Guan-yin fingered the unbendable silver of her pendant.

  Seichan swallowed, both disconcerted and relieved to hear these words. She remained silent for several breaths, then challenged this cold sentiment. “What of my father?” she asked. “If he had offered, would you have married him?”

  “You ask for an answer to a question that could never be put to me. You know that. Such a union was impossible.”

  “But if he had defied his family and asked you, what would have been your response?”

  Guan-yin turned to the rail and looked a thousand miles off. “I . . . I do not know. I was young.” Her shoulders sagged at some memory of her former self. “Better it was never asked.”

  Ready to leave her mother to this reverie, Seichan turned toward the balcony door.

  “But you were asked,” Guan-yin said behind her. “By a good man, with a proud heart. And with your refusal, you risk losing him.”

  Seichan continued to the door, forcing her back straighter. “If it takes a ring to hold him, then it’s better he does leave.”

  Upon reaching the balcony door, she flashed to Gray down on one knee as fireworks cascaded across the Hong Kong skyline. Their dinner had been private—her mother took Jack and the others to watch the New Year celebrations aboard a boat on Victoria Harbour. He had worn a dark gray suit, with a crisply starched shirt and a silvery blue tie that matched the ice of his eyes. His dark hair had been slicked down, even the stubborn cowlick that always gave him a boyish look, masking the lethality in those firm muscles and quick reflexes. The only mark of casualness was the persistent dark stubble that shadowed his cheeks, courtesy of his Welsh heritage.

  Then he had withdrawn a ring box.

  I should’ve expected it before that moment.

  But she had not. In the past, they had talked about marriage, both jokingly and at other times with some earnestness, more so after Jack was born. She had no desire to be married, content with matters as they were. She had believed the matter to be settled.

  Yet, in hindsight, she also suspected the reason behind the sudden proposal.

  Friction had been growing between them of late, accompanied by arguments and long silences. When Jack was younger, their focus on the boy had masked a growing frustration on both their parts. Gray wanted more from her, even talking about another child. But Seichan could not dismiss the feeling of being trapped. All her adult life, she had been under the thumb of the Guild, her actions directed and proscribed. And while she loved Jack with an ache that sometimes crippled her, she wanted more, especially as the boy grew older, heading toward independence. She felt pulled in two different directions, and the straining only grew worse over time.

  So, when Gray had bent a knee in the villa’s dining room, the ring he had offered her had felt more like a set of shackles. She had tried to explain what she was feeling, what she believed. He had nodded, accepting her at her word, but the wounded look never left his eyes. They had made love that night, slowly and passionately, as if both were trying to reassure each other and themselves.

  But this morning, the tension continued. The various celebrations of Jack’s birthday had allowed them some space to further put this behind them, but she was not sure if it was enough—or if it ever would be.

  As she pulled the slider open, a low rumble rattled the door in its frame. She froze until the balcony began to jolt, and the chimes in the lower garden rang stridently in alarm.

  She turned and waved her mother away from the rail. “Get back from there!”

  Off in the distance, the neon skyscrapers of Hong Kong swayed and rolled. Patches of the city fell dark, first over in Kowloon across the harbor, then spreading to the island here. It looked as if the dark moon had descended out of the sky, obliterating the lights.

  Her mother joined her, and they hurried inside, away from the windows. Zhuang came sweeping to them from a back room.

  “Get everyone down into the open gardens,” Guan-yin ordered crisply. “It’ll be safer there.”

  “I’ll get Jack and Gray,” Seichan said.

  But before she could take three steps, muffled gunfire erupted outside. She glanced back at her mother. The sharper blast of a rocket-propelled grenade exploded out in the garden, accompanied by a bright flash of fire and a concussion that rattled the balcony windows.

  Her mother’s features were preternaturally calm. “Go to the garage bunker instead,” she ordered both Zhuang and Seichan. “We’ll regroup there.”

  They both fled in opposite directions.

  As Seichan ran, the quaking steadily worsened.

