Titanic 2012

“Did you now?”

They had come out into the bright afternoon sun and stood on deck. He turned to her and said, “At some point, you have to trust someone.”

“I have—you!”

“At some point then we have to trust a third party.”

“But with Forbes, like I said, I have always felt a certain coldness. A heavy emotionless feeling coming from him, and given his OCT—”

“OC-what?”

“Obsessive Compulsion for all things Titanic, David. It has been absolute. It runs the man’s life to the point I’ve always suspected him.”

“That describes millions—do you recall James Cameron’s box office take for Titanic?”

“Regardless, he’s made a career of it. Hence why I’ve remained so close to him.”

“Yet you gained his support, and he’s never taken your body over. He doesn’t suspect you of being—of stalking him like some vampire hunter?”

“He has been in a unique position to be here, and frankly, I believe this thing—this creature—has gotten so good at using its host’s body, David, that it can slip in and out without completely destroying a host.”

“Hold on. Are you saying that it only temporarily inhabits one body, uses it up but once sated that it can control itself in a second body? Hide in plain sight?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

“It’s become more sophisticated in utilizing its host with each incubation?”

“Body and soul, yes. It somehow gets such a grasp on the host’s mind that it leaves a person in a kind of neutral, if you will, goes out, feeds on another host, and returns then to its carrier host.”

“Forbes does seem at times in a daze,” David said, running a hand through his thick blond hair. “Almost… almost robotic.”

She met his eyes. “It may be that it or he suspects me… Forbes that is—OK, not Forbes—but the thing controlling him.”

“Is Forbes then in some sort of collusion with it?”

“It’s quite possible, yes, that it’s convinced him of the importance of the find—to discover a new species of life below… on board Titanic.”

“In which case…”

“In which case, it can put Forbes into some sort of post hypnotic suggestion state while it takes over another body temporarily not only to feed but to dive into Titanic, to reclaim its young.”

“And you suspect all this without proof?”

“I know how insane it all must sound, but David, I do… I suspect Forbes has been turned to its uses—has become the carrier, and rather than risk losing his insights and his prestige aboard, this creature, will not feed on him but rather manipulate his mind, his thinking—and when it needs to be more mobile say to feed in such a way as to not destroy its host, it reaches out to others.”

“And while it is feeding? What the hell is Forbes doing?”

“I don’t know; placed in a catatonic state, perhaps… placed in sleep mode like a computer or like I said, hypnotized.”

“Supposing even some of this is true, and the captain is aware of your suspicions. Or rather this… this creature is aware. That places you in danger.”

“And by extension, you too, David. I fear both what Forbes has become, a victim and an unwilling accomplice, and that it may suspect me of knowing whose body it’s currently occupying.”

“Forbes is it, you mean. I see… I think. So essentially you’ve made me a target like yourself.”

“Everyone aboard Scorpio is a target, David—all of us. No one’s immune to this parasite.”

“I’m beginning to feel like a pawn in a chess game.”

She squeezed his hand. “I’ve always wondered about his motives—his underlying motives. He’s in a perfect position to order us divers via Swigart to bring up whatever we find on Titanic that he sees on the remote screen—whatever he wants. And he is in the perfect position to order it while keeping a safe distance to protect the host body, you see.”

“Do you trust anyone aboard?”

“You, David, just you.” She looked deeply into his azure eyes and placed a hand on his broad chest.

He broke eye contact and pulled away. “Why? Why me? God, I wish I’d never signed on to this cursed ship now. I’m no hero.”

She pursued him. “You’re right; Scorpio is cursed in the same manner as Titanic unless we learn how to somehow stop this thing.”

“I must live right! First the Sea of Japan, and now this.”

“I read once of a fellow who survived the Titanic and two other sinking ships. It’s maybe the luck of the Irish… and maybe why I trust you as I do; trust your judgment, your instinct for survival.”

“All the same, Kelly, we can’t let them turn this ship around to search for a man not in the water. We have to confide in Swigart about Alandale.”

“But if Swigart is the carrier, he’ll know we know of him; if he informs Forbes, and I am right about Lou, what then? If Alandale’s body is discovered, the creature becomes more cautious, more aware of the danger it faces, and that we represent a greater threat to it. Then again, if the thing infiltrates Forbes… with his being at the controls, giving the orders remotely, Forbes could order anything we find down there brought up.”

“I suppose you’re right.”

“And if we disobey, he could engineer an accident from two miles overhead while we are in Titanic.”

“Then it was you who sabotaged the crane shaft, wasn’t it?” he suddenly asked.

“Me? What are you talking about?”

“You’re doing everything in your power to slow this mission, to determine how to put it to an end before it begins. I see that now.”

“David, this mission means nothing if those damnable creatures come up from the deep and are protected by the thing that spawned them. There’re more important things than plundering Titanic here. No amount of gold and fame and achievement will matter if we all end up like Alandale or those victims of 1912.”

“All right, calm down.”

“Calm down? Damn it, David, Scorpio becomes a ghost ship if those things are brought on board.”

They stood silent for a moment, the sea rushing past them as Scorpio continued toward its destination. “As it is, we have one enemy,” she continued, “but we don’t know the incubation period of these creatures, and if it is hours, a day, two… everyone aboard Scorpio is a walking dead.”

“You’re the saboteur!”

“David, damn it, don’t you see that’s not the issue?”

“See? Issue? Kelly, it makes me wonder about your motives—and what’s to say you’re not somehow… well?”

She shook her head and muttered, “Satan may come in a pleasant form, eh? Is that it?”

“Don’t twist what I’m saying.”

“Come on, Dave, think of Alandale… that cheerful, wonderful man we thought we knew… for all the time we knew him—you and I—he may’ve been the carrier; and now someone else aboard, someone he came into contact with is the new carrier.”

“Or it’s slipped back into Forbes to hide until it needs to feed again. And I can’t believe I’m saying this.”

“This thing is clever. It has managed to survive for a millennium, I suspect, and to somehow reinvent itself in 1912 by slipping in and out of its host organisms. In ancient times, it likely decimated whole species of animal life,