"There's definitely water but it isn't rising much. Where in Lambda are you?"

"I'm up in the laboratories, but the system's warning there may be structural problems in the shuttle station. You might need to come around outside."

"Okay. Is there an airlock somewhere I can come back in?" 

"Yeah, there will be. Just look for the maintenance hatch for your section, there should be a way from there to the Lambda pressure lock."

"Okay. Um--I found Amy. She's--trapped--in the shuttle station on the other end. I told her I would try to get help."

"Amy? Amy...Azzaro? She's alive?"

Yeah, but she's--she's sort of. Stuck in a blob of gel? Apparently it's been keeping her alive but I don't know how to get her out safely and IreallyhopeyoudoandI'mscared. Sorry."

"It'll be OK. Just get to Lambda, I'll be...hang on, what's tha..." The line goes dead, and the screen's "ready" display goes to black.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Margaret pokes despairingly at the screen a few times, but the problem is clearly on the other end. Then she gets moving down the hall again, looking for the airlock out, desperately hoping Catherine will still be alive in the laboratories when she gets there.

The maintenance hatch in the wall isn't too much further. Behind it is a short tunnel, and a ladder up into a pressure lock, this one with its doors in the floor and ceiling. With a swipe of the Omnitool on the scanner, the lock starts to cycle, filling up with water and then the upper hatch lowering and a ladder lowering down. It leads up and out of a hole in the seabed. There's a few lights visible in the distance, a few tens of meters away in the murky water.

If she heads for the lights and they turn out not to be what she wants she might lose the way back to here. On the other hand, there's no wall she can follow to get there and nothing here that she wants. She makes as sure of a mental note as she can of the ground around here and her bearing, and heads for the lights.

The lights here don't initially seem to be as much of a path as between the sections near Upsilon. Instead of being on poles, they're just...stuck to equipment projecting out of the sea bed. Hopefully they lead to Lambda? How big can this ocean be, anyway? Finally, after walking through the dark murky water for minutes from one random-looking installation to another, some overgrown with barnacles or coral, there starts being a path that looks a bit more finished. Signs on some of the installations start counting down the distance to Lambda, starting from 350 meters, then 300m at the next one, then 275m. However, before the path reaches the station, the next bend reveals the red light of one of the larger robot units drifting out around one side of what looks like a split in the path. As it turns, there's the now-familiar magnetic-interference sensation in her head. "Finally," it says. "I've been waiting for this." It starts drifting closer.

"Hello!" Is this Catherine? No, the voice is all wrong. "What's your name? Mine's Margaret."

"Are you ready? Need to let some of that black blood out." The robot drifts forward, one of their claws raised menacingly.

"What--no--what is wrong with you?!" Margaret doesn't stick around to hear the answer. She darts sideways, aiming to get a nearby boulder between her and them.

Putting the boulder between her and the robot reveals that the path rejoins past it, even as the robot whirrs its way around from the side she just left behind. "Come on, you have so much..."

She keeps moving, her gaze flicking between the next marker and the seabed in front of her.

You're no better, say her thoughts. You will also drain the life from someone else to save yourself.

She keeps moving.

The robot is quickly left behind in her wake, unlike the guilt. Somewhere in the water disconcertingly far above, she catches the silhouette for a moment of a hammerhead shark. The path winds between more structures, finally starting to look like buildings, windows and all, sticking out of the seabed instead of just equipment. However, there's also debris, fragment of girders and tubing scattered like sticks across the seabed, some as big as this body's arms. Winding her way between them, she finally finds an airlock door, marked "LAMBDA." In front of it is a small submersible, lying off kilter lying on the seafloor like a toy tossed by a bored giant. The door opens when she tries it, possibly because it was already loose--the inside is slightly overgrown with moss and sea life. In spite of that and the pressure, the computer seems intact. It turns on to when she sticks her omnitool down into the cradle for it, but the sub's the onboard computer doesn't like something about how her omnitool is configured. "Unable to activate escape vessel--protocol missing," the omnitool Helper Jane voice says, and the screen displays "No Cortex Chip Found."

A shark disconcertingly far above is better than a shark disconcertingly nearby. 

She cannot provide a cortex chip, but neither does she actually want to do much with the submersible right now; she wants to find Catherine. If Catherine hasn't gone the way of the scattered hardware. Into the airlock she goes.

The pressure lock works, at least, and admits her into another degraded-looking interior. Off to the right, she can just barely catch sight of a suit storage/dressing room like the one she awoke in, but with no chair, before there's a moan from deeper in the station and a wave of the magnetic-feeling disorientation. "Stay back!" cries a familiar voice. Catherine! There's another moan, and then Catherine cries out as another wave of disorientation sweeps over Margaret.

Rough layout (entry from the top left):

"Gaaaah, what is this? Catherine? Are you okay?" Margaret asks as she stumbles back a step. 

"Margaret?" Catherine calls. "Hide, be quiet. Don't draw its attention."

Margaret gets into the nearest concealed space, or failing that gets her back against the nearest wall, and tries to look uninteresting. She's terrified but she doesn't feel terrified, she can't hear her own racing heart or feel her limbs ready to move at top speed. It's like she's half terrified and half doesn't exist.

Margaret pulls herself against a wall in the dive prep room in a gap between a set of lockers and some piled up totes. As she does, she catches just a glimpse of a fast-moving humanoid shape down the corridor, fortunately not coming her way. There's a few clanks and rattles, but after a few minutes, Catherine's voice comes back down the hall, quietly. "I think it's gone. You should be safe to come here now."

Margaret emerges slowly and with a minimum of noise and heads towards Catherine's voice.