I was woken up way too early by a pounding on my door. I finally opened it.
“What?”
Sara was there, along with another crew-member I didn’t immediately recognize. She still had a pistol on her hip, and her companion had one of those rifles.
“We need your help, Doctor.”
“Oh?”
She sighed and gestured to her associate, who lowered the rifle.
“Look, Doctor. I know all of this is distressing to you. But… you saw those things last night. We suspected that we would find them here, and that’s why this expedition was staffed the way it was. They’re… unnatural. They are a threat, not just to the United States, but to humanity as a whole. All of us. We’ve dealt with them before. While I am sure all of this is confusing… trust me. We know what we’re doing, and this is the right thing to do.”
“Who is ‘we’?” I asked.
Her mouth tightened, and she shook her head. “That doesn’t matter. We’re the part of the government that deals with things like this, and we do everything we can to make sure the general public doesn’t hear anything about it. Let’s just leave it at that.”
She continued. “Yes, we used this trip because it gave us an excuse to be here. And, if all of you cooperate, then we can finish this expedition, all of you will get all the research and recognition you want, and this will just be an overlooked inconvenience.”
I frowned. “Cooperate?”
“Just… forget this ever happened and accept the use of this vessel and crew as a gift from the US government.”
“That doesn’t sound ominous at all.”
“Don’t listen to too many movies or fringe web sites. Yes, we’re from the government, but we really are here to help you.”
“You’re going to have to give me more than that. What the hell were those… things? And what happened to everyone on the island? One of my students was still there!”
“There are several survivors still on the island. They have retreated to the ruins near the high point. We have people there who are protecting them.”
“Protecting them? What. The hell. Is going. On!” My voice was getting progressively louder as I spoke, my frustration coming out.
“Doctor, I don’t have time to argue with you. You can help us, and we’ll help you in return, or we can do this on our own, and you’ll have to live with the consequences.”
“What consequences?”
“At a minimum, you won’t be able to complete your research on this expedition. At worst, you might become one of the ‘unavoidable casualties’ we suffered here when a cliff face collapsed and caused a surge in the lagoon.”
“What!”
“Your choice, Doctor.”
“I don’t appreciate being threatened.”
“And I don’t like having to threaten people, believe it or not. But I know how much is at stake here. We have to stop these things where ever we find them.”
“Why? What are they?”
She shook her head. “Look. You help us, and I’ll tell you what you need to know to understand why we’re doing what we’re doing. But we don’t have time right now. Three of my people are still on the island, along with about a dozen of yours. At least that’s how many people aren’t on board. I’ve been in touch with our team, and they say they have six of you with them at the ruins; we don’t know where the rest are. You’re worried about your student Mitoshika, right?”
“Well, yeah!”
“I doubt she’s dead. On the other hand, she probably wishes she was.”
“What?”
“Look, our problem right now is that we can’t get the people still on the island back to the Arkham. There are more of them here than we expected. Either this location is a lot more important to the Deep Ones than we knew, or the attempt to get rid of them back in 1947 was far less successful than anyone realized. Yes, you were absolutely right, Doctor. We did set off a nuclear warhead here around 80 years ago. Our allies—and not-allies—knew about it, but they also knew why we were setting it off and kept quiet. And that’s why we need you.”
“You set off an atomic bomb here?”
“The US Government, yes. And it obviously didn’t work. That’s why we need you.”
“What?”
“OK, we need your mini-sub. We’ve got someone with us who thinks they can run it, but none of us are actually trained on it.” She sighed and rolled her eyes. “As much planning as went into this, you would have thought that someone would have made sure we had someone properly trained assigned, but of course that didn’t happen.”
She was in charge, but I could tell that even she was stressed out.
“Why do you need the mini-sub?”
“Because there’s a city down there!” She pointed towards the floor. “That’s where these things are coming from. We need it to be destroyed. Do that, and they will quit attacking. We’ve already lost two zodiacs and the Kingsmouth to them, along with two of my team and seven or eight crew. We need to stop them.”
“What?”
“We need you to use your sub to take a bomb down to their city and destroy it.”
I hesitated because, by this point, I was utterly lost as to what was going on. At the time, I didn’t realize that this would be the most typical part of today. “Wait… a bomb?”
“Yes. You figured that out too. The radiation readings in the hold? You’re right; we have a tactical nuke down there.”
“But… why?”
“As I keep telling you. These things are a threat. To all of us. To all of humanity. We have to stop them where ever we find them to save ourselves. Because it’s them or us.”
I paused as I took a deep breath. Things were happening too fast. “OK… but… what are these ‘things’?”
She sighed. “They’re dangerous. That’s all you need to know.”
“No,” I said. She was spending a bit too much time trying to convince me to help her. She needed me. And she needed me to help her willingly. “If you need me to help you, you have to give me a few more details than that.”
She sighed again and gritted her teeth in frustration. “We don’t have time!”
“Then walk and talk,” I said, reaching back to grab my vest and pull it on. “You can talk while I start prepping the mini-sub.”
She frowned. “Don’t you want to… put some pants on first?”
“You said it was urgent, remember?”
She sighed one more time. “We’ll meet you on the deck.” She turned and left, and her companion followed her.
I quickly dressed. I briefly thought about grabbing the laptop and updating the blog, but thought that if I took too long then she would send someone to check on me and I didn’t want to risk her finding out that she hadn’t gotten the real laptop. As soon as I was presentable, I headed topside.
She and her companion were waiting for me. Looking around, I saw five or six other crew members were standing along the railing, all holding weapons. The day was gray and foggy. Nothing else seemed to be happening.
“OK,” I said, not stopping for either and walking towards the mini-sub. “So talk.”
They quickly fell in beside me. “OK, I shouldn’t tell you this…”
“But you have to. If you don’t, I won’t help you. And you’ll have to tell me, or I won’t agree to keep quiet about this. Or, you may be planning on killing me before I can talk to anyone, in which case it doesn’t matter what you tell me.”
“OK, fine. You want to support rapists?”
“What?” I stopped.
