Кейт Форсит - Relics, Wrecks and Ruins - Anthology of Speculative Fiction Short Works

After three days of waiting, the three minutes it took for the hatch to drain seemed an eternity. Kennedy smoothed her hair, tugged at her grimy uniform. Finally, the hatch opened and two men wearing slick body suits descended. The first, a huge swarthy-faced man, was forced to bend his body in half to fit the submarine’s headspace.

“Hello!” Their other guest flipped back his head gear. Slim, with a seaman’s short-back-and-sides, he held out his hand.

Kennedy stepped forward and clasped it.

“Gordon DeWees of the USS Cyclops at your service, ma’am, and this is my colleague, Knoso of Mycenae.”

Kennedy snatched her hand back. “What? That’s not… you can’t…”

“Wait. Did you say the Cyclops ?” Masterston said, stepping closer to Kennedy. “The cargo ship? But… that vessel disappeared in—”

“Nineteen eighteen. Yes.” DeWees’s eyes twinkled.

Kennedy’s knees weakened and she grasped a rung of the ladder. She must be dreaming—the deluded wishes of a mind addled by hypoxia. DeWees had to be over a century old, yet he looked barely out of his twenties.

Scotty must be bamboozled too because he spluttered, “This is crazy. Are we already dead?”

“Only God and the sea know what happened to the great ship,” Masterton murmured, echoing President Wilson’s comment about the Cyclops .

Except they were all seeing the same thing. And Kennedy had shaken DeWees’s hand; he was as solid as she was.

The giant spoke, his voice deep and gravelly, although Kennedy couldn’t comprehend a word.

“My friend reminds me that we haven’t got much time,” DeWees said. “We’ve come to invite you to join us. We don’t have the power to pull your ship free, but we can save your people.”

Kennedy turned to Hurst to check the translation, the woman nodding.

“Join you where exactly?” Scotty demanded.

“On Knoso’s island of Mycenae,” DeWees said. “You might call it Atlantis.”

Scotty grunted. He shook his head as if a bubble of water had collected in his eardrum.

“Atlantis is a myth,” said Hurst. “A utopian dream.”

And DeWees should be dead.

DeWees chuckled. “Actually, Atlantis does exist; I live there. Plato was correct, at least his dates were, but he was a bit off with the location. The island resides beneath the seafloor, its upper flank close to the Bermuda Triangle.” DeWees dropped his eyes. “As for it being a utopia, Atlantis is a sanctuary, that’s true. The island is beautiful, and its people are welcoming. But there is no utopia without the people you love. If you decide to join us, you can never go back. Your families will never know what happened to you.”

“I—” Kennedy paused. The Tartarus still had 10 percent power. Would that be enough to break free of the rock pinning them to the ledge? If they got to the surface under their own steam, the commodore would surely move heaven and earth to rescue the submarine. They might bob on the ocean for a few days, but the crew would get to go home. Kennedy could hold her girls in her arms again.

Or, she could use the remaining 10 percent to power the Tartarus ’s life support systems while the crew evacuated to an alien submersible that would carry off them to an imaginary destination.

Kennedy almost laughed. She was literally stuck between a rock and a hard place.

“Captain,” DeWees said softly. “If we’re here, it’s because no one is coming to rescue you.”

Hurst touched Kennedy on the arm. “Ma’am? For what it’s worth, if Atlantis exists, I’d like to see it.”

Kennedy hesitated, her heart physically aching for her girls. For Cole’s breath on her cheek. For home . Kennedy straightened her back. Cole would look after their girls, but the men and women of the Tartarus were her responsibility.

She swallowed hard. “Assemble the crew, please, John. Tell them to leave everything behind.”

“And the dead? Cohen and McNaught? Rafferty?”

“Leave them.”

There was a clunk as the centipede submersible locked onto the hull of the submarine. While the crew evacuated the Tartarus in groups of four, Kennedy deleted the ship’s logs and powered down the screens. She glanced at her letters to Cole and the girls and considered adding a postscript—a private note to let them know she’d be okay—but what might her superiors do if they knew? They’d already sacrificed fifty-one lives to safeguard the technology on the Tartarus . How many more would they forfeit to uncover the fabled utopia? And what of the citizens already there?

No. Let the US Navy wonder where the crew had gone—if they ever bothered looking. She smiled bitterly and turned away.

Just 0.4 percent battery life remained when she entered the escape trunk, the last to leave the Tartarus . Scotty gave her a hand up, pulling her up the final rungs into the Mycenaean submersible.

“It’s modelled on the ancient triremes,” he said. “Those legs are flexible oars!” His eyes were bright, the blue tinge of hypoxia already fading.

Kennedy glanced back at the wreckage.

She turned to DeWees. “The US Navy may come looking for her. They’ll have questions. Do you… is there any way we could let her rest?”

The sailor arched a brow. “I’ll see what we can do.” He pushed some buttons and the Phaedra rang with the sound of ordinance fired.

Taking a seat next to Hurst, Kennedy strapped herself in. As the submersible pulled away, the lights of the Tartarus winked out.

Moments later, the cliff collapsed, burying the sub and all her secrets.

Jen leaned into the Ford Galaxie 500’s voluminous trunk and hauled out her old Fender Bandmaster and the cable bag before reaching for the three guitar cases. The first held an acoustic with a cheap, glued-on pickup for amplification; the second, a decent Mexican Fender Strat.

She hesitated before taking out the third—the 1964 Rickenbacker 425. A beat-up, semi-hollow-bodied instrument that supposedly had been used by George Harrison to compose “My Sweet Lord” whilst in the throes of some sort of Hare Krishna religious ecstasy.

Jen sighed, trailing her fingers over the hard case. The Ricky was all that remained from those brief days when she’d had money and let herself believe she was going to be a rock star. But the advance on the Axe Girl record deal was gone, the recording itself deemed unmarketable. Now her life was shitty gigs in backwater towns.

Staring at the pile of gear, Jen gave one last thought about leaving the Rickenbacker in the trunk of her crapped-out car. But the asshole singer who’d called her in as a sub for his usual guitarist had been adamant about the Rickenbacker. Something about it having the right ‘vibes’ for the gig because it had once belonged to Lennon.

That made her nervous. It wouldn’t be the first time someone booked her as a side player, had her bring her best gear, and then tried to steal it after the show. Still, he’d been pretty insistent, and she did need the cash.

She loaded the amp, cable bag, and three guitar cases onto a foldable dolly she kept in the trunk, before hauling everything down the street towards the address she’d been given.

The house was smaller than Jen expected, not much more than a two-story box seated between larger—and substantially nicer—homes. She hated house-party gigs. Getting harassed was an occupational hazard at the best of times. The ass grabbing was always worse at house parties.