Titanic 2012

men.”

“I know… I know but one dive… one chance to get inside Titanic. Dave, you can’t say it’s not pulling on you, too. If we don’t do it now, we may never get another chance. Others will take over for us… for our failure here.”

But not all the divers felt the pull so strongly as Swigart or even David. Even before they could get Ford’s still intact body into the biological specimen alongside Alandale’s remains. Some of the divers were muttering among themselves; some looked to be wearing ‘second thoughts’ on their brows. Gambio muttered something about the curse of Titanic. Jens more than anyone seemed about to bolt, having second thoughts about climbing into the submersible where Ford’s body had possibly contaminated the air. At the same time, none of them wanted to be left out; they were all thinking of the riches waiting for them. Both greed and fear ran high, each in a tug of war inside every diver now. No one wanted to die but everyone wanted to complete the mission. Everyone wanted to be able to say, ‘I was among the first to walk the corridors of Titanic in 2012’.

David followed Kelly into the sub as she took the lead, saying, “If the bodies are contagious, we’re already infected, but I haven’t felt anything, no symptoms of illness.”

Bowman, a bit tentative, finally joined them inside, suited up like the others, his liquid air pack on his back. Kelly had just whispered in David’s ear, “Whoever the carrier is… he may well be going down with us.”

Mendenhall climbed aboard, saying nothing to anyone, maintaining his calm and quiet demeanor. Lena came in next saying, “What the hell. You only die once, right?”

“Got that right,” replied Bowman.

Steve Jens held back, hesitating at the hatchway. Fiske, directly behind him, bellowed, “In or out, Jens! Either way, outta my way.” He’d been given the green light to join them in the sub.

Jens shouted to back. “All right, all right” before disappearing into the sub ahead of Fiske.’

Lou saw Kane waving some paper over his head, and Lou merely waved him off and slammed the hatch closed from inside. Finally, they were now all in; all in the pressure cooker, about to be lowered over the side when Captain Forbes banged hard on the glass and slapped a message in bold magic marker that read: Abort Now!

Every officer, every diver, and every crewman who could be spared was ordered to the conference room aboard Scorpio, which was standing room only, spilling out into the corridor. TV cameras that had stood idle before now came in from two directions. A deal had been cut—no live feed at this time for total access to the ship and crew—and every item brought up from the deep—later. There was hardly room for these technicians and cameramen in the room; it was, after all, a research and salvage vessel and so the space had been built for small groups of seamen at a time.

Forbes and Swigart ran the meeting personally, and David was interested to hear what they had to say now that not one but two bodies lay in state in the freezer. Before the meeting began, even as they filed into the room, the tasteless black humor laced jokes ran their course: “A couple of stiff ones would go well right about now” followed by “One vodka neat—no ice, please” on the heels of “Dry martini for me”.

David managed to get a seat where he could watch Kelly’s every expression from across the room; for now, she looked despondent, a kind of sad hopelessness playing tiddlywinks about her eyes. She continued to be a fascination for him and his fantasies, but his logical side kept lecturing and returning to one question: How do you know it’s not her behind all of it? Behind two killings as well as the sabotage. But it didn’t add up; if she were this maniacal killing machine—had it taken her over, why would she have tried to sabotage the mission? Yet it was the perfect cover for the beast to pretend being a descendent of this young intern Declan Irvin. It seemed now a factual account—Irvin’s journal. Of course, it could just as well be a fictitious account, a fake, the book totally inauthentic. Yet the thing certainly felt authentic down to its odor of a hundred years, down to its feel and crumbling, discolored with age pages.

He tempered this with saying, “But nowadays,the damn thing might just as well be the work of a kid with a Mac, time on his hands, and a hell of an imagination.”

