What she saw now was no illusion, although it was far more unbelievable than any sasquatch sighting. Kevin had said that, at the height of breeding season, biologists would have been able to see hundreds of hammerheads at a time. However, just a rough guess based on what she was seeing now, there had to be nearly two thousand hammerheads circling clockwise around El Bajo. The sea below her was a roiling carpet of sharks, a school so thick she couldn’t see the water beneath them. The circle spread out on either side of the seamount far enough that Maria couldn’t quite see the edge. She stared down, the marine biologist in her taking over from that primal instinct to swim away as fast as she could. Maria tried to track the movements of individual sharks, knowing that the females tended to stay closer to the center and the males that could keep up with them were more likely to mate.
Close to the seamount, amid the boiling sea of sharks, a single dorsal fin briefly appeared that dwarfed all the others before disappearing once again.
This was why there were barely any sharks on the surface, Maria realized. In layman’s terms, Teddy Bear was horny and wanted to get laid. And when one hammerhead that had the ability to control others wanted to get laid, they all wanted to get laid. She was witnessing a shark orgy of previously unknown proportions.
This was both a good thing and a bad thing for Maria. She checked her watch again. It had been about three minutes so far. When her time was up and Kevin disabled the protective magnetic field generated by the transmitters, many of the sharks would probably be too distracted to come for her. If they sensed her presence now, their desire to get rid of her would overwhelmed by their instinct to mate. But given Teddy Bear’s tendencies so far, she wouldn’t be surprised if any attempt to disrupt them was responded to with deadly hostility.
Not that she hadn’t already been expecting that. The key here would be getting past all the other sharks to reach Teddy Bear. She decided to test the usefulness of the transmitters while they were still on, diving lower and angling farther out from the seamount. The closer she got, the more the hammerheads thinned out around her. She’d half expected a mad scramble to get away from her, as any mammals on the surface might in reaction to a sudden loud and screeching noise in their midst. That didn’t appear to be the case here. It was more like the hammerheads interpreted her as a large boulder or some kind of land formation suddenly appearing among them that they effortlessly swam around. She moved back up away from them and again checked her watch. One minute. If she was going to come up with any kind of plan, she was running out of time to do it.
She again saw Teddy Bear’s monstrous form appear briefly among its brethren, this time rising and then falling back below the others on the far side of the seamount. She mentally made a quick estimate of Teddy Bear’s speed and the distance she had to swim around the seamount.
An idea came to her. A horrible, awful, brilliant idea. She didn’t have any time to think about it. Her window of opportunity would be short, and she would need to swim quickly. Before she had an opportunity to convince herself this was nothing more than the quickest possible way to commit suicide, Maria dove once again for the mass of sharks below her, this time angling herself closer to the seamount.
She aimed right for where she calculated Teddy Bear’s path would bring her when she came back around.
The sharks once again opened up in front of her. Instead of stopping before she went too deep in like earlier, Maria plunged deeper, going down until the wave of hammerheads crested over her invisible magnetic bubble. There were now sharks above her, sharks below her, and sharks on all sides. She looked at the watch again. Thirty seconds before her protective field vanished and she would be completely surrounded by very angry apex predators. She hefted the tagging pole in her hand, making sure she had a good feel for it. The last thing she wanted to do was misinterpret its weight and drop it at the worst possible moment.
Twenty seconds, the watch said.
Maria quickly checked the pouch hanging from her waist but didn’t unsnap the clasp yet. She was probably going to need to move fast, and while she wanted the remaining transmitters to be handy right away she also didn’t want them to go flying out into the ocean if she made sudden evasive maneuvers.
Fifteen seconds.
She tried to breathe normally. Using the rebreather was already counterintuitive, but it was even worse when her heart was pounding and her lungs desperately wanted take in more air than they could get. She wondered for just a moment if this was what it was like standing in front of a semi-truck as it roared down the freeway as she hoped the driver would see her in time and swerve.
Ten seconds.
Oh God, this is it, isn’t it? she thought. I’m going to die in…
Nine seconds.
What if I got the timing wrong? What if…
Eight seconds.
I shouldn’t have been the one who volunteered. Someone else could have done this, couldn’t they?
Seven seconds.
Was this really even something that had to be done? I could have just waited for the Navy to show up…
Six seconds.
Oh God, oh God, oh shit, oh fuck, oh God…
Five seconds.
Okay, that’s enough.
Four seconds.
Time to focus.
Three seconds.
I can do this.
Two seconds.
I can.
One second.
Oh shit.
Zero.
19
For several seconds nothing happened. The sharks continued on with their oblivious mating dance, moving around the bubble of magnetic force as though they were completely unaware than an intruder was in their midst. Maria almost wondered if something had gone wrong on the Cameron and she should get out now. Once her opportunity was gone it didn’t seem likely that she was going to get it back, and she sure didn’t want to be here among thousands of angry hammerheads at the wrong moment.
