by Greig Beck
“Above the mouth, the snout also has hundreds of lateral pores that are attuned to electrical impulses. At the base of each pore is a nerve that’s sensitive enough to detect electrical fluctuations of just ten millionths of a volt.”
“Jesus.” Wade rolled his eyes.
“Yeah. And that means it could sense the flutter of a heartbeat, the slap of a fish tail from fifty miles away. That’s real bad, because it might mean it can detect the electronics in your suit.” She looked into his eyes. “Or maybe even your heartbeat.”
“Can’t damn well do anything about that,” Wade said. “What about sight? It’s pitch dark out there.”
Sam bobbed her head from side to side. “Well, a shark’s eyes are the least used sense, but that doesn’t mean they’re blind down here. Their eye structure contains a layer composed of mirrored crystals behind the retina, same as some nocturnal mammals and reptiles. The inner reflective surface provides excellent vision in utter darkness so it can hunt at night or down in these abyssal depths.”
“Well that’s just great.” Wade let his head tilt back for a moment. “These things are holding all the goddam cards.”
“Yeah, sorry, and it’s why they’ve been around for hundreds of millions of years.” Sam also sat back.
“Is there anything, anything at all, I might be able to use? Any weakness.” Wade grinned.
She searched her memory. “They drown if they stop moving. Sharks don’t have a sophisticated gill system, and they need to swim to push water over their gills.”
Wade just glanced up at the ceiling and shook his head.
She shrugged. “Sorry, but in the water, they’ve been described as the perfect hunting and killing machine.” As soon as the words came out she regretted saying them as Wade’s face went a few shades paler.
He sat staring at the ground for a moment as if collecting his thoughts.
“One more thing.” Andy held up a finger. “If we’re lucky enough to cut ourselves free and ascend, I read that these sharks can also see above water as well as they see below. It’s why you find a lot around seal colonies. They lift their heads as if they’re counting the seals.”
“Yeah, well, I’m just going to worry about its hundred advantages down in the depths for now, okay, buddy?” Wade looked from Andy to Sam, before raising his hands and bringing them down on his knees. “Okay, pep talk over.” He rubbed his knees for a second and then left his seat.
Andy followed. Sam also started to get to her feet, but Wade held up a hand.
“Sam, once I’m released, I need you immediately on sonar. Andy will help me.” He smiled. “If anything weird does turn up, at least it might give me a few seconds, you know, to hide behind something, or maybe beam back up to the Enterprise.” He tried to give her a firm smile, but it collapsed quickly. “Just … watch my back.”
“I promise. You’ll be fine.” She reached out to squeeze his arm. She held on. “I’ll be with you every second you’re out there.”
* * *
Wade lifted the hatch on the floor. Andy knelt beside him, and Sam stood behind both, watching as they opened the seals leading to the back of the suit that was fixed horizontally underneath the Alvin submersible. In a way, the ADS suit was another mini-submersible attached to the main one.
The hatch was a sealed door with two partitions: one separating them from the suit, and another separating Alvin from the crushing water. Both doors could never be opened at once; otherwise the crushing water would explode inwards.
Wade sat on the edge for a moment. “Hand me the underwater bazooka.”
Andy chuckled for a moment before reaching around him to offer his hand. “Good luck, big guy.”
Wade nodded and shook Andy’s hand, but all he could do was exhale. He licked his lips and swallowed, but noticed his mouth was cotton dry. “Let’s do this.” He slid into the heavy suit of armor, and lay flat, belly down. He half turned.
“Good to go.”
Andy sealed the back of the suit, checked the seals and rapped on it. Wade could feel his heartbeat in his chest and blinked a few times and then shook his head to flick a drop of perspiration from an eyebrow. The heavy door of the Alvin-ADS suit partition was then closed with a solid thunk.
He heard Andy engage all the locking mechanisms, and then Wade was alone in a human-shaped steel coffin, about to be dropped into ink-black water … with a monster lurking somewhere outside.
