Titanic 2012

the Grand Staircase. But just getting back to it would be a struggle, and this cemetery he was swimming in was getting to him.

THIRTY FOUR

On leaving the freezer and the flames he’d created, David felt comforted that the store of damned eggs had been destroyed, but he worried over the eggs that Lou—or what Lou had become—had gotten off with. He also worried whether of not Lou had harmed Kelly, overpowered her, or turned her into his human shield? His last line of defense?

Going after Kelly and Lou, David feared that Lou was back aboard Max and long gone. If only Mendenhall hadn’t been so damned stubborn and about those bloody automobiles, David felt he might’ve had a chance at Lou.

He feared there was no hope for him or Kelly now.

The absolute aloneness filled David with emptiness. An aching void. No one should be alone down here with Titanic.

David cleared the entryway ahead of him, and the push gave him a start that sent him up a gangway where he found himself swimming through a squash court, followed by a handball court; he was somehow inside one of the three gymnasiums on board. Now he passed a surreal weight room, a tennis court. He located another door ripped from its hinges and the entry or rather exit and a stairwell leading up. He followed this upwards for what seemed an eternity when he came to the ruined remains of the wireless room. He saw the Marconi wireless itself, now a rust-encrusted large brick, and from here, he looked out from where an outer door had been ripped from its hinges.

He was staring across now at the officer’s quarters where he and Jacob had entered the Grand Staircase. Beyond this, through a tattered series of worm-eaten boards, David saw Max’s lights where the sub hovered above the deck precisely where Lou had placed the sub on automatic. He thought of the sub’s safe confines, and he whispered to himself, “Lou hasn’t gotten away yet.”

David could hardly believe his luck. He snatched up his laser cutter again, keeping the safety on, holding his breath and his position, searching for signs of life other than the albino crab just over the doorway to the Marconi Room.

“Get to the sub, David.” Forbes ordered, his voice more commanding than ever. “Save yourself. Your four hours on the pak is nearly up. Inside Max, you can breathe, re-circulate the liquid air.”

“So you have someone to point the finger at. I get it, Captain.”

“Don’t be foolish, David.”

“Read the damn journal, Captain.”

“I have Dr. Entebbe doing that right now, son.”

Son, David thought. They start calling you son when they’re worried about your state of mind. “Look here, Captain, have you had any contact, visual or otherwise with Lou or Kelly, sir?”

“None, and you?” Judging from his voice, Forbes’ agitation was increasing by the moment. “David, first Mendenhall dies within inches of you, and now your other two dive partners are missing? Then you fucking incinerate part of the ship’s interior? Violating the dead? Turning bodies in ashes! Do you know how this’ll play in the press? How it sounds, David?”

“I had no choice; it’ll all come clear later! For now, I have to find Kelly and Lou.”

“They may well have gotten trapped or turned around inside the ship,” suggested Dr. Entebbe.

“Lou’s an experienced diver, and Irvin’s no slouch, Doctor.”

“You of all people, David, you have to know—”

“How easy it is to get lost down here, yes, of course but—”

“You get turned around, go in circles! Happened to you and Mendenhall. At least you’re still alive,” said Forbes. “Now do as I say. Get back to the sub.”

“Still don’t know how I managed to make it to out of the ship. Almost like this hole in the rotted out flooring in the Marconi Room just opened up for me.

“Ahhh… so that’s what we are seeing behind you—the wireless room from where McBride sent out the SOS.”

“Hold on, I see movement over there. Yes, there they are,” David whispered into his com-link. “Are you getting this? They’re alive! But wait… it’s Kelly, and she’s alone.”

“It would appear she’s collected some items from the ship,” said Forbes, watching intently from above.

“Yeah, so I noticed. Net’s full to bursting, and I’d swear something’s squirming inside it.”

Forbes agreed. “It’s filled with something alive, yes, but then she’s the biologist, and she has orders to retrieve any biological specimens.”

“Of course,” muttered David. “She’d be the one to show up with specimens.” David realized the specimens Kelly was carrying were the select ones, the most likely to survive—the chosen ones.

“How does she look from your perspective?” Forbes asked. “She’s still not on com-link.”

“She looks strong and well, but I’m concerned about her.”

“I want a full report, David, as to what’s happened to Lou, and why’d their vital signs and cams went down? You get her talking soon as you two get back to the sub.”

David felt a sick feeling stirring in his heart. Had the thing in Swigart gone over to Kelly down here behind the shield of Titanic’s walls? Had the creature decided to risk everything, or had it been residing in Kelly for some time now? Had she somehow convinced Lou against his better judgment to make the dive prematurely—just as she had convinced him to come along? Plucking at his vanity, using her feminine wiles on him as she had on David?

“Can you zoom in on the net, Forbes, and tell me what you see?” All David knew for certain was that the other two divers—or at least one of them—had been to the freezer compartment and now this.

Kelly had appeared at the lip of the sheared off aft section of the bow. She was moving fast now, skimming along the top deck, going straight for the sub, her net full of slug-like creatures with her. She had emerged from the wreckage at precisely where she and Swigart had led her down into Titanic earlier. So where was Lou or Lou’s remains? But for now, he must concentrate on the thing inside Kelly’s body, and the things iniside Kelly’s dive net.

“Forbes, sir, have you any sign of Lou?” David persisted.

“No sign of Lou whatsoever, no.”

“And the net? What’s she dragging?” Entebbe’s voice came over.

“Appears… looks like some form of sea life,” reasoned Forbes, “but nothing we can categorize—perhaps tube worms, but there’re no black smokers down there, so who knows? Nothing else lives at these depths save crabs. Is it crabs?”

“It’s those damnable freaking eggs, Captain. Like those you witnessed me burning; the ones that I turned to ash in the bodies in the freezer.”

“All we saw you burning, Ingles, were bodies.”

David realized that Forbes had not had the time to zoom in on the bodies in the freezer to have seen the egg sacs as David had acted so quickly. “Inside the bodies, these things Dr. Irvin is carrying to the sub! They’re dangerous disease organisms! I destroyed them. Zoom in closer on the net she’s carrying to see them clearly!”

“See these eggs you’re talking about?” Forbes sounded far from convinced.

“You can’t let them aboard Scorpio! You didn’t see the eggs I fried down in the freezer compartment below the flames?”

“All we saw were flames.”

“But you have to see what’s in the net!”

“Net?’”

“The net Kelly’s carrying! It’s filled with the same egg sacs.”

“Nothing coming clear, David.”