Chapter 34
The Stranger
Finn is watching the water.
He’s standing far enough away from the rest of us to signal it’s intentional. He wants to be alone.
We’re all on the research vessel, now anchored at the Carter’s Drop descent point. Finn made the call to move it closer to the Drop so that we could hold a post-dive meeting as soon as we get back.
Today’s important. We’re making history.
As I gear up, I watch Finn. While I don’t believe he wants harm to come to the coral or the caves, I also don’t think they’re a priority for him.
He fought back against the suggestion of easier, more destructive measures, but I don’t think he did so for any ethical reason or out of love for the ocean. It’s something else.
It’s always been about the stone for Finn. That’s why he’s here.
What is that stone made of? It can’t possibly be what I’m thinking, can it?
Where does Dr. Nathan Carter fit into this?
I’m a piece of this puzzle. My journals paint a picture.
Finn knows I don’t have my memories, yet he’s done nothing to help me fill in any gaps.
Any hints he’s given about the past have been more of a test. So, he can be sure of what I know.
My records show I shared information freely with Walter, meeting with him casually, like friends.
But with Finn, every interaction was formal.
Cautious. After I found the stone, I wanted access to his materials expertise, specifically on exotic matter theory.
But I was careful not to share anything I knew with him, including the stone.
It was Garrett’s loose lips that opened Pandora’s box when he started talking about the stone Mads found with his colleagues.
I need to confront Finn. But can I trust him enough to even ask him to explain? Or am I going to need backup?
I glance at Scott. I don’t want to bring Mads’s family into this if I don’t have to.
Finn turns from the railing and walks to his Shield.
It’s time to go.
My helmet seal locks into place with a final hiss, and I head to the dive station.
Scott, Finn, and I descend toward Carter’s Drop.
As we approach the entrance, we slow down.
Most of the coral is ghostly white. With a few small patches of blue and pink scattered amongst them.
With the cavern’s water temperatures now over ninety degrees, the coral closest to the Drop’s entrance and its vents won’t survive much longer.
We hope to find a solution that won’t cause further damage before the heated water spreads.
If it spreads. We don’t know how hot it will get.
We enter the cavern, and I can’t believe what I’m seeing. Several patches of stone are shimmering. I make eye contact with Scott, who’s just as unnerved as I am. We’re in over our heads. Finn approaches one patch to collect data, then swims toward the Hecate.
He’s in a hurry.
After Scott gives me another wary look, we follow Finn into the Hecate tunnel.
We’re only fifteen yards in this time when we hit ninety-three degrees.
“My stop,” Scott says through the helmet comms. He turns to Finn. “No exceptions in there, Finn. I swear to God, I’ll make you regret it if you go off plan.”
Finn’s unaffected by Scott’s threat, but nods once anyway. “Got it. We’re here for the same reason.”
“I doubt that.” Scott turns to me, grasping my shoulders. “Be careful in there, brother. Call me on the comms if anything goes sideways.”
“If anything happens. Tell all my girls I love them,” I say and think of the picture Mads showed me of Crystal holding Natalie on the beach.
Scott’s eyes pinch, and he nods his head once.
Finn and I move on, leaving Scott behind.
I focus on the guidelines. My job on this dive is to lay a new line where the existing one ends and, where needed, replace the nylon with heat-resistant co-polymer aramid rope.
The existing line should hold until temperatures climb above one hundred twenty degrees Fahrenheit.
Anything hotter than one-forty can cause the nylon to weaken and break.
Hot water or not, we still need a guideline.
Finn glides through the channel flow as if he’s been practicing for this moment his whole life.
He darts ahead with childlike vigor, delighting in pulling readings and watching data stream across his screens.
Monitoring our dive temperature appears to be the last thing on his mind.
It wouldn’t surprise me if he plans to let the suits trigger the coolant automatically.
Very well.
I’ll handle the responsibility part myself.
Fortunately, Hecate hasn’t warmed much since our previous dive, so we make quick progress to the spot where Finn ran into trouble the last time.
That puts us roughly a hundred and forty meters into the tunnel, about a tenth of the entire trek.
The temperature has held steady at ninety-four degrees over the last few meters.
While less suffocating than the wetsuit due to the air circulation layer and wicking fabric, it’s still really hot, and I’m pouring sweat.
It’s showtime.
