St. John flicks a quick glance my way. Ephraim.
Where is he taking me?
Is this punishment for my betrayal?
I glance around at the room, at the faces of my fellow Choristers, the brothers, all watching, eyes twinkling in amber light. Faces bent in some emotion I cannot read. Cheeks wet.
I release Lazlo’s hand. I must. No other choice. I try telling him everything I want to with just a look, should this be the last time I ever see him.
Marston commands St. John lead the brothers in the singing of the final hymn, and then I’m immediately led back through the center of the chapel, between brothers and the column-like missile tubes, back through the hatch, to the missile control room.
The small space is hot with the humming equipment, with the several bodies crammed inside.
Six of us with Elia and Cordova, and Ex-Oh Goines and Brother Augustine, both of whom will not leave my side, and Caplain Marston.
On the main panel, two rows of square indicators, eight in each, each numbered, are lit. Fifteen of them glow red. One of them glows green. The Last Judgment.
“Missile is ready for launch, Caplain,” Brother Cordova says. Before him, on the desk console, the red CAPTAIN indicator switches to green. Beneath this indicator is a round, metal slot for the missile key.
Ex-Oh grabs hold of my arms from behind, grip tight.
Caplain Marston turns to me. “I wanted you to see this, Cantor. To understand that God’s will cannot be undermined. Cannot be changed.”
I glance at the others, at Brother Augustine. He shares a tense expression.
From the chapel, I hear the hymn being sung now. “The Heart of the Leviathan.”
“And the sinners shall know fire once more.”
“Tube pressurized, Caplain,” a crackling voice calls from the squawk box. “Missile door open. Ready to fire.”
I watch as Marston feeds the stem of the key into the slot, as he turns it.
The launch indicator for Missile 1 flashes.
A siren chimes throughout the boat.
The singing has ceased in the chapel. Silence now, save the normal thrumming of engines and fans and the hiss of stale, oily air from the vent.
Caplain’s eyes are closed, in prayer, finger hovering over the plastic button marked “Launch.”
I couldn’t stop him if I wanted to, not with Ex-Oh holding my arms back.
Will the world end?
It already has. Been ended and then reborn. Were we ever on the edge of peace? No, I think not. Not now. Not ever.
Maybe the world will never be saved.
“Woe! Woe to you, great city, you mighty city of Babylon!” Caplain Marston begins. His voice is being amplified throughout the boat, over the squawk.
Won’t anyone step up and stop this? Anyone? I look to the old, weary elders. To Brothers Carrington and Goines. Neither will Brother Dormer or Augustine or Callum. No. They haven’t stepped in before now. During all the horrors and atrocities that have occurred these long years. None of them tried to stop it.
So, I pray.
“The seventh angel poured out his bowl into the air, and a loud voice came out of the temple, from the throne, saying, ‘It is done!’”
I pray that the electricity will wink out. That the ballast mains will burst. That the Liánméng will attack us.
“And there were flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder, and a great earthquake such as there had never been since man was on the earth.”
The pipes continue to pressurize in the underworks. I hear the high-pitched whine.
“The cities of the nations fell, and God remembered Babylon the great, to make her drain the cup of the wine of the fury of his wrath.”
I pray that the blue, hot reactor will suddenly blow, will end all this right now.
“And every island fled away, and no mountains were to be found. And the Lord rose up, with the wicked stricken from this place, forever, finally finding a purified kingdom of heaven on earth.”
Please!
“As below, so above!”
And then the cabin goes dark.
Just like that.
The main lights die, as do the consoles, the missile control. Auxiliary lights flash on.
Yellow lights spin now.
Warning lights for contamination.
This is no attack by the Topsiders.
The reactor.
“Caplain,” a crackling voice cries out over the squawk box, “Reactor coolant line just failed—it’s overhea—”
The rest of the transmission is cut short by a thunderous resonance emanating from aft. From engineering. A shudder through the very vessel. Then a roar.
A wave of heat and toxic fume wash through the cabin, through the chapel.
“Stations!” Caplain Marston shouts. The men in the room scramble.
Looking through the hatch, to the far side of the chapel, I see the glow of red flame. In the chapel, a mass of rushing shadows and shapes. Lazlo is among them, but I can’t see him—I am hooked about the shoulder by a powerful, cinching grip. Marston has ensnared me with his long reach.
“What have you done?” he demands, long face before mine. Long hands grappling my neck.
“Nothing…” I try to say, but the words are choked from me.
“You were sent by Satan, weren’t you?” he says, eyes blazing, face bent into a sneer. “Sent to ruin us. To thwart God’s will!”
I can’t breathe—can’t even gasp for the tightness.
Another pronounced bang causes the entire vessel to shiver. Then the world suddenly tilts, pitches downward. The caplain releases his grip, is knocked off his balance, falls, slides down nearly the full length of the corridor.
I catch myself on the entryway to missile control. Many other brothers tumble past me, scrambling for a grip. Brother Andrew. Brother Ernesto. Marcus.
“Dive planes aren’t responding!” a voice calls out over the squawk.
The Leviathan cants severely to starboard. One of the trim tanks has failed.
We’re going down.
I begin scaling up the inclined corridor, gripping the bulkhead in order to pull myself through the hatchway into the chapel, which is a riot of shouting, a smoke-filled and dim chaos.
“Lazlo!” I call out.
Brother Callum swims into view, clinging to one of the missile tube hatches. “Brace yourself… we’re going…”
He is slammed suddenly into the bulkhead as the whole boat lurches, screeches. A deafening report of clashing metal.
Impact.
My grip is shaken from me. I’m knocked to the deck.
The Leviathan has struck bottom. Heavy. Hard. The Arafura Sea is shallow, though. Just like Adolphine said, we can’t be more than forty fathoms deep.
Now comes the unmistakable hiss of ruptured pipes followed by a roaring torrent coming from deck below. The hull has been breached.
The klaxon blares.
The hatch to engineering is closed, sealed. The only entry to the tunnel. The fate of the Forgotten is now sealed. How many souls will be lost?
The deck has leveled. I push through the smoke, the confusion, past faceless, lurking, coughing forms. Brother Peter? Brother Jenner? I stumble over a fallen figure. I cannot see who, only that the shape is too big to be Lazlo.
Finally, I see a familiar figure in the flashing yellow lights. Ephraim. He is bracing a small, thin shadowed person.
“Lazlo!” I embrace him, his thin, emaciated body, so tight, I feel the breath go out of him. I feel his arms close around me.
“Come on,” I say, pulling both him and Ephraim along, forward.
“Where can we go?” he asks, coughing.