#2: Fathom Friends
A door couldn’t exactly be dramatically swung open underwater – but there definitely was a distinct FWHOOM-effect and displacement as Adriana yanked it open. Darkness inside – to some it warned, others it beckoned. One didn’t need to be a genius to wonder what Adriana heard inside.
It was an older ship – a familiar model and layout for a cargo craft. She’d raided this type before – sometimes like this below the water, other times…
Torchlight stabbed through the dark corridors as she flicked her shoulder-mounted light on. The octopus had been right – this was a new wreck. It hadn’t been fully claimed by algae and rust yet.
Rumblings reverberated throughout every rivet – she clung to the wall as the floor shifted a fraction beneath her. Outside, the wreck lay on silt – silt was loose, silt was soft, silt was slippery. A deep breath, and she tread carefully, softly, down the corridor – thanking every deity she was vaguely aware of that her suit was designed to be light and agile. Bloody cold though…
Down, down, down – empty room after empty room. Barnacles, bollocks.
Before she knew it, her boot had slammed through a burgeoning coral formation nearby. First off, a bad idea because she was still drunk. Secondly, that was mean. She meant to sit down – but the floor was becoming fragile, and she’d just kicked it pretty damn hard…
With a sharp cracking sound, it gave way – and she fell right into an air pocket, hitting the next floor down with a heavy thud. The water above poured in, filling the space.
But no time to recover, for the wreck began to groan – the silt was shifting once again. Much further this time – she scrabbled for any thing to hold as she slid a sizeable distance through the half-filled room. In ages past, it was said the sea was a cruel mistress – Adriana just thought she was a nasty bitch.
She clambered up the steep floor, all the water pooling in the slowly filling lower half – made it so much harder to heave a diving suit full of drunken treasure hunter upwards without water to take all the goddamn weight…
Something glistened through a broken floor stem – forget the climbing, she shot up there like a woman possessed. She balled up a metal-clad fist, and sent it through the hole to enlarge the opening – definitely something shiny below. Another punch, another blow –
KRRRAKK – she fell through the floor, as the nearby area gave way. Somehow, she managed to land on her feet (or something close enough). The water was knee-deep here – she knelt down as her torch glinted off the shiny object, reaching out –
“Aaaagh!” The shiny object recoiled, leaping away – Adriana found herself doing the same (the startled cry too). The shiny thing turned out to be another diver’s suit – polished and somehow clean (definitely new), staggering to their feet in a very bizarre manner. Water splashed everywhere as she haphazardly searched for some kind of lengthy weapon – a long piece of rebar would suffice.
“Sorry! I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to – ” His voice was a high-pitched, masculine tone – slightly irritating. She whacked him in the bollocks with the rebar to stop it.
“Oh, sweet Poseidon’s salty bollocks…” Something very strange was moving within the suit – the visor was completely black. No face could be found within it. He begin to flail, arms waving like the sleeves were too long – the wreck was shifting again. The horrifying groan of metal slicing through silt grated the ears with violent intent. Adriana stabbed her rebar into the floor, and clung for dear life as the wreck flipped over before settling in a very inconvenient angle.
The strange diver was splayed out all over the ceiling (now the floor), black liquid leaking from a gash in the suit. He peeled himself upright, found the gash – then like a jolt of electricity had shot through him, patched it up with lightning speed. He looked to Adriana – there was no face, only a black visor, but…something suggested the briefest flicker of vulnerability and fear, as short and intangible to grasp as a flicker of light in the waves. It made her let go of the rebar. “Sorry about that.”
He shrugged, a lifeless gesture. “Meh, happens all the time.” He got back on his feet, stretched, then looked to her. “So, what brings you here?” Back to being bubbly and high-pitched, he bounded across the room – picking up and observing every last possible thing in the room. Adriana worried that all this boundless energy might cause the wreck to move again…
“Same as you, it seems. The bartender tell you about barnacles?”
He stopped moving, looking over to her, head cocked like a curious dog. “Bartender? Barnacles?”
“Whatever.” She made for the nearest door she could find.
“Boy, you move fast.” Give her strength --
“I move – sod off!” The handle didn’t budge, so she started hammering away with a nearby piece of heavy junk. “Just sayin’, you don’t seem to plan on sticking around.”