  3

  January 23, 1:18 A.M. NCT

  Two miles under the Coral Sea

  Phoebe stifled a yawn—but not out of boredom. It was well after midnight, and she was bone-tired. She and Jazz had managed to nab a late-night ROV time slot. There were still another three sites that she wanted to sample.

  “Where to next?” Jazz asked, seated at the booth’s control station.

  Fifteen matching cubicles ringed Kalliste Tier, the fourth level of Titan Station Down. Each booth was separated by walls that ran from floor to ceiling and could be closed off by an accordion-style folding door both for privacy and to limit the ambient light when viewing the ROV’s camera footage.

  Phoebe leaned over Jazz’s shoulder and studied the forty-five-inch monitor. It displayed a gorgeous high-definition view of the coral reefs sweeping past the vehicle. A window in the screen’s corner plotted the ROV’s relative position as it traveled across the illuminated fields. A trio of coordinates blipped crimson on the same map.

  Phoebe pointed to one at the very edge, where the station’s lamplight faded into darkness. “Let’s continue to Loci A17.”

  “Got it.”

  Jazz manipulated the console’s toggles and drove the ROV farther out. Other knobs and switches were spread in an arc before her seat. They operated the array of equipment aboard each ROV: claw and caliper attachments, cutting tools and sampling jars. Unfortunately, the ROV’s range was limited to five hundred meters, the length of its fiber-optic tether.

  As Jazz homed in on Loci A17, Phoebe studied the darkness beyond the station’s lamps, where the ROVs could not travel.

  Farther out in the sunless depths, the Titan Project had seeded forty-two AUVs. The autonomous underwater vehicles operated on preset programs, mapping the surrounding landscape. They ran on batteries that lasted for a week before needing to be recharged. Unfortunately, the AUVs were not good platforms for collecting samples. Instead, they were used for high-resolution mapping and had been in operation for six months, tracking the surrounding landscape, all the way to the very edges of the deep trenches to the east.

  During the past weeks, Phoebe had reviewed the AUVs’ camera and sonar logs. She had mapped the location of two dozen coral beds. None were larger than the one under the station, but several lay far deeper. She wanted to collect samples from there, too, but that would have to wait another three days, when she was scheduled to leave on a far-ranging HOV survey.

  But until then . . .

  “We’re almost there,” Jazz said, then whistled appreciatively. “And you picked out a beaut.”

  Phoebe returned her attention to the coral beds closer at hand. On the screen, a six-meter-tall sprout of coral waved in the deep-ocean current. Its branches were densely packed and feathered by fields of emerald-green polyps.

  “I spotted this lonely giant on the first day,” Phoebe commented. “It looks like a species of black coral.”

  “If so, it’d be a record breaker. It’s easily twice the size of any that I’ve seen.”

  Excited to learn more, Phoebe leaned closer. Black coral came in hundreds of species, with polyps of every hue: brilliant yellows, shimmering whites, even dark blues and purples. Yet, all of them had the same characteristic jet-black calcareous branches, lined by tiny sharp spikes. It was for the latter reason that some black corals were also called thorn corals. And green ones, like this specimen, were sometimes named Christmas Tree corals due to their brilliant, dense branches.

  So far, Phoebe had identified fourteen species of black coral sharing this reef, but her interest in this specimen went beyond its sheer size. “For it to have grown this large,” she said, “it must be ancient.”

  Jazz nodded. “A veritable sequoia of black coral.”

  “Exactly.”

  Species of black coral were considered to be the longest-living marine animals. A polyp species in Hawaiian waters had been dated at 4,270 years old and continued to thrive.

  Jazz manipulated the controls and circled the ROV around the tall specimen. She recorded it from every angle. “Did you ever get a consensus from the topside researchers about the age of these coral fields? I mean, how long has this oasis been hiding down here, waiting for us?”

  “It’s still not clear. A marine archaeologist up in Titan X’s science globe is repeating some preliminary studies. He cored out a deep sample from the thickest areas of the reef and is using laser ablation to date it. The same technique was employed to clock the age of coral beds in the Mediterranean. That study concluded the coral had been growing continuously for more than 400,000 years.”

