Getty was in the company boat, two miles offshore and in no rush to reach his destination. It was beautiful out today. No people, no other boats. Just a ton of kelp strands in the water. Looking forward Getty eyed a few hundred gliding seagulls. A football field away, the birds darted above the ocean, and Seth was pleased to see them. He’d brought along a loaf of Wonder Bread after all. He suddenly squinted. What was that? Directly beneath the birds, two smallish black shapes flew out of the sea then fell right back in. Getty stared at the spot, but as he motored closer, whatever it was didn’t reappear. He cut the engine and threw bread all over the large gray deck. Like vultures, the birds immediately descended, hopping everywhere to eat as much as they could. There were so many they took up the entire deck, but Getty didn’t mind. He squeezed into a too-small black wet suit and reminded himself to go on a diet.
As he jumped into the sea, the birds continued to eat.
GETTY DOVE to two hundred feet, carefully checked the cable’s current readings, and began to ascend. When he was a hundred feet from the surface, however, he noticed a moving black shape to his right. He froze. He couldn’t make it out at all—visibility was very poor—but whatever it was, he thought it was swimming toward him. He glanced up and, far above the surface, thought he saw the gulls gliding in the sun. He turned back. The black shape was much closer now. Then he noticed movement from another direction. There was a second black shape also swimming toward him. Then he noticed a third. Then a fourth. Then hundreds. They were coming from all sides.
Suddenly Seth Getty was terrified. He started to swim up. But then he froze again. Now they were coming from above, too.
“WHAT MISSING repairman?” Jason asked.
On the back of the Expedition, Craig shrugged. “The coast guard just sent out an all-points. Some guy doing maintenance on a fiber-optic cable. Apparently he just disappeared, right around here.”
“Where was he exactly?”
“About ten miles north, off Los Padres.”
Jason paused. “That’s right where the kelp trail’s leading…. I wonder if maybe—” He stopped talking.
“What? You think the rays have something do with it?”
A smile. “Of course not.” That was ridiculous, not even within the realm of possibility. “But whatever got this guy… I wonder if maybe it could get them, too.”
“Come on, Jason. He probably just drowned, then got carried away by the currents.”
But in the exact location they’d tracked the rays to? “Let’s get up there and check it out.”
THEY DID but found nothing unusual—just more kelp. They continued north, and by late September were easing into the waters off Carmel, then Pebble Beach and Monterey. This was a truly gorgeous part of California, with stunning vistas and jagged rock cliffs everywhere. No one noticed the scenery.
The plankton supply had continued to decrease, and Lisa Barton was still baffled. Her onboard Plankton Measuring System only gave her “what” without the “why.” To get real answers, she needed the kind of equipment found only in the most sophisticated marine labs in the country. One morning she called the prestigious Okezie Marine Center, near Washington State University, then FedExed them a plankton sample in seawater. They got back to her in less than a week, on a sweltering-hot day.
“Lisa, an e-mail came for you.”
She turned to Phil Martino. Since Phil’s computer was the only one configured to the Expedition’s satellite link, he managed all of their incoming e-mails. “From the Okezie Center?”
“Uh, I think so.”
“Fantastic. Can I see it, Phil?” She started to go below deck, but he stopped her.
“I printed it out for you already. Here…”
He handed her ten stapled sheets.
She eyed the cover page, then her eyes suddenly widened. “Holy Mother of God.”
CHAPTER 14
LISA DIDN’T move. She just stood in the hot sun, reading the pages slowly and carefully. It wasn’t light material, the report’s title “Mechanisms for Planktonic Deterrence Based on North Pacific Samples.” She suddenly looked up. “Phil, where’s Jason?”
“Uh…”
“He’s still in the water with Darryl and Craig.” Monique climbed up from the sea in a tight white one-piece, not noticing Phil’s drooling over her. “God, it’s hot.” Then she noticed the papers in Lisa’s hand. “What’s going on, Lisa?”
“I’m not the only one who noticed that plankton levels are down in the Pacific. There have been reports from New Zealand to Japan, from the southern tip of Chile all the way up to where we are right now.”
“Jesus Christ.” That covered a huge chunk of the entire Pacific Ocean. “Why?”
“No one knows. But the raw data look accurate.”
“What are the raw data?”
“Plankton samples from across the Pacific. All with massive amounts of DMSP.”
“What’s DMSP?”
Lisa turned back to the report again. “Dimethylsulfoniopropionate.”
“Oh, sure, that.”
Absorbed in the papers, Lisa didn’t hear Monique’s sarcastic remark. She simply nodded.
“Lisa. What the hell is DMSP?”
“Oh.” Lisa looked up. “It’s a defensive chemical that plankton releases.”
“What do you mean ‘defensive’?”
“When plankton thinks it’s going to be attacked, it releases it.”
“I didn’t know plankton was that smart.”
“It’s very smart. You know what else it does when it thinks an attack’s coming?”
“What?”
“It cuts its own reproduction.”
Monique was stunned. “So that’s why levels have been so low. Do they think it’s fighting off GDV-4?”
“No. Just like Craig said, there’s no evidence of that at all. Actually, I need to talk to Craig. Right now…” She quickly grabbed her fins.
DARRYL AND Jason kicked slowly, heads down, their bare backs glistening in the scalding sun. With the aid of Supra 902 magnifying masks, originally manufactured for exclusive use by the navy, they could see all the way to the bottom, a hundred and twenty feet below. Sand, sand, and more sand. There was no kelp anywhere.
Floating lazily on a giant black inner tube, Craig yawned. “God, this is boring.”
Just then Darryl and Jason popped up. “Take a break, Darryl?”
“Definitely. We’re not getting paid enough for this.”
“Really, Jason, we’re not.”
Darryl turned to the inner tube. “We’re not?”
“I’ve been busting my ass too, Darryl.”
Darryl looked at Summers blankly. In angular, silver sunglasses that made him look like he was in a techno band, Craig held the look for a moment—then chuckled heartily.
Jason wasn’t amused. Visibly frustrated, he scanned the desolate waters. “Those rays have to be around here somewhere, right?” Indeed, they weren’t in this particular location by accident. The director of the Monterey Aquarium had called them after an oil-rig diver reported seeing a small group of “fairly large birdlike shapes” on the seafloor near one of the rig’s massive legs. Jason and company had immediately visited the hulking metal contraption. They found nothing, but clearly whatever had been there was still close—and still migrating north.