The lifeboat ejected from the shuttle when it was a kilometre above sea level. It popped out underneath the doomed shuttle and tumbled towards the stormy ocean below. Inside, Lee released the parachute and felt the pull as it inflated. It was still dropping on an angled trajectory, boosted by the shuttle's momentum. He would hit the sea hard, despite the deployed parachute. Lee hoped he would avoid hitting one of the many icebergs. He braced for impact, strapping himself into one of the cushioned seats. The lifeboat smacked into the ocean surface like a bullet. Its spherical design was not exactly streamlined and had never been designed to go crashing into the ocean at speed.

Lee felt the impact as a solid body blow, he shuddered against the restraints as the lifeboat plunged into the dark frigid waters. His internal fluids were fortified by the AI and adjusted quickly. There was a moment of absolute stillness and silence as the lifeboat reached the lowest point of its plunge, then slowly started to float to the surface.

The lifeboat had ballast under the seats to provide some balance but as Lee unscrewed the hatch the lifeboat rocked back and forth in the heavy ocean swell. He pushed the hatch open and climbed up to have a look outside. His head was immediately blasted by the freezing wind, horizontal rain, and sea spray. He was relieved to have dodged the icebergs floating heavily around him. As a swell lifted him momentarily Lee could see a small boat making its way towards him, with its parent vessel behind. He looked around and noticed an identical boat approaching from the opposite direction then both disappeared behind the big rolling swells. The wind and rain howled in his ears and the sea rumbled thunderously. Lee noticed another roaring sound in the cacophony. Above him, two large black rotary copters were descending out of the clouds. They hovered menacingly above, surveying the scene.

Lee retreated into the lifeboat, thinking fast. John had obviously decided his story was intriguing enough to send the Black Robin vessels to intercept him, but the copters must be from BPI. There was a loud clang as a grappling hook crashed through the hatch and caught on the edge. He climbed up again and saw the boat banging into the side of the shuttle. Four figures in heavy yellow raincoats were gesturing at him to jump aboard. Thirty meters above Lee saw several black figures on the edge of the hovering copters ready to abseil down. He had had to move quickly. Lee carefully climbed out on top, clinging to the hatch as the ocean swell washed over him. He held the rope and judged the swell, leaping onto the side of the boat. Strong arms grabbed him and hauled him over the side just as another swell tore the rope from his hands. He caught a glimpse of the hovering VLRs, the downward blast of their rotors whipping sea spray into his eyes.

Lee was bundled into the dory boat as it quickly turned, twin outboards screaming, it punched its way back to the big black parent vessel. The VLRs stayed directly above the boat. One of the men on the boat was yelling at Lee, it was too loud to hear what he was saying but Lee could understand, he could read the man’s lips.

“Who the fuck are they?” he gestured towards the VLRs.

“BPI,” Lee said, too quiet for the man to hear.

“What do they want?”

Lee realized it wasn't just the man’s lips he could read. He could read his mind, and he could project his thoughts directly into the man’s brain.

‘They want me,’ he said without opening his mouth.

“What..., what the fuck did you just do?”

Lee didn’t answer. This was the first person he had met on Earth and he could read his mind. He looked at the other three crewmen, hunched over in their raincoats, wrestling with the outboard. He could look into all their heads. Scattered thoughts, confusion, tremulous questions about their mysterious passenger and the unwanted attention from above. But overriding those thoughts, a determination to get back to the safety of their big old trawler, an acute awareness of how dangerous the sea can be. The man stared at him, shook his head and turned his attention towards the black boat they were rapidly approaching.

They pulled alongside and secured themselves with grappling hooks as ladders were thrown to them. They clung to the ladders as the trawler pitched and rolled through the erratic swells. Anxious faces peered over the railing as Lee and the crew clambered to the relative safety of the trawler. The VLRs were still above, watching and waiting with Masama ready to descend. Lee was quickly ushered onto the bridge.

“I suppose I should say welcome aboard the Christobal II, but who are you and what the hell have you got us into?” roared a large burly man, an acrid smelling cigarette hanging from his lip. “And who the fuck are they!” He pointed at the hovering VLRs.

“BPI tracked me here. I am sorry; I should surrender to them before they attack.”

