Elias sat with his hands still gripped around the plastic steering wheel. The water was already past his shoe soles, pools of it gathering in the footwells, reflecting the dim orange light from the instrument cluster like oil on a road. He didn't move. He didn't try the key again. He knew the breakdown of a cracked manifold; you don't get a second chance once the river gets into the cylinders.
"The bulkhead gate is seventy yards back," Damien said. His voice was remarkably level, carrying that same flat, deliberate quiet he used when he was reviewing an infrastructure layout in his office. He hadn't lifted his legs away from the rising water. He sat with his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his dark cashmere sweater, his eyes fixed on the windshield where the fog was condensing into
