Aris wasn't the only one watching.
High above the crushing depths, in a boardroom of glass and steel on the mainland, the Acheron Initiative had seen enough. They had watched the telemetry of the Deep-V spike into impossible ranges. They had seen the bio-electric signatures of something that didn't just defy biology, but rewrote it.
And most importantly, they had seen that their lead scientist was no longer a reliable narrator.
Inside the submersible, the lights suddenly flipped from a calm, sterile white to a rhythmic, pulsing crimson. A high-pitched chime, cold and digital, echoed through the cramped cabin.
"What is that?" Aris staggered to the control console, his hands still shaking from the nightmare I had fed him. "The structural integrity is holding. Why is the alarm—"
He froze. On the main monitor, a single word blinked in a black box: PROTOCOL OMEGA.
"No," Aris whispered, his face draining of what little color it had left. "No, we haven't finished the extraction! I can still bring him back! I can contain it!"
He frantically typed into the keyboard, but the screen stayed locked. A countdown timer appeared in the corner of the display.
03:00.
I felt the shift in the water before he did. A secondary frequency—unnatural, sharp, and metallic—began to broadcast from the sub's external comms array. It was a "kill signal" intended to overload the sub's experimental power core.
If it detonated at this depth, it wouldn't just kill Aris. It would act as a depth charge, a shockwave designed to collapse the limestone shelf holding the Drowned City, burying Vespera and me under a million tons of silt and stone.
[...They are trying to erase the song, Elias...]
Vespera's voice was a jagged rasp of static. She wasn't just angry now; she was afraid. She knew what human cruelty looked like when it was backed by a budget and a "clean slate" policy.
"They aren't just killing him," I realized, my bioluminescence flaring into a panicked white. "They're nuking the site."
I looked up. Through the miles of dark water, I could see the Deep-V hanging like a doomed firefly. Aris was pressed against the viewport, his eyes wide, looking for the brother he had tried to dissect.
01:45.
"I have to go to him," I said.
[...NO. The metal will burn. You will be ash in the salt...]
"Vespera, listen to the Hum!" I grabbed her shoulders, my webbed fingers digging into her shimmering skin. "If that core blows, the whole canyon falls. You'll be trapped. I'm the only one who can get close enough to pull the core before it hits critical. I have his DNA. The biometric locks... they might still recognize me."
She looked at me, her four eyes shimmering with a grief that spanned eons. She had found a mate, only to watch him try to save the species that had just signed his death warrant.
[...Go. But if you do not return, I will rise. I will make the surface a memory...]
I didn't wait for her to change her mind. I launched myself upward.
I was no longer limited by the drag of water. I was a torpedo of silver light. I cleared a thousand feet in seconds, the pressure change meaning nothing to my mutated lungs. I reached the sub as the timer hit 00:45.
I slammed my hand against the outer hatch's emergency sensor.
The light turned red. Unauthorized.
I pressed my face against the viewport. Aris was on the other side, weeping, his hands pressed against the glass.
"Elias! They're killing us! They're resetting everything!"
"Press your palm to the glass, Aris!" I shouted through the frequency. "I need the biometric sync! Now!"
He didn't ask questions. He pressed his hand against the cold glass. I mirrored him on the outside, my pale, webbed hand overlapping his human one. The twin signatures—one corrupted by the deep, one dying from the surface—fused.
The computer chirped.
00:15.
The emergency hatch hissed open. I didn't enter for air. I entered for the kill-switch.