the dome. No doubt the propeller-heads on deck seven could give you more details."

This second hallway they were walking through resembled the first: a ceiling busy with cabling and pipes, lots of closed doors with cryptic labels. "I also noticed a strange object attached to the top of the dome, maybe thirty feet across," Crane said.

"That's the emergency escape pod. Just in case someone accidentally pulls the plug." Asher laughed as he said this-an easy, infectious laugh.

"Sorry, but I have to ask. That dome around us isn't exactly small. Surely certain foreign governments have taken interest?"

"Naturally. We've carefully disseminated a disinformation campaign about a secret research sub that went down at this site. They think we're involved in reclamation operations. That doesn't stop the occasional Russian or Chinese sub from doing a drive-by, of course, causing our military contingent all sorts of angst."

They passed by a door with a retinal scanner beside it and a complement of two marines, rifles at their sides, standing guard. Asher didn't offer an explanation, and Crane didn't ask.

"We're on deck twelve right now," Asher went on. "It's mostly support services for the rest of the Facility. Decks eleven and ten are crew quarters, including the sports complex. You're bunking on deck ten, incidentally. We've got you sharing a bath with Roger Corbett, the mental health officer. Most rooms share baths-as you can imagine, space is at a premium. We've already got a full complement, and you're an unexpected addition."

He paused before an elevator, pressed the button. "Deck nine is crew support. The medical suite-where you'll be working-is there as well. And deck eight holds the administrative offices and research facilities."

There was a quiet chime and the elevator doors whispered open. Asher waved Crane in, then followed.

The elevator was of the same strange material as the corridor. There were six unmarked buttons on the panel: Asher pushed the third from the top and the elevator began to descend.

"Where was I? Oh, yes. And deck seven is the science level. Computer center, scientific laboratories of every description."

Crane shook his head. "It's unbelievable."

Asher beamed, looking as proud as if the Facility were his own, rather than on loan from the government. "I've left out a hundred things you'll discover for yourself. There are mess halls served by kitchens specializing in haute cuisine. Half a dozen lounges, comfortable accommodations for over four hundred persons. Basically, Peter, we're a small city, two miles below the surface of the ocean, far from prying eyes."

"'In th' ocean's bosom unespied,'" Crane quoted.

Asher looked at him curiously, a half smile on his face. "That's Andrew Marvell, isn't it?"

Crane nodded. "'Bermudas.'"

"Don't tell me you're a reader of poetry."

"Now and then. I got the habit during all that downtime on sub duty. It's my secret vice."

The smile widened on Asher's wind-tanned face. "Peter, I like you already."

The elevator chimed again, and the doors rolled back onto another corridor, much wider and busier than the others. Glancing out, Crane was shocked at how well-appointed the staff quarters appeared to be. There was elegant carpeting on the floor, and-miraculously-framed oil paintings on wallpapered walls. It reminded him of the lobby of a luxury hotel. People in uniforms and lab coats were walking past, chatting. Everyone had an ID badge clipped to a collar or shirt pocket.

"The Facility is a marvel of engineering," Asher went on. "We were extremely lucky to get the use of it. In any case, this is deck ten. Any questions before I show you to your quarters?"

"Just one. Earlier, you said there were twelve decks. But you've only described six. And this elevator has only six buttons." Crane pointed at the control panel. "What about the rest of the station?"

"Ah." Asher hesitated. "The lower six decks are classified."

"Classified?"

Asher nodded.

"But why? What goes on there?"

"Sorry, Peter. I'd like to tell you, but I can't."

"I don't understand. Why not?"

But Asher didn't answer. He simply gave him another sly smile: half chagrined, half conspiratorial.

6

If the Facility's living quarters reminded Crane of a luxury hotel, then deck 9 seemed closer in spirit to a cruise ship.

Asher had given him an hour to shower and stow his gear, then he'd shown up to escort him to the medical suite. "Time to meet your fellow inmates," he'd joked. On the way, he gave Crane a brief tour of the deck below his own quarters, known officially as Crew Support.

But "Crew Support" didn't begin to do deck 9 justice. Asher steered him briefly past a hundred-seat theater and a fully stocked digital library before leading him to a large plaza bustling with activity. Music echoed faintly from what looked like a miniature sidewalk café. On the far side of the plaza, Crane made out a pizzeria, and beside it a small oasis of greenery surrounded by benches. Everything was miniaturized to fit into the small footprint of the Facility, but it was so artfully contrived there was no sense of crowding or claustrophobia.

"Deck nine has a unique layout," Asher said. "Basically, it's constructed around two large perpendicular corridors. Someone dubbed their intersection Times Square."

"Remarkable."

"The multimedia nexus and laundry are down that way. And over there is the PX." Asher pointed at a storefront that looked more like an upscale department store than a commissary.

Crane stared at the small knots of workers all around him: chatting, sipping coffee at small tables, reading books, typing on laptops. A few were in military uniform, but the majority wore casual clothes or lab wear. He shook his head; it seemed almost unthinkable that miles of ocean lay above their heads.

"I can't believe the military built something like this," he said.

Asher grinned. "I doubt the original designers had this in mind. But you have to remember this project will last many months. And leaving isn't an option, except under the most extreme circumstances. Unlike you, most of the workers here have no experience in submarines. Our scientists aren't used to living inside a steel box without doors or windows. So we do what we can to make life as bearable as possible."

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