This thing, the so-called carrier… he, she, or it, whatever it was, if it were inhabiting Kelly and not Forbes at all, it was busying itself gaining David’s trust this way, step by step, moment by moment, journal page after journal page—messing with his head, so that he would feel compelled to watch her back for any sort of attack on her-his- or-its person when they were two and a half miles below and inside Titanic—its ultimate goal to collect up and find a new life for its progeny above the surface, aboard Scorpio first? And then?

Suspicion proved a poison in an imaginary IV-drip, the stuff seeping into his psyche all this time… little by little. Incrementally causing him to question every minute detail, every word, and every tick not just belonging to Kelly but belonging to everyone aboard Scorpio.

Someone in this room, he thought, is the carrier—the weak one who not only hosts the alien creature but has become its eyes and ears, limbs and heart, one who has become its collaborator rather than fight it like Tuttle, Fiore, and the two miners did, forcing it to find a home elsewhere—someone weaker, someone who might even revel in newfound energies and power. This hardly seemed anyone on board, much less Kelly, but how was one to tell?

Ingles looked around the crowded room at their leaders, the other divers, the crew, and he realized it could be any one of them. How does a man detect the undetectable, and how does he fight it off—much less kill it once detected? It appeared impossible. Even had he a mechanism for, detecting the creature, even if it was found out, it would appear that once found out it was too late! For the moment a man like Alandale guessed it—guessed something terribly wrong in another human being—that the other was hosting an alien presence, he was snatched, taken over, and killed.

He looked from one face to another for any sign, any clue whatsoever, a shade darker in the eyes, perhaps a passing shadow across the brow, some nervous twitch or other that a demonic entity could not control—a clue being broadcast by the host in a last ditch effort to have even a semblance of humanity, a sign of choice, of will power.

He studied Mendenhall’s frown—a perpetual one to be sure. Could it be a sign? A mere frown? Were there any photos wherein Mendenhall’s face was lit up with a smile?

He studied Bowman’s dark features and thought his eyes somewhat jaundiced, but when the man’s head turned, David realized it was only a light shaft from one of the open doors hitting the diver’s face.

David then studied Lena Gambio’s softer features. She looked the picture of an Italian mother of three who ought to be home with her kids instead of here, he thought, then recalled her tough exterior and decided that if she had any kids, they likely could use time away from her. She looked harmless to the tenth degree but she played the role of the grungiest and toughest among the divers. As with most of the divers, David knew next to nothing of her personal life—just as Swigart and Forbes had planned things. And yet, Kelly had a dossier on him.

He turned his attention on Steve Jens, who’d seemed as gung-ho to dive as Bowman and David, but for the moment he’d gone sullen, dejected, an unhappy man indeed. Again no outward sign of being some sort of demonic vessel. Just wholly upset with the onboard deaths of two men—an all too familiar human response. Or was it more to do with fear? Fear of being next?

Then too David must consider the silent, self-effacing seventh diver, the backup in the event anything should happen to any of the rest, waiting in the wings in vulture fashion—Kyle Fiske; what sort of emotion should he be exhibiting? It seemed he had remained damned cool, perhaps too cool in the face of two murders aboard.What emotions ought to be playing out like a film across Kyle’s square-jawed face? David didn’t know.

In fact, all he knew for certain was that all the divers seemed and appeared to be all too human! Each one filled with emotions boiling over. Swigart was angriest of all, and he shouted now from the lectern beside Forbes, “We’re not going to let some psycho running loose on this ship deter us from our mission, ladies and gentlemen. It has become apparent to Dr. Entebbe, Captain Forbes, and me that someone has gotten aboard who wants this mission scuttled and scrapped.”

Swigart stopped speaking to coldly stare around the room as if his gaze might be a laser detector that would surely fall on the culprit. It instead fell on David. “Someone with a political agenda so filled with hatred of our plans to plunder Titanic of her riches that he… or she… is willing to kill for this misguided purpose. Whoever you are… what ever your purpose, you will pay dearly!”

“We refuse to take our orders from some home-grown terrorist,” Forbes forcefully added. “And make no