“OK…” she said. “I shouldn’t be telling you this, but…”
I waited for her to continue. When she didn’t, I spoke. “Go on…”
She sighed in exasperation. “OK, fine. There is a species of… human-like creatures that live under the ocean. We think they are the origin of the ‘mermaid’ legend. Anyway, they are amphibians—or some kind of human/amphibian hybrid—that live underwater and have been living there for a very long time.” She gestured towards the sub, and I started walking again, moving more slowly than I had been.
She fell in beside me. “Anyway, we call them ‘Deep Ones.’ Original, I know, but I didn’t come up with the name. We… well, the group I am a part of, found out about them back in 1928. In Innsmouth of all places. Yeah, the irony isn’t lost on me.”
“Who is ‘we’?”
“Unimportant. What is important is that they use us for survival. In the most fundamental way. They have to mate with us to survive. Forcibly. Their females are apparently sterile; they can only reproduce by raping a human female. Which then gives birth to one of them. Oh, the child will look normal at first, but it will turn into one of them, eventually. You saw some of them last night; you know what they are.”
We had reached the mini-sub, and I stopped. “Wait… there’s a non-human, intelligent species living on Earth? Just under the oceans? And no one has talked about this? Ever?”
“They have. But we do everything we can to keep people from finding out about them. Or convincing them it’s just fiction if we can’t. We’ll talk more about this later.”
I crossed my arms. “Later doesn’t work. How about now?”
She shook her head. “No. I’ve given you all I will for now. There is another intelligent species on Earth, one that lives under the oceans, and one that can only reproduce by raping humans. We think that is obviously a bad thing and are trying to stop them. And we need you to help us stop them. Now. If you don’t help us, then you can suffer a fatal accident, and we’ll find someone else to run this mini-sub. If we can’t work it, we’ll go get Thomas next. Or we’ll agree to help Mitoshika and Albert back to the Arkham in exchange for her helping us. Don’t think too highly of yourself; we aren’t without options.”
I hesitated, then sighed. “OK, fine. What do you need me to do?”
“Undo whatever you did to the mini-sub. We know you sabotaged it in some way. And don’t get any ideas. We’re perfectly ready to kill you, then search you and your cabin for the missing panel. Or the entire ship if we have to. I’m sure you didn’t throw it away; you wouldn’t risk your own research that much.”
I sighed, then reached inside a pocket on my vest, pulling out a circuit board. “If you hadn’t shown me that you were messing around with my sub by leaving that obvious bug, then I wouldn’t have felt the need to secure it.”
She shook her head. “Just put that back, then get ready to submerge. We’ll get the bomb ready and bring it up here. She left, but her companion continued to stand near the sub. I sighed once more and climbed up the ladder to the hatch.
“Doctor Ferris!” I heard a whispered voice. I glanced around but didn’t see anyone. “Who? What?”
“Shh!” It was Reiko. “We’re up on the high point. You were there; you know how this place works. Listen, I have to be fast. I know you’re stuck. Take the bomb, but stop at around five thousand feet and say you need to check something. We’ll take it from there.”
“What?”
“Shh!” she said again. “Do you trust me?”
I hesitated, then nodded.
“OK. Do what they ask. Then stop at 5k, and we’ll take care of it from there. And… things will happen. You will be OK, but you will have to trust me. Promise me that.”
I nodded. “I wasn’t lying when I said you were my best student.”
“Shh!”
The crew member on the deck looked up at me. “What? I didn’t hear you.”
I waved a hand. “Sorry, just cursing. This is not how I planned for this trip to go.”
“If it matters, we were hoping this wouldn’t happen either. But I need you to get that mini-sub ready.”
“Yeah, got it.” I opened the hatch and entered.
“Are you still there?” I asked as I dropped into the seat. There was no reply, which I took as a no. I reinstalled the circuit board and waited, trying to make sense of it all.
It was starting to sink in. When I was up on the high point yesterday, what I had seen and experienced had made no sense. Well, Atiya seemed to have some idea as to what was going but had never told me. Then those… things showed up. “Human/amphibian hybrids,” Sara had called them. There was another intelligent species on Earth? I wasn’t sure I could quite handle that. If I hadn’t seen those things yesterday myself, I would have thought she was trying to figure out how gullible I was.
But… I had seen them. They were real.
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath as things started to blur. Hold it together I said to myself. Hold it together.
“Dr. Ferris, is the sub ready?”
I jerked, re-opened my eyes, and looked up. Sara was looking down at me with what almost looked like sympathy.
“Yeah, I know,” she said, softer than I had ever heard her speak. “It’s a lot to take in at once. I remember when I first…” She cut off and laughed. “Maybe later. But for now, we need to get this loaded.” She was back to her usual self.
“Got it,” I said, getting up and climbing the ladder. Several crew members were standing around the sub as I exited, along with a cylinder sitting on a cart. I knew what it had to be.
“We need to get this down to the floor of the abyss,” she said, walking over and slapping the side of the cylinder with a casualness that I could never have. “That’s about eight thousand feet around here. We aren’t sure where—sonar readings on the way in were unclear—so you’ll have to look for it.”
“Look for what?”
“Their city!” She shook her head. “Look, we know one of their cities must be around here; the presence of a former surface colony shows that, and the fact that they showed up so quickly implies that they still have one around. The nuke we set off in 1947 destroyed the surface colony but apparently didn’t touch the one underwater, so it must be pretty deep. The subs we had then couldn’t get down that far. But now we can.”
She gestured to her colleagues, who started unstrapping the bomb. “We need to get this down to the abyssal plain. Then, you’ll have to look around until you find a city, drop this off nearby, then high-tail it for the surface. You don’t want to be underwater when this thing goes off.”
“What? You expect me just to go kill an entire city of people that I just learned existed?”
“They aren’t ‘people.’ Remember that. And yes, you need to kill them. For the reasons, I told you earlier. If you don’t, then I’ll kill you right now, then go get Darrin Thomas and ask him to take the sub down. I’ll even leave your body lying here as an incentive.”
I started to respond, then saw the expression on her face. She wasn’t joking.
“OK,” I said, stomach clenching once again. “You’ve got two choices on the mini. I can carry it down in the arms,” I pointed to the pair of remote manipulators on either side of the hull, “if it needs to be placed somewhere precise. Otherwise, I can use the clamps on the side.” I pointed again. “Those are only release-and-drop but can handle a heavier load. But we’ll have to add weights to the opposite side for balance. I have some of those in cargo.”
