by M. D. Cooper
Martin sympathized with her viewpoint. He saw something of himself in her attitude and had begun to realize that he possibly had problems with letting go, too. But he also worried that despite everyone’s best efforts, the park wouldn’t be ready in time for its scheduled grand opening. Lindsey needed to accept that possibility and give everyone a break. He decided to try to talk some sense into her.
“You know what, Linds?” he said after arriving at work not long after sunup. “I haven’t had the chance to take a tour of the site yet. Why don’t we do that this morning? I feel like I need to see the place as a whole to get a proper handle on what we’re doing here.”
“I’m sorry,” she replied, “we don’t have time. We were going to work on the diatoms today, remember?”
“Pietr and I can do that, Lindsey,” Margot said. “We’re ahead on the deep-sea crustaceans, aren’t we?” She looked toward her workmate for confirmation.
He gave a brief nod and looked away. She was telling a white lie, as agreed upon by Martin the day before.
“Come on,” Martin said. “Take a couple hours’ break and show me around. You know you want to.”
Shy pride broke through his friend’s tired features. “All right. I’ll send you the steps for the diatoms,” she said to Margot.
“We know the steps,” Pietr said in response.
“Let’s take the Torpedo,” suggested Martin.
* * * * *
Martin let Lindsey decide where to take him first. The reason for the one-on-one outing wasn’t entirely made up. He really did want to see the whole site. He was tired of working like a dog in the labs and then nipping out to seed an area before rushing back to the lab again. If it hadn’t been for the opportunity for a swim before and after work, he might have had to put his foot down.
Lindsey pushed the Torpedo to its top speed, explaining that she would take Martin to the far side of the park at the Syracuse coast so they could work their way back, visiting all the sectors as they went.
“Actually,” she said, “this is a really good idea. I should complete an overall evaluation of our progress. This will help.”
Great, Martin thought. She’s managed to turn the excursion into another work exercise. He focused his attention inward, to his AI.
Martin tutted.
“Did you say something?” Lindsey asked.
“No. What’s at the Syracuse coast? I haven’t been that far out yet.”
“The octopus garden. I thought of creating another coral reef in the shallow water, but I wanted to do something a little different.”
“An octopus garden,” Martin repeated. “Nice.” He was a little jealous that he hadn’t thought of the idea.
“Are you living on Syracuse or Ithaca?” Lindsey asked. “I don’t think you ever mentioned where you’re staying.”
Martin told her about his house on the cliff.
“That’s your place? It’s beautiful. We noticed it being built and wondered whose it was. I never got around to buying a home here. I’ve been staying at a hotel in Heliopolis.”
“Maybe it’s something to think about,” Martin said. “It’s nice to have a home and family waiting for you at the end of the day.”
Lindsey looked pensive. “Yeah, maybe. When I have time.”
She was quiet for the rest of their journey across the Sea of Marmara. Martin assumed she was working on her evaluation.
He thought up several approaches to the subject of her overworking herself and her staff, but then disregarded each of them. Eamon had hit the nail on the head; Martin saw Lindsey’s point of view too well to convincingly persuade her out of it.
The sunlight beaming through the water was strong. It was another hot, sunny day. Isa would either be out somewhere with Jude, recording a landscape, or at home with him, creating an installation. Erin would be at work on the underside of Messene Station in the shadow of Canaan Prime’s brilliant light. Martin had a hankering to cut down on work and spend more time with his family.
“Here we are,” said Lindsey, powering down the engine and turning the submersible one hundred and eighty degrees.
Martin had been too lost in his thoughts to notice they’d arrived at the Syracuse coast. Lindsey had spun their craft to face the way they’d come, and Martin got his first look at the octopus garden she’d mentioned. His mouth fell open.
“When you said ‘octopus garden’, I thought you meant a habitat to suit a range of octopus species. I didn’t realize you meant an actual garden.”
The water was clear and the visibility good. An underwater garden stretched as far as Martin could see. Seaweeds, sea grasses, corals, kelp, algae, shells and pebbles had been arranged into beds and decorative features. Small bridges crossed the spaces between boulders, and the sand beneath had been sculpted to resemble a river. In open areas, the seabed had been swept into elaborate patterns and embellished with shells. A kelp forest rose to the surface in one spot, and fish swam through the branches like birds.
“This is phenomenal,” Martin said. “No wonder you have to do everything else in a rush. This must have taken weeks.”
“It wasn’t me who did it,” Lindsey said.
“So it’s Margot and Pietr’s work?”
Lindsey’s expression was pained. “Wrong again. It was the octopuses.”
“You’re kidding. How?”
