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Sam was well-acquainted with the art of the mid-mission status report.
You never needed one on a mission that was going well, because a mission that was going well could usually just continue on its merry way. No, the mid-mission status report was for missions that were not going well. It was for the missions when you found yourself scrambling for cover, desperate to claw out some breathing room while you tried to figure out what went wrong and why you weren’t dead yet and how you could stop yourself from becoming dead in any kind of short order.
It was for those missions. For when shit had well and truly hit the fan. Somehow or other, the junior agents had a lot of those missions. But Sam was a big believer in positive thinking, and she knew there was very little that couldn’t be improved with a can-do attitude and a good mid-mission status report.
So. Report. (To herself, in her head, because they were surrounded and the guards had already started giving her funny looks.)
Location: creepy dungeon at the bottom of a lake. Infiltrating and investigating had been part of the plan; subsequently being captured had not. To be fair, Sam was pretty sure that this place was actually more of a secret base than a dungeon, but come on - the rugged stone walls and flickering torches screamed dungeon, and she was sure that at least one of the wrought-iron contraptions they’d passed had been a portcullis, even if she wasn’t totally sure what a portcullis was.
Status: captured. Powers neutralised. This one was a doozy. When the first wave of goons had burst in through the heavy stone doors, they'd all been ready for a fight. Lizzie had cracked her knuckles, and Norma had conjured a ball of flame into her palm, and Adam had yelled junior agents, go! in the way that they all teased him for, but in the moment it was pretty cool.
But then one of the goons had raised this strange-looking staff and hit them with… whatever it had been, a weird orange beam that left Sam's head ringing and teeth buzzing and locked down the part of her brain that made the psychic stuff happen. They'd all been too disoriented to react, after that, and they were outnumbered. Lizzie had gotten some good hits in, but it wasn't long before they were pushed to the floor and restrained.
She looked over at Raz, and winced. The little guy looked pretty out of it. For some reason the beam hadn't really worked on him, not like it had on the rest of them. He'd bounced back from the first blast, psi-fists blazing. So they'd hit him with it again, and then again, over and over until he’d stopped struggling and the energy crackling around him had finally died down. Now he was slumped on the floor, a dazed look in his eyes. They hadn't even bothered to tie him up.
Mission progress: well, this guy in the robes is giving some kind of fancy speech, but I’m not really listening. Adam or Norma would be mentally taking notes and extracting the info that they’d come for, but as far as Sam was concerned, if you’d heard one villain monologue you’d heard them all. It was a two-way-street - she’d tune in to their rambling about ‘glorious tomorrow’s and ‘new world order’s if they got some new material already.
Plip. Plip.
Instead, she found herself distracted by the steady sound of dripping water.
Sam glanced surreptitiously upwards. It was coming through a crack between the worn stones of the ceiling above her, collecting in a small puddle between her and Raz. It punctuated the hooded figure’s grandiose speech as they strutted up and down like a peacock. Plip. Plip. Plip.
Huh, Sam thought to herself. For an underwater base, you'd think they'd be more careful about leaks.
It was subtle, but now that she was listening out for it, she could hear more droplets echoing around the room. One became two, and then three, a pattering percussion - plip plap drip drip drop, and Sam wasn’t quite sure why but something about it was making the hairs on the back of her neck stand up.
A fat, round droplet landed on the nose of the hooded figure. They paused, then looked up, thin mouth drawn into a scowl. The drips were becoming a trickle, pooling between the stones next to her. The puddle rippled unnaturally, then began to creep towards Raz, wrinkles in its surface looking like tiny reaching hands. Sam saw him take a deep breath, and close his eyes.
Oh, she thought. Phew!
Then the ceiling caved in.
Water gushed from the breach with terrifying speed and force. The hooded figure barely had time to cry out before he was swept off his feet in a wave that crashed against the far wall. The goons surrounding them startled, backing away, but another jet of water burst through the ceiling and battered them to the floor. One of them dropped their dagger, sending it skittering across the floor towards Sam. She shuffled towards it on her knees, and after a moment of fumbling managed to grab it and saw through the ropes binding her wrists.
