Meg: Hell's Aquarium (47 page)

The girl is somewhere next to him, cloaked in darkness, silenced by sleep. David rasps, “Kay . . . lie,” and reaches for her, his blood thick and curled, his muscles slow to respond. He shakes her four times hard before she awakens.

“So . . . cold.”

He tries the engine. The dying backup battery has just enough charge to power up the twin propulsion units, but they quickly choke and die.

Sand’s clogging the intakes . . . shutting down the props. Without the props I can’t recharge the batteries. Emergency pod’s no good either
. . .
it’s a five hour ascent just to make it to the hole . . . at this rate we’ll both be dead within thirty minutes.

Can’t think . . . too cold.

He tugs Kaylie’s arm, dragging her, protesting, onto his lap facing him. He pulls off her sweatshirt and tee-shirt then guides her headfirst inside his own sweater so that they are chest to chest, belly to belly, the kiss of their cold bare skin the kindling necessary to generate body heat.

David tosses her discarded garments around her shoulders and they huddle together in the darkness of their coffin.

Her teeth chatter as she whispers in his ear, “Get us home.”

“Backup battery’s dying. Engine’s clogged with sand. Need the props to generate power. Can’t use the props while we’re buried in sand. Radio’s dead, too.”

“Find . . . a way.”

He grinds his teeth, tears of frustration welling in his eyes.
Find a way? How? Should I get out and push? Call for a tow? Why couldn’t you have stayed in Dubai with me like I begged you to do?

He feels her tears roll down her cheeks onto his neck and hugs her tighter, rubbing her back, his mind inebriated with the cold. Amnesia sets in when core temperature drops to 94°F, unconsciousness at 86°F, death at 79°.

Rational thought is abandoning him minute by minute, along with the will to survive.

Laying his head back, he stares out the open neck of his sweater into the olive sea above. A shadow of movement passes overhead, followed by another.

Hell’s vultures . . . waiting to feed. Freezing to death . . . I suppose there are worse ways to go. The two of us will just go to sleep and that will be that. So stupid . . . for the first time in my life I had it all . . . money, a great job, my own gig, and the most beautiful woman that ever smiled my way. My first honest-to-God true love and I blew it . . . threw it all away ‘cause of my damn ego. I should have never entered that lab—I knew better—but I didn’t listen to my gut. Hell, I should have never made the dive. Brian would
have chickened out at twenty thousand feet. He would have turned back . . . done the right thing. Not you, Jonas Junior. So many plans . . . all wasted.

He bangs his head against the seat in anger.
I would have been twenty-one years old this week. Twenty-one . . . barely had fun—

“Twenty-one?” Masao Tanaka’s voice responds in his head with a reprimand. “I was only half that age when my father died and I was forced to go to work in the sweatshops to support my family. Miyamoto Musashi was only thirteen when he fought his first duel. By the age of twenty-one he was fighting four men, one after the next!”

How did he achieve victory against such odds?

“By adhering to Bushido, the Way of the Warrior. The Way of the Warrior is death. Death is where solutions lie.”

I don’t understand.

“When faced with the choice of life and death, most men choose to live. The warrior chooses death, thus he passes through life without the possibility of failure.”

Grandpa, how will this help me?

“By remembering there is strategy in all things. Musashi illustrated this in the
Go Rin No Sho
—five rings, five elements.”

Ground . . . water . . . fire . . . wind . . . and the void.

“Your battle is with water. What was Musashi’s strategy in dealing with this element?”

Water conforms to the shape of its receptacle. Musashi used the length of the long sword in the Book of Water to control the battle, to bring the enemy to him.

“And how can you apply this strategy?”

I don’t know.

“Think about the creatures of the abyss, living in total darkness. How do they manage to survive the element of water?”

David’s eyes snap open.
They bring their prey to them.
“Kaylie, wake up! I have an idea.”

She mumbles something incoherent in his ear.

