Captain Nemo stood in the engine room of the Nautilus. The air tasted of ozone and heated copper. Around him, the grand mechanism pulsed—a core of wire and refracted light. He wore battle-garb weighted with brass dials and sensory nodes.
For a decade, he had sought the silence of the deep trenches. He had abandoned the conflicts of empires for the solitude of the sea.
A telegram sat on the navigation table. The message was brief: London faced a threat physics could not explain. Nemo looked at the glowing gauges. He adjusted his headpiece, a crown of precision lenses and antennas. The British Crown wanted his genius; he only offered his steel. He pulled the primary lever. The deck vibrated as the turbines screamed. The recruitment had begun. Nemo was the first to answer.
Others followed into the fog.