CHAPTER 12 – Layla's Truth ---
1841 Words
The hydro maps archive tunnel seemed to shake in his ears after he had shut the heavy door. Faris strode without remembering his feet. His mind lingered with the columns of figures, the bends of the flowgraphs. They had stared back at him with all the unblinking condemnation of a specter.
Three times the amount that had been recorded. Not a variance. Not degradation. Not a malfunctioning valve.
The Vault was draining.
He had tried to breathe slowly, letting the quiet night in the outer passages calm him, but the image kept flashing—the figure, the hooded figure, manipulating the pipes in the vat of algae. The figure in the vault had not been an illusion.
And if that shadow had a name—he feared he already did.
----
He nearly went back to the dormitory. Nearly talked himself into believing questions could wait until morning, until he'd slept, until the world improved. Sleeping with that knowledge trapped inside him was like drowning in slow motion.
When the metal grate of the top causeway clanged against his palm, he knew that his decision was made.
Layla would be on night shift in the east wing laboratories. She always worked late, fiddling with the tank calibration in that inane way that drove the other techs nuts. She'd be by herself there now.
If she wasn't guilty, he'd know.
If she was.
The uppermost windows of the lab were pale green with biolights on the inside. Condensation trickled on the glass in flowing patterns, each puddle catching a spark of light from the algae tanks.
Faris walked in. The smell hit first—warm brine, metallic glint of filtration units, sweet hint of algae bloom.
Layla was at the far end of the room, her back to him, hair swept up high out of the way of the tank. Her fingers paced the control panel, but with more labored deliberateness than before, as though each keystroke had some importance.
"Layla."
She startled—not much, but enough. The tension was strained, tight, the way a body tries to hide recognition before they've even turned.
“Faris.” She looked over her shoulder, a smile flickering, not quite settling. “You’re out late.”
“You were in the algae basin last night.”
Her hands stilled on the panel. For a moment, only the soft churning of water filled the room.
“I was running a filtration check.”
“At night? With a hood? Disconnecting pipes?”
Her jaw shifted, and something in her posture—shoulders rounding, spine curling slightly forward—made his pulse quicken.
---
"Think I'm stealing?" she finally said, softly.
"I think somebody is. And I think you are involved."
She breathed out of her nose, slow and deliberate. "It's not what you think."
"Then tell me what it is."
She hesitated, glancing toward the side door that opened deeper into the east wing. When she spoke again, her voice was softer.
"Not here."
---
They moved along a ruined storage tunnel, the air fresher, the echo of their boots resonating. Layla opened a tiny maintenance hatch and vanished within.
It was a deserted service room—no tanks, no consoles, just low stone walls. The air was softly perfumed with dust and seawater.
She sat on a crate, gesturing for him to close the hatch.
“What I’m going to tell you,” she began, “could get both of us sealed out of the Vault. Or worse.”
Faris’s chest tightened. “Then why tell me?”
“Because you’re already in it now. You’ve seen too much.”
---
Her gaze drifted—not to him, but somewhere far away, as if recalling a memory so heavy it bent the present around it.
"My mother was a diver," she said. "One of the old ones, before they outlawed surface runs for the unlicensed. She told me that the sea wasn't always like this. It had color. Life. Not just salt and quiet."
Faris scowled. "This has nothing to do with—"
"It has to do with everything. The Vault, the algae, the flow numbers—they're all part of the same lie."
She leaned forward, elbows on knees.
"The Council isn't protecting us from shortages. They're rationing. They overestimate decay so they can siphon reserves into off-books sources—commerce with the outer planets, keep their own factions alive. The theft you saw? That's sanctioned. But not for everyone's benefit."
---
Faris swallowed. "You're. an accomplice? Helping them?"
"No." Now her tone was acerbic. "I'm diverting it—but not to them. I'm sending it where it's needed. To the drought-stricken areas. To the enclaves where children hydrate from rusted gutters."
He glared at her, the pieces colliding with each other in his head.
"You're smuggling water out of the Vault."
"Yes."
---
The silence between them grew thick. Somewhere deep within the wall, an old pipe creaked.
At last, he replied, "Do you know what you do if you're caught?
“I know exactly what happens. I’ve seen it.” Her eyes locked on his. “But I’d rather be the one bleeding the Vault for the forgotten than watch the Council let them die.”
Her conviction hung in the air, heavy as the humidity in the algae rooms. And at that moment, Faris couldn’t decide whether she was a savior or a saboteur.
