Oil.
She realized that was it. Realized in a sliver of her mind that had sheltered itself from her narcosis and was now shouting to be heard, shouting of danger and of dark and of things gone wrong.
Where? Where's oil coming from?
The answer came as she breathed out. Bubbles flinging up in quick surges. The oil must have come from some broken tank or pipe. And lighter than water, it had gathered at the ceiling of this bent and broken corridor. Found its way there and hung undisturbed until the bubbles from her regulator stirred them and pounded it into an expanding cloud, reaching down to foul the air and obscure her sight.
She froze. Heart beating, ears bursting with the thop-thop-thop of a pulse that wanted to explode out of her veins.
The oil just got worse. The sand continued not settling. She was caught on a horrible horizon between earth and a dark sky. Her dive light reflecting on the sand like headlights in the thickest fog, being swallowed by the darkness above.
And, somehow, through her muddled mind and the panic that burgeoned, she saw it.
It was some kind of chest. Sitting on a raised mound of sand that had gathered against the far end of the corridor – which she could make out as being collapsed. This was the end of the line… and like the end of the line on all true treasure hunts there was a pirate chest waiting. It even looked like a pirate chest, something out of Pirates of the Caribbean or some other "arrrrr, matey" kind of movie.
It was wood. Edges frayed with light damage, iron bands surrounding it in three places, giving it strength and an innate sense of age. It was nearly elemental, its risen position making it the dead king of this solitary place.
Narcosis had seized her fully. She was barely thinking, barely wondering what a pirate chest was doing here, in a place where the presence of oil clearly signaled a newer ship. Not the type of place to carry this chest anywhere at all, let alone just having it sitting there like –
(bait)
– a gift from God.
But here it is. Here's the answer, Mercedes. Here's what you wanted and what you still need.
(Don't! Don't go to it!)
The two parts of her mind screamed, but one of the screams was faint and distant and drowned out by the banging drums in her ears, the elemental feeling of providential opportunity that surged her forward, heedless of the new fogs of sand kicked up behind her.
She reached the chest. Felt it. It felt like a treasure chest. Solid, permanent. A fixture to be found in dark places after much trial; much suffering.
I've suffered. I've seen it all.
This is my ticket out.
(RUN!)
She pulled at the top of the chest. But of course –
(boom boom boom banging drums pounding head not thinking straight run please just leave it alone please run)
– it was locked. In the movies the chest just threw back its lid and exposed its inner riches to anyone who found it. But a real treasure chest? It would have to be locked.
She looked around for something to open it. Some tool she could use – a bit of metal or a length of pipe she could use as a crowbar to pry the thing open. To make it give up its hoard.
No such implement revealed itself. Only a rock, half-buried in the mountain of sand on which the chest perched.
She grabbed it.
Ow! What the –
She dropped the rock. As it fell it turned and she saw what had caused the pain. A red flare of feathers, attached to a ball-like foot, which in turn held to the rock. A sea urchin, all spines and danger for those that might eat it.
And a painful reminder that when seeking treasure there was always a guardian.
(You're NOT MAKING SENSE. GET OUT.)
The voice behind her thoughts almost got through. Nearly took control.
She looked at her hand. It was bleeding. Tight circles of red that oozed into the white/black of the tunnel's water. They stung like hell – some kind of venom.
(RUN!)
She picked up the rock – more carefully this time, and with her opposite hand – and turned it so the urchin pointed down.
Then she began slamming it against the front of the chest, where a lock was embedded in the wood. She couldn't swing from very far – the water resistance was too great to get much velocity or force – but when she came in close, she hit with a satisfying thunk that sounded like it came from all around her. Sound travels well underwater, but it is directionless.
A scream for help, for instance, can come from anywhere.
She hit the rock against the chest, and a satisfying puff of ooze came up. The urchin was crushed. She had vanquished the treasure's guardian.
A few more hits, and the lock crackled. A few after that it went poing as something inside it snapped.
She dropped the rock. It and the remains of the urchin tumbled out of sight below the clouds of sand that reached for her.
She opened the chest.
ALIEN
~^~^~^~^~
Geoffrey couldn't think. Nothing. Just the pain in his hand, the rush of bubbles around his ears, the steadily increasing thudding in his skull.
Pain pain pain pain pain pain pain….
It became the only thing in his universe. His hand, the eel that still held fast to him. The underlying, almost silent, knowledge that he was going to die here.
Black surrounded him. Narcosis and panic mixed to create a dark miasma that swallowed his thoughts, swallowed his vision, swallowed him.
He still couldn't breathe. The regulator spun out of reach, below his sight, below his ability to grab it or even understand where it was. He just knew the bubbles were everywhere – only parting to allow him the sight of the eel clamped on his hand. It had transformed in his panic-sight, his oxygen deprivation, to something more like dragon than eel. Something that held him so strongly there would never be an escape.
He was going to breathe in. He had to.
