Chapter 15 · The Signature

The dive chamber was still wet.

Not wet like somebody had spilled a bottle of water and forgotten a towel. Wet like the room had been holding its breath for three years and had finally started sweating it out.

Celine stopped in the doorway. The old steel floor grated under her borrowed shoes. Her stomach turned hard.

Ethan came up behind her, close enough that she could feel the heat of him through the thin hospital-issued jacket she'd stolen from the supply closet upstairs.

"Don't touch anything," he said.

She looked at the chamber in front of them.

"Great advice. Really useful. I was just about to lick the murder room."

"Celine."

"Don't use that voice."

The room had been sealed off from the rest of Vault Bio's underground level. Yellow hazard tape crossed the entrance, old and peeling. Somebody had slapped a red government notice on the wall, but the words had faded under moisture and dust.

BLACKWATER TRIAL SITE. ACCESS RESTRICTED.

The actual chamber sat behind a thick glass wall. A black tank, maybe eight feet deep, built into the floor. Pipes ran out of it like metal veins.