“Have a nice day,” he whispered.
CHAPTER 19
Mironov Enterprises Tower, New York City
Cate and Jack sat in the foyer of the gleaming silver spire that rose 110 floors above the center of New York City.
Cate felt both excited and nervous at the same time. Not everyone had a Russian billionaire on speed dial. However, even after the adventures they had shared, she wasn’t sure Valery Mironov would want to see them.
Beside her Jack slowly looked around the magnificent glass and marble foyer. “Hey, the art has changed.” His mouth turned down. “Not sure I approve.”
Cate chuckled. “Valery will be heartbroken.”
Jack grinned. “Look.” He nodded toward an image of a chrome sculpture that could have been a face with a giant tongue lolling out. “I bet that one’s called ‘I’m laughing at you for buying me.’”
She reached across to squeeze his knee. “Yes, dear. But your idea of art is a ship’s wheel with a dartboard in its center.”
“Yep; both attractive and functional.” He raised an eyebrow. “Here we go.”
At the rear of the foyer the silver doors of the elevator slid back, and a man, bursting from his tailored suit, stepped out. The doors stayed open as he crossed to Cate and Jack, and gave a slight bow.
“Ms. Granger and Mr. Monroe, if you’ll please follow me.”
They both stood, and quickly followed him. At the smallish elevator, which Cate remembered well, they saw another man who could have been his twin waiting inside. Cate bet her bottom dollar they were both armed. It looked like Valery was as security conscious as ever.
She held Jack’s hand on the way up; firstly, because she liked to, and secondly, so she could press real hard if she thought he was going to make one of his wisecracks. He settled for making faces at her behind the backs of the huge men.
There were no numbers that lit up as they ascended and, after several seconds of accelerated rising, the elevator slowed and then stopped. The doors immediately shushed open and both men stepped out, and then to the side. One pointed, but Cate knew the way, and headed to the huge paneled doors.
She knocked and pushed them open, with Jack right on her heel. It was just like she remembered inside – the marble floor echoing their footsteps, the muted lighting, and the sparse decorations with just a few islands of furniture. Plus the single magnificent antique desk that must have been twenty feet long, and beside it a leather couch of the deepest burgundy. But there was something missing – the single wall that once contained a massive fish tank, which made the room an exotic shimmering blue, was nowhere to be seen.
She turned to the huge wraparound window providing a view of Central Park and, beyond, the forest of concrete that was the city skyline. Standing before it, staring out at the vista with his hands clasped behind his back, was the familiar silver-haired figure of Valery Konstantin Mironov.
The tall, thin man turned. “I’ve been expecting you.”
CHAPTER 20
Abyssal Plain, 2397 feet down
Wade felt himself shivering. He hadn’t released into the ocean water yet, so told himself it was from the cold emanating through the skin of the suit. But a tiny voice inside whispered that he was really scared shitless … and rightfully so, he agreed.
He tried to calm himself by doing breathing exercises, and clearing his mind about what was to come. He was about to drop into a pitch-black environment that would kill him in a blink. And kill him by pulverizing him down to the size of a soda can. If that wasn’t enough to stoke the fear factor, h
e also knew there was a monstrous creature somewhere out there, possibly just waiting for him.
“You can do this,” he whispered.
“Wade, can you read me?” It was Andy checking his comms.
“Loud and clear, Andy. Testing limbs now.” Wade moved his legs back and forth and then raised both arms, making the pincers open and close. “Looking good. Getting ready to sever link on countdown …” He baulked. “… in a few moments.” I just need a few more seconds to center myself, he thought and closed his eyes on the dark water.
He’d been an engineer for a decade and a half, and been involved in submersible work for over half that. He’d enjoyed every second, and been in tights spots before. But this was the first time he had regretted the path that had led to this moment.