“BPI! Well, any enemy of those bastards is a friend of ours. John didn't tell us much, just someone might need to be rescued at these coordinates.”

“You’re outgunned and have nowhere to hide. You should throw me back in the ocean.”

He could see the dilemma in the ship captain's mind. Give Lee up to the hated evil empire or incur the wrath of the Masama by trying to protect him. “Listen, they won’t go away. They will destroy you if they have to.” Lee urged the captain. “You can't protect me.”

Everyone on the bridge was holding onto something as the trawler navigated the big swells and hazardous floating icebergs. The deck was wet and slippery, tipping dangerously but the crew stood firm as if they were bolted to the floor.

“They won't attempt to abseil down here, not in this weather.”

The man was trying to reassure himself, but Lee could sense the underlying nervousness in him and his crew. They were used to confrontational situations with adversaries more powerful than themselves. David and Goliath battles with big auto-line boats, sabotaging their gear and harassing them out of the toothfish grounds. They loved the challenge and the danger but the worst the auto-liners could do apart from ramming them was spray them with high-pressure hoses, the VLRs had more effective weaponry.

It was not in their nature to back down to anyone, especially to the ultimate enemy, Benevolent Progress Inc.

“Skipper,” one of the crewmen from the dory boat spoke. “I know this sounds crazy but out on the dory..., he read my mind. I'm sure of it. I..., I could feel him in my brain. It was weird!”

“Read your mind, hey?” the captain smirked. “Think you've been at sea too long lad, next you'll be telling me mermaids are real.”

“It's true captain, he answered my question without opening his mouth! He just..., just spoke into my head!”

“Truly! Well then what am I thinking now?” the captain turned to Lee.

Lee could read the captain’s thoughts; he was tempted to take on the menacing VLRs, thinking what a scalp that would be. But before he could say anything a crewman cried, “Skip!” He was pointing out a rain-streaked window.

One of the VLRs had peeled off and was approaching the other trawler, just visible over the rise and fall of the ocean swell. As they watched in horror, the VLR unleashed a missile directly into the side of the other ship at point blank range. Lee heard the dull crash of explosion before the Christobal IV exploded in a ferocious plume of black smoke and steam. The bow and stern of the ship could both be seen angling upwards on either side of the smoke, fire, and steam raging from the middle of the ship. The missile had cut the ship in half. It was sinking rapidly.

“Fuck!” screamed the captain. “Get over there now, full speed!” And with a hateful glare at Lee, “throw him overboard, they want him that badly they can fish him out!”

Two crewmen grabbed Lee and roughly bundled him out the door. Lee could have resisted; he knew he was stronger than he looked but he stayed passive. He understood they blamed him for their comrade’s deaths. They were right. Christobal II swung around towards their rapidly sinking sister ship, engines grinding below, the bow smashing through the oncoming swell. Lee did not need to be thrown overboard, he climbed up onto the railing and without hesitation leapt into the freezing waters below. A few meters under the water, everything was calm and quiet compared to the surface. Cold salty oblivion. Lee looked down at the black depths beneath him, thought momentarily what an amazing alien environment it was, full of strange creatures living down there in the dark with antifreeze for blood before he kicked his way up to the surface. He broke through the waves just in time to see the Christobal II steaming away. The captain was standing behind the railing with a lifebuoy in his hand.

Lee could just hear him scream, “Fuck yooouu,” as he hurled the lifebuoy into the sea not far from where he was treading water. He swam over to the lifebuoy and lifted it over his head, arms over each side. He was a lot heavier than he used to be but still buoyant. Despite the decimation of the Christobal IV, which he knew he had caused, the captain of its sister ship still felt compelled to save his life.

Lee could not see much floating on the surface. Each ocean swell looked like a cliff face approaching. He was surrounded by walls of water flecked with chunks of iceberg that rode the swells with him. Between the waves, he could see nothing. At the top of each swell, he had a brief view of the stern of the Christobal II, fighting its way towards the remains of its sister ship and her crew. The Christobal IV had all but disappeared, just the bow was still thrusting vertically out of the waves. Lee thought he could see a few bodies still clinging to the bow. A few survivors at least. The water around the sinking vessel was a turbid soup of burning debris, ice and released air mixing with small red stains. Above him, the VLR that had destroyed the old trawler shifted slightly in the air and pointed its nose at the other ship. It hovered there, monitoring the approach of the vessel, oblivious to the howling winds that tore past. The other VLR stayed directly above Lee, neither of them seemed in too much of a hurry to do anything.

