XVIII | Into the Depths
He quickly worked his mask around and sealed it to his face —its emergency oxygen reserves would buy him a little time, at least—before the steel ball broke the surface with a great, smacking noise ... and he was instantly engulfed in icy froth. He bent in the vacuum without delay, reaching blindly for the heel of his boot, and when he’d run across it he cupped its smooth rubber in the palm of his hand and pushed at it desperately.
But neither the boot nor its collar of steel would budge. (He had hoped in some obscure way that he might work the trappings free now that they were submerged in water—now he realized that such a hope had been obscure, indeed.)
He sank. And as he sank the foam surged past his shoulders ... like a white cloak of bubbles to replace the b
