"Chill out, David. This isn't an infomercial."
The hatch of the Massett-6 was located beneath the submersible's aft observation compartment behind the main battery assembly. Kneeling below the sub, I poked my head and shoulders into the opening and climbed up.
The vehicle's interior was a cross between a helicopter cockpit and an FBI surveillance van. The claustrophobic aluminum chamber was crammed with video monitors, life-support equipment, carbon dioxide scrubbers, and gas analyzers, along with myriad pipes and pressurized hoses. Conversely, the forward compartment was a two-seat acrylic bubble that offered panoramic views of the sub's surroundings.
Taking my assigned place up front in the copilot's seat, I tightened the shoulder harness, then inspected the controls of my sonic lure, which had been jury-rigged to the console on my right. Everything seemed stat. Looking above my head out of the bubble, I watched as a technician double-checked the lure's underwater speaker, now attached to the vessel's exterior tow hook.
Donald Lacombe, the sub's pilot, joined me in the cockpit, wasting little time in establishing who was boss. "All right, boy genius, here's the drill. Keep your keister in your seat and don't touch anything without being told. Capische?"
"Aye, aye, sir."
"And nobody likes a smart-ass. You're in my vessel now, blah blah blah blah blah." Tuning him out, I turned to watch Hank Griffeth as he climbed awkwardly into the aft compartment. A crewman handed him up his camera, then sealed the rear hatch.
The radio squawked. "Control to Six, prepare to launch." Lacombe spoke into his headset, clearly in his element. "Roger that, Ace, prepare to launch."
Moments later, the A-frame's crane activated, and the submersible rose away from the deck, extending twenty feet beyond the stern. The Manhattanville's keel lights illuminated, creating an azure patch in the otherwise dark, glassy surface, and we were lowered into the sea.
For the next ten minutes, divers circled our sub, detaching its harness and rechecking hoses and equipment. Lacombe kept busy, completing his checklist with Ace Futrell aboard the research ship, while Donald showed me photos of his children.
"So when will you and this fiancée of yours start having kids? Nothing like a few rug rats running around to make a house a home."
No problem havin' children, runt. The Wallace curse skips every other generation.
"Zack?"
"Huh?" I shook my head, the lingering ache of the migraine scattering my estranged father's words. "Sorry. No kids, at least not for a while. Too much work to do."
I returned my attention to the control panel, forcing my thoughts back to our voyage. Descending thousands of feet into the ocean depths was similar to flying. One is always aware of the danger, yet comforted in the knowledge that the majority of planes land safely, just as most subs return to the surface. I had been in a submersible twice before, but this voyage was different, meant to attract one of the most dangerous, if least understood, predators in the sea.
My heart pounded with excitement, the adrenaline escorting Angus's words from my thoughts.
Ace Futrell's commands filtered over the radio. "Control to Six, you are clear to submerge. Bon voyage, and good hunting."
"Roger that, Control. See you in the morning."
Lacombe activated the ballast controls, allowing seawater to enter the pressurized tanks beneath the sub. Weighed down, the neutrally buoyant Massett-6 began to sink, trailing a stream of silvery air bubbles.
The pilot checked his instruments, activated his sonar, engaged his thrusters, then turned to me. "Hey, rookie, ever been in one of these submersibles?"
"Twice, but the missions were only two hours long. Nothing like this."
"Then we'll keep it simple. Batteries and air scrubbers'll allow us to stay below up to eighteen hours, but maneuverability's the pits. Top speed's one knot, best depth's thirty-five hundred feet. We drop too far below that, and the hull will crush like a soda can. Pressure will pop your head like a grape."
I acknowledged the pilot's attempt to put me in my place, countering with my own. "Know much about giant squids? This vessel's twenty-seven feet. The creature we're after is more than twice its size — forty to fifty feet — weighing in excess of a ton. Once we make contact with one of these monsters, be sure to follow my exact instructions."
It's okay to use the "M" word when attempting to intimidate.
Lacombe shrugged it off, but I could tell he was weighing my words. "Three hundred feet," he called out to Hank, who was already filming. "Activating exterior lights."
The twin beams lanced through the black sea, turning it a Mediterranean blue.
And what a spectacle it was, like being in a giant fishbowl in the middle of the greatest aquarium on Earth. I gawked for a full ten minutes before turning to face the camera, doing my best Carl Sagan impression.
"We're leaving the surface waters now, approaching what many biologists call the 'twilight zone.' As we move deeper, we'll be able to see how the creatures that inhabit these mid-water zones have adapted to life in the constant darkness."
Lacombe pointed, refusing to be upstaged. "Looks like we've got our first visitor."
A bizarre jellylike giant with a pulsating bell-shaped head drifted past the cockpit, the creature's transparent forty-five-foot-long body set aglow in our artificial lights.
"That's a siphonophore," I stated, fully immersed in lecture mode. "Its body's made up of millions of stinger cells that trail through the sea like a net as it searches for food."
Next to arrive were a half dozen piranha-sized fish, with bulbous eyes and terrifying fangs. As they turned, their flat bodies reflected silvery-blue in the sub's beams.
"These are hatchet fish," I went on. "Their bodies contain light- producing photo-phores which countershade their silhouettes, allowing them to blend with the twilight sea. In these dark waters, it's essential to see but not be seen. As we move deeper, we'll find more creatures who rely on bioluminescence not only to camouflage themselves, but to attract prey."
Jellyfish of all sizes and shapes drifted silently past the cockpit, their transparent bodies glowing a deep red in the sub's lights. "Pilot, would you shut down the lights a moment?"
He shot me a perturbed look, then reluctantly powered off the beams. We were surrounded by the silence of utter blackness.
"Watch," I whispered.
A sudden flash appeared in the distance, followed by a dozen more, and suddenly the sea was alive with a pyrotechnic display of bioluminescence as a thousand neon blue lightbulbs flashed randomly in the darkness.
"Amazing," Hank muttered, continuing to film. "It's like these fish are communicating."
"Communicating and hunting," I agreed. "Nature always finds a way to adapt, even in the harshest environments."
"Two thousand feet," the pilot announced.
An adult gulper eel slithered by, its mouth nearly unhinging as it engulfed an unsuspecting fish. All in all, I couldn't have asked for a better performance.
But the best was yet to come.
It was getting noticeably colder in the cabin, so I zipped up my jumpsuit, too full of pride to ask the pilot to raise the heat.
Hank repositioned his camera, then reviewed the list of prompts Cody Saults had given him. "Okay, Zack, tell us about the giant squid. I read where you think it might actually be a mutation?"
"It's just a theory."
"Sounds interesting, give us a rundown. Wait… give me a second to re-focus. Okay, go ahead."
"Mutations happen all the time in nature. They can be caused by radiation, or spontaneously, or sometimes by the organism itself as a form of adaptation to changes within its environment. Most mutations are neutral, meaning they have no effect upon the organism. Some, however, can be very beneficial or very harmful, depending upon the environment and circumstance.