The Four

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More than a mile of dark sea-water roofed the city. It lay off the Atlantic coast of North America, nestling beneath the waves, cradled by hundreds of atmospheres of pressure. In the official records, the city’s designation was Undersea Refuge PL-12. But the official records, like the rest of the landside world, lay blasted and shattered, and the people of Undersea Refuge PL-12 called their city New Baltimore. Eleven thousand was New Baltimore’s population, a figure set by long-dead landside authorities and maintained by rigorous policies of control.

The history of New Baltimore stretched back for one hundred thirteen years. Not one of its eleven thousand inhabitants had not been born in the deep, under the laminated dome that was the city’s shield. In the ninetieth year of New Baltimore a child had been allotted to the Foyle family, and Mary Foyle was born. And in the hundred thirteenth year of the city—

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