A hand slashed out. For a moment Geoffrey wondered where it had come from. He couldn't see through the darkness. Wondered if it was his hand.
But no. This wasn't his. He didn't own a crappy dive computer like that, did he? His was top of the line. That was a cheaper model.
And the hand held a knife Geoffrey had never seen. The knife slashed down. Cut the eel behind the head.
The eel didn't give. Didn't let go. Clamped down harder.
Geoffrey breathed in. Sucked water. It flooded his airway, dropped into his lungs. Salt that burned, burned, burned.
He couldn't make it stop. He gagged. Vomited the gasp of water he had just taken in.
The knife in the hand that did not belong to him –
(where's it coming from and please let me breathe oh God I'm sorry just let me breathe)
– cut down again. Another slashing blow.
The eel's head fell away from its body. Fell away from Geoffrey's bleeding hand.
Something spun him around. He would have screamed again, but he was too busy vomiting, inhaling, gagging. The thing in front of him was horrible. Huge eyes, tentacles.
(tim it's tim)
The voice didn't pierce the veil of panic. Nor did he understand why the thing in front of him was trying to push one of its tentacles into his mouth.
(ALIEN TRYING TO TAKE ME OVER TRYING TO KILL ME)
(i'm dying)
Geoffrey whipped his head around. Tried to avoid the thing's grasping tentacle. Vomiting. Now convulsing. His body curling into a bean, a pillbug, a nothing-shape.
(AIR!)
The word, the salvation it held, finally penetrated. He didn't know who this was, but the diver in front of him had air. Had the life that Geoffrey needed – damn well deserved to keep.
He grabbed at the face of the diver. Tried to pull the regulator out of his mouth. Never mind the octopus, the second-rate regulator hanging from the other guy's hand. He wanted the real thing.
Narcosis pushed him on. Spurred him to madness and beyond as he grabbed for the regulator.
The other diver pulled back. Fins pounding away. Pushing off the ground, flinging away from Geoffrey's grasping hands.
Geoffrey changed tacks. He grabbed for the thing in the other man's hand. The knife. Moved so fast the other guy didn't have a chance to react. Geffrey grabbed it.
Slashed.
CURRENT
~^~^~^~^~
Sue kept swimming. Swimming. Pushing forward.
She spotted movement out of the corner of her eye. Stopped. Turned.
Saw nothing.
Nothing but the coral on that side, bent over and waving gently.
She stared at it dully. Wondering why she watched so long, wondering why her brain was pinging so loud it had penetrated the fog in which she found herself until now.
Coral.
Beautiful.
Waving gently.
Waving….
She realized what she was looking at. Her heart immediately sped up, beating hard enough it felt like a hammer on the inside of her ribs. Boom-boom-boom little pig little pig let me out.
Her thoughts jumbled and threatened to spin away again. She frowned. Forced concentration.
The coral was bent.
Pushed.
By what?
The current.
And as she realized it she also noticed that she wasn't staring at the same growths she had been looking at a moment ago.
She was moving. Not kicking, not pulling the water with her hands.
But moving.
Caught. I'm caught.
She tried to judge how fast she was going. Not fast at all by terrestrial standards – maybe two miles per hour. But that was far faster than she could swim.
And – she realized for the first time – she didn't have an anchor line.
Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.
The sound seemed to come from within her at first. Like an internal red alert that had gone off when she realized what kind of danger she was in.
But that wasn't it.
She looked around. Spun in place –
(Still moving! Even spinning I'm still moving!)
– and saw her dive computer.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
The words came to her. Jimmy J on deck, far above and safer than he had a right to be.
"Some of you guys are using some DCs we had on board since yours weren't rated for this depth. They'll beep – loud – to let you know you have five minutes before you need to start back up. You go any later than that and you either run out of air down there or you have to come up too fast."
She looked at her dive computer.
One of the ones from The Celeste. Rated for deep dives. Beeping. Flashing. 4:46… 4:46… 4:45….
She spun, this time more purposefully, not even sure for a moment which way she had come from. Trying to get her bearings. Feeling the urgent passage of every second – every millisecond – that counted down her air before she began ascent.
I can still go up. Still got my air. Still got a chance.
And if you surface five miles away from the boat?
She forced herself to calm as much as possible, which was very little.
Booming, slamming, pounding in her ears. Thrumming of her pulse through every part of her.
The coral. Waving.
Caught in the current.
She turned until she was facing the opposite way to the direction the coral leaned. Began swimming.
Still falling behind. Falling back.
She dropped to the seabed. Began pulling herself as well as kicking. Now making headway, but only barely.
She didn't look at her dive computer. Didn't know what numbers it would show, but knew it didn't matter. No matter what they were, they would mean the same thing: You're screwed.
She pulled, kicked, pulled. An awkward lurch along the bottom.
And she knew she was going to die.
AIR
~^~^~^~^~
Mercedes' world seemed to be spinning.
What did I see? What was that? How was it?
