The Colony Seven

Chapter One

The Sound Beyond the Wall

The girl and the cat walked single file through the narrow passage.

There was barely enough room for both of them.

The corridor was one of the oldest sections of the colony, a maintenance passage built long before anyone had imagined that human beings would someday call this place home. Pipes crowded the ceiling. Bundles of power cables disappeared behind steel brackets along the walls, and drops of condensation gathered on the cold metal before falling silently onto the grated floor.

The girl stepped carefully over a raised cable tray.

Her cat followed without hesitation.

“Come on, Mali.”

The black-and-white cat flicked its tail as if the instruction had been unnecessary.

The girl smiled.

She was twelve years old, born beneath the Gulf of Thailand, and had never seen the real sky.

Neither had her father.

Her grandfather had been the last person in their family born on the surface.

That had been almost seventy years ago.

The colony itself was much older.

Officially, it was called Gulf Research Habitat Seven, although almost nobody used that name anymore. To its residents, it was simply Baan Talay—the Sea Home.

Two hundred years earlier, before the Nuclear War, the structure had been an international scientific research laboratory on the floor of the Gulf of Thailand. Scientists had come here to study marine ecosystems, deep-water engineering, climate change, and experimental energy systems.

Then came the Catastrophic Day.

No one living remembered exactly how the war began.

Every history lesson told a slightly different version.

Some records blamed a military confrontation in Europe. Others claimed the first nuclear weapon had been launched somewhere in the Pacific. A few surviving archives suggested that nobody had intended to start a global war at all.

It did not matter anymore.

Within hours, cities disappeared.

Within days, communication networks collapsed.

Within months, the atmosphere changed.

Those who survived did so by going underground, beneath mountains, inside mines, aboard ships, or beneath the oceans.

Research Habitat Seven had been one of the lucky places.

It had been designed to operate independently for six months.

Instead, people had kept it alive for two centuries.

Three generations had now been born beneath the sea.

The original laboratory had grown into a colony of tunnels, pressure compartments, farms, workshops, classrooms, machine rooms, and living quarters. New modules had been attached to the old ones like branches growing from a steel tree.

At the centre of everything was the reactor.

A Small Modular Reactor—SMR-3—provided heat and electricity to the colony.

Without it, there would be no lights.

No air circulation.

No desalination.

No hydroponic farms.

No pumps pushing seawater away from the pressure hull.

No colony.

The residents also used the sea itself as part of their energy system. Giant tanks circulated concentrated saltwater through electrochemical storage banks, allowing excess reactor power to be stored and released whenever demand changed.

Her father once told her that the ocean was their greatest enemy and their greatest battery.

She liked that sentence.

Her father was an electrical engineer.

When something stopped working, everyone seemed to call him.

Generators.

Switchboards.

Motors.

Transformers.

Battery systems.

Emergency lighting.

Sometimes even doors.

Her mother taught mathematics in the colony school and believed almost every problem in the universe could be understood if somebody wrote the correct equation.

The girl was not completely convinced.

Especially because equations could not explain cats.

Mali suddenly stopped.

The girl almost stepped on her.

“What?”

The cat stared into the darkness ahead.

The corridor lights changed from white to pale blue as the colony entered its evening cycle.

They were only twenty metres from the family accommodation section.

The girl crouched.

“Mali?”

The cat's ears rotated forward.

Then the girl heard it.

She froze.

A sound.

Very faint.

She waited.

Nothing.

For a moment she thought it had been water moving through one of the pipes.

That happened all the time.

The colony was never truly silent.

Ventilation fans hummed behind walls.

Pumps vibrated beneath the floor.

Valves clicked.

Electrical contactors opened and closed.

Somewhere far below, the reactor coolant pumps produced a vibration so constant that most residents no longer noticed it.

Every child born in Baan Talay learned those sounds before learning words.

This was different.

The girl slowly stood.

There it was again.

Knock.

She stared at the wall.

Mali's fur rose along her back.

The girl stopped breathing.

Five seconds passed.

Then—

Knock.