She nodded. “We just need it dropped. How do we get it mounted?”
I showed her where the attachment clamps were, then entered the sub while she and the others maneuvered the bomb into place. Once it was there, I closed the clamps on it, then climbed back out.
“That should hold unless we hit unexpected stress,” I said. “Lower the sub into the water instead of dropping it, OK?”
“Don’t worry, we’ll be careful. We won’t risk this.”
“So, what do you want me to do? Just go down there, look for a ‘city’ of some kind, then come back up?”
“Yes, drop the payload off, then return to the surface. Oh, it has an 8-hour timer on it, so you might want to hurry.”
“What?”
“You have 8 hours to find the city, drop the bomb off, and then get back to the surface. Well, about 7 hours and 45 minutes now.”
“What!? I need to get the balance weights!”
“Then go get them!” She gestured to one of the crew members, still standing near the cart. “Daniel! Help Dr. Ferris get his weights.”
“Yes, sir.” He saluted, then turned to me. “Doctor?”
We headed to the cargo bay where I pointed out the lead weights that we used for ballast, loaded about a hundred pounds worth as he watched, and then returned to the upper deck.
As I emerged, I heard Reiko’s voice again. “I’ve been listening. Don’t say anything. Just go get your gear, then go ahead with the sub. Stop around five thousand feet. The floor is at eight, but you won’t be going there.”
I nodded and said nothing as I headed back to where Sara was waiting on us. She watched as I attached the ballast to the side of the sub opposite the bomb.
“OK,” she said, looking at her watch. “You’ve got 7 hours and 27 minutes. I’d advise you to get on your way.”
“Wait… I need to get my gear first! And who is coming with me?”
She shook her head. “No one. Don’t worry, we’ll be watching your descent on sonar. And why do you need your gear? Standard SCUBA gear won’t help you at those depths.”
“Standard procedure.”
“This isn’t standard. Get in the sub and get down there.”
I held her gaze for a moment, “I just want to say that I don’t like this.”
“Neither do I. But it’s necessary. If you don’t want to do it, I’m sure your students will be willing to.”
“OK. Fine.” A sick feeling in my stomach, I climbed the ladder to the hatch while wondering what I could do.
“Don’t say anything!” I heard Reiko’s voice again. “Stop at five thousand like before. We’ll deal with it.”
“Got it,” I said, as quietly as I could. I couldn’t think of anything else to say. So much had happened in the past day that I didn’t know what to think anymore. It was easiest to just go along with what I was being asked to do.
I was just so tired.
I climbed into the sub and closed the hatch. I barely had time to sit down before I felt the mini-sub lurch as the overhead crane grabbed it. I opened the specimen locker, pulled out a beer, opened the cap, and drained half of it before I felt us drop into the water.
I drained the rest of the beer, tossed it behind me, and pulled another from the specimen locker. I might as well; I was pretty sure I wasn’t getting back to the surface again.
I quickly ran through the checklist and submerged. I wasn’t sure what else to do. I was pretty sure that if I didn’t go through with the plan, then they, whoever ‘they’ really were, would have a way to get the bomb delivered without me.
Not that I would see the results. Whoever was behind this had already made it clear that they didn’t want word getting out about this place. I had seen those executed skeletons, after all.
None of us were getting out of this.
I sighed as I drifted over the edge of the drop and set the mini-sub to descend at a steady 50 meters per minute.
I could refuse. But then they would just get Darrin to take the sub down. Or find a way to get Reiko back from the island and get her to do it.
Or they’d just drop it overboard themselves and be done with it.
What was it Reiko had said? “Stop at five thousand feet?” What did she know?
There was only one way to find out.
—-
It took almost two hours to reach the proper depth, which just added more to the idea that I wasn’t getting out of this alive. But I stopped as I had been asked.
It didn’t matter. No one on the surface could do anything now.
I had been there for less than a minute when I felt the mini-sub lurch slightly. I glanced around at the instruments as the sub lurched again, more violently.
Another look around, and I saw a tentacle sweep across the viewport. I involuntarily flinched back, which meant that I couldn’t flinch any further when one of those things, those ‘human-amphibian hybrids,’ appeared.
It regarded me for a long moment, long enough for me to get a good look at it. My first impression had been of a frog, but now that I was getting a better look at it, I saw that it was covered in short fur like a seal’s. Its face was a broad caricature of a human, with an overly-wide, lipless mouth, two slits instead of a nose, and large, bulging eyes. I didn’t see any ears.
The creature regarded me for several seconds before giving a recognizable “OK” sign with a webbed hand. That startled me, but not as much as what happened next. It held up a dive slate, one of the ones that we had with us to communicate underwater.
“Get ready to release the bomb on our signal. Adjust ballast, then follow me.”
I read that in near shock. What the Hell? I tossed my beer behind me, heard a splash, and remembered that I hadn’t finished it. I pulled another out of the locker and opened it.
Focus. I told myself. Focus on what you can do.
I looked up to see the thing outside, looking at me, head tilted. I gave it an “OK” sign in return. It nodded. Well, bobbed its upper body; it didn’t seem to have a neck. It then looked away and gestured to someone or something I couldn’t see, then gave me another OK.
I found the controls and released both the bomb and the counterweight, while at the same time twisting the dial to bleed air out of the ballast tanks. The minisub started to surge upwards then stopped as if something was holding it back. I barely thought about it; that was hardly in the top dozen strange things that had happened lately.
After a bit, the sub seemed to stop straining and the thing outside—a “deep one” had Sara called it?—signaled OK again. I stopped, checked the controls, and waited.
A second deep one, this one much larger, swam into view and hovered in front of the one I had been seeing. It looked as if they were talking, but neither opened their mouths. Not that it would have helped a mile underwater. Finally, the one with me made a hand gesture, and the other swam away. As it did, a third deep one appeared from beneath the mini-sub, as did a… giant squid.
For yet another time, I recoiled, then almost instinctively hit the record button on the external cameras. We knew giant squids existed, of course, but only rarely had anyone seen even the corpse of one, and there was even less photo or video evidence. Seeing one in person was probably a unique experience.
