Dave Freedman - Natural Selection

THEY DESCENDED slowly, feeling the water’s chill around their bodies. Good visibility, Phil thought, pausing to check the camera strap around his neck.

Farther below, Jason surveyed. With the aid of dive maps, he’d chosen this exact spot carefully. Though Darryl and Monique had plotted the route to get here, Jason wouldn’t trust them with choosing the exact area in which to dive; it was too delicate. They were very close to deep waters here, unreachable not only by scuba but by almost anything—or at least by anything man-made. The area directly below, however, was only a hundred and fifty feet deep. It looked like an underwater quarry of sorts, a massive brown boulder the size of a ten-story office building, off to the right. Jason followed Monique and Craig toward it.

As Monique swam along the huge rock, it seemed to grow in size, becoming a small mountain. Then, as she passed a few foot-long kelp strands, she realized there was a second mountain, about ten feet to the left, that created a narrow canyon. She turned on her flashlight and swam right into it, shadows engulfing her. Eyeing the dark sandy bottom far below, she wondered if there were any secrets there. Then she saw movement out of the corner of her eye. She froze. Adjacent to a deep horizontal crevice, she realized something was inside it. Jason swam up next to her, and they shined their lights in. It was a small school of cod, about thirty of them, the light streaming past their dark green bodies. Another midsea species. Neither asked the question audibly, but Jason and Monique both wondered why the cod were all the way up here. Phil swam next to them and snapped a picture. They dove farther. Three stories from the bottom, the walls abruptly widened, and they fanned out. Reaching the sand, they flipped over, entering an area the size of a living room, the walls mottled brown rock.

To her right, Monique noticed a gap at the bottom of the wall. She knelt, illuminating the sand within, and it was obvious: the sand had been disturbed by something. Not by water currents—there were no sweeping patterns—but by an animal of some kind. She lay down to get a better look. Farther in, the sand looked even more disturbed. She tried to wedge herself in, but her tank caught. She pushed her hand toward the area. She could almost reach it….

She stopped. Was something still there? She pulled her hand away. No, she didn’t think so. She noticed Lisa kneeling at another gap and swam over. Lisa was eyeing a piece of kelp, just floating in the gap. Through their masks, the women shared a look. Kelp was a surface seaweed. Even if there had been nearby forests, which there weren’t, it was unusual to see it in water this deep. Had something brought it here? Monique grabbed the strand and studied it. She saw nothing special and let it go. Instantly, Jason swam up, grabbed it, and took a look for himself. Monique and Lisa shook their heads. On the far wall, Phil laughed heartily inside his mask. Good old trusting Jason.

As they ascended out of the canyon for the first time, they noticed the terrain to their left. The sun had shifted, and the area was much more fully lit than it had been a moment ago. Jason spotted something on the sand that he’d missed earlier. A small pool of darkness, a mini–oil slick, probably from a local fisherman illegally dumping. Then he noticed that something was in the pool. He drifted downward. It was a marking of some kind. He kicked toward it. It was an imprint. He kicked closer still. An enormous imprint, fourteen feet across the wings and twelve feet long. As the others joined him, he shook his head inside his mask. How do you like that?

WHY’S HE holding that harpoon? Jason was immediately nervous as he popped out of the water. And why does he have that look on his face? Jason had never seen Darryl Hollis with such a look. But Darryl just scanned the dark seas, not even acknowledging him. “How’s it going, Jason?”

Does he have peripheral vision I’m not aware of? “Hey, Darryl. You OK?”

“Fine. See anything good?”

Jason removed his mask. “Yeah. What’s with the harpoon?”

Darryl finally looked down. “I guess sunsets just make me nervous.”

Jason turned. A sunset indeed. The sky was gorgeous, a vast tapestry of lavender, pink, and ruby red. Jason loved Southern California’s sunsets and knew from personal experience that they were some of the most stunning in the world.

Monique popped out and smiled, as relaxed as ever. “Hey, Husband.”

“Get out of the water, Monique.”

“What’s your problem? Nice to see you, too.”

Darryl turned to her directly. “Monique, get out of the water.”

She was about to tell Darryl to shut his smug mouth when she noticed his harpoon. Darryl Hollis never played games with his weapons. She got out of the water.

“What’s up, Big Dog?” Craig smacked Darryl’s back later on deck. “Something big and bad out here?”

Darryl hesitated. He didn’t know why, but he suddenly felt like an idiot. He scanned the dark seas anew, little waves breaking here and there. They seemed to be laughing at him now.

“Nothing big and bad here except me, brother.”

Craig glanced at Monique. They’d both seen Darryl become alarmed before, more times than they cared to remember, in dangerous war-torn deserts, soft-sand Caribbean vacations, scuba diving, sometimes just when it was dark out and the crickets were chirping. There were occasionally good reasons for it, but very often there weren’t.

“How do you think that kelp got all the way down there, Monique?”

Monique turned to Jason. “You know, I don’t know. Darryl, we saw some kelp almost two hundred feet down. And a manta imprint in an oil slick.”

“You sure that was from a manta?” Jason said.

“Can we discuss this later, Jason?” Craig toweled off his head. “I mean we’re done for the day, right?”

Jason turned irritably. “Yeah, Craig, sure.”

Summers walked toward the bridge.

“Note time, Jason?”

“Oh.” Jason turned to Phil Martino, standing there with his open laptop out. “Yeah. Thanks, Phil.” He took it.

As Phil walked off, Jason realized that except for his notes, they were indeed “done for the day.” He stared at the sunset again. Jason had never been able to stop and smell the roses, but savoring a sunset was another story. The sky was stunning. Then he noticed Darryl, staring at the water with the same strange look in his eyes. Jason had always respected Darryl’s Indian heritage and suspected it gave him an unusual intuition into the ways of nature. He was a levelheaded guy to boot, so if he sensed something, Jason wondered what it could be. Maybe a shark?

But then Darryl shook his head. He was imagining things. Craig and Monique were drinking Coronas now, and he joined them. So did Lisa and Phil.

Still in his wet suit, Jason put the laptop on his knees and began typing. He’d seen more than he realized down there and he noted all of it: the school of cod, kelp, mini–oil slick, imprint. The imprint. As he tapped away, Jason kept going back to it. What sort of animal had made it? A manta? Or something else? Then Craig started the boat, and Jason eyed the sunset a last time. It was still gorgeous.

AS THE Expedition motored toward the land, Jason had no idea that they were being watched.

THEY FELT the boat’s vibrations.

They were more than four miles away, but they felt them and quite clearly. Thirty-five hundred feet down, a level considered deep by human standards, they lay perfectly still. Earlier, one of them had mistakenly ventured into much shallower waters and settled in an oil slick. But they were all together now. They were spread out across the ocean floor. They were unseen. There was no light here. Not now, not ever. It had been filtered out many thousands of feet above.