  Jazz glanced back at her. “Wait. You said the archaeologist was repeating his tests. If he’s doing that, then he must be double-checking something that requires double-checking.” She must have read Phoebe’s expression. “You’ve heard something already! And you’ve not told me?”

  “Like I said, it’s still preliminary.”

  “Tell me, or I’ll crash this ROV straight into the sand.”

  Phoebe smiled. “According to the archaeologist’s initial surveys, he’s estimating these coral beds have been here for ten million years. Maybe longer.”

  “Ten million . . .” Jazz whispered in awe.

  “Or longer,” Phoebe repeated. “There’s no telling what this coral might reveal about the ancient past.”

  This was what intrigued her the most about deep-sea coral and continued to be the focus of her research. Because coral grew so slowly at these extreme depths, their calcified skeletons incorporated ocean elements, creating an archive of marine conditions that predated humanity. Studying those preserved records promised to offer valuable insight into how the changes in the ocean affected coral growth, both in the past and into the future.

  She remembered her earlier conversation with William Byrd and his concern about the state of the world’s reefs.

  This is why I was brought here.

  She didn’t want to disappoint him. Though, in truth, that was only a small part of her motivation. She had always had a love and fascination with the ocean. It was her refuge and playground.

  Back in Barbados, her father had been a hot-tempered Puerto Rican, prone to sudden angry outbursts, who had used his fists as much as his tongue to express his frustration. Her mother would do her best to shield Phoebe, sending her off when those storms grew too fierce. Phoebe had found solace and peace underwater, where the anger of the world grew muffled. She would stay down as long as possible, holding her breath, trying to get as deep as she could on a single lungful—what would later be called freediving.

  After she and her mother had finally fled the abuse and settled in Southern California, Phoebe had kept close to the sea, taking up the sport with more seriousness—even earning a scholarship to help pay for her schooling.

  She continued to practice the sport, still finding joy in the solitude.

  She stared out at the dark depths beyond the station.

  Only now I’m diving much deeper.

  “Pheebs?” Jazz turned to her. “What do you want to do?”

  Phoebe shook off her reverie, blaming it on her exhaustion. She pointed to the screen, to the unusual specimen. She was anxious to learn its secrets.

  “Jazz, draw us closer. I want to pick out the best branch to sample.”

  “No problem, boss.”

  Jazz slowed and expertly nosed the ROV up to a dense cluster of branches and hovered the vehicle in place—or at least, tried to do so. “There’s a pretty strong current. Do you want to perform the sample collection while I hold the ROV steady?”

  “Will do.” Phoebe shifted next to her friend. She squeezed over to the bank of controls that operated the ROV’s claws, cutters, and collection equipment. She reached a fingertip to the monitor and circled a few branches of coral glowing on the screen. “Zoom in right here.”

  Jazz manipulated a lens toggle. A dense field of the emerald-green polyps swelled into view.

  After some fine-tuning, Jazz flinched. “Boss, I think you might’ve been wrong around this being a species of black coral.”

  Phoebe grimaced, hating to be mistaken, but realizing Jazz was likely right. “From a distance, I was so sure,” she mumbled. “The skeleton of this coral is jet black. And up close, you can even see thorny spikes along its bark, typical of such species.”

  “But you can’t ignore the polyps themselves,” Jazz warned. “Just count their arms. These each have eight. Just like little octopuses.”

  “Whereas black corals only have six.” Phoebe sighed her concession on this point. “Still, it’s intriguing. Maybe we’ll learn more once we collect a sample.”

  “It could be a new species,” Jazz said.

  “Let’s hope so.”

  Phoebe reached a claw toward a polyp-packed branch. As the jaws neared the stalk, dozens of the polyps unfurled long, thin threads. They stretched a foot long and battered at the approaching steel claw.

  “Sweeper tentacles,” Jazz said with clear amazement.

  Phoebe moved closer, equally astonished.