I watched as the squid and the two deep ones disappeared from the range of my lights. I somehow wasn’t surprised to see that the squid had the bomb carefully wrapped in a pair of tentacles.
Had these deep ones domesticated squid? What else were they capable of?
I finally noticed that the deep one still outside the sub was gesturing towards me. I flashed an OK to indicate that I saw it, and it responded with a gesture to follow it. Him. As he swam away, I saw that he was very obviously male.
I increased the throttle and followed along behind him, mind racing.
There was another intelligent species on Earth. One that, at least, could communicate, work together, and domesticate animals. Intelligent and with some kind of civilization. Underwater.
Why had we never heard of them? Why was there no record of them?
I remembered Dr. Stepherson’s presentation. Was that only a few days ago? It seemed like so much time had passed. Someone had joked about “Atlantis,” and he hadn’t completely rejected the idea. Was this where the Atlantis myth had come from? There really was an advanced civilization living underwater?
But why did we think it was just a myth? Then I remembered Sara’s comments.
“They,” whoever “they” were, were trying to keep this a secret. But… why? She had ascribed terrible acts to these Deep Ones; rape and murder. But I had seen the executed bodies underwater, and I realized that the squid that had taken the bomb could probably have also destroyed the mini-sub if they had wanted it to; some of that evidence we had about giant squids was where they had fought whales.
If they wanted me dead, I would be.
And I was pretty sure that Sara wanted me dead, and that I would be if I went back to the Arkham. I was happy to take my chances with these “Deep Ones.”
By this point, we had left the lagoon. It looked like we were circling the island. Hopefully, if Sara and her people were tracking me with sonar, they would assume I was looking for their underwater city.
The deep one I was following suddenly stopped, looked around for a moment, and then turned back towards me. He swam up to the view-port and gave me a thumbs-up, the diving sign to ascend.
I wasn’t sure. I gave an exaggerated questioning shrug, to which he replied with a more emphatic thumbs-up.
I gave an OK and set the mini-sub to ascend. I could probably have gone faster, but I stabilized it at around 50 meters per minute. I wasn’t sure what I would find at the surface and wasn’t sure that I wanted to find out.
Two hours, and a few more beers than I wanted to think about, I was approaching the surface. I had planned to make sure that if something happened to me, then whoever was left on the Arkham would get as little of my stash as possible, but I couldn’t bring myself to get completely wasted while running the sub. Even with things as bad as they seemed to be, I couldn’t completely let go of myself.
About halfway to the surface, a swarm of fish surrounded the mini-sub. They looked like cod of some kind, though this really wasn’t a part of the ocean where I would have expected to see a school of them. When they started rising with the sub, I realized that they were also under the deep ones’ control.
I really didn’t want to get on their bad side.
About five hours after being dropped off from the Arkham, I surfaced on the far side of the island. The sea was rougher here than it had been in the lagoon, and the mini-sub was rocking uncomfortably. I checked out the view-ports and through the cameras, but didn’t see the Arkham or any of its smaller craft. With nothing else to do, I started moving towards the shore.
As I got close to the beach, and while I was trying to figure out what I would do when I got there, the Deep One reappeared and signaled that I should stop. I cut thrust and waited as he disappeared around the sub.
A few seconds later, I felt the sub start moving forward as if being pushed by someone or something outside. I tried to keep aimed toward the shore, and within a few minutes, I felt it grind against the sandy bottom.
Nothing immediately happened and, after a minute or two, I shut the power down and climbed out the hatch. I blinked in the bright afternoon sunlight and glanced around, stopping suddenly with an intake of breath.
The Deep One that had been leading me was treading water off the starboard side of the mini-sub. “Doctor Ferris?” he asked in accented English.
I couldn’t do anything except nod.
“Can you help us push this a bit further onto the shore? We need to make sure that it doesn’t drift away in the tide.”
I nodded again. I didn’t trust myself to speak. Its voice was surprisingly deep and almost musical, a whale’s song in English. But the accent was Japanese. By this point, I was numb enough that nothing could surprise me further. A part of me was screaming, but I was just following what was in front of me. That was all I could deal with.
I pulled off my shoes and pants and tossed them into the sub, closed the hatch, then dropped into the water. I glanced over at the Deep One who nodded, then sunk beneath the surface. A few seconds later, the sub started moving forward again, and I started kicking, pushing the sub ahead as best I could.
I doubt we made it more than a dozen feet, but the Deep One suddenly resurfaced. “Do you have a rope of any kind?” he asked.
“Not on board. I mean, we wouldn’t have any need for it in there, and we wouldn’t be able to go out at depth anyway.”
He nodded—well, bobbed—then ducked under the water again. I was about to wonder what I should do next when he resurfaced.
“Koana will make sure the sub stays here,” he said, gesturing at something underwater. “You need to get to the high point.”
I was still barely processing what was going on. “What?”
“You need to get to the high point. There is access from here. Follow me.” He dropped into the water and started swimming to shore. I sighed and started paddling after him.
He had been ashore for some minutes before I got there. After all, he had webbed hands and feet, and I didn’t even have my fins. As I waded ashore, he spoke again.
“I know this is very strange to you.”
I laughed a bit louder than I had planned. “Really? Seriously? Strange doesn’t even begin to describe this!” I laughed again and couldn’t stop. I don’t know how long I went on, but the next thing I remember was sitting on the sand with my head between my knees, throat raw as if I had been screaming, and alternately laughing and crying. I wanted just to sit there and forget about everything that had happened.
“Doctor Ferris?”
I looked up to see the Deep One looking curiously at me.
“We need to get up top. Everything will make sense there. Follow me.” He started heading inland, towards what looked like the face of a cliff, walking in an odd hop/skip because of his webbed feet. I sympathized; I had tried to walk in dive fins enough times.
He went maybe a dozen feet, then turned back to me. With more effort than should have been necessary, I pulled myself to my feet then walked over to him.
“Let’s go.”
He bobbed again and led me up the beach to where the terrain sloped sharply upwards. There was an extremely narrow path there, with steps that were hardly more than notches cut into the stone. And, from the overgrowth, it hadn’t been used in a while.