“Kaylie, stay with me! Wake up!” He rubs her limbs.

He searches through a glove box. Locates a flashlight, the batteries still strong. Slipping out of his sweater, he presses his face to the rear of the cockpit glass, aiming the flashlight’s beacon at the rear portion of the port-side wing, causing the light to dance.

Angler fish use a bioluminescent lure to bring their prey to them, we’ll do the same. Come on, whatever it is that’s out there . . . take a bite, a big juicy bite—

—anything but a Meg or a Dunk.

A shadow passes overhead, then another, then two more.

A five-foot
Helicoprion
swoops in, circles twice, then takes a quick bite and release of the starboard wing before racing off. Two more sharks follow, one a twelve foot
Edestus giganteus
—a prehistoric fish possessing a set of jaws that protrude from its mouth like a pair of scissors, the teeth splaying outward like blades.

Within minutes, the Manta Ray becomes the center of a feeding frenzy for dozens of ferocious, mediumsize sharks.

This is no good . . . I need something bigger, something with some mass behind it.

He works the light some more, his bare chest shivering uncontrollably.

Another shadow passes overhead, this one causing the other sharks to scatter.

David’s heart flutters as the seventeen-foot bony fish,
Xiphactinus audax
, moves in, its tarpon-like head hovering just above the dancing light. The predator’s hinged mouth gapes open, revealing four-inch, piranha-sharp teeth, along with four upper front incisors that resemble six-inch spikes.

David stares at the prehistoric fish, keeping the light beam stationary along the starboard wing.
You want this, big guy? You really want it? Well, come and get it!

He jumps the light—

—the predatory fish jumping with it, snapping its terrifying trapdoor mouth upon the Manta Ray’s starboard wing, the creature’s tail wiggling violently back and forth—

—as it forcibly drags its meal out of the sand!

David grabs Kaylie and hangs on as the fish whips its head back and forth, tossing them about like a bad carnival ride. “Buckle in!”

Acrylic screeches in protest, sand flying in all directions. David pumps his foot pedals, whispers a quick prayer, and hits the power switch as the fish shakes them again, nearly separating the escape pod from the chassis.

The port-side screw turns twice and jams, the starboard propeller grinding and jamming before spinning awkwardly, the shaft spewing sand as it slowly generates speed.

“Come on, baby. Come on!” David works the right pedal, feeling the prop gaining torque as the propeller shaft sheds more debris.

The fish shakes them again—

—causing the interior LED lights to flicker as the backup battery fights to recharge. The ventilation system’s blower fans suddenly blasts them with frigid air as the starboard propeller’s RPMs pick up, the screw suddenly revving with power!

David pulls back on both joysticks to loop the sub free of the fish—

—but the fish will have none of it, its clenched jaws and stiletto-sharp front teeth puncturing the starboard wing as it hangs on and shakes its head once more, attempting to swim off with its still-thrashing prey.

Kaylie manages to buckle herself in the co-pilot’s seat. Reaching for her sonar array, she presses the ACTIVE switch—

PING! PING . . . PING . . . PING . . . PING
. . .

The stunned fish’s jaws snap open, releasing its meal.

David jams his right foot to the floor and takes off. An exhilarating wave of adrenaline pumps his muscles, focusing his mind like a laser.

“David, it’s right behind us!”

“Hold on, baby.” David barrel rolls into a steep climb, then cuts hard to port—

—his port-side propeller shaft spewing sand as it grinds back to life.

“Yeah, yeah! That’s my girl!” Registering the sudden burst of speed, David pushes his machine to the max, distancing his sub from his swift pursuer before looping back and blasting it head-on with his exterior lights.

The startled fish darts off into the darkness.

The sub’s engines warm, pumping out life-giving heat from its ventilation system.

