The difference between a submarine and an iron coffin is just the number of holes in the hull.

  We were sheltered in the ruins of the Old National Motor Factory (FNM) at the base of the mountain range. The refugees from Petrópolis spread out through the abandoned warehouses, lighting timid fires. We, however, had no time to rest. The clock was ticking, and the ocean outside wasn't going to wait.

  I opened the imperial map on the hood of the Dreadnought.

  "Here," I pointed to a dotted and faded line. "'Dom Jo?o Mining Vein'. It was excavated in the 19th century to search for gold under the bed of Guanabara Bay. The project was abandoned because water started leaking in."

  "If we follow this tunnel, we come out exactly at the geological fault beneath where the Leviathan is nesting."

  Valéria wiped grease from her hands with a dirty rag. She looked at the ten-ton truck with the expression of someone challenged to make an elephant fly.

  "Arthur, this truck is armored against cannonballs and flying robots. But atmospheric pressure at the bottom of a sunken bay? The water will crush us like a soda can. We need perfect sealing and ballast."

  "And oxygen," Luna added, sitting on a pile of tires, drinking water from a canteen. "If we're going to become fish, I'd prefer not having to hold my breath for three hours."

  "We have the lungs of the Steam Seraphim," Gristle threw three bronze pressure tanks on the ground, parts she ripped from the robots we downed on the mountain. "This compresses air until it turns liquid."

  "Excellent, Gristle," Valéria smiled, eyes shining with the typical madness of post-apocalyptic engineers. "I'll hook the tanks into the AC system. But the seal... rubber and silicone won't hold."

  I looked at my hands. The Parasite vibrated, guessing what I was going to ask.

  [BIOLOGICAL MATERIAL REQUEST: DENIED. HOST NEEDS CALCIUM FOR OWN BONES.]

  "Shut up and work," I muttered to my liver.

  "I'll do the sealing," I announced, rolling up the sleeves of my tattered lab coat. "I'm going to generate a parasitic chitin resin. It's the same substance the Devourer King used to withstand the vacuum of space. If it can handle space, it can handle a giant puddle of saltwater."

  Valéria nodded.

  "Then let's get to work. We have twelve hours before the tide rises and floods this warehouse."

  The assembly was a ballet of brutality and precision.

  Gristle and dozens of strong refugees lifted heavy metal parts, welding extra plates over the windshield, leaving only small viewing slits (like a medieval knight's visor).

  Valéria installed the Refined Ether injection turbines in the rear, converting the exhausts into hydrodynamic thrusters.

  I spent six hours outlining every door, window, and hatch of the vehicle.

  My fingers secreted a thick black goo that hardened in seconds, turning into a crust of bone and insect shell. The truck was literally growing a biological husk over the metal armor.

  The pain of calcium loss was excruciating. I kept myself standing by drinking the nutrient fluid ("canned meat") we stole from Petrópolis, forcing my body not to faint.

  "It's looking horrible," Luna commented, plugging her nose. "Looks like a giant beetle crossed with a tank. And smells like burnt fingernails."

  "Aerodynamics doesn't care about aesthetics, Luna," I replied, almost out of breath. "If it works, it's beautiful."

  This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  When the sun threatened to rise beyond the storm clouds, the Asphalt Submarine was ready.

  The old mining tunnel was at the back of the factory. The rotted wooden doors had been knocked down by Gristle. The tunnel descended at a terrifying forty-five-degree angle, plunging into the absolute darkness of the bedrock.

  We gathered the refugees.

  An elderly man, formerly a slave in the meat factory, shook my hand.

  "Are you going down to kill the sea god?"

  "There are no gods, sir," I replied, cold but without malice. "Just biology in inconvenient sizes. Stay in the high parts of the mountain. If we don't return in twenty-four hours... run to Minas Gerais."

  We entered the cabin.

  The smell of recycled air, sweat, and ozone was strong. The space was reduced by the internal support beams Valéria added.

  The control panel glowed with purple and blue lights (a mix of imperial technology and my parasitic magic).

  "Everyone in five-point harnesses," ordered Valéria, sitting in the driver's seat and grabbing the dual yoke that replaced the steering wheel. "Gristle, pressure control. Luna, sonic radar. Arthur... be the Doctor."