The room was flooding alarmingly fast. Sam’s shoes were already soaked through as she rolled to her feet. On one side, she could see the other junior agents working themselves free. On her other side stood Raz, the water dancing around him in wide arcs. But there was something strange about the way he held himself, his posture lopsided and unsteady like that of a newborn foal.
Sam suddenly realised that something was very, very wrong.
“Nice one!” Adam called. “Now c’mon, we need to -”
The water rippled, and then surged up in a wave that crashed across the room. It caught Adam across the chest, and he went under with a cry. Sam threw her arms over her head as it swept her up, too, tossing her over and over. She hit the ground hard, coughing and spluttering.
Next to her, Gisu groaned, heaving herself onto her elbows. “What the heck was that, man?!” she ground out.
Sam looked to the rest of the group. They’d all been bowled over by the wave. Morris was gasping for breath, struggling to lift himself out of the half-foot of rising water on the floor until Lizzie grabbed him under the armpits and heaved him upright. Adam had lost his hat when he’d gone over; he was sagging against the wall, one hand pressed to his head.
The water was still coming in, cascading from the ceiling and crashing erratically against the walls. There was a firm grasp on Sam’s shoulder as Norma helped her into a sitting position. “We have to leave,” she said. There was something different to her clipped tone, something Sam wasn't sure she'd ever heard before - a note of pure fear.
Raz didn’t seem to even have noticed their plight. He stood statue-still in the center of the room, as the water poured in and the maelstrom swirled around him. From outside, Sam could hear cries of alarm and the distant thunder of collapsing stone.
Norma’s grip on Sam’s shoulder tightened. “Come on,” she hissed.
Sam shook her head, and shrugged free of Norma’s grip. “You go,” she said. “I’ll get Raz.”
An image flashed into her mind of her brother, Dogen. He’d been so little when his episodes had started. She could still picture him in his teensy one-piece pajamas, stained and splattered with red and bawling his little eyes out. The other kids had been so afraid of him after that. Even their parents had. But Sam knew he wasn’t a danger, not really. He was just a kid who needed a bit of extra help.
That was probably what drove her, as the others scrambled for the doors, to leap towards Raz instead of following her instinct to flee.
A wall of water rushed up in front of her, and Sam flung herself into it. She struggled, arms flailing as it threatened to sweep her off her feet; then burst through to the other side. Behind her, the water rose until it met the ceiling, forming a bubble around them just barely big enough for Sam to stand up in. The sounds from outside were muted and dull. Sam could feel the far-off rumbles more than she could hear them, shaking up through the floor. It looked like the water was pouring in faster, now - they didn’t have long until the room was completely flooded.
Raz's expression was distant. The water coiled around him, clutching hands encircling his wrists, toying with his hair. His gaze drifted to Sam, vague and unfocused.
"Sam?" he slurred.
Sam stepped towards him, body low and hands up, no sudden movements. "Hey, Raz. You still in there, skipper?"
"Mm."
That wasn’t encouraging. "I need you to stop this,” Sam said, speaking slowly and clearly. “You're gonna bring the whole place down."
Another rumble made the stone floor beneath her shake. She threw her arms out for balance, grimacing. This place had one way in, and one way out. If the escape tunnel was blocked by flooding, they’d have to swim for it. More than fifty feet to the surface. With no powers.
Mid-mission status report update: things are looking a little hairy.
She was becoming less and less sure that Raz was actually in control. The water swirled erratically around them. One moment it surged, lashing hard against her ankles; the next it would freeze, still and smooth, then peel away in quivering ribbons that twisted through the air between them.
She took another step forward, and the water reared back. Long liquid arms wrapped protectively around Raz's chest. Waves started to whip up, and Sam blinked through the spray.
