FROM THE SHOALS OF BROKEN CITIES
Heather OsborneCastaways flopped like dying fish on the edge of the moonpool. Alon Baccay slipped back from the froth of gasping, blood-eyed flotsam lying on the thalassade as a school of medics slid past him. His stomach churned at the sight of the castaways’ cracked skin and sun-blackened bodies. The habitat’s air mix was configured for augmented lungs and surgical gills. Castaways schemed to escape their surface lives, deluding themselves that living underwater was nothing more than a dip in a pond. Unaltered, uncommitted, they were learning the truth now.
Alon wasn’t alone. Everyone on the thalassade turned from their conversations and idle rambles in the precious open space of the habitat when the medics cracked the first tank. Oxygen hissed; medics