With his eyes closed, his mind took him to golden sand, crystal clear lapping waves, and palm trees throwing shade near the water. He wanted to feel the sun on his shoulders one more time, and glide through pretty blue lagoons with brightly colored fish hanging like Christmas decorations in the water before him. He sucked in a huge breath and let it out with a small shudder. He opened his eyes to a cold black world.
“Severing link in five-four-three-two-one … now.”
There was a hiss and thump, and the final door opened to utter blackness. The ADS suit immediately began to drop. He reached out one arm, opening the pincers, and grabbed onto Alvin’s superstructure, swinging himself around. The sounds of the metal on metal were loud and he gritted his teeth.
He hung there for a moment, facing away from the submersible and staring out into the darkness. There was nothing, not even the flash of some fish, krill or crustacean using their spark of bioluminescence. His suit helmet might as well have had its glass painted black.
He froze, and stared. Movement? His eyes were wide for a moment more, and then blinked again – shadows within shadows. He was just seeing floaters, he guessed, and he held up an arm in front of his face to reassure himself he hadn’t gone blind.
He dropped the arm and continued to watch. The hyper-strong alloys of the suit were not conducive to transmitting sound, so he mostly heard his own breathing – heavy, deep and a little too fast.
Wade wished he could hear. The new generation suits had hydrophones to pick up external noises. A little late for an upgrade, he mused. He knew that although loud noises traveled via their vibration waves, and would be transmitted through the metals in the skin of his suit, there was still a whole world of noise he would miss out on.
Wade had listened in on deep-water microphones that had been positioned on the bottom of the ocean, and it was never silent – there were always clicks, pops and squeaks, from all manner of creatures, from the largest cetaceans that visited briefly, to monstrous-looking denizens of the deep that used sound to attract a mate, lure their prey, or navigate in this sunless void.
He slowly turned his head inside the suit, one way, then the other. There was nothing that he could see, but he had the horrible feeling that something out there was watching him with eyes far older than his and with a primordial intelligence he could never understand.
“How you doin’ out there, Wade?” Andy sounded as nervous as Wade felt.
“I’m good; just taking in the scenery. Or lack of it. Proceeding to top of Alvin now.” He swung his other arm up and reached a strut on Alvin and started to haul himself higher. In another few moments, he could bring one of his legs around to slide himself onto the top of the craft. He looked down into the bubble, and saw Sam and Andy grin and give him the A-OK sign.
Their cockpit space looked small and cramped, but warm and safe, and he wanted to be back in there more than anything. Both his crewmates looked a ghoulish green from the glow of their console lights. Sam gave him a little wave. Andy just stared, and then leaned forward and his lips moved.
“Good luck, all clear on sonar.”
Wade nodded, but knew they wouldn’t have seen his movement. He was in his own little world now. He’d get straight to the cable, as he knew the faster he got his work done the faster he’d be back in there with them, and all on their way home.
He carefully crawled across the top of Alvin to its rear and immediately saw their problem – a loop of the thick drop cable had become caught between two sensor probes on top, effectively lashing them to the corpse of the Archimedes.
He moved closer, struggling every step of the way to hang on to Alvin’s small curved top, and not helped by the suit being extremely cumbersome. Added to that, they were hung up on the side of the Archimedes, and though the huge vessel’s side had sunk a good dozen feet into the silt, the Alvin was still another thirty feet or so up from the bottom.
Wade crab-crawled across to the roof of Alvin, and used the instrument tower that held the huge half ring that the winch hooked onto to lever himself to his feet. He grasped the offending cable loop in one of the ADS’ claws, and started to tug. There was no give in it.
Wade changed his angle, edging a little further back. He saw that the cable had slipped into a small crevice and had managed to wedge itself in. He bet if he could tug it free, he might be able to simply push it backwards, at least just far enough for them to release the escape pod. The cable could keep the Alvin’s body, but he, Sam and Andy would escape in its brain. Fair trade, he thought.
