Nigel Thompson - Pheia

“Roger that.” Perez added. “Way better. Especially the food.”

Duncan laughed. “Yes, we usually get to survive on pre-packed sandwiches and stale coffee. I think we might try to recruit miss Miller for our next job.”

Kayla was behind him when he spoke. “I’d be up for that,” she said. “This underwater stuff is way more interesting than I’d expected and there are a lot less dead people down here too.”

Duncan turned to look at her. “What?”

Kate supplied the answer. “Kayla was an ER doc.”

“OK then,” Duncan added, “We can sign you up as medic and cook.”

Kayla refilled the coffee mugs. “So long as I get to do more cooking than body repairs, we have a deal.” She laughed. “And I never make pre-packaged sandwiches.”

Martin had come into the galley from the ops room in search of some fresh coffee. The ops room had a small sink, a kettle and some powdered coffee, but he much preferred Kayla’s. He had been standing in the doorway for a few minutes listening to the conversation and watching the group. It was obvious that most of them got on well together. He was very pleased with the team selection. It was looking like it was going to be a very successful expedition.

(4,500 feet)

Kate woke to the sound of the alarm on her phone. She looked at the phone wistfully. It’s not really a phone down here she thought. It’s a camera and an alarm clock. Phone service was now 4,500 feet above her at the surface of the warm Caribbean water. She briefly imagined the sunny beaches they had left behind. She missed the feel of warm sand between her toes as she strolled along the beach looking at the small waves lapping the shore.

“You up then?” Chas asked her. He too had woken at the sound of her alarm.

“Mmm. sort of. We must be about at the bottom. Damn that was a long night.”

Chas, Boris and Kate had been on watch duty the previous night as the habitat sank slowly on autopilot towards the bottom. Dr. Ford had administered meds to the entire crew just before they ended their shift and headed for their bunks. The night had been entirely uneventful. The computer system had kept the hab 30 feet from the wall and maintained position approximately under their surface barge as it descended. The sonar transducers on the hab that faced the wall and into the abyss below had kept watch for any large outcroppings of rock that the hab might run into on its descent.

Kate had spent most of the night reading, and occasionally watching the floodlit wall moving slowly upwards from the portal in the operations room. Boris and Chas had been playing chess. Boris had won every game, some of them very quickly but Chas was enjoying playing again. He had played as a kid in high school but given it up when he went to college. He viewed himself as mildly useless as a strategist but the romantic in him enjoyed the titles of the pieces and he always imagined himself on a horse as he moved his knights.

Kate found it unlikely that Boris and Chas could spend that much time together. Their personalities were so different. Boris was absorbed mostly by his own love for himself and Chas spent a lot of time in puppy dog mode when he was around Kate. Kate sort of liked the affection but wasn’t interested in Chas. He was just too much of an introvert for Kate. He almost never disagreed with her and mostly shied away from leading a conversation. She found him nice enough but that was not what she was looking for.

“I’ll wake Boris”, Chas said. “Breakfast? Or do you want to see where we are first?” he asked Kate.

“Let’s go to ops and see what’s happening,” she replied.

In the operations room, almost the entire crew were standing around except for the divers who were in the moon pool below getting prepped to go out once the hab was anchored.

Today’s main task was to anchor the hab to the rock in front of them. The hab was equipped with several telescopic arms that had explosive bolts at the ends to connect them to the rock. The use of the explosives had been very difficult to negotiate with the Cayman government who were very protective of their wall. Paul Martin had brought along several of the hab’s designers to the meeting and a lot of charts and photographs showing how the anchors worked. He had shown a video of some tests that had been run off the coast of Maine using a large concrete block to simulate the rock of the wall. The concrete of the test wall had been formulated to behave like the surface of the Cayman wall. The government people had watched as three thin rods extended towards the test wall. When all three were in contact there was a short pause followed by a small flash from the end of each rod and then a large cloud of bubbles.

Dr. Martin had explained that the explosives were quite small and operated a lot like a bang stick that divers used to defend against sharks. Their purpose was to fire some 12 inch long stainless pins into the wall. At the end of each pin another small charge caused barbs to be forced outwards securing the pins into the wall.

After a long discussion about the dangers of the wall collapsing (which Martin had worked very hard to explain would not happen) the Caymanian government people had signed a permit.

Martin now stood in front of the portal in operations looking at the wall. “What is our depth please?” he asked.

Newell looked at the main control display. “Four thousand five hundred and six feet” he read from the display.

“And our height above the bottom?” Martin asked.

“Looks like about two hundred and fifty feet”, Newell replied.

Martin pressed the button on the intercom for the moon pool. “Duncan, are you there?”

“Roger” Duncan’s voice came back over the intercom speaker.

“Can you see the bottom?” Martin asked.

In the moon pool, Duncan, White and Perez looked down into the moon pool opening.

“It looks just like it has for the past five days.” Perez said. “Black”.

“Turn on the floods” Duncan said to White, who turned around and flipped a switch on the wall console. Four bright lights slung under the hab’s weight stacks came on. Duncan had expected the back-scatter from the particles in the water to obscure anything they might see, but to his surprise he found that the water was crystal clear and they could easily see the bottom below them. The wall curved gently out for what looked like it must be a hundred feet to what looked like a patch of sand. He went back to the intercom on the wall.

“Yes, we can see what I assume is the bottom. Viz is excellent. The wall curves out some and ends in what looks like sand. I can’t tell if this is really the bottom or if it’s a very big ledge. We don’t have enough field of view. We should put in one of the ROVs to be sure. Over”.

In the operations room, Martin looked across to Newell.

“Are you sure it’s the bottom below us?”

“Yes” Newell replied. We have done a wide angle scan with the downward facing sonar and we can see the wall curve out and become horizontal to the extent of our scan which is about 500 feet wide at that depth. I’m inclined to agree with Duncan though. We should drop the ROV to be sure.”

Martin pressed the intercom again. “Duncan, get the ROV ready. We’ll hover here until you have a chance to look at the bottom. I don’t want to anchor in the wrong place.”

“Roger. In work,” came Duncan’s voice over the intercom.

Martin turned to face the crew.

“OK, we are likely where we need to be but we’re going to drop in the ROV to be sure. Once that’s confirmed our position, we’ll do the anchoring.”

Nobody moved. They all just turned to look at the big monitor above the control console that was used to display the video from the ROV’s cameras. It was currently showing the image of Perez’s lower legs and feet. Then his face appeared inverted and he waved a hand.