I wave to get Finn’s attention and tap on my monitor. “It’s getting hot.”
“Ready?” Finn asks.
“Ready.”
I pull back the covered lever on my right forearm and press the yellow button. A rush of cold air sweeps through the suit, as if someone turned on the air conditioning. I check my dive computer monitor.
Green. Seventy-nine degrees.
“Shit,” I mutter. “That’s cool.”
“Brilliant,” Finn says.
The clock starts now. We’ve got about fifty-five minutes until the suit’s coolant runs out and, we start to cook if we’re still over one-twenty. Much hotter than that, we’re just done.
That gives us roughly twenty minutes in before we have to turn back.
Less if we were sticking to a true rule-of-thirds plan, as we do with gas.
We agreed to stretch it. We have to. What Finn hasn’t mentioned, but damn sure knows, is that these numbers aren’t adding up if we actually need to reach the end of the tunnels.
Even at a breakneck thrust, there won’t be enough time to reach the end.
And then get back.
That’s a huge problem we’ll need to solve on future dives.
“Very good,” Finn says, pressing buttons on his computer. “The tunnels are still wide here, so we can afford to increase thruster speed. Thirty-eight meters per minute should be reasonable.”
I’m not convinced he’s applied any actual scientific thought to that number. But I can navigate easily, so I’ll let it go.
We move another three hundred meters through the tunnel, reaching a larger room and the end of the line, which is tied off on a rock protrusion. This is as far as anyone has gotten before. My water temperature reading says one hundred fifteen degrees. Wow. That’s scary.
I secure a new tie-off and begin laying the rope, securing it every ten meters for our new traverse.
“Will you look at that,” Finn says, awe in his voice.
I stop and turn toward him, then move into the larger chamber he’s just entered.
The Torches.
We’re in a large chamber, not as big as the Megaron, but close.
It’s circular in form with low-lying stalagmites scattered throughout the floor.
We’ll need more time to explore further, but it appears there are only two tunnels branching from the chamber, aside from the one we came from.
Near the top of the eastern wall, two nearly identical circular openings gape above like twins.
When the team discovered these passages on sonar, Mads referred to them as The Torches, after the goddess Hecate’s twin torches.
The crossroads. Seeing them up close, the name is fitting.
They seem too perfect in their symmetry to be natural.
And they both have tight entrances. This is where the tunnels in the Hecate get narrow, and it’s going to be a challenge to squeeze into them.
But that’s not going to happen on this dive. We’re already at eighteen minutes.
Finn adds some thrust and moves closer to The Torches.
“We need to go back,” I say.
“Just a peek.”
Shit, Finn, do you really want to do this again?
Resisting the urge to go after him, I raise my voice. “Finn, now.”
I make a decision. If he doesn’t listen, I’ll leave his ass like Crystal asked me to.
Still meters away, he stops and hovers there for a moment. Then he shrugs and turns around, only to freeze when he looks my way.
His mouth opens wide with shock, and he lets out a surprised sound of alarm.
Seeing him react like that makes my heart stop.
What the hell does he see? I start to turn around to look, but before I can, I’m slammed from behind with a force so hard I spin across the room, clouds of silt and limestone exploding around me.
The terrifying thought that I might be ripped from my suit passes through my head. I’m dead if that happens.
Disoriented, I catch a foggy glimpse of something moving—swimming—toward the tunnel where we came. What the hell?
There’s someone in here with us. Before I even try to process that, I look down at my arms and realize I’m stuck. My arms are snagged in the damn aramid rope I was tying down when that thing hit me, and I can’t reach my line cutter.
This is how divers die.
“Hold on. I’m almost there,” Finn shouts as he approaches through the silt.
When he reaches me, he takes his dive knife and attempts to cut me out.
It barely scratches the rope. He spots the titanium knife secured to my belt and tries it.
It’s cutting a little better, but not much.
At this rate, I’m not getting out of here.
“The steel line cutter. My right leg.” I kick my leg up for him to see.
Finn nods and moves to put my knife back. His eyes grow large behind his helmet, locked on the knife’s blade. “Christ,” he whispers.
He’s just staring.
“You good, man?” I ask him, trying to snap him out of his daze.
“Right.” He puts back my knife, then finds the cutters and slices me out of the rope with ease.
“Good?” he asks.
“What the hell was that, Finn?”