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  "I mean, you've only taken freshman and nonacademic classes. And while I'm sure pottery and ancient cultural appreciation were fascinating, they don't fulfill the requirements of an AA degree. Maybe a math or a science class…"

  "So what you're saying is that you've been taking my money and it doesn't count?" Tanis grabbed all the papers off his desk.

  "What I'm saying is you should have come to me six years ago so that we could have put together an academic plan. But we can do this now! We just need to get you focused!"

  "Focus on this!" Tanis said, giving him the finger, a foreshadowing of the rest of her day.

  She looked at the front door to her mom's house, not sure how she was going to break all this news to her.

  She turned off the engine and slid out, resting her hand on her truck. At least this was something. After years in that fucking coffeehouse, putting up with all the shit customers and crap from her boss, she’d saved up enough money to buy herself this truck in cash just last week. Maybe she'd pitch a tent in the back and live in it.

  She looked up at the house.

  It sucked that that was probably what she was going to have to do.

  She walked up to the door and opened it. Her mom looked up from the living room. She was dusting her carousel snow globe collection, her hair in its perfect perm, her pastel business-casual clothes always perfect, without a wrinkle, her hands perfectly manicured as they wiped away all the dirt. Tanis bit her black-painted thumbnail nervously.

  "Well, look who's home early," her mom snapped.

  The morning's fight was obviously not forgotten. Tanis threw her purse in the hall closet. "Hey," she said.

  "Is that all you have to say to me?" asked her mom, bristling.

  "Yeah," said Tanis, heading towards the stairs.

  "Get back here, young lady!" her mom bellowed.

  Tanis walked back, her face burning.

  "Seems you and I need to have a little chat about responsibilities."

  "Mom, listen, I'm meeting up with a bunch of folks for my birthday. Can this wait until tomorrow?"

  "You are almost twenty-five years old, Tanis. Twenty-five. You are too old to sit there screaming at me and treating me with disrespect. I am your mother." Her mom crossed her arms, then straightened her back and announced, "I've given this a lot of thought, and I want you to pack your bags and find yourself another place to live."

  Tanis had known it was coming. She’d known this was what her mom was going to nail her with. But that still didn't make it sting any less. "Mom, you said I could stay here as long as I had a job and was in school," Tanis replied.

  "That was before I knew you were going to be so ugly to me. You're lucky I let you stay as long as you did! Your father kicked you out ten years ago."

  "Dad kicked all of us out, Mom."

  "You think I don't know that? And so I worked and scraped and did everything for you, sacrificed everything for you, and you think screaming at me like some ungrateful twelve-year-old is the way to thank me? Well, you can just get out."

  Tanis rubbed her forehead, angry tears prickling in her eyes. "Fine. Fine! I'll get my fucking things and get the fuck out and we don't ever have to see each other ever again!"

  Tanis ran up the stairs and slammed her bedroom door behind her.

  "I will pray for you!" her mom shouted vehemently from below.

  Tanis heard the front door slam. She looked out the window and saw her mom marching angrily to her car, lighting up a cigarette, and getting behind the wheel.

  Tanis hated this. Hated how it never changed. She wiped away the wetness from her cheeks. Her hand was streaked with black from her mascara. Tanis walked over to the mirror to clean herself up.

  Fine, she thought. Fine. She would get the hell out, just like her mom always wanted her to do. Tanis Archer slid the bloodred lipstick across her lips and looked at herself in the mirror. She never fit in here. Her Greek features, her black hair and olive skin, stood out next to Dallas' tanned, blond cheerleaders. Tomorrow, she'd get on the next bus to Austin. She’d switch back from her mom's last name, Archer, to her dad's name, Toxotes, just to piss her off. She'd get a job and pick a major and show that bitch she wasn't a waste.

  She wiped away another tear. She heard the front door open and shut again. She looked outside for the car, wondering whom it could be.

  "Tanis!" came a shout from downstairs.

  "Brett?" she called back, disbelieving.

