‘Hey, you listening?’ Liam said.
‘Yeah, I’m listening.’
‘These are full-face scuba masks. They pull over your head like a hood and are vacuum sealed. Take a look.’ Liam handed Tyler the facemask. It was a black neoprene hood with the regulator built into the full-face Lexan mask. The rectangular window would give excellent views of the surrounding ocean, and calmed Tyler’s nerves a little at the thought of having to bite down on a regulator for the entire duration of the dive.
‘Nice, this is impressive.’
‘There’s a microphone and speaker inside so we’ll be able to communicate when we’re under. Air gauge will attach to your wrist as normal. Both air tanks are full, though, so I wouldn’t expect it to be a problem.’
Tyler looked out at the ever approaching night. ‘What about visibility? How will we see?’
Tyler pointed to the mask. ‘See there around the edge of the mask? High-power LED lights. Better than any handheld torch. Also, the boat has powerful lights underneath the hull. My dad will illuminate as far as he can from the surface. With both combined, we’ll see better than if we were in full daylight.’
‘And what if, uh, what if something goes wrong. If there is an emergency.’
‘You mean if you see the Meg?’
‘No, of course not,’ Tyler said, hoping his lie wasn’t too transparent.
Liam snorted. ‘We’ve got the Zodiac in the water by the boat. If you get into trouble down there or there are any other issues, we can be on it and away from the danger quick as you like. Good enough?’’
Tyler nodded. His nerves had already started to recede. He had gone from expecting a horrific, claustrophobic descent in near darkness to facing a well-lit comfortable swim to the seafloor to see if Nash was crazy or right about the gold.
‘You two ready?’ Nash asked, grinning at them as he activated the exterior lights on the boat, throwing an eerie blue-green halo around the hull.
‘Yeah,’ Tyler said, unsure if he believed it or not. He wasn’t about to show he was afraid. The beast called male pride kept his emotions hidden. ‘Let’s do it,’ he added, aware of how dry his throat was and wishing again for that drink. He watched as Liam pulled the neoprene mask over his head and did the same, his hearing muffled by the material against his ears. There was a strange sense of calm as he became isolated in his own bubble, the faceplate separating him from the world. He inhaled, the clean oxygen filtering into his mask.
‘Hey, can you hear me?’
Tyler looked to Liam, his electronic-filtered voice coming through a small speaker in the face panel of the mask. Tyler nodded, wishing he could slow his heart rate.
‘You need to speak so we can check we have reception,’ Liam said, the irritation unmistakeable.
‘Yeah, I hear you fine, uh, roger.’
‘Alright, I got you. You don’t need to say roger or over and out. Just talk normally.’
‘Alright, sorry.’
‘Forget it. Just a couple of things to run through before we go down. At the bottom edge of your facemask, do you see an LED strip going left to right, red graduating to blue?’
‘I see it,’ Tyler said.
‘Good. That’s your air gauge. Both tanks are full and we will be back to the surface before we get anywhere close to running out of air, but I thought it best to tell you what it was.’
‘Got it,’ Tyler said the tempo of his heart finally starting to slow to something resembling normality.
‘Dad, are you hearing us okay?’
‘Got you both loud and clear,’ Nash said over the speaker. Tyler could see him settled in at the control console for the drones, headset over his scarred skull. ‘Mantas have scanned the area and it’s clear. Nothing down there. I do see some wrecks down there though so you both might want to get into the water. Sooner the better.’
Liam walked to the transom, sitting on the rear of the boat and putting on his flippers. Tyler joined him, the muffled sounds of the world giving him no comfort. He sat next to Liam, unable to resist a glance into the artificially lit depths. He put on his own flippers, wondering if his hands would shake and pleased to see that they were steady. Liam stood and turned to Tyler. ‘You ready?’
Tyler nodded, then remembered he was supposed to speak. ‘Yeah. Good to go.’
‘Alright. Then just remember to follow my lead. I’m pretty sure you’ve never done this before but my dad wants you out there to help. Just do as I say and everything will be fine. Got it?’
‘Yeah, I got it.’
‘Then let’s go.’
‘What about the flotation balloon?’
‘We don’t need it yet. This trip is just so we can go look and see if there is anything down there. If there is, we’ll come back for the balloon.’ Liam walked to the ladder set into the transom and climbed down it, his feet inches from the waterline. He folded his arms across his chest and pushed off backwards, disappearing into the water, his mass becoming a blurred black shape below the waterline. Tyler stared at the water, his chest drumming its higher tempo again.
‘You coming or not?’ Liam’s voice said in Tyler’s facemask. Although he couldn’t see him, Tyler could imagine the arrogant look on his face.
‘Yeah, on my way’ he said, also climbing the ladder. He looked across the deck at Nash, who was watching him intently, one good eye judging and curious. Then, with less finesse than Liam had managed, Tyler dropped into the water, ready to face whatever waited for him beyond.
#
Fear became secondary to wonder as Tyler kicked in ten feet of water. The lights from the boat illuminated his world, microscopic life drifting and undulating on the currents. Liam was ten feet below and waiting. Tyler couldn’t see his face but thought he was probably getting impatient. Tyler angled towards him, reluctant to leave the light generated by the boat.
‘I thought you’d lost your nerve,’ Liam said as Tyler fell in alongside him.
The jibes were making Tyler angry, but he managed not to react, knowing it wasn’t the time or place. The younger version of himself would have responded with sarcasm or aggression, but he wasn’t about to get drawn into petty squabbles, as they were now in a hostile environment. Instead, he focused on his surroundings, the darkness swallowing them as they made their way deeper. He saw Liam activate his exterior facemask light and realised he didn’t know how to do the same.
‘Hey, uh, how do I do that? The light,’ he said, hating that he was so needy.
‘The cuff on your wrist. Turn the dial.’
Tyler complied, turning the dial on the Velcro cuff and feeling better as the darkness was expelled by the array of LED lights in his facemask. He hoped to see fish darting around his field of vision, but instead saw only the water and the drifting tide of microscopic life within it. There was a sense of serenity beneath the surface that banished his nerves even though he was aware of just how vast his surroundings were. He was a tiny creature in a huge and thriving ecosystem, something which was both humbling and terrifying at the same time.
‘How are you both doing?’
Nash’s voice disturbed the crushing silence and reminded Tyler that he was there to do a job.
‘We’re fine. How is it looking up there?’ Liam replied.
‘All good up here. Drones are with you in a perimeter formation.’
Tyler looked around, surprised to see the drones so close. He had been completely unaware of their presence and was impressed with how silently they were able to move through the water.
‘How is visibility?’ Nash asked.
‘Not great,’ Tyler said, unsure if it was him who was being addressed. ‘I still don’t understand why we couldn’t wait until daylight to do this.’