"Something's wrong," Raz murmured, but he didn't seem to be talking to her.
Sam grit her teeth. "Raz, can you hear me? You need to stop," she repeated, trying to keep the panic from showing in her voice.
The room shook, and she almost lost her footing, gasping as water sprayed across her face. The bubble was shrinking inwards, and the waves were at her back, sucking at her ankles. Raz wasn't looking at her any more. His gaze was fixed somewhere on the ceiling, eyes blank and unfocused as he laid limply in the water's grasp.
Nothing for it. Sam took a deep breath. Then she wrapped her hand around Raz's thin wrist, and pulled.
The water surged in around them as the bubble burst. Sam was swept off her feet, flung away by the force of the current. For a moment she was worried that she'd lose her grip on Raz. Then he finally came free from the water's grasp, and the two of them were tumbling head over heels in the unstoppable rush of water.
It burst through the doors, surging along the corridors beyond at such speed that Sam could barely keep her eyes open. She saw flashes of walls, chunks of rubble, bodies that were hanging uncomfortably still in the water - all of them swept by in an instant. Deep, echoing cracks and booms rumbled around them as the water tore at the walls and floors. A crash, and a huge chunk of rock that rushed past her head, way too close for comfort, and suddenly they were in open water somehow but she couldn't tell which way was up any more, and Raz was limp in her grasp, dead weight as she desperately struggled in the direction she though the surface was, kicking and clawing her way towards the light -
Her oxygen-starved brain was just thinking, man, I should really get around to writing that will, when finally - somehow - they broke the surface.
Sam threw her head back with a gasp. There was too much water in her throat, and her lungs were burning as she coughed and fought to catch her breath. Next to her, Raz was still for a long, terrifying moment. Then he jerked, dragging in a breath as he spluttered.
The water roiled around them, and Sam felt a surge of panic that they were about to be sucked under again. But then it rose up in a wave, picking them up and sweeping them to shore. Sam made it a few hesitant steps onto land before collapsing onto her butt with a groan.
We made it. Positive thinking: 1, crushing awareness of my own mortality: 0.
Her head was still spinning. She brought her knees into her chest, squeezing her eyes shut and taking a moment to just breathe. As the adrenaline faded from her system, her body started chiming in with unhappy reminders of its current state. It’s really cold out here. There’s water in your ears and it feels icky. You scraped your knee. But at least she was still breathing.
She smacked the heel of her palm against her head, trying to get some of the water out. Her hearing came back, and suddenly she could pick up familiar voices, a little way off. She looked across the lake, and felt her heart swell with relief - there were the others, crawling their way up onto the shore. They looked in as miserable a state as she was, but alive. Thank god.
She sighed to herself, digging her fingers into the pebbled earth. Then she grit her teeth, and forced herself back up to standing.
"We need to regroup," she said. "C'mon."
Raz mutely allowed himself to be pulled to his feet. Liquid hands grasped at his ankles as the two of them headed away from the shoreline.
Morris looked up at the crunch of gravel as they approached. “Dios mío,” he breathed, “am I ever glad to see you two. None of us wanted to have to break the news to Mr and Mrs Aquato. We were gonna have to draw straws.”
Adam, slumped in the mud next to him, wheezed a laugh. “Too soon, man.”
Gisu and Lizzie were both huddled next to Norma, who had her hands cupped together. It looked like she was trying to summon a fire, but it wasn't working; a spark would flash between her palms, and then be immediately snuffed out. Sam could sympathise. She still had the heavy, cotton-wool-mufflers feeling in the back of her mind, keeping her powers maddeningly out of arm's reach.
Adam nodded to Raz, who was teetering a little at Sam’s side. “How is he?”
Sam pursed her lips. “Still pretty out of it, I’d say.” She reached down, giving his shoulder a little shake, and he wobbled unsteadily.
Adam shuffled forward, taking hold of Raz’s elbow. “Hey, little man,” he said softly. “You with me?”