I looked at the climb then back at him. “Um… I need to climb this?”
“Yes. The main steps in front are visible from your ship so the people there would see you, and would then know that you have returned to the surface.”
“I’m sure they know that already; the ship has sonar.”
“Hopefully, we have confused them. There were several schools of small fish surrounding you. With any luck, they got confused and are following the bomb, not you.”
“I hope so.” I looked at the climb again. “So… are you coming with me?”
Unable to shake his head, he swung his body from side to side. “No, I cannot. My sister is on the top and will talk to you there.”
“Your sister?”
“Yes. But I suggest you hurry; if the people on your ship have not discovered our deception by now, then they will soon.”
“OK, yeah… But…”
He swung his body from side to side again. “We do not have time! Reiko will tell you what you need to know.”
“Reiko? What? Reiko is your sister? What?”
He bobbed. “Please. Hurry, Doctor Ferris. She has faith in you, so I have faith in you. But… please hurry.”
I think part of my brain had shut down by that point. I had been hit with so much new information, so many things that I had no idea what they meant, that I couldn’t handle it anymore. I focused on the one thing I could control at that moment and started climbing. It was only later that I realized I hadn’t said anything else to the Deep One who had been with me.
I also later realized that I hadn’t even asked his name.
The climb was a bit too steep to be stairs and a bit too shallow to be a ladder, but it wasn’t as difficult as it had looked. The “High Point” wasn’t that high, so it only took me a few minutes to climb it.
As I pulled myself up the last few steps to the top, I saw two other people were already there. Donnie looked over, saw me, and ran around the edge to meet me.
“Dr. Ferris!” he said gasping. “We’ve been waiting for you! Please, come this way. Don’t… walk across the middle. It’s… unexpected.”
“Yeah, I know,” I said, taking his offered hand to help me up the last few steps. “I was up here yesterday.”
He shook his head as he led me around the edge of the flat area. “I still can’t believe it. I mean, some of the things I had been reading for Doctor Stepherson had suggested there were places like this but, actually seeing it! Or experiencing it! It’s all real! It’s all real!”
I nodded. “Yeah, right there with you. And this is totally new to me.” I looked around. Reiko was standing in the circle and looking down towards the Arkham. She was holding a long cylinder of some kind.
“Reiko! Doctor Ferris is here!” Donnie yelled. She waved a hand in our direction in reply but didn’t look away from the Arkham.
“She has to keep track of what is going on,” Donnie said in the way of explanation.
I looked over at him and suddenly took a breath. I hadn’t noticed when I first came up, glad to be done with the climb, but he looked terrible. There was dried blood on him—from his nose, eyes, and ears—and he physically looked shrunken and gaunt, his skin gray and hanging loose.
“Are you… OK?”
“What? Oh, yeah… I’m fine. Better than I’ve ever been. I mean… I get it now. I understand.”
“Understand… what?”
He shook his head. “I’ve read the books. I mean, I didn’t believe them. Not then. But then I met Reiko. And she showed me the parts that were real and the parts that weren’t. I hadn’t believed that anything there was real. Just superstitious nonsense. But… they are!” He hesitated.
“It was bad. Really. Bad. But…” He glanced away, looking to where Reiko was still standing in the middle of the high point. “I trust her. I know that, after this transition is over, I’ll be… someone new! I believe her. I trust her.”
He broke off and looked at me. “And she trusts you.”
“I’m glad she does,” I said. I had no idea what he was talking about.
“Yeah! We’re in a bad position here, but we’ll get through it. I’m sure.”
I still had no idea what he was talking about, but I couldn’t deny that we were in a lousy position, so I nodded.
Reiko left the central area to come to us. I saw that her lower face and neck were streaked with blood.
“Oh, thank Hydra,” she said, giving me a completely unexpected embrace. “I was afraid…” She trailed off and pulled away.
“What?”
She looked at me and sighed. “What… what do you know?”
“Nothing!” I shouted, more angrily than I had realized that I was. “What in the fucking hell is going on? Who are you? What are you? What is all of this? Goddammit, what is going on?”
I was screaming before I finished.
She held me with a steady gaze. “The world is… a lot more complicated than you realize. And we need your help. I need your help. To save it. I think we know each other well enough for you to know that I wouldn’t lie to you, but…” She glanced over in the direction of the Arkham. “But I need to know that I can trust you. To support me. Will you do that?”
“You’re my best student,” I said without thinking, despite the thousands of other questions in my head. “Just tell me how I can help you.”
She hesitated, then nodded. “Do you trust the Captain?”
“Captain Anderson? Yes. Absolutely.”
“How about Sara?”
“Not a chance. I’m here because I know I wouldn’t survive even one minute if I had gone back to the Arkham. But I need to know what the Hell is going on!”
She nodded. “Believe me, I understand how confusing all of this is. Hell, I went through it myself, and I’m part of it. All I need to know is that you trust me and that you don’t trust the people currently in charge of the Arkham.”
“I trust you,” I said without hesitation. I hadn’t been lying.
“OK. The consequences of this won’t be good for you if we fail. Are you sure?”
“I know what I know. If I’ve seen things I shouldn’t have, then I’d rather go with what I know then deny my experience.” I was a bit taken aback by my own reaction, but couldn’t deny what a part of me was feeling. Somehow I knew this was important. Far more important than anything I had come across before.
She looked at me for a long moment, then nodded. “I believe in you. That’s all I can give you right now. If I’m wrong…” She paused. “If I’m wrong, we’ll all die.”
“You aren’t.”
I saw a faint smile on her face. “I knew I was right to support you. Wait here.” She walked back to the middle of the high point and looked in the direction of the Arkham for a long moment, then looked down to survey the island. She glanced back at the Arkham a final time then came back to where Donnie and I were standing.
“OK, I think they’ve realized that you’ve gone off the script; they’re trying something new.”
“What?”
“They’re prepping the Dunwich for launch. And a bunch of the research team is on the deck at gunpoint. Darrin and Dr. Rodriguez are there. Atiya… Dr. Parimala too.”
I closed my eyes. “I really can’t handle much else right now.”
I stood there for several seconds, then felt a touch on my arm. I opened my eyes to see Reiko looking at me with concern.