---
The algae bloom graphs flickered on the portable holo-slab, their jagged peaks shimmering like teeth against the dim green glow of the lab’s emergency lights. Faris kept his arms folded, watching Layla work, each tap of her fingers on the interface another unspoken admission.
“So,” he said finally, his voice low but carrying an edge, “you’ve been following this for a while.”
Layla refused to look up. "More than you can imagine." She focused on a flower pattern from nine cycles ago. The data overlay showed plumes of nutrient content—far more than the Vault's filtration would allow. "It isn't random contamination. It happens on a cycle. Every six to eight months, on time."
"And you never told anyone?"
Her laugh was humorless. “To who? The League’s own inspectors? They’re the ones cleaning the reports before they ever reach public access. I’ve sent data packets before. They vanish.”
Faris shifted his weight, uneasy. “You sound sure.”
“I am sure.” She finally turned toward him, eyes narrowing. “The same way you’re sure something happened to your father. The difference is—I can prove it.”
The air between them became charged, not exactly unfriendly but not by any means friendly. Faris leaned forward, setting his elbows on the table and looking at her files. She did not push them aside, but neither did she give them freely.
"Algae bloom cycles," he told her quietly. "That's symptomatic. What's the cause?"
Layla's gaze shot to the old aqueduct schematics pinned up on the other wall, the top edges of which were curled with age. "If I had known that," she said, "I would have shut it down by now." She paused, then went on, "I'm guessing it's a siphoning job—something tapping raw flow before it even makes it to the Vault's filters. But whoever's doing it makes less track than anyone else I've ever tracked."
"You've tracked water thieves before?
Plenty. But this—" She let her fingers trail across the holo-slab again. "This is not a smash-and-grab. This is thought out. Efficient. Someone's running it as a business."
The hum of the cooling fans filled the quiet. Faris watched her, weighing whether she was only telling him enough truth to keep him in line—or if this was all of it.
"Why now?" he finally asked.
Layla's lips pressed into a thin line. "Because you've been sniffing around the same boundaries I have. And because the last person I confided in about this disappeared two days later. If they're going to kill me, I'd prefer not to be the only thing standing in their way."
He caught the quiver in her voice—fear disguised as calculation. "You think I'm going to take the fall for you?
No," she replied bluntly. "I think you're going to defend yourself. And for that, you'll need me."
Her assurance was grating, but it carried substance. Faris sighed, standing up from the table. "Fine. We work together. But know one thing—I don't trust you."
"Good," she said, turning away from her slab again. "Because I don't trust you either.
They worked in silence for the rest of the half hour, matching their records, checking anomalies in flow reports against data coming from the Outer Ring's small stations. Trends began to emerge—clusters that organized too nicely with deactivated maintenance corridors.
At one point, Layla snarled, "These tunnels were closed in time for the war."
"Closed," Faris echoed. "Not dismantled."
She stared at him harshly, and he reached the same realization going through her head that had been teasing his own for weeks—someone was testing the older infrastructure.
They were nearly getting to the bottom of it when the lab's close proximity alarm beeped twice—short, urgent. Layla went rigid. "That's the back door."
Faris's heart began to beat faster. "Expecting someone?"
"Not someone who's friendly."
She switched off the holo-slab wordlessly, removed the core chip, and stashed it in the boot lining. The green glow disappeared, and only the emergency strips gave thin stripes of light along the floor.
The outer corridor resounded with footsteps. Two sets. Slow and cautious.
Faris scanned the cramped lab. "You have another way out?"
Layla gestured toward a side hatch just big enough for one person at a time. "Maintenance crawlspace. Sub-drains are available through it."
"And what if they learn about it?"
"Then we flee."
They made themselves fit, shutting the hatch behind them as the lab door swished open. Voices hung on the metal—low, clipped, official. Faris didn't catch the words, but he didn't need to. The tone was enough.
They didn't have to move until the air in the crawlspace was wet and metallic, drip-drop water echoing up in the distance. Layla knelt down at a thin grate, pushed it open, and indicated he should go through first.
The moment Faris's boots hit the shallow drain, Layla closed it behind them, covering the grate. For what was an eternity, they stood there, gasping, letting the cold of the underground water creep into their boots.
Finally, Faris said, "Whomever they were—they knew exactly where to find you."
"I know," Layla said softly, her words tangled with both steel and resignation. "That's why we start tonight."
"Start what?
"Finding out who's behind this. Before they find us."
There was no mistaking her voice. And although every fiber of him was crying out to remain in the background, Faris knew he had already made up his mind.
- Writer