Kaylie hugs David, smothering him with awkward kisses and tears. She removes his sweater and pulls it over his head while he drives before locating her own clothing and dresses, the two of them smiling so hard their frozen cheekbones hurt, their toes burning as the circulation gradually returns to their numbed feet.

Kaylie retrieves her headphones. Positioning them over her ears, she activates the sonar array and listens—

—her expression dropping. “Oh, no. They’re right in front of us. Turn around! Go the other way!”

He executes a tight 180-degree loop and accelerates to thirty knots, dousing his exterior lights so he can see better through the night glass. “What is it? What do you hear?”

“Something big, really big. And lots of them!”

“Leeds’ fish?”

“Just as big, only a lot faster. Two hundred yards and closing fast!”

David pushes the submersible to its limits, streaking through the abyss doing thirty-two knots. No longer hydrodynamic, the chewed-up starboard wing shudders behind his controls.

“One hundred yards . . . seventy yards! Can’t you go any faster?”

“This is as fast as she goes! Can I loop around them?”

“No room, too many. David, there’s one coming up along your side!”

He glances to his left, his heart still reviving from the cold, straining as it pounds in his chest.

The massive dolphin-like beak appears first—eighteen feet long from snout to tapered-back skull. He sees the pointy orca teeth, then an enormous eye—nocturnal and glowing silver in the night glass—as large as a beach ball.

“An ichthyosaur! A goddam ichthyosaur! Gotta be the big ones—
Shonisaurus sikanniensis
—seventy . . . eighty feet long. Bet it weighs as much as a blue whale.”

“David—”

“What a monster. Look. You can see gill slits behind its head. Gill slits, Kaylie!”

“David, drive! Swerve! There’s one right behind us, snapping at out tail antenna!”

“Hold on!” David yanks back on both joysticks, sending them into a steep seventy-degree climb—

—the school of icthyosaurs—three female hunters and two juveniles—ascending right behind them.

“Kaylie, call out our depth.”

“We just passed 29,850 feet. David, what are you doing? We’ll never make it to the chute.”

“I’m not going for the chute.” He checks his compass. Adjusts his angle of ascent so he’s heading east.

“Twenty-seven thousand . . .” Kaylie screams, holding on as one of the big females snaps at the starboard wing—

—just missing as another hunter nudges them from behind, inadvertently pushing them clear of the attacker’s chomping jaws.

“Twenty-five thousand feet . . . David, look out!” The two hunters have driven them toward a third, the seventy-five-foot, dolphin-like giant launching its attack from above.

David barrel rolls beneath its snapping jaws, looping around the forward pectoral fins, barely avoiding one of the rear fins, which grazes the cockpit glass as he shoots past the flailing tail and ascends at a ninety-degree angle straight up, searching for—

“The current! Hold on!” He executes a reverse loop, slicing into the fast-moving river of water, the torque nearly shearing off his torn-up starboard wing. Leveling out, he slingshots into the darkness.

The Manta Ray bucks and rattles in the current. David compensates on the fly, adjusting his pitch and yaw until the ride smoothes out. The sub races east along the swift conveyor belt of water, leaving the pack of giant ichthyosaurs behind.

“Whoa!” Kaylie unbuckles her harness and kisses him hard on the lips. “I love you! If I wasn’t half-frozen with frostbite I’d climb on your lap and start our own mile-deep club!”

David aw-shucks a half grin. “We’re not out of this hell-hole yet. Buckle in. I need to get us out of this current before we end up under Guam.”

She climbs back into her harness, securing the headphones over her ears.

David throttles back, easing the Manta Ray into a gradual ascent, keeping the sub’s damaged wings as level as possible as he attempts to slip out from the raging cold-water current.

Several nautical miles to the west, the Alpha team Manta Ray descends to sixteen thousand feet, marking the deepest dive yet for its nervous pilot, Jeffrey Hoch. The former Ohio Class submarine helmsman and ordained minister levels out and circles, his co-pilot, Marcus Slabine, listening intently on sonar.