“I know this is really confusing and hard to understand,” she said, with more sympathy than I had ever heard from her. “Believe me, I had trouble comprehending it when I found out the truth, and I’m part of it!” She shook her head and looked away, removing her hand as she did.
“I’m… sorry that I got you involved in this. It was me who pushed Doctor Pickman to include us on this trip. Because I believed that you could help.”
“Wait… what?”
She turned back quickly. “Look… OK. You still barely know what is going on. But this is important. More important than anything you have ever thought of, or even dreamed of, or… anything. You’ve been introduced to a lot more of how the real world works than most people will ever even guess at in their lifetimes, and in a very short period, and you still only know a fraction of it. And you’re still moving, which is more than 99 percent of people out there would be capable of. But, I need you to continue a bit more.”
I shook my head. I was drained. Completely drained. Non-human underwater civilizations? Physics-defying places like this high point? Government conspiracies willing to plant nukes? And there was more?
What else can I do, right now, except deal with what is directly in front of me? I asked myself. Just put one foot in front of the other. That’s all I have to do. I took a deep breath and sighed.
“OK, let’s do this. What do I need to do now?”
“Just go down the steps.”
“What?”
She smiled. “Sondra and Doctor Stepherson are down there, at the ruins. With two of Sara’s agents watching them. We’ll need their help too, but we have to be able to get down there. I need you to get both of the guards to come over to near the base of the stairs. Donnie and I will handle the rest.”
I started to say something then just nodded. “OK. But I really need to know what is going on here.”
“I’ll explain everything very soon. Or we’ll all be dead.” She laughed a bit too loudly as she said that, but cut off quickly and looked around. I guessed even she was on edge.
“Go down the stairs and yell for help. They should come over. As I said, we’ll take care of the rest.”
“And Atiya? And the others?”
“I’ll handle that next. But we need to secure the island first.”
Secure the island. That was somehow the scariest thing I had heard all day.
I nodded. “OK. Just… don’t leave me hanging because… I have no idea how I’m going to distract anyone for too long.”
“I’ll be watching. You’ve been up here; you know how it works.”
“Got it. And… good luck?” I glanced over at Donnie, who was now leaning over and coughing uncontrollably. I wondered what had happened to him.
What would happen to me? I shoved that thought aside.
I headed down the stairs. They were as awkward as before. I did everything I could to not think about what I was getting into as I descended.
I got to the bottom and stopped. I didn’t see anyone, but I could see the lights of Dr. Stepherson’s excavation ahead.
“Hello!” I yelled, trying to sound tired. It wasn’t that hard. “Someone? Anyone? Some help here?”
I immediately heard another voice. “Hello? Who’s there?”
“It’s me! Kalen! Doctor Ferris! Please! I’m… I can’t take this!”
“Stay here!” I heard a voice say, followed by “Tell Captain Dornbrook that we’ve found Dr. Ferris.”
I dropped down to my knees and did my best to look as sick as I could. Which also wasn’t that hard.
Someone ran into view. I had seen him before, one of the galley staff. Apparently, these people had wholly infiltrated the ship.
Oddly, at the time, all I could think of was how quickly I had adopted the mentality of “them” and “infiltrated.” I had chosen a side in a conflict without even thinking about it. Or even knowing that there was a side to choose.
You knew me well enough to know that would happen, didn’t you, Doctor Pickman? When… Well, if we ever get back to Boston, you and I need to have a very long talk.
He came up to me, one hand still on one of those guns he was carrying.
“Doctor Ferris! What happened? Where is the sub? Where is the bomb?”
“I… don’t know!” I said, truthfully. “They grabbed the sub! They pulled me back up! I… I tried! I couldn’t fight them! When we got shallow enough, I flooded it and swam here, but I came up too fast! I’ve got the bends!.” I dropped to the ground, rolled over, and exaggeratedly grabbed my stomach. “Oh god, it hurts! I’ve got to get back to the Arkham.”
He nodded. “All right, all right! Sure! I’ve got you!” He grabbed a mike at his neck. “The bomb is on the surface! Repeat, the bomb is on the surface! Cancel detonation! And… Doctor Ferris is here. He’s injured. We need medical assistance. Can you help me get him back?”
There was a pause, then I heard the radio crackle. “I can’t leave the other civilians here alone!”
“Dammit!” He paused. “Doctor Ferris… Can you walk? At all?”
“I’ll… try,” I said, playing my role the best I could. I staggered to my feet, something that wasn’t entirely faked, given how much of my beer stash I had gone through. I took a step or two then stumbled.
He was immediately at my side. “I got you. I got you.”
I nodded and threw my arm over him. He threw an arm around me and started half-dragging me towards the ruins.
I did my best to be as much of a dead weight as I could, and he did his best to drag me alone. Even knowing what he was involved with, I still feel bad about what happened.
We entered the clearing. The area was brightly lit, with a couple of lights and other items connected to a generator that was loudly running nearby. Dr. Stepherson and Sondra were sitting against a partial wall and staring dejectedly at a woman looking at them, one of those guns in her hand. She saw us approaching and turned in our direction.
“Is he OK?”
“NO!” I shouted as loudly as I could. She looked from me to the person helping me, who nodded. She nodded in return and, slinging the weapon, came over to help.
I’ll have nightmares about what happened next for the rest of my life. I’m still not sure if I had made the right choice, but… I had made a decision. So I now have to live with what happened.
She… I still don’t know her name, had almost reached me when Reiko… Appeared? Out of nowhere? Just… standing a few feet behind her. Holding one of our spearguns.
The person holding me let go of me, and I dropped to my knees. I had been playing my helplessness as best as I could. Reiko took a step forward and fired the speargun.
He fell almost as fast as I had, a spear through his chest.
Everything went into slow motion. I had no idea as to what was happening. I saw the expression of the woman who had been coming to help me change from concern to fright, and she started to turn back, grabbing for her slung weapon as she did.
She wasn’t fast enough.
Donnie appeared at the same spot where Reiko had… materialized? He took several steps forward and, before she could quite bring her weapon up, pushed our second spear gun into her chest, and pulled the trigger.
Her gun fired, but into the air. She fell back onto the sand.