With a very loud THUD, the door flew off its hinges. “The wreck is falling, and you’re irritating. You’ve move too if you were me!” One foot out the door --
“If I were me, and I am, I’d want to work together.” She rolled her eyes, turning – jumping, as it turned out he was right nearby. “Another reason, slick.” He cocked his head again “Slick? Huh…cool. Anyway, where was I?”
“Buggering off?”
“Mmm…probably. But anyway, this is a dangerous situation – and besides, you know there’s a great big x on the map over this place!” By this point, she was already a few metres down the hallway…but found herself stopping, groaning, and turning. Poking her head back in…
“60/40.” “Eh?” “Oh, for…follow me.”
They’d plumbed the depths of the wreck, but not the depths of Slick’s curiosity. She couldn’t tell what was more tortuous – the lack of treasure, or the bounty of questions. “So Freeport’s a nice place?” “Eh, not my thing.” As were many other things right now…
“I prefer the water too.” “Good for you.” She scanned the engine room for a distraction – and found one. At the far end, a slab of steel sat apart from the wall – no features, no markings, no handle, but it clearly covered a doorway. A few rogue droplets were escaping – whatever room was behind there, it was full of water. But, a hidden doorway was a most tempting prospect – the bait was on the hook, and Adriana was reeling herself in…
Fingers glided over the edges, searching for any hold, crack, or cranny to jimmy it open – with a sigh…“You wouldn’t happen to have a crowbar, would you?” Slick had his head buried in a plasma-fusion engine core (probably a bad idea, but he seemed happy) – “Eh?”
“Crowbar?” She gestured to the impenetrable door. “I have enthusiasm!” He sang in a proud, happy voice – Adriana couldn’t believe how much she didn’t actually react. Hm.
Anyway, he wandered over and searched the door; “Now I can’t find an opening…” Her eyes rolled, she wasn’t surprised…
“But I did find this big-arse harpoon.” Her eyes bulged as he held up a great, big, explosive harpoon – the blinking light suggested it was still usable. “What the f-“
“Fish? No, whales with this, I’d imagine.” Her eyes narrowed – “Gimme that --”
A few moments later, Slick was crouching behind her as she lined up the shot…
Her muscles flexed and trembled under its weight, but with a hearty “hrraaaggghhh!!!”, she hurled it forth --
KABOOM – the door flew open, water came flooding through it…as did tides of treasure. The room was rapidly blue with water and gold with doubloons.
Adriana struggled to get upright amidst the oncoming swathe – she put one hand down to push herself upwards --
“Ow!” Again? Up came her hand – clinging to it, out of the treasure, came a sizable and very, very, very angry looking crab. “Ya gotta problem, toots?!” Good lord, that was one cranky crustacean. She attempted to shake him off – no luck, so grab a dagger off the belt --
“Arrr-right, gimme a sec! I’d let go if you stopped shaking me!” He let go – she punted him all the way to the over side of the room…where Slick surfaced just in time to take a crab to the visor.
In the chaos, Adriana scooped up handfuls of doubloons while the crab clicked and clacked away furiously at the increasingly shrill Slick. There was a way out of here, but…
She took a step away…but rounded back – and like any good cowboy, had her pistol spun out of her holster and into her hand in less than a second. “Leave him alone.” The crab pointed his larger claw at her – it clicked, whirred, and shifted into a smaller, built-in blaster. Slick grabbed a nearby broken piston, ready to use it as a club.
Part of the roof caved in – they all ducked instinctively --
Landing with a perfect, balletic, graceful poise was a fish tank wearing a trenchcoat. An angry face had been scrawled on the suggestion of a headpiece. Immediately, this guy had two pistols out pointed at the others. Adriana had a smaller handgun trained right on where his heart would be.
“Hey now, there’s plenty to go around, fella-rinas.” Surprisingly, that came from the crab. He was right, but Adriana knew how to escape a Mexican standoff – she kept her guns right where they were…
A slow, sickening, screeching cry began to scream from the ship – the treasure began piling up along the far wall, and the others were soon to follow. The ship was falling – not just skidding anymore, fully falling all the way off the silt and down, down, down, into the trench.
It was going to be a bumpy ride.
