Aced and Blown

Cathy's prototype detects the pending environment change just before she hits the water, and switches to the “Mermaid” shell: A head of hair in a ponytail (loose hair being a touch problematic underwater), a large scaled fish tail around her legs (the same red shade as her hair, but metallic and reflective), and the recent mermaid tradition of a seashell bikini top (also red).

Breathing easily in the thin shell of recycling air within the solid hologram, she swims down away from the light, and gives another instruction to her prototype: “Dinah, Dolphin protocol.”

The seemingly miraculous device starts sending out controlled pulses of sound, and interpreting the reflections on Cathy's HUD, overlaying a wire frame map of the surroundings on her actual vision: Sonar. This lets her find the pipe without much difficulty. So she opens her holographic phone, and takes a few pictures, queuing them up for sending to her prospective employer once she's back in signal range. The photo clearly shows the pipe, four men covered in green fish scales, and the bomb they're carrying into the pipe. Unfortunately, Cathy recognizes them: Sahuagin. Hated enemy of the merfolk, they're capable of going on land, but usually are too busy battling the Atlanteans to be much trouble for anyone else.

…and right now she looks just like a resident of the sunken city.

The four vaguely humanoid creatures quickly swim to catch up to and surround Cathy, grabbing her with their clawed hands and holding her fast. Struggling, Cathy realizes: The prototype's power is currently dedicated to maintaining shell integrity against the water. “I'll need to adjust that later… can't afford to be weak, maybe a scaling factor based on water pressure?” She mutters, “...on the plus side, a shell set for handling two miles of water pressure is really durable at just a hundred feet down.” She glances at the Holographic Shell Capacitance (HSC) number on her HUD holding steady at 99% despite them trying to bite her now, and just chipping their teeth

As she struggles against her captors, Cathy considers her options, ‘Daemon isn't rated for water, I'd just be in a different kind of trouble. No cell signal this deep, I can't call a hero squad, what else….’

As she's considering, the decision is made for her: The bomb the fish men were planting goes off - it seems they had already started the timer.

The blast sends a shockwave through the water, destroying the pipe, stunning the sahuagin, and collapsing a big chunk of the concrete wall preventing erosion… which the fish folk can't dodge, being stunned by the same blast. As her assailants are quickly buried under concrete, brick, and other things, Cathy dodges the falling blocks as she heads to the surface… where she surveys the wreckage.

The SeaHorse Inspection Technologies branch building is basically gone; all that's left is four letters from the sign (T, I, H, and S from this angle). The yacht is in scattered pieces, and Beatrice is soaking wet, climbing up in her red blazer (now with some green seaweed accents) on a chunk of the floating dock.

Cathy launches out of the water and lands on her feet, the prototype having detected the environment change and switched back to business attire.

The soaking woman's phone rings, and she pulls it out of her purse, looking at the message. She starts to laugh, “Well… good news, bad news, which do you want first?”

“I could use some good news,” the technological heroine smiles, completely dry.

“Well, the good news is that you blew away all previous records for that time trial, so normally I would hire you on the spot,” the woman in red starts to cry.

“Let me guess…” Cathy sighs.

“No need,” the soaked woman composes herself, “The branch office and inspection boat are also blown away, and while the insurance will cover everything, we'll be at least a year or two in rebuilding, so I can't hire anyone right now.”

“About what I thought…” Cathy shakes her red head, “Well… I can at least get your float to shore….” she dives back in the water, and pushes the fragment of the floating dock up to dry land, then going ashore herself. Shaking her head she finds a secluded spot, and starts talking to her assistant, “Dinah, any other interviews?”

Her heads up display gives a notice, "Theater, tomorrow, 9 am confirmed.”

“Wow, my Prototype is good at getting those…” Cathy smiles as she walks to an unobserved location, “Dinah, Daemon.”

Resuming the flying form, Cathy takes to the skies to head home and prepare for her next interview….