“What’s going on?” a tired, groggy voice behind him said.
Shri turned his head to see a heavyset man in brown shorts and an old collared polo shirt giving him a quizzical stare. Abdul Muneer served as both the owner and captain of the fishing boat. A twenty-five year veteran of Lakshadweep’s fishing industry, everyone respected Abdul, and his orders were always obeyed.
Shri stooped forward and sheepishly made a slight bow of respect. “Namaste. I got woken up when I heard a bump.”
Abdul shuffled over to where the youth was standing and looked out into the darkened ocean. He kept his voice low so as not to wake the others. “There is no land out here for at least four hundred kilometers, so we couldn’t have drifted into an island or even a sandbar. Perhaps it was something floating in the water?”
Shri kept his eyes on the opaque expanse of saltwater. “I thought the same thing, that’s why I tried to take a look.”
“What did you see?”
The youth shrugged. “I’m not sure. I thought I saw two hollow glass spikes protruding from the surface, but then it disappeared again.”
Abdul raised a thick black eyebrow. “Glass spikes? Are you sure?”
“They seemed to look like it, based on the view from the light of the lantern.”
Abdul rubbed his thick moustache with a plump thumb. “Perhaps you saw a reflection of something.”
“Maybe,” Shri said. “It felt strange, almost as if…”
“As if what?”
“I’m not sure, I thought maybe it was like a living thing,” the youth said softly.
“A living thing with glass spikes? Some fish have transparent spines so maybe you saw the top of one.”
“I was thinking it might have been a fish, but the spines I saw were very big, and hollow.”
“Hollow? Please explain,” Abdul said.
Turning around, Shri pointed at the small chimney on top of the boat’s wheelhouse. “I saw that it let out a small jet of air, and it was slightly bigger than that.”
“You mean, like a whale’s blowhole?”
“I guess so.”
Abdul smiled, showing a set of perfect white teeth. “I think you are seeing things. It must be because you miss your family, yes?”
The youth shook his head. “No, I am being serious.”
“Perhaps you may have just seen some plastic tubing,” Abdul said. “Cargo containers can sometimes fall off from passing ships, and their contents get spilled out and drift along the water’s surface.”
“I know, but—”
A series of ear shattering crashes coming from underneath instantly made them both stare at each other in wild eyed silence. For a short minute they both gawked at one another, as if one was hoping to tell the other what they’d just experienced was but a dream.
Several of the now waking crew at the aft deck of the fishing boat had already begun to get up and look around in a mixture of confusion and concern.
“What was that?” one of the newly awakened said.
Another set of banging noises was heard, quickly followed by the sounds of splintering wood. The entire boat seemed to shudder as a low geyser of saltwater suddenly erupted from the middle deck, right where the hold was. Shri had never seen Abdul lose his cool before, but now the old captain was screaming at the top of his lungs, uttering a cry of helpless terror.
Less than a second later, the entire boat seemed to lift herself up above the waterline before breaking in half. Shri’s last sensations were of being thrown sideways as the deck he was standing on shifted violently before tearing itself apart. The youth was plunged into the bubbling dark waters, completely engulfing what remained of his dreams and snuffing out his life in an instant.
5
LIGHT RAIN PELTED THE windshield of Chloe’s BMW as the traffic along the 405 Freeway began to slow. She always liked the showers, feeling that Los Angeles needed the occasional wet respite from the relentless days of nothing but the almost always shining Southern California sun.
Gordon sat beside her at the front seat. “I hate the rain.”
Chloe glanced at him briefly. “Oh? I like it. Remember when we were kids growing up in Arizona? It was nothing but desert and dust.”
“I don’t feel like being reminded of the water just before a job,” he said. “I’d rather it be dry and sunny right before I get into the sat chamber.”
Chloe giggled. “I hear you. Living for a whole month inside a small steel tube can drive anybody crazy. But at least you’ll get the green tan afterwards, right?”
Gordon nodded. The green tan was slang for when commercial divers developed pale skin after spending several weeks inside a hyperbaric chamber, only to get well paid with lots of greenbacks at the end of it. The simple rule was the deeper one went the higher the reward, and the saturation divers were top dogs in the commercial diving food chain.
Chloe angrily honked her car horn at another driver trying to switch lanes in front of her. She was driving her brother to LAX, Los Angeles’s International Airport, so he could catch a flight to Dubai and hook up with his diving crew. “You seem awfully quiet, Gordy. Normally whenever you’re about to start a job I have to be the one to tell you to shut up.”
“Just a lot of things on my mind, sis.”
Chloe glanced at him again before returning her attention to the freeway. “I’ve never seen you this serious before. You can still back out of this, you know.”
“I can’t,” he said softly. “I really need the money.”
“If it’s money you want, I can support you for as long as you need,” Chloe said. “This new sub we’re putting out, I’m getting a lot of orders for it. My business is growing by leaps and bounds. I think we’ll need to move our workshop out of Torrance and into a bigger place soon.”
“Good for you, but I need to take care of myself. I can’t rely on my big sister for the rest of my life.”
