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  “Flatten this casing.”

  Crane spread his legs and pulled the sledgehammer back. Its heft didn't seem to bother him. He took a wide swing.

  Clang.

  Another Roughneck took turns pounding on the exterior with Crane. One then the other hammered the vat’s exterior. The chemical mud spilled out of the vat, obscuring their vision. A high pitched noise resonated with each swing. Each swing sent tremulous vibrations through Hani’s body.

  Clang.

  Hani stood off to the side, dumbfounded. This wasn't his show anymore. This was never his show. He tried to peek around the Roughneck's shoulders. Was there anything else he could offer? Should he continue monitoring the pressure gauges? He wasn't sure. Maybe if he had done this before, he would know what to do.

  Clang.

  The chemicals continued to pour out onto the ground.

  Clang.

  The emulsion of chemicals and mud still poured from the tank, but at a slower pace.

  “I think we have it,” one Roughneck said. “The hole is smaller now. The protrusion should face even.”

  “Try the panel,” the other Roughneck offered.

  Hani watched as Crane pressed his shoulder against the panel. His skin formed a decent seal. The result was somewhat uneven, but it should serve its purpose.

  Buckminster was ready with the blowtorch.

  The white flame from the torch punctuated the steel environment. Hani felt the heat on his face. It was almost pleasant, like the warm glow of a camp fire. It must be torturous to Buckminster and Crane, as close as they were to the source.

  Once Buckminster finished, he saw the smear of chemicals and mud across the floor. The ice was relentless, and it continued to grow, spreading as tendrils of creeping fog from corners that the ice-breakers could not reach.

  “All of you, every spare hand, take a crowbar, a hammer, something, and chip at the ice. Get back to it,” Buckminster ordered. “Every pressure valve, steam pipe, chemical vat, anything with flammable contents, keep it clear of the ice. We need our responses clean. We can't waste time dealing with this slippery spit.” If they didn’t keep the ice in check, the ammonia and sulfur would rip the platform apart. “If you see a distressed joint or a worn casing, report it immediately.”

  Hani thought about the open decks, the maze of pipes, the mess of equipment, and the volatile compounds kept in storage. They were not equipped for this kind of a storm. He didn't think that they were ever capable of handling this weather. The whole platform was completely outclassed. Around him, thick iron crowbars, smashed and hammered, accumulated ranges of frozen fog, like mining crews working over hunks of rock. The stoic ice-breakers scraped and grated the iron crowbars against layers of ice on grey steel. Buckminster needed not just more hands to work the main derrick, but more experienced hands. They would need a better solution to the ice-fog than a human ice pick.

  Buckminster turned to Crane. “Get up top. If any more of these blow, I want you to pick it up and dump it into ocean. I don't care what’s in it. If the tank doesn’t seem like it will hold together, I don't want it on my derrick.” The only other person on the platform trusted with that perch was Buckminster himself.

  Buckminster ran off to deal with the next emergency, blowtorch and sledgehammer in hand. Crane marched up a few flights of stairs to the upper carriage. That was his station. It provided him with the best view of the drilling operations. A burst pipe sent flames outwards, swallowing the carriage. Crane dove out, balancing on an outer truss. Flames licked at his feet, pushing him further and further out, isolated on a steel beam.

  Buckminster called to clamp a hammer down on the spraying vent. He bent down, lowering his center of gravity, and tried to grasp the truss at his feet with his hands. But his hands could not grip the steel. Instead, they clasped at slick steel and empty space.

  Crane looked down at the people below him, desperate for some direction.

  It was a thirty meter drop into a steel basin.

  “Throw him a line,” someone shouted.

  “Don't move,” someone else urged.

  It occurred to Hani that he could easily shut down the line feeding into the upper sections. Cut off the line and nothing else would burn.

  “Cut off the feed!” Buckminster ordered. “Do it now!”

