“Just one second,” he tells someone. And then he turns to me. “We don’t have to go if you don’t want to go. But I assure you, it’s perfectly safe. People have been going this deep for nearly a century. The equipment has gotten nothing but better. You are safer in this than you were in the helicopter.”
“That’s supposed to make me feel better?”
Ness shrugs.
“Why didn’t you just tell me yesterday that this was what we were coming here to do?”
“Because you would’ve worried all night. You wouldn’t have slept. And you’d be even more panicked now after getting yourself worked up for hours over this.”
He’s right. But I don’t like decisions made for me, even if they are in my best interest. Especially when they’re in my best interest. It assumes someone else knows me better than I know myself. And so I hate that he’s right.
“I just need a minute,” I say.
“Take your time.”
I get my breathing under control. After a moment, I nod my assent, even though I’m not quite ready, because I want to show him that I’m braver than he gives me credit for being. I am brave. I know this about myself. I have kicked ass in a man’s world because I embrace being doubted. I embrace being underestimated.
“Okay,” I say. “Let’s do this.”
Ness gives a thumbs-up to someone outside. The hatch swings shut with a clang.
“That’s my girl,” he says.
And I almost don’t hate him for saying it.
30
My stomach turns as the submersible is hauled into the air. As soon as we leave the deck, the sub twists on its cable, and the world beyond the circular portholes of glass goes spinning.
We go up and out. I can see the rail at the edge of the ship pass beneath us, hear metal creaking, and then we begin to drop—and I find myself clutching Ness’s arm, fearful of grabbing any part of the sub, any of the levers and buttons, and prematurely detaching us from the crane.
Ness has a headset on, is talking to someone, probably the crane operator. A second headset hangs from a rack on my side of the sub. I pull it on and listen to a woman’s voice counting down numbers. When she gets to zero, the swell of the stormy sea thwaps the bottom of the sub, sending a rattle through it and into my bones. I hear Ness’s voice in my headset and also beside me: “Touchdown.”
But we aren’t through descending. We’ve only begun. Another wave shakes the craft, foam and salt sloshing up the porthole beside me, and now I have Ness’s arm wrapped in both of mine. The water rises up the portholes in front of us, bubbling and frothing, the gray overcast sky replaced with the deep blue sea. And then we’re below the water. The Atlantic closes up around us. And the world is silent, peaceful, and still.
“Ready to detach,” Ness says.
“Detaching.”
There’s a mild clank above our heads. Otherwise, nothing seems different. But I sense that we’re free of the ship.
“Unless you want to drive, I’ll need that arm,” Ness tells me.
I realize I’m still clutching him for balance. “Oh, right.”
I let go, and Ness grabs the joysticks on either side of his seat. He pushes them to one side, and I feel a sense of acceleration as we move away from the mothership. The fat hull of the research vessel recedes until it’s swallowed by the black. Just before it disappears, the view reminds me of looking up at Ness’s boat while diving, but on a completely different scale.
“What does that do?” I ask Ness as he adjusts some knobs.
“It controls our rate of descent. We drop at about fifty meters per minute. We should touch down in a little less than two hours.”
“TWO HOURS?”
I immediately regret shouting. Every sound is amplified in the small metal sphere and the headsets. Ness raises an eyebrow.
“What happened to sixty feet, ten minutes?” I ask. “Sixty feet. Ten minutes. What happened to that?”
“We’re going a lot deeper for a lot longer,” Ness explains. “I promise you it’s safe. I’ve done a hundred deep dives in this baby, and she’s done thousands more without me.”
“But two hours just to get there?” I now understand why Ness insisted I use the bathroom after breakfast and why he told me to go easy on the coffee.
“Yeah, and we run on battery power, which we need to conserve. I’m going to dim the lights for now. The heater has to stay on, or we’ll freeze in here. But let me know if it gets too cold for you.” He flips switches, and the banks of internal lights go off. There is enough left from the dials and indicators to see around us. Ness seems to study one readout after another, checking things. All I see is the inscrutable cockpit of a jumbo jet wrapped around us.
“There’s a bag on the shelf behind you,” Ness says. “A couple of apples, granola bars, some juice. Go easy on the juice, but if you have to relieve yourself, there are ways.”
“Do I even want to know?”
“Probably not. Oh, and I packed your book and borrowed a reading light from one of the bosuns. It’s in there as well.”
“I can read about the hunt for Moby Dick at the bottom of the sea,” I say in perfect monotone, so he knows just how enthused I am.
“Spoiler alert,” Ness warns. “Down here is where the Pequod ends up.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“Yeah, well, it’s how it gets there that’s interesting. You should read it anyway. Great book, even if no one recognized it at the time.”
“Is that what you’re up to?” I ask. “Is that what this is all about? Being remembered as someone great, even if it’s only after you’re gone?”
Ness laughs. He turns and looks at me in the dim light of the indicators. “Really? We’re going to do this here? At…” He checks something. “Two hundred meters and falling?”
“Why not? I’ve got you here for the next two hours. Interview on.”
“Five hours, if we spend an hour at the bottom.”
My bladder clenches. “Five hours,” I say, mostly to myself. “So tell me, what did you mean by redemption on the plane last night—”
“That was off the record,” Ness warns.
“Okay.” I try to think of how to rephrase what I want to ask. “How about this? Why do you want to show me whatever led you to the creation of these shells? Do you expect me to rewrite my story so that it’s mostly about this? Are you trying to be remembered differently than your father?”
Ness doesn’t reply immediately, which makes me think he takes the question seriously, is at least introspective enough to consider this as a possibility.
“I don’t care how most people remember me,” he finally says.
“Most people?”
“That’s right. But I do care what Holly thinks. And she sees me the way you do.” He turns to me. Is back to his serious self. And from what Victoria told me, this is the Ness that I believe. Not the smiling and laughing man—not that he isn’t capable of joy—but there’s meat inside that shell; it’s not all rainbows and sunshine in there. “Holly won’t care about any of this now, maybe not for years, but I want her to know the truth someday. I don’t care if you write that truth. In fact… you want to know what I think this is about for me?”
“Yes,” I say. “Are you just realizing it right now?”
“Yeah,” Ness says. “I am. I think this is a test—”
“You’re testing me? Why do you care what I think?”
“I don’t. I mean, I do. What I mean is that I’m not testing you. I’m testing myself. Seeing what would happen if I told people the truth.”