The water was freezing but Lee had already adjusted his metabolism to cope. Eventually, the VLR above him lowered a thick nylon cable with a metal clip attached. It splashed into the water a few meters away. Lee had no choice. He paddled over and attached the clip to the lifebuoy. He threaded it through the rope around the lifebuoy and clipped it back on to the cable above creating a cradle. He held on tightly as he felt the cable take the strain and he was hauled, dripping, out of the water. His precarious cradle swung wildly beneath the VLR as it was winched up through the wind and rain.

As he spun around above the waves, he looked over to the wreckage of the Christobal IV. All was left were a few burning patches of oil on the surface, pieces of mangled and twisted wreckage among the fractured icebergs, some blackened by the blast. Several bodies, still alive, clung to the wreckage. He could also see corpses, floating face down, red streaks of blood dissipating around them. The Christobal II had reached the wreckage; its crew were throwing lifebuoys and ropes over the side to try to haul in the survivors. Then the VLR fired another missile.

The explosion was tremendous. This time the VLR had aimed for the stern of the Christobal II where the fuel tanks were. Lee had a brief impression of the missile cutting a fiery path to the ship before a huge detonation, a boiling explosion of smoke and flame billowing up then carried away by the gale force winds. Bits of debris flew high into the air. Lee saw a piece a railing hurtling past with a severed human arm still attached. The stern of the ship was engulfed in roaring flames and black smoke. The flames burning across the sea, blown flat by the winds. Then abruptly the stern disappeared under the waves with a hissing sound and plumes of steam were whipped away. Fire still raged across the remains of the ship, scorching any survivors but it was sinking fast.

Lee watched as one crewman, engulfed in flames but still thrashing wildly about, threw himself into the ocean. He did not resurface. In a matter of seconds, the bow of the Christobal II had also disappeared under the waves. There did not appear to be any survivors. Lee noticed a large flat iceberg, almost as big as the dory boat that had rescued him. There were two bodies that had managed to climb up onto the icy platform. They were both lying face down, holding on to each other. The white iceberg was slowly turning red beneath them.

Lee swung around violently beneath the VLR as he was winched up towards the waiting Masama. He was shattered by the events and wracked with guilt. The crew of the Christobal ships had been murdered. Anyone that survived the wrecked ships would only last minutes in the freezing stormy ocean. It was his fault. They were all Black Robin people, the same people he had indirectly contacted asking for help and now they were all dead. When plotting his entry through the atmosphere, aiming for Australia, he did not think Lago and his henchmen would mobilize quickly enough to follow him to the Antarctic. Especially at the speed he was travelling. He had underestimated them. Innocent people had died. All his newfound intelligence, insight and perception had proved useless. He was betrayed by his own flawed decision making and overconfidence. Perhaps he had been changed too much by the AI and he had ignored his own basic human instinct of questioning himself.

Lee was almost at the VLR, thoughts were swirling around in his enhanced brain. He now knew what a huge task there was for him to try to change Lago, his corrupt corporation and the murderous, mindless, inhuman Masama. Anger and resentment boiled inside him. He was powerful, he knew. He had yet to test these powers, he did not know what he was capable of, but after watching so many Black Robin people die, he was now even more determined to enforce a revolution whether Earths population wanted it or not.

The winch raised Lee level with the hovering VLR. Clinging to the frozen lifebuoy, swinging from the cable in the howling winds, he was eye level with his captors. He regarded the Masama staring impassively back at him through the weather. They all looked alike, slightly different augmentations but the same black-clad human-machine hybrids. All aggression and attitude, steel and station. They raised their weapons at him; Lee had a fleeting impression of liquid jet nozzles primed before he was coated with a freezing spray. He just had time to register it was liquid helium before his body seized, rigid. It was beyond cold, it burnt quickly to his core, rapidly slowing his organs, blood flow, and biological brain function. The liquid nanoparticles flowing in his veins slowed, thickened and froze solid with the rest of him. His last thoughts were; ‘I’m going to die again.’