THOMAS COLE'S POV
The South Grotto was a masterpiece of cold, subterranean engineering. It smelled of salt, premium-grade diesel, and the static electricity of a dozen high-speed charging ports. Below the obsidian cliffs of St. Jude's Key, this was my domain. As the Guardian of the island, I didn't deal in the digital abstractions that Nate and Sophie obsessed over, and I dealt in steel, ballistics, and the raw physics of survival.
I stood on the catwalk overlooking the black-hulled interceptors, my hands resting on the cold railing. The storm outside was a physical weight, the thunder vibrating through the reinforced basalt of the grotto walls. Then, the alarm tripped and a piercing, rhythmic strobe of amber light cut through the gloom. On my tactical HUD, Sector 4, the Boat Bay flashed a proximity alert, and a sensor had picked up a magnetic anomaly near the primary sea-gate.