She realized a moment later she had moved away from the chest. In following what she had seen –
(impossible impossible I didn't I couldn't but how but please no I couldn't I didn't)
– she had moved somewhere new and now had no idea of where she was. Inside this broken shell of a passage there were no landmarks, no nothing.
And what it was she saw?
How? HOW?
She didn't know.
Just focus on getting back. Did you go back into the first hall? The one with the chest?
She must have. But did she then change her course from the passage to another corridor? A room?
The sand had been disturbed to the point that she could see next to nothing.
Not even the walls.
Whether that meant she was, in fact, now in a room somewhere, or simply that the sand and oil had obscured her view of the walls in the very corridor that would lead her back out of the wreck and to her ascent tanks, she couldn't say. And she was hesitant to move in any direction.
The go-home line.
She grabbed at her waist. The line was still clipped there. Relief flooded her. She could do this. Could make it out.
And then what? Are you going to tell them? What it was you saw?
Later. First thing's first.
Bull. There's nothing but what you saw.
Images kept jamming their way into her sight.
The urchin.
The chest.
After the chest.
She pulled at the line. To follow it she would have to take in some slack. The tension would let her know which direction she should go.
And then what? Then what? THEN WHAT?
She pulled. Pulled. The slack remained, and soon she was frowning behind her mask.
What's going –
The line ran out. A ragged end was suddenly in her hand.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
She went cold. Her trip computer was telling her she needed to start up. And her main tank was smaller than the others – she had brought smaller tanks because she was a smaller person. Easier to haul, but less margin for error. She had calculated that she would run out of air when it was time to ascend. She needed to switch to her ascent tanks to make it back.
Five minutes. Not just to start her ascent, but to find her way out. To get to the other tanks that waited for her outside the hole she had entered through.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
She moved. No alternative. No chance to get out just sitting here in the blinding white of her light reflected back at her from all directions.
She swam.
The seconds counted down.
Her hands quested before her. Searching for something, anything, that would tell her where she was. The sand was so thick she couldn't even see them with her arms extended ahead of her this way.
Oh no oh on oh no….
The thought of what she had just seen actually left her for a moment. Survival pushed its way in. Took over.
Humans often devolve into simple animals when survival is at stake. No matter the riches, the wonders, the testaments to civilization or beauty or value that may stand before them, if the moment comes when their lives may end, that looming doom is all that matters. Past does not matter, only the present need for life and the possible futures shut away behind the promise of extinction.
Mercedes' right hand bumped into something. She was caught in currents of terror that pushed her forward so fast that when she hit it her fingers bent back painfully. Ached even when she pulled them back.
But the pain was a strange kind of bliss. She had found something. And any something was a source of hope in the dark brightness of shifting sands.
She pushed her hand down. Felt hard sand. That direction was down, which she hadn't even been sure of a moment ago. So she knew there was a wall – at least to her – in front of her, the "floor" below.
Where now?
She knew that staying in one place was doom. She had to m
ove. Heads or tails or something in between, she had to choose a direction and hope it didn't lead her deeper into the ship.
Time ticking. Moments passing.
She turned, keeping that one hand – sore, the urchin stings still burning like knives against scorched skin – against the wall. She pulled forward. Hoping. Praying.
What did I see?
No matter how hard she tried, the feeling kept intruding.
She pulled breath in. Breath out. Tried to concentrate not on the events of a few minutes ago but instead on keeping her breathing regular.
Stretch the air. Take care and stretch your air, that's what the diving instructor said the first time I ever went in, that's what I've got to do now.
What was the instructor's name? What was her name? She was so beautiful, so assured, what was her name? Vannessa? Vannessa Something "L" I think.
What did I SEE?
Concentrate.
Pulling along. Moving carefully. Careful, she sensed even through the flurry of her thoughts, the intrusive fingers of panic tickling at her, was the only way out. The only chance at survival.
She realized it was getting harder to breathe. Thought at first that something was attacking her from within, some new thing that made even less sense than what she had seen.
Then realized it was nothing so massive or so irrational. She was simply running out of air.
A few more gasps.
Then nothing.
BAILOUT
~^~^~^~^~
Tim fluttered back, fins kicking like the wings of a panicked moth, trying to move away from the jabs and slashes Geoffrey was leveling at him. The other man's eyes were so wide with panic and narcosis that they seemed to take up the entirety of his mask. His pupils were black pits, only barely framed by the slightest bits of color. He was gone, totally narced, beyond reason.
Buddy diving was the rule in recreational diving. You stay with a friend, you keep him or her in your eyesight at all times. It could – and did – save a life if one or the other ran into trouble.
In the deep, though… things were different. Many deep divers eschewed a buddy. And Tim was finding out why. A diver panicked, a diver running short on or completely out of air, will not see another human nearby. He will see only air. A way out. A way to survive. Close friendships could dissolve, murder could be born.
The Deep 2015.06.23 Page 13
