The group, Purdue, Calisto, Sam, and Nina, decided to start with the Type XXI, entombed at the bottom of the ocean below the platform. Pressed for time, they soon found themselves in the ice-cold murky water outside the carcass of the German sub. While waiting for Sam to open the hatch Purdue took a good look around the vicinity for anything suspect or interesting that could help them with the location of the relic. All he could see apart from an endless expanse of sand and the colossal tarnished posts of Deep Sea One, where most of the smaller sea creatures had congregated and made their homes against the steel, were dark patches of jagged rock. It reminded him of his missing minisub that they still had not recovered. Such a machine was not easy to be carried away by the current. It had to still be somewhere nearby, perhaps trapped in the trenches of the lopped rocks or even just out of sight on the sandbank. In the opaque water it would not be absurd to imagine that it was just invisible to the eye at this range.
After another fruitless tour of the enormous streamlined submarine, they exited the hatch, electing to link to one another with rope, spreading around the wreck to look for the lost minisub. Calisto headed for the leviathan legs of Deep Sea One, hoping that all sharks were on vacation to a tourist beach. It was perhaps one of the few things on earth that scared her and she made sure to look about her all the time.
She swam through the jungle of iron skeletons spread out over the seabed from years of oil drilling and fallen beams from the towering structures above the surface. It gave her chills. The silent, glacial desert of dead machines gave her a feeling of deep melancholy as she traversed the deserted junk yard, looking for a modern, newly sunken vehicle, which should be easy to tell apart from the other pieces.
Nina made her way to the rocks with Sam, and Purdue searched the flat sandy surface on the other side of the wreck. Where the sandbank plummeted a few meters downward almost instantly, he crossed the edge of it to explore. Deeper he dove to examine the area, determined to find something, anything, as not to have wasted another hour down below. His eyes ran over the obscure line where the distant ocean floor melted into the dull grey and blue of the deep. A lonely land of nothingness lay around Purdue, where only the mounds of current-swept sand broke the monotony of the landscape.
Further to his left there was something in the water, a darker shade of blue outlining a shape he was not familiar with. Again his inquisitiveness dictated his common sense and he headed toward it, propelled by curiosity. As he drew closer, the true size of the object became evident. Its shape made it look deceivingly small from the edge of the sandbank, but now he could see that it was in fact quite large. A tentacle lashed out at his face from nowhere. Purdue got a terrible fright and backed away as rapidly as the inhibiting water would allow. But another flaccid appendage stroked his back and neck, sending him into a raging panic. His furious struggle to get out of danger alarmed his colleagues as his rope tugged madly at their buckles. Quickly all three came to his aid, only to find that he had been attacked by the loose umbilicals of the lost ROV, which lay half buried just a meter or so from some submerged rocks. Purdue was elated that he had recovered his minisub, even more elated that it did not eat him. They tied it down with super tensile rope and headed back up to the oil rig.
"I think I need a new diving suit," Purdue jested about his frightening ordeal before he had realized that it was not a sea monster. The others had a good chuckle about it, but there was a roaming vehicle to retrieve. While Sam was using the laptop to load all his pictures, Nina and Calisto had a cup of tea on the balcony overlooking the east side of the structure, well above the rest of the buildings on the drilling platform.
"Where is Tommy" Purdue asked Darwin as he entered the control room where Liam came to report a blown fuse in one of the boxes.
"He is off for a few days, isn't he, sir?" Darwin asked, perplexed.
"Why? What's wrong with him?" Purdue asked.
"Don't know, sir, we assumed the shift boss informed you," Liam said.
Purdue frowned, "So how the hell are we? — " he stopped. "Can you ready the LARS by yourself or do you need another engineer, Darwin?" Purdue decided to get his priorities in line and concentrate on recovering his minisub before bothering with staff absentees.
"I can do it, sir. Liam will help," Darwin did not have to ask. The old mechanic stepped up and nodded, ready to assist with the activation and navigation of the hydraulic arm that they were going to use.
"Good man," Purdue said with a light slap on Darwin's back and left the control room. "Let me know when it is in the docking bay."
"Yes, sir."
As Purdue vanished from sight, Liam shoved his torso up against Darwin's and whispered, "I told you something fookin' weird's going on 'ere. That hard hat from the other night? I have not seen him at any of the stations and believe me, I checked."
Let's get the ROV up here before we play detective."
"Aye, but I tell ya, something is going on here. Keep your eyes open, son," Liam said with a serious glare of concern.
They located the vehicle at the end of the diving rope and had it brought up carefully with the hydraulic system employed for heavy lifting. Darwin maneuvered the vehicle from the surface toward the platform's docking bay. He looked through the wide observation window as he supervised the recovery. The vehicle had sustained a few dents from the punishment of the rocks and steel beams it was thrown against by the shifting waters. Apart from that it was perfectly intact. Darwin did notice something stuck in the grappler of the submersible, a cubical object, but his attention was momentarily stolen by a visible and sudden change in atmospheric pressure.
"Quick! Get that object out of the ROV's grappler, Liam! Before the ocean reclaims the thing again!" Darwin called to his friend. Liam raced to the docking bay and locked down the submersible in the violent little waves around it, rocking it wildly. From the damaged compartment he cautiously dislodged the wooden chest, which he took into the control room while the staff secured the ROV and quickly closed in the docking area. Mr. Purdue could take a look at it and decide what to do with it.
"Call Mr. Purdue, Darwin," Liam panted, as he placed the chest on the table. Darwin's eyes fell on the wet, dark texture of the antique and at once he could feel the hair on his skin stand erect. It had a presence to it.
"Darwin," Liam urged, and Darwin snapped out of his insidious trance, abandoning the chest from his sight as he turned to call Mr. Purdue on the intercom. Liam heard his colleague calling the boss on the radio, but Darwin's voice began to fade away, as if he was speaking from a distant dimension tucked away in the back of his soul. The mechanic's eyes beheld the intricate symbols carved in the wood a hundred lifetimes ago and in his heart he felt a snaking terror possess him. He did not want to know what was inside, yet he could not resist the urge to pry it open. Outside the ocean was furious for relinquishing the chest and raged in the company of the rain clouds. Thunder spoke its secrets in the faraway place where Liam stood fixed on the object.
"Geez, did you notice how quickly it got cold?" Calisto asked Nina, as the two women fled from the onslaught of the cold wind on the steel balcony where they had been having their tea. For the first time Calisto decided to wear her hair loose and then the wind had to disrupt it.