Read Chapter 31: Sophie's Song

The meridian submarine hummed around them, a quiet leviathan, and Élise found Sophie in the auxiliary comms bay, her fingers dancing over a console with the practiced ease of someone who had spent years learning systems she was never supposed to touch. The faint blue glow of the screen washed out her face, and she did not look up when Élise slid into the seat beside her.

“You should be resting,” Sophie said.

“So should you,” Élise replied. “What are you doing?”

“Catching up on what Marchand’s people have been filtering from the open channels.” Sophie’s brow furrowed. “There’s chatter. A lot of it. About the tech that went missing from the city before we ever got there.”

Élise felt the cold knot tighten in her stomach, the one that had taken up residence since she’d read her father’s watch. “Missing how?”

Sophie pulled up a screen of scrambled text, fragments of transmissions she’d intercepted and partially decoded. “The leak. The one Marchand’s been circling around like a shark scenting blood. He assumed it was a rival faction within his own network. But I’m not so sure anymore.”

She tapped a key, and a sub-file opened: an audio waveform, barely intelligible through layers of encryption and signal noise. She played it, and Élise could pick out only fragments of speech in a language she didn’t recognize, but certain words stood out. *Reactor. Harmonic. Resonance.*

“A group of them,” Sophie said slowly, carefully, as if tasting each word before letting it go. “Not Marchand’s. Not the navy. Malcontents. People who got their hands on some of the city’s power cells before the flooding. Small-time hitters with big-time toys.” She paused, and when she continued, her voice was quieter, heavier. “They’re not trying to sell it. They’re trying to build something with it.”

“Build what?”

Sophie turned to look at her, and Élise saw the fear there, unmistakable beneath the calm surface. “A vibration bomb. Something that could resonate with the Earth’s crust. Set off a seismic event on demand. They’ve got a prototype up and running. And they’ve set the factory up in a hidden fjord in Norway.”

Élise’s mind raced. The reactor they’d purposefully flooded to cool down. The tech they’d tried to keep out of the wrong hands. And yet, it was already out. It had been out, maybe from the very beginning.

“How close are they to finishing?” she asked.

Sophie’s jaw tightened. “A test—” She stopped, her eyes widening as her gaze snapped back to the console, where a new red icon had appeared on the display. A burst of text rolled across the screen. “Oh, God.”

“What?”

“They’re not just building it here.” Sophie’s hands flew across the keys as she pulled up a second position fix, triangulating a signal burst. “They have a secondary assembly line. A backup. And it’s offshore—a work barge, mobile. Currently anchored twelve nautical miles off this position.”

Élise’s blood went cold. Twelve nautical miles. That wasn’t far. That was close enough for them to have noticed the submarine’s arrival. Close enough for a drone to be in the water already.

“They know we’re here,” she said.

Sophie’s fingers were already moving, pulling up the submarine’s sensor log. “Their communications went dark thirty seconds ago. That’s either them running silent or them already having sent something our way.”

A low thud echoed through the hull. A moment later, the submarine’s emergency lighting flickered on, bathing the corridor in an eerie red.

“They’ve got an echo-sounder,” Sophie said. “They’re pinging us. Triangulating our position for a depth charge.”

Élise was already moving toward the hatch, Sophie a half-step behind her. The crew of the meridian was scrambling around them, shouting orders. On the main display, a shape was emerging from the sensor data: a sleek, dark silhouette, smaller than a warship but built unapologetically for violence. An armed submersible, pulling up fast from the east.

“We need to abandon the primary sonar signature,” Élise said, grabbing the arm of the helmsman. “They’ve locked us.”

But even as she said it, the first torpedo went active, its distinct sonar wobble filling the command bay. Sophie’s eyes met hers, and Élise knew what she was about to do a heartbeat before Sophie did it.

Sophie lunged for the emergency release on the decoy launcher, but she didn’t fire it outward into the water. Instead, she triggered the close-quarters sonar jammer—a burst of white noise intended to distort the incoming torpedo’s targeting. In a larger vessel it would have been a delay tactic. In a submarine this small, it meant one thing.

“Sophie, no!” Élise grabbed for her arm, but Sophie twisted away, slamming a final key.

“The main factory is in the fjord, Élise,” Sophie said, the words coming out fast and final. “Coordinates are on the microfilm. The barge is a decoy. It’s a decoy for you. They wanted to kill you before you could get to the Archive. They think you’re the only one who can open it.”

A pounding vibration began to build through the hull, deep and rhythmic, like a giant’s heartbeat drawing closer.

“Sophie, come on. We can both make it.” Élise reached for her, and Sophie let her fingers brush hers, just once.

“Tell Marchand he was right about one thing.” Sophie smiled, and there was a terrible peace in it. “There’s always someone who wants the fire.”

She shoved Élise through the aft pressure lock with a strength that belied her frame, slamming the hatch handle down from the other side. Élise pounded against the thick glass, screaming her name, watching as Sophie turned back to the console and began rerouting the submarine’s full power reserves into the acoustic systems.

Élise didn’t hear the explosion. She felt it, a shockwave that threw her off her feet against the cold steel of the escape tube, a clap of pressure that stole her breath, and then—silence. An impossibly long silence, filled only by the groaning of the hull and the wet sound of her own ragged breathing.

Air pockets. Survivors. She had to move.

Through the porthole, she saw the rear section of the submarine sheering away, tilting upward into the deep, the lights flickering and dying. Sophie’s silhouette was still there, standing at her post, framed for one stark moment against a burning panel. And then she was gone, swallowed by the black.

Élise pressed her forehead against the cold glass, eyes burning.

*The fjord. The main assembly line.* Sophie’s last words rang in her ears, clear as a bell in the dark water, a truth bought with a life.