  "Get your old-lady ass down here!"

  Tanis ran out of her bedroom, skipping down the stairs. It was her brother. Her big brother! "Brett!" she shouted, launching herself across the room and hugging him around the neck.

  He held her tight in a bear hug. It felt so safe. He was brilliant. He was wonderful. And right now, he was the only person in the world she wanted to see.

  Brett let go of her and walked to the kitchen. "Brought some Chinese food. You want some?"

  "I'm going out," Tanis said, following him.

  He ruffled her hair as he teased her. "Going out? Going out? My baby sister is goooing ooout."

  "Quit it!" she laughed, socking him in the arm.

  "Just think, after tomorrow, you'll qualify for Cougar Nite!"

  "Shut up!"

  "Happy birthday, sis," he said, giving her a great big kiss on the cheek before sticking his fork into the chow mein.

  Tanis plopped down into a faded blue La-Z-Boy recliner her mom refused to get rid of. The entire room screamed country chic, with fat oak furniture and bowls of potpourri. Tanis began tying up her boots. "Fucking birthday."

  "Use language like that, young lady, and the birthday fairy is gonna stick rattlesnakes in your cake."

  "Mom kicked me out," she said.

  Brett shrugged, taking another bite. "So you'll come stay with me until she gets her panties out of a wad."

  "I don't think she's getting anything out of a wad anytime soon, Brett."

  "You guys fight like this all the time. You wouldn't even know what to do if you weren't trying to kill each other."

  She smiled and leaned back in the chair. He always knew what to say. Always. He was the only reason their family stayed together after their dad left.

  "I dunno, Brett. Maybe she's right. Maybe I am just a fuckup."

  "I've been telling you that for years."

  "Shut up."

  Brett came over and sat on the arm of her chair. "Do you really want to do something with your life?" Brett asked.

  "What do you think I've been trying to do?" Tanis said, looking at him like he was an idiot.

  "Become Dallas Community College's oldest continuing coed?"

  "Shut up." She jammed her foot into her other boot.

  "Listen, if there is something you don't like about the way your life is going, just change it. Nobody's saying you have to live the life you've got. Nobody."

  "Says you."

  "Says someone who fucking cares about you, you little shit." She leaned against his arm and he kissed the top of her head. "You know I got your back."

  "Yeah," she said.

  "You can do anything you want, Tanis."

  "Sure." She said. "I gotta go meet some folks."

  "I just came to hang out with Mom. I don't give a shit if you're here or not."

  "Thanks, Brett."

  Brett pointed his fork at her. "Call me if you need a ride. No one-eyeing it down the road."

  "I promise!" she said, raising her hands in protest, before getting up. She went over and gave him a hug, ignoring the noodles hanging out of his mouth. "Love you, Brett."

  "You, too, sis."

  She went out to her truck but stopped for just a second to look back at the town house and the shadow of Brett on the window shade. He believed in her. And that was all she really needed.

  She drove out of the subdivision and pulled onto the freeway. She had the road completely to herself. She headed up the High Five, a stretch of freeway elevated 120 feet above the ground for no other reason than
to look pretty.

  She turned on the radio. Tonight could be the start of something new. She wouldn't get too drunk, she thought. That way she wouldn't be hungover tomorrow. She'd find a new job and pick a major. She'd crash with Brett and they'd get it all figured out.

  She looked down at her speedometer and realized she was doing ninety straight up. She couldn't help smiling. Her old car could barely pass fifty-five miles an hour without shaking itself to death. This new truck was so smooth, she didn't even realize when she was breaking the speed limit. She reached over with her right foot and braked.

  The car didn't slow.

  Instead, it accelerated to 100, then 110, then 120. The curve of the High Five was straight ahead of her and she couldn't slow down. Tanis slammed the brakes again and again. Her heart started pounding. Her palms sweat and slid on the steering wheel as she tried to control the car at the bend, but she felt the wheels slide as the car hit 130, then 140.