A longer pause.

Knock. Knock.

The sound was coming from the outer wall of the colony.

The girl stepped closer.

Beyond that steel bulkhead was the Gulf of Thailand.

Two hundred metres of black water.

Her father had explained the wall many times.

Behind the interior panel were insulation layers, structural ribs, monitoring sensors, corrosion protection systems and, finally, the pressure hull.

Beyond the pressure hull was the ocean.

Nothing could knock on it.

Nothing human, anyway.

“Mali,” she whispered.

The cat backed away.

The girl pressed one ear against the cold wall.

For several seconds she heard nothing except her own heartbeat.

Then—

Knock.

She jumped away.

This time it was louder.

Not a pipe.

Not a pump.

Not expanding metal.

Three knocks followed.

Slow.

Deliberate.

Knock.

Knock.

Knock.

She ran.

Their family apartment was small, like almost every residential unit in the colony.

Two bedrooms.

A kitchen.

A washroom.

A combined living and study area.

One narrow observation window looked into an illuminated section of ocean outside the habitat, although tonight the external lights were turned off to conserve power.

Her parents were both working late.

Her mother was preparing examinations at the school.

Her father had been called to the electrical control room because of another problem with Distribution Bus B.

So the apartment belonged only to the girl and Mali.

She locked the door behind them.

“That was nothing,” she said.

Mali looked at her.

“Probably a pump.”

The cat continued looking at her.

“Or thermal expansion.”

Mali sat down.

“My father says metal makes noises when temperature changes.”

The cat began washing one paw.

The girl frowned.

“You're not helping.”

She walked to the kitchen.

The wall display showed:

18:42

COLONY POWER: 71%

REACTOR OUTPUT: NORMAL

OXYGEN: NORMAL

EXTERNAL PRESSURE: NORMAL

Everything was normal.

She opened a food drawer.

There were nutrient bars, dried seaweed crackers and a small packet of preserved mango.

She chose the mango.

Mali immediately appeared beside her.

“No.”

The cat meowed.

“You don't eat mango.”

Another meow.

“You don't even like mango.”

The girl tore open the packet.

Then every light in the apartment went out.

Darkness swallowed the room.

The girl stopped moving.

Mali hissed.

One second later, the emergency lights switched on.

Dim red strips illuminated the floor.

A calm electronic voice spoke from the ceiling.

“Temporary electrical disturbance. Please remain calm. Essential systems remain operational.”

The girl looked toward the wall display.

It was rebooting.

That happened sometimes.

But then something else happened.

The apartment communication panel activated by itself.

Static filled the speaker.

The girl stared at it.

“Dad?”

No answer.

Only static.

She walked closer.

“Control room?”

The static changed.

Buried beneath the noise was something faint.

Almost like breathing.

The girl leaned toward the speaker.

“Hello?”

The sound stopped.

Silence.

Then a voice emerged.

Weak.

Distorted.

Impossible.

A human voice.

“...can...you...hear...me?”

The mango packet fell from her hand.

Mali arched her back.

The girl stared at the communication panel.

Nobody outside Baan Talay had contacted the colony in nineteen years.

At least, that was what she had been taught.

The speaker crackled again.

“Please...”

The signal faded.

Then returned.

“Please don't shut the door.”

The girl whispered,

“What door?”

For several seconds there was nothing.

Then the voice answered.

“The one under the sea.”

A loud metallic impact struck the apartment wall.

BANG.

The girl screamed.

Mali fled beneath the table.

Another impact followed.

BANG.

The girl slowly turned toward the observation window.

Outside was complete darkness.

Then something moved beyond the glass.

A light appeared.

Small.

White.

Far out in the black water.

For her entire life, the girl had been taught that nothing lived outside the colony except fish, machines and the ruins of the old world.

The light moved closer.

And closer.

Until she realised it was not one light.

There were hundreds.

Arranged in perfect rows.

Something enormous was approaching Baan Talay from the darkness.

Something built by human hands.

And after nearly two hundred years beneath the sea—

someone had finally found them.