Chapter 296: The Refund Came with Torpedoes

The controller offered a refund menu while its paired machine armed underwater weapons, which told me the manufacturer understood customers better than it understood priorities.

I pressed the maintenance tab instead. Galaxy Brain sorted the diagrams quickly, but understanding which line carried a command didn't give me the missing security code or convince a machine to accept suggestions from a stolen cabinet.

The screen showed the rig moving along the coast toward Ami's service approaches. Its local testing intake was disabled, but the sea supplied another inlet, and someone aboard had switched control to the rig itself.

[System: Well, there's your problem, mate. You stole the remote after they picked up the other remote, and now both of you reckon you're driving the fucking television.]

I wanted the expensive parts, not an underwater argument about which uncle got to explode my apartment.

I called Bridget first, told her what the display actually showed and sent the route image. She took it to the club's dry service station, where the public maintenance map could identify which approach the rig was using.

Lukas offered a small licensed sub from the local hire dock. He would pilot from the dry cabin, leave the heavy work to the machine's cradle and send me the actual collection point instead of promising he could be everywhere at once.

His ribs still hurt if he moved too quickly. He said this before I could ask, then told me driving slowly was much less exciting than sitting in the club waiting for another one of my purchases to develop weapons.

I paid three hundred for a freight ride carrying the controller to the surface launch point and two hundred toward the sub hire. My available cash dropped to ten thousand eight hundred and seventy, and I began to understand why people with family money occasionally murdered the family.

Before leaving the depot, I checked Dazza's holding camera. The pen's grid stayed green, its ceramic walls remained intact and the first measured portion of scrap disappeared as soon as I operated the feeding tray.

"You were staying here until I came back, mate, and I was going to bring you something nicer than a gate if you didn't eat the staff."

He pressed several eyes against the camera housing. The operator reminded me that keeping his staff uneaten wasn't an optional bonus, so I left a contact number and authorized another day's charge only if I hadn't returned before the first expired.

The freight ride took us along the coast. I used the time to compare the controller's actual status with Bridget's map, tracing the rig toward a service channel that fed the district containing our club.

Its displayed target wasn't a bedroom or a dance floor. It was a pressure junction, and breaking it would send a surge through the connected lines, which somehow made the threat more insulting because we weren't even receiving personal attention.

At the launch point, Lukas backed the sub's loading cradle against the dock. The driver rolled the controller aboard, we secured it and I entered the dry cabin through the open hatch before the little craft submerged.

The outside water darkened around the windows. I could breathe out there, but Lukas couldn't, and nothing about my current relationship status changed that fact.

Old Mate laid out the next objective while I watched the rig's signal move closer to our expensive bad decisions.

[System: Save Your Own Bloody Furniture, champ. Shut down the armed rig and get yourself clear for ten thousand EXP and fifty IP. Keep the controller if you can, but the reward's for stopping the machine, not polishing your loot while the suburb gets rinsed.]

I accepted, although I disliked how quickly my personal ambitions had become public infrastructure problems.

Bridget called from the dry station with the junction's closing sequence. The public controls could isolate ordinary maintenance flow, but the rig was approaching from outside the serviced line, where a direct strike could damage the housing before isolation finished.

We needed it stopped earlier. I opened the controller's diagnostic channel and found a guidance test that appeared to redirect the rig's forward equipment away from the junction.

Old Mate suggested trying the least explosive-looking button. I told him that wasn't an engineering standard, then chose the diagnostic command because the diagram showed it connecting to the external guidance assembly.

The rig acknowledged the test. Two objects detached from its lower rails and began moving toward our signal while the status screen helpfully explained that guidance verification used live tracking units.

Lukas stared at the approaching marks, then at me. I had rarely seen somebody communicate such a complete opinion of a friend without wasting a single word.

[System: In our defense, mate, they could have written LIVE FUCKING TORPEDOES in a larger font. That's a user-experience issue right there.]

Our defense was currently two seconds of traffic management and a rental sub with a very disappointing top speed.

I sent Bridget the warning, told Lukas to turn toward the unoccupied rock shelf and moved into the little lock compartment behind the cabin. The inner door sealed before the outer hatch opened, giving me water without giving Lukas a very expensive funeral.

My fins spread as I swam clear. The controller stayed secured aboard, and its signal kept drawing the tracking units toward the sub while Lukas tried to put stone between the weapons and his cabin.

Thermal vision offered little help through the thick water and machinery, but Current Sense caught the approaching disturbances until our own wake muddied them. I looked directly toward the visible running lights instead of pretending one sense solved every problem.

The first torpedo closed fast enough that Galaxy Brain gave me a perfect understanding of how badly I had timed my exit.

I had ninety seconds between Red Light uses, two seconds of borrowed safety and a second torpedo following the first, while the rig behind them opened another pair of launch rails.