  "Ignition," I said.

  Valéria engaged the Ether engine. There was no diesel roar, but a high, constant hum, like a swarm of metallic bees.

  The treads ground the stone floor.

  We entered the tunnel.

  The descent was a controlled fall toward the center of the Earth.

  The headlight beams tore through the darkness, illuminating rough stone walls sweating saltwater. The deeper we went, the more the temperature dropped and the heavier the air became.

  [DEPTH: 200 METERS BELOW SEA LEVEL.]

  The Parasite projected the data directly onto my retina.

  [EXTERNAL PRESSURE INCREASING. CHITIN SEAL IS STABLE.]

  "It's getting damp," Gristle muttered, watching a drop of water run down the reinforced glass.

  "The tunnel doesn't go all the way," I explained, reading the map on the tablet. "The miners stopped when they hit the submarine volcanic crust. There will be a stone wall. We'll have to break through."

  "Break through solid rock?" Luna widened her eyes, fingers white from gripping the belt. "With what?"

  "Valéria?" I looked at the driver.

  Valéria smiled, a manic grin lit by the dashboard LEDs. She flipped a red switch on the ceiling.

  "Remember the ram we used to blow the Crystal Palace doors? I coated the tip with Blood-Steel and hooked it to the hydraulic system. We're not going to hit the wall. We're going to drill."

  The truck shook violently.

  In front of us, the headlights illuminated the end of the tunnel. A wall of cracked black volcanic rock, through which seawater infiltrated under colossal pressure.

  "Hold your breath!" Valéria shouted. "Medium transition!"

  She pushed the throttle to the floor.

  The Dreadnought shot forward.

  The spinning ram on the front of the truck hit the rock.

  CRAAAAASH!

  The sound was muffled by the brutal entry of water.

  The wall gave way. The ocean swallowed us.

  The impact was like hitting a concrete wall at eighty kilometers per hour, followed immediately by a sensation of absolute floating.

  The cabin creaked dangerously. The chitin I generated cracked, but held the glass. The muddy, freezing water enveloped the truck completely.

  We were at the bottom of the sunken Guanabara Bay.

  "Thrusters!" I shouted over the noise of groaning metal.

  Valéria pulled levers. The treads stopped and the rear exhausts fired jets of pressurized liquid ether.

  The truck stabilized in the water, hydraulic suspensions compensating for the sea currents.

  "We're floating!" Valéria laughed, relieved. "I mean, sinking with style!"

  I looked through the armored slits of the windshield.

  We couldn't see anything beyond ten meters. The water was saturated with mud, monster blood, and sunken urban trash. Pieces of Rio de Janeiro passed us like ghosts: twisted traffic signs, chunks of asphalt, huge bones.

  "Luna, we need 'eyes'," I said. "Radar active."

  Luna swallowed hard, connected a cable from the truck panel directly into her sonic baton, and began whispering a staccato melody. Tick-tick-tick...

  The sound traveled through the water and returned, drawing a green, three-dimensional sonar map on the main monitor.

  "Sea floor fifty meters below us," Luna read the screen. "We are over the ruins of the City Center."

  Suddenly, her voice faltered. The sonar screen became almost entirely filled by a giant red moving blob.

  "Arthur..." she pointed with a trembling finger. "There's a continent swimming on top of us."

  I raised my eyes from the monitor to the glass.

  The darkness of the water above us was suddenly blocked by something even darker.

  A shell the size of an entire neighborhood passed slowly over our "submarine," blocking the little light coming from the surface.

  The water displacement threw us downward.

  The Leviathan.

  God of the New Sea.

  We weren't even an appetizer. We were a microbe on the sole of his shoe.

  The Parasite retreated to the confines of my DNA.

  [TACTICAL ALERT: ESCAPE IMPOSSIBLE. CHANCES OF SUCCESS IN FRONTAL ATTACK: 0.0001%.]

  "We're not doing a frontal attack," I said, activating my surgical gloves. "We're doing an endoscopy."

  "Valéria, follow his belly. Find the gill breathing ducts. We're going in."

  The Dreadnought shot into the dark abyss, chasing the shadow of the end of the world.