“Let’s go find that safe.”
Chapter 4
“We’ll be entering through the rear cargo holds,” Carter said as he looked up from his diagram. Jayden propelled them slowly into the open wreck, about ten feet above the bottom. The ship lay more or less flat and upright, but at a slight angle to the left when looking into it from their vantage point. Carter’s diagram showed the Titanic to have five levels in all, including the topmost deck with the funnels, and they were entering on the bottom one.
“Plenty of room to maneuver so far,” Jayden said as he steered the sub into the center of the large opening before them.
“So this is where the ship cracked in half as it flooded and sank,” Carter pointed out as they passed through the ragged metal outline of the ship’s massive, torn hull. “The Purser’s Room should be on the third level not far past the Smoking Room.”
Jayden laughed. “Even way back then they herded the smokers into one room, huh?”
Carter was more active with the spotlight now, as there was much to see inside the ship, and obstacles in the form of loose cables and random hanging debris could be anywhere and everywhere. “As expected, it’s clear up until the end of the cargo hold, then we’re going to have to head up and see what it’s like.”
“Right.” Jayden glanced out of the dome to his left and saw piles of what looked like broken wine casks, along with other masses of unidentifiable lumber of some sort, interspersed with twisted metal beams that were part of the ship. Looking ahead, he could see a wall that prevented forward progress. It was mostly solid, but a few small jagged gaps offered glimpses into additional rooms beyond. Carter said that he believed them to be the Engineers Rooms. Jayden gave the thrusters a short burst of reverse as the sub glided toward the wall, the closest thing to brakes that he had at his disposal.
He and Carter looked all around them, carefully checking to ensure they were clear of obstructions on all sides and below. A massive turbine lay off-kilter to their right, but they were far enough from it that it did not present a navigational hazard. Then they turned their attention upward, where a rectangular shaft stretched beyond the reach of their lights.
“Elevator shaft.” Carter consulted his diagram before looking upward and back to the drawing again.
“Where’s the car?” Jayden wondered, looking around at the chaotic floor, strewn with debris both recognizable and otherwise.
“Probably smashed to bits, or disintegrated if it was mostly wood. You think we can rise vertically through that shaft? Because according to this…” He paused to squint at the diagram again. “…it leads to the hospital on the second level, and then to the restaurant on Level Three, which is not far from the Smoking Room…”
“…Which is not far from the Purser Room,” Jayden finished for him.
“Right.”
Jayden backed the sub up a bit and then adjusted one of the external halogens, trying to get a better look up into the shaft. “I don’t know. It’s a small space. I mean, we’d fit, but barely. And I don’t need to tell you that if we got snagged on anything in there, like halfway up the shaft…”
“You don’t need to tell me,” Carter said, trying to push a fate of slow suffocation while they sat trapped in the sub in the pitch dark, counting their breaths until the oxygen ran out, out of his mind.
“We could slip in there and then we’d be able to get a better look straight up the shaft,” Jayden said, adjusting one of the spotlight controls before adding, “If it looks too sketchy from the bottom, we can just back right out.”
“I’m okay with it,” Carter said. “But you’re the pilot. I want you to be comfortable. If you’re not, then we don’t do it, no questions asked, end of story. Your call.”
“Let’s have a look, then.” Jayden brought his hand up to the thruster control and nudged it up, causing the submersible to lurch forward slowly. Carter swept his spot light around, making sure they were free of obstacles as they nosed into the vacant elevator shaft. Jayden let go of the thruster control, allowing the sub’s momentum to carry it into the enclosed space.
“Hope you’re not claustrophobic, bro,” Jayden said as he nudged the left thruster to center their craft in the elevator shaft. Being over two miles deep, inside a wreck and inside what amounted to basically a vertical tunnel inside of that was enough to make even a non-claustrophobic panic. And Carter wasn’t about to lie to himself. He felt the beginnings of unease begin to creep around the edges of his consciousness. But he had been in perilous situations involving closed spaces before, such as cave diving and wreck diving with scuba gear, spelunking on land… but this… He warned himself not to think about it too much or his rational brain would tell him to get out of here right now, to do the smart thing and keep yourself alive!
“Snug as a bug in a rug,” he said to Jayden, who smiled as he aimed the spotlight on the port side of the craft up into the shaft. Carter did the same with the one on his side, and together they visually appraised what lay straight up above them while Jayden kept the craft stationary at the bottom of the space.
“It looks clear to me,” Carter announced after a minute of careful scrutiny. “I’ll continue to keep an eye out on the way up, but I don’t see any obvious blockages.”
“I’m afraid to tell Topside we’re taking the elevator up,” Jayden said, eyeing the radio.
“They would just tell us not to do it. It’s our call.”
“They’ll know anyway if we find our way in there, won’t they?”
Carter shook his head. “We can say there was a break in the wall or something and not even mention the elevator. If we’re going to do it, let’s go, though. We’re burning battery power sand oxygen.”
Without another word, Jayden’s hands flew over the sub’s controls, and the sub began a slow ascent up the shaft. With Jayden’s full attention needing to be on the controls, it was up to Carter to operate the lights and identify anything that might represent an obstacle to their upward progress. He called out when they were about halfway up the shaft, and then again at three-quarters.
“Hold up here,” he told the pilot. Jayden paused the ascent and maintained their position within the column, hovering. They had perhaps three feet of space on either side of the sub and even less than that off the bow and stern. Carter examined the remaining distance to the top of the shaft with the spotlight.
“Be quick about, would you,” Jayden said. “I can’t hold this position forever. All it would take is one freak up- or downwelling, and—”
“It’s clear, go for it!” Hunt continued to eye the rest of their path as an electronic hum signified the vertical thrusters starting up again. The sub rose slowly through the remaining elevator shaft until the top of the bubble dome was even with the opening in the shaft, where Jayden again held their craft in a tightly controlled hover.
“We’ve got room to maneuver!” Hunt said, unable to contain the excitement in his voice as he aimed the spot light around. Even the closer range floodlights allowed them to see they had reached an internal area of the ship with considerable space.
“I think….” Hunt began but then paused as he looked around some more with the spotlight. “I think we’re in the restaurant.” He pointed to an overturned round table, with a chair still mostly intact nearby.
“Yeah, holy crap, I see a bottle of wine on the floor over here! When’s happy hour?”
Carter smiled as he imagined using the sub’s robotic arm to bring back a bottle of wine from the ship, but in reality he knew better than to disrespect the site like that. They were here for one thing and one thing only. They would leave everything else as undisturbed as possible.