  "Stop it…stop it…stop it…," she said as the whole world slowed.

  She fishtailed, her tires losing contact with the road. The back of her truck hit the concrete guardrail and she started spinning. Time stopped. She couldn't even scream. She clung to the wheel, as if somehow she would be able to regain control. The nose clipped the guard rail again and the steel of the truck tore like tissue paper. The tires popped and she felt the car roll right over the barrier.

  There was nothing but silence as her truck fell 120 feet towards the ground, as she watched the earth speeding towards her..

  "Help…," she whispered before slamming into the concrete.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The Black Sea

  The sound of Heather's voice crackled in his helmet.

  "How's the weather down there?" she asked.

  "Wet outside, but I'm nice and cozy!" replied Steve.

  The bottom of the Black Sea stretched before him like the surface of the moon. Slowly, he lifted his foot. The yellow robotic suit matched his movements as if it could read his mind. For the first time in history, a human was walking on the floor of the Black Sea. A digital screen popped up on his visor, indicating his depth and the water temperature and pressure. Using only his eye movements, he was able to scroll through the data and, with a blink, send it straight to the science boat on the water's surface.

  Heather Paxton's voice came through again. "We're getting your info dump loud and clear up here."

  Steve laughed. "Ready for more?"

  "Yes."

  "Beg for it, baby."

  "You're a tease, Steve."

  "Beg."

  "You know I always want more."

  He blinked again, capturing the view of the sea filling his visor, and shot the image above.

  Heather's voice was husky in his ear. "Don't stop."

  Steve smiled. Heather could be a coldhearted, power-hungry bitch, but they both knew data made her wet.

  "See any life down there, Steve?" she asked.

  "Negative," he replied, shining his headlamps into the darkness. "Well below the death zone. I'll take some samples to be sure, but I see nothing here but us microbes."

  He reached over and pressed a button on his right wrist. A small door slid open in the suit, revealing an interior vial. The door slid shut again and Steve knew the little robotic arms inside were capping and labeling it, adding it to the bracelet of samples protected inside the metal walls of this suit, the only thing protecting him from the crush of the water.

  "How about you making your way over to the shipwreck we pinged?" Heather asked.

  "What? You got a problem with me taking it nice and slow, baby?"

  "Roll me over and get this done, Steve. I'm tired of your foreplay."

  He smiled and clicked another button on his belt. Slowly, the fans on the bottom of his feet kicked on, levitating him off the sea bottom and propelling him towards the graveyard.

  Aboard the science vessel, Heather Paxton watched the monitors breathlessly. She had spent the past three years putting together this research trip to the Black Sea and devoted her entire life to the study of ancient Byzantine culture. After close to a decade in the underwater archeology program at Seattle Northwest University, she had finally managed to cobble together the grant proposal for this trip. She and her team had been at sea for the past three months and the money was about to run out. That was, unless they found something.

  "See anything yet, Steve?" she said, leaning forward towards the microphone.

  "Holy fuck."

  It came over the horizon of the floor like a mountain.

  "I'm seeing a spike in your heart rate, Steve. Everything okay?"

  He swallowed. He'd never seen anything this beautiful since Farrah Fawcett hung on his bedroom wall. "You're never going to believe this, Heather."

  Steve hovered above the ocean floor, suspended in the water as his lamps hit the boat. It spread before him like a beached blue whale, the masts sticking up like the sun-bleached ribs of a carcass. It was a Byzantine ship, but bigger than anything he'd ever seen before. He didn't even know how the technology had existed to build it. It was six stories tall, the portals for the rowers in the middle deck instead of the top. It was covered with carvings—and was so perfectly preserved, it looked like it had just been sunk earlier that day.

  He snapped a picture and sent it up. He heard Heather's gasp.

  "Oh God…," she whispered breathlessly.

  Steve propelled himself closer. Not a barnacle. No sign of water erosion. He peered at the base. It wasn't even sunk into the silt and dirt. It was just lying there.

  "Can you get closer?" Heather said.

