Edison’s brown eyes followed each movement, and he leaned forward and licked the inside of the plastic where suckers pulsated inches from his face. Even Vivian seemed enthralled. After a few minutes, the octopus dropped off and glided out of sight.
He followed the cable. According to his interpretation, the clue for the first flag referred to an active transatlantic cable, which meant the flag should be somewhere close by. The sub’s electric engine vibrated under his feet as he increased speed.
“Flag at three o’clock!” She pointed to a row of yellow banners. The first markers in the scavenger hunt.
He aimed for them. “How many?”
“Ten!” she crowed.
The color for one (cyan) flashed in his head, followed by the color for zero (black). Cyan, black meant he’d gotten here first.
But there was another challenge. Blue Dreams’ sponsor was a bowfishing company, and they’d specified the flag had to be shot with an arrow and reeled in. He looked at his depth gauge. They weren’t too deep, about a hundred (cyan, black, black) feet. He could put on scuba gear and go outside to shoot the flag instead of trying to shoot a bow with the sub’s grabber arms.
“Unbuckle,” he told Edison.
The dog leaned down and bit the release button in the center of his specially constructed harness. He wriggled out of the restraints and turned to face Joe.
“Dang,” said Vivian. “Smart boy!”
Edison ducked his head as if the compliment made him bashful.
He unclipped his own harness and climbed out a lot less gracefully than the dog.
The sub dipped upward. If left to its own devices, it was designed to surface — a fail-safe to keep an injured or unconscious submariner from sinking into the depths of the sea.
“You have the bridge,” he told Vivian.
“Aye aye, sir.” She took hold of her controls and leveled the sub.
He maneuvered past her, foot catching on a red emergency suit stowed under her seat. He’d equipped the sub with four (green) — one for each potential human passenger and an extra for the dog. If the submarine got stuck underwater, the passenger had to climb into that suit, exit the sub, and pull a tab. The suit would inflate automatically and send the wearer rocketing toward the surface. Or at least that was the theory. He hoped he’d never have to test it.
Edison squeezed past him to the stern, where the designers had installed the wet exit. The feature had cost a fortune. Worth it.
First, he had to get Edison ready. After he bought the sub, he’d assumed he would have to leave his best friend inside when he went diving. Instead, he’d discovered dogs could be taught to scuba dive. When he’d first stumbled across videos on the Internet of dogs paddling around underwater with bubble helmets and special vests, he hadn’t believed his eyes.
But after he’d run down the source and contacted the dogs’ owners, he’d discovered he was wrong — dogs could and did dive. He’d been surprised at how easily he’d collected the gear: a yellow buoyancy compensator tailored to Edison’s furry form, a bubble helmet that made him look like a space dog, and a miniature air tank. After that, it had been a simple matter to train the dog to swallow when his ears hurt, to stay close to him, and to follow hand signals when they couldn’t speak. Edison was a smart dog.
He waited while Joe hooked everything up, regular thumps of his tail betraying his excitement. They both loved being out in the water together. They’d been on many dives, and Edison knew what was coming.
Joe shrugged on his bulky buoyancy compensator and attached his weight belt. The extra lead around his stomach made him clumsy as he checked and turned on his tank, put his mask on, and slipped into long fins. Ready to go. He put his regulator into his mouth and took a quick breath. All good. Then he folded himself into the airlock and snatched up a dive light and the bow and arrow. The arrow was connected to the boat by a long line, usually used to haul in fish. He angled it carefully to the side so it wouldn’t hurt him or Edison.
“Here, boy!” he called.
Edison climbed awkwardly into his lap. Joe triple-checked the dog’s air lines before closing the inner door. A hug to reassure Edison, then he pressed the button to flood the compartment. Cold ocean water seeped in around them as the pressure slowly equalized. In a few minutes, the pressure in their little chamber would match the pressure outside. Once it was done, they could exit at current depth without damaging their ears.
Edison bonked his helmet against Joe’s snorkel mask, and he patted the dog’s yellow suit. We’re fine, he told Edison silently. The dog seemed to agree and relaxed to wait it out.
Joe checked his dive computer. At this depth, they had about twenty-two (blue, blue) minutes of dive time before they had to worry, but it’d still be best to do a safety stop at a higher depth before they got back into the sub if they spent much time out there. Vivian could bring the sub up to twenty (blue, black) feet and wait for them to finish the safety stop before they climbed back inside.
Eventually, the airlock filled with water, and the outer door opened. Joe uncurled into the sea. Edison doggie-paddled next to him. His wet tail waved from side to side like a tentacle, and his furry head swiveled back and forth to follow the flashlight beam.
Joe loved it out in the ocean, too, but today he had to hurry. His competitors might arrive at any moment. The clue had been complicated, but they were smart, or had smart teams. He didn’t have time to be complacent if he wanted to win this thing. And he liked winning.
He pointed the light at his chest and touched the top of his head with his glove to indicate he was OK. Vivian returned the signal from her position at the controls inside her illuminated bubble. His sub was in good hands.
Formalities out of the way, he headed straight for the flags, long fins lending him speed. Edison couldn’t keep up when he went all out, so he pulled the dog under his belly and towed him along.
The dog’s bubble rubbed his chest as Edison turned his head from side to side to take in the underwater world. Visibility was about twenty feet (blue, black), so the dog couldn’t see far through the green darkness. But it seemed to be enough for him.
Joe stopped about five (brown) feet away from the fluttering yellow marker. That was the official maximum distance, probably to make bowfishing look easy. He let go of Edison and pointed to his heel. Obligingly, Edison doggie-paddled there.
His buoyancy was solid. Joe nocked the arrow, aimed at the flag, and let fly.
And missed.
Bubbles shot out of his regulator as he swore.
Hand over hand, he reeled the arrow back in. He’d practiced this before, and he ought to be better. First-day jitters.
He set up, aimed, fired, and was rewarded by seeing the flag jerk forward. When he reeled the arrow in this time, the bright yellow flag was attached.
Edison bumped his heel, and he swiveled around to make sure the dog was all right. His mouth opened and closed in a silent bark. Joe played his flashlight around the water, searching for whatever had caused the dog to bark. He hoped it wasn’t a shark. Even though sharks were rarely dangerous, he didn’t want to meet a predator that size out here with Edison. He’d read that sharks didn’t usually attack people, but there wasn’t a lot of literature about how sharks would react to a dog.
A flash of artificial light cut through the water, and his stomach dropped. Not a shark. Worse. A competitor.
He recognized the submarine the second he saw it. Although it looked green down here, he knew it was Ferrari-red at the surface and tricked out with features even he couldn’t afford. The sub belonged to a foreign prince who had outspent him by a factor of ten (cyan, black) and had a team of fifteen (cyan, brown) men working round the clock to maintain his craft and figure out his clues — Prince Timgad.