  Hani was pleased with himself. His instincts were right. Cut the feed. Hani pushed himself to his feet. He tried to match up the correct gauge with the correct line, but there was too much commotion. He couldn’t spot which lever controlled the pipes that fed into the upper decks.

  “Let’s see, which one connects to the upper level? The piping should align over here.”

  “Now!” Buckminster was looking directly at him.

  Crane fought to avoid the inevitable plunge, spreading his hands out to reinforce his balance, his eyes focused on the steel at his feet. He took a step forward, quivering on the balance beam. Another step. And another. Flames continued to engulf the canopy behind him. He took another step to the steel column in front of him. The precipice edged closer. Another step, and another, and he fell.

  CHAPTER ONE

  BEATRICE PLANTAIN,

  THE “BRAIDED WOMAN”

  Beatrice grumbled. The banging on the door woke her up. One of the security guards wanted her attention. She felt the vibrations from the guard's fists in her sleep, as though she incorporated the noise into her dreams.

  The guard's intrusion meant that it was time to distribute the algae rations to the rest of the population.

  It was dark outside, barely even dawn, with the sun just beginning to creep over the horizon. She never liked working distributions in the middle of the day. Morning was always better, even if she didn't get much sleep. The people were hungry in the morning, but they were also groggy. Complacent. After a few hours without food, they became frustrated and demanding. She preferred dealing with them when they were more malleable and less likely to complain.

  She slipped into a red long-sleeved shirt over her head and pulled up a pair of blue pants made from a thin polyester material. The colors were long faded to show splotches of pink, gray and white. The insulating material shielded her from the wind and sun without restricting her movement. She picked up a pair of old gloves. The brown leather crinkled as she stuffed them into her pocket. Unlike the Roughnecks, she didn't need to wear protective gear every day. The gloves were the one exception.

  Beatrice pressed her shoulder into the metal and pulled the door up from the handle before shoving it open. The door to her pod didn’t open smoothly. She would fix it if the jam didn’t also deter people from casual theft.

  She stepped out of her pod and approached the guard. Even though the storm was abating, she felt a slight chill from the wind, and slipped her arms through a yellow nylon raincoat.

  “Need to pee,” she said without giving him a second glance. “Make sure that the barrels are filled before I get down there.”

  “Miss.” The guard said to her. It was as though he wanted to give her a message.

  “Just go and do your job.”

  “But...”

  Now she was irritated. “I will be there in a minute.”

  The guard's posture was stiff and had an unusual sense of urgency. He didn't look like someone who wanted to catch a few more hours of sleep. But there was nothing unusual about distributing the rations. It was a tedious job that she oversaw each and every single day. Odds were he didn't want to take any responsibility over the barrels.

  She didn't like it when the guards didn't fill the barrels. Why couldn't they take care of this themselves, she wondered. Did she really have to inspect every barrel before distribution? They went through this routine every day. Unfilled barrels meant she ended up telling the people in line that they needed to wait while they retrieved more of the rations. She could see the look of disappointment and murder on their faces every single time. It made everything take longer.

  And she wouldn't get a chance to go to the toil
et until after she finished. She wouldn’t dare begin a distribution without peeing first. No. She would never do that again.

  Beatrice turned the corner from her pod to the upper toilet.

  The deepwater platform Alpine was located several hundred kilometers south of the Cape of Good Hope, between southern Africa and the Antarctic continent, a lumbering steel behemoth in the south Atlantic. People lived out their entire lives on the structure. Those people were among the last.

  Some of them eyed Beatrice as she passed, more than usual, really. On most days, they were still asleep. Today, something woke them, something she missed.

  They knew who she was. She was the Braided Woman, head of security. Assigned by Sycamore Johnston himself. They averted their eyes. Beatrice was used to it, but she also noted that some of them looked away more in a daze than out of intention. Some of them might be malnourished or intoxicated, but more than a few wore the distinctive thick coveralls assigned to the Roughnecks. She never agreed with allocating a portion of their limited algae stores to fermentation, but Sycamore Johnston, the platform’s Chief Administrator, insisted. That man never appreciated the severe consequences of dehydration. He didn’t understand that the ocean of water that surrounded them did not make them immune to shortages in their water supply.

