… until they realized the only other choice was to be abandoned in this no-man’s-land of Providence, Rhode Island.

Great.

“This is so not cool, man,” groaned Ray, watching the U-boat vanish in the distance. Hell-ship or not, there was clearly some sort of intelligent control at the helm, whether human or otherwise. “What are we gonna do now?”

“Try to chill. I’m thinking.”

“Awesome.”

“It’ll take all day for the sub to get out of the bay. Maybe we can find a boat and catch up with it.”

“How? Those Reaper dudes scooped up every boat in the harbor when they abandoned their barge. They all got trashed. Face it, we missed our chance.”

“Then we can take a car and beat the submarine down to Newport. There must be tons of boats there.”

“And then what? You saw what happened to those guys who attacked the sub.”

“Yeah.” Todd wished he could forget it. He and Ray had witnessed the horrible spectacle from shore: those bulging masses of flesh that rose from the boat’s missile bays and exploded into a thousand frenzied tentacles, yanking El Dopa’s assault force down to oblivion. “What the hell was that?”

“I don’t know, but something’s seriously wrong in there. Whatever it is, I don’t want a closer look.”

“Well, where would you like to go?”

“I just want to get out of this suit. I’m thirsty, man.”

“Me, too. Let’s just start by finding a drink.”

“How the hell are we gonna be able to drink anything wearing these helmets?”

“It’s called a straw, doofus.”