Octopuses were incredibly intelligent, but Martin didn’t think they were capable of creating something so complex and pleasing to the human eye. Then he realized the answer to the puzzle.
“Don’t tell me they’re uplifted.”
Lindsey grimaced and nodded.
“Great. Just great. Whose idea was that?” Martin couldn’t believe it was hers.
Octopuses had a weird sense of humor. He hated to think what they would do with extra smarts and the ability to communicate with humans.
“Cameron’s,” she said. “They started causing trouble at his site—”
“Well, duh!”
“So he asked me if he could send them here. I agreed. I felt I owed him, after my urchins were eating all his kelp that time when you came to help him out. Do you remember?”
“I do,” he replied. “But you brought him the sea otters. You made it up to him and then some.”
Lindsey’s eyes widened. “I knew there was something I’d forgotten. Sea otters! I have dolphins, seals, sea lions, walruses, all the usual suspects in the marine mammals section, but I’d totally forgotten about sea otters. The visitors will go crazy over those cute little guys.”
Not a single sign of an octopus was in sight. Not an eye, not a siphon, not a limb moved anywhere in the garden.
“You don’t think they’re…watching us, do you?” Lindsey asked.
“I don’t know, but let’s leave, huh? And don’t take us over the garden again. Go that way, toward the drop-off.”
Lindsey drove the submersible along the edge of the garden.
“You think accepting Cameron’s uplifted octopuses was a mistake, don’t you?” she asked. “When I saw what they were creating here, I thought I’d made a good decision. But you’re right. Uplifted octopuses could mean trouble.”
Martin didn’t want to add to his friend’
s problems. “Let’s worry about the octopuses later. I’m sure they won’t hurt anyone.”
They were approaching the ocean shelf. The strait between Ithaca and Syracuse was a shallow sea, but beyond both continents lay a wide, deep ocean. It was at the point where the sea ended and the ocean began next to a deep underwater cliff that Lindsey had set her ‘monsters of the deep’ attraction.
Martin hadn’t been to this area before. He was curious to see the creatures, some of which he had never personally attempted to create. Leviathans like gigantic squid, whale sharks, spider crabs, lion’s mane jellyfish, and archelons would roam within the invisible boundaries of their home.
The work creating the massive sea creatures had been the first part of the project, which Lindsey had begun alone months previously. Genetically enhanced growth rates in the animals would ensure that they reached imposing sizes much faster than nature originally dictated.
“How are things coming along with the ‘monsters of the deep’?” Martin asked.
“I’m not sure. I haven’t had time to go out there recently. I set it all in motion, but Connor monitors everything for me. He hasn’t reported any problems.”
Connor was Lindsey’s AI.
They were nearing the drop-off. The current was stronger, and the water above more turbulent. Instead of the bright, shallow water of the sea, the ocean depths were a dark blue deepening to black.
“Will visitors be allowed to swim in this sector?” Martin asked.
“Not sure yet. What do you think? I’m reluctant to make any part of the park out of bounds for one-on-one interactions with the animals. On the other hand….”
“I know what you mean. Accidents could happen.”
It wouldn’t be hard for an inexperienced diver to become entangled in the tentacles of a gigantic squid or find themselves in the mouth of a whale shark. Then if the creature decided to dive with their find…. Not all the visitors would be modded to survive at great depths.
“I might ask visitors to sign a waiver if they want to go out there,” Lindsey said. “I’ve included a viewing platform all the way along the edge of the drop-off, so there isn’t much of a need to swim out to see them. Animals like that are better viewed from a distance anyway.”
She turned the Torpedo around to face Ithaca. Martin looked out into the inky water where the leviathans were lurking. He expected to see a few of them as they traveled along.
“Remind me to take you to see the whirlpool on the way back,” said Lindsey. “Margot started it up yesterday. Said it’s working perfectly, but I’d like to check on it.”
Martin was also interested to see the never-ending whirlpool that would pull visitors through the swirls to the bottom of the spiral and then spit them out so they could swim up to the beginning again. He planned on trying it out himself when he had a spare moment, though that didn’t look to be arriving anytime soon.
“Look,” said Lindsey. “Something’s coming.”
Martin looked in the direction of her gaze and saw it too. A dark shape in the surrounding blackness was growing rapidly larger. The animal’s head was facing them, making it difficult to recognize it from the shape of its body. Martin guessed it was a whale shark.
He was a tiny bit disappointed. Whale sharks were a little meh. He’d been hoping to see a plesiosaur, which he knew Lindsey had also bred for the park. The long-necked aquatic dinosaurs were notoriously tricky to create, and it was a testament to Lindsey’s skill that she’d generated several.