“I did it!” Donnie exclaimed loudly, throwing his hands into the air. Then he staggered. “I did it?” he repeated weakly. He then fell to his hands and knees and vomited messily onto the sand.
I was feeling sick myself. I had seen someone die before, a diving accident. I was one of the ones who helped pull him back onto the boat. Someone else had shoved me aside and gone to work, but I still remember his end. He looked around at all of us. I think he knew. He looked at us, then fell back, let out a long sigh…
And never took another breath.
I saw the same with the woman who, seconds before, had been coming to help me. She had fallen with her head facing where I was kneeling in the sand, looking straight at me. I saw confusion in her eyes. A question that I couldn’t have answered even if she had been able to articulate it. She held my gaze for a second, then I saw her body relax, and her head slump over. Her eyes, still open but no longer seeing anything, now stared at the sand.
I was still looking at her when someone came up beside me and grabbed the gun the first crew member had dropped. I looked over to see Reiko, holding it out to me.
“Do you know how to use this?” she asked. There was something odd when she asked, and I noticed that she seemed suddenly tired. I also realized, for the first time, that she was slurring her words. I guessed she had been drinking too.
“Not really,” I said, pulling myself back to my feet and reaching out. “I point the open end at whoever I am shooting at and pull the thing that is hanging down, right?”
She sighed and shook her head but handed it to me. “Close enough. And make the jokes later.”
I took the rifle, looked at it long enough to figure out where the trigger was, then slung it over my shoulder, and gripped it in what I hoped was a threatening-looking pose.
Reiko, meanwhile, had gone to the woman and taken her gun. By this point, Dr. Stepherson and Aleshia had stood up and come in our direction.
“Amazing!” Dr. Stepherson was saying, going down on a knee and placing a hand on Donnie’s back. “You did it! You figured out those runes! When the documents you translated for me told about such things, I had assumed it was pure hyperbole, designed to convince the people of the superiority of the priesthood, but… apparently, that was real too! This is amazing!”
“What is going on!” asked Sondra. “I don’t understand any of this!”
“Neither do I!” I said, staggering a few steps forward. “What are we doing? And… we just killed two people! What do we do now!”
Dr. Stepherson made a dismissive sound. “Bah. I watched them as they shot the people from the other village as they tried to come ashore. They deserved what you did to them.”
A part of me noticed that none of this appeared to have affected him in the slightest. Two people had died in front of him, and he was still concerned with his research.
“Um… you knew that the people from the ‘other village’ would be swimming here and that they…” I paused, still adjusting to the idea. “And that they weren’t human?”
“Not human?” He stood up and looked at me. “Not human? Seriously, Doctor Ferris. I had a higher opinion of you than that!” He paused. “And please take your finger off of that trigger.”
“You’ve never used a gun, have you?” I looked to see Sondra walking towards me, extending her hand. “Give me that!”
“What? No! With… whatever is going on here…”
“You’re more likely to shoot one of us by accident than to help us. Just… give it to me. I know how to use those.”
“You do?” asked Reiko in surprise.
“I studied forensics, remember? I decided that if I was going to learn how to analyze gunshot wounds, I should learn how to make them as well.” She shrugged but continued to hold out her hand.
I shrugged in return and handed her the rifle. She quickly took it, glanced at it, flipped a switch, and then slung it over her shoulder.
“Now what?” I asked a bit too loudly. What had just happened was just beginning to set in. “They aren’t going to be happy when they realize that we’ve killed two of them. And… how did you two just ‘appear’ the way you did?”
She nodded. “Yeah, I know. Trust me. I’m probably the one they want to kill the most right now. Or, they will if they put a few things together. But right now? They’re only interested in you.” She gestured toward me.
Dr. Stepherson glared at her. “Young lady, you may be his student but…”
“But he’s the one they’re mad at right now!” She repeated. I saw her close her eyes and take a deep breath before continuing. “Look, if none of this works, then they’ll kill all of our team, but you can probably get back home as long as you go along with her. Everyone on our team is suspect. Just… deny knowing about any of this.”
“Any of what?”
“The fact that he took a nuclear warhead to the bottom of the ocean to destroy the city there? The one your ‘other villagers’ came from?”
“What!”
I held up my hands. “As I said, I didn’t have a choice. She threatened to kill me then force Darrin to take the sub down. Or she would have figured out a way to do it on her own.”
He frowned. “That is why Doctor McNamara should have been here! He knew what is going on, at least.”
“And how would he have influenced anything? They would have brought their own mini-sub and used it themselves! We needed to have someone else who legitimately had a sub so that they wouldn’t go off on their own. We couldn’t have done anything in that case; we wouldn’t have a chance. And Doctor McNamara can get his research done anywhere!”
I interrupted. “What? Now who is your ‘we?’ Everyone keeps talking about ‘we’ and ‘us,’ and I don’t know who any of ‘you’ are!”
“Never mind!” Dr. Stepherson interjected. “OK,” he asked, turning to look at me, brow furrowing as if he was seeing me for the first time. “How… how did you get here?”
“Sara sent me down in the mini-sub,” I said. “Under duress. I didn’t want to, but…”
“But we intercepted you and sent you back to the surface,” cut in Reiko. “But we don’t have time for this! Look, I know all of this is confusing. For everyone. But we don’t have much time. The Deltas are heading towards the beach with basically the entire science team on board. We’re doing everything we can to keep the local city from destroying them, but we can only hold them off for so long. We’ve got to get down to the beach now!”
She stopped, closing her eyes and swayed slightly as she took a deep breath, letting it out with a sigh, then went to where Donnie was now sitting on the sand. He looked about as bad as anyone I had ever seen.
Reiko placed a hand on his shoulder. “Come on. Just a little bit more. You know we can’t stop now.”
He tightened and nodded, then stood up. “Yeah. Let’s go.”
“Not yet. I left the horn on the High Point. I’ll need it, and need to get back there.”
“I’ll get it.”
“You won’t be able to. Not again.”
“I’m OK. I’ll try it.”
She shook her head. “You can’t. Trust me.” She turned to me. “Dr. Ferris, I need to ask one more favor of you.”
I nodded. “Yeah, sure.” I wasn’t sure what else I could do.