He grasped the cable again, closer to where it was jammed in this time. He licked his lips, tasting the salty perspiration gathering on his top lip. Even though the bone-numbing chill was beginning to permeate through the armor-plated skin of the ADS suit, he felt more drips of cold sweat slide down his forehead on their way to sting his eye and blur his vision.
Wade shook his head, hating that he couldn’t even scratch his nose in the suit. Let’s just get this done, he thought and added a silent prayer.
“Ah, Wade, you there, buddy?”
Just the tone in Andy’s voice made the hair on Wade’s neck prickle.
“Go, Andy.”
“Are you nearly done up there?” Andy sounded nervous, real nervous.
For god’s sake, I’m the one outside.
“I’ve found the problem, but going to take me a while longer.” Wade looked around. “Why do you ask; you miss me already?”
“Of course; but, ah, a couple of seconds ago, sonar spotted something that popped up from over the trench cliff. It was pretty far out, a few miles at least. Then it went back down.”
“Oh yeah?” Wade felt his heart rate start to speed up but tried to keep cool as he turned his head one way and then the next. “Where, ah, is it now – any sign?”
Sam came on. “Hi Wade, nowhere; it’s vanished.”
“Okay, that’s good, I guess.” He went back to his work, but paused. “Just one thing; which way was it headed?”
There was silence for way too long, even though it was probably only a few seconds.
“Hello?” he demanded.
“Yeah, Wade, we’re here,” Sam said. “Toward us, at least that was until it dropped back into the abyss.”
“Okay, fine. Can’t do anything about that now. I’ll get back to work.” He grabbed the cable in his pincers again. “And Sam?”
“Yes, Wade.”
“Can you stay on the line? Pretty lonely out here.” He chuckled, but even he heard the slight tremor in his voice.
“Of course. I’ll be right here.” She sounded strained.
* * *
“Can you see him?” Andy asked.
“No, he’s just behind the pod wall.” Sam leaned closer to the bubble glass and tried to crane her neck, but she still couldn’t see Wade. She could hear the scrapes and knocks as he worked though, coming from just over the partition. Andy joined her and pushed his head even further into the glass, flattening his hair.
“Nope, nothing.”
“Okay, I’ll keep a lookout here, and you keep watch on the sonar.” She turned about, looking across the breadth of the bubble-glass cockpit. There was nothing to see; it was black as coal. If they wanted
to improve their vision it’d mean putting the spots on – and there was no way they could do that.
“You know; maybe we should get Wade to come back in.” Andy turned and grimaced. “Just for a while.”
She exhaled, thinking about it. “I think you’re right.” She’d left the comm. link open. “Did you hear that, Wade?”
“Yep, and believe me I want to be inside there with you guys as soon as I can. But it’ll take us too long and cost us too much energy for me to dock then relaunch the ADS suit. Besides, I should be done any minute.”
“Okay.” She didn’t feel confident. “You know best.” She turned to shrug at Andy, who did the same.
Sam waited, watched, and listened as the metallic sound of scraping and banging continued. She checked the timer on the console and saw that Wade had been outside for ten minutes now. The suit had air and power for six hours, but she wouldn’t be able to rest until he was back with them.
She crossed her arms for a moment, and then subconsciously put a hand to her lips. She snorted softly and dropped it. As a kid she used to chew her nails – and now she had the urge to do it all over again.
Blip.
She raised her head.
Blip.
“Oh fuck.” Andy’s voice was high. “It’s back; just came up out of the trench; half a mile out and closing.”
“Wade,” Sam said quickly.
Blip.
“I heard, I heard,” he responded. “Just a few more seconds. I got this.”
“No, forget it, you come back in now. That’s an order.” Sam walked back toward the rear of Alvin’s cockpit and stared up at the roof as though she could see Wade through the titanium skin of the submersible.
“Hey, you’re only team leader when I’m not available. Just a second more,” Wade urged.
Blip.
She heard him grunt.
“I just … need to … push the cable off this strut … and then we’re outta here.” He strained again.