The creature was approaching them fast, its body moving from side to side due to the powerful thrashing of its tail. Then it opened its mouth. This was no whale shark. Two rows of massive white teeth gleamed it its mouth, catching the light from the upper waters. The Torpedo would fit easily within its jaws, which seemed to occupy most of the creature’s head.
Martin knew exactly what the animal was. His grip on his armrest tightened as Lindsey didn’t change course, heading straight for it. Martin could see right down the creature’s throat.
At the last second, it turned its nose upward, and the underside of its head skimmed the roof of the submersible. The gigantic fish passed over them.
Craning his neck, Martin saw it continue on its path to the water’s surface, breach, and splash down again. Then with a flick of its tail it quickly sped from view, returning to its dark realm below.
Martin was stunned. He turned toward Lindsey and lifted a hand. She slapped it in a high-five.
“Megalodon,” he said in awe. “Awesome, Linds. Just awesome.”
* * * * *
As the pair journeyed back toward Ithaca, they visited the deep-sea dome, the whirlpool, the marine mammals district, the diatom domicile, and other areas in the rest of the park that were approaching readiness for the opening. Each visit was quick, yet it was well past lunchtime before they decided to return to the labs.
Eamon said.
Martin had actually forgotten the reason for the trip. Seeing the octopus garden, the megalodon, and the other sights and activity areas, had heightened his enthusiasm for the place. He could see Lindsey’s point of view more than ever.
Yet Eamon was right. The team couldn’t continue at its current breakneck speed. One way or another, there had to be a change of plan.
“Do you want to take a quick peek at the sinkhole before we go back inside?” asked Lindsey. “It’s on our route.”
“Sure,” he said.
Another stop along the way would give him more time to think.
In a few minutes, the submersible was at the edge of the sinkhole. Lindsey angled the craft downward, and they slipped into the darkness.
The geological layers in the wall were distinct as the pair dropped downward. A layer of sand, then another of firmer, chalky sand, and then finally, hard rock. The submersible’s lights cut through the murky water, and gazing into the darkness, Martin thought he saw a deeper black in the wall of the hole.
“Can you see that?”
“I can now that you’ve pointed it out,” said Lindsey. “The Torpedo’s scanner is picking up a hollow area too.”
They were near the base of the hole, where a giant crack had opened. Tony had placed structures in the base, presumably to prevent it from opening wider, but Martin was more interested in the enigmatic gap higher up. He peered ahead as Lindsey piloted the submersible closer to the space. The vehicle’s lights revealed a wide expanse inside.
“Cool,” Martin said. “Looks like we have another feature to add to the park.”
“Yes! A cave system is exactly what this park is missing.” Lindsey was grinning with excitement. “I couldn’t have wished for a better disaster to happen. What a blessing in disguise this turned out to be, right?”
“Well,” said Martin, rapidly backpedalling in his mind, “what I was thinking was, this might be an idea for the second stage of the park. You know, later on. When we have more time.”
Lindsey’s expression fell. “But it would be amazing. Just imagine all the awesome cave-dwelling species we could seed in there.”
Martin was finding them very easy to imagine.
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“Yeah, but….” He was at war with himself. “It can wait, right? An underwater cave isn’t even in the plans. And, frankly, even with all four of us working all night and day from now until opening, the park isn’t going to be ready in time.”
“You don’t think so?” asked Lindsey in a small voice.
“I know so. Come on, Linds. So do you. This isn’t like seeding an ocean on a new planet, where we can take as long as we want to get it right.”
She sagged in her seat like a jellyfish out of water. “I guess you’re right. I thought with you onboard too, we would be able to get everything done.”
“It was a great ambition, and we will get everything done eventually. And some parts are nearly ready; why not open only those, or have a smaller opening rather than the grand one you had planned? Invite some of the prominent people in town, politicians, business owners and so on. That’ll keep them happy and give the media something to talk about.”
“Hmm, that’s quite a good idea,” said Lindsey. “We could have a ‘soft opening,’ where visitors can see the progress we’ve made so far and get a glimpse of what’s to come. That would be a great opportunity to iron out any glitches and figure out what rules we’ll need to implement, like the access to the monsters of the deep we were talking about earlier.”
Lindsey steered the Torpedo away from the cave entrance and upward out of the sinkhole, her brow creased in thought.
Eamon said.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
STELLAR DATE: 04.26.8941 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Isa’s Gallery, Heliopolis, Ithaca
REGION: Troy, New Canaan System
Isa stood on the upper mezzanine, surveying the results of her weeks of work at the gallery. The difference in appearance compared to how the old spice warehouse had looked when she first saw the place was remarkable. She was satisfied with the progress she’d made, and warm excitement rose in her belly at the thought of opening the business.
