‘I told you already, it wouldn’t have made too much difference. Sunlight will only reach so far. Just relax and focus. You should be seeing the bottom soon.’
‘There it is,’ Liam said.
Tyler couldn’t see it at first, just the black waters and microscopic life. He was about to ask what he should be looking for when the sandy bottom melted out of the darkness below him.
‘Dad, are you seeing this?’ Liam said, for once without attitude or arrogance.
‘Yeah, I see it.’
Tyler could see it, too. He had expected to see a little bit of floating debris at best, maybe some man-made rubbish that had been tossed into the ocean and forgotten. Instead, he found himself looking at what he could only describe as a boat graveyard. There was a barnacle-encrusted fishing trawler to his left on its side, half-buried in the soft sand. Ahead, the skeletal ribs were all that remained of a larger vessel. The more Tyler looked, the more he saw in the widening debris field. ‘This is incredible,’ he whispered, more to himself than anyone else.
‘Hang on,’ Nash said. ‘I’ll power up the drone lights.’
Seconds later, the full scale of the debris field was fully illuminated as Nash activated each drone’s powerful spotlights, banishing the darkness and illuminating their surroundings.
‘Jesus, just look at it,’ Liam muttered.
Tyler could think of no way to reply. He licked his lips, aware of just how dry they were. The extra visibility exposed more wreckage. The shattered bow of a trawler. Rusting sheets of steel panelling on the ground which were teeming with rusticles as nature claimed the man-made waste. More than anything, they could see the gold. The powerful lights making the seabed glow like fire as the gold bars scattered across the debris field became visible.
‘You were right, Dad. There’s gold down here. A lot of it.’ Liam was breathless and excited, and Tyler couldn’t help but feel the same way.
‘There are so many wrecks down here,’ Tyler said, his voice sounding strange in the enclosed environment of his facemask.
‘You’re telling me. I never imagined there would be so many.’
It was the first time Liam had been civil with him, and Tyler hoped that the hostile attitude had been some kind of initiation and done with, or, alternatively, that the sheer thrill of discovery had made him forget the sizeable chip on his shoulder.
‘This is going to take a few trips. There is so much gold down here we can’t bring it up in one trip.’ The excitement in Liam’s voice was hard to ignore. Tyler was staring at the wrecks, some still nothing more than shadows on the periphery of the spotlights, hulking bones yet to be discovered. Tyler was staring at the outer edge when something caught his eye. He flicked his head around, staring into the distance and recalling the landscape as it had been. He was certain he had seen something move, and now one of the large shapes on the edge of the reach of the lights wasn’t there anymore. His instinct said there was definitely an object, something large and tapered at one end like—
The nose of a shark
—a bow of a large vessel, but now there was nothing. He supposed he could have been mistaken or shifted position and had lost his bearings, but even as the thoughts occurred, he knew neither of those things had happened.
‘Hey, you helping or what?’ Liam said as he kicked towards the seabed.
‘Yeah, sorry I just… I thought I saw something.’
‘Saw what? What did you see?’ The desperation in Nash’s voice made Tyler even more uncomfortable.
‘Nothing, it’s… nothing,’ he muttered as the blood pounded around his body thick in his temples. He willed himself to calm down and tried to convince himself that he had made a mistake. The problem with trying to do that was that he knew he hadn’t. He had seen something out there, something large that was now gone. He—
‘Hey. If you want a cut of this gold, you better come help me.’ Liam, it seemed, had rediscovered the shoulder chip he had lost and was now close to the floor, kicking in place and looking back at him where he floated twenty feet above him in the open water.
Exposed.
That thought scared him, and so instead of following his instinct to kick to the surface as fast as he could, he descended, joining Liam on the debris-covered seabed. Now separated by just a few feet, Tyler could see how angry his fellow diver was.
‘You need to get your shit together and help me. You’re no use just gawping at the scenery.’
‘Sorry,’ Tyler said, resisting the urge to do a full three-sixty and look at his surroundings. Every passing second raised his anxiety levels and made him long for the surface. He pushed those thoughts aside and tried to focus on the task at hand. ‘What do you need me to do?’
‘We need to survey this area to see how much gold there is. I didn’t expect it to be even here, never mind in such large amounts. We need to be efficient in getting it to the surface I—’ Liam paused and looked past Tyler, his brow furrowed.
‘What is it? What’s wrong?’ Tyler said, joining him in staring out into the black waters.
‘Nothing I… I thought I saw something.’
‘Saw what? What did you see?’ Nash blurted into their microphones. For once, Tyler didn’t mind. He wanted to know the answer to the question also.
‘It’s nothing, I thought I saw something move that’s all. Trick of the light.’
Tyler opened his mouth to speak, intending to tell Liam he too had seen something and to suggest they head back to the surface when he spoke again. His voice was an octave higher than normal.
‘Look, it’s nothing, alright? I made a mistake. Let’s just do our fucking jobs.’
And so they did.
They moved around the debris field, marking the locations of the gold by the GPS tracking system attached to their wrists. Each coordinate would be relayed to the surface where Nash could make a virtual map of the gold and make a plan to retrieve it. For Tyler, it was only pride and the fact he didn’t want to see the smug look on Liam’s face that he remained beneath the surface. He was trying to distract himself with the tedious work of marking the locations of the gold and telling himself that he was about to become a very rich man when Nash’s voice crackled over the speaker.
‘Stop moving, both of you.’
Tyler didn’t immediately acknowledge the instruction, or why it would have been said until he saw the shark swimming towards them with casual grace. Tyler froze, heart thundering as he watched the majestic creature draw near.
‘It’s huge,’ he whispered, more to himself than in communication.
‘It’s just a great white,’ Liam said, the arrogance becoming something Tyler was finding harder and harder to ignore. Liam was still working, cataloguing samples.
‘He’s right,’ Nash said, sounding almost disappointed. ‘Looks like she’s a big one, though. Fifteen footer.’
Tyler wasn’t sure about that. From his exposed position, it seemed much bigger. Its massive head swayed as it swam over them.
‘Relax, he’s not interested in us,’ Liam said as the shark increased its speed and disappeared into the dark. Tyler looked across at him and was about to say he was heading back to the surface when he saw one of the sunken boats in the distance move towards them. He blinked, and there was the split second realisation that it wasn’t a boat that was moving, but something else.
‘Jesus Christ, it’s real,’ Tyler muttered. Liam, too, was frozen in place and staring at the giant making its way towards them. It was something beyond either of their ability to comprehend. Tyler had considered the white shark as big before he saw the Megalodon. The creatures head was as large as the front of a school bus, its jaws partially open to allow the seawater to flow through as it drifted through the water. Its skin was a brownish grey, and as it came closer, Tyler could see that it was pocked with scars from a lifetime of battles. On its flank, just above the enormous dorsal fin was an old splintered remains of a wooden harpoon.