Adriana clung onto a piston – it sheared in two. She fell to the ceiling as the ship tumbled and rolled. The crab was flung about all over the place – he fired a grappling hook from his claw, reeling himself into an engine block to ride it out. Either that, or become crabcake under a thousand doubloons. Slick was at the mercy of seemingly every possible object not tied down, before he slammed into the other wall with a brutal THUD. Cracks appeared across his visor like lightning, and just as fast. The fish tank guy was gripping a floor grate – it snapped off, and he went flying…right into the crab’s engine block. His metal claw was crushed on impact, immediately – fish tank guy sprung a leak.
The wreck kept on tumbling, turning, falling. Adriana was reaching for anything nearby that was stable as she was tossed around – when something smashed her to the floor --
A piece of engine had come loose – a big, brutal, boulder slamming around, and it had struck her on the back. Right where her oxygen supply was stored. She could see it dwindling in her visor display – even so, she was winded beyond belief. Another tumble, another slam into whatever immovable object came next – the display disappeared.
The wreck must’ve hit the seafloor bow-first – because the hell-ride stopped…only for one last punchline as it careened downwards like a felled tree. Timber, tumble, treasure to the tibia, teeth, and tailbone alike. But…silence. Stillness. Salvation? No, they were stuck at the bottom of a goddamn trench.
Everyone was broken. She was bleeding profusely from her temple, and her left arm was certainly broken – she clutched it, teeth gritted so hard she saw white, hoping to god it wasn’t a compound fracture (though it sure felt like it…). Slick didn’t bother getting up, he just lay there breathing just slow enough to let everyone else know he was still alive. His suit was shredded worse than a razor rorqual attack. The crab and the fish tank had come to rest on the other side of the room – pieces of shell – shards of the crab’s exoskeleton dotted the area, and the fish tank was struggling to plug all his leaks.
The room was slowly filling up with water – likely the last air pocket. She slapped the side of her helmet a few times, her ears painful under the changing pressure. “There must be some kind of way outta here…” Slick’s voice was barely perceptible.
The crab groaned and growled as his remaining legs feebly pushed him up. “One foot in the ‘grade…”
The fish tank guy cocked his head, as he fused up another leak. “Don’t you mean grave?”
“No, upgrade – that’s more pieces to become prosthetics. Some call it an upgrade.” Before he could let the reflection sit, his gaze sharpened and his remaining claw clenched – “Hey…I remember you, ya bastard --"
“Do you now?” As if these two didn’t have enough to worry about already…
“Freeport, fourteen moons ago – thought you could cheat me out of a winning hand, eh?”
Fish tank puffed out his chest – not a good idea given how much he was leaking – and growled “Not my fault you came to an underground game looking to play by the rules! Figured you’d have forgotten by now anyway…”
“Clapperclaw never forgets, and I be Clapperclaw in question! Who are you then? A fish tank with legs?! Is there any honour, integrity, or virtue in there, or is it all merely water?!”
Fish tank erupted to his feet – only to stumble, trip, and fall among the uneven ground and mounds of treasure. “Regardless…you can call me, uh…”
Even Adriana and Slick were listening in…
“Uh…Cage. Yeah, Cage.” However a crab could look unimpressed and bewildered at the same time, that’s what Clapperclaw looked like. Cage slapped some sealant over the last leak, and scrambled to his feet. “Well…see ya.” He headed for the door (or maybe just a big hole in the wall, there wasn’t much difference) with an attempted flutter of his trenchcoat, foiled by the rising water. It was up to their knees now, and had no plans of stopping. Still, he waded away – doubloons in hand.
Clapperclaw looked around again, his gaze landing on Adriana and Slick. He clicked his remaining claw twice, shrugged, and began scuttling off in the other direction. He picked up a few doubloons as he went.
Adriana was started to feel faint – she needed to get moving. She absent-mindedly scooped up some more doubloons, pocketing them and heading out --
“Wait!” She really, really couldn’t --
“Shouldn’t we work together?” Slick’s plea hung in the air…
“No.”
“Nope.”
“Sorry, no.”
Back to the separate ways --
“I’m just saying, we’re all broken and bruised – we don’t have to see each other again, but we could definitely do with some help escaping. Besides, we can carry more treasure together between us.”
If his face was visible, it would be more akin to a puppy dog than a human.
All stopped, all sighed…
“…Fine.”
“…Whatever.”
“…Bollocks.”
TO BE CONTINUED…