  As it was unlikely that this many people were both intoxicated and awake at this hour, what exactly was happening?

  Some of the Roughnecks could have easily suffered from injuries or exposure during the night, but why so many? They probably needed medical attention. She would be sure to speak to the platform’s doctor about this later.

  Now she was adding the pieces together: the guard's out of place urgency, the people who were awake for no real reason, and the high number of injured Roughnecks. Something had happened. Maybe an accident. It wouldn't be the first. The banging and rumbling, which she thought was the guard knocking on her door, may have been something else, something serious.

  She tucked that thought away in the back of her mind. Some bare suspicion wasn't enough to deter her from peeing. That was the most immediate concern. She could make water, check on the barrels, and then find out what, if anything happened. If it involved the Roughnecks, it probably happened on the derrick. That was Buckminster's problem. The Roughnecks weren't her concern. She could find out if it required her attention later.

  The toilet was nothing more than a hole in the floor. Like everything else on the platform, the walls and door were cold steel. The original latch broke off years ago, replaced by a piece of string wrapped around a nail that fit into a narrow slot. It did the trick, but it wouldn't last very long. Beatrice amused herself with knowing that the replacement would not be an improvement.

  She squatted over the hole and did her business. The hole fed to a pipe that led straight into the Atlantic. It’s why you never swam too close to the platform on the south side.

  When Beatrice was younger, she and her friends played a game where they would swim laps past the exit drains. Anyone who swam under the drains at the wrong time lost. The game was always more tiring than they wanted. People just didn't use the upper outhouses that often. But even so, it was always worth the laugh.

  She wanted to be quick. Sometimes an updraft sent freezing air up the pipe. She hated exposing her bare ass to the cold air. The platform had complete baths with Western toilets below the surface, but they were a hassle to reach, and were often crowded. It wasn't worth the trip just to pee.

  She turned the knob on an open-air faucet and washed her hands with cold grey water. The faint chug-a-lug from the pumps caused the faucet to rattle. She cupped some water in her palm and splashed her face and neck. The feel of the cold water was refreshing. She didn't have any coffee. Coffee always seemed more like a myth, a miracle elixir that instantly woke you up. The cold water would have to do.

  The Alpine formed a cavernous complex of steel, access ducts, ladders and stairs, corridors and pods. A spider’s tangle of cables webbed throughout the subsurface levels. Girders and beams stretched from end to end, above and below the surface levels. The confusion provided additional protection for the structure against the imposing pressure from the ocean outside. Over the centuries, the platform had endured its share of brutal storms, but rarely came out unscathed. The storms became more severe with each passing year. The platform couldn’t keep pace with its limited resources.

  This time, the storm hit the room where the Alpine stored its food.

  “This isn't good.” Beatrice shook her head.

  “No. It’s not,” one of her guards confirmed in rhetorical acquiescence.

  “Has anyone told Sycamore?”

  “No. He hasn't had a free moment.”

  “And it wasn't from flooding?”

  “No.”

  “Then what?”

  “The air vents.”

  “What do you mean the ‘air vents’?” Beatrice clenched her fists. The leather in her gloves crinkled. Whatever happened, it explained the noises in her sleep and the people that appeared to be awake for no good reason.

  The algae rations were heavily contaminated. A thick opalescent sheen covered the storage room's steel floor, like an oil slick on water. Beatrice shut her eyes to try to calm herself. Now they had to deal with flooding from both storm water and chemical seepage. Liquid poured onto the barrels from above and seeped up through the dried food from below. If the rain was just fresh water, that would be one thing. They had enough drying equipment to save wet food. All of the rations started off as mush anyway. But the rain wasn't just rain. It was acid, and with it came brimstone and noxious fumes. As far as she knew, they didn't have any equipment that could filter out those chemicals from the clean algae. She wasn't even sure such a process existed. Nearly all of the supplies were contaminated, between the acid rain and the mess of chemicals used in deep sea drilling. There wasn't any chance that they could salvage it. They would end up throwing most of it over the side of the platform. A waste.

