The Storm by Clive Cussler, Graham Brown Page B

bashed it sideways.
    The welding torch flared out over his shoulder again, and some other arm began to move.
    “Do these things have an off switch?” he shouted.
    “No,” Marchetti said. “I couldn’t imagine wanting to shut them off manually.”
    “I’m guessing you can imagine it now.”
    Kurt reached for what looked like a trio of hydraulic lines only to receive a blow to the chest that sent him flying off the machine. Some type of hammer used to drive rivets had extended and struck him in the ribs.
    He landed on his back, only to see a saw blade dropping toward him from a second machine. He rolled out of the way and ended up against the huge circular window, beyond which the turquoise hue of the sea loomed.
    Marchetti was there as well, and Joe and Leilani had been successfully herded into the same general vicinity.
    “I have an idea,” Kurt said.
    He lunged for the same machine he’d just been on, careful to avoid the appendages. The torch flashed again, almost blinding him. The hydraulic hammer came out again, but Kurt twisted his body to avoid it.
    The machine lumbered forward with Kurt clinging to it. It pushed him back, banging him against the window like the captain of a football team might bang a geeky freshmen against a locker. The torch flashed again, carving a line in the acrylic window. A second swipe left another scar.
    Kurt tried to push the machine back, but it shoved him against the window. He felt like his ribs were cracking from the pressure.
    “I hope … these things … aren’t waterproof,” he managed.
    He reached for the hydraulic lines again. Right on schedule, the battering ram of a hammer fired just as it had before. But with Kurt’s body twisted out of the way, it slammed into the huge oval window.
    The eerie sound of cracks traveling through the acrylic caught everyone’s attention. They turned just as the window, designed convexly with all its strength focused outwards, failed from the inside.
    The water blasted in like a crashing wave, hitting everyone and everything at once. It swept the people, the furniture, and the machines across the room, slamming all into the far wall.
    Kurt felt several jarring collisions and struggled to free himself from the welder. Even as he got loose, the swirling water pinned him against the wall and held him down like a vicious wave might trap a surfer. He pushed off the floor with one foot and broke the surface.
    Foam and debris were being blasted about by the gushing water. Kurt felt himself being pushed up by the rising flood as the room filled with liquid. As he neared the ceiling, the trapped air slowed the process, but it must have been leaking out somewhere because the space was collapsing.
    Kurt looked around. Joe was there, holding Marchetti with one hand and clinging to the wall with the other.
    Leilani popped up and grabbed ahold of a pipe that ran along the ceiling, which was now easily within reach.
    “Any sign of the robots?”
    “I never taught them to swim,” Marchetti said.
    “First thing you’ve done right,” Kurt told him. “How far down are we?”
    “Twenty feet.”
    “We have to swim out.”
    “I can make it,” Marchetti said, coughing as if he’d swallowed half a gallon of water.
    “Leilani?”
    “Of course,” she said.
    “Okay. Get rid of your shoes,” he said, then, turning to Marchetti, added, “and lose that stupid robe. Not only will it drown you, it’s been giving me a headache since the moment I got here.”
    They undid their shoes and pulled them off, Marchetti shed the wet robe, and they swam to the gaping hole where the window had been.
    Before they went under to swim out, Kurt looked Marchetti in the eye. “Where do I find this Otero character?”
    “The control center, in the main building, back near the helipad.”
    “Can you override his access so I don’t get welded, nail-gunned or otherwise screwed by your robots along the way?”
    Marchetti tapped the side of his head as if the idea