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Sebastian Panos h the narrow corridor like an alley cat on a dark street behind restaurant row The passage was dank and wet, way Condensation dripped so persistently that he often wondered if the poisonous waters froh the walls and slowly killing them all

Still, it wasn’t as bad as the island where the main as done, with the notorious quarry at its heart Compared to that place, this station was a pleasure And yet, Panos had becohts of escape

A Cypriot engineer of round, Panos had been lured to this underwater nighth eneration All it required was three years of his life and utter secrecy Six un to feel uneasy Before the year rolled over, he knew he’d made a terrible mistake

Requests to leave were denied All cohtest hint of protest resulted in veiled threats Soht happen to his family if he didn’t stay and complete the work

As the project neared fruition, Panos and the other engineers were played off against one another It was impossible to knoho to trust and who to fear, so they feared one another, did as they were told, and one year stretched into two

All that tied onto a ship He had no choice but to do the h he felt certain that his end would come that way eventually The project was so secret and dark that his logical mind told him there would be no witnesses left when it was done

No one gets out alive, a felloorker had joked One day later, the man disappeared, so perhaps it was true

Panos reious od or fate or randoht their families in He’d seen them on the island, wretched and ree than he He knew not to trust them They were the easiest to control, they had more to lose than their own lives Some had even borne children in the depths of that putrid, sulfur-tinged world They lived like indentured servants, like slaves building a modern-day pyramid

Panos was at least free to think about escape, though he’d never had any real expectation of pulling it off At least, not until the note appeared in his locker

It was the first in a set of el of mercy

Initially, he assue at the bait But he’d reached a point where it no longer h escape or the cold sting of death, he welcomed it either way

He tested the offer and received more notes They arrived at odd times Help to escape would be made available, the notes pros attached He was to bring the plans of this terrible weapon to those who ed All Panos had to do was make it to the location alive

With that goal in way and into the dive room It was late, well past the hour for anyone to be there Using a key left in his locker by his unknown contact, Panos opened the door and slipped inside He shut the door and switched on a desk lamp

The dive roole with a sealed airlock protruding at its center Visible through the airlock’s thick observation glass was a circular pool of dark water

Panos switched on the pool lights The water lit up perfectly clear, for the poisons filling it made it absolutely sterile But instead of blue or turquoise or green, the water shimmered in a reddish tint, a color like translucent blood