  “How much is left?”

  The guards stared at her. Helpless. They waited for some cue. The only thing Beatrice had to offer was confusion. Overhead, the air vents continued in mocking commentary on their predicament.

  Drrr. Drrr. Drrr.

  “We managed to recover less than two barrels, but that’s just what was dry. This is what we managed to save from the spillover from the pipes.” The guard looked defeated. “I know it isn’t much, but the explosion. The explosion kept everyone on the surface. Killed Crane. No one checked on the rest of the facility.”

  That meant the seepage destroyed an additional eighteen barrels. “That doesn't mean the food is clean. I understand.” Eighteen barrels. That was the difference between life and death in this place. Damn it. A week's worth of food. They’d already tapped into the reserves because of the storm. Now they were down to one day's worth.

  And an explosion killed Crane. That would put Buckminster in a foul mood of anything could.

  “Do you want me to report this to Sycamore?”

  Damn. She should have moved the food to a space that wasn't so vulnerable ages ago. Sycamore was going to pin this on her. How many times did she tell Sycamore that the storage room should be airtight? Not enough, it seemed. Not enough to save the food now. Whether or not she was right in the past wouldn't change that she didn't deal with the problem when it mattered. This was her fault. She cursed herself. Why did she allow the rest of the clean food to stay in this room? Damn.

  “No. No, I’ll tell him myself. We should distribute what’s left before the people out there begin to riot. I need to find out what happened on the derrick anyway.” Beatrice released the tension in her fists, stretching her fingers slowly outwards. That was the way to handle this. She would deal with one problem before breaking the news about the other. She needed to be sure that Makrigga, the platform’s most capable Whaler, went on a hunt that morning. He was a teacher to the younger Whalers and the only man Sycamore trusted with an important hunt. A success
ful hunt would buy them some time to harvest from the sea-mount. Maybe there were other ways to handle this, but first things first.

  “Move the clean barrels.”

  “And what if the food isn't clean?”

  “Do you know how to test it?”

  The guard shrugged.

  “Then we’ll work with what we have.” As long as the food is dry, we should be fine.

  Beatrice barely had a moment to herself. It had been weeks since there wasn't some emergency on the platform that needed her attention. Then the storm hit, and the whole platform was actually blowing up under her feet. She could feel the rumble through the steel floor. The heat from the main deck warmed her face over the cold air. The shouts from the other workers were an indecipherable static. If the last couple of weeks kept her busy to prepare for this mess, well, she could only imagine what was going to happen now that the worst—short of sinking straight to the bottom of the Atlantic—just happened. She was going to be busy. That much she knew.

  Beatrice opened an upper hatchway to make her way inside the platform. She stumbled as her foot clipped the raised edge of the hatchway. She recovered her balance as she stumbled and cursed under her breath. The shouts and bangs from outside were replaced by the continuous drone from the platform's ventilation system. She hated that sound. She spent a lifetime trying to avoid it. It was the sound of despair. She would take bangs and fire over this any day.

  Drrr. Drrr. Drrr.

  It was the kind of sound that gnawed at you and forced you to shut out the rest of the world. How was she going to work through this problem with that incessant noise drumming through her head? People used to complain about it, but they apparently gave up. It was either that, or don't breathe. She was sure that she wasn't the only one who tried to spend as much time as possible on the surface. In small doses, the drone wasn’t that bad. But still, a lifetime of avoiding it was tiresome. Tedious and tiresome. Just the effort and thought involved nagged at her. The sound told her that she should stay away, that she should remain on the surface.