  "I thought you would never ask," replied Steve. He aimed the fans and rose up the side of the boat.

  On the science vessel, Heather was dragging and dropping all the data onto the external hard drive, backing up the info. There was no way in hell she was going to let this be destroyed. She opened her e-mail and shot off the images to Seattle Northwest University. Fuck them if they thought they were going to cut off her funding.

  "There are bodies everywhere…"

  She leaned forward in her chair. "Give me some pictures, Steve!"

  Steve looked up and down the deck of the boat, his light falling frustratingly short. He tried to increase the output, but his lamps were giving all they could to pierce the darkness. From what he could see, there were two sets of victims.

  "There seems to have been some sort of a battle," Steve said, snapping pictures in every direction he turned.

  The mummified corpses were in various states of flight. Some holding swords. Some with swords sticking out of them. Some reached towards the surface as if they wanted to swim to safety but were tied by invisible strings to the boat.

  "Looks like maybe some sort of slave rebellion," said Steve. "Look at the way the water preserved their clothing! Rags, religious vestments, looks like we have some royalty, too."

  He counted forty bodies laid out on the deck peacefully with their arms crossed over their chests. Their clothing was woven with a silver material and gold, both of which still glistened when he caught them with his light.

  "Maybe some sort of funeral barge," he added. "Don't kill me, Heather, but I'm going to try something."

  "What?" she asked.

  He turned off his fans and his feet landed on the deck. "I'm standing on the boat," Steve replied.

  "You're an idiot! You could have gone clean through! You should have gone clean through! If you damaged that thing—" she yelled into his earpiece.

  He banged his foot on the surface. "It's solid, Heather. It's like it was just built."

  He looked at the body by his foot, the body of some forgotten lord sent out to sea for burial.

  There was a feeling that crawled up his spine then. Like accidentally walking into a bad neighborhood at night. The feeling of malice built. He tried to ignore the sensation that he was being watched. He was in the dead zone. Nothing could live down here. He turned, but there was nothing there. He turned
again. Nothing. It was just in his head, he told himself. He kicked on the fans and sailed down to the other end of the ship.

  He didn't see the two eyes glowing yellow in the pitch behind him.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Dallas

  Tanis opened her eyes. Darkness. Nothing but darkness. Cold. She was cold. And naked. Bare metal bit into her skin. Her teeth chattered. There was something covering her face. It crinkled almost like a paper tablecloth. She moved her fingers and pulled it away. There was nothing to see, just darkness.

  She shot out her hands, searching for escape. They hit metal. The noise reverberated like she had struck an empty oil drum. The metal beneath her had a lip to it—it felt almost like a tray. Beyond that, she felt a smooth metal wall on either side. She reached up and there were more smooth metal inches above her. Metal on every side. A box. A metal box. She was trapped in a metal box.

  "Help!" she shouted. Her voice echoed loudly around her.

  She needed to get out. Get out! started screaming in her head. She was going to die if she didn't get out right now.

  She shimmied down to the bottom of the tray until her feet hit the end of the box. She bent her leg as much as she could and began kicking, kicking, kicking.

  There was a whooshing sound, like some sort of air seal was broken, and then a light on the other end. She tilted her head backwards so she could see, blinking into the glare. A figure. A silhouetted head was looking in on her.

  "What the fuck?!" she shouted.

  The silhouette reached out and grabbed the tray. Tanis slid out of the box.

  She was in some sort of a medical facility. Autopsy tables in the middle of the room. A drain in the gray tiled floor.

  She jumped off. Her legs wobbled. But that didn't stop her from grabbing the guy and slamming him against the wall. She leaned her forearm tight against his throat. He didn't fight. His pasty, doughy face showed nothing but shock. "Where the fuck am I?"

  "You're supposed to be dead," he stammered.

  She looked around. It looked like a morgue. Her tray hung out of a wall-sized refrigeration unit.

  "Did you cut me open?" she shouted, slamming her arm into his windpipe again.