The protective bubble collapsed. She almost didn’t realize it had happened. One second the sharks were steering completely clear of her, the next every one of them swimming around her started swimming in obvious agitation and confusion, no longer keeping their distance but not sure whether it was safe to get closer to her. Maria imagined it would be like leaning against a solid wall that suddenly vanished for no apparent reason and the sharks were now doing the under-sea equivalent of trying to regain their balance. The ones swimming directly toward her no longer tried to swim around, although most of them still kept their distance. One swam so close that she could have brushed its distinctively shaped head, like petting a confused stray cat.
Then Teddy Bear was in front of her.
She’d judged her timing and distances well. She was directly in Teddy Bear’s path, and although she had expected the enormous hammerhead a few seconds earlier, she was still in that brief period of time where all the creatures swimming around her were more perplexed by her presence than angry. That wouldn’t last long, but then again she didn’t think she needed long.
She held up the tagging pole like she was about to throw a spear. All she needed was two transmitters, one on each side of Teddy Bear, preferably as close to the head as she could get. According to the theories of Kevin’s friend, it would be the magnetic equivalent of putting reigns on a horse. Just one would be enough to thoroughly confuse Teddy Bear, but they couldn’t be sure that her ability to control the other sharks would be disrupted. She might just be get angrier and order the other hammerheads to kill Maria that much faster.
Or their theories about Teddy Bear controlling the others with magnetic waves were completely off base altogether. In that case, all Maria was about to do was hit a very angry, very huge shark in the head and make it even angrier.
She didn’t have the time to think about how that particular scenario might play out. Teddy Bear was now upon her, and as quickly as Maria could move in the water she thrust the pole at the left side of the shark’s head. Ideally she would have
taken the time to get a better angle, ensuring that the transmitter’s hook completely penetrated the hammerhead’s thick skin and wasn’t going to pop off at an inappropriate time. The pole still hit its target, though, tagging Teddy Bear just over the eye.
Maria didn’t have time to move out of the way. The shark hit her head on, literally, its battering-ram shaped head smashing into her hip and sending her tumbling sideways through the water. The water around her cushioned the blow somewhat, but not enough that she didn’t feel the sudden searing pain race up her side. She had just enough presence of mind in the moment to check that she wasn’t bleeding before trying to swim out of the way of all the other hammerheads no longer ignoring her. She didn’t have a lot of time, she knew. Their confusion couldn’t last much longer, and she needed to not be smack dab in the middle of them when they came to their senses. She swam up, doing her best to ignore the pain while also trying to unsnap her pouch to get another transmitter. She came up out of the wall of sharks easily enough, but two of them aggressively darted toward her even as she made her way out of the school. One missed her and then disappeared back below into the pack of its fellows. The other came at Maria’s leg, its mouth open and clearly ready to bite the unwelcome invader. It was a smaller one, at least, and a quick wave of the pole smacked it across the snout. It dashed off, leaving Maria alone for the moment, but she knew that was not going to last more than a few seconds.
Looking back down, she saw that the circle of sharks was breaking up. Apparently her disruption had taken them out of the mood. Maria had a brief random memory of a time several years back when, while in bed with a sexual partner and right before she could orgasm, he had gotten a call on his cell and stopped everything just to answer. She’d been pissed. Now she imagined those same feelings being shared by well over a thousand sharks, each of them suddenly in search of the rude jerk who had cockblocked them.
She fumbled the pouch and looked down just in time to see one of the transmitters fall out of her reach, disappearing between the writhing shark bodies. Only three left. That was fine, but it gave her little room for error. She pulled out a transmitter but didn’t have time to snap the pouch closed again before she saw Teddy Bear erupt from the hammerheads on the far side of the seamount. The sharks below her were also breaking formation, although even in the increasing amount of chaos they all managed to move together in a strangely delicate dance. Maria desperately swam to the surface, her survival instincts dictating her moves even though she knew that heading away from her targets would hardly help her mission.
As she moved, she put the transmitter on the end of the tagging pole and twisted to get a clear view of Teddy Bear. The monster swam away farther into the murky depths, far enough away that she almost lost the hammerhead’s silhouette in the gloom. She could still see just enough of Teddy Bear’s shape, however, to know that she was turning around and was about to head back in Maria’s direction. And with a creature that size, it would take no time at all to cover the distance.
Come on, it’s just like bull fighting, Maria said. Which I’ve never done. And under water. And with something that can bite me in half in one chomp. Okay, so not like bull fighting at…
There wasn’t any pain at first, just pressure. Then an exploding agony ripping through her body starting from her leg. She flipped in the water before she could realize what had happened, but she saw swirls of red trailing around her and knew it had to be her own blood. A hammerhead swam up past her with what looked like a piece of her wet suit trailing from its mouth. In her moment of distraction, she’d forgetting to watch below her as well as in front of her. Now that her body was doing a slow uncontrolled spin, though, she saw that the hammerheads had taken a formation like a long, ever-shifting spear. The first shark had hit her dead on, taking a chunk of her calf with it based on the searing pain, but she could still feel it. Her leg was still there, or at least mostly.