  Many species of coral came armed with such weapons. But their tentacles were never this long. Sweepers, like this, were used to hunt prey beyond the reach of a polyp’s tiny circlet of arms. They were notoriously tipped with a potent nematocyst, a venomous stinger for stunning prey. Sweepers were also employed as a means of territorial aggression, to ward off the encroachment of any other coral.

  “Whatever species this is,” Jazz said, “it’s clearly not keen on us sampling it.”

  Phoebe shifted the claw closer. “We’ll remove just the tip of this stalk. It can’t begrudge us that.”

  As the claw’s cutter touched the coral, a flurry of motion drew a gasp from both women. Polyps burst out of their calcified nests, escaping like a startled flock of birds. Once free, they sped across the water with tiny spasms of their bodies and twirls of their arms. Several even attacked the claw, grabbing hold and clinging tight.

  “What the hell?” Jazz asked. “No coral does that.”

  Phoebe squinted and noted a few polyps hadn’t made their escape from the coral. Before they did, she quickly snapped off the branch and vacuumed the twig and its last few residents into a self-sealing sample jar.

  Once done, Phoebe straightened from the console. “That was definitely strange.”

  Normally, a polyp remained sessile and rooted into the coral, living and dying in place. While it could periodically spin off tiny medusae of itself during its life cycle, it never abandoned the coral.

  “I’ve never seen anything like it,” Phoebe said.

  “No one has.” Jazz stared wide-eyed at her. “This may not just be another species of coral, but possibly an entirely new subphylum of Cnidaria.”

  Cnidaria encompassed a slew of different subphyla and classes, from jellyfishes to anemones, to all manner of coral, even strange parasites. If Jazz was right, they had just made an astounding discovery.

  Still, she tamped down her excitement.

  “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Phoebe warned and checked her watch. “We’re almost at the end of our allotted time slot. We can figure out what we discovered once we have it back at our lab.”

  Jazz nodded and began retracting the ROV.

  As the vehicle retreated away from the specimen, Phoebe stared at the screen. Distracted earlier, she had failed to note another peculiarity of the giant coral tree. The sands around it looked devoid of any other life. No corals grew within meters of the emerald-green outcropping. No fish poked about its fringes. No crabs scuttled under its bower.

  She pictured the jetting polyps, the whipping sweeper tentacles.

  While much remained unknown about this specimen, one aspect was clear.

  Whatever it was, it was highly aggressive.

  4

  January 22, 10:44 P.M. HKT

  Hong Kong, China

  Carrying his son in his arms, Gray rushed down the shaking concrete stairs toward the garage on the villa’s first floor. Dust shifted from overhead as the earthquake’s rumbling wave contorted the building.

  He raced barefooted, wearing only a pair of sweatpants. He had been in the shower when the world had started shaking. He hadn’t even had time to towel off when Seichan had rushed into the bedroom. She had come to secure Jack and to alert Gray about an attack on the villa. Only after her warning had he heard the muffled popping of automatic gunfire and a few louder blasts. Seichan had quickly got them all moving downstairs.

  As he leaped off the last steps and into the cavernous eight-car garage, Guan-yin waved to him from a wall to the right. She was guarded by four men with Chinese QBZ automatic rifles, all carbine variants with shorter barrels.

  “This way!” Guan-yin called to them.

  Seichan crowded behind Gray. “Go!”

  He ran toward Guan-yin, sidling along a row of Audis, Porsches, and Aston Martins. A million-dollar Bugatti Chiron rested on a turntable. It was plainly profitable to be the Boss of Macau.

  When he reached Guan-yin, one of her men hauled open a secret door camouflaged into the wall’s wainscotting. She pointed down the revealed ramp. “Get into the bunker.”

  Gray hesitated—and not just because he was reluctant to seek shelter underground during a quake. He rocked Jack in his arms. Despite the continual stomach-churning roll of the ground, the boy remained half asleep, exhausted from the long day of excitement, dead to the world as only a two-year-old could be. Jack rested his cheek on Gray’s shoulder. But his son was not the only child in danger.