Shard Reef

The air in the cabin tasted like diesel and stale sweat, thick and unforgiving. Jax leaned against the bulkhead, the vibrating thrum of the engine a constant companion against his spine. Outside, the ocean stretched an unbroken slate grey, swallowing the last weak light of dawn. Silas, the man who owned the boat and, by extension, them for the next twenty-four hours, stood by the radar screen, a map of numbers and lines projected onto it, his silhouette sharp against the dim glow. He didn't speak much, just pointed, grunted, made sure his orders were understood, then watched. Always watched.

Rico grumbled, adjusting the straps on his rebreather rig. "Another goddamn milk run, huh? Just glass shards." He kicked at a loose bolt on the deck. Jax just stared at the dive gear laid out, the polished brass, the rubber seals. He knew better than to argue with Silas, knew better than to complain. This wasn't a milk run. No run with Silas ever was. There was always a catch, a hidden tooth in the smile, a sharp edge to the gleaming opportunity. This time, the catch was the target itself: the Glass City. A whisper of a place, rumor mostly, deep down where the pressure crushed men and machines alike. A structure, they said, made entirely of some impossible, shimmering material, sunk decades ago, taking its secrets with it.

Lena, the pale, quiet one, checked her comms unit, her fingers quick and precise. She was their tech. If there was a way in, a data stream to siphon, she'd find it. Jax trusted her more than anyone else on that boat, more than the creaking hull beneath their feet. He didn't trust Silas, not even with a breath. The coordinates Silas had given them were for a specific sector, a research facility, buried under two thousand feet of dark water. Their job: get in, retrieve what they could from its data core, get out. Simple enough on paper. Nothing was simple under the crushing weight of the sea.

The descent was a slow, agonizing crawl into the void. The pressure built, a vise on their suits, a dull ache in their ears despite the equalizing. Lights on their helmets cut weak paths through the black, revealing only churning particles. Then, it emerged. Not a city in the conventional sense, more a sprawling, shattered sculpture of impossible angles. Spindly towers, collapsed arches, domes that seemed to hum with a captured internal light. It was all glass. Not the brittle, clear stuff of windows, but something dense, almost organic, like solidified light. It pulsed with faint, internal luminescence, green and blue and silver, a vast, broken jewel box at the bottom of the world.

Navigation was a nightmare. The shifting refractions of light through the glass structures played tricks on their eyes, distorting distances, making solid walls appear as open pathways, and open pathways vanish into mirrored surfaces. Rico bumped against a leaning spire, sending a cascade of smaller, crystalline fragments drifting like snow. Jax saw the dark lines of cracks spider-webbing across the surface where Rico hit it. One wrong move down here, and this entire, fragile mausoleum could just… give. Lena, calm as a clockwork doll, guided them with her sonar pings, her voice a flat monotone in their comms, cutting through the disorientation.

They found the target structure, a squat, almost brutalist building amidst the delicate spires, its surface a darker, opaque glass. The entrance was a jagged tear, likely from the original catastrophic collapse. Inside, the silence was even deeper, broken only by the hiss of their own rebreathers. The air was thick with ancient sediment, disturbed by their lights, swirling like dust motes in a forgotten attic. Data conduits, thick as a man's arm, snaked across the floor, their glass insulation cracked and peeling. Lena knelt by a console, her headlamp illuminating the delicate interface, a web of crystalline ports.

Jax pulled security, his harpoon gun resting heavy in his gloved hands. Rico was twitchy, his breathing ragged. The space was tight, claustrophobic. Lena worked, a faint hum from her equipment the only sound for long minutes. Then, the hum changed pitch, turned into a whine. "Got something," she said, her voice tight. "A core module. Looks like a power surge fried the main access, but I can pull the sub-registers." A faint, rhythmic thumping started, distant at first, then closer. Not the boat. Something else.

Rico heard it too. His head snapped up, his helmet lights sweeping the darkened corridors. "What the hell was that?" The thumping grew louder, deliberate, accompanied by the muffled scrape of fins. Not their fins. Jax signaled Lena, a sharp, urgent tap to her shoulder. "Company's here." He knew it. Silas never missed a chance to stir up a hornet's nest. He’d probably leaked the coordinates to another crew, maybe to test them, maybe to ensure deniability if things went south.

A beam of light, not theirs, cut through the sediment-laden water at the entrance, followed by the hulking shadow of a diver. Then another. And another. Three of them, heavily armed. One held up a hand, then a thumb and forefinger forming a circle. The universal sign for 'your turn's over.' Jax knew what that meant. They wanted the data, and they weren’t asking nicely. Rico raised his harpoon. Jax pushed his arm down. Not yet. Not in here. This place was a trap, a house of cards. One shot, one ricochet, one stressed panel, and they'd all be buried under a ton of impossible glass.

He pointed to Lena, then to a side vent, barely big enough for one person. "Go!" he barked into the comms. Lena, without hesitation, grabbed her data stick, already full, and squeezed through the opening. The lead rival diver saw the movement. He lunged. Jax met him, not with a weapon, but with a brutal, clumsy tackle. They spiraled in the water, helmets clanking, air bubbles spewing from their rebreathers, their lights spinning wildly. Rico, seeing the opening, followed Lena into the vent. Jax slammed his rival against a support pillar, felt the glass creak. A sharp, cracking sound filled their comms, high-pitched, like ice breaking on a winter pond. He didn't wait. He pushed off, kicked hard, following the faint glow of Rico’s retreating light, the sound of splintering glass chasing him through the darkness.

Back on the boat, the exhaustion hit them like a physical blow. They stripped off their gear, the cold bite of the ocean replaced by the clammy chill of their own sweat. Lena handed Silas the data stick without a word. He examined it, a flicker of something in his eyes, maybe satisfaction, maybe just the glint of the deck lights. "Good work," he said, flat, emotionless. Rico patched a gash on his arm, a nasty tear from a glass shard. Jax just stood there, watching the black water churn behind the boat, the distant memory of that cracking sound still ringing in his ears.

They made it out. This time. But the Glass City was still down there, full of hungry shadows and brittle promises, and Jax knew, deep down, Silas always had another job. Always another deep, dark place to send them, always another risk to take. He just hoped the glass wasn't just in the city. He hoped it wasn't already in them.