There was no more time, no more chance. Her mission wasn’t done, but she had to surface if she wanted to have even the slightest chance of surviving now. The ruined leg would make swimming harder, and she had attacks coming at her from at least two directions. She had to go. Now.
She didn’t move.
A part of her mind screamed at her that she was crazy, that she had a death wish, that this was a sure fire way to make sure she never saw dry land again. But another part was talking to her in a strong, confident, and quiet inner voice.
Focus. Be aware. See everything around you but be distracted by nothing.
The pain went away. The hazy red swirls floating in front of her face went away. The hammerheads below her and coming up fast did not go away, yet she compartmentalized them in her mind. They were something to worry about in a few seconds. Before they would reach her, however, there was Teddy Bear. The enormous creature was coming for her, clear to see, her mouth wide and aimed directly for Maria. The speed was uncanny.
Maria adjusted her arm slightly to compensate for her movement. Then, before she could give herself any more time to second guess her actions, Maria threw the pole exactly like a spear.
She missed the spot where the transmitter was supposed to go. Then again, she had intended to miss.
With her leg injured there was no way she would be able to out-swim the hammerheads coming up for below. She knew this. She was not a thing of the water. Real speed was not something she could accomplish here.
But Teddy Bear could.
The pole went low, perhaps a little lower than she’d intended. In those few microseconds, she’d had to come up with something she’d thought hitting her in the snout might be enough or, even better if she could somehow get the angle right on Teddy Bear’s head, giving her enough of a jab in the eye that she would swerve. Instead, the pole sliced through the water and jammed right into Teddy Bear’s mouth, where it got caught in her lower teeth. It was enough. Teddy Bear veered slightly to her right and down, instinctively protecting herself from whatever bizarre attack her prey had suddenly thrown at her. The fin on Maria’s left foot was clipped by Teddy Bear’s head, again making her want to scream as she felt the fresh pain of what might just be a broken foot. Yet even through the increasing torment, Maria remained aware that, in this brief moment of time, Teddy Bear was between her and all the other hammerheads heading to rip her to pieces. And also in front of her, moving so quickly that she almost missed it, was Teddy Bear’s dorsal fin.
Maria reached out and grabbed it, desperately holding on for dear life as the sudden acceleration nearly pulled her arms out of their sockets. Her grip held, just barely. She was now barreling through the water at the speed of giant mutant shark.
She quickly lost all sense of place as Teddy Bear raced through sea, desperately bucking and jerking in an effort to get her off. She could no longer tell where El Bajo was, nor where the Zodiac might be above her. As Teddy Bear flopped and thrashed and turned, she even lost all idea of which direction was up and which was down. She knew that might become a major problem when the time came to make her final mad swim for the surface, but for now she couldn’t be bothered with that. The force of the water rushing against her threatened to tear her from her perch and send her falling back into whatever might be following, yet for now, miracle of miracles, she managed not to fall off.
Of course, it took both hands to hold on. She would have to let go long enough to grab one of her remaining transmitters, assuming they hadn’t already vanished into the deep blue during her wild ride. She also felt the drag of the water on her rebreather, meaning if she didn’t do this quickly she was just as likely to lose it and drown as she was to get eaten.
Pulling herself as close to Teddy Bear’s body as she possibly could to reduce drag, Maria let go with her left hand and reached down to her pouch. By some happy cosmic accident, both transmitters had remained inside despite the open clasp. She had one in hand yet hesitated for a moment, something she knew she couldn’t afford. The placement of the transmitter would make a difference. Hooking it anywhe
re into Teddy Bear’s skin would theoretically cause the desired effect, but for best results she knew it should be up near the shark’s head, preferably on the opposite side from where she was now. Unfortunately she didn’t have the slightest idea how to accomplish this. Simply holding on was already proving to be too much of a test, let alone climbing onto the hammerhead’s other side and crawling up to reach the ideal position.
Anywhere at all is going to have to do, she thought. Just stick it in and pray it’s enough.
That was when Teddy Bear chose to make a particularly sharp turn. Maria’s fingers tore loose from the fin and she found herself falling back from the monster.
But not before she reached out one last time and hooked the transmitter right into Teddy Bear’s dorsal fin.
20
One enormous hammerhead swimming away from her on one side, thousands of enraged sharks on the other and below, everything below her ribcage pulsing in intense pain, and she wasn’t completely sure which direction she needed to swim to get to the surface. Even as Maria allowed herself a moment of triumph, she realized it likely wouldn’t last long. She would probably be dead within a few seconds.
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