Sondra had been looking at the two bodies and had collected a pair of radios. She stuck one on her belt then handed the other to Reiko. “This should come in useful.”
She nodded, then pointed to Donnie. “Donnie, you keep up with this for me, OK?”
He nodded weakly and held out his hand.
Sondra was handing him the radio when it suddenly came alive. “Private Jamerson? Corporal Hatten? What’s going on over there? Have you secured Dr. Ferris?” It was Sara’s voice.
Most of us just looked at each other, but Donnie grabbed the radio, looked at it for a moment, and then keyed the transmit button.
“He’s here. We’re fine. Everything is fine. How are you?” He released the button.
“I’ve always wanted to do that,” he said, smiling weakly. I heard a groan from somewhere and rolled my eyes myself.
“What?” came Sara’s voice over the radio. There was a pause. “OK Doctor Ferris, I’m going to assume you can hear me. I need to know what happened to the bomb. Now! You have ten minutes to make it to the beach. If you don’t, I’ll start executing members of the science team. Starting with Doctor Parimala.”
I froze. I didn’t know what to do anymore. I saw Reiko close her eyes.
She looked tired. All of us were tired. How much of this could we take?
And I still didn’t even know what was going on.
“OK,” she said, opening her eyes. “We’ll try to delay yet again.” She looked at me. “Dr. Ferris, can I trust you one more time?”
“Yes! Of course!” I said, without hesitation, though I wasn’t sure how much I had left.
“Take this,” she said, handing her speargun to me. “Get back to the high point. You know how things work up there. Reload this; there’s a bag up there with more spears. Start watching. When I stick out my hand… reach out and take it. Then, just step forward and… do what you need to do.”
“What?”
“Just do it! Or every one of us is dead.”
I took the speargun. “I’ll… do my best.”
“Good.” She leaned forward and kissed me on my cheek. “See you.” She turned and started walking towards the path to the beach.
The kiss was probably the most unexpected thing of the day.
Donnie turned and stumbled, but started down the path after her. Dr. Stepherson glanced at us then followed as well, trailed by Sondra, taking up the rear and looking around, her grip firmly on the gun I had given her.
I watched them leave then slowly turned and made my way back up the stairs. What the hell had I gotten into?
I got to the top and found the bag with the spears. I reloaded the speargun, took it in both hands then, taking a deep breath, stepped onto the platform.
As before, time seemed to stop, and everything seemed close. I looked down at the beach.
As if she had been waiting on me, Reiko strode into view with the gun she was holding clearly displayed. Donnie trailed in behind her, followed by Doctor Stepherson and Sondra.
In front of them were Sara and two other crew-members, all pointing the guns they were carrying at the research team. Most everyone seemed to be there. I watched as Reiko walked directly up to Sara.
“OK,” she said. “We’re here.”
Sara frowned. “Where is Doctor Ferris.”
Reiko glanced back. “He was right behind us.” She looked behind her then back at Sara. “Do you want me to go look for him?”
Sara shook her head. “No. What I want you to do is drop that gun. Then we’ll talk.”
“Why?” Reiko asked. “It won’t be a problem. He’s right back there.” She extended at hand as if she was pointing, but extended it towards me.
I extended out my hand and… grabbed hers? In a surprise, I pulled back.
And she was suddenly standing next to me. I gasped while suddenly feeling even more tired.
“Yeah, it works that way,” she said, stepping away. “Take care of her. We’ll take care of the rest.”
I had no idea what she was talking about, but I obeyed without thinking. I stepped forward.
And, suddenly, I was on the beach, standing directly in front of Sara. Everything was in slow motion. Sara’s eyes were wide in surprise, and I saw the crew members with her turning towards me. I didn’t even think. I shoved the speargun directly into her stomach and pulled the trigger.
She collapsed almost immediately. Both of her compatriots turned their guns towards me until Sondra pulled up her rifle and opened fire. The first fell without knowing what was going on. The second had enough time to turn to see who was shooting at them before collapsing.
Almost immediately, I heard gunshots from somewhere offshore. Someone on the Dunwich was shooting at us. Sand kicked up near my feet.
Then the Dunwich tilted sharply to one side. I saw someone fall into the water, and several heads surface around it.
Round heads. Covered in seal fur.
They swarmed onto the Dunwich as it righted itself. I heard another burst of gunfire, then saw another body fall into the water. Not one with seal fur.
Then the discordant music started.
I winced and looked around. I couldn’t see where it was coming from, but I saw Sara—somehow still moving—reaching for the rifle she had dropped. I grabbed it and stepped away, pointing it at her in what I hoped was a threatening manner.
“You’ve killed us, you know,” she said, blood dribbling from her mouth as she spoke. “They’ll kill all of us. Not just here. Everyone. Everywhere.” She coughed again and fell to the sand.
“I’ll take my chances,” I said to no one. Someone yelled, and I looked up again.
One of those vortexes had appeared, following one of the zodiacs around the lagoon. I had just enough time to see it get flipped before something at the Arkham caught my attention.
Tentacles were rising up around it.
I knew it was the same giant squid I had seen earlier, but it was acting with surprising precision. One tentacle grabbed someone off the top of the main cabin and flung them into the water. Another swept the deck as the rest took a firm grip around the ship.
I looked around. Sara was lying in the sand, as were a few others. Dead or unconscious, I didn’t know. But no one was shooting at us at the moment. I saw Atiya looking at me and walked in her direction.
She took an involuntary step backward. “Kalen?” she asked, confusion in her voice. “What is happening?”
“I don’t know!” I said, trying to keep my own confusion in check. I wasn’t very successful. “I don’t know…” I repeated in a softer voice.
She stepped forward again. “Kalen?”
I reached out, and she stepped into my arms. I understood. I needed nothing more than to have someone with me at that point. We just held each other for a long time.
After what may have been a few minutes, or maybe a few hours, I noticed someone standing beside us. It was Reiko. She looked as terrible as I felt, and I saw fresh blood on her face.
It barely registered.
“It’s over,” she said, holding out a hand. “We can go home.”
“Home?”
“The Arkham.”
I reached out and took her hand. “Yeah. Let’s go home.”