Titanic 2012

rather Declan Irvin’s recreation and rendition of those early moments in the mine—entirely theoretical, entirely fictional as an account—that part of the journal entry. Yet there was nothing fictional about what he’d done to Jens and Fiske in the airlock or to Gambio here in the cabin.

“It’s your girlfriend’s turn, Will. She’s infected. We both know it. Put her remains in the airlock. As acting captain, that’s an order!”

“You just murdered Fiske and Jens, and-and then Lena!”

“They were infected! She was infected!” David shouted at the others here and on Scorpio. “They’d have infected the rest of us and everyone aboard Scorpio.” David refused to give up his only weapon, the metal-cutting laser. “Go ahead, Lou,” he said, “strike me down. Do it now. I won’t fight you.”

Lou looked angry enough to do it, his eyes wide behind the mask David had covered him with, and for another half a second, David saw a black, inky shadow cross Lou’s eyes, traveling from one side to the other like a sloshing watery shadow, yet gone as fast as it had appeared.

“David, be reasonable.”

Will Bowman chorused this. “Be reasonable, Ingles.”

Swigart again reached out to David, trying to touch him, looking like a stroke victim struggling with words. “We hafta… have got to make it to… to the surface safely. Slow the damned sub, David.”

Forbes was shouting the same over the communications panel. David snapped it off, silencing at least one of the voices coming in at him.

“Maybe I have gone crazy,” he murmured to himself.

When he took his eyes off Lou and the others for the millisecond it took to snap off the communications from Scorpio, he was attacked by Bowman, who began pounding him against the control panel.

“Get him! Get him now!” Lou shouted in unison with those aboard Scorpio who had begun to believe David had completely gone mad. But David, although pummeled, held tightly to his only weapon, the laser. Seeing their determination and hearing them saying to one another, “Gotta get out of here… need better air,” he knew they had all been infected, including himself.

Swigart was now shouting, “Get that laser out of his hands! Now!”

Will struggled to do as Swigart said, but David held tightly to his only weapon. All of the others had become infected; they were all now incubators for this parasitic creature—each carrying and nurturing one of those things… each having been taken over by this alien life form.

David had become the modern equivalent of Ransom and Declan rolled into one, and he acted as they had— bravely. He now squeezed the trigger and the laser knife beam hit the life-giving oxygen tanks, and Max exploded from within, killing them all and spreading their atoms to the deep, their sprinkled ashes and that of the sub floating back and down and down to have each and all return to the Titanic miles below now.

The explosion aboard Max had occurred several hundred feet below Scorpio.

The men aboard Scorpio felt the explosion lift the ship and drop her down.

Dr. Juris Forbes cursed their luck and cursed Titanic, going to his knees, knowing that his years of preparation for this expedition had come to an abrupt and horrid end, and he imagined the reason why. David Ingles had gone berserk down there, fabricated a complex story, fed by paranoia and fear, making everyone around him the enemy. A terribly sad end to his dream.

There had been no guarantees; no one knew what going to such depths might do to the human psyche. It now appeared that nothing good had come of it, and so much opportunity had gone to hell.

Forbes now stared at the ancient book that his crewmen had indeed found in the wall panel in Ingles’ quarters. Dr. Entebbe had scanned the book earlier and had insisted Forbes read it. For this reason alone, Forbes knew he must read it to fully understand what had triggered Ingles’ deadly rampage, and what’d gone on in his fevered mind.

Furthermore, how had David pulled it off? How had he killed Alandale and Ford? What had he used? What precisely had it been that killed Alandale and Ford, and ultimately all of Swigart’s dive team, including Lou?

“Sir, Captain,” his first officer—promoted after Alandale’s death, called for his attention. “Warren Kane’s helicopter is landing on the aft helipad deck, sir, now! Says he wants answers, sir.”

“Answers… fucking answers… everyone wants answers.”

“Sir? Sir? Did you hear me, sir?”

“Kane, yes, damn it, I heard you.”

“What will you tell him?”

“That we’ve failed, Mr. Walker; that we’ve failed and failed miserably.”

When Kane rushed into the control room, he had bits and pieces of what was going on likely transmitted to him by Craig Powers, Forbes imagined. Kane came in shouting, “Captain Forbes, what in God’s name happened with Ingles? He sure as hell never exhibited any signs of madness in training. So what the hell happened down there?”

“We aren’t a hundred percent sure; perhaps it was the enormous pressures. I mean they were working two and a half miles down. No one’s ever attempted anything like this before; it’s all experimental. Everyone knew that going in.”

“I want a full set of all video and voice recordings, do you understand?”

“I’ll see to it, Warren.”

“I’ll have my people study every inch of it.”

“It may help us to determine what happened to Ingles.”

“You mean what turned him into a killer, don’t you?” Kane paced the small control room, knocking over Styrofoam cups and wrappers. He angrily erupted again. “And damn it all, perhaps we’ll get another shot at Titanic in what, another hundred years?”

Walker had gotten out of the way, dropped his gaze, and had snatched off his cap, averting his eyes. He was trying to appear as if not here, looking somewhat sorry for his captain’s predicament.

Forbes took Kane aside and calmly said, “Look, shit happens; you know that better than anyone, Warren. I’m sorry, truly, but none of this could have been avoided.”

“All of us are a sorry lot, Juris! All of us are damned sorry sons-a-bitches. Especially you and Swigart—not informing me of murders aboard Scorpio when they occurred! What the hell were you two thinking? God, there’ll be inquiries, possibly a senate investigation, most certainly a forensic inquest. We can hire the best forensic psychiatrist in the business. Maybe head things off, get some answers before we all get crucified in the press.”

“What we do, gentlemen, is to arm ourselves with the truth,” said Dr. Entebbe, who, overhearing the rancor had stepped into the control room. “We have ample evidence of the parasitic organism at work—given the condition of the bodies kept on ice. We also have this.” He held out Declan Irvin’s journal, which Forbes had carelessly left in the control room. “It’s a hell of a story but one which may convince you, Mr. Kane, and you, Dr. Forbes, that Titanic must be left alone and undisturbed forever more.”

“What’s this?” asked Kane, taking the journal from Entebbe’s outstretched hand.

“Read it… makes for a compelling argument.”

“Perhaps after the grieving is done, the dead are buried, and what we’ve botched is buried we should leave Titanic to rest in peace,” said Forbes, nerves shot.

“For now, we’ve got our investors to deal with,” said Kane, Craig Powers now back of him with a microphone and a cameraman, asking him for an interview. Kane whispered to Forbes, “I suppose we can explain what happened in time… maybe share this book with somebody… See if we can fathom what that lunatic was going on about, eh, Juris?”

“You really must read the journal before you make any rash decisions,” Entebbe warned.

“Dr. Entebbe is it?” asked Kane, not waiting for an answer. “I’ll do what is necessary.”

“Captain, you too… you need to read the journal, sir,” Entebbe insisted.

Forbes reached for the journal and Kane handed it to him. He held Declan Irvin’s journal up to the light and it was bathed in the sun of a new day.