Raz met his gaze. He blinked, slowly. "Hey," he murmured.
"Do you remember what happened?"
Raz's gaze dropped to the floor. "No, I… there's something…" His brow furrowed, and he rubbed at his temple. "Everything's sorta fuzzy. Where, um - where are we?"
"You really don't remember?" Adam asked. Raz shook his head.
"Then allow me to fill in the blanks."
They all turned as Norma rose to her feet, voice laden with venom. "Your powers went haywire and nearly drowned us all,” she snapped. “That's what happened."
Adam raised his hand. "Whoah, calm down. It looks like they really did a number on him, it's not his fault that-"
"Not his fault?!" If Norma's powers hadn't been suppressed, Sam was certain there have been steam pouring off of her. "He was an idiot to even try using hydrokinesis in that state."
Next to her, Lizzie shuffled uncomfortably. "I hate to say it, but… yeah. She's right," she said. “When I learned HK, this was, like, 101 stuff.”
“Hold on,” Adam said, running a hand over his scalp - Sam saw him wince as his fingertips brushed a sore-looking spot. “How come? We’ve all done psycho-safety - it can be risky to use any power when your higher-brain control is impaired, sure, so what makes this worse than anything else?”
"Hydrokinesis is one of the mental disciplines that relies most strongly on a subconscious connection with the water,” Norma said. Her tone was clipped and unflinching. “That's what made Maligula so dangerous."
An uncomfortable silence settled over the group. Sam's gaze drifted to the still surface of the lake.
Gisu winced. "Low blow. C'mon, the Maligula thing was a special case."
"She was a perfect storm," Norma corrected. "And part of what made her so powerful was her speciality. It feeds off your lower-brain activity. Strong emotions, adrenaline responses." She narrowed her eyes. "The fight or flight reaction."
Raz seemed to be coming back to himself, his eyes slowly getting clearer. Sam wasn't sure how much of the conversation he'd actually been following, but at Norma's words he frowned. "I was… I was trying to help-"
"What were you thinking?!" Norma flung her arms out. "In that state, you didn't have any control over it! You could have killed us all! Do you have any idea-"
"Hey," Sam said sharply. It was the voice she used to discipline unruly animals, hard and steel-cored. "We can do this without yelling."
Norma turned to her, eyes narrowed. When she next spoke, it was at a normal volume, but her voice was seething with anger.
"We could have all died," she repeated. "I spent years learning to control my powers, because people told me I was a danger. And you know what? They were right." She gestured. "If he can't do the same-"
"Don't talk to me about control," Sam said, cutting her off. "Listen. I get it. But the lecture can wait."
She squared her shoulders, looking Norma in the eye and daring her to argue back. The air between them was thick with tension for a few seconds. Then Norma folded, crossing her arms over her chest and turning away.
Sam looked to Adam. "What's the plan?"
"We're all too scrambled from whatever they hit us with to contact HQ right now," he said. He was using what Sam thought of as his leader voice, firm and confident. "I say we start towards the nearest town and try and radio in the old-fashioned way. If our powers come back before then, all the better."
"I checked the maps before we came," Gisu added. She'd removed her waterlogged cloak, and her wet curls clung to her face. "There should be a road leading up from the lake if we can get round to the other side. Then it's a couple miles to the closest settlement."
"Then we'd better start walking,” Adam said. “There's not long before sunset, and we've got a way to go."
He knelt down, and hefted Morris onto his back. They all trooped in single file, soaked and shivering, up the bank of the lake. Sam and Raz brought up the rear. Raz caught his foot on something, stumbling, and Sam - without even thinking about it - reached down to hold his hand.
As they approached the trees, she looked back towards the lake. Something was bobbing on the surface, a dark lump breaking up the mirror-shine. In the gloom, it was impossible to tell what it was - maybe a piece of driftwood, maybe something else. Sam didn’t spare it a second glance.