“So it’s all just a matter of pride?”
“Sort of,” Gordon said. “When I was with Ashley yesterday, she told me something important.”
Chloe raised an eyebrow. Ashley was her brother’s current girlfriend. “Which is?”
“She’s pregnant.”
Chloe’s hands shook a little from the unexpected news, and the car made a slight swerve before she adjusted the BMW back into the lane. “Wow, congratulations.”
“Thanks. She’s going into her second trimester,” he said. “We’ve been talking about settling down permanently. No more short rentals.”
“You’re going to get hitched, right?”
“When I come back from this latest dive job,” Gordon said. “The money I make ought to more than pay for a nice big wedding and a long honeymoon.”
Chloe smiled while keeping her focus on the cars ahead of them. “I’m really happy for you, Gordy.”
“You should be. You’ll be an aunt and a godmother.”
Chloe laughed again. “This is really great news, Gordy.” She paused for a bit before continuing. “I just wish Mom and Dad were here to see it.”
He placed a hand on her right knee. “I don’t even remember what they were like anymore. You’ve been my mother and father all this time. I wouldn’t have made it without you.”
Chloe bit her lip, fighting back tears. “Give yourself some credit, Gordy. All I did was set an example for you.”
“And you did that, but you never had any kids with Oliver whatshisname,” he said. “So now I’m going to have to make it up for you.”
“Dent, his last name is Dent.”
“Whatever his name is.”
“He’s in the past,” Chloe said. “He was my husband, but we separated years back. You know this already.”
“What about your business partner?”
“Ethan Riis? What about him? I don’t piss in my backyard, not anymore.”
“Okay, sis.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Just the stories I heard about you,” Gordon said. “You know, being the only woman stuck inside an all-male sat chamber for months at a time.”
“No comment,” Chloe said. The truth was she did fool around at first, but soon learned it wasn’t the way things were done and treaded carefully around the issue for the rest of her career.
“Alright, I’ll drop it.”
Chloe didn’t like where the conversation was going, but at least she’d got him talking again. “Why are you heading off to Dubai? Where’s this job supposed to be?”
Gordon shrugged. “Beats me. All I know is that we’ll be heading out into the Arabian Sea. We’ve all signed non-disclosure agreements, but they haven’t even told us anything yet.”
“Is it for an oil rig?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I chatted with Matt Mullins over a week ago, and all he could tell me was that it was going to be a big job. Seems Morgenstern Oceanic is pulling every available diver they have on contract to head over there.”
“I know Matt. I used to dive with him,” Chloe said. “He’s a good guy, just stick close to him.”
“Yeah, he’ll be one of the topside supervisors on this trip. I spoke with Don O’Keefe yesterday through social media, and he told me some weird things about it.”
“Like what?”
“Don told me there was another work boat that had been in the area for months, and with their own dive crew,” Gordon said. “You know Clive Liger?”
Chloe swore under her breath. The commercial diving community was small, and everyone knew everybody else—if not personally, then by reputation. “Yeah, I know him. He’s a total douche. I haven’t heard about what he was up to for years, though.”
“That’s the thing. Don told me this Liger guy and his team were all working on something big out there for months, close to that artificial island we were watching on the news a few nights ago, remember?”
“Lemuria? Well that does explain a few things.”
“What does?”
“I’ve heard through the grapevine that Morgenstern sort of set up a semi-submersible work barge of some kind,” Chloe said. “Since you mentioned Clive Liger, it’s obvious he might have had something to do with it.”
“Yeah, Don pretty much told me the same thing,” Gordon said. “He said he met a fellow diver who was part of Liger’s crew, and the guy was swimming in cash but he couldn’t say anything about what kind of job he was doing. Don got him drunk and was able to get a few clues before the guy passed out.”
“What was his name?”
“Pete Poole, I think.”
“Yeah, I know about him too,” Chloe said. She remembered being part of a diving team with Liger, and she preferred to repress her memories of that time. “Poole and Liger… they’re very bad people. You ought to stay away from them.”
“Oh, I already know the team I’ll be working with,” Gordon said. “It won’t be any of those buttholes, that’s for sure.”
“That’s good news,” Chloe said. “Just watch yourself out there.”
“I will, sis. What about you? Staying nice and comfy here in Southern California while I’m gone?”
“Nope,” Chloe said. “I’ll be close to your neck of the woods, actually. For a couple of weeks, anyway.”
“Oh, where are you going?”
“Sydney,” Chloe said. “I’ll be bringing the prototype submersible over to a potential client for some sea tests. The Australian Oceanographic Institute is considering buying at least two of my subs.”
“Great. So you’ll be taking the Wanderer down under?”
She nodded. “Yup. They’re willing to put me up in a hotel but I insisted on sleeping on the boat. It’ll be my first time ever in Sydney. I heard the seafood is pretty good over there.”
Gordon tilted his head back and chuckled. “You’ve got all the luck. Someday I’ll be doing what you’re doing, and without any help from you either.”
“I’m looking forward to seeing that.”